He always had to reach for the words. As though they’e been put on a high shelf in the stores. Out of reach. Or left outside, snowed under, needing
He always had to reach for the words. As though they’e been put on a high shelf in the stores. Out of reach. Or left outside, snowed under, needing to be dug out. He used his hands to fill in the gaps, when he couldn’t quite get to the words.
/ _ |
A new Jon McGregor novel would be the highlight of any year – and this one will I can confidently say be a literary highlight of 2021.
The wonderful Reservoir 13 starts as a missing girl mystery but almost immediately becomes an multi-voice exploration of how quotidian dramas play out against the rhythmic seasons of village life and the natural world, while time continues to pass incessantly.
This book starts as a book around polar exploration (the author having visited the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Survey around 20 years ago I believe) and about survival in a calamity in extreme conditions. But over time it turns into an exploration of communication and story telling, and an examination of how true heroism can simply be found in the need to navigate and adapt to unexpected challenges of circumstance in normal life.
The blurb of the book already gives substantial information on the plot (perhaps even slightly too much – I would recommend not to read it as it dissipates some of the tension of the first part, which while not really the core of the book, still is an essential part of it) and at this stage (4 months prior to publication) I would not really want to add any more.
As I said communication and storytelling as a theme recurs through the novel – and in fact it’s the retrospective exploration of this idea that helped me realise the importance of the first section, we have: the contradictions of the initial training and its inability to map to a real world crisis; lost radios and then intermittent radio contact; uncharged and unused satellite phones; drifting GPS co-ordinates which tell a story which is not appreciated until too late; scheduled radio check ins with base which serve as a sign that all is well – with the absence of communication triggering an emergency; and also smaller details - a character thinking of the concept of a joke but not how to phrase it and later reflecting that he does not know how he could describe his experiences to those back home.
In the second section we see: the difficulty of expressing oneself in a foreign language; Bridget as someone who would be a great listener if only she could stop talking; Robert’s incessant relaying of tales of his exploration on his trips home and Anna’s final and ominously prescient request for silence; acquaintances not knowing how to express their sympathies appropriately; Anna’s love of the silence of the meetings of the Society of Friends; the different languages and alien communications of medical and legal professionals and technical experts.; Anna’s son’s comments on her monosyllabic shut downs; the story telling of an inquest report (and the trade off between having a story that makes sense to the victim’s family and not having any apportionment or admittance of guilt); speech therapy and communication workarounds (which then form the base of the third section).
One of McGregor’s greatest skills is his remarkable ability to voice the collective story of a community: the street in his debut novel “If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things”, the chorus of voices in the remarkable “Even The Dogs” and of course the village in “Reservoir 13”. We see this perhaps most strongly in all of his writing in the book’s third section as the therapy group come together; by the final scene of the “showing” we are both able to identify immediately individual voices, and to understand the story they are trying to tell, even though a superficial examination of the voices would render them largely meaningless. And what of course makes this replaying of his “signature” so apt here is that the group is all about individuals struggling to find a voice and to tell their story.
Other links to his previous books:
Here of course we have a group of people who would very much like to speak of normal things (let alone remarkable ones) but struggle to do so.
Readers of “Even The Dogs” will remember an inquest – and a man called Robert whose detailed and accurate testimony would be crucial but is missing (albeit for a very different reason).
Readers of “Reservoir 13” will see that the author’s ability to capture the natural cycles of an English village apply equally the breathtaking but harsh Antarctic landscape (and cleverly not just in the author’s own words but in his ability to capture the ability of Robert and a dancer, to capture this in slurred speech and mirrored movement.
And some links to my own life: I have a couple of tangential links to the BAS via University; my first job was with an insurance company founded by the Society of Friends; but most importantly both my late father and mother have suffered strokes: my father several (and a brain haemorrhage) and my mother only 12 months ago which means much of the book rings very true indeed.
Strongly recommended.
/ _ |
My thanks to 4th Estate and William Collins for an ARC via NetGalley...more
See below for two outstanding reviews from the two leading Goodreads reviewers (and who are also the people I probably have exchanged book related mesSee below for two outstanding reviews from the two leading Goodreads reviewers (and who are also the people I probably have exchanged book related messages with every week of this year) - both of whom rated this book as among the very best of the 100+ they read in 2020.
Unfortunately this book simply failed to work for me, much as I can admire its technical merit I simply did not enjoy the experience of reading it.
I think that the issue lay with the first section – a very lengthy, deliberately circular, deliberately distanced (*) tale – but one that is effectively, to me at least, about a lack of self worth turnig increasingly into misanthropy. I simply did not enjoy spending time in the character’s thoughts (as relayed) and found this section as a result both far too long (it is completely out of proportion to the rest of the book) and suffocating to the point that it was completely prejudicial to my appreciation of the rest of the book.
(*) as an aside the misleading blurb contradicts itself here - the woman whose story is told is called "V" - the "she" is simply because, as the blurb itself says, her story is told at second remove by an unknown narrator
My other issue I think relates to the sentiments which underly the book’s title (and epigraph) – a confrontation with Theresa May’s “citizen of the world = citizen of nowhere” speech. To be truly effective I think a justifiable challenge to that speech needs to do two things: celebrate being a citizen of everywhere (as a way of embracing cultural difference, of being open to ideas); acknowledge that for many people a fixed sense of belonging is important.
The first section seemed to portray citizenship-of-the world as effectively a state of profound dissatisfaction with everything (perhaps even with life and existence itself); and the first two sections (**) seemed to look down on those inferior people who actually enjoy simple pleasures or belonging somewhere – culminating in describing them as people who only see “the mud around their feet”.
(**) incidentally returning to the odd blurb – most of the “prose poetry” of the second section is simply dialogue denuded of speech marks and he saids, interspersed with normal prose paragraphs
And then a fourth section perhaps betrays the worldview that lies behind such thinking and writing – and one so alien from my own - when the narrator of that part bodly asserts that when seeing pictures of the adoration of the magi they see only death, the passage of time, fear and apprehension – and a story about the Kings not the baby.
So 3 stars rounded for me – but this is very much a personal view.
Prior to me reviewing it only had 5 star reviews on Goodreads. However the number of Goodreads reviews (5 ratings) and the complete lack of press coverage is hugely undeserved for what is a very intricately crafted, heavily literary and deeply complex novel....more
An excellent devotional given by my church to all the children in the church, to read with their families.
Each day has a bible passage and based arounAn excellent devotional given by my church to all the children in the church, to read with their families.
Each day has a bible passage and based around it: a general reflection; a short note on how the passage points to Jesus; a reflection by Bekah based on her own life; some short questions and a prayer and interestingly (albeit it does involve destroying the book) a cut out and colour decoration for a Jesse tree (https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/...). There is also each day some information from Steve on a different Christmas tradition.
Impressively the devotionals start back in the Old Testament with Isaiah 11 and takes in Habakkuk, Genesis, Joshua, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Esther, Jonah, Daniel and Micah before finishing in Luke and Matthew.
As we left Primrose Hill, neither Sabine nor I spoke. It wasn’t even six o’clock but we’d somehow missed the dawn. The Sep
Published today 18/2/2021
As we left Primrose Hill, neither Sabine nor I spoke. It wasn’t even six o’clock but we’d somehow missed the dawn. The September morning didn’t have the poignancy of autumn; it felt overexposed and hot. I reminded myself that this reality was no more valid than the previous one. Daylight doesn’t bring more clarity than night. Sober isn’t necessarily the truer perspective. Twenty years on, I still believe that. But immersion in the mundane can be overpowering. Our Cinderella coach had turned into a pumpkin. Sabine would be ever divine whereas I was just Megan again; I couldn’t get beyond the body, the mood, the self. There was a walk, a wait, a train, a bus. As we tenderly parted ways, I tried to think, This is only the beginning – But I knew, even then, it wasn’t true.
The author of this book has said of the moment that she heard from her agent (fully prepared to be given disappointing news) that Picador wanted to buy the book “I swear I slipped into another reality – someone else’s life”.
And that is a very appropriate response as this book – a psychological examination of obsession, desire, self-annihilating hedonism, storytelling and nocturnal urban existence - has at its heart a character who wants to slip into the life of another.
