History, it's just one bloody thing after another. (BTT)

It's been a while since I've participated in Booking Through Thursday, but I fancied this question so here's my answer.

Given the choice, which do you prefer? Real history? Or historical fiction? (Assume, for the purposes of this discussion that they are equally well-written and engaging.)

It has to be historical fiction. Mere facts cannot be as illuminating as fiction can, no matter how well written it is. Gaining access to an imagined point of view on a historical event or situation can teach us just as much about it as the pure facts can and fiction gives us a social understanding too.

Ps- 'The Other Boleyn Girl' is exempt from the above praise. Historical fiction should not re-write history, it should fill in the gaps that research cannot.

Gan doon the toon

The Geordie di­alect re­mains un­touched by time. It sur­vived the stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of the En­glish lan­guage in the 18th cen­tu­ry and beat down the threat from in­dus­tri­al im­mi­gra­tion in the 19th. Today it still re­mains gram­mat­i­cal­ly close to many old En­glish di­alects. The city which gives it voice, how­ev­er, tells a very dif­fer­ent story.

En­ter­ing New­cas­tle across the Tyne is a breath-​tak­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. The domed glass of the Sage con­cert hall gleams on the Gateshead quays along­side a proud re­minder of the in­dus­tri­al his­to­ry of the area, the Baltic Flour Mill, which has been beau­ti­ful­ly ren­o­vat­ed to house a mod­ern art mu­se­um.

New­cas­tle and Gateshead are the per­fect ge­o­graph­i­cal dou­ble act: they’ve grown up to­geth­er, fought hard for suc­cess and could never re­al­ly be en­joyed sep­a­rate­ly; just like Ant and Dec! In ad­di­tion to the Sage and the Baltic Gateshead boasts the icon­ic angel of the North, the most viewed pub­lic art work in Britain, and the mul­ti-​storey car park which fea­tured in the 1971 film ‘Get Carter’. New­cas­tle, tra­di­tion­al­ly the more up-​mar­ket of the two, was re­cent­ly voted arts cap­i­tal of the UK and as home to 50,000 stu­dents is now be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly at­trac­tive to young pro­fes­sion­als too.

Some of the less dra­mat­ic art venues around the city are as wor­thy of a visit as the Baltic; al­though a trip there is es­sen­tial even if it’s just to see the view across the re­gion from the glass view­ing bal­cony. The Laing, in the cen­tre of town, is a more tra­di­tion­al gallery, boast­ing the likes of ‘The Bre­ton Shep­herdess’ by Gau­g­in and many pieces con­cern­ing the Ty­ne­side area.

The Bis­cuit Fac­to­ry in Shield­field, close to the stu­dent area of the city, is a re­laxed com­mer­cial gallery which doesn’t seem to mind the pres­ence of scruffy stu­dents who will clear­ly never buy any­thing ex­cept per­haps a poster print. The Dis­cov­ery Mu­se­um (which, cru­cial­ly, is free) and the Life Sci­ence Mu­se­um are great places for a fam­i­ly day out, or just to re­dis­cov­er your child­ish cu­riosi­ties. Whilst if his­to­ry, rather than sci­ence, is your thing a wan­der round the 11th cen­tu­ry Tynemouth pri­o­ry and cas­tle or the 12th cen­tu­ry cas­tle keep in the city cen­tre it­self.

New­cas­tle’s rep­u­ta­tion as a party city is older than its claim to cul­tur­al cap­i­tal, but just as well found­ed. The huge num­ber of thriv­ing bars and clubs also breeds com­pe­ti­tion, to such an ex­tent that tre­bles for sin­gles seems to have be­come the rule across the city cen­tre. Try Dig­i­tal or Attic for a big night out, or live music at The Cooper­age, housed in an 13th cen­tu­ry build­ing on the quay­side, is great for a qui­eter one.

