This is my review of The Castle Of Crossed Destinies (Vintage Classics) by Italo Calvino.

As in "The Canterbury Tales", a disparate group of travellers share tales, but here the similarity ends, since they have lost the power of speech and are forced to communicate by setting out tarot cards, which Calvino also describes as "arcani".

At first, I found the stories unengaging fairy tales, of the knight errant encounters in forest fair maiden who turns out to be ugly old hag variety, although I had an uneasy sense that I might be missing all sorts of allusions through my ignorance of classical and medieval mythology.

Any interest lay partly in working out or grasping what the succession of cards mean. This is not easy as, particularly for the tales told in the castle, the cards are reproduced in such a small size that it is hard to see what they represent. The set of tarot cards used for the second set of tales from "The Tavern of Crossed Destinies" are drawn a little larger and bolder, so easier to decipher. Although it might have added too much to the cost of the book, it would have been better if each card could have been reproduced at least quarter page size, and positioned at the point in the text where it is mentioned. Although there are a few coloured plates of tarot cards in the middle of the book, they are not the "major players" in the stories.

Also, once I realised that, for the castle stories, cards are laid in two parallel rows or columns to form part of an overall grid, whereas for the tavern stories, each one occupies an overlapping block in the grid, further interest stemmed from noticing how the cards for the end of one story are the beginning of another, and how the same card may represent totally different incidents in separate stories. For instance, a card showing cups could mean the celebration of a wedding, or could signify looking down from a city on rows of tombstones. Although sometimes intriguing, the need to preserve the order of the cards often makes for tales that seem contrived and limited.

Occasionally, a story caught my interest, and I began to see "deeper philosophical layers". This first occurred in the Tale of Astolpho on the Moon: on a mission to retrieve the lost sanity of the irreplaceable warrior Roland, Astolpho is sent to the moon where an endless storeroom preserves "the stories that men do not live, the thoughts that knock once at the threshold of awareness and vanish forever, the particles of the possible discarded in the game of combinations, the solutions that could be reached but are never reached.." Much later, in "The Tale of Seeking and Losing", Parsifal concludes, "The kernel of the world is empty, the beginning of what moves in the universe is the space of nothingness, around absence is constructed what exists, at the bottom of the Grail is the Tao" and he points to the empty rectangle at the centre of the grid of tarot cards. All this may of course leave you cold!

However,the stories seem to me to go seriously off the rails at the end where Calvino tries to tell his own story, which becomes very rambling, including reference to paintings in galleries of St Jerome with his lion and St George with the dragon, of which we are not provided any visual examples to help us appreciate his points, whilst he then presents as a grand finale a story which somehow combines bits of King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth.

Although I can understand the fascination of weaving stories out of a grid of cards, this book is for me no more than a clever gimmick. Calvino has apparently discarded some tales because he thought they did not work, but it seems to me that most of those retained would have benefited from a thorough redrafting. Often the events are quite rushed and garbled, and the characters two-dimensional (card?!) and so lack the power to arouse any sympathy. Perhaps owing to the translation, the wording is at times very stilted or jarring.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of So Much for That by Lionel Shriver.

The inadequacy of the US health insurance system; the complex, shifting emotions within a relationship in which the wife is struck by possibly terminal cancer; the dynamics of a family in which one child has a degenerative disease: these themes could combine to make a moving and opinion-changing masterpiece, but call for a subtlety and lightness of touch to make so much pain bearable. For the first half of the book I felt oppressed by the opposite, that is, the tsunami of words, the detailed, by turns pettifogging or unsavoury descriptions, lengthy digressions and rambling rants, always three or more examples where one would do. There are also some very original or telling comments, although they are at risk of getting lost in all the verbiage.

The story begins with Shep Knacker packing a bag to present his wife with an ultimatum: the time has come for him to travel to the idyllic African island where he has decided to settle, and he plans to take off whether she accompanies him or not. This could serve to reveal a good deal about our "hero" but instead becomes a pretty negative description of his wife. I would much rather have discovered what Glynis is like through situations and dialogues than be told what to think. Admittedly, some descriptions are very striking:

"..in art school, Glynis had not chosen her medium by accident. She naturally identified with any material that so fiercely refused to do what you wanted it to, whose form was resistant to change and responded only to violent manhandling. Metal was obstreperous. Were it ever mistreated, its dents and scratches caught the light like grudges." It's the last sentence that stands out for me.

