The Sunset Limited - a "huh" of a book

The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy (2006: Vintage Books. First published in the UK in 2010 by Picador). A novel written as a conversation between two men – one an ex-con ex-addict who has found God, the other a professor whose world view has led him to the brink of suicide. Between them, they debate which is more valid - the ex-con’s hope or the professor’s lack of it.

It was never going to be a cheery ride from the man that brought you No Country for Old Men and The Road. If Coldplay is “music to slit your wrists by” then Cormac McCarthy seems to be the literary equivalent. If I were his parents, I’d be worried about that boy.

Not a frown-upside-down sort of book then. But let’s not write it off entirely just because it fails in the cheeriness stakes.

It is, as the cover suggests, a “novel in dramatic form.” Which means the entire book has the look of a script. It’s easier to read than most scripts, mainly because it’s a two way dialogue set in a single room; just two voices to keep track of, 140-odd pages of a single conversation.

I did, however, breeze through it. Not entirely with a hop in my step, of course, but with a furrow of thought etched firmly on my forehead.

This is a thinker of a book, slap bang in the “really makes you think, huh” genre. The script style really works, mainly because McCarthy achieves two very distinct voices and maintains them with a strict discipline. It’s easy to forget that the two characters are products of the same mind. You really do feel like a fly on the wall of really quite an interesting conversation.

And what a conversation. The cover (rather dramatically) touts it as a debate over the meaning of life. Don’t let that put you off too much though. It’s not all grand statement and metaphysical dilemma. That does creep in of course, but McCarthy delivers the big questions (and struggling answers) in such an authentic voice that it doesn’t jar (much); it doesn’t appear too forced or unnatural.

Another tick in the credit column is the length. I think McCarthy has got this just about right. It’s a very quick read. Novella length really, and the script format means that the pages fly by. Which is needed. Dwelling on a single conversation in a single room for too long could be fatal. Similarly, tackling the themes he does without giving enough room for you to ease into it is a big danger. The book steers well between the two potential gutters.

So, it’s a clever, thought provoking, well paced, well written book. But (and it’s perhaps the biggest but outside of hip hop) it didn’t force me back into my seat. I didn’t look at it longingly, counting the seconds until I could pick it up again and have a bit of a read. When I turned the last page, I uttered out loud the kind of “huh” that is more commonly provoked by finding out I’ve got 50p more than I thought I had in my pocket. This was not a “wow, I just found a £20 note under the sofa” book.

Interesting? Yes.

Worth reading? Certainly.

Worth shouting from the roof tops about? Breathtaking? Joyful? No, no and no.

6 GBR

Not a bad score in the context of GBR, which is turning out to be quite a strict scale. 6 GBR is good. 6 GBR means go read it. It won’t take much time, and you’ll be glad you did.

Just don’t expect it to change your life.


p.s. Just found out the book was also made into a TV film for HBO starring Samuel L Jackson and Tommy Lee. Aired in the States in Feb apparently. Might have to try and get me a copy of that. God bless our dual region DVD player...

The Gargoyle - just get past the "love" bit

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. (Canongate Books: 2008) An epic story following the redemptive experiences of a burn victim after he meets a delusional sculptor who professes to have known him in a previous life.

A book touted on the front cover as a “romance”. Strike one

A big sticker proclaiming it as a recommendation from the Richard and Judy book club. Strike two.

A first sentence that reads Accidents ambush the unsuspecting often, violently, just like love. Strike three.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t touch this book. But it was recommended to me by two people whose taste I trust. And something about judging books by their covers (and the inadvisability of such a course) started ringing in my ears once I was presented with a copy of it.

So I decided to take a deep breath and give it a go.

I often worry that a large part of enjoying a book is where you read it and the time you have with it. I read much of The Gargoyle in three or four hour spurts, quietly in my living room (which is one of my favourite places). Reading a book in a place that gives you the space and the peace to really read it always seems to make it better.

I said I worry about this. Because the inverse is true too. I worry that I’ve missed the point of some great books because I read them mostly in ten minute spurts between stations. I worry that I like some very average books more than some amazing ones because I read them on a beach, far away from an office.

But, good thing or bad thing, I read this book in a good place. And I enjoyed it.

There are plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t have. It’s not that the idea of love bores me. I’m very much in love myself. It’s just that artistic representations of it tend to take a wrong turn somewhere and end up in Gooey-ville.

To an extent, my initial fears were proven justified. It is indeed a love story. And I can certainly picture Richard and Judy talking it over on the couch.

But let’s get past why I shouldn’t have enjoyed this and explain why I did (and why I think you will too). This book is about 500 pages long, and there was plenty of time for it to win me over.