The first party narrator of the book is Meggie – looking back some twenty years later on a formative encounter that happened in her early 20s, around the turn of the Millenium. Meggie, a South African living in London, is studying literature while working in a press cutting agency, and in a relationship with the real hero of the story – Graham, a patient if safe boyfriend who wants her to move in with him.
At her job she meets a Belgian Sabine. The enigmatic Sabine – at the same time distant and unknowable and yet familiar to everyone (albeit with a slightly different nickname and perceived persona) – is on one level (perhaps most of all on the level of Meggie’s imagination of Sabine’s life) exactly what Meggie feels she is missing in her own life.
And when Sabine shifts to the nighshift, preparing cuttings from the next day’s papers, the increasingly intoxicated Meggie joins her and enters with her a shadowy and liminal land often fuelled by literal toxins.
She becomes more and more obsessed with Sabine – or again I would say of the stories that Sabine has woven around herself, stories that Meggie fleshes out and develops herself. At one point she says:
When we were together, I kept my obsession in check – but apart, I indulged it. Not that anybody would have guessed. I didn’t talk about Sabine incessantly; I didn’t talk about her at all. Instead, I discreetly tried to be as much like her as I could. The changes were subtle, hidden behind my skin. She was there in the way I held myself, the way my muscles arranged my face, the relaxation of my vocal cords into their softest, lowest drawl.
Which is only not true given that it seems to the reader that everyone is aware of her obsession – Graham in particular even early on warning her that her relationship with Sabine is obsessive and threatening their own relationship – something Meggie only really recognises looking back.
Often I am kept awake by guilt. Yet when I truly go back into the past my perspective shifts. As I write the story down, I can see that when I tried to do what I thought I should, my attempts were doomed. How do you treat others decently when you want to become someone else? How do you live well when you yearn to burn with all your spirit in moments of wildness or freedom or excess?
As the story progresses it takes a darker and more complex turn, as Maxine finds out more about Sabine via her family, and realises how easy a seemingly ultra-connected life in London can be cast adrift and fade into a shocking level of anonimity.
The author has commented in a way which captures the story well.
Obsession with another person, in the sense of wanting to be them, is about the infinite appeal of the other, the mystery of the other – but it is also about wanting to escape the self, there’s a nihilistic element to it. Obsession more generally allows you to lose yourself. Urban existence allows for this too. In a city like London, you can have anonymity. You can be who you want to be, you can explore who you are. There is an exhilarating side to such freedom but also danger. Nightshift is set at the end of the twentieth century when social media was not yet a thing – but even now, particularly as a foreigner, a migrant, in two steps you can be off the grid, you can disappear, you can die.
Overall this is a striking tale, albeit perhaps a little too dark and drug fuelled at times for my tastes.
My thanks to PanMacmillan for an ARC via NetGalley...more
I found a number of chapters (2-3 in particular) fascinating, a few others of more superficial interest - I think this reflects my own knowledge of thI found a number of chapters (2-3 in particular) fascinating, a few others of more superficial interest - I think this reflects my own knowledge of the incidents, companies and particularly people involved, but this probably points also at the weakness of the book in that it seems to lack a fully coherent structure. I would say though that the author seems to understand his subject well including some complexities and subtleties. ...more
The fens has felt stark and mysterious – and crossing them had given me a feeling of having encountered the ghost-life of my family, all of whom ha
The fens has felt stark and mysterious – and crossing them had given me a feeling of having encountered the ghost-life of my family, all of whom had left that particular landscape now. The North Norfolk coast, in contrast, had felt rich with my own memories, and had been filled with the luminous quality of light and a beguiling sense of soft erosion. The trip south through the Broads had felt meditative, as though I was entering the hart of an East Anglian landscape that beat its own rhythm. Then Norwich, a trickier presence, layered with conflicting experiences and not something I could easily decode.
Effectively a literary memoir/travel book in the form of a journey of only a few days – by bike, foot and boat – from Lincolnshire’s New York to Norfolk’s California and split into three main sections: a cycle trek through the Fens – where the author’s relatives once lived and where his Mum nearly returned for a teaching job; a walk along the North Norfolk Coast – from West to East – ending at Cromer, - with West Runton being where the author spent much of his childhood; a gentle kayak along the Broads (where the author as an older teenager and young adult owned a small boat) – broken by a visit to Norwich – particularly its market and Museum.
As with most books of this type I always find them more interesting when exploring areas I already know well - increasingly as I have got older I have realised the importance of a sense of place, belonging and roots (I now have a house around 100 metres from where my Grandfather was born) particularly when doing a job which involves working with teams across multiple continents (and which - other than COVID - involves working in the "other" New York once a month).
And this passage for me summed up both my childhood and my life at 50+ with my family’s favourite pub and one I first found via the same crossroads albeit on the hand scrawled map of the matriarch of the local landed gentry rather than any Soviet spy.
At primary school the US Air-Force F-111 and .. A-10 .. roared over the playground tearing the sky apart with their jet-shrieks several times a day, endlessly practicing wargames. The airfields of Lakenheath .. Mildenhall .. were bristling with planes, and the presence of all this hardware was clearly making us a target foe the snub-nosed Soviet SS20s … The joke went that if you were ever lost in Norfolk, phone the Kremlin as they knew the country backwards, and would be able to direct you if you were say, at the Matslake crossroads trying to get to the Saracen’s Head.
Pictorial view of the rivers of the Broads tracing each river from its source via a series of aerial photographs and some brief but informative anecdoPictorial view of the rivers of the Broads tracing each river from its source via a series of aerial photographs and some brief but informative anecdotal commentary – I particularly appreciated the photos of Corpusty/Saxthorpe, Blickling Hall and Wroxham.
Hafsa Zayyan is a successful London based laywer (daughter of a Nigerian father and Pakistani mother) specialising in international arbitration and liHafsa Zayyan is a successful London based laywer (daughter of a Nigerian father and Pakistani mother) specialising in international arbitration and litigation, who was the winner of the inaugural 2019 #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize with this her debut novel – due to be published in 2021, a sensitive exploration of racism, family identity and faith across a range of cultures and generations.
The book is split into two largely alternating sections.
The first is a present tense (and present day), third party point of view of Sameer – a high flying London based M&A lawyer for an international law firm. Sameer, Leicester born, is the only son of an Asian Muslim family exiled to the UK after Idi Amin’s 1972 expulsion of the Asians from Uganda – a family which has prospered in the UK with a series of Midlands based East African Asian cuisine restaurants (Kampala Nights). Sameer’s family see his high-flying career as something of a temporary aberration before he finally fulfils his destiny to rejoin the family business (and marry appropriately) – but Sameer is enthused by the prospect of a prestigious secondment to be part of a new office opening in Singapore.
The conflict between Sameer’s career and family obligations is complicated by a series of developments: his best friend and IT consultant Rahool deciding to quit an unfullfilling IT consultancy career and join the family vehicle rental business – increasing his family’s expectations that he will do the same; the loss of his main supporting Partner at work and the replacement with another partner (also to be head of the Singapore office) whose interactions with Sameer are peppered with racist micro-aggressions; a physical racist attack on Rahool which leaves him in a coma.
The second sections are a series of expository letters written over a timeframe which stretches from 1945 through 1981. They are written by Hasan, starting on the night of his marriage to his second wife, to his first wife and true-love Amira (who died unexpectedly). Hasan (Sameer’s grandfather) is a successful businessman and shop owner: the letters function effectively function as his narrative diary – a way for him to trace the rise of his business and then the increasing challenges it faces after independence with an increasing rise in African nationalism and Indophobia culminating in Amin’s actions (something which catches the overly optimistic Hasan – but not his family – largely by surprise). The letters are rather (perhaps unrealistically) exposition heavy and so function for the reader (and later Sameer when he is given them) as a history lesson.
The storylines converge when Sameer, largely to avoid the conflict he is facing between obligations, takes up an opportunity to visit a Ugandan based family friend – and while there visits the house where his grandfather used to live, now owned by the family of Abdullah – a black Ugandan muslim Hasan’s family assistant, turned right hand man (in what started as a case study in African/Asian partnership but increasingly became an awkward if not dangerous relationship for them both). There he strikes up a friendship with Abdullah’s grandaughter Maryam.
Where the book excels is in its multi-faceted views of racism – seen from both those in a privileged position and those who are the victims: in many cases the same people and groups taking both positions at different times and in different countries or places: Sameer for example experiencing Rahool as a victim of clear racial violence; becoming more and more conscious of what Hasan really felt about Abdullah and about how Hasan struggled when the non-privileged suddenly gained power; becoming more exposed to the current-day prejudices of his own family; shocked and in denial when the victim of prejudice in his own workplace but (when Jeremiah identifies it immediately) suddenly becoming all too aware that until now in his academic success and professional circles he has experienced almost no racism and that Jeremiah’s experience has been fundamentally different.
The book is also an unusually sympathetic and sensitive portrait of faith. Challenged by what he has seen and those he mixes with, particularly Maryam and her family, Sameer starts to take his own Islamic faith more seriously. And one of the real heroes of the book is Sameer’s other childhood and present day friend – Jeremiah, a black Christian from Leicester, increasingly successful as a music producer and a faithful friend and confidant to both Sameer and Rahool.
And the book has a fantastic sense of authenticity, not just in the descriptions of high pressured law firm life (no surprise given the author’s background) but equally (and more surprisingly) in its capture of Kampala and Uganda – although I have never visited the City I have friends who have lived there for years and the book closely matched their own descriptions.
And finally I was impressed with the book's unexpected and open ending.
Overall a worthwhile as well as enjoyable read.
My thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone for an ARC via NetGalley....more
What if a family isn't a tree at all? What if it's more like a forest? A collection of individuals, pooling their resources by intertwined roots, s
What if a family isn't a tree at all? What if it's more like a forest? A collection of individuals, pooling their resources by intertwined roots, sheltering each other from wind and weather and drought... what are families other than fictions? Stories told about a particular cluster of people for a particular reason. And like all stories, families are not born, they're invented. Pieced together from love and lies and nothing else
She’d always imagined the Greenwood family as a house built of secrets, layers upon layers of them, secrets encased in more secrets, and she’d long had the suspicion that to examine them too closely would be to pull the whole edifice down around her.
This book is an epic multi-generational family saga, telling the story of a family whose very existence is intimately connected at each turn with trees (from timber magnates to carpenters to illegal tree-sappers to anti-logging eco-activists to a forest scientist reluctantly working as a forest guide)
And the many epochal events in the book (a row over an inherited woodlot, a baby literally left hanging in a branch and stolen from there, a hidden lover’s rendezvous in a designer log cabin, a treacherous sale to the Japanese, a series of sabotage actions on loggers bulldozers, the cabin later being riddled with bullets, a live curtailing fall while working on a roof beam, a storm destroying a library, a much sought journal, a subterfuge felling of a diseased tree) are based in, on, around or about forests, trees, wood and paper.
And as the opening quotes of my review show (and I could have picked many more) it is also a book which explicitly acknowledge tree related metaphors for its basic themes and ideas.
And the book’s meta structure is very explicitly based on the inner section of a cut tree as shown in the book’s opening illustration which substitutes for a linear chapter listing
Even when a tree is at its most vital, only ten per cent of its tissue – the outermost rings, its sapwood – can be called alive. All the rings of inner heartwood are essentially dead, just lignin-reinforced cellulose built up year after year, stacked layer upon layer, through droughts and storms, everything that the tree has lived through preserved and storied in its own body. Every tree held up by its own history, the very bones of its ancestors. And since the journal came to her, Jake has gained a new awareness of how her own life is being held up by unseen layers, girded by lives that came before her own. And by a series of crimes and miracles, accidents and choices, sacrifices and mistakes ...
The book uses what I would call an inverse Cloud Atlas structure, a series of stories spaced over around 40 years intervals which are structured 2038, 2008, 1974, 1934, 1908, 1934, 1974, 2008, 2038.
The 2038 sections take place after the Withering – a climate change induced fungus has devastated the world’s trees (think a multi-species version of Dutch Elm disease or Ash dieback) and the resulting duststorms have devastated the world’s economy, led to a fatal rib-racker cough and exacerbated inequalities (which all sounds even more prescient now than when the book was published earlier in 2020). Jake (Jacinda) Greenwood is a forest guide in one of the few remaining forests – a Canadian island which is now a luxury eco-tourist resort. Other than this development the language and technology of 2038 feels rather too close to 2020 (albeit this does avoid the need for Atwood like invention of portmanteau words and also shows well how the future portrayed here is only a small step from our present world).
The 2008 sections are Jake’s estranged father Liam – an ex opioid addict now a much sought after designer of distressed wood installations to the rich (even post crash). An accident causes him to reflect on his panful past – both the daughter he abandoned and his difficult relationship with his eco-activist mother Willow, who gave away her family logging fortune to an eco-charity to pursue a life of protest. The reflections work well, and the way in which Jake’s own relationship fails due to his attempts to look to it for compensation from his mother’s deficiencies is very well done. The limited action however quite literally crawls along and seemed unnecessary to me.
The 1974 sections are Willow, around the time of Liam’s birth. Her blind, driven and distant timber-magnate father Harris asks her to pick up her Uncle Everett (his brother) from hospital after around a 40 year jail sentence for an unspecified crime involving a minor. These sections work well as a link.
The 1934 sections tell the tangled tale that lead to Everett’s imprisonment. To say much more would spoil the story as this is the real heart of the novel (with a brief 1908 section serving more as an origin story – albeit one which disappointingly repeats the idea of a mother lost in a train crash). These sections (which given the brevity of the 1908 part run almost back to back) are completely disproportionate to the rest of the book (well over half its length). I think your reaction to them will largely determine your overall views on the book. For me, I missed the author’s clever ability in the other sections to sketch a back story, capture an era and explore a character in only a few pages. Instead I found this section rather melodramatic and one which seemed to pile rather implausible events and relationships on each other (and rely on too many cliffhangers -and one tree hanger!) and above all to seemingly disregard the basics of infant survival.
For many others they will I think define the epic nature of the novel and the characters and actions here cleverly resurface and reverberate in the last part of the book as we revisit the 1974/2008 and particularly 2038 sections – the latter cleverly tying the novel together.
Finally an element of the book I liked was the complexity of its examination of history. The 1934, 1974 and 2008 sections all take place against economic disaster – and all with their own ecological disasters (the dust bowl, acid rain, the early recognition of climate change) – which puts the 2038 section, and our own predicament, into a longer term perspective – one that is simultaneously hopeful (we have been here before, we have found a way out) and depressing (each generation is convinced it will change the world before succumbing to intertia) and the novel I feel puts both ideas alongside each other.
Overall a book which I am glad I read – even if I would have preferred more and evenly spaced rings.
How Willow wondered, could anyone possibly believe in old-fashioned political change in an era like this? An era when the president of the United States is a lying ghoul, the rain melts your skin, the food is laced with poison, wars are eternal, and the world’s oldest beings are felled to make popsicle sticks. This whole sick system is in its death throws Harris. And in my opinion, those holding the levers of power ought to be the first to get dragged down with it.
“Oh, people said the same thing back in the thirties”, Harris said, waving his hand dismissively “and they’ll be saying the same in forty year from now, mark my words. Time goes in cycles. Everything comes back eventually. You learn that at my age”
Sometimes we play several games and other times only one, eternal and multiple, which makes me think the old man is inventing games within the larg
Sometimes we play several games and other times only one, eternal and multiple, which makes me think the old man is inventing games within the larger match, private rules within a universe in miniature that he himself built.
Without stopping the game ..[he] .. tells me a story that grows windingly: a long, thin story of detours and journeys …. He tells me the story in fragments, as if we were looking at photographs.
The first-person narrator of the book (well all except a rather weak third-person jungle odyssey section) is a Puerto-Rican born, New Jersey living natural museum curator. The book opens when he receives a package which he immediately recognises as from a recently deceased fashion designer – Giovanna Luxembourg – with who years previously he had, at her instigation, an odd series of encounters apparently for a collaborative camouflage in nature (as well as Comandante Marcos) inspired fashion project which never materialised.
