Tag: historical fiction

Kay MacCauley, The Man Who Was Loved (2006)

15th September 2010 / / 0 Comments

This review was first published in issue 2 of The Smal Press Review, 2006.

Kay MacCauley knows how to grab your attention with a single sentence.  And that sentence is this: ‘For the first two hundred years or so, his favourite pastime had been to throw himself under the speeding hooves of horses.’  Our reckless friend is Leilo, ‘the Collector’, who wanders the streets of Venice with his cart, collecting ‘all that was worn out, discarded or dead.’  But perhaps he’s not that reckless after all, for a concoction he drank four centuries previously (it is now 1546) has left him unable to die – not that his body is still in perfect condition.

Leilo is one of several secondary viewpoint characters in this novel, but he  is not the ‘man’ referred to in the title.  That is Marin, whom we first meet as an infant at the San Barnabo Redentore Shelter for Foundlings.  Sister Clara recognises something in him: could he be her own child, the one she abandoned?  Believing so, she takes him from the shelter to raise herself (though, in the end, she dies while he is still a boy).  As Marin grows, he discovers that people see in him who they want to see, which sometimes even leads to his own physical appearance changing in sympathy.  This naturally leads to… various adventures.

I keep wanting to describe The Man Who Was Loved as ‘picaresque’, though I’m not entirely sure how far it is appropriate to use that word.  I wouldn’t say the book was a picaresque, not least because Marin doesn’t really seem to me to be a picaro (though other characters would fit that description quite well, notably the escaped eunuch and master of disguise Agostino).  No, MacCauley’s novel is more picaresque in the sense of being episodic.  Such an impression is perhaps inevitable given how short many of the chapters are, but it’s more than that: the whole novel seems structured to focus on Marin’s journey through life, rather than on any particular destination (however temporary the stay there may be).

This is fine as far as it goes, because the journey through the book (our journey as readers, at least) is enjoyable.  MacCauley’s prose is peppered with striking and insightful turns of phrase, such as this description of one character, the Contessa, as a hostess: ‘She plied her guests with food and gifts and addressed each that came as “true, dear friend,” because usually she did not know their names.’  Then there is the sustained interest in exactly where the events of Marin’s life will lead him next; not to mention scenes depicting some of the sights of Venetian life during the period.

I’ve chosen to gloss over the latter because, to a certain extent, Venice itself seems to fade into the background, so focused is the novel on Marin: the city is more a backdrop for his story than a place in its own right.  This isn’t a problem until the ending, when the mysterious plague afflicting Venice that has appeared intermittently throughout the book  swings to the fore.  The denouement seems to happen more suddenly than it should, upsetting the pace of the novel as a whole.

That’s not the only flaw in The Man Who Was Loved.  The author has an irritating tendency to switch viewpoint characters within the same scene (sometimes seemingly just to indicate that the stranger whom one character has met is already known to us from earlier on), which can make the book rather difficult to follow.  In additiion, some characters remain distant despite our being ‘in their shoes’ for part of the plot; for example (without wishing to spoil anything), I was never sure whether Agostino went as far as he did just because Marin caused him to be captured and enslaved previously.

As noted above, The Man Who Was Loved is more about journey than destination; so perhaps it is appropriate that I am not sure quite what to make of it ultimately.  By novel’s end, there has been a resolution of sorts; yet it’s clear that life will go on and the story has not ‘ended’ as such.  One of the book’s recurring themes is the mutability of identity: Marin’s changes depending on who is looking at him; Agostino disguises himself physically; the Contessa flatters others to maintain appearances; another character considers that ‘the truth of anybody’s life’ is merely ‘a rough piling together of all they had chosen to accept as real’ – but, despite all this, the theme doesn’t really seem to go anywhere, and I’m left unsure how much MacCauley intended to say about it.

In summary, The Man Who Was Loved is a promising début which is good whilst you’re reading it, but which feels somewhat less satisfying once you’ve finished.

Elsewhere
Telegram Books

Tim Casson, ‘The Overseer’ (2010)

18th May 2010 / / 1 Comment

Depression-era London: our narrator, Darius, was born into a wealthy family, but is now having to deal with the hard economic times and has taken a job in a factory. He discovers a dark secret at its heart, in the form of the mill’s mysterious masked overseer. Casson evokes the atmosphere of the factory particularly well, and the ending takes the story takes the story off in a fascinating new direction. But the metaphorical underpinning doesn’t seem fully coherent, leaving me with the sense of a story containing two or three ideas that sit quite uncomfortably alongside one another, good though Casson’s writing is.

This story appears in Black Static 16. Read all my posts about that issue here.

