A late BTT

Here's my latest Booking Through Thursday answer to:

What’s the most enjoyable, most fun, most just-darn-entertaining book you’ve read recently? (Mind you, this doesn’t necessarily mean funny, since we covered that already. Just … GOOD.)

The most enjoyable book I've read recently has to be 'Roundabouts of Britain'. I came across this oddity in a small local library where I was revising with a friend, and we almost got thrown out for excessive giggling.

The tongue-in-cheek guide to interesting PMTs, Double Ringers and Chevy's is hilariously entertaining, and the author's enthusiasm is strangely infectious. I actually found myself casting an admiring glance at a little red ringer in Newcastle recently!

Fundamentally Fantastic

Yesterday morning I sat down in a comfy chair to read the first few pages of Mohsin Hamid’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’. Yesterday afternoon I realised I hadn’t eaten all day.

This thrilling novel is truly impossible to put down, which is incredible considering that it features only one conversation, one speaker, and just a single setting.

Two strangers meet in a café in Lahore, one is a nervous foreigner, the other a bearded local with verbal diarrhoea.

Nevertheless, Hamid’s protagonist, the Westernised Changez, tells an extremely compelling story. The tale of his love affair with an American girl and her country utilises the talent for emotional subtlety that made Hamid’s first novel, ‘Moth Smoke’, such a triumph.

However, the conclusion of the novel is extremely predictable and the form is often a little clumsy. The situation with Changez’ strangely threatening American companion does not create the tension it should; it was the protagonist’s history that kept me on the edge of my seat, rather than the impending threat of the novel’s present.

Although this is an intelligent and entertaining novel which successfully uses intimate personal dramas as a means to understand important international ones, as a novel I do not believe it is quite as strong as ‘Moth Smoke’. It’s fundamentally fantastic, but the details could be a little more polished.

Hosseini's Sun Still Shines

The brilliance of Khaled Hosseini’s first novel ‘The Kite Runner’ has led many to assume that his follow up novel couldn’t possibly be as good. I’m ashamed to say that until recently I tended towards this viewpoint too; it seemed that Hosseini’s early success was as much due to international politics as to his own literary skill.

However, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ is stunning. The compelling voices of the two female protagonists completely blew me away. In fact, I was so engrossed in their stories on a particularly long train journey that it took me a while to notice the other passengers staring at me as I sobbed my way through Chapter 29, and, if I’m being honest, 46, 47 and 48 too.

In ‘The Kite Runner’ Hosseini subtly built a complex narrative around one childhood relationship. Using the same skills in his newest offering he weaves together the lives of two very different women who eventually find sanctuary in each other. I was extremely impressed that a male author, even one as talented as Hosseini, could create such engaging and credible female characters.

In the journey towards adulthood Mariam and Laila maintain integrity as characters even as the childish ideals they stand for are destroyed by the situation of women in Afghanistan. I was relieved to find that the novel did not rant against the practice of veiling, but rather against particular men who use it as a device of control. In fact both women, even the particularly Westernised Laila, seem to find some comfort in the burkha: its anonymity provides protection from other problems the women face.

The heartfelt sparks of hope throughout ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ are a testament to Hosseini’s claim that it was “a labour of love”. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about this novel, as well as its predecessor, is Afghanistan itself. This is not the flat view of TV news, rather a damaged, but still beloved, homeland steeped in history and culture.

‘Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye
Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls

Her laughter of mornings has the gaiety of flowers
Her nights of darkness, the reflections of lustrous hair
Her melodious nightingales, with passion sing their songs
Ardent tunes, as leaves enflamed, cascading from their throats’

"Kabul", by the 17th-century Persian poet Saib-e-Tabrizi. English translation by Josephine Davis.

