Books

“The Girl Who Played with Fire” (Millennium Trilogy Book 2) by Stieg Larsson – Something lost in translation?

This is my review of The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium Trilogy Book 2) by Stieg Larsson.

The opening chapters diverted me from the tedium of sitting on an airport runway for three hours waiting in vain for the plane to obtain a slot to fly round a cloud of volcanic dust. The complex plot wound its way to a suitably shocking and unpredictable ending, and although I do not share the widespread admiration for the “spiky and sassy” anti-heroine Lisbeth Salander, I was left with sufficient curiosity as to her fate to feel motivated to tackle the final part of the trilogy in the next few weeks.

So, with these positive initial reflections, what were the reservations which made me wonder at several points whether this much-hyped book was really worth reading? It certainly needs a thorough edit, with a few passages which I swear do not make sense, and a tendency to read at some points like research notes for the novel rather than the final work itself. I have no objection to a large cast of characters, but the tendency to switch from the viewpoint of one to the next makes for jerky reading, and I would have liked a brief list of names and roles for quick reference where the unfamiliar Swedish names/personalities/roles of bit part players were rather similar. Also, some characters seemed to “drift out of the frame” after what seemed to be unduly lengthy introductions.

My main beef is that the book is frankly badly written at many points, although to be fair to the author I wonder to what extent this is due to a translator with a cloth ear for language. The large number of short scenes, conveying the impression that the structure was created with filming in mind, suggest that quality of writing was never a major consideration.

By the standards of popular pulp fiction, this probably deserves the high praise it has received in Amazon reviews so far. Perhaps I was misled into thinking this trilogy is more of a “work of literature” than it is by the first part, which seemed to have a strong mission to expose corruption, and conveyed a sense of the tensions in Swedish society and a rounded central character in the journalist Kalle Blomkvist. In this section, the (for me) slightly ludicrous aspects of Salander’s extraordinary gifts for computer hacking and manipulating unlikely victims play a much larger part. Together with the increased level of sadistic violence in the book, it held less appeal for me.

Whereas the first part involved working out the riddle behind a series of murders, this second part was a little disappointing in that revelations towards the end came in the form of explanations from key characters or summarising from a report.

However, I am clearly in a minority……

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars


The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium Trilogy Book 2)
 

Desert

This is my review of Désert (Collection Folio) by Le Clezio.

This book has just been published in English, and I would be interested to see how it translates. (As an English speaker, I laboured through it in French, with a handful of phrases for which I could not work out the sense.)

I doubt whether any translation (except perhaps one by the bilingual author) can do justice to the language, which is like a long, rhythmic, hypnotically repetitive free verse poem about the harshly beautiful infinity of the desert to which man must adjust, for it makes no concessions. The lives of the nomads, barren existences of grinding poverty in the initial estimation of a privileged westerner, are in fact shown to have a dignity and sense of community, in balance with nature.

The narrative switches between 1909-12, when the desert warriors, the men in blue veils, are making their last abortive stand against the Christian imperialist invaders of North Africa, and the late C20 where the North Africans live a debased life in the coastal shanty towns – debased since they are desperately poor, but have lost contact with their old culture of desert-based nomadic self-sufficiency – and dream of life in great cities like Marseilles. Each thread focuses on a particular individual – in the earlier period, a young boy called Nour follows the ill-fated trek north across the desert to the sea in the wake of the charismatic leader Ma el Ainine, rendered ineffectual by age and his inadequate resources to fight the westeners with their artillery.

Nour's modern-day descendant is Lalla, the beautiful young girl, fascinated by and in tune with the desert, who nevertheless makes the journey to Marseilles where she is thrown into the squalid life of the immigrant scraping a living in a corrupt and ugly city which is portrayed as another type of desert, until her life is transformed in a way that I cannot reveal for fear of creating a "spoiler" except to say that I found it implausible and could not see how it added to the tale.

The book often frustrated me in its slow pace. Small details observed in passing, or the "greater scheme of things" seem more important than a strong plot line and well-developed series of interactions and events. Perhaps this is intentional, all part of a contemplative, spiritual focus which appears to be Le Clezio's main concern. The narrative speeds up with more moments of real pathos and drama towards the end – crises of life and death – but some of the significant events and characters on the way are underdeveloped – again, this may may be deliberate, since the book is mostly about the ambience and power of desert places. Given the missed opportunities for engagement between the main characters, I was struck by the way Le Clezio seems to have made an exception in the over-romanticised portrayal of Lalla.

