Levels of Life - mashing it up, Julian Barnes style

Levels of Life by Julian Barnes (JonathanCape: 2013). A book in three parts from a Booker Prize winning author. A literary mash up, exploring the history of ballooning, photography, love stories, and death. Wide ranging stuff.

What’s the saddest thing you can think of? Me, it’s always been a husband losing his wife (or a wife losing her husband for that matter). Always got me that one. Doesn’t matter how cheesy it is, that plot element has always made me choke when it’s cropped up on the screen or page.

And yet I subject myself to this. One of the world’s most decorated writers putting pen to paper to explore the grief he felt when his wife died.

I’m an idiot.

In fairness, it’s not all about that. The book is split in three parts. The first is a bit of non-fiction about ballooning and photography, the second is a bit of historical fiction centred on a bohemian love story gone wrong, and then the third part is where Barnes goes to town on his grief.

It works. Brilliantly. And here’s why.

For starts, it works because of the first two sections. They’re amazing. A quirky history of a quirky endeavour, followed by a thorough (but tastily bite-sized) love story which grows as it’s told. Both of the first two sections entertained me, set some of the structural thought which characterised the third section's grief, and introduced emotion slowly rather than simply plunging you in at the deep end.

For seconds, it worked because of the honesty and the rawness and the sheer humanity of the third section. There is no universal truth to grief, no universal experience. Julian Barnes is Julian Barnes; he felt and experienced and reacted to his grief in a Julian Barnes way. At no point does he melt into easy cliché. At no point does he pluck at the usual heart strings in the usual ways. He violently kicks against any sense of Disney emotion. He tells what happened to him - anecdote by anecdote, analogy by analogy – and leaves little out.

And for thirds, it works because this is Julian Barnes we’re talking about here. The guy can write. Every now and then, a sentence or a phrase or a structure will just knock you flat on your ass. I’ve read Barnes before and not quite got it, but I’m acutely aware pretty much everyone else has. The guy has high flung literary praise coming at him from every direction. And in this book, I get it too. I submit. Julian Barnes; you can write good.

9 GBR

One of the best things you’ll read this year. Why not 10 you ask? Because I do the scores, not you.

Next week, another story of a man losing his wife. I’m a glutton for punishment.

Astray - short story tastic

Astray by Emma Donoghue (Picador: 2012) A collection of short stories by Irish writer Emma Donoghue. All based on real people and real events, Donoghue shines a light onto the lives of a series of people who have all gone astray, crossing borders of nation, sex, race, law, sanity, etc.

Read the GBR interview with Emma Donoghue here.

She does a good job of making you pick a book up, Donoghue. The only other of hers that I’ve read, Room, had such a compelling premise that I fair sprinted to turn over the front cover and get going. Astray, too, has an intriguing sell – a series of historical fiction short stories, all focussing on people who have strayed beyond the boundaries of ordinary life in some profound way.

I like that.

And I like that this is done as a collection of short stories. It seems apt. Little snippets of lives, one after the other. It keep you a little dislocated as you’re going through it. You don’t spend days and days in the company of single stories, getting comfortable with motivations and setting. Just as you feel you’re starting to understand the meaning behind the latest tale, Donoghue whisks you away to the next.

It’s a showcase for Donoghue’s talent as well. Each story is distinct. Each voice authentic. Short stories they may be, but Donoghue gives a complete picture of each person she tells us about. Sometimes she does it through careful description, and sometimes she does it by simply writing in such a true way that the language gives you a distinct feel for the people.

I’m piling up points in the pro column here. The plots should go there too. Donoghue has corralled such a disperse but vital set of outcasts that each story grabs, often in different ways. There are explanatory notes at the end of each story and at the end of the book, constantly reminding us these tales are based on real people and real events. She shows where she takes artistic licence, but pushes home the point that the crux of these stories and the lessons she tries to show through them are real.