The package leads him to understand more of her life story – and particularly her parents: an American glamour model (Virginia -a descendant of the Confederate General Sherman) and a Israeli-emigre photographer (Yoav Toledano), both of whom disappeared mysteriously years previously, after the jungle trip which was in search of a mysterious child seer (and for Virginia seen as a reenactment of her ancestor’s infamous March to the Sea).
Using the clues in the package he locates Yoav – living as a recluse in a near deserted Pennsylvania ex-mining town which is the site of a 50+ year burning coal fire (inspired presumably by the real life Centralia), and at the same time Giovanna (under a false name and denying her identity) comes to global attention as she is arrested, in a bizarre half-finished Puerto Rican tower block, for her role in what she claims to be an artistic project but which the authorities believe to be a financial scam of placing stories in small newspapers around the world that ruin a company’s share price. The trial – and her attempt to draw on other areas where art was put on trial (from Wilde to Branusci) is another part of the book.
The book finishes with a posthumous exhibition which Giovana set out in her will and which finally draws on her much earlier collaboration with the narrator.
This is only the bare bones of both the character list in the book and the list of allusions to people and happenings both invented and (mostly) true.
The book is translated by Megan McDowell – or it may be better the translation is co-authored by her as she (an American based in Chile) and the original author (a Puerto Rican/Costa Rican based in London) have collaborated actively on what is more an English version than a pure translation bringing their bi-cultural, bilingual expertise to bear (for once my common bug bear – changed titles on translations – is I think entirely appropriate and better fits the book’s themes and inspirations).
When a book starts in New York and is based there around the art/museum scene, and given the style it is written in, comparisons to Siri Hushvedt are I think inevitable. The author frequently quotes and clearly draws on Don De Lillo as an inspiration as well as a well-known litany of non-English writing authors (Calvino, Bernhard, Piglia, Sebald).
Once an author starts dropping these names, and when an author has the intellectual ability that this one seems to have (not to mention confidence/self-possession – I was not surprised to see the author’s academic base being Trinity, Cambridge) – I find that reviewers (both professional and on Goodreads) have a tendency to suspend their critical judgement. And I think that has applied in most reviews here.
To me the first section had quite a lot of misteps which slightly jaundiced my early views. The first time the narrator speaks they describe their speech as like a “desperate tortoise” – to me at least that feels like an oxymoron and anyway how does it describe speech. Later another character’s silence is described alongside the words they spoke. A character who makes an important cameo wearing a collarless shirt is described as “plucked from a Hare Krishna sect” – now maybe this is me but that conjures up lots of strong images (orange, chanting, dancing) none of which apply to the character – so why use the analogy. A little later a girlfriend is described as “saucy” – really, in the 21st Century?
This type of book can become more of an intellectual game than a novel. I am happy with a book which is far more about theme and connections than it is about either plot or character – but when the latter two are still heavily featured have no real credibility or links to anything tangible (particularly at the start) – I start to question if the author is simply building his own universe and private rules rather than seeking to include the reader. I also question whether the author really has chosen the correct form for his ideas - this would have worked much better as either a book of factual essays or in the sketch collection novel form (still blending fact and fiction) that Luis Sagasti has developed.
The author has in interview talked about the idea of writing “a novel without characters, where the true protagonist would be nature itself” and explores that idea in the novel itself – with a character interested in writing a novel where the real protagonist is fire, and to some extent that is what this novel is – particularly with the centrality of Centralia (and may other fire images – not least Sherman’s scorched earth policy) but its not something he sees through – as the novel retains too much of the conventionality of the novel but with too much contrivance of plot and one-dimensionality of characters, meaning that the author fails to turn the novel into a sufficiently strong structure to hold the sheer weight of his ambition....more
I re-read this book after its deserved shortlisting for the 2021 Women's Prize.
A remarkable story of rural 21st ceWinner of the 2021 Costa Novel Prize
I re-read this book after its deserved shortlisting for the 2021 Women's Prize.
A remarkable story of rural 21st century marginalisation; repercussions of life changing events; resilience to trauma; and recalibration of identity and relationships.
On my second read I found the book equally enjoyable - one thing that did strike me was how much of the book's underlying story is hinted at in the very brief first chapter.
ORIGINAL REVIEW (DECEMBER 2019)
This is the first book I have read by Claire Fuller, despite it being her fourth novel, but I was aware of her work given that her first book won the prestigious Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction in 2015, defeating the phenomenon that was “Elizabeth is Missing” (to give an example of the ability of the prize to identify brilliant talent – the other recent winners are Eimear McBride, Lisa McInerney, Francis Spufford, Preti Taneja, Claire Adam and Derek Owusu – if you are looking for a list of authors whose careers you should follow that I would suggest would make a very good start); her second novel shortlisted for the Encore prize for second novels (winners of that prize run by the Royal Society of Literature include Anne Enright, Ali Smith, Sally Rooney and a host of other Booker listed authors).
I am not sure I have read a book whose opening had such unsettling and unfortunate resonances for me - a story of two 51 year old twins whose mother suffers a stroke, and with much of the opening plot of the book about discovering the costs of funerals – which uncannily sums up the start and end of the difficult last twelve months of my own life.
The book is set in a rural part of present day Wiltshire - Jeanie and Julius Seeder (no one is sure if the name was an elaborate joke by their father) despite their age, live with their mother Dot in a small cottage which still has an outside toilet.
Dot and Jeanie grow vegetables which they sell both at the bottom of their garden in an honest box and more recently to an upmarket deli in the local village. Julius does a variety of casual labouring jobs for cash.
Their ability to survive is helped by a long arrangement with the local farmer and landowner Rawson that they can rent the cottage for free in perpetuity – something which dates back to their father’s death 40 year’s previously, decapitated while driving Rawson’s new tractor (after an accident the twins believe was due to faulty bolts fitted by Rawson).
The family’s life is circumscribed: Jeanie by a childhood heart condition and by a lac of desire for things other women seem to her to seek for – fashion, sex, money; Julius by the after effects of the accident which mean he suffers severe travel sickness and the unspoken requirement to care for his sister; the whole family by a fierce independence, self-sufficiency, and bond over folk music and their shared beliefs about who they are and their family story.
When at the book’s start the twins find their mother dead from what later turns out to be a stroke they are forced to: engage with the other people (including Rawson and Dot’s best friend Bridget); engage with the outside world (for example the need to register the death and incur the costs of a funeral); confront their lack of any money; deal with those who quickly move to exploit their vulnerability; come to terms with discrepancies between what they have always believed about themselves and their history and what seems to be the emerging reality of their situation; and to reset their own relationship.
To say much more would be to spoil the story – a relatively simple but powerful tale of rural poverty, of those marginalized from 21st Century English society (both exploited by the establishment and ignored by progressives) and at heart a tale of resilience when everything you know about yourself changes and of a recalibration of beliefs, lifestyle and relationships in the face of the repercussions of a life changing traumatic event.
My thanks to Penguin General UK for an ARC via NetGalley...more
Read with my daughter who is a fan of Supervet and very much enjoyed the author’s previous book which I think was more conventionally biographical.
ThiRead with my daughter who is a fan of Supervet and very much enjoyed the author’s previous book which I think was more conventionally biographical.
This one had chapters based on qualities (Internalisation, Nowness, Truth and Trust, Empathy, Genuineness, Rightness, Innovation, Tenacity, Youness, Compassion, Appreciation, Respect, Eternalisation) that read like they are from a self-help genre book, and to be honest some of the content matches.
What gives the book its distinctiveness is:
Firstly how the author illustrates his views on each area (both their importance, what they mean, how you strive for them) by examples from his own pioneering (and sometimes controversial with those who either think animals should not be put through operations or that money should not be wasted in them) research and practice in veterinary surgery in the area of bionic limb implants. These typically have three elements – ethical dilemmas (see below), human/animal-interest angles (both of these helping him explore the subject matter) and what can quickly become very complex technical details of the treatment.
Secondly, how the author draws on the qualities he sees in animals – particularly pet cats and dogs, including his own.
Thirdly, with the author’s frequent discussion of his One Medicine approach (https://www.humanimaltrust.org.uk/who...) seeking to bridge the Veterinary Science/Human Medicine gap – which as he points out has taken an additional resonance with COVID.
