Books 2010: Faber – The Crimson Petal & the White
In my Copenhagen-dwelling days, one of my greatest pleasures was to tour the second-hand bookshops in search of English-language books. I had a favourite haunt - just around the corner from my home - which had pile upon pile of ridiculously cheap books in all languages. The owner opened the shop whenever he felt like it and that was my only problem: I had to be Constantly Vigilant or I could miss the one day in three months when he felt like opening the shutters. The other second-hand shops had fewer books, were more expensive and tended to have the same selection of books. The first Bridget Jones novel was in heavy supply, as was The Celestine Prophecy, Dan Brown's numerous tomes and .. Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. In my head I yoked Faber's book together with these other books of dubious quality and so I never read it, although I had plenty of copies to choose from.
Fast-forward some five or six years.
Michel Faber's Under the Skin, a 'strange, disturbing, genre-defying short novel', turned out to be one of the most fascinating reads in recent memory (I must revisit it soon). Of course I am eager to read more books by Faber, and so another second-hand shop (in another city in another country in another life) delivers yet another copy of The Crimson Petal and White. This time I bought it. It bears no resemblance to Bridget Jones, Dan Brown, nor The Celestine Prophecy. Instead it reads like Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet written by the step-child of John Fowles.
The Crimson is a Victorian novel written for the 21st century. Like Waters' first few books, it explores the underbelly of Victorian society in a way that Charles Dickens could not: the prostitutes, the corpses dragged from the Thames, the blood, the gore, the shame. Faber has a writerly touch which infuses the book with tiny postmodern flourishes - an omniscient narrator breaking the fourth wall, texts within texts and many characters being authors themselves. His touch is light enough not to irritate, but occasionally it is almost too light: mid-novel it almost disappears only to reappear just before the end. Knowing references to "proper" Victorian novels abound. Readers who have read Collins' The Woman in White, Brontë's Jane Eyre, and Dickens' Great Expectations will savour Faber's small nods; readers who comes to The Crimson without any 19th C novels behind them will enjoy The Crimson as a rollicking good read.
And it is a very good read. I find it difficult to find faults with The Crimson, but at the same time it did not captured me in the same way that Under the Skin did. It is significantly less raw and more conventional (by current standards - certainly not by 19th C standards!). I finished reading it today and found out that the novel has been commissioned for a four-part BBC drama. And perhaps that sums up my sole problem with the book: it is a novel thriving on exploring the dark side of society, and yet it is polite enough to become a Sunday evening BBC costume drama.
Kimfobo at Reading Matters has a superb review, as does Tom of A Common Reader. Maybe The Crimson Petal and the White is still just tainted in my mind by sharing those shelves with Bridget Jones et al all those years ago.
Books 2010: Scarlett Thomas – Our Tragic Universe
I am reading a lot at the moment. Scarlett Thomas' latest novel fell into my lap at the local library and I was happy to take it home with me. I am equally happy to take it back not having spent any money on it.
Let us recap what happened last time I read one of Ms Thomas' books:
I do not know why I’ve read three Scarlett Thomas novels because if you take away the colourful packaging of a) metafiction (“The End of Mr Y”), b) anti-consumerism (“PopCo”) and c) popculture (“Going Out”) you get pretty much the same novel. New Age health solutions? Check. Schrödinger’s cat? Check. Main protagonist being into her math puzzles? Check. Slightly deviant sexual orientation painted in a fairly vague way? Check. C-category drug use? Check. Vegetarianism or some variant upon it? Check. Internet featuring heavily? Check.
But I still like her novels (..) even if they feel like a Linda McCartney meal. You know, easily digested vegetarian fare with a touch of celebrity to it?
Our Tragic Universe? It reads like a diluted version of the above padded with Narratology for Dummies, Tarot cards, jam-making and pages about how difficult it is to, er, knit socks. Everything falls into place once Scarle Meg figures out how to knit socks on double-pointed needles. I wish I were making this up.
Okay, a more sophisticated approach:
Clearly Our Tragic Universe wants to have a plotless plot or even be that paradoxical beast: an approachable antinovel. Whatever plot it has, it revolves around our protagonist attempting to write a hip, Zeitgeisty novel without a plot. Ah, funnily enough the novel itself mirrors the non-existing novel within. So far, so refreshingly clever (or depressingly metafictional, depending upon your mood). Sadly, Scarlett Thomas knows how to do this intellectually (we know this because the books bangs on and on about the theories) but her novelistic chops let her down.
