This is my review of The Power of the Dog (Vintage Classics) by Thomas Savage.

In 1920s Montana, brothers Phil and George devote their lives to running their prosperous cattle ranch. Despite living and working so closely together, even to the point of sharing a bedroom, the two could not be more different. George is stolid, dull, but decent and kind. Phil, a brilliant literary creation apparently modelled on the author’s step-uncle, is a complex, multi-talented man of intriguing contrasts: intellectually brilliant, musical, athletic, skilful with his hands, Phil has not only rejected the glowing career he might have pursued, but insists on wearing the rough clothes of a working man and resists any kind of change, scorning for example the cars which disrupt the flow of cattle to the railhead. For reasons continually implied, but never fully revealed, he has twisted his sensitivity and insight into the winkling out of any weakness in the creatures he hunts: “He knew if a timber wolf was lame, noted the fainter print of the favoured paw in dust or snow. In the sudden elbow of a stream where the baffled water turned upon itself he watched the trout ‘conceal’ itself in the shadow of a rock”. The same applies to those unfortunate enough to cross his path, subjecting them to merciless jibes if the mood takes him. So, when lonely George marries a young widow whom Phil regards as a socially inferior gold-digger, he sets out with typical obsessive patience to destroy her. The tale is bound to end in tragedy, but for whom?

By turns nostalgic, poignant or ironic, this gripping psychological study is very-well constructed so that, on reflection at the sudden unexpected ending, a trail of previous random details reveal themselves as clues and slot neatly into place. All the main characters are fully developed, with a depth and subtlety which even evokes some sympathy for Phil. Digressions on the way are as striking as the main plot, in their vivid descriptions of the terrain, and the portraits of minor characters, such as the Indian, unable to give up his pride over being the son of a chief, who leaves his poverty-stricken reservation without permission in order to show his own son the fertile lands of his youth: “the fields thick with purple lupine that waved and billowed in the breeze like water….the dark gray thunderheads that reared high over the mountains and lumbered like grizzlies across the sky, heavy with water”.

The fact that so much of the novel seems to have been based on Thomas Savage’s own experiences of belonging to a large ranching family gives the book its authenticity. It is a pity that this book was not hailed as a masterpiece when it first appeared in 1967. Perhaps even now that it has been “rediscovered”, too many readers will be put off by the instances of at best cavalier and at worst cruel treatment of animals in the book, starting with a graphic description of castrating calves in the opening paragraph: but this is all part of the reality of a life which the author knew first-hand.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of The Followers by Rebecca Wait.

Drifting through life in a state of apathy bordering on depression, single parent Stephanie becomes dominated sexually and mentally by the magnetic Nathaniel who persuades her to join what turns out to be his religious cult, housed in a rundown, isolated moorland property called The Ark. This is much to the disgust of Stephanie’s spiky and perceptive twelve-year-old daughter Judith. Stephanie’s decision contributes to a chain of events leading to a shocking climax.

Following the common device of hooking the reader with a flash forward in the first chapter, we are introduced at the outset to a dysfunctional young adult Judith, reluctantly visiting Stephanie in jail where she is serving what sounds like a life sentence for a crime which has left her daughter understandably emotionally scarred. For quite a large part of the book, I would have preferred not to know this in advance, but was eventually won over by the author’s effective interweaving of “Before” and “After”.

Rebecca Wait is skilful in gradually revealing the chain of events, and in showing us the characters’ personalities and often confused thoughts. I was particularly struck by her portrayal of children, not just Judith on the verge of adolescence, but also those born and raised in the Ark who have been taught to view as an evil “Gehenna” the outside world which they have never experienced, even to the extent of walking down a street or watching TV. The gulf between the two worlds is continually shown through the by turns humorous and poignant interactions between Judith and Moses, the boy of her age who desperately wants to be her friend whilst clinging to the comfort of the beliefs she continually questions.

This is not merely a tension-building, gripping page turner but also a psychological drama exploring such issues as responsibility for one’s actions, dealing with conflicting values and guilt, and the extent of one’s duty to other people. I found the build-up to the climax too melodramatic, but it is arguably only reasonable that at this stage all the adults have become at least a little mad. Even given that Nathaniel had a talent for picking out weak and suggestible people, I was unconvinced that "the followers" would accept so meekly the increasingly erratic and extreme Nathaniel’s religious cant and manipulative ploys, but agree that there are plenty of real-world examples of a never fully explicable willingness to be controlled. It was chilling to read how the children had been conditioned, partly through knowing no other life.