How­ev­er it’s prob­a­bly ad­vis­able to avoid Sat­ur­day nights in the ‘toon’ when flocks of hens and ram­bunc­tious stags, usu­al­ly com­plete with every plas­tic ac­ces­so­ry Ann Sum­mers has to offer, flood nois­i­ly into the city cen­tre. A num­ber of quirky bars and music venues around (a few great ones are clus­tered on the New­cas­tle quays) offer less chaot­ic en­ter­tain­ment all week round. Try the Cluny, under the arch­es of Byker bridge for real ale, comfy sur­round­ings and live music.

Par­ty­ing by night means, if you’re any­thing like me, that shop­ping to com­plete that per­fect out­fit is es­sen­tial. New­cas­tle doesn’t dis­ap­point here ei­ther. Whether you’re into rum­mag­ing through vin­tage and char­i­ty shops or just pop­ping into your favourite high street stores, the city cen­tre is easy to nav­i­gate and most­ly pedes­tri­anised, which makes grab­bing those ir­re­sistible shoes all the more plea­sur­able. The curve of Grey Street, de­scribed by Prime Min­is­ter Glad­stone in 1862 as “our best mod­ern street”, is now lit­tered with de­sign­er names and busy cafes.

New­cas­tle-​Gateshead has come a long way since the glory days of its ship yards, but some­how it has man­aged to em­brace both new cul­tur­al in­flu­ences and in­dus­tri­al his­to­ry to main­tain its unique and en­dear­ing iden­ti­ty. Of course it’s not all sparkling new ar­chi­tec­ture and mod­ern art, parts of the re­gion are still se­ri­ous­ly im­pov­er­ished, but re­cent re­gen­er­a­tion ef­forts de­serve due praise. So if all that springs to mind when you think of New­cas­tle are grim min­er-​types in flat caps, it’s about time for a re­think, and a visit to this the cul­tur­al metropo­lis of the North will cer­tain­ly make you do that.

Newcastle-Gateshead Hotspots

Drink

Mr Lynch has the only 2am li­cense in the stu­dent area of Jes­mond, and he re­al­ly makes the most of it. The Kitsch décor and mis­matched sev­en­ties fur­ni­ture is enough to keep you en­ter­tained all night, let alone the im­pres­sive cock­tail menu and live music every Thurs­day, Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. If that’s not enough, they even sell Curly Wurlys be­hind the bar. Be­ware though, Mr Lynch isn’t a cheap date.

Eat

Belle and Herbs, Heaton, is an­oth­er stu­dent hotspot well worth a trip. It’s a good idea to starve your­self for a lit­tle while be­fore in order to truly ap­pre­ci­ate their mam­moth meals. The Macho Grande Club is a work of art: a three tier toast­ed sand­wich with grid­dled steak, toma­to salsa, Mon­terey Jack cheese, soured cream, gua­camole, jalepeno pep­pers, fresh co­rian­der and even tor­tilla chips AND it comes with a moun­tain of the best pota­to wedges you will ever taste.

Shop

Ok, maybe this is cheat­ing a lit­tle bit since no real per­son can ac­tu­al­ly af­ford any­thing here, but the bou­tique Have to Love in Gos­forth takes win­dow shop­ping to the next level. I couldn’t pos­si­bly buy any­thing from the su­per-​chic French label Manoush or Amer­i­can retro, but it’s all so per­fect­ly ar­ranged that even just to look at them is sat­is­fy­ing.

Sleep

If you’re in the po­si­tion to splash out, the Mal­mai­son hotel next-​door to the Hilton on the New­cas­tle quay­side is the place to do it. The im­pos­ing goth­ic en­trance may look like an enor­mous venus fly trap, but the in­te­ri­or is dec­o­rat­ed in deep pur­ples and plush vel­vets guar­an­teed to make your stay a lux­u­ri­ous one.

Backpacker Digs

Backpacker Digs

When you think of back­pack­ers’ hos­tels style is not what comes to mind. Flea-​rid­den mat­tress­es, grub­by fa­cil­i­ties, gen­er­al drunk­en de­bauch­ery or that hor­ri­ble slash­er film are prob­a­bly much high­er up the list. But times are chang­ing and the hos­tels are too. The Boar’s Trav­el team brings you our top stylish sleeps from around the world:

The Gershwin

Just off New York’s 5th Av­enue, the Gersh­win Hos­tel build­ing is a thir­teen storey homage to Andy Warhol and all things pop art. (pic­tured mid­dle right) Each floor is hung with prints from a dif­fer­ent artist. It works under a kind of ver­ti­cal caste sys­tem: below the snazz­i­er rooms on the top floors there are a col­lec­tion of cheap­er high-​spec, red wood-​beamed dorm rooms. Most im­por­tant­ly, the fourth floor is the “mod­els floor”, with extra clos­et space es­pe­cial­ly de­signed for mod­els try­ing to make it in the Big Apple. Don’t all hop on a plane at once boys, pre-​book­ing is ad­vised.

Eco paradise.

Ok so fly­ing there will give you a car­bon foot­print the size of a Yeti, but this hos­tel’s so green you might leave look­ing more like the hulk. Built com­plete­ly from re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als and re­new­able prod­ucts He­do­nisia Hawaii of­fers a trial of the good life in stun­ning sur­round­ings. Guests are en­cour­aged to try liv­ing off the land and help out in the veg­etable gar­den. One four-​bed room is made from an old school bus and an­oth­er from a trac­tor, and all have stun­ning sea views. Even the eco-​friend­ly toi­let looks out over the Hawai­ian jun­gle for com­plete re­lax­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

Treetop hostel in Turkey

Think you’d look good as a mod­ern Tarzan or Jane? Saban Tree­hous­es on the Olym­pos coast could be the place to give it a go. Per­fect­ly sit­u­at­ed for wa­ter­sports, hik­ing, climb­ing and ex­plor­ing the an­cient city this place promis­es a very dif­fer­ent ex­pe­ri­ence from your av­er­age flea-​rid­den hos­tel. The fam­i­ly who run it even pro­vide tra­di­tion­al Turk­ish fare in a com­mu­nal din­ing area each evening and fresh local pro­duce for break­fast, all in­clu­sive.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Hostel

The Qing Yuan hos­tel ac­tu­al­ly fea­tured in Ang Lee’s 2000 film and is full of the pe­ri­od fea­tures ex­pect­ed of a site over 200 years old. Sit­u­at­ed in the Wuyuan province in the moun­tain vil­lage of Qingyuan the hos­tel is great for ex­plor­ing rural china. But if hik­ing isn’t your thing it’s still worth a visit just to relax in the peace­ful court­yard and take ad­van­tage of the friend­ly man­ag­er’s local knowl­edge. Best of all it costs less than £2 a night!

The Santos Express

Parked right on the beach at Mos­sel Bay, a beau­ti­ful town along South Africa’s gar­den route, this hos­tel is clev­er­ly packed into an old train. Dorms pro­vide sea views and decor rem­i­nis­cent of a Vic­to­ri­an steam en­gine. Al­though it’s not quite first class, the price, great food, reg­u­lar braais (BBQs) and a live­ly bar make this a great place to relax and so­cialise.

Prison Break

Many peo­ple would think of a night in a hos­tel as a prison sen­tence, well in this case they’d be right. The HI- ​Ot­tawa hos­tel is lo­cat­ed in a for­mer prison that op­er­at­ed for over 100 years. It of­fers the chance to sleep in the cells, prison hos­pi­tal, or the gov­er­nor’s quar­ters if you can bribe your way in. On the 8th floor of this Vic­to­ri­an ar­chi­tec­tural relic the Car­leton Coun­ty Gaol Her­itage Cen­tre gives vis­i­tors a chance to learn what life what like for the prison’s in­mates and take a ghost tour of the cells. Just be care­ful not to get locked in!

