Tag: literature

Booker genre

28th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

This hasn’t passed without comment, but I wanted to add my own thoughts. In a Guardian article on the Man Booker longlist, Mark Brown notes the lack of genre fiction, and reports the comments of Andrew Motion, chair of the judges: “Motion said they had not consciously set out to exclude genre but stressed that the Man Booker prize was an award for literary fiction and there were plenty of prizes for crime and sci-fi.”

I’d agree with Niall Harrison that this comment doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I’d agree with Cheryl Morgan that it paints ‘literary fiction’ as just another genre. Most of all, though, I think it needlessly cuts people off from good and interesting fiction.

The view expressed by Motion just doesn’t reflect what I see when I look at the fiction being written today. I see literature of quality in all categories of fiction (that’s what I think ‘literary’ should mean). And the boundaries are blurred (I’ll focus here on fantastic fiction, as it’s what I know best): even on the Booker longlist, there are at least four books that seem to be to have been written to some degree with a fantastical sensibility (Donoghue, McCarthy, Mitchell, and Murray).

Look at the Edge Hill Prize for short fiction, which happily reaches across the spectrum – and which, for the past two years, has been awarded to collections with fantastical stories. The Booker is impoverishing itself by not taking a similarly inclusive approach – and, as a result, people are missing a chance to hear about books that may well be of interest to them.

Maria Barbal, Stone in a Landslide (1985/2010)

28th July 2010 / / 6 Comments

“I feel like a stone after a landslide. If someone or something stirs it, I’ll come tumbling down with the others. If nothing comes near, I’ll be here, still, for days and days…” (89)

Maria Barbal’s Stone in a Landslide (first published in Catalan in 1985, and now available in English for the first time, thanks to Peirene Press) is the life story of Conxa, who is sent away as a child, in the early years of the twentieth century, to live with and work for her aunt and uncle. The years pass, she falls in love with a young man named Jaume, they marry and have children – and then their lives are disrupted by the Spanish Civil War. But, of course, life continues beyond even this.

Like Laura McGloughlin’s and Paul Mitchell’s translation (which has the kind of precise simplicity that deflects attention away from it), Conxa’s life both is and isn’t as ordinary as it appears, in the sense that all lives can be – and are, in their own way – extraordinary at times, just as a simple stone can be part of an extraordinary landslide. Conxa’s life is one lived largely for, and in relation to, other people: right at the start, she is sent away from home because there isn’t enough room for her in the house; when she falls in love with Jaume, she becomes a different person and defines herself by him (“Now I could only be Jaume’s Conxa” [42]); growing old comes almost as a surprise to Conxa, because she has been so used to seeing her children grow, and suddenly they’re adults.

What I find most striking about Stone in a Landslide is the way that key historical events are experienced (or not, as the case may be) through the domesticity of Conxa’s existence; Jaume is political, but Conxa has no knowledge or interest, and it’s a rude awakening for her when history finally intrudes on her life.

Stone in a Landslide is a quiet study of a life, a life whose treasures vanish all too soon, before the woman living it fully grasped what they were. But the book remains, and its treasures are plain to see.

Elsewhere
Some other reviews of Stone in a Landslide: Winstonsdad; Novel Insights; A Common Reader.
Peirene Press

Man Booker longlist 2010

27th July 2010 / / 14 Comments

The longlist of the 2010 Man Booker Prize was announced earlier today. I was curious to see what would be on there, and how it would map against what I’d read. Without further ado, the thirteen nominated novels are:

Peter Carey, Parrot and Oliver in America

Emma Donoghue, Room

Helen Dunmore, The Betrayal

Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room

Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

Andrea Levy, The Long Song

Tom McCarthy, C

David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Lisa Moore, February

Paul Murray, Skippy Dies

Rose Tremain, Trespass

Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap

Alan Warner, The Stars in the Bright Sky

And the total number of those books which I’ve read is… one. But it is one of the best books I’ve read all year (indeed, it’s my favourite from all those I’ve read which were eligible) – so I’m enormously pleased to see Skippy Dies on the longlist.