Hosseini claims that working with Afghan refugees and the UNHCR is the most meaningful experience of his life. To help, visit: www.UNrefugees.org

* My only problem with Hosseini is that his name is never written without the accompaniment of ‘Afghan author’. Surely his books should stand for themselves, do his publicists really think we need to be reminded that his homeland is a war zone every five minutes in order to appreciate them? *

A Shocking BTT

This weeks Booking Through Thursday question is:

What’s the most informative book you’ve read recently?

'The Shock Doctrine', by Naomi Klein, is the most informative book I've read recently. It plots the rise of so called 'disaster capitalism', and argues that the free market economics of the 'Chicago School' have only succeeded in countries suffering in the aftermath of a political or natural disaster, or shock.

This is a fascinating, if terrifying, book that made me question many things I had previously taken for granted. Most impressively though, Klein (writing in 2006) seems to spot the impending global economic crisis. She claims that 9/11, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, reinvigorated a US economy on the brink of a slump. Even if you're generally skeptical about conspiracy theories you should read this book, everyone should!

Prowling to Booker Success

Aravind Adiga’s brilliant debut novel ‘White Tiger’ unexpectedly stole the £50,000 prize at last year’s Man Booker Prize ceremony.

Much like his protagonist, Balram Hawai, the White Tiger, his credentials are not typical of such success: his age and experience don’t match that of previous winners or even his rivals for this particular prize, so how did he get there?

This particular literary big cat reached his goal, according to Judge Michael Portillo, by creating something ‘cutting edge’ and ‘original’, qualities that Balram himself endlessly strives towards in the novel.

Yet unlike Balram, Adiga cannot claim to be from the ‘Darkness’ of rural India, nor does he know what it is like to be one of the ‘small bellied men’. I can’t help feeling that what makes the novel interesting is the tantalising wait for the protagonist to commit the ultimate and inevitable crime he promises. Although I loved reading this book, I am not convinced that it truly deserves to rank alongside such masterpieces as ‘Midnight’s Children’, ‘The English Patient’, ‘The God of Small Things’, and ‘Disgrace’.

Presumably Adiga is aware of the parallel between his novel and the popular crime magazines read by Balram’s fellow taxi drivers within it, and uses this parallel to link fiction with the real world, to legitimise his narrator’s point of view. Unfortunately though, this parallel works in two directions, and I actually found that it diminished any investment I had in the White Tiger.

The world of ‘New India’ in the novel is dangerous, but exciting and full of opportunity for those who are willing to take it by any means possible. As a presentation of the dark side of this developing nation it is extremely successful and breaks many tired clichés of Indian literature in English along the way. However Adiga barely even hints of an alternative to Balram’s India, which makes for a somewhat uncomfortable reading experience and perhaps a slightly superficial novel.

The biggest problem I found with the novel was that the only means of social mobility available to those in ‘the Darkness’ is violence. Of course I don’t expect literature to be an anti-reality where the good are rewarded and the bad punished, but at times Balram’s inhuman lack of remorse made it difficult to suspend my disbelief. Although it made for gripping reading, I do not believe that ‘White Tiger’ works on the level of social commentary that it has been praised for.

In ascribing the inspiration for the novel to his experiences as a journalist and encounters with India’s underclass, Adiga has not only betrayed himself as distinctly upper class, but also confirmed that his insights are those of a professional observer with a taste for the sensational.

Adiga’s success is due to the way the ‘White Tiger’ has brought to light issues of India’s new economic growth that do not often feature in literature, as well as for it’s witty and engaging prose. In this respect it is very deserving: I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and couldn’t put it down, but it just didn’t quite ‘knock my socks off’, which is, according to Portillo, the final requirement for a Booker Prize Winner.

Booking Through Thursday

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?

(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

I've seen this blog around and really enjoyed some of the responses, so I thought I'd join in.

Hmm, well I have a few candidates for this, and I can't really decide...

In terms of size the biggest book I've read recently is 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth. It's one of those lovely novels that's so long it becomes a familiar friend and leaves a noticeable gap in daily life once it's eventually finished.

I also read 'White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga a few weeks ago, which, having just won the Booker prize, is a pretty 'big' novel at the moment, although I'm not quite sure it deserves all the hype. (My review will follow shortly).