It’s a thoroughly well thought out story. In fact, it’s about six or seven well thought out stories. The way they interplay with each other is clever. The way the true, central story is slowly revealed is expertly achieved. It’s a long book, but I didn’t feel its length until I’d turned the last page and realised just how enveloped it The Gargoyle world I had become. Yes, the love becomes a little eye-roll-tastic sometimes, but on the whole it had me feeling more empathy than scepticism.

And it’s this guy’s first book. Which makes me more than a little jealous. It’s wildly ambitious. This guy wasn’t just trying to knock out 250 pages and get a stake in the ground for his career as a novelist. I know nothing about him, how he managed to pour so much into a book like this, how the bills were paid in the meantime, but it must have taken a great deal of belief in his talents. And it’s belief that wasn’t misplaced.

So, worthwhile of your time? Worth picking up and dedicating a few hours to?

7 GBR

Yes.

7’s a score I tend to try and stay away from. It’s the ultimate sit-on-the fence score. It’s “I really liked it, but I’m not about to buy the t-shirt”. I enjoyed reading it. And I’m glad I did. It suppressed the stoic Brit in me for a couple of weeks. But he’s back. And he’s finding it difficult to reach above a 7 for a love story right now.

The Book Thief - Darling of the commuter book club

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Black Swan: 2007). A book set in wartime Germany and narrated by Death (a time and place when Death was, after all, pretty busy). It follows the lives of those living on an ordinary street as Germany descends into Nazism, and the bombs start falling. In particular, Death tells the story of Liesel, a nine year old girl who finds some solace in stolen books.

Reading on your commute to work every day puts you in a sort of unspoken book club. Everyone takes a furtive glance around at what everyone else is reading, and an inherent endorsement is given. See the same book being read more than once, and the endorsement grows.

There are constantly a few books that have snowballed to the point of being on pretty much every train. They’ve caught on to the extent that they essentially become “book of the month” in the commuter book club, and you can’t get on a train without seeing the same front cover stare back at you.

For my part, I usually avoid these books. I like the ones that I see once or twice; the ones that look interesting and different.

That’s not to say I’m immune to them though. My snobbery (I’m honest enough to know that’s what it is) is regularly undermined by the odd bestseller. I’ll defend John Grisham and Bernard Cornwell against most slurs. The mass market novel can be brilliant. Always entertaining, and occasionally incredibly moving.

A few years ago (2007 I think it was) The Book Thief was just that sort of book. You saw people reading it everywhere. I avoided it for a while, until I read the blurb on the back cover of a fellow commuter’s copy one day, and it intrigued me.

So I bought it. And I read it. And I was not disappointed.

It’s written in the first person, which is why I’ve picked it up to review – the book I’m currently reading is in the first person (as is the one I’m currently writing, incidentally). First person books tend to need some sort or quirk I think, and by making Death the narrator, The Book Thief certainly has that.

But that’s just the book’s first quirk. It has all the ingredients to be dangerously underwhelming. It’s set during the war. It follows the experiences of a little girl. It’s written in the first person. Cue the possibility for a cliché ridden narrative, full of manufactured heartbreak and hardship that could stick in the throat as a pale tribute to the true drama and loss of the time itself.

But Zusak avoids all this. He presumably knew the pitfalls of choosing to write a book with this background, and he ploughed on regardless. And he’s produced something that hits home in an authentic way. I don’t mean historically authentic (though I’m sure it is), I mean to say that the emotions and experiences he portrays hit the mark. You care about the girl and her life. You care about the people around her. You’re fully aware of the desperateness of Nazi Germany before you read a single page, but it’s written in such a voice and with such care that you feel you’re discovering it all for the first time. It makes you sad and angry all over again.

It’s for these reasons that I believe the book was so successful when it first came out. The issues are big, the backdrop familiar. But the treatment is original, and the emotion convincing.

All enough to earn

8 GBR

With a firm eye on the whole “would I recommend you to spend your time reading this” scale, I’m pretty confident with this one. It’s not going to embarrass me. If you haven’t read it already, go ahead and pick it up. If you don’t like it, tell me why not (I’m interested). And then go take a leap.

A quick diversion...

A quick break from the norm, but I had to flag the below up. Possibly the best page of book reviews ever...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1SM813W6H36YA/ref=cm_pdp_rev_all?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

Enjoy!

The Grapes of Wrath - an underperforming hero

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Viking Press: 1939). An epic novel from one of America’s greatest. Steinbeck lets us into the lives of the Joad family as they are forced out of their old world and into a journey West, in search of a promised land of bountiful farming and fields laden with grapes. Their hopes of salvation are gradually revealed as false as their ordeal does its best to break the family.

Right, so now we’re playing full contact.

A rather strange opening for something as sedate as a book review, perhaps. But I really do feel like I’m playing with bigger stakes with this one.

