scatterbrainlibrarian.co.uk

I’ve loaned this book to someone else so no back cover blurb for now. When I get it back I’ll try to remember to add it!

I liked this book which is surprising considering the themes and topics on which it centres. I have famously low tolerance of religion and fate in novels but for some reason I can’t nail I don’t mind it here.

A long, winding story brought together beautifully at the end, I think I like this because it has depth and substance and because it made me laugh, cry and think. While it has a story to tell and points to make it is not a slave to either and is happy to wander into Dickensian character portraits and Tolstoian (?) informative asides. When discussing this in my book group many other people said they found all this irritating and superfluous. Sure, I am always irritated by the superfluous too but this wasn’t, it served to add to the picture of the characters and of the setting and that’s something I often miss in modern literature.

I have only two criticisms and neither is too big. Firstly, perhaps it was slightly too folksy and gimmicky in places but to be honest this was nothing compared to what I expected. I thought it was going to irritate the hell out of me for that reason but it really didn’t. Secondly, it is quite difficult to identify a central point. In defence of it, though, I don’t think this is because there isn’t one, I think it’s because there are more than one and that they are subtley conveyed and buried in complexity. For the record I think it’s about; faith and doubt, faith and friendship, personal identity, America’s place in the world (and, specifically, its foreign policy), and about how the past creates the present. And it’s about Owen Meany who alone is worth the effort.

A few people in the group gave up because they said they ‘didn’t have time for this type of book’ and I think that’s very telling. We really don’t think we have the time anymore to sink into something and to spend time getting to know different facets of it or to be lead down little alleyways parallel to the main road. I think that’s a shame and I for one intend to make plenty more journeys of this kind. I may be busy but I’ve learned that making the time is almost always worth it.

 ”Peter Robb’s journey into the dark heart of Sicily uses history, painting, literature and food to shed light on southern Italy’s legacy of political corruption and violent crime. Taking the trial of seven-times Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, for alleged Mafia involvement as its starting point, ‘Midnight in Sicily’ is a classic of cultural history which combines searching investigation with an exuberant, sensual appreciation of this beautiful and bewildering island.”

I got a bit confused at times with all the differet names and the dropping in and out of subjects but I think that’s more my fault than the book’s. I did feel I ought to start scribbling notes to remind me who’s who! (I discovered too late that such a list is printed at the back of the book).  

I liked the rambling style where one minute he’d be talking about the assassination of a leading mafioso, the next he’d be in an ancient mill drinking wine and eating baby mackerel, discussing the history of the fork. It was definitely part of the charm. Even the occasional Australian vernacular (”sleazebag journo”), although incongruous, added to the rich tapestry.

I appreciated the literary references, especially Sciascia and Lampedusa, and knowing more now about the birth of the Mafia there are some scenes in The Leopard I must revisit. The descriptions of meals were also wonderful. I could smell and taste them as well as hear the chatter and feel the warm evening air. The number of times I had to get up and rummage through the larder just to eat something and quell the longing…

Not all of it was beautiful and dreamlike though and the nasty, squalid world of the Mafia and its shocking links to mainstream politics really jolted me. I felt as though I was reading about a fascinating and stunningly beautiful but backward and impoverished country. I had to keep reminding myself that it was Italy, Western Europe during my lifetime that these events were taking place.

It was really an eye-opener and I felt by the end that not only had I learned a great deal about Sicily but also that I had been taken on a grand journey, one that did not go as I had expected.

 ”Far in the future, the World Controllers have created an ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs, all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone in feeling discontent. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, and a perverse distaste for the pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress…”

For a fuller idea of the book’s plot and some more info surrounding it look here as this review will be focusing on my interpretation. It’s a truly fascinating book and I will probably re-read it because there’s much else in there. So…

To get the bad out of the way first : I felt, as I did when reading Orwell’s 1984, that for something set in the future it seemed strangely stuck in the time it was written (there’s no way that in the year 2540 they still use card catalogues!). I also found the names incredibly irritating (Lenina, Bernard Marx, Darwin Bonaparte) as well as all the plays on Fordism and the use of T instead of ‘cross’. I know it’s satirical (and I too hate the Fordist mentality) but I couldn’t really laugh with it, I just got annoyed.

For this reason I found the first few chapters disappointing and was really starting to wonder why so many people had urged me to read this book. However, once Bernard and Lenina went to the Reservation things really kicked off and I think it’s the contrast of the two ways of life that provide the good stuff in this book (and ‘good stuff’ it really is).

