2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist - Limassol - Yishai Sarid

Before I start on my latest review I would like to pass on my congratulations to the winner and my sincere thanks to the judges of this years IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for their foresight and boldness in giving the prize to the best book on the list (Jon McGregor’s “Even the Dogs”), even though the controversial subject matter could upset a large number of readers, homelessness, alcoholism and heroin abuse are real subjects that do need to be tacked by the arts and it is wonderful to see such a noble novel winning the gong.

Onto Limassol, this novel comes from the “World Noir” collection and even though you could almost see it being a black and white cynical movie, with a mysterious femme fatale, it is no “Double Indemnity”.

Translated from Hebrew and written in the first person our protagonist is an Israeli secret service agent, who is undertaking an undercover style mission posing as a successful share market trader who is really a frustrated writer needing guidance. Outside of his plot to entice the sensual Daphna he works through the night as a hard-nosed violent interrogator who lacks emotion and wants to see the streets cleared of suicide bombers. He’s rarely home to visit his wife Sigi and four year old child, and given his alienation from his own family his son is interestingly referred to throughout as “the child”. Any attempts at family reconciliation always seem to be interrupted by an important secret service event, he doesn’t even have the time to discuss his wife’s proposal to move to Boston!!

At times some of the writing did appear laboured, however this could be the fault of the translator, or it could be the nature of Hebrew, of which I know little, or even the nuances of Israeli humour. At other times I was enlightened by a wonderful quote or two:

You can never be sorry for silence, only for chatter.

This quote comes after our main character feels guilty after a visit to an “advisor” where he spoke his mind, the visit compulsory as he has to explain his violent actions during interrogations – the irony of him confessing to the extraction of information from tortured “arabs” in this section is intriguing in itself.

Essentially an espionage novel with a moral heart, messages of Gaza politics, unrequited (will it remain so? ) romance and a story of hope this was an easy read.

“…You can liquidate a hundred terrorists in the Kasbah, nobody will notice that. But see what enormous headlines their liquidation will make. People pay money to see a matador finish off a dangerous bull, books are written about it, they decorate him with flowers, but nobody wants to buy tickets for a simple slaughterhouse.”

Not the worst book on the shortlist by a long shot but not one of top 3. I’ll post a review of “Lean on Pete” soon which I recently finished.

2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist - Landed - Tim Pears

I don’t know if I’ve just hit a rough patch with the books I’m reading or if another couple of months existence is making me an even grumpier old man!

Tim Pears’ “Landed” started off so promisingly with a Collision Investigator’s Report (with photos) and a tantalising thread of an unknown fatality, a serious injury and the possibility of the accident being caused by a stray dog.  This is written as a fact based clinical numbered report, lacking compassion. We then flash back to a sheep farm in the Welsh highlands where an eleven-year-old Owen is being partially raised by his almost silent grandfather and his grandmother. We then have a section about the physical and mental effects of losing a limb (obviously the result of the accident in the first “chapter”) and our protagonist’s suffering of pain in his missing hand. There are further flashbacks to Owen’s youth and what would appear to be current time first person narratives by our main character and further ones by his estranged wife. In my mind this was a fair, if somewhat uneven, construction of a broken man’s life, which would slowly lead to a revelation of the questions asked in the early sections, explain the relevance of studying local wildlife and bring the Welsh countryside into the story as a character in its own right.

Even now he phones. Isn’t meant to but he does. Now Johnny’s not around I let him talk.. You wouldn’t believe it was that shy, proud man he used to be. Begging me to get back together, to bring the children round, to let him see them. What can I say? I know I can’t say yes. Then he goes all silent. ‘You still there?’ I says. No reply, but you can sense him. Brooding. Sobbing to his self, his hand over the mouthpiece.

Me just as bad at the other end, after I’ve put down the phone.

The problem is though, Part Two begins and the whole novel just falls apart. Each “chapter” beginning with a biblical quote (“he cometh up, and is cut down” or “i will take heed to my ways; that i offend not in my tongue”) then leading into a physical and spiritual journey for a number of our characters. This 130 page section was full of holes, nonsensical behaviour (who would let a 6 year old girl go to the toilet unsupervised?) and strange happenings. I almost gave up, but thought “only 70 odd pages to go I may as well finish it”. In a way I was glad I made it through to the end as it came as a surprise which could explain the earlier misgivings I had. However the resolution of some of the grander questions and sections in Part One (Owen’s connection to the Welsh countryside, the unique bird sounds, badgers and more) was simply not present.

So, in my opinion, two poorer books in a row from this year’s list and I’m already questioning whether I’ll tackle 2013’s edition. 

2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist - Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes

Life’s too short to read bad books.