However, I think my 'biggest' reading acheivement ever (I'm stretching 'recently' a little here) has to be Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. The battered twentieth hand copy I picked up whilst living in Namibia a few years ago felt like a true hurdle to be overcome, and I haven't yet found the same elation when completing any other book. It's not a classic I can see myself re-reading though!

Here's one I made earlier

To pop my blog cherry I've just posted a couple of old reviews. These were written for the Warwick University student paper 'The Boar', so if they're a little long it's because we needed to fill page space!

In a day or two I'll get some new material up too, but in the meantime I'll leave you with this thought stolen from C.S.Lewis:

"Through literature I become a thousand people
and yet I remain myself"

Reading is Believing

The inevitable family dramas of the festive period formed the perfect backdrop to Zoe Heller’s impressive new novel, 'The Believers'.

Her dark comic portrayal of the Litvinoff family is both as amusing and as upsetting as those familiar turkey fuelled clashes.

"a reader would be unlikely to sacrifice
more energetic bedtime activities in order
to resolve a pressing cliffhanger"

The gaggle of disagreeable, but truly compelling characters is not unlike that of Heller’s successful 'Notes On a Scandal.' However, this fresh offering showcases a more mature narration in beautiful, effortless prose.

Unlike Heller’s bestseller, 'The Believers' isn't particularly gripping: a reader would be unlikely to sacrifice more energetic bedtime activities in order to resolve a pressing cliffhanger. Yet the Litvinoffs are endearing, their lives fascinating and their convictions provoking. The internal debate they incite is a lasting one.

Heller’s prologue, set in a loudly political 1960’s London, creates the enduring voice of the novel: one for which faith, especially political faith, is everything. The jump from England in 1962 to the US in 2002 is intelligently devised to create not only the transatlanticism of Audrey, the protagonist; but also of the ideologies presented in this meditation on belief.

In fact, 'The Believers' is a slightly ironic title for a novel peopled by determined Atheists. It examines the faith of those who have no faith, a Jewish family whose father scrawls ‘THERE IS NO GOD’ as an RSVP to a bar mitzvah. Joel and Audrey’s communist convictions are proved outdated and impractical, while their daughters struggle to break from this overpowering influence.

Heller’s message is apparently that all beliefs should be tested and, if necessary, revised. However, this is not dictated and the reader is left attempting to spot the positives of faith. The lifestyle of each character is brought into question: the most admirable qualities in each are gently demolished as their beliefs fail to help them through life.

The Litvinoff matriarch Audrey is particularly fascinating; what begins as a commendable strength of will gradually becomes the bitterness of a defeated old woman. Her transformation comes at the close of the novel when she is finally able to act in true accordance with her communist beliefs, which until that point have been merely a means to criticise others.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of the novel is the juxtaposition of the rules and conventions of communism with those of Judaism. Both doctrines are presented, through Audrey and her daughter Rosa respectively, as simultaneously inspirational and hilariously hypocritical.

Nevertheless Heller succeeds in occupying the position of impartial observer in the narrative. Each of the three women whose stories she tells is convincing and their beliefs are not directly criticised, instead she seems just to allow them to naturally critique each other.

‘The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned’. The choice to prefix The Believers with a quote from famous Marxist Antonio Gramsci seems a little strange at first; this is not a Marxist text, in fact it is often just a catalogue of everything funny about communism. However, this line does tell us a lot about Heller’s motives. The novel is designed to demonstrate both the flaws of political and religious dogma and also how essential some kind of faith is. Principles are, she claims, the ‘guiding stars’ in human life.

A tale of politics in New York would perhaps appear deficient without some reference to 9/11, but Heller neatly avoids trapping herself in this dangerously emotive territory too. The subtlety of references to terrorism and its relationship to faith is endorsed by a sobering glimpse of ground zero from a comfortable hotel room.

