I have loved Sir Salman Rushdie's work ever since he fired up my imagination with the writing that bejewelled every page of Midnight's Children. And II have loved Sir Salman Rushdie's work ever since he fired up my imagination with the writing that bejewelled every page of Midnight's Children. And I've since hoped that he might one day match, or even eclipse, his crowning achievement. Did Rushdie achieve that with Victory City? Let's just say that he gave Midnight's Children a run for its money.
The opening sentence promised much: "On the last day of her life when she was two hundred and forty-seven years old, the blind poet, miracle worker and prophetess Pampa Kampala completed her immense narrative poem and buried it in a clay pot sealed with wax in the heart of the Royal Enclosure, as a message to the future." "Yes!" I shouted, putting on my MC Hammer pants and gliding sideways across the room. "Sir Salman is back on top form and I am loving it!"
Inspired by a once-flourishing medieval Hindu kingdom in Southern India, the author brings us an allegorical fairy tale in which Pampa Kampala (who ages as slowly as an oak tree) propagates a living, breathing city from little more than seeds and whispers. The scope of Rushdie's imagination and the magnitude of his world-building is still astonishing: it's an Indian Game of Thrones; it's Sinbad and the Arabian Nights; it's The Odyssey and War and Peace with just a hint of Benjamin Button thrown in. It's brilliant! I must admit that I quite enjoyed Rushdie deliberately taking liberties with the dialogue - as magical realism permits - by wryly adopting an Errol Flynn*/Basil Rathbone* manner of speaking. *(those of you fortunate enough to be favoured by youth and peachy complexions may need to Google these two actors).
And the old maestro has lost none of his impishness: "In the evenings at the time of the sunset promenade, it was possible to see couples of all sorts taking the air and holding hands without embarrassment: men and men, women and women, and yes, men and women too."
Sadly, despite my initial excitement, the story (for me) didn't quite live up to its breathtaking promise. Because Rushdie has long ago transcended his craft, and has become a global cause célèbre, I feel he might be resting on his laurels and that I might now be reading his books just to purr over the quality of his writing, rather than his storytelling.
But his exuberance lights up every page, I adore his writing, and still tip my hat to his virtuosity. So, despite the irresolute storyline, it can only be five radiant stars!...more
What an incredible journey! Whilst reading this cyberpunk/Christo-sci-fi extravaganza, I felt as if I was being transported through space and time in What an incredible journey! Whilst reading this cyberpunk/Christo-sci-fi extravaganza, I felt as if I was being transported through space and time in a fanciful train pod, travelling at a speed of 1,880 kilometres per hour! Author Andrew Gillsmith, with an almost unearthly imagination, brings us an extraordinary novel of infinite scope wherein Rome and Vienna have become the two seats of power in a revived Holy Roman Empire some 200 years into our future. His sci-fi novel defies easy categorisation but at its beating heart, humankind has lost its sense of sublime wonder and, in a nod to Prometheus, we have squandered our right to use God's powers for the purpose of doing good and Satan is ready to step in.
This is a science-bleeding-into-religion kind of read, an altogether metaphysical, theological, intellectual, philosophical and fantastical allegory that seeks to inspire the reader to at least contemplate an alternative perspective. Gillsmith's world-building is astronomically good and his considerate handling of other world religions does him great credit. Though a staunch Roman Catholic, he sees their truth and understands that we all share a fundamental commonality.
The book wasn't without its faults, though ... it was science-heavy and a little too one-paced for my liking. Some of the characters weren't fully fleshed out and therefore felt a little samey. But these were my only grumbles. It's still a fab read.
Time-honoured dichotomies abound in this book: consciousness and disregard; belief and non-belief; light and darkness; freedom versus subjugation; good versus evil. Added to this heady mix are synths, transportive holochambers, voice-activated bodysuits, a cleverly-conceived virtual reality reimagining of Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, and the Vatican's own exorcist!
And, as if that wasn't enough, this absorbing sci-fi parable closes with a psychedelic ending that would very likely blow the Pope's zucchetto clean off his head!
An incredible debut by a hugely talented writer and, despite me being a devout agnostic, I would love to stick around to see where Gillsmith's ever-developing ideas take him next!...more
I was really looking forward to reading this book. The promise of dark magical realism had me licking my lips and rubbing my knees. Was Jenni Fagan a I was really looking forward to reading this book. The promise of dark magical realism had me licking my lips and rubbing my knees. Was Jenni Fagan a Scottish version of Jess Kidd? I wondered. With hopes heightened, loins girded and gherkins pickled, I dived right in…
Alas, it took me a while to adjust to Fagan's staccato writing style. I'm not ordinarily a fan of stop/start narratives that judder along in tiny sentences and found the author's Post-it prose more than a little jarring. "Give me broad-winged sentences that fly from their pages!" I say. "Not clipped ones that stay in their cages." I have no doubt that this body of work could have been amazing had it been allowed to blossom into a free-flowing novel.
Now I'm rather fond of a swear word or two, but felt that the profanity herein was overdone to the point that it felt juvenile: "How cool am I? I'm using lots of grown-up swear words! I know! It's so-o cutting edge!" : )
To give it its due, the book is also feathered with creative brilliance and is as atmospheric as it is audacious. It just wasn't for me. Sorry. I would also like to add that most readers of this Gothic curiosity have sung its praises and that my opinion is just my opinion.
Anyway, it's been nice talking. I'll, um, fetch my coat and see myself out…...more
"Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day." —Perry Como
Although I've posted an update stating that I shan't be readi"Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day." —Perry Como
Although I've posted an update stating that I shan't be reading or reviewing throughout autumn and winter, I vaulted the electrified fence to read this ten-minute gem. My thanks go to Debbie, who prodded me in the ribs with her pogo stick, demanding suggesting I read it. I'm pleased to have done so. The tale grabbed me by the tail from the start and had me beguiled by the finish.
Nadia, an individual who knows her personal belongings as well as she knows her own face, finds a succession of unusual items about her person and in her wallet. Exasperated and completely perplexed, Nadia turns to her friends for guidance...
The dreamers and the cosmic believers among you will absolutely LOVE this!
Whimsical and wonderful! Fans of A Gentleman in Moscow will adore this stylish little story. Something of a modern-day fairy tale, pixie-dusted witWhimsical and wonderful! Fans of A Gentleman in Moscow will adore this stylish little story. Something of a modern-day fairy tale, pixie-dusted with Towles' inimitable finesse. *Free to read here*
I'm indebted to Cheri (Goodreads royalty) for nudging me in its direction. Cheri's review...more
"The devil went down to Georgia Moscow, he was looking for a soul to steal." —Primus
Phew! I needed a margarita after finishing The Master and Ma "The devil went down to Georgia Moscow, he was looking for a soul to steal." —Primus
Phew! I needed a margarita after finishing The Master and Margarita! What a magnificent, turbulent read! This extravagant Russian allegory is an adult 'Alice in Wonderland' bursting at the seams with mischief, darkness and rambunctiousness. The ghosts of Faust and Dante must have sat on the author's shoulders as he worked tirelessly on this masterpiece. In short, this book was made for me! Come down from the heavens, Mikhail Bulgakov, and give me a hug, my brother from another мамочка. I'm so glad we found each other!
The Devil and his motley crew breeze into 1930s Moscow and begin to wreak havoc by reading people's minds, decapitating citizens and throwing an astonishing stage show that scandalises the local glitterati. To give you some inkling of what we're dealing with here, one of Satan's sidekicks is a talking cat the size of a pig, who is always in the thick of things (Bulgakov was evidently writing magical realism before Gabriel García Márquez was even born). The humour is riotous and the badinage so hilarious that I was holding my ribs, kicking my legs and Cossack dancing around the room!
In tandem with all of this magic and mayhem (please bear with me, dear reader) is a travel back in time to the trial and eventual crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. These subplot scenes are written in a completely different hist-fic style and are amazingly cinematic. The author's juxtaposition of the supernatural and the real is a constant stratagem throughout. It would take me all day to discuss the symbolism that underpins this incredible book, so I won't bore you with every detail. Suffice to say that Bulgakov sets out to satirise the Stalinist regime he was oppressed by (was Orwell's Animal Farm inspired by this novel?) and the Devil is on hand to mete out an extreme brand of either punishment or reward to whoever displeases or pleases him (human cowardice is what really gets his goat). The underlying parable jumps about all over the place – and sometimes out of windows on a broomstick! Heck, there is even a Magritte-style talking suit! I'd be lying if I said I'd grasped the significance of all of the author's philosophical analogies, but I certainly had a lot of fun trying.
I loved this book; really loved it. And it's incredible to think that The Master and Margarita was fashioned in the 1920s. It was years ahead of its time and is like no other novel I've ever read.
Clearly, this book wouldn't be for everyone, but if you like your literature dark, magical, intellectual, thought-provoking and absurd, then you should find room for it on your shelves.
This was a buddy read with my wonderful magical realism friend, Kimber Silver.
