Harold Fry

'It must be the same all over England. People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.'

- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

Shark

When I was about half way through Will Self's latest novel Shark, back in November, I went down to Bristol to see him at one of those reading/signing/promotional evenings authors do. He talked about some of the ideas behind the novel and the process of writing it, and read a a passage from early on in the book. I say read, it was really performed, as he gave each character a unique voice and brought their words to life.

The evening completely changed the way I was reading the book in a wonderful way: I started to read all the characters in the accents and speech habits their author had given them and I began to notice details that I hadn't been picking up on before, such as the obscure historic pop-cultural references that litter one of the main character's speech.

I found I enjoyed Shark a little more than Umbrella, and I think this was partly a result of hearing the characters 'speak', and understanding how and why their author created them, and so relating to them in a way you are not always able to as a reader. I also enjoyed the variety in the lives of the characters in the novel, in particular Jeannie, later called Genie, a drug addict who's childhood is explored and whose 'Mumsie' turns out to be a regular at the Plantation Club, which Self readers will know well!

Going from Umbrella straight onto Shark also meant I was tuned into the stream-of-consciousness writing style from the off, and once you get used to it it becomes almost natural and stops getting in the way of your following the characters stories develop. Apparently the next novel will be the final part of a trilogy, so I'm looking forward to what that will bring!

Umbrella

If you've been dipping into this blog for some time, you might be wondering why this has been so long coming. Ever since I went to buy my copy of Umbrella by Will Self, on my 10 year anniversary of meeting him at a signing for Dorian, it has been sitting on bookshelf with all my other Will Selfs (the 'Will Self shelf'), nestled between Haruki Murakami and Stephen Fry, quietly waiting almost two years to be read.

You see, I was waiting for the right time to read Umbrella. A quiet period, with manageable time for uninterrupted reading and few plans, and perhaps following on from a light easy read to ready my mind. Only this never came. And then a few weeks ago, Shark was released and there I was with Umbrella unread on the shelf. So I picked it up one day and took it on a work trip to the north. I opened it at 6.40am, 3 minutes into a 2 hour train journey. Unfortunately, 5 minutes after that I was fast asleep, so it wasn't actually until the return journey that I started it properly.

Numerous reviews had warned about it being difficult to read. And it certainly is a challenge. You have to pay attention. There are no chapters, few paragraphs, and the time, place and point of view are all continually shifting, unexpectedly, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. But if you focus, it isn't that hard to follow (even if you sometimes might have to jump back and read a page again to work out how you got from a modern day London bus ride to the trenches of the First World War).

The story is far from being buried by the style. On the contrary, in many respects I found the style enhanced your understanding of how the separate narratives link and intertwine, developing as layers together around the central themes. The novel's free-flowing stream-of-consciousness binds the characters and their lives together in a powerful, almost emotional way which I cannot imagine a more conventional style achieving. 

The subject of the novel is a fascinating one, based upon the real life trials Dr Oliver Sacks carried out on patients with encephalitis lethargica in the 1960s, except here of course it is Dr Zachary Busner once more in the starring role. I think that if you are willing to put the effort in, this is a far more accessible novel than might be immediately apparent: an enormously rewarding and enjoyable challenge for anyone looking to engage in a different type of reading. 

Melrosiad - Some Hope

Back with a newly cleaned up Patrick Melrose this week. Having left behind his troubled 20s, Patrick and I are now pretty much the same age. I think we would get on.

"As far as I know she's driving a consignment of ten thousand syringes to Poland. People say it's marvellous of her, but I still think that charity begins at home. She could have saved herself the journey by bringing them round to my flat," said Patrick.

"I thought you'd put all that behind you," said Nicholas.

"Behind me, in front of me. It's hard to tell, here in the Grey Zone.

"That's a rather melodramatic way to talk at thirty,"

"Well, you see," sighed Patrick, "I've given up everything, but taken nothing up instead."

NW

NW by Zadie Smith

Melrosiad

Sneaky lunch-break trip to Waterstones = quality time with Patrick Melrose (now all grown up and drug-addicted)!

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

When I was about 17 I went a bit in love with Novalis during German A Level. How could you not be? HOW!

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this by chance, while randomly searching through books in my local library, and was excited to see it was a historical fiction about 18th Century German romantic poet and philosopher Novalis (Georg Phillip Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg to his parents). Really, who doesn't love Novalis?

The novel is primarily concerned with Novalis/Hardenberg's relationship with Sophie von Kühn, whom he met when he was 22 and with whom he fell obsessively in love.

Sophie was 12. Awkward.

Fitzgerald tells the story through a series of short, snap-shot-like chapters in roughly chronological order. It begins with Hardenberg as a student, visiting his family for the summer, and ends in the midst of Sophie's illness, from which she would ultimately die a few months later, aged 15. The novel flows wonderfully and the prose is almost rich in its poise and simplicity.

I guess my enjoyment of the novel was enhanced by my interest in the real life story and historical figures. Fitzgerald does not pass judgment on the appropriateness (or otherwise) of Hardenberg's relationship with Sophie, but rather explores the influence it had on his life, beliefs and writing. I can understand why some may therefore be disappointed by the lack of drama in the novel, but even still, I can't see how this delicate retelling of a real life story of doomed love would fail to inspire at least some emotion.

This is also the first time I have read Penelope Fitzgerald and I will certainly look out for her other work now.

---

Coincidentally, if you have a Kindle, Novalis's unfinished novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (containing the symbolic Blue Flower) is available as a free ebook in both German and English translation!

View all my reviews

Winnie ille Pu

One of my favourite surprises I got for Christmas was this copy of Winnie the Pooh in Latin, from Mark's mum.


My 2 years of secondary school latin have not really equipped me to understand very much of it, but I can't stop reading it for its endless joyfulness! The joy of Winnie the Pooh is enhanced by the Latin language, I'm sure. Such as in this scene, where Piglet (Porcellus) dreams of the Heffalump (Heffalumpus...of course):


Some parts, however, do not need translating...

Book review: 'blueeyedboy' by Joanne Harris

I've had an account over at Goodreads for a while. I really like it as a website and the way it works as a social networking site with a difference, and I post up the occasional super-short review. I like doing this mainly because it helps me remember what I've read and what I thought of the book in the immediate aftermath of turning the final page. I just wrote one and noticed it gave you the option to share your review through a blog so I thought I'd give it a go! If this works well and my readers are interested, I may post some more in future!

Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought I would love this, as I recently read Joanne Harris's 'Gentlemen and Players', which I thought was a superb book, and was told this was in the same vein.

It has considerable similarities, based again on the idea of concealing your identity, and even set in the same town (the fictional school that formed the setting of 'Gentlemen and Players' also features in this novel). I liked the concept - the idea of characters hiding behind online identities, the blurring of the boundaries between fact and fiction. But I ultimately didn't get drawn into this book. The way it's told, through a series of fictional/semi-fictional blog posts by the two main characters, caused the narrative to lose momentum a little, and as a result the suspense didn't build enough for me and the twist at the end, while clever, didn't deliver the punch I was expecting.

Still, it's interesting, intelligent and well-written. I would still recommend this book, but perhaps not as strongly as some of Joanne Harris's other work.

View all my reviews

-------------------

I am a massive book lover and something I always wanted to do on my old blog but never got around to (there was always too much fun day-to-day stuff to write about while I was in Australia!) was to share some of my all time favourite books, what brought me to them and why I love them. Hopefully I'll get started on that soon!