Isn’t the internet a wonderful tool? Punch that quote into Google and you find it attributed to numerous writers (Ernest Hemmingway, Michael Crichton – wtf? – Gerhart Hauptmann and more), maybe one day it will be attributed to me.

I started this blog back in July last year and since that time I have reviewed every book I have read and was proud to say that I had finished all 36 of them. That was until now. Even before I opened this tome I was a little daunted, another Vietnam story, over 700 pages, “Epic International Bestseller” sticker on the cover, a format in the style of those revolving book stands in airport newsagents (ie. Something to read whilst you’re bored out of your wits for 24 hours and something you won’t mind leaving in the back of the seat in front when you’re done). Not that I’m at all swayed by such things…..

Well I was in for a shock - "International Bestseller" doesn't mean much to me, as we know Dan Brown sells millions - this is tedious hard work. I did receive a chuckle the other day from a work colleague when I described this as “Dickens does Vietnam”:

By the next morning a full storm was hurling itself against the hill. The platoon moved in slow motion all day, buffeted by the wind, hampered by cold hands that made grasping E-tools and knives even more difficult than normal. It seemed cruelly unnecessary to Mellas to have to return to the backbreaking work of digging and chopping just when they had reached the point where they could start working on their own living quarters. Yet they dug and chopped, finding meaning of their actions within the small prosaic tasks, casting from their minds the larger questions that would only lead them to despair.

Please!!! Numerous characters who can’t even remember each other (so how am I meant to?), let alone care for each other (how am I meant to?), long drawn out passages that actually say little and a plot which tells me war is futile and higher ranked military staff don’t know what they’re doing. Thanks for that – I don’t need 700 pages of it.

Written in vivid detail (there is a 34 page glossary) by a Rhodes scholar who was a highly decorated  ex-Marine, this is not your average war story. It is also not your average literary novel (hence my issues). The part that I got through dealt mainly with a character called Mellas (who I assume will die or else why the futility of it all) who is not really cut out to lead his hardened, racist, disenchanted men…..sound a bit like a few Vietnam war movies you’ve seen? Well you could watch “Full Metal Jacket” followed by “The Thin Red Line” back to back in less than five hours, and you’d still be only 20% of your way through this novel in the same time.

I admit my comments may be considered a tad harsh, however I got to the point where I hadn’t read a page for over three days as I wasn’t enjoying it – that’s when I decided to put this down and finally said “no more” – good grief, I was only 151 pages in. There’s nothing offensive about this novel, it’s not badly written and the settings are real, the horrors and monotony of war even more so – but to be honest, it is just not my cup of tea.

If this wins the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize for 2012 I will go back and finish it, otherwise it will sit on my shelf gathering dust and end up for sale by my kids on some e-bay style site long after my demise.

I’ll be posting a review of Tim Pears’ “Landed” in the coming days as I finished that one yesterday, sorry for the delay in reviews, it just took me a while to get this one onto a page…..

2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist - Even The Dogs - Jon McGregor

Geez, this one packs a punch!!!  You’ll get that feeling from the opening sentence, “They break down the door at the end of December and carry the body away”. From then on it is a high octane rollercoaster, in-your-face style of novel.

Back in 1994 I distinctly recall being energised, intimidated and at times shocked by James Kelman’s “How Late It Was How Late” with it’s opening sentence of “Ye wake in a corner and stay there hoping yer body will disappear, the thoughts smothering ye; these thoughts; but ye want to remember and face up to things, just something keeps ye from doing it, why can ye no do it; the words filling yer head: then the other words; there’s something wrong; there’s something far far wrong; ye’re no a good man, ye’re just a no a good man.” That novel with its bleakness, its tale of alcoholism, living outside the law, just getting by and more is almost fairy-floss compared to Jon McGregor’s “Even the dogs”.

Here’s a tale of heroin addiction, alcoholism, self-abuse, frequent death, family breakdown, no self-esteem, homelessness and more all wrapped up in a stream of consciousness style tale of poor Robert who dies before sentence one. This is definitely a hard book to review when you have my “do not put in spoilers” methodology.  But what I can reveal is the voice of the heroin addicted Danny in the early sections rings true, too true in some sections , as though the thoughts in his mind were racing onto the page:

Jesus though. A man like that. Didn’t look ill the last time Danny had seen him. But the others must have seen him after that, must have noticed something was wrong. Had to find them and ask them, had to make sense of all

Unfinished sentences, thoughts flashing back and forth, external (non revealed) narrators, a chorus or observers of scenes, are those other addicts having out of body experiences? Are they dead too? Who are they?  We have autopsies described in detail, facts about collapsed arteries of users and the only remaining options left, realities of scraping enough coin together to get another bag and an array of other subjects that “polite society” would consider taboo – the easy approach is to turn our heads away from this underbelly? Well in this book you can’t, you are actually drawn further and further into the mire as the thoughts hook you into turning page after page. I do admit, this would be a real challenge for readers who like a straight narrative style, or “something light” to read.

