He is about to answer {another of David’s interminable questions} about to produce the correct, patient educative words, when something wells up in
He is about to answer {another of David’s interminable questions} about to produce the correct, patient educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No more than that. Despair?
I re-read this book, together with “Childhood of Jesus” and “Death of Jesus” back to back in a single day following publication of the third (and final) volume in the trilogy.
My reviews of the first and third volumes are here:
The second book picks up where the first finishes – Ynes, Simón and David reach the countryside town and initially work on a farm as labourers.
Later Ynes gets a job in the City and sponsored by three sisters who own the farm, David joins an academy of Dance, where he flourishes despite the disquiet of Simón and Ynes with the methods of the Academy – which relies on some pseudo-mystical connection between dance, numbers (which are seen very much the way David himself sees them as having their own identity and meaning) and astrology.
The academy is run by a husband and his cold but beautiful wife – she is murdered by the wild caretaker of the downstairs museum who has been telling everyone of his obsession with her and who confesses to her rape and murder (while hinting and effectively proving to Simón – who does not want to know – that he was actually having an active affair with her and strangled her simply to see what it was like).
David is obsessed with this character and his passion (as opposed to the boring Simón) – a character who is clearly inspired by Dostoevsky. As an aside I can only recommend people to read books by the publisher Dostoevsky Wannabe, rather than this misjudged attempt to be one.
David is more and more convinced he is a special child and is indulged by those around him to believe so. He and Simón have a strange relationship – Simón still feels parental responsibility for David, but the latter delights in making it clear to everyone that Simón is not his father and also annoys Simón with his persistent questioning, and refusal to accept the reality of life but to instead assume life should be fashioned around him to his own satisfaction and requirements.
The book ends even more strangely with Simón deciding to join the academy himself.
The second book is much weaker than the increasingly tiresome first
Before the end of the first book Simón tires of the austerity of the land and of the silly questioning of David. And we quickly tire of Coetzee’s writing and the disjointed superficial philosophical discussions.
By the second book this wearInéss is engrained from the very first page.
Further issues include:
The murderer character seems transported from another novel.
Coetzee adopts a device of using phrases like “Says he, Simón” in what is a third person book largely written from a single point of view. Hilary Mantel of course uses a similar device in “Bring Up The Bodies” itself a slight weakening of the incredibly effective unattributed “he/him” in “Wolf Hall” which brings us into Cromwell’s mind despite the third person voice. In this book however the effect is simply to add an additional layer of irritation to the reader – or at least this reader, Says he, Gumble’s Yard.
There is even a rather pathetic attempt at something done so much better by Douglas Adams (and unfortunately this seems deliberate given something in the third book)
Perhaps we should be scouring the world not for the true answer but for the true question.
But perhaps worst of all, David’s quasi-mystical view of numbers which is one of the oddest parts of the first novel becomes almost central, and worse than that linked with a rather ridiculous mix of performance dance and cod-astronomy.
And the very act of having a second book implies that Coetzee clearly has some form of intention for the novel whereas the first could in isolation been have read as an interesting experiment.
Our own reaction to the idea that there is some deep intent here, mirrors that of Simón to the mathematical dance.
Can you make sense of this? He whispers
He, Simón, soon loses interest.
No I don’t call it philosophy. Privately, I call it claptrap.
Initially a promising premise, the book simply meanders and too many of the parts of the book, the reader is effectively left to work out what is happInitially a promising premise, the book simply meanders and too many of the parts of the book, the reader is effectively left to work out what is happening (and more damningly does not really care).
Overall, a renowned short story writer has aimed unsuccessfully for his first novel with what could have made an excellent novella....more
Series of 9 novellas – the main protagonist of which is always male and which progress obviously through ages (from gap year to retirement).
The storieSeries of 9 novellas – the main protagonist of which is always male and which progress obviously through ages (from gap year to retirement).