Half of the remaining titles are, at first glance, of interest to me. I’ve already got C and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet lined up to read over the next couple of weeks, and Room has also been on my radar. Beyond those, In a Strange Room sounds interesting; I’m intrigued by the reaction I’ve read to The Slap; and I enjoyed Rose Tremain’s previous novel, so I may well give Trespass a whirl.

The other six books are largely unknown to me (I think The Long Song is the only one of which I’d heard). Any thoughts on those, or on the list as a whole?

(NB. Any links in the list above are to my reviews of the books.)

Pen Pusher Magazine 15: Spring-Summer 2010

24th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

Okay , so I’m reading Pen Pusher (‘Where new writing finds its voice’) for the first time – and a good read it is, too. It’s a varied selection of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction; but, as usual, I’ll be concentrating here on the prose fiction – which gives us:

Wayne Holloway-Smith, ‘Big Time’
An extract from the author’s debut novel, about one Dexter Hammond, who wants to be famous and thinks he’s found an unoccupied niche for a ‘rock ‘n’ roll preacher’. On the basis of this extract, Holloway-Smith’s novel is certainly one I’d want to read, because this is hilarious. Hammond is full of his own self-importance, and so desperate to be cool that one winces at seeing him try to emulate the latest-big-thing rock star, Tristan Rasclott – but, by the end of the piece, it’s starting to look as if Hammond might pull it off. I’ll be interested to read whether he does.

Grace Andreacchi, ‘Ikebana’
A short piece about a woman waiting at an ikebana demonstration for her older lover. There’s a subtlety and depth to this story, as Andreacchi portrays the doubts and conflicting emotions experienced by her protagonist. The woman’s changing attitudes to ikebana – at first, she thinks she’s not interested in it, then maybe she is, but maybe not – reflect her thoughts on her relationship. An insightful tale.

Ruth Davis, ‘End-of-Life Liaison’
This is a story about one of those things which one hopes will never happen, and which probably won’t, but to which there’s a certain nagging plausibility all the same. In this case, it’s that, in the face of continued pressure on resources because of an ageing population, anyone who reaches the age of 85 is compulsorily euthanised. It’s the routine way in which Davis’s fictional authorities handle this which makes the story particularly chilling – the policy has its own acronyms (such as ‘MPA’ or ‘Maximum Permitted Age’), and those approaching 85 are offered ‘End-of Life Counselling’. Davis’s tale follows one octogenarian, George Herbert, as he attends this counselling and unexpectedly presented with a possible way out. All is presented in a very down-to-earth manner, which gives the story its power.

Ross Sutherland, ‘Unexpected Flow’
During a school trip to London, young Connor ditches the rest of his party and wanders around Tate Modern, listening all the while to a Jay-Z album. This may not sound like much when I summarise it like that, but it’s the rhythm of Sutherland’s telling that makes the story work, with the rap lyrics acting as a counterpoint to the events. I could imagine ‘Unexpected Flow’ working very well as a short film.

Sarah Day, ‘Exposure’
A woman agrees to be the muse of an artist-geologist whom she knew as a child, and with whom she becomes reacquainted by chance as an adult, but it turns out to be a bad idea. This is a carefully written piece that builds up detail to create an effective study of both the narrator and the artist.

Michael Amherst, ‘What I Feel’
Another good character study, this time of a man who struggles to feel to feel any emotion about anything, and is now present when a woman falls from a railway platform and is run over by a train. The twist in the story is perhaps no great surprise; but that’s less important than the cold tone of the prose, which brings the character to life vividly.

Elsewhere in this issue of Pen Pusher, we find: a selection of poetry; some interesting reviews; an interview with Diana Athill, which makes me want to read her work; an interview with Helen Oyeyemi, which would make me want to read her work, except I’ve already done so and know how good it is; a superb non-fiction piece by Susan Barker about her time staying in China whilst studying Mandarin;  Paul Francis’s reflective graphic tale, ‘Tidalism’; a list of literary quotations about horses; and even more besides.

Links
Pen Pusher website
Websites of contributors mentioned: Michael Amherst; Grace Andreacchi; Paul Francis; Ross Sutherland.

Jonathan L. Howard, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer (2009): The Zone review

20th July 2010 / / 0 Comments

The Zone website is now carrying my review of Jonathan L. Howard’s debut novel, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer. It’s a comedy in which Johannes Cabal seeks to get his soul back from the Devil, who demands a hundred other souls in return. Cabal has a carnival at his disposal to assist with this, but, of course, it’s not that straightforward.

I found Johannes Cabal the Necromancer to be moderately successful, and gave it 3 stars. You can read the full review (which includes some more general thoughts on comic fantasy) by clicking on the link below.

Elsewhere
My review at The Zone
Some other reviews of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer: Amanda at Floor to Ceiling Books; Matt McAllister for Total Sci-Fi.
Jonathan L. Howard’s website

Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death (2010)

18th July 2010 / / 3 Comments

This is the first time I have read any of Nnedi Okorafor’s work, and I suspect that what I’m about to write will not do justice to Who Fears Death. I suspect that I’ve seen only a fraction of what there is to see in the novel, but I’ll try to put my impressions into words nevertheless.

Some distance in the future, when disaster and the weight of centuries have turned our present time into echoes, a girl named Onyesonwu – ‘Who Fears Death’ – is born of violence, her Okeke mother raped by a Nuru man, as part of a concerted effort by the latter tribe to wipe out the former (Okorafor draws parallels in the book with the situation in present-day Sudan). Onyesonwu is thus Ewu, with sand-coloured skin and hair – a social outcast.

And there is something else which marks Onyesonwu out as different: she has powerful juju, of which shapeshifting is merely one of the first manifestations. This normally being the preserve of men, Onyesonwu has to push against multiple barriers in her desire to learn more. But learn she does and, in the course of doing so, discovers that her biological father, Daib, is himself a powerful sorcerer who wishes her dead. Onyesonwu resolves to take her revenge on the Nuru general, and sets out across the desert with a group of friends, and Mwita, the boy she loves – and finds that her reputation has preceded her.

There are many different aspects of Who Fears Death on which one could focus, but the one that stands out to me is the way in which it interrogates a standard literary template – namely, the  fantasy quest; I think Okorafor does that as thoroughly as China Miéville did in Perdido Street Station, albeit in a rather different way. The structure of Who Fears Death is superficially that of a quest fantasy – a band of companions crosses a landscape to defeat an antagonist intent on taking over the world of the book; there’s also a prophecy concerning the fate of the world, which could be fulfilled by either Onyesonwu or Daib – but the end result does not play out in the way one might typically expect of that form.

For example, Onyesonwu is not a straightforwardly ‘heroic’ protagonist: she is prone to anger, may at times be hated by her friends, and the use of her powers can result in death and destruction. The protagonist may actually be every bit as dangerous as her enemy. Though Who Fears Death tells of someone overcoming the obstacles to truly become herself, it’s a rite of passage that comes at great cost to Onyesonwu, those close to her, and the wider world.

Something else that particularly struck me about the novel is that Okorafor includes some aspects which would normally drive a fantasy novel straight off the rails for me (such as the exercise of mighty, world-changing magical powers), but which don’t seem so problematic in the context of Who Fears Death. I think there are several reasons why this is so, One is that the sorcery is very well woven into the fictional world; one accepts easily that this is how that world is. Furthermore, all this power does not come without consequence in the book: it may cause great pain, even when used for beneficial purposes; and there is often a price to be paid for the use of magic – and not always paid by Onyesonwu.

So, that’s what I took away most from Who Fears Death. Sampling some of the other online commentary on the book, it seems that others have found a range of things to talk about. To me, that’s a sign of a rich work of fiction; I’d recommend Who Fears Death as a book well worth reading.

Elsewhere
Some other reviews of Who Fears Death: Matthew Cheney for Rain Taxi; Carol Cooper for The Village Voice; Zetta Brown for The New York Journal of Books.
Nnedi Okorafor’s website

Tim Davys, Amberville (2007/9)

16th July 2010 / / 6 Comments

This is the first book I’ve read for the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge; I thought I might start my posts on the challenge with a few words on why I selected the books I did. It’s quite straightforward with Amberville: anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that I have a soft spot for odd books, and this was the most obviously odd title on the list – a noir thriller with a cast of stuffed animals.

The story goes like this: Eric Bear has a happy life, married to the beautiful Emma Rabbit and with a good job in advertising. But, in his past, Eric was involved with some shady characters, one of whom now comes calling – Nicholas Dove, who has heard that his name is on the Death List, which means (if the tales are to be believed) that the Chauffeurs will shortly come to escort him on the ultimate one-way journey. Dove demands that Eric find the Death List and get his name removed from it, or Emma will be the one who pays the price. The job should be straightforward enough, because the Death List is just a fable; but Eric gets his old gang back together all the same – and, of course, the truth proves more complicated than anyone thought.

So, this Scandinavian crime novel (the author is Swedish; ‘Tim Davys’ is a pseudonym) is far from the norm, and could have been ridiculous – but it’s not. What is perhaps most striking about Amberville is that Davys tells his tale with a completely straight face; one might laugh briefly at the thought of, say, a stuffed dove walking around with two stuffed gorillas for heavies, but not for very long, because it’s not funny at all in the context of the story – it’s deadly serious. Davys creates his world with such integrity that one can’t help but take it seriously. His control of voice is also superb, switching between different characters whose voices are all distinctive, no matter how brief their turn at narration (and here, I must also acknowledge Paul Norlen’s excellent work as translator).

Driving the plot of Amberville is a mystery – is there a Death List, and, if so, who’s behind it? – which is deeper for reader s than it is for the characters, because we have more questions to ask: what is this place, Mollisan Town, inhabited by walking, talking, living stuffed animals? What goes on behind the scenes to make it all work (the inhabitants of Mollisan Town know that the young animals are manufactured somewhere and delivered to the city in vans, but no one thinks to question any further)?

Well, Amberville is the first novel in a series (though that’s not clear from the edition I was reading), so the answers aren’t all forthcoming here. That’s not a problem in itself, but I do think it has a knock-on effect – it seems to me that the major revelations for this volume are made some time before the end, leaving the rest of the book to be mostly i-dotting and t-crossing, which feels somewhat anti-climactic. This is unfortunate, because most of the rest of Amberville is pacy and engaging (with an added helping of speculation about the nature of good and evil, courtesy of Eric’s brother Teddy).

My misgivings about the conclusion of Amberville make me feel a little less inclined to find out where Davys takes his series; but the momentum of the earlier parts of the book is considerable. It’s worth a look, I think.

Elsewhere
Some other reviews of Amberville: Jane Bradley at For Books’ Sake; Presenting Lenore; Mike Krings; Mur Lafferty.

Nick Arvin, The Reconstructionist (2010)

14th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

Ellis Barstow is an engineering graduate who still hasn’t found his métier, until a chance encounter with Heather Gibson, his half-brother Christopher’s ex-girlfriend,  leads to Ellis taking a job with Heather’s husband, John Boggs, in the forensic reconstruction of traffic accidents. The relationship between Ellis and Boggs is as much one of friends as one of boss  and employee; but Ellis is conducting an affair with Heather – and, when Boggs finds out, he storms off on a tour of crash sites, leaving Ellis to track him down. And, before novel’s end, Ellis will have cause to re-evaluate much in his life, including the fatal accident that claimed Christopher.

Perhaps more than any other novel I have read recently, The Reconstructionist is driven by poetic logic: key events happen more because they fit the pattern of metaphor Arvin is setting up – namely , the comparison of accident reconstruction with that of ‘reconstructing a person’s life and motives. This does allow one to look back to the telling with a certain satisfaction – one can see that, yes, maybe that set of circumstances was a little unlikely, but it was right for the story. However, I feel the book sags a little too much in the middle, spending too long on Ellis’s search for Boggs, to build properly to its ending. Still, Arvin’s prose is smooth, successfully evoking a character for whom detail is vital, without getting swamped with too much of that detail. The Reconstructionist is a decent enough short read, but unfortunately not as satisfying in the round as one would wish.