John is the most important character in the book as he is the one caught betwen these two worlds. He is an outcast in his native community because his mother is from the civilised world but when he comes to see civilisation he hates it. The world of the Savages, however, is not really to be envied as they are illiterate and are outcasts. They have more humanity and more soul than everyone else but even their world, we suspect, is worse now than it once was. John really gets the best of both worlds in that he is, to an extent, educated, and he also knows how to feel and how to live. It’s the discovery of Shakespeare that makes him (although I don’t think we can ultimately say it saves him). I found that John was the one I really had most sympathy for. Marx and Watson are saved but John isn’t, perhaps because his situation can never be resolved. The ending came as quite a shock to me, I must admit.

The confrontation towards the end between Mustapha Mond and John the Savage is simply brilliant and I think really the rest of the book is building up to this point. Bernard, who starts off as a bit of a hero, is really quite pathetic at this point but Hemholtz Watson and John, the two most honest and truly heroic characters, come into their own.

The central message to me seemed to be: here’s a ‘perfect’ society in terms of everyone’s happy, everyone’s a consumer, everyone has their place and use and is happy with their lot but this isn’t real life. People have a value beyond the work they produce and the things they consume and total happiness and contentment is not life. Life means sadness and misery as well as happiness and joy. It means art and ideas and confusion, it means restlessness and dissatisfied consumers.

To keep stability and control we need to get rid of any disagreeable feelings and make everyone into happy slaves, all knowing their own place and with no desire for free thought, solitude or independence.

As Mustapha Mond, the World Controller says,

“The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives or children or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything goes wrong there’s soma”.

What’s most interesting is Huxley does get across to the reader why people like that kind of existence and what appeals to them. Even those who have been given the choice of exile have often decided to stay. So he is ultimately saying “this is a terrible way to be” but at the same time showing why people choose it.

Having read some of his comments at various times it’s clear that he personally feels a tug towards this Fordist society even though he knows it’s wrong and false. It occurs to me that perhaps those who can best warn of the dangers of a certain way of life are those who can see it as a possible outcome of their own beliefs and the predominant beliefs of those around them. I think that was the case with Orwell too in ‘1984′.

I also think we have to be careful in seeing ‘Brave New World’ as entirely an attack on this kind of society or an endorsement of it (I’ve read both interpretations and to me they seem misguided). Nor do I think it is an attack on science. He is just giving us a very extreme version of what could happen and using it to warn us that while we embrace material and scientific ‘progress’ we have to keep it in perspective and not let it manipulate everything else. In the World State even scientific experiment and research is frowned upon unless it is seen as being of direct commercial benefit so Huxley is equating science with part of the old world of free thought that’s now forbidden.

Three of the main themes emerge as: sex, religion, and art. Sexual desire can not be eradicated so it is always fulfilled thus taking it as near to extinction as can be achieved. Religion is completely banned but a new one has been invented around Fordism and is very like the old set-up. The brainwashing, deference and community sing alongs are still there. Art is the most interesting. Art too has gone and has been replaced instead by a vacuous and undemanding commercialised happiness characterised by catchphrases, slogans and the hideous ‘feelies’. Art is no longer the voice of dissent and discontent -it is merely a plaything to fulfill our basest desires. So all three of these possibly redeeming factors have been stripped of their meaning and translated into the new consumer society.

In one of my favourite bits John, who is a fan of Shakespeare, asks Mustapha Mond why Shakespeare is banned.

He replies,

“Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!”

The Savage was silent for a little. “All the same,” he insisted obstinately, “Othello’s good, Othello’s better than those feelies.”

“Of course it is” the Controller agreed. “But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what we used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art. We have the scent organ and the feelies instead.”

“But they don’t mean anything.”

“They mean themselves, they mean a lot of agreeable sensations to the audience.”

“But they’re… they’re told by an idiot.”

The Controller laughed, “you’re not being very polite to your friend, Mr Watson. One of our most distinguished Emotional Engineers…”

“But he’s right”, said Helmholtz gloomily. “Because it is idiotic. Writing when there’s nothing to say…”

“Precisely. But that requires the most enormous ingenuity. You’re making flivvers out of the absolute minimum of steel -works of art out of practically nothing but pure sensation.”

The Savage shook his head. “It all seems to me quite horrible.”

Amen and bravo.