That’s the fascination of historical fiction. It may be dramatised and it may not be 100% real, but enhanced or not, the lessons are the true. And Donoghue has done a good job of picking some honest to goodness fascinating episodes, and enhanced them beautifully with her own talent.

So those are the pros. I’m going to paint myself out of the corner though. A little, at least. I got to the end of Astray and was desperate to pick up a novel again. I love short stories when in the mood, but reading a collection from beginning to end tends to leave me with a need to invest in something more substantial again. Not Donoghue’s fault, more a weakness of the format, but true all the same.

And then there’s the living-up-to-the-premise challenge. It was the major problem I had with Room (though that kicked in with an 8 GBR). And I recognised it again here. Astray promises to show us a diverse range of characters with a common theme – they’re all astray in society. I struggled to follow the common thread though. There was such an opportunity here to tie these stories together so much more than they are. It would have helped overcome that short story weakness I mentioned – the feeling you’re never investing in anything chunky. But as far as I could see, the opportunity was missed.

The stories were too disparate. The structure suggested by the title of the collection and the blurb on the dust jacket seemed a little manufactured, a little imposed. I enjoyed each individual story, some of them immensely, but I felt short changed there wasn’t a wider arc around them. A wider meaning. When I interviewed the author, she mentioned the stories were written over many years.  This made sense. It felt like they were all picked up and then a common thread was looked for, rather than written with the wider structure in mind.

Which is all a little harsh. The con column at the moment has only two things in it – one is a weakness of all short stories, and the other is a weakness of composition. The individual stories in here are incredibly strong. But both cons were enough to leave me feeling just ever so slightly flat by the time I turned the last page.

7 GBR

Donoghue is an amazing writer. Really she is. I like her a lot. I might go back and read some of her earlier stuff. And Astray  is really good, but falls short of amazing.

Next week, a book I’m reading on the recommendation of a GBR reader. So if it sucks, it’ll be your fault.

Bring up the Bodies - unsuccessfully stalking Hilary Mantel

Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate: 2012). The second in a three part series following Thomas Cromwell’s career. Cromwell was one the major players in the Henry VIII saga. Usually portrayed as a cruel schemer, Mantel sets Cromwell up as an ambitious but ultimately misunderstood character. This second book explores his role in the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

Huzzah, I went to the Edinburgh Book Festival!

Booo, I arrived after Hilary Mantel left.

Which is a shame. I just finished her latest. I’ll try get over my disappointment at having missed her with a nice, soul cleansing confession. (Not an awkward segue at all).

My name’s Gavin, and I’m a historical fiction fan.

I said it. I admitted it right out in public and no lightening struck.

Historical fiction is cool now. Honest. Not the preserve of closet geeks any more. All sorts of genres, it seems, have emerged sleepily from public ridicule to respectability in the last ten years or so. Sci-fi, graphic novels, young adult fiction, fantasy - they’ve all caught the mass imagination at one time or another, hanging on to block buster serials and Hollywood mega-movies, riding them all the way to the mainstream.

Boo! - Hilary Mantel has perhaps my
favourite ever author headshot
(which I'm aware is an odd thing
to have a favourite of)

For historical fiction, Hilary Mantel is one of the biggest names in this newfound trendiness.

I read Wolf Hall a couple of years ago. It was one of GBR’s first reviews. Reading the review back now, it wasn’t one of my best (but who enjoys reading something they wrote nearly two years ago? Not me, that’s who).

The next instalment in the Thomas Cromwell series has the same hallmarks. Same rich writing style. Same expert scene setting. Same skill at guiding you through what is, in places, a fairly intricate plot (if you can call history a plot?)

But this book brings more as well. I felt closer to Cromwell than I did in Wolf Hall. I felt closer to all the people Mantel put down on her pages. There seemed a conscious decision to focus more tightly on a few key players and give us more time with them. Let us see them from a few different angles. It made for a more human narrative. Meant it was easier to just switch off and happily suck up the words, tasting each of them more keenly. (Bit of a stretched metaphor. Sorry. Not changing it though. I quite like it).