What a great start to a book! A dead Tasmanian mother returns to her family two days af"Everything changes, nothing perishes." —Ovid, Metamorphoses
What a great start to a book! A dead Tasmanian mother returns to her family two days after they'd spread her ashes, and no-one bats an eyelid. This phenomenon isn't unusual within the McAllister clan, for a procession of deceased relatives routinely reappear, albeit amalgamated into the flora, fauna and flotsam of the locale in which they were scattered. Yes! Yes! YES! I was seduced by Robbie Arnott before he'd even bought me flowers. This is an earth, wind and fire kind of book and I was up and ready to groove tonight! For some strange reason, the mythical, folklorish inception of this story put me in mind of the nymph, Daphne, turning herself into a tree so she could evade the lustful advances of Apollo. I love shapeshifters.
Magical realism, if done well, is my favourite genre and Arnott's avant-garde storytelling is backed up with picturesque descriptions of the wild Tasmanian landscape: glistening green gorges, thistle fields, hateful gorse, mudflats and reedy wetlands; whale spray rising from the ocean, beneath a clotted sky.
This, my fellow bookaneers, is an author whose imagination outshines most others'.
Now, this doesn't mean that I was totally won over… The story takes too many routes and becomes lost in the Forest of Fabulism that Arnott has planted. Not only that - why, oh why was the dialogue italicised? And there weren't any blimmin' speech marks either (one of my pet peeves). This ill-considered modus operandi frustrated me from start to finish. I felt as if I was bearing witness to a coven of superhumans who could all communicate telepathically with each other.
The good news is that Arnott's inventive imagery and extravagant storytelling continued to delight me throughout. He conjures up a wealth of extraordinary characters: salt-rinsed fishermen, census-friendly families (now that is a genius line), a flinty, androgynous kickass female detective and the world's finest coffin maker (who was a hoot!). The author even presents us with a Moby Dick-style trope involving a wombat farmer's maniacal quest to kill a malevolent cormorant.
The biggest compliment I can give Robbie Arnott is that his spellbinding book is like nothing I've ever read. And that, dear reader, is a very fine achievement!
"This is my quest, to follow that star. No matter how hopeless, no matter how far." —Impossible Dream, Man of La Mancha
Anyone who has read my revie"This is my quest, to follow that star. No matter how hopeless, no matter how far." —Impossible Dream, Man of La Mancha
Anyone who has read my reviews (you crazy fools) will know that Sir Salman Rushdie has long been one of my literary heroes and that I feel he has lost his magic touch of late (we wants it, we needs it, nasty hobbitses!)
Happily, this devil-may-care, genre-bending, post-modernist fable marks a welcome return to form. That said, Rushdie has never quite been able to summon the artistry that guided him to write Midnight's Children In a present-day twist to de Cervantes' Don Quixote, our bewildered anti-hero is one Ismail Smile, an Indian chap with retreating mental powers who binge-watches 'Housewives From Wherever' and any other daytime crap that takes his fancy. Inspired by 'The Bachelorette' TV show, his Quixotic quest (some might call it stalking) is to zealously pursue a beautiful television personality - namely, Miss Salma R - daughter of a former Bollywood actress with whom he is unwholesomely infatuated. So he reinvents himself as Quichotte, the gallant knight in pursuit of her Grail. The magical realism that brought Rushdie fame comes to the fore when Quichotte wishes upon a meteor shower and Hey Presto! a fifteen-year-old monochrome-skinned boy (his Sancho Panza) materialises in his car.
Rushdie has long been one of the most accomplished writers on the planet and not only is it business as usual, his wascally wabbit wambunctiousness is also still evident. It's true that he requires of the reader a high degree of concentration, incorporating elements of the parodic, of satire and pastiche. My feeling is that he is perhaps trying too hard and has become a little too self-indulgent. To add to all of the cleverness swashing around, we discover that this is actually a story within a story (a "mise en abyme") written by Indian author, Sam duChamp (Rushdie himself, one would assume). Salman is one of the few highbrow authors who is also fluent in emoji-speak; an Oscar Wilde for the fake news/Carpool Karaoke/Twitflix generation.
Let it be said that the concept is out-of-this-world genius and that this is a reality TV/scholarly/social commentary dreamscape of a novel, the likes of which I haven't seen. Although Mr Rushdie is one of my literary gods and greatest influences, I found his exuberant wordplay and pop culture references to be so bountiful that, on this occasion, it stemmed the flow, making for a sluggish read.
I missed the irreverent, impish humour that bejewelled the pages of Midnight's Children, but applaud the great man for creating his own unique brand of literature (just as Cervantes did all those centuries ago). Even at the grand age of 72, Salman is still pushing the boundaries, and I conclude that even though he's no longer firing on all cylinders, the irrepressible word-tickler has conjured a sophisticated yet playful novel that outshines most of this year's humdrum offerings
In his own words, Rushdie seeks to encompass the multiplicity of human life. He has certainly achieved that!...more
But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more. —Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
I'm a huge fan of Jess Kidd's exquiBut a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more. —Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
I'm a huge fan of Jess Kidd's exquisite, playful writing and KERPOW, what a start! Her vivid prologue was one of the finest things I've read in a long time. Gadzooks! I shouted. That alone was worth the entrance fee.