I really enjoyed this book and it reminded me of the many reasons why I would like to be a part of politics again. Entertaining, informative, witty, and easy to read, I am tempted to foist this on the cynics around me who think politics is a tedious waste of time and politicians conniving and dishonest powermongers. Whatever you think of Hattersley’s politics you couldn’t read this book and still think that way.

This is an account of his introduction to politics as a child and then follows the building of his beliefs and the development of his career. I particularly liked his views on education and am always glad to find a fellow Matthew Arnold fan (yet to find one under fifty but I’m still hopeful). He also gave very vivid accounts of politicians I only know by name (I imagine through having been too young to remember them) and ignited in me a desire to follow them up and learn more about them.

Also, for all I thought this read as an honest and fair account I would like to read the memoirs of a lot of the people he criticises and get their point of view. Tony Benn in particular is a source of much of Hattersley’s bitterness and a target of his sharp observation. 

A quick and rewarding read that has set me back on the path of political reading!

“Dr Ruth Weiss, the celebrated authority on Balzac, is as beautiful as an intelligent woman can be. Now forty, she looks back and tells the story of a life impassioned and seduced by literature. As she recalls her London childhood, her friendships and doomed Parisian love affairs, she knows that once again she must make a start in life.”

So says the rather misleading blurb on the back cover. This book is not really about a woman looking back but is simply the story of Ruth and of her family. It is well observed and nicely done though with a few strange stylistic decisions and I guess I consider the moral of the tale to be that people manipulate each other and are unreliable. Not necessarily nasty and mean but just humans with their great capacity for selfishness and decay. Literature, in contrast, is a great source of comfort and will always be there. Much safer and on the whole more rewarding. This has been my own philosophy for much of my life and I rather wished I’d read this book when I was 17 when perhaps it was needed more. Still, it was good to read now and is good on a Saturday morning accompanied by a cup of tea!

Really could have done with a good proofreader though. A few too many errors for comfort.

 From the back cover:

“1919. Siberia. Deep in the unforgiving landscape a town lies under military rule, awaiting the remorseless assault of Bolsheviks along the Trans-Siberian railway. Then Samarin arrives. Appearing from the woods with a tale of escape from an Arctic prison, he says he is being chased by a cannibal. Anna, a beautiful young widow, feels something for the new arrival. Then the local shaman is found dead and suspicion and terror engulf the little town…”

I found this book hard to get into at first, I think because I was only reading it in snatches as I went through a few busy and stressful weeks. What it needs is to be read in one or two sittings. When I did get into it and the language, atmosphere, ideas and characters began to work for me, it was a fascinating and fulfilling experience. In fact, it got into my head so much that I had one or two dreams where I was crunching through thick snow in an empty forest!

It being set in Revolutionary/Civil War Russia I was of course expecting snow and misery (and am pleased to say I got it) but what gives this novel more depth is the intellectual angle, the grappling with morality, identity, and the nature of violence, war and revolution. I also found the Czech angle on this piece of history particularly interesting.

It is a good story, with characters I found believable. Anna and Mutz I sympathised with and was rooting for, the rest of them were far less likeable but no less real. Samarin is the fascinating character at the heart of it, and it is through him that the plot twists and turns leaving the reader unsure who to trust and how to judge. (I have no idea why in my head I saw him as played by Christian Bale.)

The layout was intriguing in that it began by setting scenes that seemed almost irrelevant once they were quickly swamped by the Siberian part of the tale. I think it was done to show how some of the characters got where they did and to make the point that while we may find many of the things in the book disturbing, these were once ‘normal’ people whose experiences set them on strange paths. There are also a few stories within the story that could have been confusing but I found added new layers and set the scene for the way certain characters behaved later on.

It’s quite a while since I read the wonderful ‘Tales of the City’ series so I was slightly concerned I wouldn’t be able to get into this ’sequel’. How wrong I was! Just a few pages in and I was back into that bright, fantastic San Francisco world and chuckling out loud while reading on the train. It’s narrated by Mikey ‘Mouse’ Tolliver, fifty-five, a gardener, HIV positive and astonished to be alive and in a loving gay marriage. 

All the main characters are accounted for (by the end) in a characteristically realistic manner. Some have died, some moved away and on to other things, some hearts have been broken, some are healing a bit. I love the way that Maupin gives us life as it is whether it be harsh, cruel or beautiful. His anger at the Iraq war and Bush government, the meanness and prejudice still rife in the world, “the nasty bitch slap of reality” is balanced perfectly by his love of life with its quirks, ironies and endless sources of amusement. He pulls off irony beautifully and there are many hilarious, surreal, poignant and moving movements.