Although most of the characters are insufficiently developed, one could argue that the story has been pared down to make a greater impact, leaving readers free, unlike the "followers", to reflect and draw conclusions for themselves.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon.

When a middle-aged woman disappears from a suburban road, gossips fear the worst, but her neighbours are embroiled in a rising tide of panic and recrimination as they fear that a guilty secret from the past is about to be exposed. Prompted by the vicar’s sententious platitude that “if God exists in a community, no one will be lost”, bossy ten-year-old Grace and her compliant but underestimated friend Tilly pose as helpful brownies to gain access to neighbours’ homes in order to check whether or not God is there. Quite how this is going to help the situation is never made quite clear.

The story is set in the long, hot summer of 1976 which a number of writers have used as a backdrop to weird goings-on. Despite some novel if overwritten images –– “the sky was ironed into an acid blue, and even the clouds had fallen from the edges, leaving a faultless page of summer above our heads”, “the avenue…bewildered by the heat” – I grew weary of descriptions of the unrelenting drought, but this may have been the author’s intention. The focus on “contemporary accuracy” with references to Harold Wilson and his pipe, “Are you being served?”, “The Good Life”, Patsy Cline singing “Crazy”, “The Drifters” and “Angel Delight” often seems contrived.

At first, the chapters written from Alice’s viewpoint seem the strongest, until the contrast begins to jar between her childishness and some implausibly insightful comments: observing a Mrs Morton she reflects “Early widowhood had forced her to weave a life from other people’s remnants, and she had baked and minded and knitted herself into a glow of indispensability.” In order to drip-feed the reader with the details of what is really afoot in “The Avenue”, Joanna Cannon has to resort to a number of different viewpoints, all in the third person and often involving flashbacks. This often makes the storyline seem fragmented, with the highly stereotyped adults soon becoming tedious caricatures. Trite comments apart, there is a good deal of humour in the book, but the hypocrisy and prejudice of the adults is laid on with many trowels.

As the story labours its way to a surprisingly abrupt and anticlimatic ending, I was probably wrong to be irritated by a number of small errors: the “six week” school summer holiday runs from early July through to September, starting on July 5th, at least a fortnight earlier than I remember to be the case. Dahlias bloom in July alongside freesias – perhaps a quirkish effect of the heat. The persecuted Walter Bishop has several cedar trees in his front garden, something I have never seen outside a stately home. My main problem was being unable to form a clear sense of place – a mental picture of the estate, somewhere a bus ride from Nottingham. At various points, we are told about terraces and a corner shop, but houses in the Avenue have garages and sound detached. Lace-curtained windows of kitchens and “living rooms” both seem to overlook the road plus the houses seem to have “sitting rooms” as well. Here, an alcoholic single mother lives close to a property manager. The neighbours mostly seem to have known each other from childhood but are they working or middle class? You need to know this about a community in the UK. And, although some appear to have jobs, how is it that they all seem able to converge on a dramatic scene at the drop of a hat?

It’s the fantasy land of a children’s story in what purports to be an adult novel. The “genres” are all mixed up but in the end it proves to be a lightweight, by turns sad, funny, sentimental, unsubtle psychological novel. A poignant situation and any sense of real suspense are both blunted by a storyline which descends into tongue-in-cheek parody – to give it the benefit of the doubt – particularly when the neighbours gather in their deckchairs to watch over the creosote image of Jesus which has appeared on a drainpipe.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon.

When a middle-aged woman disappears from a suburban road, gossips fear the worst, but her neighbours are embroiled in a rising tide of panic and recrimination as they fear that a guilty secret from the past is about to be exposed. Prompted by the vicar’s sententious platitude that “if God exists in a community, no one will be lost”, bossy ten-year-old Grace and her compliant but underestimated friend Tilly pose as helpful brownies to gain access to neighbours’ homes in order to check whether or not God is there. Quite how this is going to help the situation is never made quite clear.

The story is set in the long, hot summer of 1976 which a number of writers have used as a backdrop to weird goings-on. Despite some novel if overwritten images –– “the sky was ironed into an acid blue, and even the clouds had fallen from the edges, leaving a faultless page of summer above our heads”, “the avenue…bewildered by the heat” – I grew weary of descriptions of the unrelenting drought, but this may have been the author’s intention. The focus on “contemporary accuracy” with references to Harold Wilson and his pipe, “Are you being served?”, “The Good Life”, Patsy Cline singing “Crazy”, “The Drifters” and “Angel Delight” often seems contrived.

