This is my review of Swimming Home by Deborah Levy.

A beautiful, mentally sick young woman is caught swimming naked in the pool of a French villa rented by a famous poet, his dysfunctional little family, his wife's old school friend and her unappealing husband. Why is the young woman invited to stay when this is so clearly unwise? Just what form will the inevitable resultant tragedy take? Or will it simply prove to be a lightweight farce?

Although this may not be an entirely original scenario, there is plenty of scope for a compelling drama for which the author creates a cast of potentially interesting characters. The plot is revealed obliquely, in short chapters with continually changing viewpoints, disjointed scenes like fragments of glass which are often quite surreal. This approach may be what led to the Man Booker shortlisting, but combined with a style that flits in a sometimes jarring fashion between parody and caricature, psychological drama and even a touch of magic realism, the result left me feeling unengaged with and unmoved by the main characters, although I thought the adolescent Nina and the lonely old doctor observing them all from her balcony were well drawn.

At first, I was annoyed by the author's habit of telling the reader too soon and too baldly what is going to happen. I later realised that she is often setting red herrings in our path, which could be quite clever, except that the climax proves too abrupt and inadequately foreshadowed and explained. Then the final chapter seems too much of a sentimental footnote.

I think the book may improve on a second reading, but it was seriously marred for me by a lack of subtlety in the development and some surprisingly gauche prose, which read as if the author wrote what first came into her head without any reflection and redrafting. These factors would have caused me to give up midway if the novel had not been so short and Booker-listed. I believe that Deborah Levy has achieved success as a playwright and perhaps this story would work well on the stage, although it would be hard to create the sets for some of the locations which add flavour to the story.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif.

Lonely and at a loose end after her return to Cairo, Amal assists the thirty-something American Isabel Parkman to translate some of the papers left by her great-grandmother Lady Anna Winterbourne who married an Egyptian nationalist a century before at a time of great political unrest when Egypt was still "under the yoke" of the British Empire. Fascinated by Anna, Amal begins to reconstruct her story, although it is often hard to know where fantasy ends and real scenes from the past begin. To a lesser extent, she applies the same approach to Isabel's meetings with Amal's suave elder brother with whom she is becoming infatuated.

The prospect of gaining a perspective on Egyptian history and politics seen through the eyes of an Egyptian woman, the author Ahdaf Soueif, is what drew me to this book, although I agree that the combination of somewhat soft-centred romance with serious historical and political comment may cause it to fall between two stools. The theme of examining love affairs between different cultures across generations against a complex political background is very ambitious, and perhaps the price paid is that the reader's attention is stretched over too many people, rather than engaged with a few fully developed central characters.

The author's style may be typically middle eastern and therefore all part of the experience to be gained, but I found my growing impatience with it a real barrier to reading the book. Despite my strong desire to like this novel, I felt smothered by its embroidered wordiness, the often banal dialogues and overdetailed descriptions as a substitute for dramatic action, the convoluted structure clanking back and forth in time. At one point Soueif goes off at a tangent on the nature of colour and the impossibility of defining the point at which, say, blue becomes green. Why not simply express this fascinating idea in a few pithy words on the lines of, "How strange that one cannot see exactly when blue turns into green"?

This is, as a reviewer described another of her books, an acquired taste. If you enjoy long, slow, rambling, gentle even in the midst of violence, reflective family sagas with frequent little digressions this may well appeal. Also, apart from its length, this could be a good choice for a book group as it provides scope for discussion of both plot and style, and is likely to divide opinion.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of A New Life (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Bernard Malamud.

I owe my discovery of Bernard Malamud to Jonathan Raban's quotations in "Driving Home" from "A New Life" to capture vivid impressions of the landscape in the area round Seattle, such as the wide skies in which the clouds are "a clash of horses and volcanoes".

Drawing on his own experience of working in Oregon Community College, Malamud introduces us to city bred Levin, who tries to escape from New York, where a sense of failure drove him to drink, by seeking a new life teaching English in the parochial world of a vocational college in the mythical state of Cascadia. Malamud describes with wry humour Levin's frustration over being forced to teach grammar from the soul-destroying primer which has enriched the ageing head of department who is so dime-pinching with his staff.

After a halting and wimpish start, Levin begins to gain confidence, but it is not until events begin to unravel that he realises that he has lost the sense of "being in control" which he briefly enjoyed. We sense from the outset that things are unlikely to work out well for the accident-prone, awkward Levin. Acute loneliness will drive him to unwise liaisons, and his desire to achieve something in his life will cause him to stand out from the herd at the wrong time and in the wrong way. Yet, by describing Levin's personality and thoughts in such detail, Malamud brings him alive as a man for whom we can often feel sympathy, even respect.