Although the pretty gold leafed cover of 'The Believers' may attract certain readers, it is strangely misleading. This is an intelligent study of the conflict between the prescribed actions of faith and those demanded by daily life, merely disguised as chick lit.

Alistair Campbell: Jack of all trades?

‘All in the Mind’ is like the taunting presence of a younger sibling. Technically juvenile and containing little that warrants respect, it somehow still seems to know exactly how to burrow under the skin.

This is essentially a novel about humility. That’s right, Alistair Campbell, the former Downing Street spin-doctor and general bully boy has chosen to write his first novel as a meditation on the value of modesty.

‘The key to your humanity is your humility’. Campbell’s protagonist, the severely depressed psychiatrist Professor Sturrock, is fond of using such poetic generalisations with his patients. Said patients include a Kosovan rape victim, an alcoholic MP, a long-term depressive, a sex addict and a beautiful ex-prostitute.

However, the methods used to deal with such serious cases never seem particularly profound and are often incredibly frustrating. At times they even appear to devalue the profession entirely; tasks which Sturrock accidentally sets for patients are the ones they actually respond well to.

One assignment the prostitute-obsessed professor sets for Emily, a burns victim, is to examine a box of Sun Maid Raisins. Cue another of the novel’s many hackneyed conclusions: ‘If every raisin can be different, so can every living thing.’ Variety is the spice of life, originality is key; it doesn’t matter if you have no job, no friends and no face, that’s what makes you special.

Unfortunately Campbell himself fails to follow this banal advice where it would be most useful, to energise his dreary prose. ‘All in the Mind’ overflows with clichés, predictabilities and contrived narratives. Despite Campbell’s personal experiences of alcoholism, depression and the world of politics, somehow his debut novel remains generally inanimate, mindless even.

Emblazoned on the cover, Stephen Fry’s gushing praise for Campbell’s ‘devastating penetration of the human mind’ would suggest that ‘All in the Mind’ illuminates the realities of depression for those of us alien to it. This is not the case. The psychological agonies of the condition are so romanticised that they make no impact. A mental plunge is depicted as a storm which rages without ‘moving a single blade of grass’. Although this may ring true for Fry, a fellow long-term sufferer, it is too abstract to give the average reader any new insight.

In a similarly misleading way David, the character representative of depression in the novel, is emphasised as the greatest communicator of this experience. Yet his supposedly profound conclusion is merely that ‘being depressed is not the same as being fed up or a bit hacked off with life’.

Far more frustrating than these faults is actually the power the novel has to affect its readers. I had already been moved to tears by chapter three, which in turn sparked a strong desire to seriously harm the purveyor of such shamelessly emotive trash. It looked like the man who sold us the ‘people’s princess’ was at it again, manipulating the masses to provoke the most lucrative response for himself.

However, delving a little deeper, I began to suspect that perhaps the snobbish literature student in me was running away with herself. After all, most of us love a good tear jerking film, so we shouldn’t assume that novels are above this form of entertainment. ‘Spin’ is what Campbell does best; he’s already built a variety of careers on it and this dark art will make his first novel a bestseller.


Surprisingly it is Campbell’s emotive portrayals of the damaged women in the novel which are most successful. While Dr Sturrock is far too hesitant to be a truly pathetic figure, his female patients stand out as active agents in their own traumatic lives. The description of rape and its consequences is intimate and revealing in an understated way that his overdramatic focus on depression could learn from.

‘All in the Mind’ can also be funny. Although in a typically contrived manner, Campbell does allow plenty of space for laughs amid the serious discussions of mental illness. Matthew, the sex addict cured by taking up cycling, is the usual provocation for these moments of humour, but they do occur elsewhere too. For instance Campbell’s sly dig at The Sun, who use a local paper as a cover in a sting operation on an MP, is particularly witty.

Ultimately Campbell’s debut novel is a frustrating read. It is both comical and infuriating; the object of an actively suppressed, but nonetheless real, affection. Just keep it away from your toys.