A very meta novel, with facts and fictions entwined, stories within stories. I’ve not read the author’s prior novels, but am interested in doing so noA very meta novel, with facts and fictions entwined, stories within stories. I’ve not read the author’s prior novels, but am interested in doing so now. I thought of Ishiguro reading this. Eng, born and raised in Penang, Malaysia, where much of this novel is set, writes not at all about the Malaysians, with the exception of one who seems British though born in Penang, but rather from the points of view of the foreigners, mostly Brits who have settled there, and/or are a part of the ruling British aristocracy during this time of colonialism. Three time periods are covered, in the 1912, 1921, and 1947. A Chinese revolutionary who wants to free China and bring it to democracy becomes part of one of the stories, Somerset Maugham visiting with his secretary-lover in 1921, the murder committed by the wife of a planter, there are also politics, marriages, and more. I enjoyed the experience. ...more
I enjoyed this, enjoyed learning about how the Harvard Classics came to be, what they were meant for, etc. I enjoyed Beha's voice, his musings, thoughI enjoyed this, enjoyed learning about how the Harvard Classics came to be, what they were meant for, etc. I enjoyed Beha's voice, his musings, thoughts, the links he made between the works, the world, what the world has lost in terms of attention spans and culture, about himself, the illnesses he suffered through, his life, and his family. I don't think the family fully came alive as I expected them to, but reading this was time well spent, educational, learned, sometimes funny....more
Luminous and heartbreaking, a story of exile, and having to forge a never-imagined path in order to create a new life. Set around violent real events,Luminous and heartbreaking, a story of exile, and having to forge a never-imagined path in order to create a new life. Set around violent real events, this is a story of loss, of finding one's way, of friendship, revolution, of words and literature, of being lost in a strange land and trying to make it your own, a story of fear too, of being watched, being denounced, being interrogated, one's actions threatening the safety of one's family. Khaled and Mustafa, both Libyan and 18, have been chosen to attend university in Edinburgh, it is an honor, and Khaled is warned by his historian/school principal father to not lose his way, to not be sucked in, and indeed Khaled is aware that among their Libyan friends at university there are the real students, the "readers" like he and Mustafa, but also the "writers" who are ostensible students but there to send back reports to Libya on the readers, to keep them, and their families in line under the dictator. In their third year, Mustafa convinces Khaled to go with him to London to protest the dictatorship at the Libyan embassy, a decision that will alter both their lives when government officials in the embassy shoot at the demonstrators, wounding eleven, including Khaled and Mustafa, and killing a young policewoman. They can't return to Edinburgh where they've already been denounced by the "writer" students as traitors. They can't return to Libya in case they were seen or recognized in all of the news footage of the shooting at the embassy. Phone calls are monitored and Khaled does not know if his parents are aware that he protested at the embassy or what happened to him there. Mustafa goes north to Manchester, Khaled stays in London where a university friend offers him her parents' apartment in Notting Hill. It is the story of friendship among Khaled and Mustafa, and eventually Hosam, a writer whose short story affected Khaled especially greatly when he heard it as a teenager, and meets accidentally years later in Paris. Their lives will take different paths - first Mustafa will return to Libya when the revolution there begins, then Hosam, while Khaled remains in London, teaching English Literature at a high school. The novel of these friends is framed by the long walk Khaled takes back to his small rented flat in Shepherd's Bush where he has lived all these decades, after leaving Hosam at the train station after his short visit. What does it mean to be a son, a brother, a friend, a man in exile? A very special novel that also taught me more about Libya.
Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for an ARC....more
Concise, compressed and very interesting. Gave me an expanded window into Hazzard and her novels and stories, which I very much wanted as I make my waConcise, compressed and very interesting. Gave me an expanded window into Hazzard and her novels and stories, which I very much wanted as I make my way through her work, which I find quite wonderful, a harkening back in terms of the details, and the precision of the language, and the irony, that one finds in 18th and 19th century literature. ...more
A reflection on reading, art, writing, on writing deeper, on being affected by what surrounds one, highlighting her own life, and various literary worA reflection on reading, art, writing, on writing deeper, on being affected by what surrounds one, highlighting her own life, and various literary works that have stayed with Cain. Atmospheric and I could relate to much of what she wrote about. I think even for those who are not writers, but perhaps serious readers, perhaps simply thinkers, this is a lovely way to spend some hours, with much food for thought. Plus a list of the works she references is included and they are all worthwhile. Indeed my own TBR list expanded a bit....more
Atmospheric and stylish quasi-noir set in 2005-2006 in NYC and Brooklyn. Atypical mystery in that the ending is left open, the case is not solved, butAtmospheric and stylish quasi-noir set in 2005-2006 in NYC and Brooklyn. Atypical mystery in that the ending is left open, the case is not solved, but the ride along the way is both fun and thoughtful, and features an enticing cast of characters - a minx, a fence, a famous young novelist, a would-be real estate developer, a poet. I'd read another book featuring this mostly unnamed protagonist, his name apparently is quite similar to the author's, and he is, like the author, a former big-firm lawyer, who skedaddled away from the grind of big firm practice to work on his own taking on small cases and doing favors, a man in his mid-30s, making his way in the city, rougher-edged then before all the big development got its paws on the place, tasked with a case set in the world of rare books that he can't let go. ...more
Just a fun and interesting book - a lightness to the heavy Russian authors that Groskop uses in her life lessons, plus knowledgeable stuff about theirJust a fun and interesting book - a lightness to the heavy Russian authors that Groskop uses in her life lessons, plus knowledgeable stuff about their lives, plus stuff about her life, her pursuit into Russian, Russia, the soul of a Russian, believing that is where her last name originated from. I have read Anna Karenina and War and Peace and Cancer Ward and Turgenev and Chekhov, and other of the novels and short stories by these great Russian authors she discusses here, so I'm not scared off by the Russians, but for anyone interested in reading these great novels and nervous about it, and unsure how to start, this is a good book for you! ...more
I've read a few of Oz's novels and intend to read more, and knowing only a little about him, I was drawn to read this collection of conversations. At I've read a few of Oz's novels and intend to read more, and knowing only a little about him, I was drawn to read this collection of conversations. At times, it does, presuppose a great familiarity with Oz himself, but I found it fascinating, enlightening on many levels, and also illuminated for me the novel of his I read right after called Judas. ...more
The narrator in this compelling novel is a first edition book, written a hundred years ago by Joseph Roth and called Rebellion, about a man who loses The narrator in this compelling novel is a first edition book, written a hundred years ago by Joseph Roth and called Rebellion, about a man who loses his leg in the first world war and is given a license to become a barrel organ player, his sole means of livelihood, allowing him to feel useful and part of his city, Berlin. This very edition was saved from a Nazi book burning in Berlin in 1933 and now is in the hands of Lena Knacht, a NYC artist who inherited it from her father. At the back of the book is a hand-drawn map and Lena, looking for a new avenue for her art, wants to go to Germany and find out what the map relates to. The Pages is many things - a quest novel, a love story, and variants of love stories, a biography of Roth, the writer, and his mentally ill wife, as well as providing bits of the story contained in Rebellion, a multiplicity of narrators demonstrating the interconnectedness of time, the relationship between past and past, nationalism, identity, and the resemblances between one bad nationalistic time and another. I was completely immersed in the story, in the fine writing, I felt this story deep in my bones and my heart....more
A memoir both touching and essayistic, meditative about loss and love, Schulz's father definitely unique and often very funny. While the writing and cA memoir both touching and essayistic, meditative about loss and love, Schulz's father definitely unique and often very funny. While the writing and connections made are both interesting and thoughtful, and it is a nice change to read a memoir about a happy family, and about a healthy love, the lack of tension made this a less compelling read for me....more