At first, the chapters written from Alice’s viewpoint seem the strongest, until the contrast begins to jar between her childishness and some implausibly insightful comments: observing a Mrs Morton she reflects “Early widowhood had forced her to weave a life from other people’s remnants, and she had baked and minded and knitted herself into a glow of indispensability.” In order to drip-feed the reader with the details of what is really afoot in “The Avenue”, Joanna Cannon has to resort to a number of different viewpoints, all in the third person and often involving flashbacks. This often makes the storyline seem fragmented, with the highly stereotyped adults soon becoming tedious caricatures. Trite comments apart, there is a good deal of humour in the book, but the hypocrisy and prejudice of the adults is laid on with many trowels.

As the story labours its way to a surprisingly abrupt and anticlimatic ending, I was probably wrong to be irritated by a number of small errors: the “six week” school summer holiday runs from early July through to September, starting on July 5th, at least a fortnight earlier than I remember to be the case. Dahlias bloom in July alongside freesias – perhaps a quirkish effect of the heat. The persecuted Walter Bishop has several cedar trees in his front garden, something I have never seen outside a stately home. My main problem was being unable to form a clear sense of place – a mental picture of the estate, somewhere a bus ride from Nottingham. At various points, we are told about terraces and a corner shop, but houses in the Avenue have garages and sound detached. Lace-curtained windows of kitchens and “living rooms” both seem to overlook the road plus the houses seem to have “sitting rooms” as well. Here, an alcoholic single mother lives close to a property manager. The neighbours mostly seem to have known each other from childhood but are they working or middle class? You need to know this about a community in the UK. And, although some appear to have jobs, how is it that they all seem able to converge on a dramatic scene at the drop of a hat?

It’s the fantasy land of a children’s story in what purports to be an adult novel. The “genres” are all mixed up but in the end it proves to be a lightweight, by turns sad, funny, sentimental, unsubtle psychological novel. A poignant situation and any sense of real suspense are both blunted by a storyline which descends into tongue-in-cheek parody – to give it the benefit of the doubt – particularly when the neighbours gather in their deckchairs to watch over the creosote image of Jesus which has appeared on a drainpipe.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of The Green Road: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016 by Anne Enright.

With her by turns staccato and poetic prose, wry wit and Pinteresque dialogues of unfinished sentences which reflect how people both fail to communicate but also do not always need to use words when they have lived together for years and shared common experiences, Ann Enright has an original angle on the well-worn theme of Irish family life.

In this case, the four Madigan children have grown up in a small west coast town close to the beautiful green road “famed in song and story” which runs across the Burren above the beach at Fanore and the Flaggy Shore – all of which can be found on Google images if the lilting names catch one’s interest enough.

The first part, “Leaving” is like a series of short stories, each from the perspective of a different sibling over a span of twenty-five years, with a final focus on Rosaleen, complex, difficult and probably too inconsistent and self-absorbed to be a “good mother”, and arousing a mixture of frustrated love and irritable resentment in her children. Ann Enright seems most authentic when writing about Ireland, which is where Rosaleen and her two daughters have allowed themselves to be “trapped”, all feeling a sense of unfulfilment to which they respond in different ways. “Impossible to please”, “Rosaleen was tired of waiting. She had been waiting, all her life, for something that never happened.”

Ann Enright’s experimental, risk-taking approach does not always work for me, but many observations and passages strike home: as Rosaleen walks along the Green Road in the dark, “a delicacy of stars above her”……….“The sea was huge for her. The light gentle and great. The fields indifferent , as she walked up the last of the hill. Bust she got a slightly sarcastic feel off the ditches, there was no other word for it – sprinkles of derision – like the countryside was laughing at her.”

Rosaleen’s two sons are more pro-active in their quest for an elusive goal, with Dan going “everywhere”, and Emmet “everywhere else” abroad. I was gripped by the strong sense of place and build-up of tension in the drama of aid-worker Emmet’s over-sensitive girlfriend Alice breaking a taboo in Mali by taking a stray dog into their home. Dan’s spell as a lapsed priest flirting with the gay art scene in New York struck me as too contrived, perhaps partly because of the arch tone of the unnamed first person narrator, a device not used elsewhere in the book, partly because it seemed overloaded with caricatures of over-sexed, drugged up young men caught up in an early ‘90s panic over Aids, all based on a woman’s second-hand research of the explicit details of being a male gay.

“Part Two”, “Coming Home” is more of a novella focused on a fraught Christmas reunion. Although, plotwise, not much happens, in terms of sudden sharp insights, comical or poignant situations and brilliant sentences one would love to have written, it is absorbing and demands to be read again.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of Oscar et la Dame rose by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.