It feels like Mantel is really getting into her stride. She’s worked out the Cromwell she wants to portray. But more than that - she’s worked out the world she wants him to live in, and the relationships she wants him to have. Much of that was there in Wolf Hall, of course (the lady probably did her research first time around). I’m just saying in Bring up the Bodies, it all comes through so much more powerfully.

Which is just as well. The Cromwell she paints is a controversial one. Not the man judged with furrowed brow by historians, not the man defined by his actions, but a more nuanced image. She takes creative licence. She asks the “what if he was privately a really nice guy” question. She puts his choices in contexts not widely considered before. She makes much of his rags-to-riches career arc, and uses it in part to redeem him.

I’m no historian (obviously), but I know Cromwell was supposed to be a bad man. Mantels’ Cromwell is not. Ambitious, industrious, ruthless in pursuit of his agenda - all those things, but caring too. Loving. Complex.

Sorry. I know it’s time to start winding things up when I start using words like loving and complex. If I go on much longer, I’ll disappear entirely up my own behind.

8 GBR

I enjoyed reading this. I’m painfully aware it won’t be for everyone though. It’s the thoughtful kind of historical fiction, not the swashbuckling kind. It assumes you’ve got a bit of interest in the subject matter to begin with. It guides you through it expertly and entertainingly, but not swiftly or blood-rushingly.

I’m not saying it’s one just for the fans, but it’s not going to convert a die-hard critic of historical fiction either. Hence the 8, rather than 9 or 10.

I'm sure Hilary will be devastated.

Pure - not as bad as spam curry

Pure by Andrew Miller (Sceptre: 2011). It's 1785 in Paris, and a young engineer is given the task of turning an ancient church and its graveyard into a new market square. Much bone excavation, labour relations, community engagement, and wine later, he begins to reevaluate his life and his place in a world on the bring of revolution.

Some things have all the right ingredients. Rocky road for example. Chocolate plus marshmallows plus biscuits (plus toffee if you get a deluxe version). All mmmmm. All the right ingredients. Simple maths.

But it’s not always a guarantor of success. Sometimes, you can squidge a bunch of good ingredients together and end up with something less than the sum of its parts. Case in point - I once tried to make a spam curry. I thought it couldn’t fail. I love spam. And (mild) curry. But it did fail. It failed a lot. It was awful, and everyone who was there will tell you the same.

It’s my spam curry experiment I tend to channel when I see something which, on the face of it, looks like it’s going to be brilliant. I approach with caution, certain in the knowledge all the right ingredients don’t always lead to greatness. Sometimes you get rocky road. Sometimes you get spam curry.

Pure is a historical novel (which I love). It’s been praised for its atmospheric narrative (another big check for me). And its epic qualities have been likened to the Ken Follett classic Pillars of the Earth (which I read years ago and still have fond memories of). Good ingredients. I hoped it wouldn’t let me down.

Well, you can stop holding your breath. It wasn’t quite a spam curry. It came together nicely. It had a bunch of quirks and tools and stylistic flurries to keep me happy. It had some deep themes, none of which were yelled in your face. There was a heartening subtlety to the whole thing. Especially in the character portrayals. Some were huge and larger than life, whilst others were barely sketched in pencil. There were figures upon whom very little time was spent, but their mystery and their shadows dominated parts of the story in a highly effective way. That’s pretty tough to achieve. Pretty impressive.

Most of all, I loved the recurring use of some consistent scene setters. There are a few factors that keep popping up, never on the main stage, always just off to the side. Always giving a hint of context, a unifying thread.

For example, the interplay of the characters with candle light pops up pretty regularly. Their dressing habits, and the significance of them. Little physical constants that aren’t part of the plot, but often point towards deeper issues. Almost like hidden keys woven in amongst the narrative.