"Flight flew in him. He wasn't fleeing yet fled, unable to determine whom he was running from, himself or X. He blamed the flight, paradoxically a pursuit of feeling, on the fact that too much had happened in too short a time."

Published in 1961, the writing is on the cusp between an older style of presenting events in strict order, with detailed explanations, and a more modern directness about e.g. sex, and passages of near poetry, with a touch of "stream of consciousness". Malamud has a knack for comical situations, all the more so for being unexpected, his dialogues are realistic, and his observation of people razor sharp.

In the well-constructed plot, incidents along the way return to haunt Levin, creating at times a real sense of tension. You know that the most you can hope for is a bittersweet ending, but you care about Levin and want him to achieve a new life, even if not what he had planned.

This is a true classic, one of the novels worth keeping to reread and extract all Malamud's wisdom. I think he may be one of the greatest C20 American writers, yet one of those most at risk of being forgotten.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics) by Elizabeth Taylor.

This well-structured tale of an elderly widow seeing out her days in the 1960s as one of a group of lonely and under-occupied paying guests at a London Hotel may not sound a very engaging theme. Everything hinges on Elizabeth Taylor's renowned skill as a novelist. From the outset I was struck by examples of her original, acerbic wit, and strong sense of the humour of the incongruous. We are told that our heroine Mrs Palfrey "would have made a distinguished-looking man and sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked like some famous general in drag." She had a "magnificent calm" and was "unruffled" to find her first home as a young bride "more than damp" from the floods "with a snake wound round the banisters to greet her".

Depressed but stoical in the company of the small-minded, gossipy group of paying guests, who tend to use cruelty, alcohol or eavesdrop "with ears sharpened by malice" to assuage their own loneliness, Mrs Palfrey is saved by a chance meeting with Ludo, a charming and essentially decent young penniless writer. For all her conventional past, Mrs Palfrey is attracted by the young man's natural sense of mischief and vitality, without losing her commonsense. United by a surprising and unexpected friendship, they do each other good turns, although would Mrs Palfrey be quite so well-disposed to Ludo if she knew she was a source of notes for his first novel based on her own comment on the Claremont Hotel, "We aren't allowed to die here"?

The book is inevitably a little dated in reflecting the prejudices of early sixties Britain, but any real weakness lies in scenes like the fraught drinks party which descends into pure farce. Although witty, this lacks the subtle observations and real insights into the mixture of small joys, sorrows and missed opportunities of ordinary life which mark most of the novel.

Despite the room for optimism in an ending which leaves something to your imagination, this is a sad book. It is not only a portrayal of old age as a time when one feels useless, superfluous and often in pain, but also a comment on how an exaggerated concern with convention and respectability can limit one's life unduly. Elizabeth Taylor died comparatively young in her early sixties, and was perhaps glad to escape the darker or drearier aspects of ageing.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of The Rum Diary (Bloomsbury Classic Reads) by Hunter S. Thompson.

Written when the author was little more than twenty and based on personal experience, this is the tale of Paul Kemp, cynical, hard-drinking journalist who takes up a post on the San Juan Daily News, a rag produced on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.

At first I was reluctant to read this book group choice, imagining it would be a prolonged drunken rant. Although said to be an example of "gonzo" journalism – "bizarre, crazy, exaggerated, subjective and fictionalized style" to use a dictionary definition, from the outset I was struck by Hunter Thompson's remarkably spare and lucid, razor-sharp style ( for one who is rarely sober) and the sense of anticipation that something interesting is going to happen. In fact, the book is short enough for one not to feel let down by the slightness of the plot which is not really the point.

As you might hope for a reporter, Thompson is very strong on creating a sense of place : "old Spanish Puerto Rico..where one part of the city looked like Tampa (Florida) and the other ….like part of a medieval asylum". The whole paragraph is much better than this but too long to quote. Or there is the description of his drive to a friend's house during which he encounters for the first time the native Puerto Rico: "I was not prepared for the sand road.. I went the whole way in low gear, running over land crabs, creeping… through deep stagnant puddles, bumping and jolting in ruts and chuckholes…"

This is a backwater that attracts conmen, petty crooks, failures and drifters, like Kemp – all at times subjected to his remarkably perceptive analysis for such a young man. The author describes very effectively the kind of disillusion with small town America that drives a man to travel the world, uncertain what he is seeking, often making astute observations, but always a rootless outsider.

At times I grew tired of the drunkenness, which led to some unsavoury if realistic incidents: the looting of a liquor store during a carnival, which reminded me of the UK city riots of 2011, or a man casually beating up his girlfriend. I could not work out whether the chauvinism displayed to some extent by Kemp and even more so by his wild colleague Yeamon was an unconscious product of the 1950s or meant to be a parody of male insensitivity.