Elsewhere
Nick Arvin’s website

Matt Haig, The Radleys (2010)

7th July 2010 / / 6 Comments

There isn’t exactly a dearth of vampire fiction around at the moment, so it would take something quite distinctive to stand out from the crowd. I think Matt Haig’s new novel manages to do just that. The Radleys may appear to be a normal family living in a sleepy North Yorkshire town; but parents Peter and Helen keep a dark secret from their neighbours, and even from their children – The Radleys are a family of abstaining vampires.

The secrecy can’t last forever, though. When young Clara Radley is attacked by Stuart Harper, a boy from school, she defends herself by biting his hand, which draws blood; that first taste gives Clara a strength that she’s never known, and a desire for more – Harper doesn’t stand a chance. Peter does his best to cover up the killing, and (against Helen’s wishes) calls on his brother Will, a practising vampire with hypnotic powers and a distinct lack of morals. The careful charade of the Radleys’ existence may be about to come to an end.

There are two things which, to my mind, make The Radleys work so well. One is that the book has the conviction to take its central idea seriously. Sure, there are some jokes – about, for example, the hidden perils of modern middle-class life (garlic in the salad dressing!), or vampire pop-culture (songs like ‘Ain’t That a Bite in the Neck’) – but the underlying tone is not whimsical, but quite matter-of-fact. What could have been played entirely for laughs instead has some dramatic heft.

What combines with this seriousness of tone to make the book such a success is that Haig roots his story so firmly in everyday life, and, by doing so, he is able to move beyond it. The problems of the Radleys are the problems of many a family like theirs – teenage children trying to work out their own identities, parents wishing to protect them from life’s dangers but not necessarily being able to, and so on – but given a particular twist because they’re vampires. It is tempting (and possible, to a degree) to read the vampirism as a metaphor –think of it as a murky past, for example, with Will the wayward uncle who might lead the kids astray; for blood, read booze or whatever – but I don’t think anything fits quite perfectly. And I’d say that’s a good thing – the fantastic is more real within the story if can’t easily be reduced to a single metaphor.

It would be reasonable to observe, I think, that The Radleys is not doing anything drastically original. But it is different enough from the norm, and so well crafted, that it’s a great pleasure to read.

Elsewhere

Reviews of The Radleys at Chrissie’s Corner and Book Chick City
Matt Haig’s website
Canongate

Rowan Somerville, The Shape of Her (2010)

5th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

There are three narrative strands in The Shape of Her, Rowan Somerville’s second novel. The main one takes place in the present day, and concerns a young couple, Max and Tine, who are spending the summer together on the Greek island where Tine holidayed as a child. All begins happily, as Max particularly is full of the joys of young love; but Tine grows standoffish, and it becomes apparent that the secrets of the past may be about to resurface. The two other strands delve into the protagonists’ childhoods – specifically Tine’s holidays on the island, and Max’s time at boarding school – to explore what’s behind the events of the present, before everything converges at the end…

I’m torn, here: I think some aspects of The Shape of Her are very good, but then I have reservations about the whole. On the plus side, Somerville has a deft turn of phrase; for example, one image that stood out to me was when Max and Tine were described as sitting on their plane,  drinking ‘brackish coffee from  cups  the colour of prosthetic limbs’ – I find this such an unexpected comparison, yet it works so well in conveying just what those cups of coffee must look and taste like, and the atmosphere in which they’re being drunk. Also, the three plot-lines contrast each other well, as we gain a very different view of the two protagonists – Tine’s first-person voice when narrating her memories is much spikier than Max’s love-struck view of her might lead one to anticipate; and Max was almost a completely different person at school, a sense only added to by the use of his surname in that strand.

With so much that’s good, why the reservations? It’s the resolution of the three narratives that doesn’t quite work for me. The two childhood strands inform the ending of the present-day one in a way that seems to me to reduce their own intrinsic interest – as though the main focus is on what they can give to the contemporary narrative, and less on what they might offer in their own right. But, even if the destination of The Shape of Her may not be everything one might hope for, the journey is still an interesting one to make.

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