I loved that. I felt I was discovering my own story all the way through. Which of course I wasn’t. It was just being revealed to me expertly.

So not a spam curry then. The ingredients worked well together. But could we stretch all the way to rocky road?

Not quite I don’t think. Some of the balance wasn’t quite right. Some excitement was sacrificed in the effort to create atmosphere. Some plotting was sacrificed in the effort to philosophise. Not big criticisms. Getting the balance between those types of things is nigh on impossible. But they were off by enough for me to hold back with any rocky road proclamation.

Before I get mired down in this metaphor (if indeed it’s not already too late), let’s skip to the score.

8 GBR

Really enjoyable book. The kind you’ll get more out of every time you read it.

Next week, either a book by an ex-lawyer (if I finish it in time) or not a book by an ex-lawyer (if I don’t).

Slaughterhouse 5 - skinning cats

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut (1970: Jonathan Cape). An anti-war novel of the original anti-war age. Kurt Vonnegut introduces us to an American who flits forward and backward in time. We see him alternately as a middle aged optometrist, a captive in an alien zoo, touring the country as a revolutionary speaker, and watching Dresden burn in WWII.

There’s more than one way to be skin a cat. Odd phrase. I’d like to know who came up with it, and then make sure I don’t ever get too close to them. But it’s true, all the same.

Last week, I went on about DBC Pierre’s language. About its decadence and its beauty.

Kurt Vonnegut achieves beauty in a different way. Not for him the flurries of luxurious inspiration. Instead, his writing is stripped back to the bare bones. Clipped, economical sentences. Simple phrasing. Worlds and lives laid out in the bare minimum of space.

It’s difficult to do. It shows a great deal of restraint and ingenuity. High levels of concentration and a commitment to perfecting every sentence. But the result is worth it. The result is a book with a relentless rhythm.

For all the simplicity of the language, the plot provides a direct contrast. It’s intricate and fantastic. The protagonist is a time travelling optometrist who suffers alien abduction and learns a radical new way of experiencing life. He also trips through World War II in an increasingly absurd outfit.

And then he watches Dresden burn, and picks through the aftermath.

The whole book is set up to make the horror of Dresden scream out. It’s not mired in pathos. It’s couched in ridiculousness. More comedy than sentiment. The point is clear – it’s all a bit pointless. All the death and suffering and ruined lives – none of it serves a higher purpose. None of it is necessary. None of it has any wider meaning.

It’s an original way of making a well worn point. And you can see why it had so much impact when it was written. It doesn’t whine. It simply takes the bloodshed and surrounds it with an absurdity that leaches into every corner of the book.

It’s good. It’s a classic and it deserves to be.

But (crucial question) did I enjoy it?

Yes, but not outrageously. It’s clever, and it’s original, and it’s compelling in places. It still has relevance. But I didn’t fall off my seat when reading it. I wasn’t blown away like I was with DBC Pierre last week. All the power of the simple language, all the imagination; it raised my eyebrows and it made me think. But it didn’t make me howl.

I was impressed. But my socks remained firmly un-knocked off.

7 GBR

Good solid score. If you haven’t read this, you should. It’s a short read, and a worthwhile one.

Next week, a modern western. More new territory.

One Man’s Justice - a story that stays on its feet

One Man’s Justice by Akira Yoshimra (Canongate books: 2003). A Japanese novel first published in 1978, exploring the aftermath of WWII in Japan. It focuses on an ex-soldier who carried out his orders and did what soldiers do for their countries in times of war. But his side lost, and now he finds himself hunted and judged as the world settles down to peace.  

There are, on my bookshelf, more than a handful of books that have war in the middle of them, or in the background at least. Of them, more than most use WWII in one way or another. I’d wager it’s the same about your bookshelf. It’s difficult to get away from it. War is one of the most terrible and most compelling things in human history. And WWII was filled with pretty much everything. From the larger than history personalities at the top, with their absolute ideologies and good v evil rhetoric, to the heartbreak and ecstasy of the ordinary man and woman, played out millions of different ways.