After an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant, ten-year-old Oscar puts the adults in his world to shame by the courage with which he faces the prospect of death. He is scornful of his distraught parents and sharp enough to perceive that his surgeon sees him primarily as an embarrassing and frustrating reminder of his own professional failure. The only “grown up” to offer Oscar some comfort is the eccentric hospital visitor “Mamie Rose”. Her suspect reminiscences of life as a successful wrestler, and the advice that Oscar should try writing letters to God, suggest that she may not be any more honest than the other adults, but combined with her idea of a game by which Oscar could imagine that each day represents a decade of the life (which he will not in reality experience), these ploys both entertain Oscar, and help him to grasp some vital points about living which it can take most of us years to understand, if at all.

Apart from Mamie Rose’s frankly tedious anecdotes, I found it implausible that Oscar would be so insightful about, for instance the “mid-life crisis”, and his romance with another patient, “Betty Blue”, is a bit mawkish at times. The most poignant moment for me occurs when, as a “very old man”, Oscar is struck by the beauty of nature, and realises that each day is to be appreciated as unique.

A philosopher by training, Schmitt uses quirky humour and an original approach to make just about tolerable a parable of how we could make more sense of life, and deal better with death. The focus on a young person’s death makes the situation all the more moving, but has relevance for us all.

Although I disliked this story at first, I was won over by the final pages, and was left with the sense that Schmitt has succeeded in provoking thoughts which stay in one’s mind. I believe this is studied in French schools and judging by reviews, it appeals to young people and is likely to spark discussion.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of The Ladies’ Paradise (The Ladies’ Delight) – Unabridged by Émile Zola.

I gave this 5 stars in the original French, but found this English version useful only to check a few points, like the names of fabrics!

Since I associate Zola with grim, unrelenting tales of exploited coal miners, the theme of a Paris department store dedicated to delighting women seemed at first uncharacteristically tame and frothy. In fact, behind its plate glass and eye-catching displays, “Au Bonheur des Dames” proves to be as dominating and exploitative as any industrial factory, its shop assistants, clerks, packers and delivery men mere cogs in the machinery, as controlled as any industrial worker, on the mass production line of retailing.

Beneath his charm and apparent empathy with women and their love of fashion, inspired entrepreneur Octave Mouret is in fact a cynical manipulator: he is not only a casual seducer, but views his female customers as an inexhaustible captive market to be dazzled by his marketing ploys and all too readily induced to fritter away their husbands’ money on the material goods he displays with such alluring skill. His sponsor Baron Hartmann warns him that one day women will “get their revenge” but Mouret is knocked off course where he least expects it by the sweet, unsophisticated but stoical country girl Denise Baudu, who is quick to grasp that the department store is a part of inexorable progress, but steadfastly sticks to her personal principles.

In vivid if wordy descriptions, Zola describes how the magnificent store looms over the surrounding gloomy alleys, further cutting them out from the sun. These are the haunts of the resentful traditional shopkeepers who persist in their stubborn and ultimately fruitless struggle to survive, when they cannot realistically hope to compete with Mouret’s drastic discounts and huge variety of goods. The scale and brightness of his store, with the light pouring in through glazed roofs, and the Lowry-style bustle on the metal staircases and galleries, as far as the eye can see, creates the idea of a self-contained community, which Zola sometimes calls a “phalanstery” after the C19 ideas of Charles Fourier for a utopian community.

Yet, although the workers are housed and fed in a paternalistic way, the shop is far from utopian: staff are not allowed to have visitors in their rooms, women have to leave when they become pregnant, and in the summer months of slack demand, assistants are dismissed for the slightest imagined misdemeanour. Not surprisingly, they often resort to scams to swindle the store, and the smallest rumour or incident is exaggerated and spread on the gossip grapevine. Although the customers look down on the assistants who must be ladylike without being accepted as ladies, they often behave badly, not merely overspending on luxuries and abusing the “returns” policy, but even resorting to shop-lifting.

Just as the store seems very topical in these times of zero hours contracts, class divides and the ravages of competition, Zola’s characters are real in their flaws and complexity. There are also some moments of comedy amongst the exhausting materialism of the store contrasting with the suffering of the impoverished small shopkeepers.

The novel is best read in French, although the exhaustive lists of specialised fabrics and some of the dated procedures forced me to resort to English translations. These vary a good deal in quality, so it is advisable to check them out before purchase. Some come with interesting introductions, to be read afterwards to avoid spoilers. This kindle translation is far too literal – hence very stilted and wooden in places. Also, not easy to read in conjunction with French kindle version!!

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland.