Orange Award for New Writers 2010: The shortlist

13th April 2010 / / 2 Comments

This morning, the shortlist for this year’s Orange Award for New Writers was announced; and, since it includes one of my favourite books from last year, I thought I’d blog the nominees. The full list is:

Jane Borodale, The Book of Fires

Irene Sabatini, The Boy Next Door

Evie Wyld, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice

I loved Evie Wyld’s book, so I’m very pleased to see it shortlisted — and I’ll be interested to discover how the other two titles compare. Congratulations to all three nominees!

Philippe Claudel, Brodeck’s Report (2007/9): Not the TV Book Group

7th February 2010 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

In the wake of The TV Book Club, four book bloggers (Lynne Hatwell of Dovegreyreader Scribbles, Simon Savidge of Savidge Reads, Kirsty of Other Stories, and Kimbofo of Reading Matters) have launched their own online reading group, which they’re calling ‘Not the TV Book Group’. The group will run fortnightly on Sundays for sixteen weeks, with discussions being hosted on each blog in turn. The schedule is:

7 Feb – Philippe Claudel, Brodeck’s Report

21 Feb – Ali Shaw, The Girl with the Glass Feet 

7 Mar – Susan Sellers, Vanessa and Virginia

21 Mar – Jennifer Johnston, The Illusionist

11 Apr – Mary Swan, The Boys in the Trees

25 Apr – Neil Bartlett, Skin Lane

9 May – Jon Canter, A Short Gentleman

23 May – Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling

I thought it would be interesting to join in, which I’ll try to do for all eight books (though, of course, we’ll see how well I manage!). For now, though, let’s turn to the first selection, Brodeck’s Report by the French writer Philippe Claudel (very well translated by John Cullen). I’m hoping to make this review more reactive than usual, so I’ll be looking out for commentary elsewhere online and maybe updating this post as the day goes on (and, of course, commenting on the actual discussion when it goes live). First of all, here’swhat I thought:

My view

One night, in a remote village somewhere in post-war Europe (Claudel is deliberately vague about place and time in the novel), there is a murder. The victim is known only as ‘the Anderer‘ (‘the Other’), a colourful stranger who arrived in the village from who-knows-where, and immediately drew fascination (gradually turning to suspicion) with his unusual dress and manner.

The Anderer has been killed by men of the village, who ask Brodeck — a villager who didn’t witness those events, but has attended university and so (the logic goes) can write — to produce a report on what happened, so there can be an authoritative statement. Alongside his report, Brodeck writes a second account, which forms the text of Claudel’s novel; this longer account covers not only matters concerning the Anderer, but also key events of Brodeck’s life — including his time in a concentration camp.

Brodeck’s Report comes garlanded with many glowing quotes from newspaper reviews; I’m not quite as thoroughly enthusiastic about the novel as they appear to be, but I still think it’s a very good book. Claudel’s central theme, I think, is that, given the right circumstances, anyone could be party to monstrous acts; there are strong parallels between the villagers’ treatment of the Anderer, and Brodeck’s treatment by the camp guards — and even Brodeck himself is not entirely innocent. This is a powerful demonstration of how even apparently ordinary, decent individuals could come to do the worst.

One of the most striking things about Brodeck’s Report is Claudel’s construction of the novel. Instead of taking a linear approach, he moves backwards and forwards between times and events — sometimes even within the same passage — yet never loses his control over the narrative. As the threads swirl around and move inexorably towards their conclusions, the story itself becomes a kind of net, mirroring the way that the characters become snared by events, prejudice, and social pressures. Claudel’s prose (and, of course, Cullen’s translation) succeeds at more detailed levels, too; there are some very well written, highly affecting scenes (often concerning some of the plot’s most harrowing events).

I doubt I’d have read Brodeck’s Report if not for this book group (actually, never mind that, I wouldn’t even have heard of it) — but I’m glad I did, and I look forward to seeing what others have made of it.

Updates

11.10 – The discussion is now underway at Dovegreyreader Scribbles.

Nadifa Mohamed, Black Mamba Boy (2010)

24th January 2010 / / 5 Comments

Black Mamba Boy is based on the story of Nadifa Mohamed’s father, Jama, whom we first meet as a street child in Aden in 1935. When he falls out irrevocably with his friends, then loses his mother, Jama resolves to set out and find Guure, his own long-missing father, last heard of heading for Sudan – which is not nearly as far as Jama will travel over the course of the following twelve years.

Though it tells Jama’s story, this isn’t a straightforwardly biographical novel; from interviews, I gather that Mohamed embellished some parts, and that others were perhaps embellished already. Throughout, one is reminded that we make stories out of our lives: Mohamed’s introduction/prologue, where she describes the inspiration for her book, is novelistic in tone and style; the departure of Jama’s father becomes a tale to tell, as does the origin of his mother’s nickname for her son (a mamba slithered over her while she was pregnant with him, but left both unharmed – hence the nickname Goode, or ‘black mamba’); people displaced by the Second World War tell stories that transform their homelands into a distant paradise, whatever the reality was that they left behind.