War, or the possibility of war, is present in more books and films than pretty much any other single thing.

A lot of them leave me a little conflicted. I mean, WWII is a real thing that happened. Real people that fought. Real people that died. It seems a little uncomfortable to be mining those events for what is essentially entertainment. I get the ‘lest we forget’ thing. I get the value of telling and retelling the stories. I get the need to make sure that the memory needs to be kept, and that stories are one of the best ways of doing that.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being too sensitive. I mean, I buy these books and I read them and I enjoy them. But there tends to be a little voice at the back of my head that is driven by the guilt of enjoying reading about war, that says ‘just leave them alone, let them be.’

And just when I’m ready to, I find another take on it, another book that promises a different angle on it all, complete with its very own insights and moral perspective. That’s what I felt when I picked up One Man’s Justice. I’d just finished David Peace’s Tokyo Year Zero (about which we’ll talk another time, I’m sure), and I was looking for something to tell me more about the small side of post-War Japan.

And this was it. Fiction, yes, but a story that came with a big reputation and one that promised to explore some of the uncomfortable truths of victory from the side of the defeated.

And it did all of that. This book could have fallen over so many times. Tripped up on so many things. But it didn’t. It kept its feet.

It could have let melodrama creep into the war guilt of the Japanese. It could have oversimplified the lines of guilt and innocence. It could have demonised the villains and patronised the honest. It could have let the historical events overshadow the personal ones. It could have made the action into Hollywood plastic. It could have wailed about the unfairness of it all.

But it did none of that. It took its starting point and then it told its story simply and naturally. All of the emotion and all of the morality dripped through the words slowly and expertly.

There are (aren’t there always) downsides. Not many to be fair, but they’re there. Some of the cast of characters are a little thin, coming in and out of the pages without much meat to them, leaving you with a sense of a film with a gaggle of one line extras. Also, if I'm honest, I would have preferred a true story to fiction that claims to be rooted in fact. And some of the motivations and opinions are a little under-explained in places (probably in an attempt to avoid some of that melodrama that was always waiting to trip it up).

But bah! Picky much? I was looking for a war book that told a different story and told it genuinely. That’s what this did. I’m sure there are hundreds (probably thousands) of other books that tell the story of Japan’s war survivors, and I’m sure that many of them are brilliant and unsettling and important.

But this is the one I found. And this is the one I read. And it hit home.

8 GBR

Next week, I hope to have (finally) finished the big book that Atkins got me hooked on (damn her).

I still like Graham Greene, despite Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (Vintage, 1938). A novel set in 1930s Brighton, following the fortunes of a 17 year old aspiring gangster as he copes with the fall out of his first killing. He’s pursued throughout by the ‘life embracing’ Ida Arnold, as the realities of life on the wrong side of Brighton’s tracks are exposed.

 All the signs were good. I like Brighton (evidence in holiday snap form below...) We’ve been there a few times, and enjoyed it each time.

I also like Graham Greene. I started reading some of his books about a year ago, and have enjoyed a quite a few of them.

Also, I like reading about crime, and Brighton Rock is a novel centred around the criminal underworld of 1930s Brighton.

So, it couldn’t miss, right?

You’ve probably guessed by now that it did miss, for me at least. There’s something hugely disappointing about being let down by a book. I mean, it’s Graham Greene. This is a guy who is an undisputed great. He wrote some amazing novels. And this was supposed to be one of them. But it didn’t work for me.



Me, in Brighton. See, I do like it really. Just not the book.



It was just far too average. The characters were OK, but didn’t really jump out of the pages. The plot was fine, but it plodded along to a bit of a convoluted climax. The setting was pretty interesting, but got old quick. The story telling was good (this is Graham Greene, after all) but it didn’t have enough material in it to really keep me glued to the page.