Fourthly - the way in which the book plays out against the background of a formal malpractice complaint made about him in 2018 (at the book’s start) to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for over-treatment of, and experimentation on animals – these two themes: the treat versus euthanise dilemma and the conundrum between innovation and experimentation are ones he returns to in almost every chapter, often comparison prevailing wisdom and values to the very different standards that apply in treatment of humans)
Fifthly in the author’s openness and vulnerability
Sixthly in how up to date it is – the book’s themes drawing together in a very tangible and incredibly up to date way with a severe accident to his own dog in September 2020 (one month before publication).
Overall a very different and interesting read....more
June told us more that once there were fungi inside us, there always had been, something I tried to forget as the growths bloomed out rapidly after
June told us more that once there were fungi inside us, there always had been, something I tried to forget as the growths bloomed out rapidly after the long rain, large blotches, wound erupting on the trees, appearing, I thought, like graphic interpretations of the alien levity, nausea and sickness I was intermittently still experiencing. In the built hollows of the trees, the long excavations drilled by social insects, were dazzling honeycomb designs, fungal architecture, fields and gardens painstakingly grown out by the ant, used to fees and fatten their insensate young. It seemed that everywhere we chose to look, something fascinating was happening. Every inch of matter, if approached slowly and carefully, seemed to fold out infinitely, to inflate rapidly, and I imagined pulling on a line, a thread, spooling it out and never reaching an end. The density of life here was such that every niche, every single pocket of space, was appropriated, developed its own rhythms and sequences, contained its original relationships and novel behaviour, producing, in total, an unfathomable variety. Each pocket was key, every action initiated a chain reaction, creating a dizzying array of nested hierarchies, and it was the quiet, autonomous, undirected nature of this total effect, the fact broadly speaking, that ecology worked, that was the most humbling and interesting detail of all.
The novel begins with what is effectively a 20 page sequel, a tech-dystopia presented as a future historic essay on the development of a new app – eventually christened Nest. The app starts as little more than a hyper-sensitive movement sensor with a patterned display – but quickly users realise that the graphical record of their every movement tells them everything about their outward movements, which in turn reveals their thoughts and emotions. Quickly users start to use the app to tell them how they were really thinking in preference to their recollection of their emotions – and before long are unable to deal with life’s challenges other than through analysis of the app, which grows both increasingly sophisticated (drawing on micro body sensors, sleep apps, dream analysis and much more) and ubiquitous (coming to dominate and redefine employment, relationships and healthcare) and then an object of personal veneration, before driving art, space exploration and religion.
Then we as the Nest story reaches an increasingly epochal scale we are dropped back into character driven narrative. Shel is a biological researcher, her partner John a coder. The book starts as John drives Shel to the airport through a suddenly onsetting fog.
Shel has been given a unmissable chance to join a small team (with a Doctor, an expert in group formation and a mycologist) to visit the last remaining troop of bonobo chimpanzees, based in now closed park owned by a large and shadowy mining conglomerate. The group are meant to investigate what might have lead to the mysterious death of two of the troop but their mission is shrouded in uncertainty (beginning with an inadequately explained no-show from the Doctor), mystery and threat (including what seems to be some form of predator spooking the bonobos and stalking them).
John goes to visit the building site of their new property and is suddenly struck on the head (possibly by a bird) and when he wakes suffers from amnesia and confusion, visited at regular intervals by a mysterious Doctor for wounds that seem to reappear every night, under virtual house arrest (albeit more from his mental state than physical barriers) and watching the house where he is staying being increasingly covered by a black fungus.
As Shel’s story (told in the first person) gets more confusing, John (whose alternating chapter story is told in the third person) gradually regains more of his memory. The book’s third section has the two reunited although their stories (both in the third person) still seem to alternate in sections – giving the impression that the two’s experience have driven a wedge between them that even their new circumstances (and an expanded family) cannot bridge.
But the above gives only a limited feel for what this book is really about. The novel (particularly in Shel’s section) keeps coming back to the idea of phenomenon which in themselves contain a record of everything into which they have come into contact (see the open quote for one example).
Patterns, impressions, memory, complexity, layers of understanding, fluidity, perceptions of reality, interconnectedness, the relation of observer to object, decay and growth (and how they interact), transmission and reception, the interplay of the natural world and mankind, the influence of traditional corporates and cutting edge tech companies. The book is about all of these.
And the novel itself has a nested, fractal type structure – with repeated often meta parallels and recurring imagery between the Shel and John sections and frequent references back to the Nest section.
The book reminded me of Tom McCarthy but has very much its own style and take. Overall it is perhaps not a surprise that this book did not make the Booker longlist (a non-debut novel, by a non-US citizen man neatly sits outside the Venn diagram that seemed to define this year’s prize) but more so that it did not make the Goldsmith shortlist, given by contrast, Celtic author is normally a description of the winner. It would have graced both.
One of my favourite reads of the year.
Instead I saw something like an infinite series of distinct, studded iterations; a vast aggregate of separate pockets, each one unique, original, harbouring living events, microsecond by microsecond, that had never happened before and were never to be repeated again. I had convinced myself, at least, that I could see like this, see the area not as a single field but as an array, a patchwork of individual points ……… A structure billowing out, unfurling exponentially and in the same instant contracting back to zero, a complex reiterative, non-linear growth
A book largely if not entirely unrecognised by prize lists (other than a Gordon Burn Prize longlisting) but which seems to feature on multiple book ofA book largely if not entirely unrecognised by prize lists (other than a Gordon Burn Prize longlisting) but which seems to feature on multiple book of the years lists for 2021.
“She’s clearly frightened of engaging. That’s a sad thing. A sad and defensive thing. Here’s a better way to put it, she was in an a priori reality …. And that reality was not going to yield to another reality”
I have previously read the author’s fragmentary account of abusive relationships “First Love” which was shortlisted for a whole host of awards (including the Women’s Prize and Goldsmith Prize).
As part of the shortlisting for the latter the authors are interviewed, in a fairly set format, in the pages of the New Statesman in the weeks between shortlist and winner announcement (the exception being this year when some still oddly unexplained delays in unveiling the shortlist meant the interviews, other than the winner, were published on line).
In her interview, when Gwendoline Riley was asked how she approaches voice she said
“Well, I just tune in, really. It’s interesting what people get up to under the guise of having a conversation. I’ve heard that marriage counsellors tell couples not to say “always” or “never” when arraigning their spouses. “You always put me down!” “You never listen!” That’s inflammatory. You should say, “You sometimes put me down.” I’m not sure what that is. I remember a woman who used frequently to use both of those adverbs about herself and then add a question tag, too. Things like, “Well I never buy low-fat, do I?” or “I’ve always hated Jonathan Ross, haven’t I?”. So there was this need to constantly assert things about herself, a certain proud vehemence, then this anxious little question: a retreat. I notice things like that.”
And I felt that this skill came to the fore in this her latest novel.
The New Statesmen also, in a brief review of her career, talked of a series of novels with a recurring “dysfunctional family dynamic” each narrated by first person female writers “who aged in step with” the author. And that tradition continues to here, as does what I think is another key part of her writing, a narrator who is far happier to turn their notice and gaze on others rather than on herself.
This novel is narrated by Bridget (now in her 40s) and living in London with her boyfriend. That relationship however is not the subject of her account, instead it is her troubled relationship with her mother Helen (Hen) – based in Liverpool, together with an initial account of the equally dysfunctional relationship, Bridget, and Bridget’s sister Michelle had with their estranged and now dead father Lee.
Bridget’s account of Lee is simply brilliantly written. I can only really describe it as an autopsy – painstakingly as well as painfully, dissecting his speech, his affections, his mannerisms, his beliefs, even his heroes (Derek Hatton pretty well says it all) to find what both drove and ultimately blocked his heart and mind.
Bridget’s account of her mother takes up most of the book – and is less clear cut as her mother is perhaps more of a developing character. In earlier life almost proud of her unhappiness, simply because such unhappiness (an unfulfilling job, an unhappy marriage) was, in her view, to be expected and to accept it dutifully almost expected of one. Later she seems desperate to find acceptance and community but this only drives her to ill advised decisions (a city centre flat purchased with Friends style aspirations which basically turns out to be in student digs) or if not her very desperation repels others.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the two is in how they seem themselves as viewed by others unknown – Lee as being affirmed by them, Helen as judged by them
Those spectral associates my father raised didn’t persecute him. They were a supporting cast: a wise counsel or a happy coterie, rushing to fill in coveted positions in his court. Leave it to my poor mother to have those awful tormenting busybodies as her imaginary fellows.