The book is set in a Victorian London that Dickens might have portrayed: one that is theatrically grotesque and wonderfully atmospheric, whose slums are as lively as a blanket full of lice. Our heroine is special detective Bridie Devine, a dynamic pipe-smoking woman of around thirty years of age. She wears the ugliest bonnet in Christendom and can drink most men under a table. Ms Devine - womankind's answer to Sherlock Holmes - has a psychic talent for reading corpses that have met with inexplicable deaths. The author describes her as being a 'woman made from boot polish and pipe smoke' (Kidd's female characters are often gloriously independent, which I love). Devine's latest case concerns the kidnapping of a Baronet's daughter, Christabel Berwick, a pike-toothed child who smells of the sea and is kept shackled and hidden in a locked nursery. The magical realism herein is precisely as it should be – dark, imaginative, irreverent and wryly amusing. To explain this thriller/mystery any further would be to divulge its silty, slippery secrets.
It frustrates me that certain putty-fingered authors find themselves on Booker shortlists when über talented Jess Kidd can write their socks off. With that said, I'm not altogether sure why she felt the need to hyphenate words that shouldn’t be hyphenated: church-yard; crest-fallen; dumb-founded; gas-lights… Perhaps she was going for a Victorian style of writing?
Disappointingly, the story began to lose its cut and thrust in the middle stages. I was even (gulp) bored for several chapters. The treacherous ocean had become a gentle millpond and I wanted more. Ah, but then wonderful Jess Kidd redeems herself with a poignant scene at the book's dénouement; a passage so pitiful, so heroic, that the scales on the back of my neck stood on end and my gills began to gasp. "Bravo, Jess!" I squeaked, clapping my fins together.
Best supporting character awards go to two protags; one living, one dead: Cora Butter, Bridie's seven-foot-tall housemaid, who is fiercely loyal and commendably noble; and to Ruby Doyle, a top-hatted prizefighter whose sliding tattoos have a mind of their own.
As ever, Jess Kidd's lyrical prose is a joy to behold and she employs an opulence of literary devices to good effect: personification; aphorisms; allusion and zoomorphism, to name but a few.
All things considered, this dark, exuberant, whimsical extravaganza was very much to my taste and the indomitable Bridie Devine will linger long in your mind.
Four stars, bumped up to five, because Jess Kidd has ninja writing skillz....more
"What if we're all like that? Like ghosts in someone's mind ... gradually fading, fading, until finally, one day, we just disappear ... drift into "What if we're all like that? Like ghosts in someone's mind ... gradually fading, fading, until finally, one day, we just disappear ... drift into nothingness. Wouldn't that be sad?" —Walter Wykes
The unreliable narrator for this surreal tale is an unnamed American systems analyst who lives in Tokyo (for the purpose of this review, I shall refer to him as 'X'). Now, I love Japan, and all things Japanese - and Clausen's novel was also labelled as magical realism - so this had "Konnichiwa, Kevin!" written all over it. At first, the story was as confusing to me as Einstein's theory of relativity would be to a toad. I thought, what the saki is going on here? X is originally driven by a subconscious thought process that sees him tapping out latent recollections of his arrival in Nagasaki, four years earlier. Our main man continues to be cast adrift from reality, marooned in a stream of consciousness that sees him consorting with debauched expats, a former foster mother and a Japanese apostate, to name but a few. And while X blunders about in this metaphysical existence, I spent each sentence trying to second guess what was actually happening: is he in a coma? I wondered. Is he under anaesthetic on an operating table? Is the poor chap hallucinating? How come Easter bunnies lay eggs?
Engrossing though this stream of consciousness was, the author had chosen to forgo his right to a plot (the story does drift along without any discernible structure). Even so, I was wholly invested and had to keep reading so I might prove myself clever enough to unlock the story's secrets (highly unlikely, I hear you cry -and you'd be correct). Nevertheless, aside from it existing in a seemingly aimless metaphor-filled bubble, the story did entertain. His boisterous drinking buddies, especially Mikey Welsh, had me chuckling out loud with their indecorous antics. And X's odyssey put me in mind of Tony Soprano wandering aimlessly through his own mind whilst in a coma.
Overall, this highly unusual story was both intriguing and refreshingly original. But, because I'm unduly fond of a plot (call me old-fashioned), and because I prefer my prose to be rather more flamboyant, I held one star back in my quiver. I'm not sure I'd categorise this as magical realism, as per Márquez, Zafón, Allende, Rushdie or Jess Kidd, etcetera, but neither would I class it as fantasy. It's an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum, so it is - and all the better for it!...more
"Going to prison is like dying with your eyes open." —Bernard Kerik
A wealthy banker holds a party at his commodious home, where a group of intellec"Going to prison is like dying with your eyes open." —Bernard Kerik
A wealthy banker holds a party at his commodious home, where a group of intellectuals argue as to which is the more humane punishment: a swift execution, or life imprisonment in a Russian jail. One kills swiftly, the other by degrees. A young lawyer, asserting that he'd much prefer incarceration, and a life of sorts, to certain death, is tempted into a wager (in this case, a huge sum of money) levied by the banker that the young pup would soon change his mind were he to lose his liberty for real. And so the lawyer is set up in solitary confinement in the banker's house with only the barest essentials, and no contact with the outside world for an agreed duration of fifteen years.
The human experiment that follows is wholly intriguing. How far would someone go to either prove a point or get their hands on a large amount of cash? How will the banker fare, knowing that his boozy bravado has led to such an extreme standoff?
This allegorical tale is presented in the form of a very short story and fascinated me from beginning to end. A thought-provoking concept, cleverly executed.
"The saddest aspect of life now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." —Isaac Asimov
This is a short sci-fi story in"The saddest aspect of life now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." —Isaac Asimov
This is a short sci-fi story in which English humanist author E. M. Forster astonishingly predicts the internet age way back in the early 1900s (when a selfie would have left you with a blast of magnesium dust all over your face). In this dystopian future, people no longer get together for a chinwag over a mug of coffee; instead, they are hermetically sealed into rooms that resemble beehive cells and only communicate via monitors. Gosh, imagine such a thing ... humans spending all day talking into a little screen! The world is controlled by technology, so face-to-face social interaction and, gulp, touching each other have long since flown out of the window. All human needs are mechanically catered for at the press of a button, and the main character, Vashti, has no need to even get up out of her armchair, for it can glide across her hexagonal floor as easily as a Dalek.
And in the midst of this nightmarish vision, Forster offers the reader a bouquet of sumptuous prose to ease the cheerlessness of our future world, and to remind us of what humankind will one day forfeit...
It was night. For a moment, she saw the coast of Sumatra edged by the phosphorescence of waves and crowded by lighthouses, still sending forth their disregarded beams.
*sigh* beautiful, yet so desperately sad. But, for all Forster's remarkable clairvoyance, he does fail to predict that Peking would not be called Peking in the future (or will it?). Nostradamus would've known that, just like he'd have foreseen that Bedford Falls would become Pottersville if George Bailey had never been born. : )
Wow! For having such vision and possessing such astonishing prescience, I couldn't possibly award this work of genius anything less than five stars. If I owned one, I would take my hat off to E. M. Forster. —And of course, in the future, there would be a machine on hand to do that for me!...more
Nonentity pencil pusher, George Orr, increasingly worried tha"The dream is the aquarium of night" —Victor Hugo
Oneirophobia: noun. A fear of dreams.
Nonentity pencil pusher, George Orr, increasingly worried that his dreams can alter past and present reality, has therefore become afraid to dream. Caught using another person's pharm card to obtain drugs to keep him awake, he's referred to dodgy psychiatrist, Dr William Haber, for an innovative course of dream therapy. The book started brightly and the first chapter promised much, a nice run of assonance feeding proceedings: jellyfish, abyss. Then, to further reinforce Le Guin’s writing credentials, some beautiful imagery: …the moondriven sea. A-ha! A sci-fi author fond of her literary devices. We bonded almost immediately. Sadly, the second chapter became mired in some stodgy science stuff that had me glazing over… s-states, d-states, v-c induction, blah, blah, blah. I'm not in the least bit techy (I still use an abacus and a sextant) and, man, I was becoming bored!
But happily, things improved dramatically. Doctor Haber asks Orr to don a trancap, which is wired to a dream machine that monitors his sleeping thoughts. Right off the bat, this seemingly unremarkable patient ruffles the psychiatrist's clinical countenance by effecting an outlandish happenstance right before his eyes. But Haber is a man who wants full control over his human guinea pig/goose that might lay a golden egg and seeks to muddle Orr's grasp of reality by deploying some devious misdirection. Orr is the underdog we are all rooting for; his innate goodness contrasting with Haber's artfulness and allowing the story to become somewhat parabolic. More than a few sessions continue and, after another bout of assonance saddles, hobbles; slogging, plodding; Brownian, roundian, an astonishing event, in glorious Technicolor, unfolded in my mind's eye. An event so monumental, so Orrsome that it had me bouncing up and down in my seat. "Bravo, Ursula Le Guin!" I shouted in honour of her memory. "THAT was stupendous!"
In due course, Orr's God-like powers run amok and all manner of crazy things start to occur, notably the introduction of dreamt-to-life aliens whose tentacles retract like a carpenter's flexible rule. Now I've been frequently told that I don't know my arse from my elbow, and that I'm inclined to talk out of my arse... WELL, the aliens in this story ALL talk out of their elbows, so if Planet Earth is ever invaded for real, we'd get along famously!
I'm delighted to say that the book is extremely well written. I purred over much of Le Guin's prose and marvelled at the ingenuity of her fascinating storytelling. I loved the graceful, esoteric ending, but because Le Guin kept ploughing the same doctor/patient furrow throughout, and because of the tedious science bits, I deducted one star. Overall, this was a marvellously entertaining read that lovers of old-skool sci-fi will revere! I loved it!
Big thanks to my supercool sci-fi pal, @Apatt, for recommending this cracking story, and also to @KimberSilver for agreeing to be my buddy reader....more
"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!" —Homer (Simpson)
Following James Joyce's lead, I used Homer’s he"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!" —Homer (Simpson)
Following James Joyce's lead, I used Homer’s heroic story as inspiration for a novel-in-progress. But how can I, a mere mortal, do justice to the most famous epic poem ever written? An encounter with a work of this magnitude should be shared, rather than reviewed. Homer is the great, great, great (recurring) grand-daddy of modern literature and this colossus is as immortal as the gods within it. And what a tale this must have been way back in the 8th century BC. Then, it was sung, rather than read, and I guess the first to bear witness must have been jigging about in their togas with unbridled excitement.
Alas, I didn't read it in ancient Greek, as Homer had intended. My copy was transcribed to a Kindle, rather than papyri, and translated by none other than the genius that was Alexander Pope (yep, I went old school on this).
Odysseus, he of the title, otherwise known in Latin as Ulysses, embarks on a perilous, stop/start, um, odyssey, attempting to get home to Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War for a decade. Such an amazing story, overflowing with an abundance of adventure. Poor Odysseus, having battled treacherous seas, wrathful gods, enchanting sirens and a Cyclops, then has to put up with big bad Poseidon weighing in with some nautical muscle and shipwrecking his boat!
Plagued by setback after setback, the journey home takes TEN gruelling years to complete! And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, wife Penelope has meanwhile given up hope of him returning home alive and is being courted by one hundred suitors, none of whom are fit to kiss our hero's sandals.
This is by no means a page-turner and some background knowledge is required to appreciate the finer points. Pope has done an amazing job to remain somewhat sympathetic to the timbre of Homer's lyrical story, and his rhyming couplets are a thing to behold:
"But when the star of eve with golden light Adorn'd the matron brow of night."
Beautiful!
Homer (the poet, not the cartoon character) has fuelled the imagination of countless authors throughout the centuries, and therefore it would be sacrilege for me to award anything less than five heroic stars....more
"…even rats have families, you know. Even monkeys and fish. Aren’t I as good as a fish?" —Moojie Littleman
In the aftermath of an earthquake, a baby"…even rats have families, you know. Even monkeys and fish. Aren’t I as good as a fish?" —Moojie Littleman
In the aftermath of an earthquake, a baby boy is found tucked inside a wooden fishing basket by the nuns of San Miguel de las Gaviotas. The word 'Moojie' is smudged across his forehead and deemed to be good a name as any. Author Robin Gregory, in similarity to Neil Gaiman, has the rare gift of being able to re-imagine childhood fairy tales. The book has, at its beating heart, a bygone innocence, a C. S. Lewis/J. M. Barrie/Mark Twain type of story, populated by fey creatures and unrefined hillbillies. Gregory can write, of that there is no doubt. There is a poetry to her free-flowing prose and I’m pleased to see an onomatopoeia or two being drawn from her quiver of literary arrows. The dialogue is delightfully euphonious, some of the characters positively Pratchett-esque. And to top it all, she invents synonyms that perfectly suit their purpose. Poor, sweet Moojie, orphaned, malformed, illiterate and clumsy, is left in the disgruntled care of his gruff grandpappy, a fellow with all the sensitivity of a hangman. Loved only by readers of this book, our kind-natured misfit unearths an otherworld of possibilities. Kindred spirits whisper to him from the woods and he answers a preternatural call of the wild, discovering cosmic codes and altruism on the way. Due to his being a conduit for prophecy, our maladroit boy wonder eventually finds his purpose, rivalling Forrest Gump, Bilbo Baggins, and Clarence, from It’s a Wonderful Life, in the 'unlikely hero' department.