Our Tragic Universe is a mess, and not even an entertaining mess.
Scarlett Thomas thanks Andrew Crumey in her notes. Crumey writes the sort of novel that Thomas thinks (or wishes or pretends because her books are all about pretending) she is writing. Go seek them out. I'm currently thirty pages into David Mitchell's number9dream - he is that rare beast: an author who is a chameleon but also is constantly himself. Mitchell does marvellous things with narrative structure and is essentially a storyteller at heart. Another author I would recommend you read instead of spending time/money on Our Tragic Universe.
(Our Tragic Universe is actually worse than my other recent read, Julia Quinn's Splendid, which is terribly sad because Splendid is set in Regency London and has characters slipping in and out of 1990s Valley-speak.)
Books 2010: Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger/ Rachel Seiffert: The Dark Room
My first Sarah Waters book was, appropriately enough, her first published novel, Tipping the Velvet. In 2003 I wrote: "..less than the sum of its part, but her evocation of a Victorian London filled with gender-benders and rent boys was thought-provoking: what did Dickens and his contemporaries omit from their tales?" Sarah Waters has come a long way from the seedy underbelly of Victorian London. Some would say that her books are less entertaining these days; I would say that Sarah Waters is beginning to show some impressive novelistic chops.
The Little Stranger is not Waters' opus magnum. It is an uneven novel - less sure of where it is going than Waters' other novels - and the dénouement will be too open-ended for some people. I really enjoyed it, in other words. Where once Waters threw Everything and the Kitchen Sink into her books, she leans back here and trusts herself as a writer. Her first two novels were particularly unsubtle, but The Little Stranger thrives on subtlety. I understand if other readers find its lack of resolve frustrating, but I would argue this may be the point of the novel. I said it of Alan Hollinghurst and now I shall say it of Sarah Waters: the Big Important Novel will happen at some point soon. As for now The Little Stranger has preyed on my mind that Waters' other novels have failed to do.
I have not read anything else by Rachel Seiffert and the decision to read The Dark Room was a quick 8am "I have to have something to read at lunch" grab. Twelve hours later and the book is finished. Another uneven read, but unlike The Little Stranger, the unevenness stems from an author unable to join the seams and smooth out the kinks in her material. The subject, the effect of the Second World War on Germans, is too big and too complex for Seiffert. Symbolic gestures replace genuine characterisation - the disabled boy becoming a fervent nationalist; the collaborator standing in for an absent grandfather - and the entire novel falls a bit flat. I think the second story of The Dark Room's three would make a good companion piece to Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, though, as they share similar characters and a similar setting, yet tell two quite different stories.
Next: I think it is time to move away from books set circa 1940-1950.
Books 2010: Tóibín – Brooklyn
Last week I finished reading Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn, a quiet novel about a girl who moves from one country to another in order to improve her prospects. I have a lot of time for Tóibín: his novel about Henry James, The Master, was one of my favourite reads in the past decade, and I remember being shocked and moved by another deceptively quiet Tóibín novel, The Story of the Night. With Tóibín, you wait for the story to hit you. His books are not fast-paced caper filled with unbridled emotions - you have to be a patient reader and put your trust in the story-telling. The quiet rooms, the things left unsaid and the thoughts the characters keep to themselves - Colm Tóibín knows that is where the real stories exist.
That is not to say that Nothing Ever Happens in Brooklyn. Eilis Lacey, our protagonist, goes to dances, finds a job, meets people and falls in love. Brooklyn has comedic touches too - some colourful characters, a baseball game, a stomach-churning journey across the Atlantic - but admittedly even the comedic touches are low-key. Oh, and there are some very, very big decisions being made by ordinary people in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is about the the émigré experience. What does it really feel like leaving your country, your culture, your family and your friends for somewhere else? Reading Matters has an excellent take on this:
[Brooklyn] might be set in the 1950s but it touches on universal themes that resonate today, and I've yet to read anything that so perfectly captures the profound sense of dislocation you feel when you swap one country for another and then return to your homeland for the first time.
In short, Brooklyn is a superb paean to homesickness and the émigré experience. I think I identified with it so strongly because it shows, in an understated but powerful manner, how all emigrants have to make that god-awful decision about whether to stay or go (..).
I took my time reading Brooklyn, mostly because I did not want to become upset on public transport or in my workplace. I hesitate to use this word, but reading this novel was a profound reading experience - I put much of myself and my own life into it. It will stay with me for a long time.
I am now currently reading Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. I have a little theory about Waters the novelist and so far The Little Stranger plays along with my theory. It is also very good thus far.
Books 2010: Ishiguro, Larsson
As I was reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (or Män som hatar kvinnor, Men Who Hate Women, a much preferable title which I shall use forthwith), I kept thinking about my previous read, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. What was it about Ishiguro's novel which singled it out as an automatic qualifier for the "Worst Read of 2010" post I will be writing early next year? What made it particularly awful?
Only a handful of books make it to my all-time God-Awful Reads list.
Jonathan Myerson's Noise is one: wildly inconsistent pacing, one plot dropped in favour for another as Myerson seemingly got bored with his original idea (or found himself incapable of writing the novel he set out to do) and a constant sneering, smug sense of contempt running throughout the book (the only consistent thing about it). Julian Barnes' England, England is another. Barnes had two great ideas (England as a theme-park and a Baudrillardian take on said theme-park) but could not get them to work in the context of a novel. A cautionary tale that sometimes you need to write an essay rather than try to work your ideas out in fiction. And then dear Ian McEwan with his Booker-winning Amsterdam, a book so contrived, self-indulgent and ill-executed that it has coloured my reading of everything else McEwan has written.
I think what bothers me about Never Let Me Go was the pointlessness of it. I cannot even pretend to loathe it as there is nothing there to loathe. I cannot point to any smug, self-inflated sense of importance (Myerson's Noise), any over-ambitious intellectualism running rampant (Barnes' England, England), nor any toe-curlingly bad writing and plotting (McEwan's Amsterdam). Ishiguro's book is just .. there. It doesn't challenge, doesn't engage, doesn't take a stand and doesn't make you think. I'm bothered by this (which could be argued is an achievement, of course).
By contrast I finished reading Larsson's novel this morning having raced through it over the course of the weekend. Män som hatar kvinnor is not my cup of tea. I am a squeamish reader who does not enjoy reading page after page filled with gory details or graphic sexual encounters. I also had real issues with the main characters (the main investigator, Mikael Blomkvist, was an author surrogate; Lisbeth Salander, Blomkvist's hacker sidekick, was a pile of clichés, or, as Joan Smith points out in her excellent review, 'a revenge fantasy come to life.'). Having said that, the book made me care. I cared about finding old photographs and piecing together what happened one afternoon in 1966. The plot was convincing (if too gory for me) and unpredictable. Larsson's real strength, to me, was his description of milieus: both the remote Hedestad community and the smart and educated Stockholm media intelligentsia were drawn with a strong, decisive hand. I do not think I shall be seeking out the two other books in Larsson's trilogy - I'm too squeamish and not much of a crime-writing connoisseur - but if you like your crime novels smart, well-written and compelling, I'd recommend Män som hatar kvinnor in a heartbeat.
Next: I need to read a book written by a women, I think. Mantel & Wolf Hall, here I come.
Knitting & Reading
Meet Larry the Leicester.
I am knitting Larry out of British Sheep Breeds DK in Bluefaced Leicester cream and brown. The pattern is Janice Anderson's free sheep pattern (pdf). I made a slight mess of picking up stitches around Larry's face (the decreases stand out more than I'd like), but I hope it'll even out once I stuff the toy. I'm knitting Larry on request, but I'm actually enjoying the process way more than I thought I would.
I'm really, really loving the BSB wool: it is a heady combination of the rustic wools I love so dearly (smells faintly of sheep, is unprocessed, comes in natural colours only) and the tempting butter-soft merinos I keep going back to (so very soft, feels great as you're working with it, next-to-skin smooth). I had no idea it would be so fabulous, although my friend LH has been in raptures over it for as long as I have known her. I really have to knit a jumper or cardigan out of it one of these days. Srsly.
In very related news, my knitting bag is safe. Don't ask.
I finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go on Friday and I was very disappointed. The book has a meaty subject matter and Ishiguro has the necessary writing chops, but instead of an "extraordinary", "enthralling" and "masterly" book I was left reading a rather tedious, flawed novel. I get that Ishiguro writes about people unable to live full lives, people who are somehow lost (even to themselves) and people who are out of step with time. I get that he "writes like someone impersonating a realist" with resulting defamilarization etc. Still, the novel has an extraordinarily clumsy dénouement, the plot has numerous gaping holes and the writing felt lazy as though Ishiguro was painting by numbers. Never Let Me Go just did not add up as a satisfactory read and I am left wondering if the glowing reviews (and subsequent prize-nominations etc) were the result of Ishiguro's reputation as an important British novelist or if I am losing my grip on what a good literary novel reads like.
Next: I have exchanged my book vouchers for Toibin's Brooklyn and Mantel's Wolf Hall. I even got Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo thrown in as a special offer, although I rather regret not getting it in Swedish (but then David would be disadvantaged).
Sunnudagr
Life itself has caught up with me, so I am running behind on important things such as answering emails, sorting paperwork and, well, doing the dishes. This weekend I have allowed myself some time off and will be cooped up in bed with books, hot tea and a warm duvet. I have finally accepted this is a necessity, not a luxury, if I am to remain relatively sane, capable and congenial. It only took me some thirty years or so.
I finished reading China Miéville's The City & the City the other night, though. I had previously tried getting through Adam Roberts' Swiftly (which felt like a disastrous date set up by an online dating agency based upon our preferences and demographics, but the spark wasn't there and we disliked each other from the get-go) and Mark Slouka's The Visible World (which I'm pondering giving a second go), so when I flew through Miéville's novel, I was relieved. I'd recommend it - particularly if you like smart speculative fiction or want a detective novel with an added flourish - although it was a bit too plot-driven for my taste. Also, I liked Miéville's light writerly touches such as naming the border area between the two cities "Copula Hall" (grammar nerd alert).
I'm now awaiting the paperback releases of Colm Toibin's Brooklyn, Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall and, of course, Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. What books are you looking forward to reading?
Knitting-wise, I have made some headway on my summer top (now forever known as "Frankie Says.." and I'm showing my age) and I have cast on for a second pair of socks(!) seeing as my first pair are lovely, warm and perfect for snuggling up at night (again, showing my age).
And now it is time to do said snuggling under the covers with a book. Have a lovely Sunday.
The Accidental Woman
One of my favourite places in Glasgow has to be the Botanic Garden. When I first moved here, we lived less than three minutes away by foot and I always made a point of walking through the Botanics whenever I was walking to or fro work. Nowadays we live slightly further afield and my journey to work takes me another route, so I only get to wander around the Botanics on my days off. I like visiting often, so I can keep up with what is happening: that tree has lost its flowers, the little robin is nowhere to be seen, the cocoa plant has a new pod etc.
And in winter, the greenhouses provide great knitwear photo opportunities! Yes, 'tis my own Feather & Fan shawl. Apparently these shawls are like salted peanuts: you cannot have just one.
I finished reading Jonathan Coe's The Accidental Woman yesterday. Coe is one of my favourite contemporary authors and his What A Carve Up! is a brilliant dissection of Thatcherite Britain while I push the very affecting The House of Sleep on most of my friends. The Accidental Woman was Coe's debut novel and owes more to Coe's admitted obsession with experimental stylists like Alasdair Gray and BS Johnson than any of Coe's other books. From a technical point of view, The Accidental Woman is actually very good. The narrator decides to take an average, dull person, Maria, as his subject and the resulting novel is really about the narrator's attempt to construct "a novel", the writing process and the struggle to fit Maria into a conventional novel. The novel leaps confidently back and forth between the primary narrative and the behind-the-scenes bits which is rather astonishing considering this was Coe's first novel. However, the technical feat does make the book feel very dated (in a 1980s-high-on-metafiction sort of way) and the novel itself is deadly dull. Anyone teaching narratology might get a kick out of it, but, really, most people would do far better to read Coe's later books. They are equally well-constructed but also have the added benefits of plots, interesting characters, humour and political outrage.
Oh, and I watched the recent RSC/BBC production of Hamlet last night. I have seen several productions/versions of Hamlet in my time (that's what you get for the double whammy of being a Dane and studying English) and quite enjoyed the newest version despite a very, very, very hammy Ophelia. Oh, and I liked how the newspaper had headlines written in Danish..
Books 2010: Carter Beats The Devil
Something about 
early twentieth century arts and culture fascinates me. I like my so-called high culture as much as my pop culture and early twentieth century arts and culture loved to combine avant-garde ideas with popular culture. Some years ago I read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It told the tale of America's burgeoning comics industry but Kavalier & Clay was something more than just a paen to superheroes. Chabon had managed to write a novel about the twentieth century and about twentieth century America, in particular. Small, personal stories had been woven into a giant tapestry. Kavalier & Clay was astounding. Beautifully written and intricately plotted, it delivered both as a literary novel and as fast-paced action/adventure. I loved it.
Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil was published around the same time as Chabon's novel. Like Kavalier & Clay, Gold's novel revolves around the idea of escapism in one way or another. Mainly taking place in 1920s America, Gold's book deals with illusionist Charles Carter who suddenly finds himself in trouble when President Harding dies shortly after having participated in one of Carter's illusions. Cue chapter upon chapter filled with vaudeville acts, flappers, Russian anarchists, baffling illusions, quirky scientists, and a lot of card-shuffling. It should be entertaining and it is entertaining - but unfortunately I have read Chabon's novel which not only shuffles similar cards better but also pulls off far bigger sleights of hand.
I did enjoy the book, though. I liked the description of vaudeville performers travelling around trying to entertain people but gradually seeing their audience fall prey to moving pictures (and, later, television). I liked reading about how illusionists worked: the patter, the agility, the teamwork behind the scene and how illusions were constructed (although they are rarely explained in the novel). I just have two main problems with CBTD. Firstly, the novel is too long for its plot. Gold tries to go for a Wilkie Collins-esque vibe and also gives world-building a fair go, but this results in a book about 150 pages too long. Secondly, the writing style is clunky at times. I know some people do not care about writing styles, but I do. I am one of those people who really do not care about the plot as long as the book is well-written (I like Alan Hollinghurst, for heaven's sake).
At the end of the day, Carter Beats the Devil was an entertaining read but it was definitely not The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which you should read if you haven't already).
Next: Jonathan Coe's first novel, The Accidental Woman.
Still Waters
Yes, it continues to be cold. The novelty of snow has long worn off. My sole source of weather-related amusement is the media who insist 60,000 people will die in the Big Freeze, the British Army is being set in and the beginning of food shortages lead to soaring prices. Yesterday night BBC News ran a Breaking News! story which was - and I kid you not - that snowflakes were seen falling in London. Panic, panic, panic.. but I do find it annoying that we have to pour hot water down our loo every few hours so that the pipes do not freeze. One part of our apartment building had to be shut down because the pipes burst. If ever there was an argument against pipes being stuck to the outside of buildings and exposed to the elements, then this is surely it? Oh you wacky Britons.
While I was at work yesterday (and hello to those of you who came visiting), David went for a walk along the River Kelvin. It is almost completely frozen and signs are up warning people against letting their dogs run unto the ice. Despite all the stern signage, Dave did spot a few illiterate animals out and about on the ice - including a little mink drinking a bit of water. I continue to be amazed at how much wildlife we have on our doorstep, even if we live in the middle of a sprawling city.
I'm currently reading Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil which I gave David for Christmas (he hasn't had a chance to start it yet as he is reading his way through the other five novels I gave him). I bought it because I knew how much Dave had enjoyed Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and I got a similar vibe from CBTD. If you like Kavalier & Clay, early 20th century popular entertainment or maybe even Wilkie Collins, I think CBTD might appeal. I'm certainly enjoying the glimpses into vaudeville performances, music halls and larger-than-life personalities.
Finally, I'm listening a fair bit to Martha Wainwright's album of Edith Piaf songs, Sans Fusils Ni Souliers A Paris. You can get a taste of it by watching Martha singing L'Accordéoniste on Jools Holland's show (youtube link). Her darling brother is touring Britain in April and I'm hoping for a concert ticket for my birthday.