Mohamed’s narrative itself has the feeling of being told rather than written, with its long, discursive paragraphs; and its structure, swooping in on certain events, then back out again to continue Jama’s journey. What’s striking is that, whatever happens to Jama, one never doubts his story within the pages of the novel. Mohamed’s voice has the ring of truth – the truth of the storyteller.

There are, however, moments when Black Mamba Boy stumbles; they tend to be when Mohamed is acting as the 21st-century person looking back on history, rather than as the novelist inhabiting the period. Compare, for example, her statement that ‘at his tender age [Jama]…could [not] imagine the kind of mechanised, faceless slaughter the Italians would bring to Africa’ (157) with the passage describing a battle a few pages later (165-8), which really evokes the sense of Jama’s (and others’) being caught up in events larger than any one person could ever hope to comprehend. There’s no question, to my mind, which is the better technique.

(Another issue with the novel is the odd typo, in particular Mohamed’s tendency to use a comma in place of a semi-colon; this happens often enough to be distracting, which is especially a problem when the flow of the story is so important.)

The wider historical context of Black Mamba Boy is one about which I know rather little, so I’m reluctant to judge how Mohamed represents history. But I will say that I have an abiding impression of Jama and others – individuals, peoples, nations – enduring circumstances almost too harrowing for words, and doing what they can to survive. Some make it through; others don’t. Jama survives, of course, and one might say that the trait of his that most shines through in the novel is his tenacity, his striving to grasp the opportunities that come along, however steep the obstacles. What a story he had to tell; what a story Nadifa Mohamed has told.

Further links
Video interview with Nadifa Mohamed
Article by Mohamed on writing Black Mamba Boy

Jim Williams, The Argentinian Virgin (2009)

19th January 2010 / / 0 Comments

In occupied France, shortly before the US would enter the war, a young Irish writer named Patrick Byrne falls in with a group of four glamorous Americans; with both their nations neutral states, the five take advantage of the ability to travel around as they please. One of the Americans, Tom Rensselaer, becomes infatuated with Katerina Malipiero, an enigmatic young woman living with her mother Teresa in an old villa.

Tom ingratiates himself with the Malipieros and, after a while, finds himself being called upon by them. They have found the dead body of Alvírez, a recent arrival to the town, in their villa; unable to account for its appearance, Teresa and Katerina secretly enlist Tom’s help in disposing of the body. The truth of what happened does not emerge for another twenty years, when Pat decides to find out how Tom Rensselaerd declined into the wreck of a man that he became.

I’ve got to admit that Jim Williams‘ The Argentinian Virgin didn’t truly grab me. I think that’s because Williams uses a structure that seems to me to work against what he’s trying to achieve. The main point of the novel seems to be show how the course of Tom’s life was set by those events in 1940s France. But the movement of the story is towards the climactic revelation of what happened to Alvírez; whilst Tom’s psychological deterioration takes place to one side of the narrative — we hear about it, but don’t witness it. For me, that breaks the emotional connection between events, and the true impact is lost.

I appereciate Williams’ historical portrait, and his depiction of how love might drive people to commit desperate acts. But I didn’t connect with the heart of the novel in the way I’d hoped; so The Argentinian Virgin ends up being no more than an average read in my view.

M.C. Scott, Rome: The Emperor’s Spy (2010)

9th January 2010 / / 4 Comments

This book is a follow-up to Manda Scott‘s Boudica series of novels (2003-6), which I’ve not read; unfortunately, that makes a difference, as I’ll explain shortly. The Emperor’s Spy is set during the reign of Nero, who tasks one Sebastos Abdes Pantera with investigating — and preventing the fulfillment of — a propecy that Rome will burn. Panter’a journey will take him from northern Gaul, to Alexandria, then to Rome itself.

Most of the key characters in The Emperor’s Spy seem to have a history that extends back into the previous series — so much so that I felt at a distinct disadvantage not knowing exactly who Scott had carried over, and what had happened to them. It didn’t stop me following the novel but, like joining a conversation halfway through, I had to manage without the context that would have made my passage smoother.

That said, I found the novel pretty good. Scott is good at integrating historical detail without it seeming intrusive, and evoking the sensations of her setting (though I don’t know the Roman period well enough to judge the authenticity of Scott’s re-creation).  In addition, her thrills-n-spills action sequences — so central to this kind of story — do all the thrilling that they should.

More Rome books are planned, so would I read another one? I think I’d have to read the Boudica series first . Would I try a Boudica novel? Yes, I think I probably would.

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