Not an aspiring writer how-to, but essays and a speech McDermott gave, filled with wisdom, style, wit and humor, and a bit of memoir, that might be asNot an aspiring writer how-to, but essays and a speech McDermott gave, filled with wisdom, style, wit and humor, and a bit of memoir, that might be as interesting for serious readers as they are for writers - serious writers might find useful suggestions, ways of thinking, reminders perhaps, aspiring ones might unlearn bad lessons and shuck bad advice. The truth is writing is a compulsion, and one can't be taught to be a writer, but a writer can become a better writer, and readers can become better readers, with a clearer sense of what a writer is doing, the care taken, the depths to which the story or novel goes, to see beyond what has become more status quo - readers seeking out books with "relatable" characters, characters who would be their friends, receiving confirmation of themselves in the pages, rather than seeking out writing that is fuller and does more, goes further. And writing that is fuller and does more and goes further does not mean stories and novels that are incomprehensible, but rather possess that timelessness, which is one mark that separates the prosaic from the more rare. The essays include passages by Dickens, Faulkner, Nabokov, Woolf, and others, with suggestions about how to think that are applicable not only to writing but also to life - the pursuit of individuality, clarity, sincerity, tenderness, attention to the details, what is salient and what is not, sowing the seeds, looking for consequences, for patterns. I found lovely and thoughtful validation in McDermott's words for how I myself work. Strangely, I've not read any of her novels, and it might be time....more
This slim and beautifully illustrated novella packs a punch. A Cambridge University academic, Bluma Lennon, is knocked down by a car while walking andThis slim and beautifully illustrated novella packs a punch. A Cambridge University academic, Bluma Lennon, is knocked down by a car while walking and reading a book of poems by Dickinson. And then a book by Joseph Conrad, The Shadow Line, old and spine-broken, covered in cement, shows up addressed to her, with an inscription from Bluma to a Carlos, which sends the narrator on a journey to discover who Carlos is, why he's sent this book to Bluma now, and why the book is covered in cement. A story about how books can change lives, the love of books, the biblophiles' obsession with books, and their dangers. A wonderful little novel that I'd gift to the many readers I know....more
I recently read Williams' This is Happiness, which I really enjoyed, and then jumped immediately into this one, and perhaps two in a row, with the mucI recently read Williams' This is Happiness, which I really enjoyed, and then jumped immediately into this one, and perhaps two in a row, with the muchness of them, wasn't the smartest way to go. The two have similarities: both are set on or around the river Shannon in atmospheric Faha, County Clare, a very rainy and tiny village, although in Happiness, the rain suddenly stops; both have first-person narrators; both are lyrical and suffused with a bit of otherworldliness, while being rooted in the everyday. This one was more overtly sentimental. 19-year-old Ruth Swain has a debilitating and unidentified blood disorder and is confined to her massive boat-like bed, built when she was a child by her dead poet father Virgil. The bulk of her tale is recounting the convoluted Swain family history, often very funny, and she becomes a kind of omniscient narrator in that way. She is also a serious reader, and her closest companions that now surround her like guardian angels are the 3,958 books from Virgil's library, which she often refers to, quoting from them and including title and publisher info. Whimsical as that is, as is her writing often using all caps, her voice is sardonic and spiky. She is reading and referring to Virgil's books because she is trying to understand him, to find him again. I enjoyed this but wish I'd given myself more time between reading the two novels....more
While the title indicates that this will be a memoir, it is really a biblio-memoir, heavy on the biblio, on George Eliot's life and analysis of her noWhile the title indicates that this will be a memoir, it is really a biblio-memoir, heavy on the biblio, on George Eliot's life and analysis of her novel, Middlemarch, less so on the memoir aspect, which I had expected. Still, it is a poignant testimony to the power of fiction....more