The stories in turn feature:
Two gap-year travellers staying with a Czech (absent) husband and wife, who possibly wants to seduce the main character but to his disappointment seduces his friend instead when the main character does not respond;
A Frenchman on a very cheap holiday in a terrible hotel in Cyprus whose search for hedonism fails but who instead sleeps with a very overweight English girl and then her mother;
A Hungarian fitness instructor acting as security for a high-class prostitute visiting London who becomes obsessed with her;
A Belgian (but British based) academic in Germanic philology who finds his casual but regular lover is both pregnant and determined to keep the child;
The ambitious deputy-editor of a Danish tabloid who finds that one of his key political contacts is having an affair with a married woman and decides to break the story to promote his paper and career (after flying to Spain to confront him);
An English estate agent trying to establish his own business by persuading a owner of a low-budget chalet development in an obscure part of the French alps to partner with him to go into more up market and ambitious developments;
An alcoholic Scot drifting in Croatia – having originally gone there to live some type of playboy/beach lifestyle; a suicidal Russian oligarch who has just lost a major London court case and now faces ruin particularly as his wife sues for divorce;
A retired ex-diplomat, estranged from his ambitious wife not least due to his unfulfilled attraction to young men, having a melancholy stay in his Italian villa in an obscure part of Italy.
The third and fourth last are characters from the author’s other novels and the last character is the grandfather of the first – the novellas are otherwise unlinked other than in theme.
Other recurring motives include: the three ages of men; tarot cards representing past, present and future; brand names and cars, rain, travel and transition.
Key themes are:
Modern masculinity and a crisis of masculinity – the last character is reading Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 where he argues that such a Europe wide crisis of masculinity was a key factor in the key protagonists in the outbreak of war being unable to depart from what were clearly bad decisions One hundred years later the author’s characters are cut adrift by the modern world seeking but not finding sex, status and significance;
Travel across Europe (the book nearly being called Europa) – ironically (given the book's publication in the year of Brexit) the last character mentions that “he is aware of how weightless …. even strangely fictitious his achievements feel, even the ones he is proudest of like his minor part in negotiating … the expansion of the EU. Something, he is not sure what, seems to nullify them”;
A sense of life on the periphery , both physically – the chalets, the Cyprus holiday, the Croatian town, the non-Tuscan villa are all away from the centre of the action and metaphorically a sense of missed opportunity – the student missing out on the available sex, the bodyguard only able to watch the incredibly attractive girl, the Scot upset that the local kebab shop owners will acknowledge others in the town but ignore him even though he is there most regular customer, the pensioner now cut off from society and his family, the Russian oligarch losing his London establishment contacts – this theme is introduced early on with a quote from The Ambassadorsabout not making the mistake of losing the illusion of freedom.
An enjoyable and though provoking book – if not strictly a novel (hence stretching the rules of the Booker Prize).
The story’s narrator is a Chinese immigrant living with her mother in Vancouver – we learn quickly that in 1989 (when the narrator was only 10) her faThe story’s narrator is a Chinese immigrant living with her mother in Vancouver – we learn quickly that in 1989 (when the narrator was only 10) her father went to Hong Kong and killed himself. Shortly after a family acquaintance (seemingly the daughter of someone who knew her father in China) Ai Ming comes to stay with them, seemingly fleeing after Tiananmen Square. Ai Ming finds a set of notebooks that the narrator’s father owns, and identifies the writer of the pagers as her own father. Asked to read from the notebooks Ai Ming instead starts to tell the story of her own family and various other characters from the time of the Great Leap forward, through the Cultural Revolution and right up to Tiananmen Square.
The remainder of the book meanders through this story – largely chronologically and told as a story (although one we know written by the narrator based on what Aim Ming told her, based on at best first-hand accounts but often we realise family stories or even imaginative filling in of known detail. At times the story – (with chapters with count forwards to a pivotal point when the main characters are split by the cultural revolution, add then counts down to the end) – is split with the narrator speaking directly about her own quest.