But perhaps the real puzzle to solve is Bridget herself – and here we get very few direct clues, relying instead on the tangential and reflective.
Bridget may be excellent at rather merciless observation and cutting commentary on the quirks of others and judgement on their character; but she is almost entirely lacking in empathy (what truly behind their behaviour), compassionate understanding and most of all self-awareness (she never really reflects either on how her own actions could drive the behaviour or what she could really do differently).
So for example her clearly callous annual treatment of her mother on her birthday trip to London – distancing her from her house and boyfriend – and her assumption that Michelle will take on the real burden of dealing with her mother on a day to day basis, go unremarked by her, but not by the reader.
Overall like all the author’s books not a comfortable read but a distinctive one.
My thanks to Granta Publications for an ARC via NetGalley....more
An enjoyable and fresh Advent daily devotional which I read together with my Cell Group at church – perhaps this year more than ever the hope, peace aAn enjoyable and fresh Advent daily devotional which I read together with my Cell Group at church – perhaps this year more than ever the hope, peace and joy of Advent takes on a new meaning. My favourite chapter was on the “missing” verses of “Hark The Herald Angels” sing with a suggestion of a bible study (with copious verse references) of the biblical inspiration behind one of the verses. ...more
My Favourite Book (and most popular Review) plus my Favourite Book Signing and Favourite Letter of 2020
The culmination of Ali Smith’s Seasonal QuartetMy Favourite Book (and most popular Review) plus my Favourite Book Signing and Favourite Letter of 2020
The culmination of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, books where I have loved tracing the recurring themes (with reviews that have proved very popular and valued – particularly for Spring and now Summer).
I marked the end of the series by a pilgramage to the place where the quartet reaches its climax (see my review).
One of big features of lockdown has book launches, festivals, prize shortlist readings moving online. In one way this has been excellent – I have been able to join festivals like Cambridge, Hay and Edinburgh which I would never normally have time to attend and put questions online.
For example here (at 1:14:00) – I posed the first reader question at the official Booker shortlist readings – asking each other to explain their choice of title.
I also had the privilege of last year's Booker winner - Bernardine Evaristo - finishing her official interview with this year's winner - Douglas Stuart - by asking a question from me.
The downside – other than Zoom fatigue – has been the lack of book signings which are normally (for example at the Booker shortlist) a great chance to spend a couple of minutes chatting to the author. So congratulations to the Edinburgh Book Festival for their idea of Zoom/virtual book signings – buy the book, email you required dedication then get a brief private Zoom call with the author while they sign the book. I say brief but as anyone who knows Ali Smith will know generosity characterises her signings as much as her writing. My Zoom call with her lasted around 10 minutes – started with her remembering me (and my daughter), mentioning my niece with who she had just spoken, then being delighted at my pilgrimage story and ended with me 2-3 times sugegsting we perhaps let the next person take over.
And I also had the opportunity to draw on my review to have a letter on the book published in the New Statesman
My Favourite Book Judging - Guardian Not The Booker Prize
I had previously judged this prize in 2018 (and details on how the prize operates is in my Review of 2018). I participated below the line last year (having nominated one book and encouraged another author to enter) which was not the most edifying experience, but was drawn back this year by the books picked and by a much more good-humoured discussion around the shortlist.
I was pleased to be asked to judge again this year – I think the first ever two time judge.
Of the list my favourite and clearly the best book was Hamnet (see below) due I think to its omission from the Booker, it became I think the first book ever to make the public vote shortlist without an author or publisher campaign. Despite an ill-judged review by Sam Jordison it did well in the public vote but as one judge said (and we all agreed) it was “too good for NTB”.
My fellow judges both votes for “The Girl With The Louding Voice” by Abi Daré – one of the relatively small number of books I read for the first time this year which I rated five stars. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
However the author and her publisher did not engage at all with the prize (it was a nomination of last year’s judges) and I did not think it was appropriate to vote for it.
Sam’s choice of the shortlist and the clear winner of the public vote was “Hello Friend We Missed You” by Richard Owain Roberts https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... I was completely unable to make any positive connection with this novel – one which Sam described as moving and humourous examination of grief and could not vote for it. But equally given the largely good-humoured (if slightly disingenuous) way its backers behaved BTL I was also not inclined to block it. Eventually Sam just about persuaded another judge to back it with the promise he would wield his casting vote otherwise so it won after an amusing judges meeting.
Some coverage of the short list (including my real identity) is here:
I was (with thanks to Sarah Johnson and Dymphna Flynn) able to join again Radio 4’s Front Row – this time to put some questions (only one of which was broadcast) to Tsitsi Dangarembga on her trilogy of novels culminating in a Booker shortlisting
I was also on another occasion able to put some a question to Jenny Offil on her novel Dept. of Speculation (albeit this was a rather remote experience as taking place early on in COVID-19 the questions were recorded and played back to her).
I read the full longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, Women’s Prize, Booker prize and the shortlists for Not The Booker (of course), Booker International and Goldsmith.
The clear winner for me on shortlist this year was the Women’s Prize – with a shortlist which contained 3 outstanding books (2 of my favourite of 2020 – “Hamnet” and “The Mirror and the Light” – and my favourite of 2019 – Girl Woman Other) – Hamnet being the most appropriate winner.
The Booker is to be congratulated on an excellent winner from a weak shortlist and unconvincing longlist. On a shortlist dominated by debut novels that read like debuts - it shone and will I have no doubt be a well loved winner for years to come.
An honourable mention to the Dublin Literary Award which this year lived up to what it is meant to be – a kind of 1-2 year retrospective “best of” award and managed to pit winners of the Booker, Women’s Prize, NBA, Nobel, Giller, NBA) with the winner my favourite book of 2018 – “Milkman” by Anna Burns.
And the prize that has most inspired my reading – the Nobel Prize – where I have decided to next year read Louise Gluck’s poetry daily.
The Booker seemed to feature a venn diagram of female, debut author and US based author – of which the latter two were I felt largely unfortunate – although from a patchy longlist, a shortlist which dropped three of the four best books (two of my top 10 and the most daring - “Love and Other Thought Experiments” https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and featured too many books which however admirable in intention were simply not well written, the judges then picked an outstanding winner and the only debut novel on the list which did not read like one....more
Now winner of the Jhalak Prize, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and for the Royal Society of Literature Encore award.
I am still uNow winner of the Jhalak Prize, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and for the Royal Society of Literature Encore award.
I am still unclear how this failed to make at least the Women’s Prize longlist.
…. our Original State ….. was wonderful for us. We were not squeezed inside, we were huge, strong, bold, loud, proud, brave, independent. But it was too much for the world and they got rid of it. However occasionally the state is reborn in a girl like you. But in all cases it is suppressed
This book begins in a small Ugandan village in Bugerere county in 1975 and proceeds through to 1983 (with a lengthy and important backstory section in 1934-1945). The third person point of view main character is the (then) twelve year old Kirabo – motherless (her mother’s identity and story openly not explained to her) and with a businessman Father Tom (who makes flying visits to her from Kampala), she lives with her Grandfather Miiro (a local leader with a strong interest in education – particularly of girls) and Grandmother (Alikisa now Muka Miiro) and the extended tribal family that is always around their home. Her best friend is Giibwa (daughter of one of her Grandfather’s labourer) and she is attracted to Sio (the rather haughty, English-speaking son of a car owner from a nearby village)
The opening of the book has a distinctly magical realism feel – Kirabo, a born storyteller, seems prone to splitting in half, with a second, more outrageous side to her which manifests itself in out-of-body flights. Linking this to her missing knowledge of her mother she resolves to secretly visit the blind village witch – Nsuuta – with who her grandmother has a feud to Tom’s apparent treatment of Nsuuta as a second mother.