But do not be dismayed by the froth and bubble of the language (and I did find it hard to find a quote that didn’t give too much away or used a word considered offensive by google search), do not be frightened by the “stream of consciousness”  style that I have branded the novel above. This is a also a reflection on the worth of every human life, every human spirit, no matter how tarnished, an empathetic narration on the ties of family and friends and the basic human longing to belong to a society or group (however dysfunctional).  

An amazing subject that has finally been tackled in a sympathetic manner, a wondrous result and a remarkable revelation. Mr McGregor I am in envy of your talent and I wish you well with the prize, unfortunately I can see your subject matter being a smidgin too controversial for a gong.

I know there will be hundreds of people who will disagree with me on this novel, but I simply ask that any detractors who would like to put forward a negative review please explain their personal exposure to heroin.

PS – For those who have read it, maybe you can explain to me, why is it not called “Even the bloody dogs”?

2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist - The Memory of Love - Aminatta Forna

It’s rewarding reading books from the various literary shortlists around the globe, but I can tell you one thing, it is rare you come across a dud. People who read my reviews (and I know there are but a few), must think I enjoy just about everything I read. And I can fully understand when some reviewers slip into criticism of minor plot errors or factual inconsistencies as it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the good from the bad. Recently I have saved my vitriol for journalists in cheap Murdoch newspapers; at least I have a good cause to mouth off at.

The front cover of “The Memory of Love” has a small review from the “Daily Telegraph”, (Haha, A Murdoch rag.) “An intricate tapestry of betrayal, tragedy and loss”. And here I do agree, it is a rich intricate tapestry of a novel.

Set in Sierra Leone some years after their civil war, where over 50,000 civilians were left dead (which ran largely unreported in the Western media for 9 years). We have two main protagonists in our plot, Adrian a British psychologist and Kai a young local surgeon, but you could say there are many more.

Adrian works at the local hospital (on an aid program) and interviews the dying Elias Cole, where flashbacks of the time leading up and during the war are recalled. He also treats local patients who are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, drug related withdrawals and more. Kai, an insomniac, works in the same hospital as Adrian as a surgeon, and befriends Adrian as he has a room in the grounds where he can relax. Through Elias Cole’s memories of his love for a married woman, Kai’s memories of his love of a fellow student at University and then Adrian’s love of a local girl we get a rich interwoven view of the human spirit and a picture of a country attempting to rebuild.

In all of my reviews I do my upmost to not reveal any spoilers and I will continue here, however there was one section of the novel where I’d linked two seemingly non connected events and became slightly frustrated as it took about 80 pages to finally put that link to rest. Having said that this is not simply a novel with a linear plot, a thriller, nor one where the last page will reveal all.

We have alternating chapters from Kai and Adrian’s viewpoints, with large sections of Adrian’s view being populated by Elias Cole’s stories of the past. Using a mixture of past and present tense, first person and third person, this surely does qualify as a “tapestry”.

‘He’s using you to write his own version of history, don’t you see? And it’s happening all over the country. People are blotting out what happened, fiddling with the truth, creating their own version of events to fill in the blanks. A version of the truth which puts them in a good light, that wipes out whatever they did or failed to do and makes certain none of them will be blamed. My father has you to help him. You’re just a mirror he can hold up to reflect a version of himself and events. The same lie he’s telling himself and everyone else. And they’re all doing it. Whatever you say, you will go away from here, you will publish your papers and give talks, and every time you do you will make their version of events more real, until it becomes indelible.’

Don’t be misled by the title, this is not simply a tale of love, it is a tale of loss, of hope, of the triumph of the human spirit (is that clichéd enough for you?) and a genuinely moving story of a country still coming to terms with the horrific events of its recent past. Not a difficult read by any stretch of the imagination, but one that you would be privileged to have read.

Thanks to Aminatta Forna and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for opening my eyes to the events in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s, I am grateful. At this stage I still have “The Matter With Morris” on the top of my list closely followed by “A Visit From The Goon Squad” and this novel a close third. Onto “Even The Dogs” by Jon McGregor.

2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist - The Matter With Morris - David Bergen

Welcome to the world of Morris Schutt, journalist (well I’d call him a columnist but he refers to himself as a journalist and who am I to argue?) Morris is a man who has recently been informed that his only son has been killed in Afghanistan, a man whose writing talent is now being called into question.