The three main characters of the book are three musicians who meet at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Jaing Kai (we discover later the narrator’s father) – who was the only survivor from his family of the Great Famine, adopted by a professor he becomes a great concert pianist but when the Cultural Revolution comes his instincts for survival means he sides with the regime, later fleeing to Canada. Sparrow – a gifted composer and teacher at the school, largely denounced in the Cultural Revolution. Zhuli – the gifted violinist daughter of Sparrow’s Auntie and Uncle (who were sent to labour camps after various anti-landowner campaigns) and who is now bought up in Sparrow’s family – she hangs herself in the Cultural Revolution. Both are loved by Jaing Kai but he at best deserts then and possibly joins their denunciation. Sparrow is later killed in the protests around Tiananmen Square having just received an exit visa arranged by Jaing Kai who is waiting to meet him in Hong Kong and becomes (wrongly) convinced he has betrayed him again by his actions.
Common themes/memes which run through the story include: Book of Records – the story included in the notebooks: Sparrow’s parents first meet through the book Madeline Thienand later the book is used by the different characters to search for each other (leaving copies in meeting places) and also to encode some real stories by altering characters names; Glen Gould’s interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg variations.
The more general themes of storytelling and remembering and of classical music (and its various themes of repetition, variation and so on) run both implicitly and explicitly through the novel – and form a device for retelling a story of Chinese modern history whose very retelling is prescribed. Interestingly there is a hint at the book’s end and in the acknowledgements that herself has done what the different book’s characters did with the Book of Records and woven real stories and people into it.
Some of the writing is excellent and Andreï Makine like in its quality, yet at others times Madeline Thien will seemingly reproduce a paragraph from Wikipedia by way of historical exposition (mainly when the narrator is herself speaking directly), while at other times the Chinese politics or musical references becomes obscure to the point of incomprehensibility (albeit with perhaps a sense that much of what is happening is in a different sense incomprehensible to those living through it). Overall though this is an admirable attempt to explore modern Chinese history from the outside by trying to imagine and explore what is must have been like to live through it....more
A well written book – which although far from exceptional, builds over time and is in its way quietly powerful leaving a moving impression of broken rA well written book – which although far from exceptional, builds over time and is in its way quietly powerful leaving a moving impression of broken relationships, judgement and failed redemption, one which lingers and grows after the book is completed. ...more
Crime novel (pretending to be describing real events) set in a remote highlands croft in the mid-1800s – more of a “why did he do it” than a “whodunitCrime novel (pretending to be describing real events) set in a remote highlands croft in the mid-1800s – more of a “why did he do it” than a “whodunit”.
The key character in the book is Roddy Macrae – son of a crofter, who brutally murders another member of the local community Lachlan Mackenzie/Broad – who volunteers to become the local constable and pursues the position with passion, playing things by the letter of the law and using his office as an opportunity to bully others, but most particularly the Macrae family. At least according to Roddy’s account this finally causes him to snap and he murders Lachlan, his young son and his daughter who Roddy has fallen for.
The book starts with some brief witness statements; then the first main section is a detailed account of what happened supposedly compiled by Roddy while he was in prison at the urging of his solicitor; this it then followed by an extract from the journal of a famous criminologist who visited Roddy while in prison, and then visited Roddy’s home to get more background; the post mortem of the different victims is briefly reproduced; the second main section is a detailed account of the trial; the book then finishes with a brief account of an unsuccessful appeal by Roddy’s solicitor, and his attempts to publish Roddy’s prison journal only for the “penny dreadful’s to seize on the more horrific parts and leave Roddy commonly portrayed as a monster.
The strongest part of the book is the description of life on the croft, the powerlessness of the crofters against the landlord (and in turn the factor and local constable), the sheer backwardness of highlands life (even as seen by contemporaries), the stoicism and fatalism which both the crofters religious upbringing and their spiritualism (Roddy’s mother and sister in particular claim to have second sight) seems to have ingrained in them. The crime part is less convincing – the account drawn up by Roddy is implausibly coherent (this is acknowledged in the prelude and even at the time was a subject of dispute – but its unclear what other coherent explanation there is for the account given that it had to be written in the 3 week period between the crime and its publication immediately post-trial), the trial seems to bear no resemblance to standard law and has both solicitors seemingly arguing the other side’s case. Overall this could have been an intriguing crime novel or a convincing historical account – but ends up as a flawed mix of the two. ...more
A book long on pages but short in temporarily span - the book isn't over a single day in London and written from the third person viewpoint of two chaA book long on pages but short in temporarily span - the book isn't over a single day in London and written from the third person viewpoint of two characters. The action (in chapters titled by the time when they start) is interspersed with lengthy interior monologues - the latter are perhaps realistically disordered, but combining this with the "action" itself being largely the shifting thoughts of the characters (from a more exterior viewpoint) the book is particularly difficult to follow and large chunks of it can be (and perhaps are better) skim read: the rambling thoughts of others proving as uninteresting in their details as their dreams are popularly claimed to be. Perhaps admirably in one sense, the book avoids lengthy exposition, but as a result some of the activity hard to follow and the reader struggles to fully understand the characters motivations and back stories - clutching at aspects that are revealed like they are clues in a detective story.
The two main characters are Jon and Meg. Jon is a 50 something civil servant - increasingly frustrated by the spin required of him and the special advisers who surround ministers he starts to leak information to press sources. Recently divorced after being cuckolded by a colleague, he had s tastiness relationship with his 20 something daughter as he cannot disguise his dislike of her boyfriend. He has set up a discreet service where for a fee he sends a series of kind, mildly romantic and old-fashioned letters to women (inadvertently providing a cover for his leaking activities).
Meg was an accountant and alcoholic, the latter causing her to be bankrupted and disqualified from the former. On the day of the story she has been sober (and a slightly reluctant AA member) for a year and works as an assistant in an animal sanctuary. She was one of Jon's customers and decided to trace him down by waiting outside the PO box he uses, the two met a couple of times and the narrative of the book is that the two are due to meet but Jon is distracted by his civil service bosses (who want him to sound out a hostile journalist they suspect of being behind recent leaks) and by his daughter (dumped by her boyfriend) - leaving Meg to anxiously drift; the two finally meet up at the end of the day. The book is interspersed with vignettes of observed life in London, typically consisting of either people helping strangers, or groups who clearly care for each other - towards the end we realise that Meg has a hobby of looking out for and recording such moments (which perhaps acts as an equivalent to Jon's need to try and create such moments and feelings by his letters).
Clearly the work of a talented author and a book with a positive theme - celebrating kindness and decency and small actions against business, politics and unkindness, but one flawed by its style and perhaps more than anything in need of a drastic edit given the amount of superfluous detail and to save the reader having to self-edit by simply skipping much of the book....more
Eileen is a 24 year old assistant in a boy’s correction facility – to the outside world she cultivates a face of indifference and an appearance of a dEileen is a 24 year old assistant in a boy’s correction facility – to the outside world she cultivates a face of indifference and an appearance of a dowdy spinster. Inside she seethes with loathing of herself (particularly her body) and others – she is an addicted shoplifter, a stalker of one of the prison guards, a fantasist – obsessed with blood and tribal customs (that she reads in National Geographic) and with sexual fantasies, obsessed with and yet also repulsed by her bodily functions (she is scared to go the toilet with anyone listening but also takes huge doses of laxatives). She fills her time in the prison obsessing about the lives of those around her and what they think of her while getting the visiting parents to fill in invented lifestyle questionnaires. She lives with her father – an ex-policeman pensioned off when his alcohol induced paranoia went too far, and still regularly threatening to the neighbours – he and Eileen live in state of mutual abuse and loathing – Eileen’s mother is dead and her sister has moved out to live with a man and has no contact with Eileen.