I could not say that I liked this book, but the quality of the writing impressed me. I could have wished he had applied this talent to a less drink-sodden world. He would probably have said that the rum helped him to write. Yet he was all too aware of the "quiet deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks, the lonely sound of time passing" and perhaps being wasted, but he lacked the will power to avoid this.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Old Filth by Jane Gardam.

The misleading title "Old Filth" refers to the nickname derived from international lawyer Edward Feathers' joke on himself: "Failed In London Try Hong Kong". The book begins with him in old age knocked off course by the sudden death of his wife Betty. The chapters, each of which is often a short story in its own right, then shift back and forth in time from the death of Filth's mother giving birth to him in Malaya, leaving his father, still traumatised from the First World War, unable to give him any love. Imaginative, original, often very funny, the underlying sad theme of this story is how the "Raj orphans", shipped back to England "for their health" were often neglected, even abused, and left unable to form sound emotional relationships.

From the first page, you feel in the hands of a very skilful writer, confident in her ability to write on a theme which may at first seem unappealing. However, I was actively hooked from the point at which Filth discovers that his worst enemy in the legal world has come to live next door to him. Some of the humour arises from whole scenes, such as Filth's hair-raising drive across England to meet a cousin – more of an expedition for him than finding his "way round the back streets of Hong Kong and the New Territories". At other times it is more subtle, arising in dialogues and little asides. Gardam is adept at letting the true, often colourful or moving aspects of Filth's supposedly dull life slip out gradually, but you have to concentrate hard not to miss something. A dark undisclosed secret haunts the book with the anticipation of some final climactic revelation, from which the fact you can guess it long beforehand does not detract unduly.

To nitpick over mild criticisms, there is a slight inconsistency in the style in that some chapters are pure farce, and therefore entertaining rather than moving, whereas others are a seamless blend of comedy and poignancy. I found the "Albert Ross" character very unconvincing, and the details in the last part of the book seem rather rushed compared to the beginning.

Yet, overall, it is well-constructed, a bold attempt by a sensitive female writer to enter into the mindset of an emotionally repressed, highly logical but unimaginative man, resulting in an unusual and original read. I shall look out for more of Jane Gardam's work, starting with "The Man in the Wooden Hat" which tells the story of Betty's life. This sequel may also explain some of the gaps in "Old Filth".

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Pure by Andrew Miller.

This unusual and imaginative take on the France of 1785, with unrest brewing in the streets of Paris and mines of the north, introduces us to Jean-Baptiste Baratte, the insecure young engineer from the provinces who is given the unwanted task he cannot refuse – the removal of the ancient cemetery of les Innocents, which is polluting the air and soil, threatening the cellars of the surrounding houses. It is not just a question of making the air “pure” but also on another level of relieving France of the corruption of the monarchy and the dead hand of the church, as indicated by one of Miller’s well-chosen quotations: “The time will come when the sun will shine only on free men who have no master but their reason”. We know, of course, that the imminent French Revolution will be flawed by the atrocities of men like Robespierre, just as we can appreciate our foreknowledge of the fate of the kindly Doctor Guillotin who assists Baratte.

The detailed account of the macabre operation of clearing bones rotting metres deep is saved from becoming too oppressive by Miller’s ability to create vivid pictures of the life of the Paris streets, combined with a cast of colourful characters, not to mention the slightly sinister cat Ragout, equally at home in a charnel house as on a lady’s lap.

Although some readers may be troubled by odd events which may be hard to explain, at least they provide scope for discussion. This is quite a dark read at times, with unsettling whiffs of necrophilia, yet also soft-centred, as in the portrayal of the perhaps too good to be true, refined tart Heloise. I found a good deal of wry humour in the book, such as the earnest and upright Jean-Baptiste allowing himself to get caught up in a drunken escapade to paint political slogans on city walls, calling himself “Beche”, but keeping shtum and feeling vaguely proud when the name “Beche” continues to appear for months afterwards.

Sometimes I felt Miller is playing to the gallery to boost book sales, but overall this is skilfully plotted, very well-written with many striking images, and some interesting points raised for you to mull over as regards say, how we may be corrupted by unpleasant tasks, how we may sell our souls, humiliate ourselves or others in the pursuit of ambition, and so on.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

 

This is my review of Amongst Women by John McGahern.

Aloof and uncompromising, Moran is disappointed with the independent Ireland for which he has fought, and vents his frustration in an ongoing battle to dominate his children, compliant second wife Rose and even his old friend McQuaid who shares his memories of the past. Perhaps Moran only felt alive in his days as a guerrilla leader, perhaps he was traumatised by some of the brutality in which he was caught up.

