Cat's Books

Still Life

2010-10-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

Since coming to Cambridge, I've been constantly reminded of A.S. Byatt's Still Life, a large proportion of which is set around the university during the 1950s. Heavily inspired by D.H. Lawrence, the novel belongs to a quartet of novels that Byatt wrote that had their roots in Yorkshire, and form an extended bildungsroman chronicling the life of Frederica Potter, who is ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and rebels, Woolf-like, against the restrictions imposed on her by her gender. I have yet to make a pilgrimage out to Newnham, where Frederica (and Byatt herself) studied, but plan to do so in the not-too-distant future.

Best bit: The sheer volume of information packed into the book. Byatt writes in a very intertextual manner and weaves in a rich tapestry of images from Renaissance literature and art history.

Worst bit: At times, the characters go off on extended and highly allusive meditations upon literary history and the human condition. Whilst this works in moderation, it does tend to drag after a bit.

The Finkler Question

2010-10-13T02:38:00.000-07:00

So, Howard Jacobson has won the Booker Prize, which means that now, absolutely everyone will be reading The Finkler Question. The novel, said to have 'some of the wittiest, most poignant and sharply intelligent comic prose in the English language', is Jacobson's fifteenth book, and centres around the relationship between three friends - Julian Treslove, a former BBC producer; Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality and their former teacher, Libor Sevick. I will, like the rest of the world, probably rush out and buy a massively over-priced copy of this book in Waterstones this afternoon to see what all the fuss is about. Full review coming soon!

Lights Out in Wonderland

2010-10-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

Gabriel Brockwell is suicidal. After escaping from rehab, he goes on one last decadent quest which takes him from England, to Tokoyo and then Berlin. Despite taking a chapter to really get going, once you get caught up in the craziness of the plot, Pierre's striking language carries itself along, and the events at the Tokyo restaurant (involving poison blowfish, corrupt businessmen, a giant fish tank and the owner's teenage daughter) prepares the reader for Gabriel's final surreal mission: organizing a secret banquet in the Nazi-built Tempelhof airport.

Best Bit: The cutting attack on modern capitalism. The way Pierre portrays it, contemporary society comes across as absolutely insane. His prose is also utterly unique, and the novel is peppered with footnotes and bursting with memorable phrases.

Worst Bit: Occasionally Gabriel's voice became slightly incoherent which made the book hard to follow at times. Also, I got a bit irritated by the way he constantly doused himself with Guerlain's Jicky to evoke the spirit of decadence. Whatever Pierre says about it being androgynous, Jicky is undeniably a ladies perfume.

Room

2010-09-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

So, it's made the Booker shortlist, and there are interviews with Emma Donoghue absolutely everywhere. It was on my reading list for quite some time before I got around to checking it out in the bookshop, but when I finally did, I found that Room was quite different to how I imagined it.

Firstly, its length surprised me. As it had been written from the perspective of a child narrator and a lot of the reviews had focused on the naivety of the five year old protagonist, I automatically assumed that it would be short. Stupid, I know, given the large word-counts of other contemporary child-narrated books (eg Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer). Room is actually quite a lengthy book, and seeing it in the flesh (or paper) made me realise why it's been shortlisted - it's more substantial that the reviews let on.

Secondly, not all the action takes place in the 'Room'. This is definitely a good thing, as setting the entirety of the book in such a confined space could have been too claustrophobic an experience for the reader. As it was, I felt that Donoghue struck a sensitive balance at representing something that had the potential to be extraordinarily disturbing and instead twisted into a far more complex and subtle novel.

Best Bit: Donoghue's remarkable ability to capture a child's speech patterns. The story is also a guaranteed page-turner.

Worst Bit: The official website. Yes, it's a book about a woman and child imprisoned in a small room. That doesn't mean that you need to make the website the exact replica of said room - it comes across as too slick a marketing ploy and ultimately, too insensitive.

