Watership Down

Before I started reading this, I thought it was a children's book. You know - something like wind in the willows, animals frolicking, adventure, a bit of mild peril. IT IS NOT. I cannot stress this strongly enough. From a few pages in, when Fiver the rabbit has his frankly chilling psychic episode, I realised that this book is not fluffy & lovely.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy it - I couldn't put it down, and it is excellent.

It is the story of a small group of rabbits who, as a result of Fiver's psychic episode, leave their warren and set out to find a new home. They face many dangers on the way, from predators, man, and other rabbits. As ever, I don't want to give too much away about the story, but there were, for me, two striking things about this book.

First, the violence. Rabbits fighting, being hunted, being gassed out of their burrow, live rabbits tearing dead ones apart in their panic...I was genuinely a bit traumatised by this. I did already know that this is how the animal kingdom works, but it's that much more difficult to stomach when they have names and brains which can understand the events.

Secondly, the accuracy of the portrayal of rabbit behaviour, and the reasons behind this given through the anthromorphisation (doubt this is a word) of the characters. The way that the rabbits behaved was so perfectly described that it made the events that much more convincing - they didn't become people in my mind.

Brilliant book. Read it but be prepared for the gore.

So that's it - the list is done. One more reflective post to follow, I think, once I've thought about the overall experience! Didn't think I'd make it...

Brideshead Revisited

We are moving on apace! I saved Brideshead Revisited till towards the end as it was one that I actually wanted to read, and my expectation wasn't disappointed.

It is set in two periods - during the Second World War, and in the 1920s. Charles Ryder, an officer, is billeted to Brideshead with his troops, and his arrival sets off a chain of reminiscence of his first visits to Brideshead and involvement with the family, which form the majority of the book.

At its heart is Charles' meeting with Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the Marchmain family (owners of Brideshead) at Oxford. They have a friendship to the exclusion of all others, intense and hard-drinking. Sebastian is reluctant to introduce Charles to his family, but eventually relents and Charles is drawn into the Brideshead world. The story of a boy from a quieter background making a friend from "high society" and being attracted to the glamour of it seemed really familiar but I can't remember which other book I'm remembering! It certainly turns out differently anyway.

Sebastian is the difficult son of the family; just how difficult, gradually emerges as his drinking problem develops. Charles is in the difficult position of having to choose between supporting the family in trying to stop Sebastian drinking, and losing Sebastian's friendship, or keeping the friendship by enabling him to drink, which he knows is not the best course for Sebastian.

It's difficult to say more without giving away too much of the story, and I would definitely recommend reading it for yourself.

One interesting point to notice is how detached all of the relationships are except for the friendship between Charles and Sebastian. It's as if the intensity of this makes it impossible for either of them to form anything deeper in later life. This is typified by Charles' marriage later in the book - the reader only discovers that he has married when he returns from a six month painting trip abroad to be met by his wife, who has had a baby in his absence. "Oh yes, I believe you mentioned there had been a baby". It is a marriage of convenience, not of love, but this is still extreme detachment!

This is a great book, although I would have been interested to learn more about how the relationships developed - so much goes unspoken. Still, deserves its place in this list and one that I will definitely be reading again. I couldn't put it down.

Cloud Atlas

Finishing this list is now starting to seem like a reality - hence my reading has become more purposeful (for this read: I am reading when I should be ironing, washing up, cleaning...oh well).

Before reading Cloud Atlas I had a sneaking suspicion that I had already read it, but as I couldn't remember anything about it, I thought I should read it again. About 2 chapters in, I was sure that I'd read it, but still couldn't really remember what was coming next so carried on.

I have a grudging admiration for David Mitchell, although I really don't enjoy his writing. I think this is predominantly because he tends to construct his novels out of a short story format, where the individual elements are very cleverly linked together to form a whole, but it still essentially feels like reading short stories. And I don't like reading short stories. My first DM experience was Ghostwritten, recommended to me by my brother after I had read and raved about Memoirs of a Geisha...the two are really not very similar, so I think the gap between expectation and reality also coloured my opinion! However, this challenge was partly about reading books that I wouldn't normally pick up, so I tried to approach Cloud Atlas with an open mind.

The thing is, it's really good. Intelligently constructed as a palindrome, there are four interlinked stories which take you forward through time and then back again. If you apply yourself to noticing, there are loads of little details throughout which connect the stories together, ranging from the fairly obvious birthmark to locations, music, and so forth. The scope of the work is wideranging, moving from a 19th century (I think) ship voyage to a post-apocalyptic future, with the style of writing adapted to suit each period and scenario.

I found the Adam Ewing and Zachry sections really difficult to read due to the style adopted in writing, but I'm probably just fussy.

There is a suggestion that Luisa Rey, the central character of the third story, has a spiritual connection to Robert Frobisher, of the previous story, given by her sense of recognition of the music he wrote despite never hearing it before...this is a little bit weak. But this is about the only hole I could pick in the storyline.

Cloud Atlas definitely deserves its place in this list. It isn't easy reading - well, you could make an easy read of it, but this would result in missing most of the clever plot devices and connections, and wouldn't do justice to it. I'm glad I read it, David Mitchell displays such creativity and imagination in pulling the elements of the story together, but...I'm really sorry to say, I still don't like it. Perhaps I'm lazy and don't like to work too hard for enjoyment of a book, maybe it's something to do with his tone and characters...I don't know, but I haven't been converted! You should read it though, if you haven't already.

Les Miserables & things I'm looking forward to when no longer pregnant!

It's been a while since I last managed to write a post.