The book is supposedly (although unconvincingly) narrated (for reasons that are never obvious) many years later with the older Eileen looking back on her younger self almost as an experimental subject. Although the character of Eileen is repulsive (on some occasions causing the reader to almost physically recoil from the page) the book does succeed in building up a source of narrative and dramatic tension with a clear countdown over a few days to when Eileen flees her hometown after “something” happens related to Rebecca joining the prison staff.
Unfortunately when Rebecca does arrive (as a glamorous and confident educationalist, who encourages and manipulates Eileen to form an immediate crush on her) the something is a ludicrous plot.
Overall the sole motivations for the book is to have a fundamentally unlikable and terrible female protagonist and to examine hidden terrible, isolated lives. However with a character so unpleasant the book needs some other mitigating features and the pathetic attempt at plot simply means this is a book which a reader simply wants to forget as soon as possible...more
Whaling tail set in the mid-1800s on a Yorkshire whaling ship travelling to the Arctic Circle and which its owner has over-insured and is aiming to siWhaling tail set in the mid-1800s on a Yorkshire whaling ship travelling to the Arctic Circle and which its owner has over-insured and is aiming to sink as over-hunting has rendered whale fishing uneconomic. The two main characters are an evil harpooner Drax who murders, steals and homosexual, under-age rapes his way through the voyage and Sumner – the ship’s surgeon, addicted to his own drugs and fleeing from India where he was cashiered after being framed for a misadventure in the Siege of Delhi.
In between various murders, bear hunts, whale kills, storms and ice treks form various set pieces which become increasingly tedious for the reader not least as every time another character threatens to engage the reader, Drax (and the author) kills them so as to get to the next horrific scenario.
Visceral adventure tail which is uninvolving in a literary sense and also lacking in a thriller sense (with no twist, no reveal, and no ambiguity). The character of Drax is so evil as to be unbelievable and that of Sumner too drug-addled for any real insight – we find out (or can infer) pretty well all we need to know about both characters almost as soon as we meet them.
An interesting enough story but one better as a screenplay for a Hollywood film, and entirely inappropriately placed on a literature prize shortlist....more
This (in 2022) is now the fourth time I have read this novel - this time as part of a back to back re-read of the four Amgash series books: “My Name iThis (in 2022) is now the fourth time I have read this novel - this time as part of a back to back re-read of the four Amgash series books: “My Name is Lucy Barton”, “Anything is Possible”, “Oh, William” (whose 2022 Booker shortlisting prompted this re-read – and which tells the story of Lucy’s first marriage which she explicitly avoids telling in this volume) and “Lucy By The Sea” (due to be published October 2022).
I think the best way to regard this series is as a series of three novels – which are ideally read as back to back due to the way they strongly complement each other and with the short story collection “Anything Is Possible” seen as more of a companion volume.
ORIGINAL REVIEW (when Booker longlisted)
Lucy grew up in extreme poverty with a distant and troubled Mother and a war-traumatised father with violent mood swings (which it is clear from hints shaded into abuse). Studying hard simply because the school was warmer and is her only escape from home she gets to college – but the man she meets there (William) is part German which further traumatises her father (whose wartime PTSD haunted her childhood) and leads to a cut off in relations.
The book is set later in Lucy’s life but centres around a two month stay in hospital and particularly a five day and night stretch when her mother visits her (the first time she has flown) and the two gently and guardedly reminisce – never really talking about their life together other than obliquely by reference to a range of other families and typically their unhappy marriages.
Lucy, now a successful author, thinks back on her genesis as a writer, inspired firstly by her own realisation that it is only in reading that she feels understood an not along and a desire to help her readers in the same way.
Her talent is then kindled by an author whose writing class she attended (having met her previously in a shop where she was kind to her) and also the breakup of her own first marriage (which started while she was in hospital, but which ultimately was her choice) and her seemingly distant relationship with her own children.
She also thinks about various people who touched her life with often fleeting moments of kindness or even just of non-judgement (even in her childhood a solitary tree that she saw as her friend), and sometimes struggles with what actually happened and what she wants to believe happened or the tender feelings she wants to believe lay behind others actions to her. This is most clearly the case with her mother and her mother's visit crysallises her attempts to uncover her mother's love for her which she wants to believe lay buried beneath her outward actions and attitudes towards her.
A short but tender and impactful book – the most powerful feelings often lie in what is unsaid and unspoken. Similarly the book has been pared back and sculpted in a way which has pared away everything not needed and superficial, to reveal the true essence of the story. Even the book’s layout represents this – large expanses of white space and chapters which start half way down the page – she even thinks back on the writing of the author that first inspired her that
I like the books she wrote, but I can’t stop the sense that she stayed away from something
The clear theme is the relation between a child and a mother and the book finishes with a quote.
“Do I understand the hurt my children feel? I think I do, although they might claim otherwise. But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can’t even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart. This is mine, this is mine, this is mine”.
Sofia and her mother Rose are staying in Southern Spain – where they have come (having taken a mortgage on Rose’s house) to a famous clinic owner Dr GSofia and her mother Rose are staying in Southern Spain – where they have come (having taken a mortgage on Rose’s house) to a famous clinic owner Dr Gomez who Rose believes offers the only hope to her mysterious illness (a part physical, part psychological inability to walk due to paralysis of feeling in her feet). Rose is from Yorkshire originally, but married a Greek who later divorced her and cut off all contact with Rose and Sofia, marrying a girl 40 years his junior (and only 4 years older than Sofia) shortly before inheriting a shipping business and having another daughter. Sofia ia an anthropologist by training but works in (and lives above) a coffee shop as a barista, her life seemingly on hold and in thrall to the hypochondria of her needy and manipulative mother.
The other characters in the book include: a student lifeguard, whose main role is treating tourists for jellyfish stings; Ingrid - a muscular German girl who runs an embroidery business (both of these become Sofia’s lovers, but with Ingrid their seems a mutual fascination bordering on obsession); Ingrid’s English boyfriend Matthew who coaches executives for shareholder presentations and is convinced that Gomez is a quack but also seems to want to pressure him to recommend pills developed by one of his US pharma clients; Gomez’s daughter who acts as her assistant but also paints, and who seems a potential alcoholic – Matthew becomes obsessed with her; Sofia’s ageing and increasingly religious father, his wife struggling with breastfeeding.
The writing is as languorous as the balmy Mediterranean heat and the narrative serves more as a device to set up a series of tableaux filled with striking imagery: Ingrid using an axe to strike the head off an snake that attacks her; Gomez’s white marble domed clinic which at the end Sofia sees as a spectral breast; a top embroidered for Sofia by Ingrid which she thinks says beloved but then find means beheaded and she later believes refers to Ingrid’s desire to behead her obsession with Sofia; Rose’s mother happily walking along the beach, or clearly aware of sensation in her feet when she is not aware she is observed; Sofia abandoning Rose on her wheelchair in a road with a lorry approaching; the jellyfish stings which become a form of purgatory for Sofia – and almost like slave whippings; Sofia’s father’s wife nipples cracked by the feeding of the baby, and Sofia’s lips cracked by the sun and sea; a chained dog which Sofia releases but she then thinks has died; Sofia’s inability to drive – but when she does learn the only gear that she cannot master being neutral.
The images pile up but are internally consistent and coherent building a picture of female identity and motherhood which makes this an excellent and memorable read.
Towards the end of the book Sofia muses on her various characters
“Am I self-destructive, or pathetically passive, or reckless, or just experimental, or am I a rigorous cultural anthropologist, or am I in love”.
A clear theme in the book is medusas: in Spain jellyfish are called Medusas. The last two paragraphs of the book draw heavily on this imagery and almost sum up the entire book.
Her mother says
“You have such a blatant stare … but I have watched you as closely as you have watched me. It’s what mothers do. We watch our children. We know our gaze is powerful so we pretend not to look” – drawing on the idea of a Medusa as Greek God (linked of course to Sofia’s paternal descent) turning people to stone by their stare as Sofia and her mother Rose have held each other petrified by their strange relationship.
The ending of the book says
“The tide was coming in with all the medusas floating in its turbulence. The tendrils of the jellyfish in limbo, like something cut loose, a placenta, a parachute, a refugee severed from its place of origin”
Which summarises many of the themes interwoven through Sofia’s account....more
The book is set in an unnamed remote and tiny Cornish fishing village – one of the four remaining fishermen Ethan is out at sea when he spots smoke coThe book is set in an unnamed remote and tiny Cornish fishing village – one of the four remaining fishermen Ethan is out at sea when he spots smoke coming from the chimney of the hours where Perran (previously the person who helped drag the ships up and down the beach but who know has some form of psychological hold on the village) lived ten year previously but which has since then been unoccupied. We then switch to the new occupant – Timothy, an income from London who has bought the property cheaply, something he realises immediately is a mistake. The book alternates between third party chapters written from Ethan and Timothy’s viewpoint – with little change in style which seems deliberate as the two characters are both drawn to each other and Timothy starts going out on Ethan’s boat.
Atmospheric and claustrophobic novella – the book is an odd and uneasy mix of: Royston-Valley/Wicker Man/Magnus Mills (although with much less sparse writing) lone town dweller is trapped in a sinister rural village; imagery and allegory – with the loss of Timothy’s son and his grieving placed alongside the loss of the villagers fishing fleets; clear possible political references (to EU quotas and to the loss of rural identity); narrative and dream (which are interweaved in the story explicitly but also implicitly as it increasingly becomes clear that even the awake moments may well be imagined). At times the layers of allegory and possible explanation are laid on each other like layers of paint, but before any of the layers have time to dry so that you end up with a messy indeterminate brown splodge. Overall though the book is memorable and haunting albeit flawed in execution....more
Exuberantly written satire on race relations in America.
The book is set in a once black ghetto in California – Dickens. The black narrator is named MeExuberantly written satire on race relations in America.
The book is set in a once black ghetto in California – Dickens. The black narrator is named Me (rather weakly as it leads to his civil rights case being billed as Me v the Us Government) and as the book opens is in the Supreme court for having (re-) introduced slavery and segregation to his hometown. The book then ranges over the back story – Me, subject to racially aware home schooling and social experimentation by a black-rights activist and social scientist father realises (after his father’s death, shot by police for resisting arrest when drunk) that his hometown of Dickens has literally lost its identity and its most famous resident Hominy Jenkins (who was a child actor in a long-running lazily racist series The Little Rascals, playing a stereotyped black child commonly covered in paint or chalk to comic effect) becomes so nostalgic for the old days that he announces he will be Me’s slave. Me’s first act is to simply repaint the Dickens border, later however he (as a birthday present to Hominy) makes a fake “Whites Only” sticker for Hominy’s seat on Me’s on-off girlfriend’s bus. Later he finds out that the sticker has stayed and that the bus is the bastion of good behaviour in the district – the reminder of segregation bring back the communal feeling of the black community and as a result he sets up a fake whites only school and also persuades the headmistress of a school to make it black only – the resulting uptick in grades then leads to an absurd moment when white parents are prevented from sending their children to the school which has suddenly become aspirational.
Through the book, Beatty’s fast paced style drops in cultural references (particularly to both black culture and the representation of blacks in mainstream media), cutting racial observations (particularly on the relations between the races and behaviours of whites, latinos and blacks) and further satirical absurdities of the lives of Me and those around him.
Overall a very enjoyable book, continuously tongue in cheek (although rarely laugh out loud funny) and culturally provocative (delighting in the subversion of political correctness and inversion of racism).
However one which is very difficult to read without either a natural ingrown knowledge of the cultural references or ready reference to Google/Wikipedia (even Little Rascals turns out to be a famous real show whereas an English reader assumes it is another spoof).
The overall feeling is of reading an English language book which could benefit hugely from being translated to English and which for all its huge merits should not have been long-listed for a UK literary prize, let alone won it....more
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer
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