The History Man

2010-09-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Chances are that most readers under the age of forty haven't heard of this novel by Malcolm Bradbury, and indeed, I only stumbled across it at the recommendation of my father. The History Man enjoyed a period of popularity in its day, mind, due to its ruthless satire of the new 'glass and steel' British universities. Published in 1975, Bradbury follows the life of Howard Kirk, a new man whose penchant for swinging only matches his fervour for grass-roots left-wing sociology. I must confess, I found that the dialogue irritated me slightly, as it was all so self-consciously intellectual. There comes a point when you really wish that two of the characters could hold a conversation that isn't painfully convoluted. Aside from that, it's a novel of its time, I guess: modern enough to immediately resonate, but dated enough to seem a little passe. I have a feeling that it will probably enjoy an incredible resurgence in popularity about fifty years hence, judging from the relentlessly cyclic nature of literary trends, but for the moment, I think The History Man will be condemned to a half-life of semi-obscurity, forgotten by the general public, but cherished by academics.

Best Bit: The complete callousness of Bradbury's description of university lecturers - it's bitingly accurate.

Worst Bit: The dialogue. Far. Too. Intense.

The Slap

2010-08-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

I've read a number of reviews of The Slap, and to say that they were mixed would be an understatement. Opinion seems to be divided between those who loved it and those who had a fundamental problem with it, with a number of female reviewers in particular taking serious issue at the aggressive sexuality that virtually all the male characters seem to portray. If you've happened across this review, chances are you're already aware of the general outline of the plot: at a summer's barbeque, a child is slapped by a man who is not his father, and the repercussions of this action ripple across the book, causing each of the characters to reflect in some way upon their own lives.

I'll be honest, I disliked this book because of the graphic and excessively violent fantasies that seemed to comprise the entirety of the male characters' thoughts. Although Tsiolkas was making an interesting point - contrasting the relatively harmless slap against the repressed violent fantasies - I felt that it might have worked better had he toned down a little of the brutality.

Here's a short excerpt, not the absolute worst, by any means, but it should give you an idea of why so many people have taken issue with The Slap:

'And that cunt wants to fuck it all up. He couldn't decide who he hated more: the hysterical wife who had hissed at him with unconcealed contempt, the drunk, weak faggot of a husband, or the whining little prick he had slapped...They were trash, should've been sterilised at birth. He shouldn't have sterilised the child, he should have grabbed the bat off him and smashed it once, twice, a hundred times into the little fucker's head, made him pulp and blood. Almost tasting the blood, seeing the boy's face collapse into jutting bones and squashed muscle, Harry felt calm...'

And yet, aside from the relentless aggression, the book was good. It captured the atmosphere of suburban Australia and the Greek immigrant community vividly, and the narrative progressed in a measured, controlled manner. I guess that calling a book 'The Slap' and centering it around the issue of hitting children was bound to be a provocative topic, and Tsiolkas, by portraying such a sexually predatory set of male characters has succeeded in pushing the theme of violence to an even greater degree.

Best Bit: Tsiolkas' accounts of suburban family life. Also, his description of Hugo, the spoilt, horribly articulate yet breast-fed three-year-old who gets slapped.

Worst Bit: As you've probably gathered by now, I wasn't a fan of the extreme aggression, which mostly seemed to be directed against women.

Pamela

2010-08-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Pamela was one of the earliest English novels, written as a series of extended letters and published in 1740. Its author, Samuel Richardson, had initially envisaged it as a conduct book, but was evidently so smitten with his fifteen year old heroine that he allowed the book to expand into some 504 pages. The book, decried by some as being titillating pornography (it really isn't) and as a model of chaste behaviour by others, was a unanimous success and spawned numerous reprints, a play, two parodies by Henry Fielding (Joseph Andrews and Shamela, both far better and shorter than the original), and a wealth of Pamela memorabilia, including Pamela mugs and Pamela wax-dolls. I kid you not.

Anyhow, having been made to read Pamela for a college course, I decided to re-read it this summer. The plot is as follows - Pamela is pretty servant girl, whose master, the handsome Mr B, attempts to seduce her. She is determined to keep her virtue, so after numerous unsuccessful attempts, Mr B abducts her and locks her away on his Lincolnshire estate in the hope that she will surrender to his wicked ways. Pamela doesn't, despite all of Mr B's elaborate stratagems. Eventually, in a twist of fate that seems both completely improbable and totally staged, Mr B reforms and Pamela marries him, her virtue intact.