I've hit a point in the list where I've read everything that I actually want to read, and so it's becoming increasingly difficult to discipline myself to pick up the next book. It also turns out that being pregnant makes you really tired and makes it difficult to concentrate on intelligent literary content - who knew?!

Anyway, following diversions including re-reading the Stieg Larsson trilogy, Heartstone by CJ Sansom, and a number of chick lit and thriller books that I don't really want to admit to, I am now 68% through Les Miserables, in the English translation of course.

I do intend to finish it, of course, but had a few interim observations. Firstly - it's unfeasibly long, and really frustrating to read. Clearly, no-one ever taught Victor Hugo the virtue of short, concise sentences, or of using one example to illustrate his point. One sentence can easily span half a Kindle screen or more. When in descriptive or comparative mode, he seems to be unable to use less than 8 examples...one piece on slang lasted for three chapters without actually shedding any light on the slang that the characters subsequently used. He seems to have taken the central story, which is genuinely gripping and brilliant, and used it as a vehicle to propound long rambling theories on various social scenarios, the battle of Waterloo, street kids in Paris...etc. I'm sure that all of these are worthwhile in their own right but it creates a really disjointed literary effect - events are moving along apace, something significant is about to happen in the story, the reader is fully absorbed and interested...and suddenly you are expected to transfer your interest to a drifting series of chapters on another topic entirely. Most do have some relevance - for example, the description of Waterloo sheds light on the relationship between Marius and Thenardier - but this link could have been created without spending hundreds of words outlining the military strategy for the battle, the misunderstandings, the blow-by-blow account of the advances and retreats. For me, it has the effect that every time I start getting into it, one of these sections comes up and kicks me out of the reading zone.

It's not unreadable by any means but it does drag. I'll see how I feel when I get to the end!

Meanwhile, I'm just about to go into my 4th week of maternity leave. It's been surprisingly easy to stop work and become accustomed to a gentler pace, for the time being. As the end of the longest 9 months ever approaches, I've had some time to think about things I'm looking forward to...

• Being able to turn over in bed without waking myself up


• Having normal size feet and even wearing heels from time to time


• Looking at clothes in shops that I could feasibly enjoy wearing


• (Losing weight allowing)...Eating nice cheese, pate, cured meats...I miss Brie and goats cheese more with every day that passes!


• And of course the odd glass of nice red wine or a pint on a sunny day. Pint of lager, that is, not pint of wine...


• Not having the spectre of labour looming over my future!


• Being able to walk normal distances, and even run occasionally


• Regaining my taste for tea and coffee so I can finally take advantage of the espresso machine I bought Martin for Christmas


• Not having to cope with acquaintances and strangers thinking that my body is public property - why do people think it's acceptable to touch a pregnant stomach when they wouldn't at any other time?


• Not feeling like I need Inspector Gadget arms to reach things


• Being allowed to lift things without being fussed over - I do of course appreciate that people care, and there's a good reason for it, but it really doesn't sit comfortably with the independent and capable person I have always been!


• And, of course, actually having a baby and getting on with being a parent rather than just being a bit nervous about what it will be like!!

I know that's very much off the normal topic for this blog but thought I'd share. Now back to Les Mis!

Germinal

I think it's quite obvious which books I enjoy based on the length of time between posting. I started Germinal on Thursday, after finishing Middlemarch, and have just finished it. Yes, I admit, it is shorter, but it is also eminently more readable.

I knew nothing at all about this novel before I started reading it and, due to reading on the Kindle, didn't even have the back-of-the-book blurb to inform me. This meant that I had no expectations at all.

Germinal is a French novel, set in a mining community during a period of industrial unrest. Etienne, a stranger who arrives in the community at the beginning of the novel, seems to act as a catalyst for change, with the mood in the community moving from utter poverty-stricken resignation to open anger, and a strike.

The story itself is fairly straightforward - scene setting, establishment of characters, the major event of the strike, and the consequences of that. However, the strength and impact is in the way that the people, community and their way of life is so starkly portrayed. I can't remember reading anything else which so accurately portrays the poverty of life lived just below the breadline; the day to day struggle to put the basic necessities on the table, and the social indignities. The few characters who were richer obviously threw this into sharp relief, but did not come off well in terms of the way they persisted in believing that the miners had enough when they were clearly starving.

One thing which was quite striking was the portrayal of relationships and sex within the community - the younger community members were depicted as being continuously at it, in the absence of cash to pursue any other forms of entertainment. There is probably some accuracy in the value placed on these relationships - inevitable, and ideally resulting in marriage, but with marriage delayed as long as possible so that they could continue to contribute to their parents' households - and the individual partnerships rang true, but the idea that the countryside was littered with couples wherever you turned seemed somehow improbable.

The other element which makes this novel something approaching a masterpiece is the exploration of individual responses to the situation, with the strong, driving background of the mob mentality. There is very little judgement of morality, with the reader left to make their own decisions, but with the impression that personal morality no longer really counted for anything. Without giving anything away, there is both injustice and justice in terms of the people who are injured and killed during the strike, creating the strong message that the individual was helpless in the situation, and good was not rewarded.

It is a work of unremitting gloom. However, it's definitely worth reading - I'm not sure I'd say that I liked it, but I gained an insight into a piece of history, and couldn't put it down. One word of warning - don't under any circumstance read this if you already suffer from claustrophobia, or know someone who works in a mine!

The Count of Monte Cristo

It's been quite a long time since I last posted. The Count of Monte Cristo is a very long book and I really struggled to wade my way through it. However, with the assistance of time waiting in airports and on planes I have finally reached the end - hooray! This mainly makes me happy because I can now read something else without guilt (bearing in mind that I have read at least 2 quick reads - with guilt! - as light relief whilst struggling through to the end of this). This is quite a difficult work to write about because I can see that it is a masterpiece - the ideas, construction, depth of imagination and sheer quality of writing make it so. However, it's densely plotted with complicated twists and turns, and the mid-section (about 250 pages !) was so long and apparently unrelated that by the time I got to the end section (about 350 pages...) I had entirely forgotten the cast of characters from the beginning. Given that this is a revenge saga, and only makes sense in the context of what happened at the beginning, I think this contributed to my lack of enjoyment. I would be tempted to read it again to see if I could gain a better overall picture, but it's so long and there are so many other books in the world to read! I found it ultimately unsatisfying and hollow - this is probably the intention, as it is built around the Count's determination to revenge himself on three individuals who did him a significant wrong, and he finds that revenge is not as sweet as expected....therefore there isn't a resolution that is pleasing to the reader despite an attempt at a vaguely happy ending. This can be appreciated from the literary point of view but not necessarily enjoyed as such! Definitely worth a read if you have a lot of time on your hands, and a good memory for characters through a long, twisting, turning plot. I have neither, but I'm glad I made it to the end! On another note, someone recently suggested to me that I diversify into blogging about parenthood...obviously not quite yet as I'd be writing about parenting a cat, but from later in the year. I'm undecided...writing about books is easy for me, and unthreatening as I can write in the personal but without actually mentioning anything personal; parenthood would be a whole different thing. We'll see - might come back to having time on my hands, and learning to type with one hand only!

Madame Bovary

Ah, Madame Bovary. I read this in the English translation, obviously - you would be waiting for some time for this review if you waited for me to plough through it in French. This is the terribly tragic tale of Emma, who makes a good, solid marriage to the sensible and not overly exciting Dr Bovary. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for her to become disillusioned as her marriage has not brought the rollercoaster of passion and excitement that she expected. They move to a quiet country town where Charles sets up his medical practice.

Without giving too much of the story away, Madame Bovary then embarks on a life of seeking romance, love and excitement outside her marriage. There are moments of ecstasy, moments of despair, against a background of spiralling debt to fund her lifestyle. Charles is resolutely oblivious.

It doesn't end well.

It was very readable, but to be honest, left me completely cold. I just wanted to shake Emma, and tell her to pull herself together. She was so deluded and silly that I had no sympathy for any of her difficulties or traumas, particularly during her increased neglect/ignoring of her daughter, and I found it really difficult to believe the debt-related strand of the novel. I can understand why it is a classic, but it isn't for me - the characters held no appeal for me, and I didn't really care what happened to them.

This probably displays that I'm not a purist, but I do prefer a story with an element of redemption in it...something that doesn't feature in Madame Bovary.

In other news, I can't find my Kindle - I'm pretty sure it's in the house somewhere but the exact location is a mystery. Hmm. My next reading project will have to be something in real paper...

Anna Karenina - finished!

I've been half-heartedly reading this for some time (see previous post) and realised that I couldn't bear to go back to work after such a long time off after Christmas without finishing it. This has meant that I've spent a lot of time reading in the last couple of days - there are worse ways to spend a very cold holiday.

Firstly, I'd like to thoroughly recommend to you keen readers that a slanket (blanket with sleeves) is a fantastic addition to your reading equipment. I was given one for Christmas by my brilliant friend Jo - I have rarely left the sofa since due to the extreme comfort (and occasional electric shock from the static it creates), and it has most definitely facilitated reaching the end of a difficult read.

Secondly - Anna Karenina. Hmm. As I read this, I couldn't shake the feeling that Tolstoy had about three different books in mind, and at least 6 essays on philosophical and religious concepts, as he wrote and, rather than writing separate works, rolled it all into one. My overwhelming feeling at the end was word fatigue. I think this is mainly due to the way Tolstoy seemed to be working towards a grand ending, then veered off for a few thousand words to discuss the rights and wrongs of war, before shoe horning the story back towards his ending...I think it would have been more powerful as a culmination without this diversion.

There are three main strands to the story - Anna & Vronsky, Kitty & Levin, and Dolly & Stiva. Anna & Vronsky are an exploration of what might happen if you follow your heart at the expense of previous commitments and promises - the social quagmire they find themselves in, the realisation of how much has been given up, and the guilt all chip away at the happiness of their new-found love and it is never going to end well. Dolly & Stiva as a storyline kind of hovered in the background - they feature strongly at the beginning but, once Dolly accepts Stiva's adultery and decides to move on with their marriage, fade into the background as a constant reminder of the stresses and strains of living beyond your means. Stiva seems to play the part of a catalyst for other events in the novel, often coincidentally popping up in unexpected places to facilitate meetings between other characters or the moving on of the story. Kitty & Levin were, I think, the most interesting characters, in the way that they develop and grow a happy and fulfilled relationship despite Levin's best efforts to sabotage it by over-thinking.

It is a majestic work. I suspect it would be made vastly more readable by removing the sections on the peasantry & musings on the best way to manage farmland and there were also times when it seemed to drift for 50 pages or so before moving things on. I suspect Tolstoy's aim in writing was more about the leisurely exploration of concepts than creating a tight, fast-moving tale...or if not, this is certainly what he achieved. I can't see myself reading it again - I actually didn't find any of the characters particularly believable, and also didn't think that any of them moved much beyond the initial character sketch/characteristics laid out for them. I suspect that each character represented a particular type of belief or person in society but I'm just not interested enough to do the reading which would give me that background knowledge...sorry! I would not venture to argue that it shouldn't be considered one of the greats - but it is probably one I won't even dip into again. As Daniel commented in my previous post - it's useful to have read it to understand other allusions to the work but that's about as far as it goes.

So, next - slightly unenviable choice between the three as-yet-unread Dickens novels on the list. I need to read one now or I will find myself at the end with all Dickens to go, and I can't think of anything worse!

Gone with the wind & The Little Prince

Two for the price of one on this post!

Ok, first - the Little Prince. My friend lent me a beautifully illustrated version of this, and I read it in about half an hour. It is a children's book, and is a lovely fanciful account of the Little Prince's travels from planet to planet, learning about what is important. It has some sweet imagery in it - his home planet is tiny, so he regularly rakes out his active volcanoes in order to avoid an explosion (the problem with our planet, you see, is that our volcanoes are too large to rake and so they tend to erupt). By taming a fox, the Little Prince learns that a friend (the fox, his flower) doesn't have to be the only one in the world, but when you love something, it becomes the only one in the world to you. Cute, and well-realised - the translation I read, from the original French, was also nicely written.

Secondly - Gone with the wind, or GWTW from now on. I can't believe I have never read this before - it's very much the kind of book I enjoy, and I absolutely loved it. It took me a while to get into it - for the first 100 pages, I found that the casual references to darkies, field negroes etc, and the associated attitudes ("they're like children, they need to be told what's good for them") really grating and offensive. I decided that I needed to put these to one side and accept it as being a reflection of the period, in order to give myself a chance of appreciating the work whilst not actually agreeing with the attitudes therein. Once I'd made that decision, I found it much easier to read!

So, what to say about GWTW? Scarlett O'Hara is a fantastic heroine - I think I liked her in the same way as I appreciated Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, in that Scarlett is consistently portrayed in her true light - she is not "good", she doesn't do what is expected of her, and she is full of life. Rhett Butler is also a brilliant male romantic lead - dashing, bad, thrilling, but with a heart. The story itself is gripping, with unexpected ups and downs, and it is absolutely brutal - Margaret Mitchell doesn't shy away from tragedy(perhaps an understatement!). I wanted it to end differently, but having said that the resolution of the story is great, and unexpected to the end...

I'm not sure I can write much more about it that hasn't already been written and said. I feel like I've learnt something about the American Civil War - I've studied it in the past, but very much from the point of view of the north, and the Confederate experience was obviously very different. Not sure how accurate it is, but it felt enlightening at the time. I think it is sufficient to say that GWTW fully deserves its reputation for being one of the great romantic novels of all time - if you haven't read it, please do, although you may need to set aside a few weeks to do so! I may even go on to watch the film...

Vanity Fair

I started reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair with low expectations - 19th century literature, whilst worthy, is rarely gripping or particularly interesting...a sweeping statement, I realise.

VF is a massive book (800 pages + footnotes in my edition), and was originally published chapter-by-chapter as installments in a weekly magazine. This makes it really readable, as each chapter is structured to hold attention and stimulate interest enough to make readers pick it up again the next week.

It is described by the author as a novel without a hero, and is immensely refreshing for this genre...the female characters are not good, meek, moral, waiting for their parents to set up the perfect match. Instead they act against parents and relations, set up their own marriages, and the real story starts after the wedding, rather than the wedding being the ultimate goal.

Thackeray's characterisation is brilliant - his aim is the satirisation of "polite" society, and he takes great joy in uncovering the unsavoury elements of behaviour. Gambling, financial dishonesty, the petty politics particularly within the female circles...hypocrisy, the way that people flock to associate with the "right sort", who just happen to have come into some money...it's all there. There are comeupances, love stories, redemptions. His central female characters are the perfect antidote to the view of 19th century society as portrayed by Austen - Becky Sharp could totally take on Elizabeth Bennett in a literary "Celebrity Death Match".

I also enjoyed the way that the narrator's tone was continuously faintly disapproving of the goings on with "Vanity Fair" (i.e. polite society), and equally scathing of minor indiscretions (taking slightly too much spirit and water) and major (causing the ruin of an old family retainer by failing to pay rent to the extent that his creditors foreclose), leaving the reader to make their own moral judgement.

There is a lot that I could write about this, but again I would be in danger of reproducing York Notes on the subject. It took me by surprise, and was an utterly gripping read, both in terms of the story, and the social commentary. Towards the end, a couple of chapters were a bit drifty, making me wonder whether he was ready to bring it to an end, but had to spin it out for a certain number of weeks, but that is pretty much the only criticism I have. It brings me to the conclusion that the flawed are much more interesting than the good - Amelia is basically good but the narrator makes no secret of his disdain for her as she is a bit of a wuss with no initiative! - and I have to be honest, that I often find this to be the case in real life too...

If you haven't read this, you should most definitely do so! I have a copy available on loan if anyone wants to borrow it...

37 left to go!

The Great Gatsby

After Lord of the Rings, I wanted to read something that I could potentially relate to a bit more - something about people. So I took advice from the mother-in-law, and went for The Great Gatsby. In addition to being about people, it is short, and as soon as I started it I realised I had in fact read it before - easy win!

TGG is set in 1920s high society in America. The eponymous (I love that word) Gatsby is a mysterious figure who hosts party after party in his beachside mansion, surrounding himself with people whilst remaining personally aloof. No-one really knows where he has come from, or why he constantly opens his home to others whilst not seeming interested in involving himself with them.