I thoroughly enjoyed Gregory’s mystical, offbeat story. Her prose is playful and there is a tenderness to her writing that perfectly complements Moojie’s innate empathy for humans, animals and nature. The tale is altogether allegorical and folkloric, and I was very easily led into its magical hinterland. An impressive début and I very much look forward to seeing what this talented author comes up with next!...more
. "There are two Londons. There’s London above – and then there’s London below."
This book was recommended to me by genial Goodreads friend, Matthew Qua. "There are two Londons. There’s London above – and then there’s London below."
This book was recommended to me by genial Goodreads friend, Matthew Quann, whose effusive review sealed the deal. I was initially reticent… Having read Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I felt that his writing was a bit 'young' for my own personal taste and decided that, though delightful, his books weren’t for this beyond-middle-aged sourpuss. Despite my misgivings, I dived in and was immediately beguiled – the story returning me to a childhood of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz (as was Gaiman's intent). Our antihero, Richard Mayhew, is a total wuss who fails to meet the high standards set for him by his high-maintenance fiancée, Jessica. But Richard, though annoying, is generous of spirit and one day skips an important business dinner to aid a blood-and-mud-caked girl who collapses at his feet on a London pavement. He is soon drawn into a lamplit, subterranean world of sewer-dwellers, rat-munchers and pantomime villains. Oh, and there's a marquis and an angel thrown in for good measure! I enjoyed this more than I did The Ocean at the End of the Lane; it had a bit more grit and spite about it - even a swear word or two and an instance of bosom fondling (Neil Gaiman, you naughty schoolboy!). But there is a childlike simplicity to his writing, and I can't escape the feeling that it's all a bit too YA for me. Neil strikes me as one of those men who has bypassed puberty on the way to adulthood. His undoubted secret superpowers are his wonderfully fertile imagination and an unsurpassed ability to connect with his inner child.
The book is wonderfully Dickensian in parts and Gaiman elicited a lot of knowing nods and smiles from me with his in-jokes and observations of the London Underground. Neverwhere is as adult-lite as I expected it to be, but was also a fantastical, wonderfully escapist read. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but doubt I'll read any more of his.
I’m ###typing% this with a frigging scarf* over£ my eyEs, so pLease# forgive @any typos+
Please, please don't do what I did, my fellow bookaneers. Do NOI’m ###typing% this with a frigging scarf* over£ my eyEs, so pLease# forgive @any typos+
Please, please don't do what I did, my fellow bookaneers. Do NOT watch the movie first. This is a big mistake; one to be avoided at all costs.
The story began pulse-like. Staccato sentences that suited the stop/start tempo of a life lived in fear. Malerman's Morse code narrative drew me in from the start. In an apocalyptic alternative reality, an abstract thing inhabits our planet; a demonic indescribable entity that, if gazed upon, will send a human to his or her death. Malorie, our beleaguered heroine, has no option but to embark on a twenty-mile river trip to possible safety, blindfolded and in a small rowing boat. To make matters worse, she has two small children on board who are also blindfolded. The kids, used to living life under instruction, never complain. They just do what they're told. Kept in the dark for much of their young lives, the children's hearing is acute and so the river becomes their amphitheatre. And this is where the book knocks spots off the movie. The book's raison d’être that humans must not see in order to survive is compromised in movie format because we, the viewer, can see, and so the fear of the unknown becomes diluted. Sound becomes so much a part of the book's DNA that I was almost listening to the pages!
Though not usually a lover of lean prose and meagre character development, this book kept me in its thrall. And hats off to the author for imagining such an original and terrifying premise. Granted, it has its inconsistencies, but the story was fraught, sensory and claustrophobic. I applaud John Malerman for hitting the ground running with a nail-biting debut horror-thriller and I dearly wish I hadn't seen the movie first....more
Fate guides Fuwaad ibn Abbas, a well-travelled purveyor of fine fabrics, to an intriguing shop in the metalsmiths' quarter of Baghdad. What follows is Fate guides Fuwaad ibn Abbas, a well-travelled purveyor of fine fabrics, to an intriguing shop in the metalsmiths' quarter of Baghdad. What follows is a delightful Arabian Nights-style succession of short parables, all within a parable parcel, that focus on a time-travelling portal that Scheherazade herself would have liked to have discovered. I loved this! The entire story takes less than half an hour to read and took me on a magical carpet ride back to my childhood memories of Ali Baba and Sinbad the Sailor. This is a pocket-sized piece of escapism that I heartily recommend.
"When all was said and done, the creatures of the Galápagos Islands were a pretty listless bunch compared with rhinos and hippos and lions and elep"When all was said and done, the creatures of the Galápagos Islands were a pretty listless bunch compared with rhinos and hippos and lions and elephants and so on."
Leon Trotsky Trout is as dead as a dodo but is nevertheless the incorporeal narrator of a story told a million years into our future. Trout recounts a sequence of evolutionary events that began in 1986 as a bunch of bipedal misfits gathered in Ecuador for 'The Nature Cruise of the Century.' Looking back at humankind from a million-years-in-the-future perspective, we were a freakish bunch, possessing oversized brains that we didn't make the best use of, and even gave names to dogs. Also, because our brains were the size of fat mangoes and not yet atrophied by evolution, a discussion between a husband and wife under stress could end up like a fight between two blindfolded people on roller skates.
Captain Adolf von Kleist, who doesn't know shit from Shinola, is somehow left in charge of this ill-fated, over-hyped maiden voyage to the Galápagos Islands. (I can assure you that the story is better read than explained).
I was a latecomer to Vonnegut and fell in love with his writing quicker than you could say "woolly mammoth." He elucidates with the conviction of a mad prophet; his prose is cheerily unfussy and he is always wickedly provocative. And, in keeping with the 'circle of life' theme, there are fish metaphors aplenty. For no reason other than authorial whimsy, he anoints any character who is about to die with an asterisk (so we know in advance that they are going to pop their clogs) and mischievously over-explains things that are blindingly obvious to anyone bar our tiny-brained human descendants, one million years into the future.
Vonnegut had a droll sense of humour that I found immediately enjoyable, and Monty Python fans are sure to like his style. But there is a great deal of sagacity to be found in his eccentricity. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we humans prove to be the architects of our own downfall. Despite our hefty brains, we are somehow ignorant of the perils of war, financial crashes, global viruses, world overpopulation, climate change and meteorites hitting our planet. Ain't that the truth?
The only carp I have with Vonnegut is his scattergun approach to plot lines. The story staggers backwards and forwards like a drunken sailor in a hall of mirrors and I felt that the philosophical quotes interrupted - rather than enhanced- the narrative.
In truth, I didn't know what to expect from Vonnegut's Galápagos, but was pleasantly surprised, loving every daft, dizzy, witty moment of this prescient read!...more
"Heaven lent you a soul. Earth will lend a grave." -Chinese proverb.
"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings." -Zuzu Bailey.
This sparkl"Heaven lent you a soul. Earth will lend a grave." -Chinese proverb.
"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings." -Zuzu Bailey.
This sparkling rites of passage story opens in the year 1935, in post-dynastic China. The first chapter finds Song Leiyin and her three souls stuck in limbo between after-death and rebirth. Struggling to come to terms with this quandary, they regroup, hoping to rectify the bad life choices that have stalled their smooth transition into a joyous reincarnation. In life, Leiyin enjoyed an ivory tower upbringing and was a naive but petulant young lady given to romantic flights of fancy. However, the cold slap of death swiftly grants her a new-found perspective and some much-needed pragmatism.
This novel won't tax you; it's a smooth, easy read. Chang's writing is largely unadorned, her sentences are clipped, and her prose is demure. Similes are subtly whispered and artfully observed.
Had Leiyin 'existed' in our modern era, I have no doubt that she would have become an enthusiastic member of Goodreads. Novels, especially Russian classics, are her number one passion, or were until Hanchin Hotpants arrives on the scene... Yen Hanchin is the sharp-cheekboned poet/slash/bookbabe magnet whose smooth hands and dapper fingers are enough to send our girl weak at her Pinghunese knees.
It was precisely at this point that I wondered if a superbutch guy like me, who wrestles bears into submission, should really be reading what appeared to be a swoon-inducing, girly-girly bodice tickler... Well, please feel free to paint my lips and call me Nancy! I enjoyed it anyway!
The story does find some backbone and begins to pick up pace with themes of secret motives, duplicitousness, desperation and atonement, all set against the advance of communism and the threat of war with Japan.
And pleasingly, the tale has a parabolic slant, reminiscent of It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol (i.e. what really matters to us in this world is actually hidden in plain sight and our actions, or lack thereof, could have disastrous consequences).
Chang's concept of attempting to right previous wrongs via astral portals is not an original one, but the way in which she enables her femme morte to engage with her earthly existence is extremely clever.
Please excuse this cliché, but I can easily see this making a splendid movie.
But, until that day comes, please appreciate what you have in this world, and make sure you watch It's a Wonderful Life each Christmas (even if you don't celebrate Christmas).
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