In this autofiction or autobiographical novel, the first-person narrator is Russian-born Katya Geller. In middle-age, she is a writer, a professor, thIn this autofiction or autobiographical novel, the first-person narrator is Russian-born Katya Geller. In middle-age, she is a writer, a professor, the mother of two teenagers, recently separated from her husband, Len (though the marriage probably ended before they had children), is pining for her off-and-on again lover, has recently ended a fast engagement to a billionaire Russian, and her mother, a writer of Soviet math textbooks, is dying in the family's Staten Island house. At her death, Katya finds her mother's notes for a math book she wanted to write for adults, which would have been her first since emigrating with Katya to the US. Vapnyar uses two kinds of devices: the framing device of her mother's math notes, which, as a non-math person, weren't particularly illuminating for me - although the ways in which Soviet math problems were created is very funny, and direct notes to the reader, some of which are amusing, some a little trite and self-evident. The book takes us from the mother and daughter's life in Russia to the US. Darkly comic - I laughed aloud a bunch of times - Katya is an engaging voice and character, with bright and apt takes on marriage, motherhood, Russia, America, love, etc. A fun read....more
I've only read one other Boyne novel, and I couldn't get through it, though the whole world loves it. Go figure. But because the whole world loved it,I've only read one other Boyne novel, and I couldn't get through it, though the whole world loves it. Go figure. But because the whole world loved it, I was interested to try another. I found Part I: Before the Fall, and Interlude: Swallows Nest in this one, compelling. I found aging author Erich Ackermann a thoroughly intriguing character, who has just been newly rediscovered as an author, and the story of his youth in Nazi German, specifically what he caused to happen as a teenager in Nazi German. And as I was reading Part I, I deeply wished that the flyleaf summary hadn't been all about Maurice Swift, the young beautiful would-be writer, who has always wanted to be a writer since he was a boy despite his inability to ever figure out a story of his own to tell - whom Ackermann takes under his wing. I wanted to keep reading about Ackermann, and I felt none of that interest in Swift. Alas. The Interlude, when Maurice has now thoroughly dispatched Ackermann to an ignoble end, and is now using for his own purposes a second author as besotted with Swift as Ackermann was, and the two men, one old mediocre author and one beautiful young and now-feted author, visit Gore Vidal's Amalfi Coast idyll, was great fun. I read the rest quickly, specifically interested to learn why and how Maurice Swift could entrance people as he does; we are told he is astonishingly beautiful (made clear by the two aging gay authors who can't get over his beauty, and each die because of him) but other than that? We are not told a single charming thing about him. There's no actual proof that establishes why anyone would allow themselves to be used by Swift. If that's the point, then well-done, because it establishes how people are suckers for cold soulless beauty to their deathly detriment, but I'm not sure if that was what Boyne was striving for. If we are to believe Swift is a psychopath - and he must be - it's hard to believe he would let himself go, as he does. It's a facile, quick-reading novel, but comparisons to Patricia Highsmith are overrated, and Maurice Swift lacks any of the intense, deep frisson of Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley. I found the structure very interesting - many first-person narrators and only one section that was in third person - but I also found that Edith's section and where she ends up (Swift's writer-wife) too reminiscent of other recent mysteries and thrillers in which a woman is rendered silent and motionless. The truest paragraph in the book comes when Swift has gotten his comeuppance, and a novel that made his name for the second time, is rightfully attributed to its actual author. One male writer states that "he had originally considered The Tribesman to be a masterpiece, but now that he knew it had actually been written by a woman, he was revising that opinion and realized that it was just a tedious piece of domestic trivia, driven by sentimentality." This is too true too often when men (and women) review novels written by women. What's most fun about the book is Boyne's ability to send up the literary world - the backstabbing and pretend-liking authors engage in with each other. And what I absolutely applaud is Boyne's willingness to write about completely unsympathetic and un-relatable characters, because the characters I love to read aren't sympathetic and relatable - seek friends with those traits, don't demand them in characters - but I do wonder why we don't have a better sense of the novel's one pure (if misguided) soul, Swift's wife, Edith, whose ethnicity merits only a line or two....more
