Is romantic Ireland dead and gone?..not with the click of your mouse
March 8, 2010 at 8:52 pm | Posted in Great for Book Clubs, Literary Fiction | 5 CommentsTags: Book Reviews, Books, Irish Authors
‘Fishing in Beirut’ Steven Callaghan, Blue Press, September 2010.
Whoever said Irish writing and the Irish Publishing industry is in decline hasn’t read Fishing in Beirut. I say this for two reasons. 1. Steven Callaghan is a super brand new Irish voice in writing and 2. This novel is being published, serialized, online. Fishing in Beirut is an ambitious novel which delivers on many levels and the serialization of this story, online, is one of the most original ways I have encountered a novel. It is the story of five modern characters living in Paris. It has tangible descriptions of Paris, iconic landmarks we all know mixed in with gritty characters that reveal, through their stories, the underbelly of Parisian life that also exists. It is made up of short scenes, beautiful and sometimes poignant literary sentences that you will want to linger over. Each scene and character portrait is full of promise and you feel a culmination building the deeper you go into the novel. Callaghan’s writing is a reward in itself but is balanced with very humanly drawn out characters which makes this literary debut also a compelling page turner. What I especially loved about this novel was the Hemmingway reminiscent food descriptions which often made me hungry. With a new scene released every day I have found myself eagerly logging on. Forget the e-reader or the kindle; online publishing is clearly where it’s at. If this novel is heralding in a new era in contemporary Irish literary fiction, I for one am in. Is romantic Ireland dead and gone? No way…not with the click of your mouse!
Haiku; One Irish author, Five characters in Paris, fantastic debut
….there is also Johnston….
March 4, 2010 at 8:28 pm | Posted in Great for Book Clubs, Literary Fiction | 1 CommentJennifer Johnston ‘Truth or Fiction’ Headline Review, 2009
There is Banville, Tobin, Barry, Trevor and McGahern …but there is also Johnston. Where some of these male literary heavyweights have shined in documenting Ireland of the 1940’s & 1950’s through their novels, and have received much acclaim for this, the evolved writing of Jennifer Johnston has moved through and worked with Ireland’s passing times with grace. I for one listen with close attention when she has something to say through a novel and this latest one upholds her well deserved place in Irish literary fiction. ‘Truth or Fiction’, her nineteenth novel, explores the palpable ideas of memory, age and marriage through the story of English journalist Caroline Wallace. When Caroline is despatched by her editor to interview ninety year-old Desmond Fitzmaurice, a prolific Irish writer living in Kiliney, her own life is put into context by the tumultuous relationships she discovers between Desmond, his wife and his ex-wife. He has tape recordings made over his ninety years he pushes for Caroline to listen to but all she wants to do is a standard interview for her editor and get home. Desmond’s behavior towards the women in his life makes Caroline wonder if he is selfish or senile? Are his grandiose stories truth or fiction? Are the endless glasses of whiskey he drinks brining out history or a history he wishes he had? A handful of characters, a slow burning plot and eloquent language work like a symphony together here. This novel, like her many others, will make you use your head, your heart and your intuition. Whereas many of Johnston’s contemporaries address specific ideas at a specific time in Ireland, Johnston has broached many ideas and has gone to places in her novels her contemporaries haven’t dared to over the years. It is rumored to be a thinly veiled story about Johnston’s own heavily private father the playwright Denis Johnston. How is the main character Caroline’s life put into context by the end of the novel? Well the story begins with a marriage proposal and you’ll have to treat yourself to the book to find out the answer….
Haiku; Jennifer Johnston, new story set in Ireland, whose plot travels far
For every action there is a supernatural reaction…
February 26, 2010 at 6:35 pm | Posted in Great for Book Clubs, Middle Weight Fiction | Leave a comment
‘Of Bees and Mist’, Eric Setiawan, Hodder Review 2009
Imagine if your actions had supernatural consequences. Imagine the little fib you told or the gossip you participated in manifested itself in a metaphysical way in your life somehow…it’s a thrilling thought and it’s one way to explain the fiction genre of ‘magic-realism’ into which category Eric Setiawan’s abundant debut novel ‘Of Bee’s and Mist’ falls. This is an epic story of three generations of women. The youngest of whom, Meridia is the central character and what a formidable lead character she is. Her parents are locked in what appears to be a loveless marriage and as a result of this, dark supernatural occurrences take over their daily lives. There are ghosts in the mirrors, curses from fortune tellers cause mayhem, a blue mist descends upon the home physically repelling anyone it chooses from the door, Meridia is visited in her dreams by prophecies and EVERYONE is keeping secrets. Removing the alchemy from this book the story would stand up by itself. There are births, deaths, marriages, new businesses started, old friends lost & found and warring mother in laws. Eric Setiawan has a degree in psychology and is masterful in this novel at depicting the tensions and manipulations that can occur within family units. His imagination is a force in itself fusing unearthly occurrences with daily routines. When life runs smoothly for these families flowers bloom out of season, the sun shines in winter, children become complacent and doting but when the families are feuding with each other swarms of invisible bees thwart them, fortunes are lost, personalities change, people grow hooves in place of feet and others are encased in blocks of ice! This book brought back to my mind Isabelle Allende’s wonderful novel ‘The House of the Spirits’ . I recommend it highly. Eric Setiawan is firmly on my one to watch list.
Haiku; Invisible bees, over three generations, thwart daily lives
Life is a dream….
February 19, 2010 at 11:36 am | Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment
Paul Durcan, ‘Life is a Dream; 40 Years Reading Poems 1967-2007’, Harvill Secker 2009.
Life is ordinary. It’s full of ordinary everyday activities like working with colleagues, food shopping, walking around your neighbourhood, going to sleep and waking up….right? When someone points out the humanity in these activities to you, as corny as it sounds, you begin to live on a higher level. This is what Paul Durcan’s latest anthology of poetry does. It is a representative collection of Paul Durcan’s life’s work of poetry from 1967-2007. Paul’s poems conjure ordinary scenes and with ordinary language reveal the majesty that resides in even the smallest of human interactions. Sometimes poignant sometimes witty and humorous the poems are always accessible even to those, like me, who aren’t seasoned poetry readers. The underlying tension when a neighbour calls to visit, the dreamy requests of a sleepy child to a father, the poignancy of the absence of an ill colleague from work, the faltering of a heart when a marriage begins a demise…why are these majestic? because Paul Durcan not once fails to observe the breath of life in everyday interactions even when it is faint. Take a break from fiction and treat yourself to some short and razor sharp insights into the human condition. Life is not ordinary….life surely is a dream.
Haiku; Ordinary life, in the hands of Paul Durcan, becomes majestic
Cometh the hour…cometh the man
February 16, 2010 at 8:53 pm | Posted in Biography, Great for Book Clubs | 1 Comment
Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘Last American Man’, Penguin 2002
Who is your hero? I thought I knew the answer to this question before I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Last American Man’. This story is pure inspiration. It is the bountiful biography of a man called Eustace Conway who hails from a typical middle class background in America but after turning seventeen leaves polite society and his comfortable suburban home behind to begin living off the land in the Appalachian Mountains. Amidst the array of celebrity heroes America produces Eustace Conway really is an unsung hero. Eustace hikes two thousand miles down the Appalachian Trail and rides horseback across America all in an attempt to live a more fulfilled life away from the materialism of the society he left. Word soon spreads about Eustace and he becomes a high profile figure in America with Time Magazine doing an article on him. He is an enigmatic character to whom people flock. He is charismatic and falls in love about twenty times in the duration of the book. His upbringing was tumultuous and his personality is enigmatic. It sounds like a heavy going story but it’s not at all because of the author Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert’s two other books, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and ‘Committed’, are bursting with humanity, psychology, honesty and humor. She applies all of these qualities to Eustace’s biography so you understand the decisions he makes and feel the humanity in his mistakes and triumphs. Fans of John Krakauer’s ‘Into the Wild’ will love this. Anyone who loves human interest stories will also love this. Still to this day Eustace lives off the land in North Carolina on a nature reserve he built. Read it to be moved and intrigued.
Haiku; Handsome naturalist, will make you want to leave town, and live off the land
Welcome Gil Adamson!
February 8, 2010 at 6:52 pm | Posted in Great for Book Clubs, Middle Weight Fiction | 4 Comments
Gil Adamson, ‘The Outlander’, Bloomsbury 2009
Do you find sometimes you read the same kind of book? Do you like me sometimes get stuck in a rut with what you read? Are you looking for something out of the ordinary but still a captivatingly good page turner?? Then ‘The Outlander’ is for you! This book is nothing like I have read before. The author, Gil Adamson, is a Toronto based poet whose profession lends itself majestically to this fantastic story. It’s 1903 and the heroine of the novel, Mary, is a young widow who is being hunted through the prairies and Rocky Mountains of Canada. The plot is so simple and hinges on two important facts; 1. She is widowed by her own hand and 2. She is being hunted by her late husband’s brothers. Adamson describes the wilderness, the cold, the hunger and the isolation Mary endures so eloquently you feel as if you are experiencing it yourself. It’s also a super psychological portrait of a woman suffering postpartum psychosis. Reading it broadly it comments on people who live outside society, those who are illiterate, different and out of their time. Reading it literally it comments on the resourcefulness of women, mental health and how sometimes marriages can be very unhappy. It’s got a lot to offer a discerning reader. Adamson’s writing has been likened to that of Cormac McCarthys and I can see why. It’s dark, thrilling and psychological but it’s also lyrical and emotive. If you never make it to the Rockies or rural outback of Canada in your lifetime ‘The Outlander’ will take you there instead.
Haiku; Toronto poet, writes a galloping story, that never slows down
Let the great world sink
February 2, 2010 at 7:43 pm | Posted in Award winners, Literary Fiction | 1 Comment
Colm McCann, ‘Let the Great World Spin’, Bloomsbury 2009
I love Bloomsbury publishers. They have published some of my favourite authors and books such as the wonderful Elizabeth Gilbert, Tobias Wolff, Amy Bloom, Hunter S. Thompson, Alexander McCall Smith and Joanna Trollope. They have broken an array of new authors and have always been amazingly discerning in their fiction lists. This is the first time they have let me down! ‘Let the Great World Spin’ is a disaster. It uses Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the towers of the World Trade Center as its central metaphor and recounts the story of two Irish brothers living in New York in the late 1970’s. There are a plethora of other characters introduced into the story, all with huge profound life changing experiences of prostitution, war, love and death but they simply don’t work as characters. Why? I think it is because McCann tries to include too many big ideas, for example the birth of the internet, into this story. These ideas are so big they require more detail, space and dare I say even more research into them than they are given. McCann paints a picture of a mother grieving the death of her son in the Vietnam War but the descriptions could have been of any war. The descriptions of New York give no real tangible indication that it is New York in the late seventies. There are too many characters and we don’t get a real sense of any of them. It is complicated and disjointed and the metaphor of the tightrope walker has no real place in the book. It is far too ambitious and doesn’t deliver. Jennifer Johnson’s new book ‘Truth or Fiction’ is half the size of ‘Let the Great World Spin’, has only a handful of characters and is a very simple story but evokes so much more beauty and so many more ideas by saying so much less.
National Book Award Winner 2009
Haiku; Many ideas, disconnected, were Bloomsbury thinking?
Fiction from a philosopher
February 2, 2010 at 6:57 pm | Posted in Middle Weight Fiction | 1 Comment
Muriel Barbery ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’, Gallic Books 2008
‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ is a great read… but it has its ups and downs. It’s interesting… but a little frustrating. It follows the lives of two characters; a concierge in an upmarket Parisian apartment building whose intellect far outweighs her profession and a twelve year old girl who lives in the building intent on committing suicide on her thirteenth birthday. It’s got all the potential for a rattling great read. You really want to know why each character is committed to their position. You want to read about Paris. The references to philosophy, books and Japanese culture paint a magical portrait of the role of culture and beautiful ideas in our daily lives. It is definitely a character driven book which I love in fiction. The two lead characters are two of the most original characters I have met in a book in a long time and are superbly written. You understand completely why they each do what they do. This story promises (and delivers) a lot. However…there is an underlying current of dark notions about different classes in society which I found unnecessary and as a result frustrating as it detracts from the books other great strengths. All in all it’s a highly recommendable read. Muriel Barbery is a philosopher herself and this book shows philosophers are able to write intriguing fiction!
Haiku; Character driven, philosophical story, somewhat elegant
The five year wait is over!
February 1, 2010 at 8:07 pm | Posted in Popular Fiction | Leave a comment
Audrey Niffenegger ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ , Jonathan Cape 2009
If you are like me you’ve been waiting patiently for five years for the new book from Audrey Niffenegger, author of the wonderful ‘Time Travellers Wife’. ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ won’t let you down but in a very different way. It is the story of two American sisters who are identical mirror twins. They inherit an apartment, from an aunt they never knew about, which overlooks Highgate Cemetery in London and along with it they inherit a history and an adventure they hadn’t banked on at all. The book is well plotted and the story reveals itself to you at a perfect pace. Audrey Niffenegger will have you enthralled in this story before you know it’s happened. The sisters are very likeable and their sibling relationship is very human. The book’s charm comes from the supernatural dimensions of the story though. It’s modern, spooky and an easy charming read. My only grievance would be the detailed descriptions given over to Highgate Cemetery. It felt like Audrey had over researched this part and felt compelled to include it all in the story which wasn’t necessary but this was my only complaint- it’s a wonderful read and the only book to make me cry by page two! Audrey is the mistress of human emotion.
Haiku; Supernatural, over researched new book, makes me miss the first
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