Although this is one of those tales in which not much happens, I was soon hooked by McGahern's spare prose and subtle ability to convey a sense of place and of human relationships as he describes in minute detail the nuances of family relationships in the rural Ireland of around 1960. On the one hand, I was repelled by the narrow restrictions, the over-concern with convention and religious rituals. On the other, McGahern makes us aware of the value of family ties, working together on the land, taking pleasure in the small simple things of life, enjoying the familiarity and beauty of the farmland. All this is made more poignant by our knowledge of the transience of this way of life, as inevitably the children leave to make a better living in Dublin or London – or to escape the tyranny of a man whom most of them regards as "always…. the very living centre of all parts of their lives".

Moran's bullying, sarcasm and desire to stand on his dignity and have the last word do not endear him to me. Much of the quiet tragedy of this book is the high price he pays for his behaviour in terms of the loss of his old friend McQuaid, even his eldest son. It is quite hard at times to understand how his stoical wife Rose manages to turn the other cheek.

Highly recommended, this is a thought-provoking and moving read which enhances our understanding of ordinary life, with a wry humour to counter what may sound like the downbeat misery of the theme.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside.

At first I thought this would be a tale of suicides by drowning and disappearances with a possibly supernatural cause, fed by the folktales of northern Norway and the setting on Kvaløya, a real vaguely clover leaf shaped island west of Tromsø, north of the Arctic Circle where in summer the midnight sun drives people to insomnia, hallucinations, even madness.

Then I decided it is an intense psychological study of Liv, a highly intelligent, observant , introspective girl brought up in unusual isolation by her mother, a talented but selfish and coldly objective artist.

In the end, I could not ignore Liv's conviction that an evil spirit or "huldra" is at work in the body of a local girl. Yet, some events remain unexplained or ambiguous, so that you can, if you choose, attribute them to Liv's possible descent into madness.

What impressed me most is the description of Kvaløya, with its sense of the suspension of time as we know it – there is a good deal in this book about reality being an illusion and vice versa, made credible in this location. Burnside is also very skilled at encouraging us to reflect on the nature of our existence – at first it seems odd, even shocking, that a bright girl like Liv has no friends, wanders about for hours on end doing nothing in particular, but her reflections help us to see that in many ways our frantically busy, occupied, materialistic lives may lack real meaning.

Burnside's poetry gives his prose great intensity. There are many striking images: the arctic terns which follow the sun, dipping into the water for silver fish, the blurring of the land, sea and sky into the same colour, a spirit conjured by a folktale evident through "the tremor in a glass", and so on.

When it comes to the analysis of thoughts, with every look and phrase examined from many angles, yet much left cryptic or open to question, his writing can be a little too much to take. Yet, the intensity, combined with some repetition, contribute to the hypnotic quality of the writing.

Minor criticisms are the tendency to tell us what is going to happen, the prologue which seems to me like the statutory hook required by a publisher – and in this case quite misleading as to the nature of the novel – and the shortcomings of the "dramatic climax".

Burnside is a talented writer and much of this is a gripping read, although I felt that the mixture of the pragmatic with the supernatural ultimately does not quite work. If nothing else, he has introduced me to the wonderful paintings of Harald Sohlberg.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer.

My expectations raised by the originality of "The Glass House", this novel proved a disappointment. The adventures of a British woman parachuted into occupied France to work for the Resistance offer the scope for a gripping drama, but it is as if the author has been forced to write for a deadline when he did not feel in the mood.

Why was I so soon and often bored by what should have been by turns exciting and moving? I think it was the lack of a clear evocation of time and place – I never really felt I was in Scotland, or rural France, or Paris during the war of the 1940s. Similarly the characters rarely came alive in my imagination as convincing people. The creation of tension and expression of real feeling are obscured rather than enhanced by a veil of would-be literary writing which stumbles quite often over clunky phrasing. Much of the dialogue is quite dull.

I found myself niggling over minor points, such as the repetition on page 57 (hardback) of "She shrugged the question away". Why did no editor pick this up? Plus the language used in conversation often sounded too modern.

Even when Marian at last gets to France, the narrative drive is too weak to maintain the necessary sense of tension. The potential drama is continually defused by her introspection. This is evident as early as the opening chapter, clearly intended to hook the reader, yet we find her mulling over things like her father's classical allusions which she likes to call illusions when she is about to make her first parachute jump into France! Her lack of motivation to work in Special Operations makes you wonder why on earth she was selected for the role. When a reason is supplied, it seems implausible, and is not sufficiently developed in the plot. Marian does not seem quite real, so I do not care as I should when she is in danger.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars