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A Common Reader has been beset by network problems and has been up to his ears with router stats, sync speeds and interleaving over the last week. Now hopefully resolved. Lindsay Clarke came to fame by winning the Whitbread Prize in 1989 with his novel, The Chymical Wedding. It has been a long wait [...]
Howard Jacobson writes with sophistication and verve. I often found myself pausing over a sentence to take in the meaning, double, or triple sometimes, for Jacobson’s use of language is always inventive and occasionally startling. The story centres on Julian Treslove, a former radio producer whose career has failed to rise as it should have, mainly because of his lack of focus on the task in hand and a degree of self-doubt which robs him of the certainty he needs to succeed. Treslove has two close friends, Sam Finkler, a television producer and Jewish philosopher and the former teacher of Sam and Julian, Libor Sevcik, an elderly widower, also Jewish, who in some ways acts as a mentor to the two men. One day, while walking near Broadcasting House Treslove is mugged and all his valuables are stolen. Treslove is mortified to realise that his assailant is a woman. And to complicate matters, although the words she uttered at the time of the robbery are indistinct, on further reflection, Treslove comes to believe that they were the words, “You Jew!”. Continue reading Review: The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson
As the book opens we meet Nick and his partner Astrid who are driving to Hastings to pick up Nick’s father Ken, a miserly, cantankerous old man, living in Hastings on the South Coast with his unfortunate wife June. They are all going to have lunch with Dave, Nick’s brother and his wife, Marina. The lunch will be dominated by Ken’s announcement that he wants to leave all his money to son number two, Dave, and expects Nick, a lawyer, to draw up the will which will so determinedly favour his brother. Astrid can’t help herself from exclaiming, “What about Nick?”, only to hear the irascible old man reply, Thank you young lady, but you’re new to this family. You’re not even in the this family, matter of fact, so I’ll ask you to keep your nose out. Ken’s appalling behaviour suffuses this book. He really is a wicked old man, blind to his own failings and judgemental about everyone else’s. When people treat him as he deserves he is puffily hurt and fails to see how his own provocations are at the root of his troubles. Continue reading Review: The Old Romantic – Louise Dean
This is the 200th full-length review I’ve published on A Common Reader. A sort of milestone. . . I have been subscribing to Granta magazine for quite a few years now and enjoy its quality writing on a vast range of subjects. Its a well-produced journal, not the sort of thing you want to throw away, and I find with most editions that there are one or two articles which still in my mind and make me want to come back to them, often years later. Articles (both fiction and factual) are written by a wide range of writers, including such notables Jonathan Raban, Peter Carey, Salman Rushdie, Lionel Shriver, Paul Auster, Elaine Showalter and countless others. Every so often a book comes your way which is satisfying in many different ways. In Are We Related? The New Granta Book of the Family the writing is excellent and the variety of pieces is sufficiently wide that every one comes as a surprise when you read it. The physicality of the book is pleasing – it feels big and substantial, the typeface and layout work well. Its a book you can dip in and out of and as you read it, you know its going to remain on your shelf to be dipped in and out of for years to come. Liz Jobey (Associated Editor of Granta) has selected 27 pieces about the family, taken from Granta magazines from 1995 to the present day, all of which, whether fiction of non-fiction, explore the complexity of family relationships and the stresses and strains they generate (and occasional joys). Continue reading Review – Are We Related? Granta Books
When I read a review of Flood by Stephen Baxter, I thought that perhaps this one wouldn’t be too bad and so I decided that I would give it a try. I started the book on Friday evening and had read all 500 pages by breakfast this morning, which probably says something about Baxter’s ability to tell a good story and to keep his readers turning the pages. The first sentence or two of the publisher’s blurb says it all - Next year. Sea levels begin to rise. The change is far more rapid than any climate change predictions; metres a year. Within two years London, only 15 metres above the sea, is drowned. New York follows, the Pope gives his last address from the Vatican, Mecca disappears beneath the waves. Where is all the water coming from? It seems that the water comes from previously locked up lodes of water, previously contained within the Earth’s mantle. In his Afterword, Stephen Baxter actually quotes from articles in Nature, Science and New Scientist as a starting point for this novel, which takes as its premise that the rock-casing of these vast subterranean oceans could be fractured by seismic shocks and cause sea levels to rise far more rapidly than the predictions of global-warming theory. Continue reading Review: Flood – Stephen Baxter
Slightly Foxed also publish limited print-run reprints of forgotten books under the imprint Slightly Foxed Editions. These tend to sell-out but a few are still available. I don’t usually buy these – I was tempted by A Cab at the Door by V S Pritchett but I already have a paper-back copy do didn’t bother. The latest one interested me however, A House in Flanders, by Michael Jenkins, and I’ve been pretty pleased with it despite my lack of interest in “book collecting” as such. Continue reading Review: A House in Flanders – Michael Jenkins
I apologise to anyone who has received multiple updates for this post in Google Reader and other feed readers. I have experienced technical problems following a software upgrade which I have now fixed.
The mystery about this book is its unique place in Michel Faber’s output – he has written nothing either before or since that compares with or that has a similar style or theme to TCPATW, other than perhaps The Apple, a volume of “cutting room floor” pieces, which provide those who couldn’t bear having finished TCPATW with a few more snippets to remind them of what they were missing. I think I’ve read all his other books (e.g. the much lauded – but not by me – The Fire Gospel) in a quest to find the same level of reading satisfaction and while I appreciated them on their own terms, I did not feel that any one of them even approached the quality of TCPATW. The Crimson Petal And The White by is a substantial book of over 800 pages and although at first I was a little daunted by its length, in no time at all I found myself completely absorbed. The book charts the rise of Sugar a London prostitute in Victorian England. Sugar was groomed into prostitution from being a young child, by her mother and although she has known no other life than one of abuse, she has visions of a life far beyond what she experienced. Continue reading Review: The Crimson Petal and The White – Michel Faber
Richard C Morais has added another contribution to this genre in The Hundred-Foot Journey, the story of the journey of a young Indian boy from his parents restaurant in Mumbai to becoming a renowned chef in pursuit of the coveted Michelin stars. The book is often funny and at times moving, but the overall impression is of colour, from the vibrant streets of Mumbai to the calm mellow shades of top European restaurants. Hassan’s childhood was rich with family and food – his grandfather’s restaurant was a successful enterprise and cooking was in Hassan’s blood from early childhood. His father, Big Abbas, had developed the restaurant into a flourishing business with Hassan’s mother doing the books and various relatives working hard to help the business thrive. The early chapters of the books give a flavoursome picture of life in a successful restaurant, with early morning visits to the markets (a riot of noise and smells), and the ordered chaos of the kitchens as the evening meals are prepared. Tragedy hits the family however, and they leave India for good, setting up home firstly in Southall, London, where Hassan starts to experience what it is like to be a Westernised teenager. Before long they realise that London is not for them and the family embark on an eccentric journey in three Mercedes cars across Europe so that Hassan’s father can explore the national menus of the Continent. Returning from Tuscany, the convoy suffers mechanical failure somewhere in the Jura region just north of the Alps in the (fictional?) town of Lumière, grinding to a halt outside a large mansion which just happens to be for sale. The mystically-inclined Papa sees the hand of destiny in the break-down and promptly buys the mansion, with plans to turn it into an Indian restaurant – on a grand-scale unseen before in a small French town. Continue reading Review: The Hundred Foot Journey – Richard C Morais
An ingenious and witty account of one man’s fall (and rise?) aided by modern technology. Rating Five and half stars if that’s possible Review Jonathan Coe is known for many engaging and original books such as What a Carve Up, The House of Sleep and The Rotters’ Club (serialised on BBC Television), and a new book by him is eagerly awaited by his readers. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, does not disappoint, and to my mind is among his best, or may even be the best. The book is funny and satirical, while also being at times moving, evoking an unexpected sympathy for Maxwell who seems to be the classic “loser”, perhaps showing us the un-wisdom of writing people off too soon. There are so many themes in this book its difficult to know where to start. Maxwell Sim is newly separated (against his will) from his wife and daughter and suffering from acute loneliness, exacerbated by his failure to get more than 70 friends on Facebook. He has been off work for six months with clinical depression and when the book opens, he is making a visit to his father in Australia. This is a depressing experience, for his father is, as he has been all his life, distant and aloof, preferring to blank out his family rather than constructively engaging with them. Continue reading Review: The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim – Jonathan Coe
An unusual and exotic story based on impeccable research, with many twists and turns along the way. A “big read”. Review David Mitchell was much-acclaimed for his novel Cloud Atlas, which won many awards as well as being short-listed for the Booker Prize in 2004. A new novel by the startlingly good Mr Mitchell is bound to be a major publishing event, and thankfully The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet lives up to its expectations, even exceeding them with ease. It is the sheer scope and breadth of this novel which impresses, the attention to detail and the prodigious imagination which has gone into its creation. But enough plaudits – on to the novel itself. Jacob de Zoet, a young Dutchman enlists as an officer with the Dutch East India Company and sails to Dejima where he is to become an administrator. Dejima (see article in Wikipedia) was an artificial island attached to the Japanese city of Nagasaki, established as a trading post during a period when Japan isolated itself from the rest of the world, forbidding all communication with foreigners other than through the tiny community of Dutchmen. Jacob finds himself among an eccentric and colourful group of colleagues on Dejima, together with slaves, translators and visiting prostitutes. He is an honourable man who delights in reading his Psalter and refuses to get embroiled in a number of fraudulent schemes which have the potential to make their perpetrators extremely rich. Chief Resident Vertsenbosch sets Jacob to work going through the ledgers for the last few years to try to find evidence of fraud, a task which soon sets him at odds with other, less honest officers. Continue reading Review: David Mitchell – The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
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