Famous Footsteps

Just thought I'd post a couple of travel articles I wrote for my student paper. Enjoy!

Famous Footsteps

Pop­u­lar cul­ture today is dragged along like a puppy on a leash by the media and its craze for celebri­ty.

When Vic­to­ria Beck­ham wears a new style of tiny jack­et teenage girls across the coun­try can be seen sport­ing the same with­in weeks. If Kate Moss is spot­ted watch­ing an un­known band they are al­most guar­an­teed a hit, and when­ev­er Richard and Judy re­view a novel it hits the best­seller list im­me­di­ate­ly. The media pre­sents us with ide­als of per­fec­tion to fol­low and the tourism in­dus­try is no ex­cep­tion to this bizarre rule of causal­i­ty.

The hordes of tourists cur­rent­ly in­vad­ing quiet Greek is­land Skope­los prove that celebri­ty sells when it comes to hol­i­day des­ti­na­tions too. The so called ‘Mama Mia ef­fect’ has seen hun­dreds of tourists trek to the film’s set­ting, a forest­ed is­land in the Aegean Sea. Until its re­lease last year, Skope­los was known only for plums, pears and pine trees. With a pop­u­la­tion of just 4,696 and with­out an air­port, it had man­aged to es­cape the fate of other gaudy Greek re­sorts.

Nonethe­less, the suc­cess of the film is per­fect­ly timed to boost this strug­gling econ­o­my which de­pends heav­i­ly on tourism. In the ABBA mu­si­cal Greece is idyl­li­cal­ly fig­ured, much like it was in the 1970s when the tourist in­dus­try there first boomed. As a re­sult many have praised the film as a much-​need­ed ad­vert for the area, de­spite wor­ries that this in­flux could de­stroy the un­spoilt beau­ty of the is­land.

Mama Mia is not alone; films have long been recog­nised as a great mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy to boost tourism. Aus­tralia, re­leased this year, is ex­pect­ed to in­crease tourism down under, par­tic­u­lar­ly to quirki­er des­ti­na­tions like Dar­win, where much of the film­ing took place. The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy acted as a stun­ning ad­vert for New Zealand and Cap­tain Corel­li’s Man­dolin did more for an­oth­er Greek is­land, Cephalo­nia, than any­one could have imag­ined.

An­oth­er pow­er­ful fac­tor in­flu­enc­ing tourism is the hol­i­day choic­es of stars them­selves. Brad Pitt and An­geli­na Jolie’s choice to make Namib­ia the birth­place of their child, Shiloh Nou­v­el Jolie-​Pitt, was wel­comed by its tourism board.

In ad­di­tion to spend­ing a for­tune at a lux­u­ry re­sort in the town of Swakop­mund they helped put this rea­son­ably un­known coun­try on the map. There a prob­a­bly mil­lions of Amer­i­cans who had never heard of the South West African coun­try be­fore Pitt and Jolie’s ex­tend­ed stay there.

In fact the gov­ern­ment val­ued this celebri­ty en­dorse­ment so high­ly they were will­ing to risk their demo­crat­ic rep­u­ta­tion in order to at­tract the at­ten­tion of US gos­sip mag­a­zines. De­spite a media free­dom which is often held up as a stan­dard for the rest of the con­ti­nent, the Namib­ian gov­ern­ment im­posed strong re­stric­tions dur­ing the celebri­ty cou­ple’s stay.

They de­port­ed three French jour­nal­ists and ar­rest­ed a South African pho­tog­ra­pher to make Jolie and Pitt feel safe enough to have their baby in the coun­try. As a re­sult Namib­ia main­tained a place in world­wide news for months and the tourist in­dus­try there is on the rise.