Because this one is a Steinbeck. The first of his that I read.

John Steinbeck is perhaps my favourite all time author. I ordinarily don’t like making such statements. “What’s your favourite film?” “What’s your favourite song?” Perfectly plausible conversation starters, but they get up my nose. How on earth, out of all the infinite hours of footage that have been filmed, of the immense variety of music that has been recorded, can you sit down and settle on one single piece of art and say “this one, this is the one I value above all others. This is the one that is better in every way when put against anything else.” It just can’t be done. You can’t have a definitive favourite in a world so vast.

I heard someone say once (I honestly can’t remember who, I think it was Will Self) that if someone held a gun to my head and said “pick your favourite author, or I’ll shoot you”, then I’d let them shoot. I’d agree with him.

Unless, of course, it’s Steinbeck.

I’m not saying he’s my favourite by a mile. Not even by a hundred yards. I’ve enjoyed the work of more writers than I can think to count (but then I can’t count very high to be honest).

But he is my favourite. And that’s why my first Steinbeck review is fairly massive for me. Especially when it’s the one Steinbeck I’ve read that I didn’t actually enjoy.

The Grapes of Wrath, to me, spent an incredibly long time painting a fairly simple picture. And then retracing over the lines again and again. That’s not to say the story isn’t important. It’s a book that makes a worthy social point. It’s one that sheds light on a part of history that deserves to be flooded with attention. It’s a story whose characters you can truly sympathise with, and Steinbeck represents them in a way that makes them incredibly real.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t enjoy it. It was all a bit too real. There were few shocks. The story dripped through as these ordinary people lived through a generation changing experience.

I didn’t find myself thrilled to turn the page. I didn’t feel myself enriched by the passing chapters. I didn’t feel as if my knowledge was growing as I worked my way through. It wasn’t an instant explosion of enjoyment. And it wasn’t a slow burner either. Once I’d grasped the basic premise of the book, the point he was trying to make, I still had 400 odd pages to plough through. And I didn’t feel as if I gained anything by many of them.

So why (I hear you ask) is Steinbeck my favourite author. If he wrote this book that I just plain got bored with, why do I like him so much?

Well, by the time I finished the book (and it took me a lot of finishing) I kind of got the taste. I’d lived with it, and I felt a little dusty with it after I’d put it down. It was a little like red wine. Hated it when I first tasted it, but after a while, I decided to give it another try.

And the second time I tried Steinbeck, I became hooked. That was with East of Eden.

Now, I don’t know if East of Eden is just simply a better book. Maybe I was just more ready to appreciate Steinbeck by the time I picked that one up. Or maybe reading The Grapes of Wrath taught me how to read Steinbeck – how to understand the way he paced a story and appreciate the world he wrote about.

Either way, it leaves me in a dilemma. Do I tell you not to read The Grapes of Wrath because I didn’t enjoy it? Or do I tell you to read it because it could open a world to you that I love?

Well, it’s not that much of a dilemma to be honest. I already know the answer.

If you’ve never read Steinbeck, then don’t read The Grapes of Wrath. At least, not straight away. Read Cannery Row. Read To a God Unknown. Read The Pearl. Read Of Mice and Men. Read East of Eden. You’ll enjoy them. One day I'll review them and I'll tell you why I enjoyed them. And if you don’t enjoy them, I’d like to know why (honestly, I’d actually like to know why, I’m on the hunt for different perspectives here).

So the real dilemma is – can I bring myself to give my personal hero a low GBR score.

3 GBR

Yes. Yes I can.

Sorry John.

You’ll have high scores in the future. I promise.

p.s. Also, sorry no picture this week of my copy. Am filing this one from home (Newcastle that is) and so I don’t have the right cord to link my camera up to my netbook. Not a problem I imagine Steinbeck every imagined anyone having when he wrote The Grapes of Wrath. Or anything else for that matter.

 

The Vesivius Club - I heart Lucifer Box...

The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss (Simon and Schuster, 2004). The first of three novels following Lucifer Box, a very different kind of secret agent. Lucifer Box is a part time foppish artist, part time James Bond for Edwardian England. Set across Europe, Box investigates the disappearance of some of the world’s most prominent volcanologists, leading him into the depths of depravity that are the Vesuvius Club. Of course, depravity is where Lucifer Box is most at home...

I was a fan of the League of Gentlemen back when it first came out. And I was aware that Mark Gatiss has been pretty prolific with his writing career since. He’s done the odd Doctor Who episode, and he was the writer behind the latest BBC attempt at Sherlock Holmes (which I love by the way). I didn’t know that he wrote novels though, so his name rather jumped off the shelf at me when I saw it in the book shop.

The book’s sleeve promised an awful lot. Decadence, wit, high society, absurdity. Parallels are even drawn with Oscar Wilde (not once but twice) in the testimonials. So fair to say expectations were high.

And I wasn’t disappointed. Too much.

Gatiss certainly delivered a lot of what I was promised. There’s no doubt he has a pretty fascinating sense of humour. The invention of Lucifer Box as a character demands it. He really is quite brilliant; I’ve not come across anyone like him (real or otherwise) before. His vanity, his wit, his decadence, his constant (sometimes shocking) depravity – just his entire outlook on life and the way he goes about living it is absorbing. Simply meeting a character like this is entirely worth the entry fee.

The problem I found was that such a character would only be at home in the confines of an utterly outrageous plot. The story itself is just too ridiculous. Of course, it needs to be. To get the full Lucifer Box effect, he needs to be placed in daft situations. But it does detract from the overall enjoyment of the book a little. I found myself rolling my eyes on a handful of occasions, and that’s never a good sign.

Having said that, every roll of the eyes was matched with a smile a couple of paragraphs later. Gatiss writes with an Evelyn Waugh quality, but he gives it entirely new life and makes it his own by injecting it into a character like Lucifer Box.

I’ve since read another of the books in this series and I enjoyed it probably more than this one. Perhaps because I felt like I now know Lucifer Box and started to miss him, or perhaps because I was a bit more prepared for the “out there” plot. Either way, I’d definitely still recommend this first book of the three. Everyone should have a bit of Lucifer Box in their lives.

It’s fun. It’s different. But at times it’s a bit over the top. All in all, a solid...

6 GBR

I hovered between 6 and 7 for a while there, but stuck with the 6. Definitely worth a read to get an introduction to Box, but I think Gatiss delivered more with the other books in the series (which I will, of course, review later).

The Great Gatsby - from blind spot to main attraction

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1926: Charles Scribner’s Sons) A novel set in 1920s Long Island, where the narrator has just moved into a modest house next door to the mysterious, flamboyant host of glamorous parties, Jay Gatsby. Through the narrator’s eyes, we learn more about Gatsby and why he is where he is. And the more we learn, the more tragic a figure he becomes.

This is firmly in the class of book which I felt I should read. I really didn’t know much about it before I picked it up. It’s one of those books that comes up in conversation every now and then, or is referred to on TV, and I just end up blankly smiling and nodding, hoping that no one realises I haven’t got a clue about the reference they’ve just made.

So I picked it up more out of desire to colour in a bit of a blind spot than anything else. After a few pages though, I quickly forgot about the blind spot, and started enjoying it.

It’s a bit of (alright, a lot of) a cliché to say that a book is multi-layered. But I’m not sure how else to say it. So I’m just going to go ahead and commit the cliché. Please try to get past it and believe me when I say...

This book has a lot of layers.

Every time I picked it up, I felt as if something new was happening. There was significance on every page, and I’m certain I didn’t pick up on anywhere near all of the meaning; all of the themes. I’m not saying this is a grand, epic of a book with hidden depth that takes careful reading to unlock. Those books tend to be tiring and taxing to read - this was not. It’s a ruddy good story. It’s fun to read, simply as a tale in its own right. But at the same time, you’re aware as you’re reading it that Fitzgerald is weaving bigger issues into the 192 pages as well.

And that is really an art. I mean, this thing was written in 1926. It’s the best part of 100 years old. It deals with big questions and big emotions. All these things, you would think, would be major barriers to it being an enjoyable read for a man in 2011, skipping through a few pages here and there on the train into work. But none of that gets in the way. If anything, I found myself reading it too quickly. The story kept me glued to the page, fidgeting with the corners until I could turn them over, in a way that I haven’t for a while.

Generally speaking, I’m against reading (or watching) anything more than once. There are millions upon millions of great things to read and watch, and so going over anything twice is simply taking time away from encountering something new. No doubt, masterpieces exist, but do any of them deserve a second look when there’s another masterpiece lurking around the corner. Having said that, there are exceptions. And I think this may be one of them. I think I may actually read this one again. There’s so much packed into these pages that I want to understand better.

So, if I’m going to give this book a second look, I’d certainly recommend that you give it at least a first one (that is, if you haven’t already). Cue the drum roll for the biggest GBR yet...

9 GBR

I know, copping out a little on the 9. If this is a “masterpiece” that I’m deeming worthy of the almost unprecedented step of a second read, why not 10? Well, as I’ve said before, got to leave myself somewhere to go. The day I give a 10 is the day I find a book that makes me need to lie down for a while after I’ve finished it to recover. I’m sure it exists somewhere.

Oh, and for the record, the high GBR score is nothing to do with the fact that this also happens to be my brother-in-law’s all time favourite book. No pandering here. Honest...