Best Bits:

Mr B's perverted attempts to seduce Pamela. These include:

1. Dressing Pamela in a selection of his dead mother's clothes. I don't think that Freud really read 18th century British literature, but if he did, he'd have had a field day at this.

2. Hiding in a closet and spying on Pamela as she gets ready for bed, then jumping out at her and attempting to force her virtue - whilst his elderly housekeeper is looking on.

3.Whilst Pamela is in captivity, Mr B hires Mrs Jewkes - an evil, hermaphrodite-like woman with a moustache - to sleep in Pamela's bed to make sure she doesn't escape. One fateful evening, Mr B dresses up as Mrs Jewkes, gets into bed with Pamela, before, yes, you guessed it, trying to force her virtue.

Worst Bits:

The book is very long, and Pamela's constant prating about her 'Virtue' does get rather tiring. Also, I really wish she hadn't married the man who spent over a year constantly attempting to rape her. The alternative title of this book is 'Virtue Rewarded' and if marrying Mr B is the reward for Pamela's moral behaviour, then perhaps immorality is a better way to go.

Cold Comfort Farm

2010-08-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

Flora Poste - nineteen, recently orphaned, with an insatiable desire for 'tidying' people up - arrives at Cold Comfort farm to contend with her yokel relations, the aptly named Starkadders. The Starkadders are ruled by Great Aunt Ada Doom, who once saw 'something nasty in the woodshed' and has been mad ever since. Flora embarks on a mission to sort out the Starkadders, one at a time. Cold Comfort Farm was first published in 1932 and is a laconic comedy of manners, set in the languid era of the 1920s, which contrasts violently with the rural Sussex backwater. Gibbons relentlessly pokes fun at the vogue of earthy pastoral novels, which had been popularized by D.H. Lawrence. Although the novel can become a little too farcical at times, it still remains unrelentingly, wonderfully funny.

Best Bit: Stella Gibbons' acerbic wit.

Worst Bit: Cousin Urk and his penchant for water-voles.

Skippy Dies

2010-08-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

When I heard that Paul Murray's second novel made the Booker longlist, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. I'd already been eyeing up the lovely three-volume editions that were floating around Waterstones, but they had sadly sold out by the time I got there. The book itself, however, more than surpassed my expectations. It's a bold, broad-sweeping story that centres around Seabrook College (which was allegedly modelled on Blackrock College) and the events that lead up to fourteen year old Skippy's death during an ill-fated doughnut eating contest. Skippy Dies had the same energetic quality of Zadie Smith's White Teeth, and the descriptions of boarding school life are absolutely addictive.

Best bit: When Father Green (or Pere Vert, to use his French moniker) interrogates poor Skippy about his virginity in front of a entire class. It's the best passage of black humour I've ever read, hands down. Please, please read it - it's p72-75.

Worst bit: At times I caught myself losing track of the different characters - there were a huge number of them. This could be due to the fact that I read the book so quickly... it's very, very good.

An Education

2010-07-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Back when I did my first ever internship at a magazine, the editor advised me to read Lynn Barber, in advance of my first ever interview. I went away and read her collection of interviews, intriguingly entitled Mostly Men. I don't think that I nailed Demon Barber's straight-talking and occasionally offensive style, but she did influence me quite dramatically, in that I began to realise it was possible to recognise who wrote an article from the words as much as the byline. Later on, whilst enmeshed in student journalism, this proved to be an unexpectedly useful talent, as it enabled me to guess exactly who authored the various anonymous gossip columns in Trinity News. So, long before An Education was published, I was already rather enamoured of Lynn Barber.

I bought An Education the week it came out, and devoured it eagerly. However, I came away slightly less besotted with Lynn Barber as a result. I'd certainly agree with the popular critical opinion that the title story, 'An Education' is the strongest of the book, and apart from the moving piece 'Disaster' which charts the fatal illness of her husband, David, I thought that Barber revealed a little bit too much of herself in this autobiographical work. She comes across as overly judgmental of her parents, terrifyingly single-minded, and far too egotistical when describing her own physical appearance.

Best Bits: 'An Education' - the story's great and the film is even better! Also, that Howard Marks awarded Barber the title of 'Great Shag' whilst they were at Oxford - who knew?

Worst Bits: It drags a little towards the middle. Also the description of her husband's death is genuinely heart-breaking.

The Help

2010-07-27T12:21:00.001-07:00

There's been an awful lot of hype about Kathryn Stockett's The Help - it seems to be impossible to open a magazine without reading a glowing review of it. So, when I was in Hodges Figgis last week, I decided to finally see what all the fuss was about and picked up a copy from the bestseller section. I was immediately drawn into the plot - it's written from three different, first person narrative voices - two black maids and one white woman, all living in 1960s Mississipi. I didn't expect to like this book, judging from the reviews that I briefly skimmed across - I instinctively thought that it might be a bit too preachy or inaccessible, but it was a genuinely compelling read. Also, I was struck by its loose parallels to Jean Toomer's modernist classic, Cane. There were distinct parallels in the structure which focused on three main female characters, and also for its unusual depiction of the lives of black maids working in twentieth century America. I can just see this book being made into a film - and with the amount of success it's having on both sides of the Atlantic, it's presumably just a matter of time before that happens.

Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me

2010-07-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

I love advice books - there's something inherently reassuring about them. I read How to Walk in High Heels a while back, and was temporarily filled with a conviction that if I could just manage to pack a suitcase correctly/dress appropriately/actually walk in high heels, my life would alter magically for the better. Two days later, and I'd forgotten all about it, but reading Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me brought it all back.

This book is subtitled 'lessons in grace and elegance' and is actually more of a modern day etiquette guide than a style bible. It does open with a section on clothes and cosmetics, and this was probably the part of the book I enjoyed reading the most. Later chapters covered things like decorating your home, buying gifts and preparing food, and to be honest, it seemed to be aimed at an older, wealthier audience than the powder-pink cover suggested. If you're broke, then trust me, reading this book becomes progressively more depressing. Yes, I'd love to buy all my furniture from Parisian antique shops and ship it over to my chic Kensington home. I'm sure a Chanel handbag IS a perfectly delightful present to buy a grandchild, as is a case of thoughtfully chosen vintage wine. The problem is, it's a hell of a lot harder to be either graceful or elegant if you have very little money, and this is something that isn't really factored into this book, more's the pity.

Notes on a Scandal

2010-07-10T04:02:00.000-07:00

I had thought that Molly Keane's Good Behaviour (I'm going to do a post on that soon, I promise) had the most unattractive female narrator of all time. That was until I read Notes on a Scandal. Barbara Covett, a repressed, twisted, frustrated teacher in a dreary comprehensive school, is absolutely guaranteed to invoke shudders of disgust in the reader as she reveals her unhealthy obsession for the glamourous new art teacher, Sheba Hart. To make matters worse, Sheba has a hidden infatuation of her own, for the fifteen year old schoolboy Steven Connolly.

The first person narration works brilliantly in this book - the reader gets the entire story from Barbara's point of view. Indeed, Barbara bears a strong resemblance to a fat spider, spinning a tale to slowly trap both Sheba and the reader in her web of self-deluding fantasies. It's gripping stuff, and I'm 100% determined to read Heller's more recent novel, The Believers, the minute I become marginally less financially embarrassed. Damn being unemployed - all I want to do is buy some books and possibly, some clothes....

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

2010-07-01T04:27:00.000-07:00

I've bought two of Xiaolu Guo's books, purely because I liked the titles so much. First it was 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (2008), then came A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007). The first book was a little bit of a disappointment - I was expecting it to be more of a gutsy coming-of-age novel, but instead it had a emptiness about it, as it described a life that seemed essentially hollow. It's about a girl who is trying to make a living as an extra in Shanghai, and whilst the title and the blurb on the back of the book seemed promising, Fenfang herself seemed to be oddly dissociated, which meant that I couldn't really identify with her character at all.

The same could be said for A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers: the main character seemed to be always at a slight distance from the reader, but the effect is much more endearing, as the sense of isolation is exaggerated by the striking use of language that evolves with the progression of the narrative. It charts Zhuang's life as she moves from China to London, and struggles with the complexities of learning English. The gradual sophistication of the language mirrors Zhuang's growth as a person, as she embarks on a relationship with a much older bisexual man. There was also a strong comedic vein that emerged through Zhuang's interpretation of Western living, which added an unexpected element of humour to the novel. Definitely look out for this one, even if it's just for the unusual structure - it's written entirely in the present tense and vividly conveys the difficulties of learning a foreign language in a strange country.

Juliet, Naked

2010-06-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

I practically devoured this book, reading it over the course of two days. I've always been fond of Nick Hornby, and Juliet, Naked didn't disappoint. Here's the background plot: Annie and Duncan have been in a rather dull relationship for the past fifteen years. Duncan is an obsessive fan of Tucker Crowe, an obscure, washed up musician, holed up in the depths of Pennsylvania; Annie's life is spent indulging Duncan's overwhelming hobby. When their relationship breaks down, Annie unintentionally sparks up an email correspondance with Tucker Crowe, who appears to be rather different to how he is portrayed on Duncan's fansite.

What really shone out for me was the characterization: Duncan, Annie and Tucker have very strong, credible identities, and whilst I found that I was anticipating the twists in the plot, I liked the characters and Hornby's relaxed style of prose was enough for it not to be an issue. And, as a closet music nerd myself, this book exposed the slightly obsessive nature of music fandom a little too effectively.

Rebecca

2010-06-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

A lot of my favourite books were written in the 1920s and 1930s, and I absolutely love Daphne Du Maurier's novels. Rebecca is probably her best-known work, thanks to the Hitchcock film: Hitchcock seemed to like Du Maurier, since he also based The Birds on one of her short stories. Still, Rebecca has a special place in my heart: I've reread it countless times, but it never fails to absorb me completely. Du Maurier's description of places are particularly evocative: she set the majority of her novels in Cornwall, and you get a very strong sense of the coastal atmosphere. The only holidays that my family ever went on were to Cornwall, and I associate Daphne Du Maurier with those summers, with rocky cliffs, hidden harbours and above all, the sea. Rebecca has an eerie, unnerving atmosphere, and Mrs Danvers is truly one of the most chilling characters in fiction. On a lighter note, Maxim's blatant sexism also makes for good reading - I've picked out a couple of choice quotes so you can see just how bad it is:

'No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.'

'You had quite a different expression on your face... You looked older suddenly, deceitful. It was rather unpleasant.'

'Get on with your peach and don't talk with your mouth full.'

It's priceless stuff. This book just keeps giving on so many different levels...

The Picture of Dorian Gray

2010-06-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, I'm a complete sucker for a nice cover, and Penguin have just reissued particularly attractive editions of the works of Oscar Wilde. After spending a good ten minutes gazing longingly as the new series in Hodges Figgis, I can't stop thinking about The Picture of Dorian Gray. I have yet to see the recently released film, although it's certainly on my DVD wish-list. The book is one of my favourites - Wilde's dialogue is wonderfully witty, obviously, but his writing assumes a decadence in prose that isn't present in his plays, due to the rich, almost floral descriptions that lace every paragraph. I absolutely adore this novel, hence my irresistable desire to buy the new Penguin paperback edition....

Ghost Light

2010-06-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

I've just bought a copy of Joseph O'Connor's latest novel, Ghost Light, which was published recently. It's set in Dublin, in 1907, and is based around the real-life affair between J.M. Synge and the actress Molly Allgood. So far, I'm only a few pages in, but I'm quite taken with the second-person narration (the use of 'you', as opposed to 'I' or 'her') which gives the novel a self-reflexive quality. I really enjoyed reading The Star of the Sea, so I've high hopes for Ghost Light. It's had some very positive reviews, and there's a great interview that O'Connor did with Fiona McCann in The Irish Times, here's the link!