In what I found the strongest part of the book – it then takes what I found an impressively mythical turn, as Nsutta explains her theory that (see the opening quote to my review) Kirabo’s flights are proof that she retains a tie to the First Woman/the original free state of women. She then explains that the myth making of men in all societies (including the story of Kintu – the inspiration for the author’s debut novel) first of all acted to justify the subjugation of the earth to humans and then, crucially, was developed to justify the subjugation of women to men – something which was wider than Africa
But the Bible says that God created Adam and Eve in his own image.’ ‘If he created them in his own image,’ Nsuuta snapped, ‘then afterwards Adam re-created Eve in his own image, one that suited him
And Nsutta’s further theory – one which gives the book its American title “A Girl is a Body of Water” and which she draws on African river spirits and creation myths, Greek Sirens, Western Mermaids and even Ursula Andrews (!) is that men associated women with water – both identifying them as mysterious and needing taming, and claiming the land for themselves.
“They claimed that the very first woman rose out of the sea while the first man emerged from earth...both women and the sea were baffling...water has no shape...is inconsistent...cannot be tamed...you cannot draw borders on the ocean...land belonged with men".
The final strand of Nsutta’s teaching to Kirabo is that in effect much of the policing of the patriarchal society is done by women themselves – she uses the word kweluma to represent how oppressed people turn on each other (something Kirabo recognises as it is her Grandmother rather than her Grandfather or father who seeks to restrain her freedom).
‘Kirabo, have you seen God come down from heaven to make humans behave?’ ‘No.’ ‘That is because some people have appointed themselves his police. And I tell you, child, the police are far worse than God himself. That is why the day you catch your man with another woman, you will go for the woman and not him. My grandmothers called it kweluma. That is when oppressed people turn on each other or on themselves and bite. It is as a form of relief. If you cannot bite your oppressor, you bite yourself.”
Set against an evocative portrait of Ugandan village life this makes for a strong start and one which the rest of the book does not fully manage to sustain.
The second section of the book follows Kirabo as she is taken by her father Tommy to Kampala in 1977. There to her horror she finds she has a stepmother and step-siblings and relationships with her stepmother are strained on both sides.
The third section has village girl Kirabo attend a prestigious English language boarding school – her time there taking place against the increasing violence and disappearances (including Sio – now her boyfriend’s – father) and then civil war of Amin-era Uganda. The author has named Tsitsi Dangarembga’s “Nervous Conditions” as one of her key literary inspirations – but this reader was inevitably strongly reminded of “The Book of Not”.
More so than Tambu in that book though, Kirabo (who is starting to more actively search for her mother) also receives a sexual awakening in the school and grows in her belief in Mwenkanonkano (a word I think the author has coined as a Ugandan version of feminism).
In an interview for Powell’s she explained
I wanted to explore two things. One was the idea that feminism comes from the West, and therefore, feminism is destroying our culture. So I needed to locate feminism in my culture. For me, I had to start from the beginning. When did women start to get oppressed? I needed to look at my people, my culture, from the moment it happened: Why did it happen, and how did it happen?
All of that is geared towards showing my culture that we had feminist thought before the Western feminism came. If you think Western feminism is wrong, OK, let's get rid of it, but let's look at what we have here. In the end, you're going to find that they intersect.
Kirabo is encouraged in this by Sio, who also claims to support the idea albeit his actions with Giibwa cast some doubts on this and begins to drive a wedge between the two childhood friends over their regard for Sio. This story then receives an echo as we travel back to the 1930s and the shared love of Alikisa and the much more beautiful but also more ambitious Nsuuta for Miiro and the unravelling over many years of a childhood pact to share him.
From there though I felt the novel too unraveled – or perhaps my ability to access it was inadequate. A lengthy mourning and then will scene after a death left me struggling to follow the dynamics of the various family members and the interactions of the different clans and tribes, as well as some of the customs and language used. Further the resolution of the identity of Kirabo’s mother I found one generational link to many.
The ending of the novel – as Kirabo and Giibwa struggle to reconcile – returns to the feminist ideas combined with intersectionality - but in this case the way in which colour, religion, tribe, economic status, education level, language all put up man-made barriers to female unity – with kweluma preventing Mwenkanonkano.
Overall an ambitious book – which while strong failed for me to live up to its opening. I would not be at all surprised however to see this book deservedly do very well on Prize lists. ...more
[Tony Blair} proceeded to tell [BBC’s Nick] Robinson [on a podcast interview in September 2018] .. “I don’t think the British people will tolerate
[Tony Blair} proceeded to tell [BBC’s Nick] Robinson [on a podcast interview in September 2018] .. “I don’t think the British people will tolerate a situation where, for example, the choice at the next election is Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Corbyn”
In 2017 and 2018 I read Tim Shipman’s “All Out War” which I said was “likely to stand as the definitive account of the political events before, during and after the Brexit vote”, and then his follow-up “Fall Out – A Year Of Political Mayhem”. My comments on both books were that they were “lengthy and exhaustively detailed, but rarely less than engrossing”, with the “only passages of lesser interest were typically those around the array of special advisors and campaign managers”.
The books themselves stand as a definitive record of the mess that the Conservative Party was over a 5 year or so period and why Boris Johnson was part of the intolerable choice that we were, confounding Tony Blair’s prediction, saddled with in December 2019. The consequences and terrible costs of the choice the country made has been unfortunately all too clear in 2020.
My biggest criticism of Shipman’s second book (which had the 2017 election as a centre piece) was that he “has stronger contacts among establishment figures – and this lets him down in this book due to the anti-establishment take-over of the Labour Party: the passages on Corbyn/Momentum contain far less insider detail than is usual across the two books”.
It is perhaps a strong sign that Shipman himself realises this weakness and the story he is missing that he encouraged these two journalist to write this book – a book which has the exact style and many of the strengths and weaknesses of Shipman’s books – but which centres entirely on Jeremy Corbyn and the Project around him – over the period from the 2017 to the 2019 General elections.
It is perhaps less engrossing than the Shipman books and I think there are three main reasons for that.
One is that much of the arguments and manufactured drama were purely internal and really had little impact on the real world – many of the events and people in Shipman’s book would be known at some level to the general public; many of those here were unknown to me, even as a New Statesman reader. Or to return to my criticism of Shipman's books - this is largely an account of advisors, party officials and campaign managers.
The second I think is that so much of the account seems already out of date – partly due to the sweeping election defeat which ends the book removing much of the drama from Brexit and partly due to the rather larger events of COVID (the book finishing in February 2020) – so that only 1 year on it is slightly bizarre to remember how important things like Baroness Hale of the brooch seemed at the time.
The third I suspect is two less experienced authors.
The book nevertheless stands as a good record of not just the mess but the alarming aims at the heart of the Project, why Jeremy Corbyn was a part of the intolerable choice and would likely have lead to even higher costs in 2020....more
I re-read it after its deserving shortlisting for the 2021 Women's Prize (one of many prize listings including CostaWinner of the 2021 Women’s Prize.
I re-read it after its deserving shortlisting for the 2021 Women's Prize (one of many prize listings including Costa and Hugo/Nebula). The second time around I read a Waterstones special edition with an additional chapter at the end of the book and I found the book equally enjoyable.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
The author’s long awaited second novel after her astonishingly ambitious debut novel - one that I read in a single sitting (this follow up I should stress not the debut!)
This book as has been well documented is not a follow up to “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” but has its origins much earlier in the author’s reading and writing life:
In my twenties, I loved the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. They’re generally very short, very precise and very jewel-like. Some of the worlds he created are strange — worlds that pose philosophical questions and make you think in ways you’ve never thought before. One world, for example, is an endless library (The Library of Babel). So at some point in the 1980s I wrote a few pages about a Borgesian sort of world which consisted of a vast house in which an ocean was imprisoned. Two characters inhabited it; one character understood the house instinctively and could navigate it easily and the other character could only really increase his understanding of the house by studying the first character
Other very explicit literary influences on this novel include:
- Borges’s “The House of Asterion” - CS Lewis’s “The Magician’s Nephew” (which features in the epigraph, the name of a major character) – in particular Charn and the World Between the Woods - Lewis’s “The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe” as more explicitly signalled by the front cover the edition I read and in a remark about a young child meeting a faun in a snowy landscape - The Carceri d'invenzione drawings of Giambattista Piranesi (chosen for that reason as Piranesi's nickname) - The philiosophical writings of Lewis’s fellow Inkling Owen Barfield particularly his ideas of original participation and (developed jointly with Lewis) chronological snobbery - (and very clearly) Plato’s allegory of the cave
With underlying themes including isolation (and it’s strange pleasures) and the relation of man to the natural world - so a book that is both timeless and timely in a year when COVID lockdowns and climate change concerns top the news agenda and pertinent to the author who wrote this book while suffering with chronic illness that largely lead her to being physically confined pre-COVID.