The sum total was just something that was a bit...blegh. I carried the book around with me for two or three weeks. I never relished picking it up again in the morning on the way to work. I got to the stage where I just wanted to finish it so I could read something more interesting, more compelling, something with more punch...just something else.

Every book has hundreds of opportunities to grab you. Every time you turn the page, it has a chance to draw you in. You spend enough time with it for it to, at the very least, grow on you. There are millions of books that can arrest your attention. This one simply never managed it for me.

In an entertainment world where there are countless options for your time, this book doesn’t deserve it. Go read a different Graham Greene book. He is still one of my favourite authors. He wrote a lot of novels, and I suppose they can’t all be brilliant. This one proves it.

4 GBR

And three of those GBR are purely because it’s Graham Greene.

I’m sure the reputation of Brighton Rock will just about survive the blow of me not liking it very much. Just about. Hell, even I'll still go watch the new film. It has got Helen Mirren in it after all.

Wolf Hall - you get out what you put in...

Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel (Fourth Estate: 2009). A historical novel following Thomas Cromwell as he rises from low born Londoner to the most powerful man in Henry VIII’s court. It charts history as the King splits from the Catholic Church, marries Anne Boleyn, and condemns Thomas More.

650 pages worth of Booker Prize winning historical fiction. Be still my beating heart...

I know, historical fiction often ends up lumped in with science fiction in the ever-so-slightly-too­-geeky category, but I’m a fan. So when Wolf Hall came up on my “Amazon recommends” list, it was an easy decision.

Now, in the vein of the principles of GBR, I’m going to try and take as objective a view of this as I can. I'll even spare you the historiography, and focus simply on the merits of the book as something worth spending your time on. It’s not “did I enjoy it,” but “do I think you’ll enjoy it?”

I think you will. And here’s why.

This is an incredibly rich book. It’s a novel that makes you remember how fulfilling reading a book can be if you give it enough of a chance.

It’s long, has lots of characters, and meanders its way through the life of the protagonist (Thomas Cromwell), and so I’ll be honest, my attention drifted at times. But it seemed that whenever I was in a quiet place with it, it excited me, enlightened me, saddened me, or amused me. Mantel had a lot to say, and she said it all very well.

And it’s not just the way she’s woven the story, it’s the way she writes that also sets this book apart. She includes a handful of intentional quirks of style that make the book enjoyable to read. It’s as if you’re getting used to the way someone speaks, and once you do you feel a bond with them. The book becomes individual and unique.

Mantel takes you into the pages of the book and makes you feel included in them; she trusts you to infer parts of the story. She builds the narrative as much through explicit explanation as by mutual understanding with the reader. It’s a rare skill, and one that makes Wolf Hall difficult to put down – after all, how can you put down something that you’re playing a role in creating?

What about downsides? Well, if you know anything about your history, you can forget about any major twists in the storyline. By focussing on such public figures, Mantel forgoes any hope of really surprising the reader with a big reveal or an unexpected turn. Not that it seems to matter.

Mantel is also a little clumsy in her portrayal of Jane Seymour. Knowing she plays such a huge part in the story of Henry VIII (albeit after the timeline of Wolf Hall,) it’s a little frustrating not to hear more from her. Not that that seems to matter either.

The only thing that may matter in the debit column is the sheer ambition of the book. It’s long. And it covers a lot of ground. And so it shouldn’t be picked up as a casual read. It requires you to invest a little in it, which (as I’ve said) is a big strength, but can also be a little tiring when you just want to kick back and rattle through a few pages.

So where do we end up? A brilliant book, that makes you feel good about reading, but could also make you feel in need of a nap at times. The sum total is a score of...

7 GBR

Definitely a book worth spending your time on, but only if you have quite a bit of it to spend. Now I’ve finished it, I’m off to watch something mindless on TV.

Buffy, anyone?