Despite these apparently strong reservations, this book will stay with me, in terms of the evocative power of the language and the vivid visual images it conjured up of the desert landscapes in various lights, and of the nomads. Le Clezio describes the relatively few events of this book, people's thoughts and sensations, in minute detail. In so doing, he makes the reader more self aware, more attuned to the details of his or her own surroundings…..

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Désert (Collection Folio)

Keynes Return of the Master

This is my review of Keynes: The Return of the Master by Robert Skidelsky.

This provides some thought-provoking perspectives on, for instance, the collapsed credibility of the discipline of economics which failed to foresee the recent financial crisis- Skidelsky attributes this to a narrow focus on mathematics rather than the broader ethical, philosophical, historical context within which Keynes operated. This led Keynes to change his mind on the benefits of free trade after experiencing the trauma of the Great Depression. Perhaps wishing to have it all ways, he favoured an international approach to the world of arts which he loved, but came to advocate a measure of protection to encourage countries to manufacture their own goods, even if others could do it more efficiently.

Although this book inspired me to resolve to read a longer and more detailed work on Keynes, it left me feeling a little disappointed. The structure seemed disjointed, as the text switched back and forth in time, with sections written under subheadings in the manner of a text book, but without the systematic approach this normally entails. I was uncertain as to the intended audience. Surely a lay reader with no prior knowledge of Keynes would be confused by the half-explained theory, such as the role of interest rates in equating savings and investment, but not necessarily at the full employment level?

I would have preferred the key points of this book to be presented in a meaty essay, rather than have to tease them out of a somewhat unfocused book.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Keynes: The Return of the Master

Summertime

This is my review of Summertime by J M Coetzee.

At first it seems incongruous to have this short and deceptively slight novel shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize alongside the sprawling tomes of Wolf Hall and The Children's Book. The opening pages, "fictionalised" (we never know to what extent) fragments of Coetzee's notes for an autobiography which an imagined premature death have prevented him from writing, establish from the outset an impression of "quality rather than quantity": the spare, elegant prose, intriguing hints of conflict between the characters, wry humour, insights into the complex tragedy of life in South Africa in the years preceding the end of apartheid.

The work is original in taking an unusual perspective. Sandwiched between Coetzee's notes are interviews between his fictional biographer and five people who knew him before his recent death. Each interview reads like a short story in its own right, drawing us into the lives of a very disparate group of people and evoking in the process vivid impressions of the lives of white people in the South Africa of the 1970s. Again, there is unexpected humour in the often sparky exchanges between interviewer and interviewees who are not backward in questioning his techniques. The fascinating issues are raised of how a Nobel prize winning writer may seem, even be, very ordinary, and may appear very differently to various people who knew him. I found most moving the account provided by Coetzee's cousin Margot, although it was the only "interview" to be written in the third person, in the form of a transcript being read back for confirmation.

I agree that beneath the portrayal of Coetzee as perhaps excessively self-effacing, with a possibly exaggerated lack of appeal, one senses a certain discomforting self absorption in the writer. Why did he focus on himself in this way? On the other hand, you could argue this is a twist on the fact that many novels contain unacknowledged, perhaps even unconscious elements of the autobiographical. Also, perhaps a Nobel Prize winner is allowed to be self-absorbed – may even need to be.

Another point which concerned me a little was the similarity in "voice" of the author and the interviewees, with the exception of the Brazilian dancer. Also, although the distinctive precision of the writing is a welcome contrast to the cloying sentimentality of some writers, there is the nagging sense that it links to a level of cold, clear-eyed dispassion which can seem almost repellent – I imagine some readers will feel this more than others. And does it matter, if reading is all about extending awareness?

Whilst I admire this book, and suspect I read it too quickly and need to revisit it and reflect more on the many observations about human relationships, culture and the meaning of life, I was left feeling a little let down. Perhaps this was because the final scene in the book is agonising in it sadness. Perhaps my disappointment is because many of the issues which interested me, such as the role of a "liberal Boer", were underdeveloped. There seemed to me to be the potential to do so much more, without the book becoming too flabby or weighty. I noticed the same quality in "Disgrace" and wonder whether Coetze's main message is that life is not clear cut, accepted definitions of success and failure are open to question, individuals are complex and essentially unknowable, even to themselves – life is, simply, inconclusive and often disappointing….

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Summertime

The Little Stranger turns the Screw

This is my review of The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

After a slow start, this well-written tale initially reeled in my interest with its evocation of life in rural England just after World War 2, with the conflict between nostalgia for an irrevocably declining way of life and the pressures for change. Waters captures well the appearance of cracks in the still rigid class divide, the physical decay of the elegant house and way of life which the impoverished local gentry could no longer afford to sustain, interesting details on rationing, reactions to the establishment of the NHS, the inescapable gossip grapevine, and so on. However, there was a fragmented nature to the plot, which with increasing frequency lapsed into a poltergeist-cum-Gothic horror fantasy. I am no fan of ghost stories, but I suspect that this one does not score very highly on the spine-chilling scale. Somewhere round page 160 I almost gave up, but resolved to continue since this is the choice of my local book group. Without giving too much away, the details of the hauntings which drove first Rod and then his mother mad seemed to be too silly for words, and insufficiently frightening, just ludicrous. What was slightly more alarming and intriguing was realisation of the way in which doctors, with possibly questionable motives, might react to people troubled by the supernatural by locking them up in asylums indefinitely for their own good.

Another point which concerned me was that, because of the author's decision to write in the first person through the eyes of the local doctor Faraday, many of the most dramatic scenes had to be reported to him which obviously detracted from the tension. Plus at times, the narration of these supernatural events entered into the minds of third parties and what they had thought and felt to an implausible degree.

I also disliked the disjunction between the development of subtle and intriguing relationships between characters and the ruthless killing off in bizarre circumstances of some key players.

The book improved towards the end with the course of Faraday's relationship with Caroline, and the revelation of his own character. There was an interesting final twist which caused me to reflect on the chain of supernatural events, Faraday's precise role in this and the ambiguous identity of the "little stranger" but, to conclude, I think Sarah Waters' talents could be better used.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Little Stranger

Wolf Hall – an entertaining and high class soap opera

This is my review of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

Wolf Hall gives a different slant on the well-known tale of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn by taking the viewpoint of Thomas Cromwell, and transforming him from a sinister, unappealing villain into a complex, intriguing character who, if not exactly likeable, commands respect. Hilary Mantel has clearly come to love her unlikely hero, even making him into something of an "homme fatal" with a stream of women appreciating his charms – or perhaps respecting his power – Mary Boleyn makes a (not very convincing) pass at him, Jane Seymour finds him sympathetic and so on. Although clearly materialistic, manipulative and ruthless, Cromwell has a soft spot for children, women who have hit hard times and young men in his service, he can engage with people at all levels, and has a natural desire to turn his hand to any practical task which is at times almost comical for a man of his hard-won status. We see how the king and the nobility come to use Cromwell – the super-competent, lateral-thinging, can-do fixer – whilst despising him for his low birth. Yet even when he is at the height of his powers, he hears the inner voice reminding him that he may be brought low, like the unseen fist which once felled him in his youth.

The book evokes powerful sensory images of life in the sixteenth century – the sounds and smells, the unfamiliar food and long-lost customs, the muddy roads, the appalling brutality of public executions. Many in the large cast of characters are well-developed as distinct personalities warts and all: the bluff, tactless Norfolk; unworldly, cerebral Archbishop Cranmer who somehow manages to acquire an illicit wife; Anne Boleyn, clever,calculating, yet driven to tantrums in her deep sense of insecurity. Mantel captures Henry's charisma, combined with the casual cruelty arising from his understandable fear of being deposed without a male heir, and qualms about breaking free from the Catholic church mixed with the irrestible temptation of tapping the wealth of the monasteries, made possible by Cromwell's genius for organisation.

The author's take on Thomas More was particularly interesting: a man normally portrayed as a principled saint is presented as a religious fanatic and sadistic torturer of those who do not hold his views, also cruelly sarcastic to his wife, critising her to his dinner guests in the Latin she cannot understand. His execution forms a moving climax to the end of the book, preceded by some well-written scenes in which Cromwell, whose complex feelings for More include some sympathy based on the length of their acquaintance, uses his powers of argument to try to induce More to recant: the pragmatist against the idealist.