Then the story moves on to Shep's "best friend" Jackson, whose exaggerated diatribes I admit to finding amusing and telling. It took me a while to realise that his sparky but odd daughter is in fact disabled with an obscure physical condition that blights not only her life, but that of the entire family. I felt very discouraged at this stage. Was so much suffering really necessary?

Also, in the midst of the wealth of unpleasant detail about bodily malfunctions, the opportunity is missed to enact, rather than report second-hand , some dramatic scenes, such as the point at which Glynis tells Shep she has cancer, and his initial reactions as his chance to escape evaporates, or to explore his feelings towards a woman he is prepared to leave until he hears of her need for his health insurance. This would not only have made the story more emotionally engaging, but also shown a clearer progression of the character's thoughts. Yet Shriver is capable of being very incisive, as when she closes a chapter with Shep's admission to himself that he only has enough money to realise his dreams if Glynis "dies soon".

As it is, the links between stages in both dialogue and scenes are at times clunky and contrived, and major new developments may seem to occur too abruptly, such as the degree to which Jackson has "reached his limit", when you might have expected Shep to be in this state.

Another limitation is that none of the characters seems to be afflicted by the sense of anguish based on deep love, or the fear of loss of a companion. This may be acceptable for Shep because he is ultra practical and pragmatic, but makes for a less moving story, in which you care too little for in many ways unlikeable people.

Perhaps I became inured to all this suffering, but the book improved for me as I persevered, and the last hundred pages or so seem the best: well-paced, plot strands coming together well, an ending which was remarkably positive, and avoided sentimentality, mawkishness or the cop out of not knowing how to finish the dilemma one has created. However, even here there is a superficiality in the personal relationships, a kind of "cold heart" and skimming round the depths of real grief.

I acknowledge Lionel Shriver's undoubted talent, but wish she had made the book shorter, checked her narrative for overkill (no pun intended), and toned down some of the cynical wisecracking humour, perhaps the product of an attempt to write like an American male.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar.

I was hooked from the outset by this well-plotted, moving tale of the relationship between a middle-class Bombay widow Sera and her faithful servant Bhima. The common factor in these two women's lives is their unhappy marriages leading to disappointed hopes. Despite her education, Sera has endured the tyranny of a spiteful mother-in-law and abuse at the hands of a controlling, often violent husband, but now finds happiness in the company of her pregnant daughter and charming son-in-law. Bhima's life was destroyed when her once adoring husband left her, yet she too finds a reason for living in her grand-daughter Maya whose college education Sera has generously supported. The problem is that Maya's bright future is now in ruins since she has somehow fallen pregnant.

This story is certainly very bleak at times, but made endurable by the author's close observation of Bombay society – embracing both the wealthy and slum dwellers – her keen sense of humour and what sounded to me like authentic dialogue: the quirky turns of phrase, often flowery speech and peppering of Indian terms add colour to the writing.

The story is developed through lengthy flashbacks, so that dramatic incidents are implied to arouse your curiosity, with the details gradually revealed. The climax is predictable but the ending is not. At first, I was disappointed by it, but decided on reflection that the author chooses a subtle, clever note on which to close, leaving it to the reader to consider what happens next.

I was interested by the parallels between the way middle-class Indians treat their servants, and the behaviour of white Americans towards their black servants in the South until recently, as portrayed in the bestselller, "The Help" – for instance, requiring maids to drink out of their own separate cups, and not letting them sit at the same table, whilst expecting them to bring up one's children as their own, and also helping them out in a paternalistic way in moments of deep personal trouble.

All the main characters are well-developed as complex people with strengths and flaws. The character of Bhima is particularly interesting. Her illiteracy exposes her to exploitation – apart from limiting her employment prospects – and saps her confidence. Yet her natural intelligence gives her a perceptiveness and ability to analyse others, in a very pragmatic way, which eludes some of her so-called superiors. Despite endless hardship, she maintains a dignity and pride which at times cost her dear, but you have to admire her unbreakable spirit. In contrast, Sera lets her own spirit be broken in order to hang on to material things and respectability, so ultimately perhaps loses more of what really matters than her outwardly povertystricken and downtrodden maid.

I agree that this book is most likely to appeal to women, and may in fact repel some men initially prepared to give it a chance, since the male sex is portrayed in a pretty negative light, as either weak or selfish and vindictive.

This novel covers the same territory as Arvind's "The White Tiger" but in a less wisecracking and cynical, more subtle and introspective fashion, both worth reading in their different ways.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars