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"
and yet I remain myself"
Thursday 20 August 2009
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:
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:
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
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 Joel and Audrey’s communist convictions are proved outdated and impractical, while their daughters struggle to break from this overpowering influence.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
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
