The effect of the novel is strange. The prose style is distinctive but hard to pin down – both sparse (with most action taking place off stage, short The effect of the novel is strange. The prose style is distinctive but hard to pin down – both sparse (with most action taking place off stage, short sentences, dialogue without speech marks or attribution, rapid listings of historical or political developments) and descriptive (almost overwroughtly lyrical and at times close to clichéd).
The novel has a strong start which seems to take the book into Rushdie territory (two twins with different outlooks on life seemingly as a metaphor for India’s decision whether to turn East or West/Left or Right) but then largely drops this after Udayan’ death.
Similarly we feel that we only really get to know the characters (especially Guari and Bella) and their motivations, and hear Udayan’s voice in the closing section of the book.
The main part of the book is much more of a typical arty American book set in Academia with little happening other than the usual dramas. The overall effect though is much greater than the sum of the parts....more
The first part of the book is set in a Zimbabwe shanty town Paradise where Darling and her friends live in Really a book of two parts and two styles.
The first part of the book is set in a Zimbabwe shanty town Paradise where Darling and her friends live in extreme poverty raiding white areas for guavas. The book captures well the mix of childhood fun and the surrounding horrors and has interesting and authentic seeming insights but feels like at times a check list of all African themes (a black raid on a White area; a faith preacher; a witchdoctor; Chinese construction; political excitement followed by disillusionment when the opposition parties don’t win followed by an attack on the key opposition ringleader ; South African mines; a father that dies of AIDS; child rape; NGOs distributing gifts and taking photos of children ashamed of the clothes they are wearing; reporters and journalists covering a political funeral, relatives abroad).
Then Charity moves to America to live with her Aunt – this section reflects on the life of immigrants missing Africa, disillusioned that they can’t access the full American dream, losing connections with those left in Africa although pestered by them for money but is weaker as it has some strange episodes particularly a relative who becomes more and more convinced he is back in Africa as a witch doctor.
An easy and enjoyable read but not really a gripping one – perhaps more like a series of short stories than a coherent novel....more
Very short tale narrated by Mary in Ephesus harangued by (it seems) two of the gospel writers to help them write their stories and reflecting on her sVery short tale narrated by Mary in Ephesus harangued by (it seems) two of the gospel writers to help them write their stories and reflecting on her son’s death, baffled by his miracles - especially the mysterious resurrection of Lazarus and his transformation in confidence, in despair at the needy and inadequate disciples, ashamed at her fleeing from the cross to avoid arrest from a Roman/Jewish leader clamp down on all his followers, taking some consolation in Artemis.
The story has a symbolic setting: a peasant village in deep country evocative of 15th-16th Century England. The events of the work take place over oneThe story has a symbolic setting: a peasant village in deep country evocative of 15th-16th Century England. The events of the work take place over one week which includes the harvest festival.
Incredibly evocative book – the writing drips with the atmosphere of Harvest, of the rhythm of seasons and the timelessness of the villagers’ life, of the land and nature as an unceasing master. Key themes are: clearly the Enclosure and the abrupt change it engendered in an almost ageless bucolic lifestyle; creation and the fall – with ideas of labour, banishment, boundary stones, seven days, punishment visited on the innocent; belonging/kinship and exclusion....more
An involving, memorable book, packed (if not over packed) with ideas and themes – those addressed in the appendices are both implicit and explicit durAn involving, memorable book, packed (if not over packed) with ideas and themes – those addressed in the appendices are both implicit and explicit during the book: Nao/Ruth, Nao/her grandmother, her father and great uncle, Nao and her father are all entangled; the story at the end as well as Nao’s father’s device evoke parallel universes, and Ruth and her husband end by discussing different paths their own lives could have taken before concluding that for now they are happy in the universe they currently live in; as Ruth reads the book sequentially without skipping to the end, Nao and her father like Schrodinger’s cat remain suspended in uncertainty between death and life; Nao’s great grandmother’s thoughts lead Nao and then Ruth into Zen type contemplation.
A myriad of other themes and complexities are also woven in – for example identity and empathy in a world where everyone blogs (Milan Kundera thoughts on a world where everyone is a writer and no one a reader are explicitly woven in); bullies and victims; being an outsider – both Nao and Ruth on the small close knit Canadian island; the natural world and man’s interaction with it; time and existence – Nao is haunted by the idea of always living in the past, her journal is written inside a hacked out cover of “In search of Lost time” and she thinks of people as “time beings”, her own name is “Now” but she doesn’t understand how to experience the present...more
Complex novel written like say The Quincunx as a pastiche of a complex Victorian crime melodrama but with a very strong stylistic device (astrology) wComplex novel written like say The Quincunx as a pastiche of a complex Victorian crime melodrama but with a very strong stylistic device (astrology) which completely drives the plot.
The book is set in a newly established frontier town in the gold fields of South New Zealand. Walter Moody arrives on a ship where he has encountered a ghostly aspiration of a man apparently locked in a crate for the journey (if well fed) who has seemingly suffered a recent bullet wound. He accidentally stumbles on an assembly of seven men - a Maori greenstone hunter and guide, two Chinese (an opium den owner and an indentured miner and goldsmith), a chaplain (Devlin), a banking clerk (Frost), a legal clerk (Gascoigne), a hotelier (Clinch), a newspaper owner (Lowenthal), a local owner of goldfields, theatres and the local whorehouse (Mannering), the local chemist (Pritchard), a shipping agent (Balfour), a commission merchant (Nilssen). They reveal that they have gathered as all feel themselves implicated in a serious of local mysteries.
A few months previously on the day that the prospective MP (Lauderback) visited town, the local prostitute (Anna Weatherell) was found incapacitated in the street and suspected of attempted suicide by opium overdose, a recluse (Crosbie Wells) was discovered dead and then his estate was found to contain a fortune in gold, a young but successful prospector (Emery Staines) disappeared. Mixed up in the story are also a local shipowner and villain (Carver), his soon wife and the widow of Wells and an astrologer (Lydia Wells) and the local gallery (Shepherd).
The 12 men represent the signs of the zodiac, the seven other characters celestial bodies and the book is further divided into 12 zodiacal sections which stand in the golden ratio to each other in length.
The book seems like it can largely be read without more than a passing consideration of the Astrological elements other than in one crucial aspect which is revealed late on and explains the strangest aspects of the plot. Understanding this it becomes clear that the Zodiacal references almost entirely drive the plot, the characters and their interactions.
An interesting and admirable book but only really due to this revelation which makes the book worth re-studying briefly, however it simply is not a thrilling or engrossing enough tale to really repay the full study of these interactions - albeit its clear that the author carried out extensive research (which for example included even working out the relative position of planetary bodies on each day of the plot in the relevant location)....more
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer
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2013-booker-shortlist
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