Ad­ven­ture trav­el too often takes a lead from the celebs. Ewan Mc­Gre­gor and Char­lie Boor­man’s hit se­ries, The Long Way Round, was not only a huge TV suc­cess, but also in­spired hun­dreds of other bik­ers to take copy­cat trips. How­ev­er, the pair were in turn in­flu­enced by leg­endary mo­tor­cy­clist Ted Simon, whose book Jupiter’s Trav­els pro­vid­ed the idea for their ex­pe­di­tion.

Due to the media, all our trav­els, even those of the celebs them­selves, are in­vest­ed with cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences. There’s no such thing as an orig­i­nal trav­el idea, but that is what makes every jour­ney im­por­tant, it is part of being human that we nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­low in each oth­ers’ foot­steps.

This is proven by the fact that mod­ern celebri­ties are not the only ones to draw hordes of tourists to des­ti­na­tions across the world. His­tor­i­cal fig­ures are of course great tourist at­trac­tions: that’s why York­shire is so keen to claim Robin Hood as their own. (Can I just say, as a Not­ting­ham girl, he’s ours. Hands off!)

These kinds of at­trac­tions can be big busi­ness for the in­dus­try: Lon­don’s Whitechapel hosts daily ‘Jack the Rip­per’ tours for those with enough mor­bid cu­rios­i­ty to see the exact spots where he mur­dered his vic­tims, and they don’t come cheap.

Lit­er­a­ture too has had a pro­found im­pact upon trav­el trends his­tor­i­cal­ly. Wordsworth and Co­leridge pi­o­neered the idea of walk­ing as a pur­suit rather than mere­ly the nec­es­sary bur­den of the poor. Michael Palin, who has him­self in­spired count­less trav­ellers, fol­lowed in Ernest Hem­ing­way’s foot­steps in an­oth­er hit trav­el se­ries based on the mem­o­ries of peo­ple who knew the Amer­i­can icon.

Ker­ouac’s On The Road is large­ly re­spon­si­ble for the ul­ti­mate ‘cool’ trav­el mode, the road trip. In­nu­mer­able trav­el writ­ers and fans have traced his route across the US and an in­dus­try has sprung up along it. Thanks to the beat gen­er­a­tion writ­ers, San Fran­cis­co is still seen as a hub of cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ty and the Vesu­vio café in the cen­tre of the city, where Ker­ouac was once a reg­u­lar, thrives on his rep­u­ta­tion.

Nowa­days our fas­ci­na­tion with celebri­ty ex­tends to every reach of life and we’re so in­ter­est­ed in where they like to go that The Times even has a week­ly fea­ture, ‘My Hols’, which fo­cus­es on the trav­el pen­chants of a va­ri­ety of stars. Who wouldn’t be fas­ci­nat­ed by the fact that Moby en­joys bungee jump­ing in Patag­o­nia while John­ny Vegas loves nowhere bet­ter than Scar­bor­ough?

When Colin Firth isn’t pranc­ing around on a Greek is­land prov­ing that there’s a rea­son he never be­came a rock star, the West of Scot­land and the Sa­hara are his haunts of choice. Per­son­al­ly I’d give any­thing to run into him re­lax­ing by Loch Fyne, which he ad­mires for its ‘im­pos­si­bly ro­man­tic glow’. Scot­land sud­den­ly seems a very at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion.

It’s a phe­nomenon that has ex­ist­ed for thou­sands of years; since the birth of re­li­gion peo­ple have been trav­el­ling the routes of their idols hop­ing to gain some new in­sight into them. With new media forms and the in­creas­ing ease of trav­el these trips are no longer con­sid­ered pil­grim­ages, but ul­ti­mate­ly that is what they are.

Whether we ad­mire a fa­mous fig­ure for pro­found re­li­gious teach­ings or a par­tic­u­lar­ly im­pres­sive per­for­mance of ‘Danc­ing Queen’, fol­low­ing their foot­steps is still as­pir­ing to a per­ceived level of per­fec­tion. Sure­ly there can’t be any harm in that.

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.