Although recently I have read numerous novels that deal with the horrors of war, and a number dealing with America’s post 11 September fear and even more questioning the validity of being involved in Iraq or Afghanistan, this is no ordinary war lament. It is the story of a grieving man whose life seems to fall apart as a result of those events. His wife looks like she’s leaving, one of his daughters is having an affair with her University professor, the other won’t talk to him nor let him see his grandchild and his support group is full of shallow men. Is Morris also going through a mid-life crisis?

I believe the acknowledgments give away the style you'd be facing if you tackled this book:

I have begged and borrowed from many writers; Plato, Cicero, Petrarch, Dante, Shakespeare, Soren Kierkegaard, Jacob Boehme, Theodor Adorno, Paul Tillich, Leo Strauss, Rienhold Niebuhr, Allan Bloom, Terry Eagleton, and finally and most avidly, Saul Bellow.

This novel has an interesting opening where Morris points out that as a journalist “he knew a fine line existed between truth and fiction and he felt he was adept at walking that tightrope.” Then the novel becomes so gripping and holds up a cracked mirror to our current civilisation that you, as a reader, begin to blur those same lines between truth and fiction. Masterful….

“I was standing in the meat line at De Luca’s and the woman in front of me gets on the phone and asks her husband what kind of cheese they want, Reggiano or Padano. She can’t even make a simple decision. The cellphone has become a soother, an umbilical cord, a clattering intrusion. If we’re texting or talking, we think we’re alive.”

A novel that deals primarily with Morris’ grief but does so in such a way that the reviews on the back cover talk more about the impact of war on families, or darkness, flawed searching characters etc the simple fact of a father losing his only son in warfare can sometimes be lost in all the other noise of the daily grind.

Only Morris can care for Morris. Enough of this complaining, sighing, lamenting, and suffering. I have been, in the words of Socrates, envious, faithless, unjust, friendless, impious, a vessel of every vice, and on and on. And in conclusion, a tyrant. By scribbling my thoughts down and then sending them through the mail, I am most self-absorbed and self-centred. I want an audience, and I will have one; I have a place waiting for me on YouTube and Wikipedia. We are beasts crawling between heaven and earth.

Bottom line? One of my favourite novels I have read this year.

2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Shortlist – Rocks in The Belly – Jon Bauer

As we know the nominees for this award come from Public Libraries throughout the world. This novel was nominated by a single library, the State Library of Victoria in my home town of Melbourne, however don’t worry I do not have a bias here.

This one has left me in a real quandary, at stages I was entranced and couldn’t put the book down, at other times I was enraged and wanted to throw it across the room, and even at one stage I was going to give up. But one thing is certain the story haunts your thoughts and you spend large chunks of your non reading time thinking about the main character.

Many times in recent years we have examples of authors using a child’s voice to tell their tale (think “Pigeon English”, “Room”, “Vernon God Little” and “Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha” from the Booker lists), this novel has a twenty-eight year old flashing back to his eight year old days (roughly in alternate chapters) as our main protagonist. He’s back home to visit his dying mum, who was a foster mother, bitter about the lack of love and support that he received as a youngster whilst Mum gave her all to a foster kid call Robert.  

I found the eight year old voice quite convincing in the early stages, somewhat less so in later ones, the 28 year old voice less convincing in a lot more passages, but then again that could be that I personally thought the grown up character to lack compassion, basic human tendencies and more, but isn’t that the case when you feel like you’ve been neglected as a child? Maybe the voice is convincing after all? Maybe he has never truly grown up?

This novel throws up question after question and not all are easy to confront. On that front it reminds me a bit of “The Slap” by Christos Tsiolkas in the way it could polarise readers.  This is a certainty to do the rounds of book clubs as the discussions could go on or hours and hours.

Worthy award winner? Probably not, but one I would recommend as it will either infuriate you or you’ll love it.

Publisher’s comment on Award website:

Rocks in the Belly is about a precocious eight-year-old boy and the volatile adult he becomes. During childhood his mother fosters boys, despite the jealous turmoil it arouses in her son. Jealousy that reaches unmanageable proportions when she fosters Robert, an amiable child she can’t help bonding with. Until the bond triggers an event that profoundly changes everyone. Especially Robert.
At twenty-eight the son returns to face his mother. He hasn’t forgiven her for what happened to Robert. But now she’s the dependent one and he the dominant force — a power he can’t help but abuse.
Written in two startlingly original voices, Rocks in the Belly is about the destruction we wreak on one another in the pursuit of our own happiness; how we never escape our upbringing; and a stark reminder that the most dangerous place for a child is within the family.
A compelling, powerful, and yet beautiful and funny novel.