I felt warm and deeply satisfied after reading this book and now have a great desire to go back and read the ‘Tales of the City’ books all over again!

 The blurb on the back cover reads:

“The Idea of Perfection is a funny and touching romance between two people who’ve given up on love. Set in the eccentric little backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales, pop. 1374, it tells the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, and Harley Savage, a woman altogether too big and too abrupt for comfort.

Harley is in Karakarook to foster ‘Heritage’, and Douglas is there to pull down the quaint old Bent Bridge. From day one, they’re on a collision course. But out of this unpromising conjunction of opposites, something happens: something even better than perfection.”

On reading that I was quite excited. I thought it would be funny and romantic with lots of intelligent observations on the idea of ‘Heritage’ in terms of what it is, how we define it, and what it means. Alas, it was slightly funny, slightly romantic and not really anything else.

Apart from the strange writing style that was occasionally beautiful but more often irritiating (no speech marks, annoying use of italics) it was a rather obvious and predictable book.

I did think of giving up at one point but two things spurred me on. Firstly, the character of Harley Savage who I thought was beautifully and convincingly drawn and an excellent anchor amongst a sea of one dimensional, cliched and exaggerated characters. Secondly, the ‘big clever ending’ where Douglas and Harley would cunningly and hilariously get one over on both the small minded ‘it’s only an old bridge’ philisitines and the twee ‘Cobwebbe Crafte Shoppe’ people.

Harley kept me going and rooting for her until the end but that was about all I had to go on as the clever ending never materialised and the interesting thoughts about ‘Heritage’, ‘perfection’ and ‘beauty’ that were hinted at all along were ditched and forgotten.

I don’t want it to seem that I hated or even strongly disliked this book as that would not be fair. I liked it well enough but it had serious flaws and, above all, it promised so much and failed to deliver. It felt like a wasted opportunity.

Telling the story of an early Twentieth Century (I think) family in a large house, the premise of this book is that one member of the family (the bachelor brother of the man of the house) has inherited a tidy fortune. In general though it’s not so much about that but about the relationships between relatives and friends through the tribulations of love, inheritance and death.Once I’d got used to the style I really got into this book. The characters are beautifully drawn and totally convincing as are their sorrows and struggles. It contains humour and drama but its subtlety and flawless observation of the nastiness of people in general and of families specifically are its strengths.

It’s quite unlike anything else I have ever read. Predominantly dialogue, it’s part comedy of manners, part family saga, and yet not quite either of those. It’s difficult to explain. All I can say is -read it for yourself and you’ll know what I mean!

Be warned, though. While I did enjoy it I found it to be slightly on the sparse side and did feel it to be a tad staged so if you like description and natural flow you might struggle. Also, for such a short and seemingly uncomplex novel it’s a reasonably demanding read.

I’d be interested in reading another of her novels and seeing how it compares.

I’ve just looked her up on Wikipedia and discovered this about her family background:

“This omits the fact that her favourite brother, Guy, died of pneumonia; another, Noel, was killed on the Somme, and two sisters died in a suicide pact on Christmas Day. Not one of the twelve siblings had children, and all eight girls remained unmarried.”

…So in retrospect I’d say her writing is actually quite happy, considering.

‘The Stone Angel’* by Margaret Laurence.

Margaret Laurence is an underrated Canadian novelist of whose works I reckon this is the best. ‘The Stone Angel’ follows Hagar Shipley, an old woman with deteriorating health, as she comes to terms with her own mortality and dodges her son and daughter-in-law’s attempts to put her in a home.

Her present is cleverly interspersed with memories of her past creating a contrast between the elderly, dependent Hagar and the strong, independent Hagar of her youth and middle age. This has the effect of enabling younger readers such as myself to identify with her and understand why for such a strong-willed and proud woman being sent to a nursing home, even a nice one, is such a horrible prospect. I reckon I got glimpses of my own feelings one day in the far off future!

The flashbacks also maintain suspense as we not only get to know the characters of her youth but are informed from early on that there were tragedies. Only as the book progresses do we find out what these were.

An interesting, moving and often comical portrayal of old age, this is a readable and likeable book, not without harshness but not without humanity. Definitely a recommended read.

*It ends mid-sentence, which remains a mystery to me for a number of reasons. The blurb in the book suggests it’s because Laurence herself died while writing it and out of respect for her it has been left as she left it. However, a glance at Wikipedia shows that The Stone Angel was completed in 1964 and Laurence died in 1987.