Re-reading this novel reminded me that on first reading, I thought it was rubbish. I thought the characterisation was shallow, the resolution too swift, and the work in general too quickly over for it to truly deserve the accolades it received. I think I've changed my mind. It still left me with the impression that the characterisation is shallow - although the novel is written in the first person, Nick is actually fairly peripheral to events and we don't really learn much about him - his own little "love story" is understated, a side line, and doesn't really go anywhere. Where the other characters are seemingly keeping mistresses etc, and very little detail is given about more physical relationships, we see in great detail Nick's decision to move his relationship with Jordan Baker "to the next level"...putting his arm round her shoulders.

So, with the narrator being a little peripheral, narrative distance is then maintained - where Nick is not party to an event, we may hear about it retrospectively, but only hear an event from the character's point of view if they later choose to talk about it. This has the effect of making the novel as a whole feel quite distanced, and as a reader I felt very much that I was an external observer rather than drawn into the situation.

However, I think this narrative device does convey a sense of the shallowness of 20s high society - all about being seen at the best party, with the best people, even if you don't like them. (Is it any different today in "high society", or the "Hello" world??!) Relationships were more formal, and distant, and it is entirely possible to spend evening after evening at parties with the same people, and not really come to know them. Understanding this has made me revise my opinion of the novel, and agree that it is brilliantly crafted, although I still find the distance frustrating. It is typical of "the Great American Novel" - On the Road had a similar sense of manic progression from place to place and party to party without really engaging with the people, and perhaps that's why I didn't like it...not sure I'm willing to read that again to check though!

The hypocrisies in relationships are uncovered well, and the ending is very neat and tidy for Tom and Daisy - although again, because of the style in which Fitzgerald writes, there is very little feeling attached to the events. The lack of consequence for their actions is frustrating...I won't say more about this in case I spoil it for any prospective readers. However, I think it is safe to say, without spoiling, that the novel is an interesting study of double (triple??) standards within a marriage, and that my identification with, and sympathy for, characters shifted throughout as events unfolded in what is essentially, a tale of obsession & love gone a bit wrong - the depiction of a period is the greater achievement here, rather than the story itself. I think - I'm happy to be disagreed with!

I recently read "Tender is the night", one of F Scott Fitzgerald's less prominent works, and I liked it much better...if you liked Gatsby, read it; if you didn't like Gatsby, read it anyway and you might like it better!

Lord of the Rings #1

I suspect this won't be the last time I write about Lord of the Rings.

So, the uninitiated among you may believe that there are three books in the Lord of the Rings series. If you were a true fan, you would realise that there are in fact 6 books, plus an appendix. I can't help but feel that the publisher chose to present them in this way because there are 7 letters in Tolkien...one for each spine in the box set.

I'm currently about half way through the second book, which means that the ring has set out and is now on its way south. Or, alternatively, about a quarter of the way through in total (I'm not planning to read the appendix!).

I have always resolutely avoided LOTR - haven't seen the films, had no interest at all in the books. The Hobbit as an hors d'oeuvre didn't exactly whet my appetite either, and I approached this box set with trepidation, reluctance, and chiefly a desire to get them ticked off the list. Please don't judge me but (whispers) I am actually enjoying them so far. Shhhhhhhhhhh.

The story is much more gripping when there's action going on - I found myself skim-reading at the beginning of book two, when there was feasting, re-capping, songs and tales of times past. However, once the quest is ongoing...I struggled to put it down.

I have to say, though, and I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, that I'd never realised how heavily the Harry Potter books draw from the concepts in LOTR. Dementors? Surely based on the Black Riders. The name of an evil that cannot be spoken lest the attention of that evil be drawn to you? And don't get me started on the Gandalf/Dumbledore parallels. It may be unfair to comment on the Gandalf/Dumbledore similarities, and I don't mean just the use of a wizard - more the figure who is pivotal to the story, and has knowledge and power beyond that of the rest of the characters, but has frailties and weaknesses too. I feel slightly disappointed in J K Rowling - perhaps I should have read LOTR first!

More thoughts will, I'm sure, follow, when I've finished reading it...

A little light relief

I am still working my way through Crime and Punishment, and will make it through to the end.

However, as a little light relief, and also to put off having to pick it up just now, I was thinking about books that I would put on my top 100. My friend Jo, for her next significant birthday, has asked her friends and family to get her a copy of their favourite book. For me, this is akin to Nick Hornby's main character in High Fidelity (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember) being asked to put together his top 5 records. I couldn't estimate how many books I've read in my lifetime (on an average week's holiday, I'll read 4 or 5 if not more), and I have a nagging feeling that as soon as I pick one, I will think of 5 others I prefer!! So, to help me in my thinking for Jo's birthday (and Jo, if you're reading, you may like to stop now or no surprise for you!) - my top 100 books that everyone should read would include:

The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas - a brilliant mystery based on a PhD student who finds a work by the author she is studying in a bookshop - the work is extremely rare, and no-one alive has ever read it, because everyone who has ever read it has died or disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The book then follows her as she reads the book and gets drawn into the mystery of it. I won't go into any more detail because I think it's best discovered for yourself, but read it! Best book I read last year...I think!

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The story of a small boy who is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a labyrinth of books which would otherwise have been in danger of being destroyed or forgotten. As a rite of passage, he chooses a book to take home, understanding that he is then taking responsibility for the survival of that book. As he reads the book and grows up, he becomes drawn into the mystery of the author. It's quite dark but absolutely compelling.

A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami. Anything by Murakami could have made it onto this list, but this is the first one I read and so I think made the biggest impact. Murakami is one of Japan's most read authors of modern times, and with good reason. The plot of this novel is almost impossible to outline and do justice to - look it up on Amazon - but the key feature of anything by Murakami is the way he draws you into an utterly surreal and often comic world, but in such a way that you do not notice you're moving away from reality until you realise that you are reading about a character whose ears have the power, when uncovered, to improve sex, or the hunt for a manic depressive in a sheep outfit, or a hotel which has a hidden world on the 19th floor which very occasionally appears...and it seems completely usual. Murakami's powers of imagination and story telling are amazing, and I went on from this novel to read all of his other novels.

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde. Books are again central to this (I'm spotting a theme in books that appeal to me!), but in a very different way. Fforde creates a world where travel into the interior of novels is possible, Swindon is the capital of England, dodos have been revived (slightly unsuccessfully), and time travel is not only possible, but used as a means of policing. Oh, and the Crimean War is still running by the 1980s. It can be read on a very simple level, enjoying the premise of the story - nominally a mystery, where Thursday Next (the main character) attempts to track down and stop the criminal who is kidnapping minor characters from the original copies of novels and holding them to ransom. If he doesn't get what he wants, he plans to kidnap Jane Eyre and murder her, meaning that Jane would disappear from all copies of the novel, and ruin one of the classics of English literature. (Martin would be glad of this, as he still holds that Jane Eyre is one of the dullest books ever written). Beyond this storyline, though, the novel is littered with literary references, and so can be read with a faint feeling of smugness/bewilderment as you place, or fail to place, the references. It's brilliantly constructed, funny, and gripping, and again I went on to read the rest of Fforde's work.

I could go on - I love recommending books - but will stop there, and try and work further through Crime and Punishment! If you try any of the above and like them, let me know...

Crime and Punishment #1

After Steinbeck & Rushdie, I went for something a bit more lightweight - the Hobbit. I wanted to then go onto something also fairly light - but started Crime and Punishment instead!

Now, I haven't finished this yet - it's been a pretty busy week and it's a pretty heavy book - but there's a lot in it and I'll probably forget my thoughts so far if I don't write about it part-way through!

One observation that made me chuckle - Roskolnikov's mother has just arrived, and is described as retaining some traces of her former beauty, despite being on the verge of old age - she is 43. Imagine the slating that an author writing now would get for defining a 43 year old woman as being on the verge of old age! Having said that, a chuckle is in a sense the wrong response - this is really just a reflection of firstly the general increase in life expectancy, and also the extreme poverty & harsh life lived by the characters in this novel would, I'd imagine, cause a woman to age at a far quicker rate than us in our more cosseted life here with anti-ageing creams and hair dyes and moisturisers proven to address the seven signs of ageing...

For those who aren't familiar with the novel, Crime and Punshment is set in pre-Revolutionary Tsarist Russia. Rodia Raskolnikov decides to carry out a murder for financial reasons, but also as a matter of principle - ridding the world of the evils of a money-lender who also conveniently happens to have riches that can be stolen after the event. Following this event (it isn't giving much away to tell you that he does it!), Dostoevsky examines the effect of guilt on Raskolnikov and his subsequent actions.

The first thing to say, I think, is that for the first time in this challenge I am absolutely gripped by the book I am reading. I was starting to worry that the 52 books I'd already read would turn out to be the only ones I like, and that it would be a year (or so) of forcing myself through depressing and overly complex works! This is complex - even to the extent that each of the characters seems to be referred to by two or three different names, and it has taken me until about the halfway point to really know who the characters are - and is certainly not a light or cheerful read. However, it is so well constructed that I have been completely drawn into the darkness of Raskolnikov's growing madness/illness/panic, and want to know where it is going next.

As I mentioned, the mother & sister have just entered the equation, and the depiction of dignity within poverty is striking.

More to follow when I finish! By the way, I'm reading the Wordsworth Classics version, which is giving me an eerie sense of doing my English A-level homework...

The Hobbit

Another book down - I've just finished The Hobbit. I think I made a token effort at starting this years ago and didn't get very far. I have very little interest in this as a genre, which is why I have never read any LOTR, or seen the films. However, one of the interesting things about this challenge is the removal of my personal taste from the decision as to what I read next, and it is definitely forcing me to widen my literary horizons.

I don't really know what to say about the Hobbit. It's very readable, although I have to confess to only skim-reading the songs, but I find it difficult to care about the outcome of a story that doesn't have any people in it. The depictions of dwarves, elves and goblins exactly mirror the standard literary definitions of those species, although I don't know if that's because Tolkien coined these characteristics. My ignorance showing itself, I think. If one feels so inclined, there are some general principles, or life lessons, that can be drawn from the Hobbit - the pursuit of money above all else erodes relationships & leads to conflict; a higher cause can unify parties previously divided by conflict over riches; the power of encouragement and affirmation in bringing about change (Bilbo believing that he could be useful and take the lead, because Gandalf has told him so); it's always a bad idea to leave the path in the woods; travelling down a river in a barrel will always be an uncomfortable experience.

The theme of food, or the absence thereof, runs throughout, as Bilbo learns that it's possible to shake the habit of a lifetime and survive a day or more without regular tea and cakes - perhaps a lesson we could all do to learn.

Overall - it is a book aimed at children, and it would be unfair to write it off for not being very deep!! It was easy enough to read, but I can't see myself becoming a big fan of the genre. I think I might finish off Crime and Punishment before I attack the rest of the LOTR books.

May your beards never grow thin. And remember, according to Gandalf, just because you had a part in making it happen, it doesn't mean that it isn't the fulfilment of a prophesy!

Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children - done!

I have finally finished Midnight's Children. It's been an interesting experience. Trying to plough through this book has made me challenge the way that I read, pretentious as that may sound. I think I've mentioned previously that I read really fast - my driver to find out what happens at the end means that I do miss details, and generally don't think that much about what I'm reading other than taking in the outline facts.

Midnight's Children was impossible to read in this way. I've already commented that nothing seems to happen for the first 200 pages and, another 150 pages on, I realised that nothing was going to happen going forwards, in the way that I was looking for it - i.e. significant events, in the present tense, which caused an unexpected change in the direction of the story. The narrative voice is so distant (despite the fact that he is telling his own story), and bound up in metaphor, that all events are just below the surface of the text - I'm struggling a little to put this into words - as a reader, you actually need to read and digest the metaphor, the very visual language, and the narrator's own uncertainty about the accuracy of his memory to get to the heart of the story.

It's a difficult book to read.

Rushdie plays with the reader's perceptions throughout. Saleem expresses doubt about the accuracy of his dates & memory, leading me to believe that the parallels between his life and the life of India as a nation are delusions of grandeur, entirely in his own mind, rather than the cause & effect that he believes. However, his arrest and subsequent events at the end of the book indicate that the group of children (obviously now adults) are seen as a significant threat - they clearly have some significance and relationship to the life of the nation beyond Saleem's own mind, leaving me then to revisit my previous perceptions. Having said that, belief in the events of the novel to any extent do involve a suspension of disbelief - but for some reason I find it easier to do this in relation to the magical powers of the children than in relation to national events. Perhaps a reflection of the individualist society we live in, perhaps a limit in my imagination - who knows?

I did also find the level of coincidence in the novel, putting lost friends & family in entirely random places to be found by Saleem, difficult to believe in. However, perhaps I'm being difficult to please here - I can't help but contrast this to the Grapes of Wrath, where I complained about the way that loose ends were not tied up, and people were never heard from again. Saleem ties up all loose ends in the narration of his story, sometimes convincingly, sometimes fantastically, and sometimes admitting that he doesn't know, and this is the way he likes to believe that it happened.

There is a passage which really stuck with me:

Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each 'I', every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude.
(p535 of the Vintage Books edition)

This is written in the context of his significance to the Indian nation (and gives a good example of the style of prose that I found so difficult to skim read), but I thought this was a great way of summarising an individual's impact on the world for those looking for their own significance...leaving questions of God and higher meaning to one side for the moment!

Having reached the end, I'm left with an appreciation of the complexity of this novel. I suspect that I might have got more out of it had I known more about the period of history it covers, or had I read the beginning with the same mindset as I read the end. However, I still feel that the metaphor is heavy handed...Rushdie wants to leave you with a particular interpretation of Saleem's significance, actions, and life, and therefore interprets this through the voice of the narrator. There is very little space or scope for a sense of discovery that comes with a subtler metaphor - I feel, rather, that I've been beaten about the head with what he wanted to say!

Would I read it again? I doubt it...but I'm glad I didn't give up this time.

Onto the next - I might go for Lord of the Rings or Nineteen Eighty-Four for something slightly gentler.

Midnight's Children - an interim report

I thought I should post something about Midnight's Children, even though I still haven't finished it, because it is taking me a while to read. I know it isn't a long time for most people, but as I read at the speed of light, generally, and this is something of a plod, it feels very slow.

I mentioned to my friend Simon that Midnight's Children was my next project; he said that this is one of the few books that he's started and failed to finish. This filled me with dread, as we tend to like the same books, but I carry on regardless - I have a challenge to complete!

So - Salman Rushdie. Simon's difficulty in finishing this novel is entirely understandable. It was 100 pages before anything happened, and 200 pages before the main protaganist, Saleem, is born. Given that the first 200 pages is laden with future hints about his birth, this seems like a long time to spin out the anticipation. Once Saleem enters the picture, the pace speeds up a bit and this is where I started to get interested, but if I didn't have another compelling reason to finish it, I would have given up before then.

You can't argue with the quality of the writing. Rushdie plays with form, both in choice of words & in the punctuation & structure of sentences, to create mood and impact. There's a particularly striking scene, with the retelling of a dream about a witch killing children, where he does this to great effect; and another where the repetition of the colours saffron and green in every element of a description creates a sort of driving rhythm that supports the urgency of the situation (Saleem's birth), as well as linking it in with the birth of India as a nation. His description of Amina taking a knife to her verrucas is, unfortunately, particularly vivid...my feet are curling themselves up in self-defence just thinking about it.

There is an enormous amount covered in this novel. Indian independence, the political system, Partition...childhood events, accidents, turbulent family life, and of course the magical realism elements of Saleem's psychic links with India's other "midnight children". The novel is written self-consciously - Saleem is writing his own story, and frequently breaks off to comment to Padma, his companion. This obviously gives him the advantage of hindsight, and the ability to hint at future events, but from a stylistic point of view, I find it much harder to become absorbed in the story - I feel as though I'm sitting by the narrator, watching from a distance, rather than being one with the story.

This could also be partly due to spending almost four hours today reading whilst on a train to and from London at unsocial hours - much more difficult to get involved (particularly when the seat in front is occupied by someone playing a game on their iPhone without switching off the sound - grr - but I'll calm myself as this is not a forum for train rants!).

So far - hmm. This is an enormously accomplished book, it's very well constructed, and complex but easily followed. It's difficult to get truly involved in, in the sense of emotional engagement, because so much of its style and construction is about creating parallels between people & events of national significance. When Rushdie gets involved in the "real time" story that he's telling, it's immensely compelling, but this does tend to happen in fits and starts, and so many misfortunes fall upon Saleem, both physical and emotional, that it's difficult to see him as a three-dimensional character rather than a living metaphor. Maybe that's the point & I'm just not sophisticated enough to like it!

I suspect I will be glad I've read it, when I finish it, but I'm not quite near enough the end to feel that yet! More to follow- about 150 pages to go, I think...

Book # -1...or something

One of the books from the list which I had already read was the Time Travellers Wife - hasn't everybody? I resisted reading it for ages because it was populist, everyone was reading it, and I hate following the crowd, but then I gave in and LOVED it. So why write about it today? I wasn't planning to write about all of the books I read pre-challenge, but I've just watched the film and it reminded me of all the reasons that the book is fantastic.

The film was a good one to watch - absorbing, a little bit emotional, fairly well cast. It took a little while to adapt to the American accents...I didn't realise until the film started that I had read the book entirely in an English accent, even though it was set in Chicago! As with so many film adaptations, though, they left out almost all of the elements that made the book memorable and (at risk of sounding like a total girl) heart-rending. The period between Clare and Henry meeting in "real time" and getting married, in the film, passes in two scenes. In the book, this is one of the formative periods where you grow to understand the relationship between them, the tensions of planning for the key events of life...the true depth of relationship and passion. I remember the passion between them as being compelling, a core part of the novel, and this hardly featured in the film at all. Without this, and with much of the interaction with other characters (Clare's mother, Kimy, the women from Henry's pre-Clare life), it became difficult to truly care, and I think the emotional involvement came mainly from the understanding of the characters, and expectation of events, gained from the book.

I did genuinely love that book, and not just in comparison with the film. It's one of the few books that has made me cry (and I mean sob) on public transport, and despite the totally unrealistic concept it is based on, it is somehow very believable. It also gives an interesting take on free will, from a different angle than the usual predestination/free will debate. There is the question of cause and effect - Henry convinces Dr Kendricks to work with him on the basis that he is already working with him and therefore he must agree - and inevitability - Henry is already married to Clare when he is visiting her as a small child, and therefore does she have any choice but to marry him? It is also a brilliantly constructed, very well written, cracking good read. Definitely recommend it; try to read as much as you can in one sitting (it's really hard to follow if you read in short bursts), and don't necessarily bother with the film!

Book #1 - done!

It's been a hard slog, but I've finished the Grapes of Wrath. Given that the blurb on the back describes it as "A terrible and indignant book", I perhaps should have guessed that it wasn't going to be a joyous and uplifting read! I can certainly appreciate the quality of the writing - Steinbeck's descriptions of scenery, people and travel are immensely evocative. I have a tendency to skim over descriptions in general, looking for the action, but his descriptions did make me pause and visualise. Having said that, I struggled to motivate myself to progress through the book, I think because there is a sense, from the very beginning, that the Joad family's quest for a new life in California is futile & doomed - even though they express hope, there is very little optimism or hope within the novel. I know that this is the fundamental point of the work, and it is a pretty accurate depiction of the period, but it makes for quite heavy reading. I can sort of appreciate the sense of purpose that is restored to Rose of Sharon in the (slightly disturbing) end scene, but it is one of those novels that leaves so many loose ends...it feels a bit like Steinbeck created as many scenes of dashed hopes as his imagination/patience could handle, got a few characters out of the picture and swiftly concluded the story. But then (I've used the word "but" far too many times for elegance here, which does make me question who I am to critique a Pulitzer Prize winner!) the loose ends, the disappearances and the lack of a happy ending are all fairly true to life for the time - the displaced families in America in that period would have become separated in their quest to scrape a living and there wasn't a happy resolution where they got their little white house, steady work and settlement!
Which leads me to thinking - is it shallow of me to only really enjoy a book if it has a degree of optimism, and a genuine resolution at the end? A happy ending isn't essential (although I have to say I quite like them), but at least a sense that the central tension of the novel has been resolved and brought to a close!

So, that was the Grapes of Wrath. I suspect it won't be on my list of all time favourites but I'm glad I finished it. Onwards and upwards...maybe something more cheerful next!

Grapes of Wrath

I love how books capture the imagination. I've told a few book-loving friends about my mission, which has instantly sparked list comparisons, recommendations, offers of books to borrow, and a couple of copy-cat projects (not that my idea was in any way original, I hasten to add).

I feel reassured to have discovered fellow Dickens-haters and slightly confused as to how anyone can number George Eliot amongst their favourite writers - no offence, Nuneaton, but studying Silas Marner twice in two years kind of killed her for me. Apparently Middlemarch is better - I shall soon be able to confirm this!

I have been musing on the best way to do this without killing the enjoyment of reading for the next year or so - I love reading, and find that it is the best way I have of switching off from work, retreating into my own world, and refreshing my mind, but I do tend to struggle when I know I _have_ to finish a book. So, I think multi-tasking is the way to go...if I always have two books on the go (probably Shakespeare and A. N. Other) there will be a sense of respite. It might sound odd, but I think it will work for me!

So, Grapes of Wrath so far. I have to say, it hasn't instantly grabbed me, but I perhaps haven't given it a fair shot as I've mainly given it 10 minutes at a time before falling asleep. Evocative descriptions of scenery, definitely - I can see the scenes clearly - but nothing has really happened yet. One list-reader said this was her favourite book of the 100 - high praise! - so I'm sure it will pick up - more to follow!