I also found the dialogues very entertaining and play-like – witty and clever, often causing me to laugh out loud.

This book needs to be read slowly to appreciate it fully – a problem if you have borrowed it from the library with no prospect of renewal. My opinion of it improved as I read further and I would like to read it again – the highest accolade for a book BUT I share some of the criticisms made. The continual reference to Cromwell as "he" amongst all the others is very confusing. It is annoying to be obliged to reread a passage twice or more to get the sense. Also, some allusions to previous scenes require the reader to have picked up and retained some small detail which could easily have been overlooked. As a result, a few passages did not make sense to me – good editing would have prevented this. I also agree that the style was at times rather stilted. This was very noticeable in the early chapters, also to the extent of putting me off continuing. The dodging about in time – recording Wolsey's downfall before the events leading to it, and introducing the lords sent to arrest him before developing them as clear characters, created a sense of confusion which detracted from the overall book. I agree that it would have been worth knowing a little more about how Cromwell came to work for Wolsey.

Finally, the ending seemed rather limp – definitely leaving the way open for a sequel or two. And why was it called Wolf Hall (the home of the Seymours) which features very little in the book? – I assume it was to point to a sequel in which Cromwell, whilst drawn to Jane Seymour as a future bride sees the scope for her to be Henry's next victim -or perhaps the increasingly ruthless Henry steals her from under Cromwell's nose.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Wolf Hall

Stilted nostalgia – perhaps damaged in translation

This is my review of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Penguin Modern Classics) by Giorgio Bassani.

This book probably needs to be read in Italian to be fully appreciated, since the prose comes across as over-flowery in translation. Despite this, the at times over-meticulous descriptions create evocative images with a sense of nostalgia for old Italian towns and the dusty estates of doomed aristocrats in 1930s Italy. The rise of Fascism, with its evils not yet understood, and the growing menace to the complex Jewish community are also outlined quite well, although it would have been more dramatic not to have had the fates of the key protagonists spelt out so baldly from the outset. By contrast, the way in which certain relationships were hinted at but left to the reader to guess was interesting.

The prologue to this translation, which I read last, informs us that Bassani struggled to write. Apart from such touching scenes as the hero's late night conversation with his father, or the details of some of his "squabbles" with the source of his infatuation, Micol, I found many of the exchanges quite stilted and the portrayal of relationships "underdeveloped". I therefore concluded that Bassani's style works quite well for describing scenes, but is less good for human relationships – although perhaps he is accurate in suggesting a certain formality in relationships in that period. I was puzzled that the hero seems quite "coy" in some ways in his relationship with Micol, but appears unphased by a quick visit to a prostitute, clearly implying this was not the first one but he saw no need to mention this before, and it struck me as odd that he passed over "the deed" in a brief clause.

The book makes no concessions, with many erudite references to Italian writers and works which can mean little to the great majority of readers. Again, this may reflect acccurately the nature of education for upper class people of the day.

Last but not least, the extremely long and complex sentences wore me down, to the extent I probably would not have finished the book if not obliged to do so for a reading group. I struggled on in the expectation of "something happening", but much of the book was about not a great deal. Bassani was forever announcing "some significant point" which proved to be nothing much.

My feelings are mixed. I see why this is a classic, but it could have been more dramatic, moving and unusual – the theme of "thwarted first love" is after all a well-worn one. I am left with a few insights e.g. in the opening chapter which describes a visit to Etruscan tombs, a child asks why we care so little about the long dead, and more about those recently so.

I realise that some of my reservations may be due to the quality of the McKendrick translation.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Penguin Modern Classics)

Disgrace

This is my review of Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee.

A friend's fulsome praise for the recently issued film of this book encouraged me to reread it partly because I was so embarrassed at being unable to recall the details of the plot. I now think this was because of the bleakness of the tale, as the main character sinks into a passive acceptance of his waning sexual and academic powers and influence as a result of ageing, and the "reversal of roles" in South Africa as black men gain ascendancy post-Apartheid. This beautifully written book works at several levels, as an examination of both personal morality and commununal responsibility or guilt for the exploitation of one group by another. With his history of preying sexually on young, inexperienced girls, is David Lurie any better than the black rapists who impregnated his daughter, either as a demonstration of new-found power, or through some instinctive desire to spread their seed?