My overwhelming take-away from the book was that (not unlike some of Lewis’s imagery) much of the book is a metaphor for the imagination and in particular the imagination of a reader of fiction.
Certainly my own experience on reading this novel was as follows: short bafflement followed by intrigue as I setted into the world of the book; annoyance as our own world seemed to intervene on the edges of this world; disappointment at how the eventual return to the real world was somehow simultaneously disappointingly mundane but also unsatisfactorily mysterious; finally a desire to be able simply to return to the pristine world of the book and to ignore the real world.
And somehow and very cleverly that also on a higher level reflects much of my own experience as a reader in general (not just for this book); and on a lower level reflects the experiences of many of those in the book (Piranesi but also Raphael and Ritter).
An aspect I found frustrating was when the book turned from the world of speculation to the world of resolution as we read the narrator's old journals (and gain a greater understanding than he initially has).
Again though I see this as a metaphor for the way in which fiction at its best tries to open up possibilities - whereas non-fiction at its best tries to close them down in a search for the truth.
Definitely a book and a world to revisit from time to time and a book that reminded me of what drew me to reading fiction as a child and has sustained my interest for nearly a half-century....more
In the past the great efflorescences [rapid and often unexpected upturns when both population and income per capita grow] in history – those major
In the past the great efflorescences [rapid and often unexpected upturns when both population and income per capita grow] in history – those major episodes of openness and progress petered out ….. Innovation always faces resistance from groups that think they stand to lose from it, be they old political or religious elites, businesses with old technologies, workers with outmoded skills, nostalgic romantics or old folks who feel anxious because people don’t do things the way they used to. They have an incentive to stop changes with bans, regulations, monopolies, the burning of boats [to keep people in and prevent trade] or the building of walls [to keep others out]. And then the rest of us panic about the world we let them have their way.
Only once in human history has a promising efflorescence not been cut short by the forces opposing openness. At least so far.
This book is written by a long time defender of globalisation, free trade, liberalism whose most famous book “Progress” argues sets out ten areas (food, sanitation, life expectancy, poverty, violence, the environment, literacy, freedom, equality, conditions of childhood) where astonishing (and often rapidly accelerating) progress has been made in the last 100-200 years.
With alliteration of my own: This book seeks to link that recent progress to a period of openness in integrated global trade, immigration and ideas, not impeded by institutions, but under imminent threat.
The book basically uses three main lenses to explore the idea both of openness and the way in which past similar (albeit more localised) periods of flourishing have come to an end - evolution/hunter-gatherer behaviour (the author likes to examine our origins as both traders and tribalists), Modern and Ancient History and Behavioural economic experiments. My preference is more for his historical explanations which are excellent (if sweeping) than the behavioural economics – it is hard to give equal weight in my view to hundreds of years of history and some artificial experiments on hypothetical preferences using a small set of US graduates.
Overall I found this a fascinating book – with perhaps the first half stronger than the second. So much of it feels close to self-evident (a little like the ideas of Progress) and yet, particularly currently, the consensus view seems to be almost the polar opposite. As an example in the recent UK election – the activists at the heart of the two main parties are motivated to a large part by their rejection of the tenets of the book (despite or even because their own parties having recently run successful governments which believed in them).
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS
The first sections look at how Openness in its various aspects has succeeded
Open Exchange: this chapter looks at free trade and global trade routes over time including: Mesopotamia and the development of cities, the Phoenicians and the Romans and argues against the meaningless of trade balances.
Open Doors: This chapter looks at successful and diverse ancient empires – e.g. Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, Roman Empire - and argues their success was due to how they both absorbed the best of the countries they conquered and allowed those countries to retain their traditions and become citizens. It then looks at more successful recent examples which were also actively founded on immigration and integration: Mongols, Ottoman empire, Dutch republic, America melting pot. An excellent (if not entirely new section) looks at hostile attitudes to new immigrants over time in America and how each in time became assimilated only for a new form of immigrant to be claimed as a threat in exactly the same language (Germans/Scandinavians, Irish/Poles, Chinese, Jews, Hispanic, Islamic). One interesting area is where he argues that the left concept of cultural appropriation is meaningless (he uses an example of a white Swedish minister criticised for her dreadlocks – and points out how, via Ethiopia these came from the Nazirities in Numbers 6).
Open Minds. This chapter looks at cultures which were open to free thought such as Ancient Greece (the first with openness to other ideas, preparedness to not only accept but encourage criticism of the prevailing orthodoxy); early Islamic culture, Enlightenment Europe and the Republic of Letters – and how each flourished. He argues briefly but tellingly against the current closing of minds and increasingly left-enforced heterodoxy of views in Western Universities.
Open Societies. This section looks at how institutional attitudes acted over time to encourage (or almost always discourage and stamp out) openness. He looks at the success of the Song dynasty in China and then the disastrous inward turning of Ming dynasty. His main case study is the UK tracing how Civil War, Glorious Revolution, openness to Huguenot and other dissidents and many other areas lead to the Industrial Revolution. This is a strong chapter as it effectively argues that institutions almost always are against openness and that the success of Europe in driving so much of the recent progress was actually a failure (so that we have to be ever vigilant that things may be reversed :
The story of Europe’s eventual triumph can be told as the story of its failures: the failures of kings and emperors to unify the European continent; of Church authorities to impose a single religious orthodoxy; and of monopolies and guides to block new technologies and business models. This was not for lack of trying.
Taking its cue from this – the next sections then look at what leads to people being opposed to openness – and also how those opposed to openness deliberately encourage and play on these tendencies.
Us and Them: This section looks at tribalism and the tendency to want to define ourselves against an other. He points out that despite all its good intentions, identity politics actually exacerbates this tendency. He has an interesting take on social media. He argues that echo chambers (he uses the term filter bubbles) are not new (this is I think possibly a European view with socialist/Christian democrat divides and without say the BBC). However he argues that why it is bad as it can make you perceive other tribes as more of an immediate threat and one that attacks you (not helped as you typically come across the most extreme manifestation). He cleverly shows how tribes are often arbitrary – first of all using sports teams and then say Remain/Brexit in UK (an axis along which a huge part of the UK population now aligns itself but which was of almost no interest as an identity marker pre the referendum).
Zero sum. This section looks at how a zero sum, rather than a win-win, view of the world inevitably is aligned to closeness. This is I think one of the toughest sections as it discussed but not I think completely addresses how we are hard wired for fairness and differentials rather than for absolute outcome. He does provide some strong arguments that the increase in prosperity have massively decreases quality of life (rather than wealth) differentials. In simple terms when everyone has access to good food, healthcare, consumer goods etc the difference for the wealthy is much smaller – but at times I felt this was a middle class versus rich argument rather than a poor versus rich (interestingly though he is a proponent of UBI – I think as a way to eliminate poverty and the poverty trap). He also interestingly argues about what he calls the Physical fallacy (that valued in goods is only added by the direct manufacture process) and how this leads to an undervaluing of entrepreneurs, finance, traders etc (all of whom are then seen as – my terms – rent extracting parasites). It also has a great section on Status which includes the line:
The same people who would never carry out around an expensive hand bag or talk about how much they bench press would not hesitate to tell you … the fact that they are reading that bleak yet surprisingly amusing Slovenian novel.
Anticipatory Anxiety. This section I found rather unoriginal on the concept of nostalgia – and how there never were any good old days – the author of Ecclesiastes (7:10) dealt with this a long time ago. It then goes on to discuss innovation and how people are both fearful of it but also want to direct and manage it in ways that are almost always ill-founded rather than allowing natural ideas to develop (he argues that both conservatives and progressives are at fault for wanting either no progress or guided/closed-end progress rather than allowing for open ended progress). He uses the IT and internet revolution as an example here and argues the same (via a carbon tax) should apply to climate change....more
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer
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Books:
2020
(185)
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