I knew Jacqueline Onassis had been a book editor, and it was fun to see her presented in this quasi-personalized fictionalized way. But the main charaI knew Jacqueline Onassis had been a book editor, and it was fun to see her presented in this quasi-personalized fictionalized way. But the main character, James Smale, the writer whose manuscript is purchased by Onassis who becomes his editor, never fully came into focus for me. And given that Smale is a writer, I was surprised that he wasn't particularly original or perceptive or insightful. Onassis tells him he is, so we're supposed to believe it, but those qualities aren't often on the page. At the stereotypical family Thanksgiving, the secret Smale's mother has kept hidden is revealed, and yet the book itself seems to skirt it - we're given a road trip that doesn't highlight much, a visit to Smale's father, where Smale lets loose his anger, but with lots of "fucks" and not much perception or interesting thoughts, though we're informed that Smale discovers how to end his novel. Interestingly, none of the novel is actually presented, so we don't get to see what drew Onassis to it. If Smale writes as he thinks, then it's hard to imagine his novel as particularly good. The interesting bits involved the past, interwoven chapters in which, in the aftermath of Smale coming out to his parents, the decision his mother makes between husband and son; and some of Jackie's own wishes that are relayed elliptically. The book strives for depth but doesn't achieve it, and often has a kind of YA personality, which put me off. Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn't get a handle on how old Smale is. I enjoyed Lily and the Octopus, but for me, this one missed the mark....more
Clearly, a lot of people know what this story is about and loved it. I am not one of those. I liked some of it a great deal, especially the quotable mClearly, a lot of people know what this story is about and loved it. I am not one of those. I liked some of it a great deal, especially the quotable maxims about reading, about books, about how books can soothe or fix or heighten our emotions (I'm paraphrasing here), and I like the concept of a love that won't let you go, as Jean suffers, and I very much liked Manon, Jean's long-ago lover, a woman who knew herself well enough to know one husband wasn't enough, and had both husband and lover (although I found her journal entries trite), and Max, the suddenly-famous debut novelist under pressure, but much of the story felt very slight to me, buttressed by those lovely insights into what books can and should do for the human condition. I read it because my mother sent it to me, and she'd underlined those lovely passages about books. Otherwise, I wouldn't have picked it up....more
I have never ready any John Gardner, though his novel, Sunlight Dialogues, has been on my bookshelves for many years. This is a strange and fascinatinI have never ready any John Gardner, though his novel, Sunlight Dialogues, has been on my bookshelves for many years. This is a strange and fascinating work, divided really into two parts, the "true" novel takes places in granite Vermont and is about the desperate struggle between a sister and brother, octogenarian widow Sally Page Abbott, and her brother, James L. Page, a hard-bitten and hard-drinking, sometimes violent old farmer. Brother and sister have been living together for a while, and in a fit of rage, James destroys his sister's television set, and a few weeks later, chases her upstairs with a piece of firewood and locks her in a bedroom. The two will be caught in a fierce battle through the rest of the book. The second novel in the book is an old paperback Sally finds in her bedroom prison and ends up reading, called The Smugglers of Lost Souls' Rock, a weird tale about a would-be suicide, and all those he meets after his suicide attempt fails. While one could try and make connections between the true novel and the world of the paperback, I found the paperback - pages and pages of that story - got in the way of the true novel, which was far more intriguing - and eventually I found myself skipping all the pages of the paperback. For readers willing to dive into something completely unexpected. The opening pages of October Light are brilliant....more
I've read two other of Nunez's novels, and I liked both a great deal. In some ways, The Friend resembles her first, a novel-memoir called A Feather onI've read two other of Nunez's novels, and I liked both a great deal. In some ways, The Friend resembles her first, a novel-memoir called A Feather on the Breath of God, in that it's written in first person, short dives into other characters and events, asides, tangents, etc. Erudite, spare, and articulate, I enjoyed this very much. And I guess it's a novel because here the narrator and her friend, from whom she inherits the large dog named Apollo, mention how, if you call it a novel, then it is a novel. Short and slim, it took a few pages for me to get into, but then I fell into it, and liked my time with the narrator, with her thoughts on the world, her way of being, her conversations with the friend's various wives, her feelings about her friend and their long history together, their conversations about the literary world and teaching, about the kind of writer and teacher that he was, the change in the mores, her research into dogs and memory, and sex trafficking, her desire for a different end to their story. It's quite beautiful and unusual, and has staying power....more