What repelled me about the story was the degree of acceptance of "fate" by both Lurie and his daughter. Still only in his early fifties, he seemed too young to "give up", and even if he had been older, I would have wanted him to "rage against the dying of the light". I accept that the sheer weight of circumstance e.g. the ineffectiveness of the police in solving crimes made it hard to maintain one's resistance. Since Lurie clearly felt no great guilt about casual sex and seducing vulnerable women, it was unclear exactly what the extent of his disgrace was. A part of him seemed to feel that rapists and robbers should not get off scot free just because they might have been treated badly in the past. Yet, at the end, he seemed to compound his downfall, and give up too easily. His embracing of the "lowly task" of disposing of surplus dogs seemed too much of denial of the possibilities of life. The final choice of when a lame dog (which he could have kept as a pet) should be put down may have been an analogy for the state of his own life, but seemed too negative.

What exactly was the point of the scene where Lurie is invited to dine with the father of the student whom he "wronged"? What comparisions does the author wish us to draw between the course of Lurie's life and that of Byron, once a serial seducer but brought low towards the end of his life? There is a great deal to speculate upon, and to discuss in this book.

The plot seems to tail off and meander once Lurie accepts that he can no longer take refuge with his daughter, and drifts back to the city. Perhaps this is a deliberate reflection of the random nature of much of "real life".

Although I could not say I liked this book, I admired it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Disgrace

After You’ve Gone

This is my review of After You’ve Gone by Joan Lingard.

This skilfully written and well constructed book, with many touches of humour and irony, held my attention to the end which, if fairly predictable, gained depth from leaving intriguing questions unanswered. The use of a real seaman's journal from the 1920s gave an authentic air to the extracts read aloud by the heroine from her husband's letters, which formed the heart of the story – letters which ideally would have bound them together only aroused her sense of dissatisfaction, thwarted ambition and suspicion, to the point at which her husband scarcely seemed to be a real person to whom she could relate and should feel loyalty or love. The interplay between the characters was interesting and the portrayal of working class life in Edinburgh seemed convincing. The moments of joy and pathos in the banality of "ordinary life" came through clearly. The plot had a good pace with some points of real tension. This book contained insights on a par with those found in more self-consciously highbrow literature.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

After You’ve Gone

The Outlander

This is my review of The Outlander by Gil Adamson.

This book creates striking, poetic images of the Canadian wilderness and changing weather. It also captures the human will to survive in adversity, and what it must feel like to hallucinate – begin to die from starvation. The realities of living rough are also well described.

Interwoven with the slow place, and focus on introspection and memory, is the bones of quite a gripping plot. The reader knows from the first few pages that the main character is on the run from the two brothers of the husband she has killed. The reasons for this act of violence, and the details of the crime are leaked out judiciously to maintain the suspense. Even when life seems to be improving for the widow, as she is rather awkwardly called throughout, you know that her pursuers are still on the trail. There is sufficient brutality in the tale for you to be uncertain as to whether it will end happily- the author seems capable of bumping off any of the characters. Also, the widow has a certain ambiguity: she is clearly a flawed character, a kleptomaniac for instance, and her degree of guilt, the strength of extenuating circumstances, are unclear.

Although this book deserves praise, my main reservations lie in the fact that the author seems uncertain how to fill in the gap between the arresting beginning, and initially exciting but ultimately rather flat and contrived denouement. She peoples the plot with a number of rather unconvincing, two dimensional characters who are too often caricatures, and some rather tedious and uninteresting incidents. At times I was reminded of a feminist take on Huckleberry Finn e.g. the section spent in Frank with the Reverend, but occasionally it smacked of a kind of Western Mills and Boon – I refer in particular to the romantic passages, and the odd encounter with Henry the Indian and his too good to be true wife.

As already implied, I did not care for the ending (which I cannot give away). If I understood it correctly, it seemed like a somewhat gimmicky contrivance. And why did the ridgerunner need to be so called all the time?

I was also unsure about the depth of psychology intended. I think the author liked her main character, the widow, and we were meant to empathise with her. Yet, on one level, she seemed cold to the point of lacking normal emotions. Had she been "frozen" by her upbringing and driven temporarily insane by post-natal trauma? Her husband did not seem "bad enough" to justify killing him! She generally seemed too rational and calculating to have committed this act, as described.

To end on a positive note, some of the descriptions and turns of phrase to reflect on life were beautiful and memorable.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Outlander