Burning Your Boats: Collected Stories

2010-06-09T03:44:00.000-07:00

This Vintage edition of Angela Carter's Collected Stories is one of my favourite short story collections. I first read Angela Carter for a college course, but I've been completely hooked ever since. Carter's style is immediately recognisable - it practically leaps out at you from the page - she writes in a very rich, decadent way and her sentences are a linguistic treasure-trove. Her stories remind me of pieces of tapestry: she weaves together a myriad of different stylistic threads, embellishing fables with her fabulous, carnivalesque, sensual talent for description. I really like Angela Carter's work, but I have a feeling that people tend to react strongly to her and either love her work, or hate it. Salman Rushdie is a fan (he's written the introduction to this edition) which gives you a good idea of what to expect: if you like fairy-tales, or a circus-like, fantastical type of prose, then you'll certainly like Burning Your Boats.

Ulysses and Us

2010-06-07T04:12:00.000-07:00

It was a miracle that I managed to get my hands on a copy of this book at all. In mid-April, the two usual places that I go to buy books - Hodges Figges and Waterstones - both informed me that the first paperback edition had sold out and I would have to wait until June for the reprint to come out. My hysterical need for a copy of Ulysses and Us stemmed, unfortunately, not from a genuine desire to read Declan Kiberd's latest work, but rather from the impending panic of having to sit an exam on Ulysses. After having a minor nervous-breakdown in Waterstones, I realised that I was probably just looking in the wrong places. Obviously, Dawson Street, with the two biggest bookshops in the city, attracts people who like reading critical editions of books. It was unlikely that Kiberd-groupies would think to look in Reads, which seems to trade almost exclusively in Dan Brown and Danielle Steele novels. Ten minutes later, I had the book.

Ulysses and Us is aimed at the common reader, rather than the academic, and was written with the aim of making Ulysses more accessible to the average Dubliner. Kiberd's books are always very engaging, and anyone who has read Inventing Ireland or Irish Classics would be familiar with the issues that he raises in this text. Kiberd tends to favour a postcolonial perspective, and this colours his reading of Ulysses, with the question of Anglo-Irish relations taking central stage.

I enjoyed reading this book: for a secondary text it was much less daunting than the average book on Joyce, and avoided using convoluted language or over-emphasising other critical interpretations, which tend to be quite intimidating for a newcomer to Ulysses. However, this is not a substitution for reading the novel, and was not intended to be so. It does not summarise the plot, nor explain the complexities of the language, and it would be advisable to have made some headway with the novel before buying a copy of Ulysses and Us, or perhaps, to read the two in tandem with each other. If you're struggling with Ulysses, or simply looking for an introduction to the world of Joyceian criticism, then this is certainly a good place to start.

My Revolutions

2010-06-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

I love reading in airports - the whole business of waiting for a flight/being on a flight is so protracted that I get completely immersed in whatever book I've brought with me. This can have its disadvantages: I read The Kite Runner in an airport, and I was so disturbed by it that it haunted my entire holiday. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for with Hari Kunzru's My Revolutions, but it turned out to be a really good book, and well worth the measly €1 that I paid for it in Chapters.

Hari Kunzru is an author that I've been aware of for ages (I'd read a few reviews of his debut novel) and it probably would have been logical to start with The Impressionist, which seems to be his best known work, but I confess, I love a book with a nice cover, and the blurb on the back of My Revolutions was so appealing that I couldn't resist it. The novel is set in late 1990s England, and the main character, Mike Frame, is having a bit of a mid-life crisis as his fiftieth birthday looms. It turns out that it's not his birthday at all - he's not even called Mike Frame, but has been living in hiding due to his murky past as a 1970s revolutionary. It's pretty gripping stuff and makes for a good read - I'd finished it by the time the plane had landed. This book has a widespread appeal - it's got enough of a dramatic plot to keep you hooked but it's also nicely written. I've a feeling that there could even be a couple of second hand copies left in Chapters, so if you happen to be in Dublin, you might be able to pick it up for next to nothing...

Felicia's Journey

2010-06-02T02:54:00.000-07:00

There are very few writers whose novels and stories are equally powerful, but I think William Trevor is one of them. I love the way that the pace of both short story and novel seem to remain almost the same - his voice stays remarkably consistent across the two different genres. I felt compelled to write about Felicia's Journey (1994), mainly because I keep having recurring nightmares about the creepy Mr Hilditch. It's a gripping story - Felicia, a young Irish girl, gets pregnant and travels to England to try to track down her less-than-ardent boyfriend, who has told her that he works in a lawn mover factory there. Unable to locate him, Felicia is forced to avail of the help of Mr Hilditch, a grossly obese catering manager, who has a predilection for picking up friendless girls.

William Trevor is one of Ireland's foremost living writers and if you haven't read any of his work yet, you should. Be warned: Felicia's Journey is pretty sinister, although to be fair, I have an extremely low fear threshold (a mild horror film will terrify me to the point where I can't go to sleep for a week) so it's perfectly possible that you'll be competely unaffected. I'm just hoping that I'm not going to have another Mr Hilditch nightmare anytime soon....ugh.

The Last September

2010-05-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

I've had to study Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September three times during my time in college, for three separate courses. The first time I read it, I was in first year and I didn't particularly like it. There didn't seem to be much of a plot and I found Bowen's modernist style of writing difficult to follow. I also got confused between the characters, since there's a lot of similar names in the novel - like Laura, Lois, Livvy and Laurence. Still, I ended up writing an essay on the novel two years later, and it was only then, when I took the time to study it closely, that I began to really like The Last September. Bowen's prose is very subtle and allusive - she's a master of creating a sense of instability through her unsettling descriptions and indecisive characters. The Last September is Bowen's second novel, written in 1929, and bears quite a strong resemblance to her debut novel, The Hotel. Although they're set in two different countries, they both feature young girls attempting to define themselves through their relationships, which ultimately fail them.

The Last September seems to have become incredibly popular as a course text on Irish literature courses, probably as a result of the revisionist reading of Bowen as an Irish writer (she only set two of her novels in Ireland, the rest were based in England or mainland Europe). It's strange, as she's far better known as a short story writer and minor modernist - The Heat of the Day and The House in Paris are probably more popular outside of this country. It's probably a mistake to evaluate Bowen purely on The Last September, as I think a lot of people do (having been forced to read it), and to be honest, I think that Bowen's other Irish novel, A World of Love is a far more accessible introduction to her work. If you haven't read anything of Bowen's, A World of Love might be the best place to start. The Last September is a good novel, but it tends to respond better to a close reading rather than casual skimming.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

2010-05-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

The book that I'm currently reading is The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller and it's really, really good. It was published back in 2008, and it got a very positive critical reaction at the time, for good reason. For a first novel it's incredibly well crafted and considered - I have yet to see the film which Miller adapted from the novel, but I would imagine that something of the sheer neatness of her prose would be lost on-screen. I love the blunt, frank, biographical snatches of Pippa's life that create a series of extended flashbacks which break up the apparently tranquil setting of the retirement village. The depiction of Pippa's mother Suky (a housewife addicted to speed-laced diet pills) was also particularly arresting. The novel is strong enough in its own right to avoid blathering on about Miller's personal life, but I'm going to do it anyway: for those of you who didn't already know she's not only Arthur Miller's daughter, but she's married to Daniel Day Lewis. There was a feature in Vogue about her around the time that the novel came out and I remember being riveted by it. Anyhow, there you have it, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is interesting for a variety of reasons, and if you happen to be tempted by the film, it might be worth while checking out the book first.

The Magic Faraway Tree

2010-05-28T14:31:00.001-07:00

I should probably start at the beginning, I suppose, and if any book has significantly influenced the way I look at the world, it's probably The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. I used to reread this with avid enthusiasm as a child - there was something about the ever-changing magic lands at the top of the tree which was particularly appealing. I picked it up the other day for the first time in years and was shocked to discover how difficult it was to wade through it as an adult. Still, I'm not going to apologize - when I was six it was pretty exciting, what with Moon Face, Silky, Mr Whatzisname and the Saucepan Man. Apparently they've started censoring the new versions of the book, according to Wikipedia, since Fanny and Dick are now considered to be inappropriate names for children. Crazy stuff. I'm sticking to the old editions.