Oppressed by the “captivity” of a job in Sydney, roaring in his ears “with its terrible pandemonious laughter”, Macauley returns to his life on the country roads of New South Wales, leaving his wife alone for long periods with their child. He is a stereotype of the macho Australian male, relishing a punch up or a drink with his mates, but he is also a good worker who has no difficulty finding work on sheep-shearing stations, building sites or sawmills. When he catches his wife in bed with another man, his first impulse is to snatch up his daughter, at least partly in revenge, and take her along on his travels, where she soon becomes a hindrance, a “shiralee” or burden far heavier to bear than his swag. The trouble is that her unshakeable trust in him , dogged affection despite his continual rebuffs and impressive resilience awake his conscience and emotional response to someone other than himself.

Macauley is portrayed as a flawed hero, virtually raping his girlfriend when still in his teens, irresponsibly putting at risk his daughter’s welfare, and neglecting his understandably resentful wife. Yet his basic decency is not in doubt, together with his need to be true to himself. As the old man called the “oracle of the north” assesses: “there’s a lot of good in you, but it’s buried deep and it’s twisted..like a wild animal that has to be coaxed out into the light and tamed…does not come willingly because it is frightened for itself. Don’t lead two lives or both will be unhappy: lead one and lead it well”.

Published in the mid-1950s, this novel has the authentic ring of the author’s own experiences of life as an itinerant worker in his youth. What could be a sentimental and schmaltzy tale is avoided by an often tense and unpredictable chain of events, leavened with wry humour, and the distinctive style which conveys a strong sense of place, often daring in its play with stream of consciousness, as when Macauley recalls his brief attempt to live in the city and unwise decision to marry. The book is worth reading for the raw, fearlessly passionate prose alone, which sometimes goes over the top, untrammelled by any editor.

“The sky was overcast, all in a yeasty motion of sombrous hues ever darkening the earth. The lightning jiggled, sharp and brilliant as a blind shooting up against daylight in a black room. The ground shook with the rumble of tumbling thunder. The wind whuddered across the waste, scattering the roly-poly, not unlike a lot of sheep making a stupid run for it…The rain came with a few big drops, a hesitant rehearsal; then they heard it roaring over the plain, and saw it coming, a wall of grey between sky and earth.”

Recently revived, this novel reminds me of Steinbeck, and deserves to be better known.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of The Revenant by Michael Punke.

I was impressed by the visceral and bleakly beautiful film “The Revenant”, the tale of a man’s survival against the odds in the American wilderness of the 1820s, having being abandoned by the two members of a fur-trapping team paid to care for him after he had been mauled by a grizzly bear. Curious to see how the somewhat ambiguous ending compared with that of the book on which the film is based, I discovered that the written medium gives scope for a much more detailed and complex, in some ways more realistic storyline, which does not need to be padded out with images of the dead Indian squaw who haunts the injured man Hugh Glass’s memory, nor with a murdered son to feed his revenge against the men who wronged him, nor any implausibly long battle with the bear, nor ploys like climbing inside the body of a dead animal, having removed the entrails, for cover. Instead, in addition to the predictable swashbuckling battles with Indians, wolves and the elements, there is also some strong character development, interwoven with details of the history of the period and descriptions of, how, for instance, men could construct “bullboats” out of buffalo hide, sewn together, stretched over frames of willow branches and caulked with grease to provide shallow-draft craft to punt down-river.

A number of characters really existed, including Glass who really survived a bear attack, Bridger who was one of those abandoning him but lived to become a revered pioneer, Ashley who was the ill-fated leader of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to name only a few. Understandably mainly hostile to the European interlopers, the Indians, some alleged to be cannibals like the fierce Arikara tribe, were a continuous threat, sabotaging the trappers by stealing their horses when not firing arrows. The map of the famous explorer Clark, trained in cartography, “was the marvel of its day, surpassing in detail and accuracy anything produced before it” but when he at last got sight of a copy, Glass was most interested in details added recently which would help him to travel back to his team’s base at Fort Union, and he in turn was “peppered” with questions as to any information he could provide about lengths of rivers between forks and useful landmarks: in this haphazard, painstaking way, vital data was pieced together.

There are some striking descriptions of the landscape: the lone, twisted pine growing from a crack where a seed dropped by a sparrow lodged far above the pines, straight as arrows, used by the Indians to construct their teepees; “the aching presence…magnetic force” of the Rockies, “the snowy mountain peaks, virgin white against the frigid blue sky”

Just occasionally my interest flagged as Glass used his resilience and ingenuity to overcome yet another setback, only to be knocked back yet again by some piece of ill-luck, yet the novel works wells as both an adventure yarn and an insight into why and how the early pioneers risked their lives to develop the west of America.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars