Richard Ford's novel Canada

Richard Ford is currently one of North America's most esteemed novelists, yet his early career as a writer in the late 1970's was so low on the sales side that he became a teacher, and then a sports writer in order to earn a living. This experience fuelled his first successful novel, entitled (surprise, surprise!) The Sportswriter, which was about a failed novelist turned sportswriter. It was also about family relationships and their dramas: in this case the emotional crisis experienced by the main character following the death of his son. This was in 1986. Ten years later he won both the Pulitzer and the PEN/Faulkner prizes for his novel Independance, which I read a few years ago and loved.

Richard Ford (photo by Claude Truong-Ngoc)

Ford's latest novel Canada, published in 2012, is not about sports of any kind but it is very much about family dramas and their consequences. In fact the main theme could be said to be that of resilience. In this instance it is observed and developed from an adolescent's perspective, following his parents' failure to provide what is generally considered to be a "suitable environment" for young people. The unpredictable consequences of ill-considered acts may, and sometimes do, create havoc down the line. But the point of this book is not so much any form of moral judgment passed on those involved in such acts as an exploration of the miracle and mechanisms of survival for those whose lives are transformed, ostensibly and manifestly for the worse, by irresponsible decisions that others have taken.

The cover of the French edition of this book, which has won the 2013 Femina prize for non-French litterature in France. I read this version, well translated it seems, although I usually choose to read original versions whenever possible.

The story, which I will not relate, develops slowly and with an inexorable quality that lends it a dark weight. The first part sets the scene, the milieu and family situation. After the event that transforms their lives, the second part sees one of the diverging paths of the two children pursued, whilst the other is left. The resulting differences are observed right at the end of the book when brother and sister come together, briefly. This short and final part forms a kind of postscript to show that one, at least, has emerged, more or less unscathed, from the catastrophe. In between, throughout the second part of the book, Dell (the boy) manages to survive other forms of horror via the occasional break and despite constant adversity, coupled with indifference on the part of most adults around him. 

Yet, depite the darkness of reality, the tone has little to do with Dickens. The story is simply told, and in detail, but pathos is put aside. The turn of the narrator's life (Dell narrates his own story) when he emerges towards survival is noted, but not explored. Ford has subtly made the crucial point that it was Dell's will to resume his interrupted education that, together with a couple of lucky encounters, provide the possibility for him to emerge from the catastrophe that befell him at an early age. Interestingly, the two chance encounters that help him on his way out of darkness are with women. Men fail him throughout.

Ford's style is not flamboyant, and, as I have said, avoids pathos. Yet his use of language is fine and precise. He tells a story in an almost flat, matter-of-fact manner, just occasionally opening up to what he himself describes as  "the fabric of affection that holds people close enough together to survive." The book's exploration of its theme is also convincing and questioning, leaving its part to accident, that eternal resource of the story-teller. For me, a feeling strongly emerges from this book that roots are not so much about one's background as what one carries within, like a bonsai tree carries its roots from one pot to another. Dell has been deprived of his traditional "roots" and never feels inclined to return to them. He builds his own, finding his own way in a manner that could not be pre-determined by his family background.

So, read on.....

Light Years, by James Salter

This is the cover of the Penguin Classics edition of James Salter's masterpiece (yes, I can and will call it that), Light Years. It was first published in 1975 and has perhaps had a kind of "slow-burner" career ever since, gaining Salter the often voiced reputation of a "writer"s writer", whatever that may mean. I am not a writer (at least I don't publish litterature), yet I consider this to be one of the very best novels that I have read in a long time. So where does this leave us? Well let's get back to the essence, which is of course the book itself.

James Salter

Light Years, whose French title, "Un Bonheur Parfait" (A Perfect Happiness") is, as so often, a bit offkey and in fact adds an ironical touch that I cannot really detect in the book itself or in its original title, is a book about the gradual decline and dissolution of a relationship, in this case a marital one. It is totally masterly in its incredibly evocative and often slightly allusory descriptions, but it is also quite relentless in the development of its story as the faults, weaknesses and self-delusions of the protagonists wear through the Fitzgerald-like veneer of their apparent happiness. I have read one other book by Salter so far (and I won't be stopping there), which is a cruel tail of an highly erotic but otherwise empty relationship, and is called A Sport and a Pastime. Salter's biographical details as a former US airforce fighter-pilot (in the Korean war) has been well documented and seem to me irrelevant to judgements on his writing, which is simply brilliant.

James Salter as a young man

Salter is a writing craftsman, in the best sense of that term, but is also someone who tackles, head-on but with immense subtlety, the facts of life. Nothing lasts, but, while things do do, life is worth living. Yet one should always beware of appearances that can lull one into taking things for granted. Salter mixes factual descriptions, almost matter-of-fact in their manner, with hugely evocative phrases that just resound inside the reader.I find myself frequently thinking "yes, thats just how it is", whilst discovering a new angle on events, scenes and situations that have a taste of familiarity about them. There is a strange and fascinating mixture of down-to-earth reality and a dream-lile atmosphere through which the protagonists wander and which, in my opinion, is echoed and introduced by the fact that their first names are rather strange. In Light Years, the otherwise fairly ordinary central couple are named Viri (him) and Nedra (her). Not exactly your everyday all-american names for an apparently ordinary middle-class couple (he an architect, she not working) living in a well-to-do suburb north of New York. It is as if their frst names were symbols of their aspirations to something exceptional and unusual, wheras their lives are really quite banal. Viri and Nedra live, in a sense, in a dream world along with their names that come from who-knows-where. The apparent mist of happiness in which they bask gradually dissipates as they age. And yet they continue to dream, and live, and love somehow outside of themselves. To the point where the reader never really knows who they are. They remain absent presences all through the book.

Yes, the story is sad, in a sense. But it is also filled with beauty and the constant reminder that life can be very full, and that emptiness, delusions and missed opportunities are also part of that story.

Read on....  

Churchill, a biography by Sebastian Haffner

I must assume that everybody knows who was Winston Churchill, or at least has an image of the public figue and his war-time legend. Sebastian Haffner is far less well-known, but his short and to-the-point biography of a complex personnage whose life spanned almost a century makes fascinating reading that sheds many a light on little known aspects of the recent history of the western world. And which, without indulging in any of the distasteful "intimate details" side of some modern biographies, also reveals the many contradictions and failures in the behaviour and career of Churchill, without taking away from his unique achievements.

Haffner's excellent short (160 pages) biography of Winston Churchill, first published in English in 2003 by Haus Publishing

My first knowledge of the existence of Haffner (whose real name was Raimund Pretzel, but I will explain this later) came through a radio programme in France that spoke in glowing terms of a book of his called, in its French edition, Journal d'un Allemand, but whose rather different English title is Defying Hitler: A Memoir. I read this book some years ago and it is to me the most brilliant and lucid account of the mechanisms, both social, economic, political and psychological, behind the seemingly inevitable rise to power of Hitler and his gang. Haffner (or rather Pretzel) was a civil servant in the German legislature who, seeing and not accepting the rise of nazism, fled his country in the 1930's and came to England. Alhtough not directly threatened (all things are relative of course and political opponents were either imprisoned or physically eliminated) in Germany as he was not Jewish, he decided that he could do more to hinder Hitler outside his country and he became active in England as a writer, translator and expert on matters German, trying to influence British politicians as to the dangers presented by nazism. He was convinced not only that Hitler was unhinged (he referred to him as "the crank"), but saw also that he was extremely dangerous. And we should not forget, in this context, the strong movement in Britain at that time towards pacifism, appeasement and even,, from some quarters, collaboration with the nazis. In order to protect his family that had stayed in Germany, Pretzel changed his name to Sebastian (the second name of J.S. Bach) Haffner (Mozart's 35th symphony).Yes, nobody has yet fully understood quite how so much savagery could come from a culture that has spawned so rich a cultural universe of music, philosophy, art and litterature. His book on this period of German history was not published in his lifetime but was found in his desk by his inheritors who rightly published it.

Raimund Pretzel, better known as Sebastian Haffner

Haffner's biography of Winston Churchill, a worthy descendant of John Churchill who had been elevated to the rank of Duke of Marlborough in the late 17th century for feats of arms and diplomacy against the Franco-Bavarian alliance during the wars of the Spanish succession, is a masterpiece of concision and is written with the swiftness of a good journalist who has the advantage of an external oberserver's eye, yet one who also knows a lot of the background. Among the suprises for me in this book were Churchill's changing political party allegiances. He started as Conservative, then became a radical Liberal and member of one of Lloyd George's governmants before returning, shortly before the Second World War to the Conservative party who had for long hated him as a renegate. Churchill was very much a politcal maverick, often hot-headed, rarely calculating, and fairly oblivious of what others thought of him. Having hated school and been a dunce in just about every subject except for English, he turned to the army for his career, and also discovered the joys of writing. He was, above and before all, a warrior and an opportunist, without a trace of self-interest. And a considerable writer. 

Another surprise to me in Haffner's account was Chuchill's total lucidity about Soviet Russia's intentions and his strategy to prevent these from becoming reality after the war, as well as his total incapacity to realise this strategy due to England's relative weakness when faced with both America and Russia. And his clear will to sell the English economy and Empire in exchange for American aid and thus save the war. It was the only way to resist Hitler, and he took it without hesitation. But then mathematics and monetary calculation were not Chruchill's forte. His stubborness and detremination to prove his point led him to some decisions that were dire for many people. Just ask the Australian and New Zealanders whom he sent to a certain death at Gallipoli in the First World War, or the Polish whom he abandoned in the next edition. Haffner also hints clearly at the variable nature of Churchill's moods. He would possibly be diagnosed these days as a bipolar, as he oscillated between intense high-energy elation and periods when what Churchill himself described as "the black dog" descended on him.

Since Haffner respectfully avoids prying into Churchill's private life, we learn little about his relationship with his wife Clementine, who very likely was responsible for keeping him on the rails at many times. I can well remember being struck and moved by listening to several of their letters, exchanged during the war years, read on French radio (the excellent France Culture) not long ago when they were published. Their extraordinary mixture of tenderness and open discussion of strategic matters as if these were everyday events like walking the dog was very impressive, but Haffner, unfortunately, did not have access to this material when he wrote his book.

I can strongly recommend this book to anyone vaguely interested in the man Churchill, or in world or British politics of the first half of the 20th century.

Read on .....

The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt

I think that I may well have written before about one of Siri Hustvedt's books and probably it was What I loved, which was marvelous and deeply moving. I have just finished, and for the second time, this book called "The Sorrows of an American".

The fact that I was able to read the book twice within a couple of years and still consider it to be a constant journey of discovery speaks well enough of the density and richness of this book, as of the quality of the writing.

Hustvedt is clearly deeply fascinated by and knowledgeable about many things to do with the brain and its complex workings, as well as the part played by memory and various obsessions on our conscious and unconscious existences.

As a woman writer, she is also able to place herself in the shoes of a male narrator without any difficulty, and she also navigates constantly and interestingly between reality and fantasy, past and present, drama and comedy. The book and its subject matter is intense and yet s easy and fascinating to read. It is often beautiful and moving.

The commentary that can just be seen on my photograph of the cover, by Salman Rushdie, is totally warranted, so, to make it easier for you, I will reproduce it here : "Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom". I agree with him.

Go for this...

and read on...

André Brink and The Rights of Desire

The Rights of Desire is the first book that I have read by the South-African author, André Brink. I have been reading it, off and on, for some weeks now, interspersed with other readings, and have just finished it in a French translation.

Given the contents of this book, I would say that the title seems just a little curious, or rather slightly off the mark, despite the fact that desire (in this case of an older man for a young woman) is very much a part, and indeed one of the main themes of the book. Yet I am not sure that this theme is the central one. The narrator, himself a writer now aged over 60 and living alone, becomes obssessed with a young and slightly unpredictable woman for whom he provides a room in his large and now empty house (his wife is dead and his sons are grown-up and living elsewhere). And much of what happens to him afterwards results more or less from this obsession. But not only, as the theme of contemporary violence in South Africa is perhaps even more central to the way the book develops. My nit-picking with the title is perhaps more about the term "rights". Desire can provide no "rights" over the person desired, and this is clearly born out in the book. So why did Brink choose this title, rather than, say, "The results of desire" or "The powers of desire"? Or indeed something completely different. We will perhaps never know.

Unlike his compatriot Coetzee, about whom I wrote recently on this blog in connection with his published correspondence with Paul Auster, Brink has remained in South Africa where he lives and teaches in Capetown, and has also retained strong links with his mother tongue, Afrikaans. Indeed Brink, along with other authors like Breytenbach, worked within this language to speak out against Apartheid, and one of his novels (Looking into Darkness) was the first to be banned by the Afrikaaner government during this period.

Brink speaks very clearly about the violence that is sadly so much a part of contemporary South African life. Between the gated and guarded houses in Johannisburg and its rampant criminality to the apparently more tranquil Capetown, he makes it clear that there is just as much violence in and around Capetown. Robbery, rape and murder seem to walk the streets and parks, but Brink is not out here for sensationalism: he is an honest observer and weaves these into his story as facts of life that are linked, in all probability, to the dramatic history of the country and to the huge economic disparities that he also mentions as shocking. Personal or not (and surely all novels contain a complex mixture of the personal and the invented), the story he recounts in The Rights of Desire seems to draw on much of his own experience, as a writer, teacher and observer. His own close family has been victim to extreme forms of violence. Corruption among civil servants and incapacity (and/or complicity) of the police are also denounced, and so Brink, having totally opposed Apertheid, remains equally lucid as to the downside of contemporary South Africa, whilst seeming, through his main character, still very reluctant to leave, "because he is here".

Other important characters are a ghost (who is so revealing of the horrific violence and injustices of the past) and Magrieta, the narrator's imposing and incredibly wise housekeeper who has suffered more than her fair share of violence too, but who remains steadfast and philosophical until (almost) the end of the book.

On the desire aspect of title, the ageing narrator's desire for the younger woman, Tessa, is described both openly and subtly. She is young (about 30), free and beautiful, but also lost and given to mythomania. Ruben, the retired teacher and writer, is refined and complexed, but is also able, in his lucid moments, to face the facts of the situation, without being at any time able to fully understand the object of his love. His behaviour towards Tessa oscillates to the rhythm of the ambiguity of the situation: he acts at times like a father towards her, at others like a jealous and rejected lover.They also have a friendship, of sorts, depite the destruction that she causes in his life. In a way, the best title might have been "The destructions of desire".   

I may well read more of Brink's work

Read on....

Victoria Iphigenia Warshawski (aka V.I.), a character by Sara Paretsky

To start with, a bio quote to set some of the background story behind this latest Paretsky crime novel, Breakdown, that I just found so hard to put down.

"Before there was Lisbeth Salander or Stephanie Plum, there was V I Warshawski. Sara Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world in 1982 when she introduced V.I. in Indemnity Only. By creating a believable investigator with the grit and the smarts to tackle problems on the mean streets, Paretsky challenged a genre in which women typically were either vamps or victims. Hailed by critics and readers, Indemnity Only was followed by fifteen (now actually 16 and soon 17) more best-selling Warshawski novels.  The New York Times writes that Paretsky “always makes the top of the list when people talk about female operatives,” while Publishers Weekly says, “Among today’s PIs, nobody comes close to Warshawski.”

As far as I know, Warshawski has been on film just once, with Kathleen Turner (above) as the actress. To me the actress playing V.I. should definitely have dark hair, not died blonde. But who knows what goes on in the minds of Hollywood producers? This lady below (I think she is a French actress but I cannot remember) is more the image I have of the young Victoria Warshawski.

Anyway I have just finished what I think must be about the number sixteen in the Warshawski series of "crime" novels by Sara Paretsky, and our heroine is now going on 50. I have been a fan for some years and have read most of the previous books. In fact I hadn't seen one for years and was afraid the author had let her die or something. Breakdown is one of the longest, best and most intricate of the lot. It also digs deeper into the various ramifications and themes that Paretsky has drawn upon as ressources and inspirations for the previous novels featuring the totally likeable, tenacious and tough lady private eye from Chicago named, interestingly, Victoria Iphegenia Warshawski.

I don't make a habit of relating plots in my articles on books, and I am not about to make an exception here. It would only spoil the story for anyone out there encouraged to go out and get a copy of the book in question, and, when I see this way of "filling" an article used by book critics, I rarely find that it adds much to the interest of the article. The plot and suspense of Breakdown is intricate, as I said, and includes themes like the Holocaust and its incidence on people's lives, then and afterwards, immigration to the USA, dishonest and demagogic politicians and TV barons (plenty of them around!), and ways of corrupting and frightening people when money and/or power is at stake. Anf, of course, crime of various sorts.

Sara Paretsky when she began the Warsahwski series, in front of a house that was the inspiration for the detective's childhood home.

So the mainstay of Paretsky's novels is a female private eye called V.I. Warshawksi, whom she made to grow up in the rough part of Chicago. Her father, of Polish origin, was a policeman and her mother, who came from Italy, a very good singer. V.I. studied law and has been, for many years, a private investigator. Her style and guts are, as with many private eyes, part of her attraction as a character, but Paretsky's books are not just about style and off-the-cuff smart talk, although Warshawski can do both very well. There is also the defending the weak and poor, and, as a female investigator, showing nasty men that women are not to be underestimated in any field. So we have social, political and economical angles mingling with the suspense all through most of the novels featuring V.I, Warshawski. 

Victoria Iphegenia was given her second name by her mother through her passion for opera, and her love of and respect for of her now dead parents add yet another dimension to her already complex personality. Are there men in her life ? yes, but they come and go with some gaps and rarely play any major part in the novels. And sex is in a ùminor key, suggested by never described, and lokned always to her love of the moment. In Breakdown she is with a classical musician who is younger than herself, as Warsahwski is now aged 50 and, although still very fit, is not afraid to mention her age as part of the background. Outside of her love life, Victoria's friendships tend to be lasting. And the city of Chicago is a constant feature. Probably one of the traits of Paretsky's own life that gets into her character's is dogs (see below). Warshawski has two golden retrievers  and they regularly feature, their outings to the lake and being looked after by V.I.'s neighbour Mr Contreras regularly punctuating the hotter action and investigations.

the author, Sara Paretsky, with dog and Breakdown, her latest book

Why do I like V.I. so much? Well, all of the above really. Plus she is instinctive, using reasoning to back up and fathom her hunches. And she is funny: an essential quality in any person.


Read on .....

Here and Now, a correspondance between Paul Auster and John Coetzee

A note of apology and some anger
I realise that it is now quite some time since I wrote anything on this blog. To regular readers, I must apologize: work has been quite intense over the past few months for me. Occasional readers will probably not mind too much. As for the spammers who have now started to invade the comments section of this blog with their clumsily phrased and stupid pretexts for hooking unsuspecting readers into their various web activites, would they please piss off!

And now for the real article.

I have just read, in almost one go, this shortish (about 250 pages) book which contains correspondance between two famous authors, one American, living in New York (Paul Auster), and one South African, living in Australia (J.M. Coetzee). Here and Now (that is the title) is always interesting, often extremely stimulating, occasionally funny and also moving. Two sharp minds striking sparks off each other and with a growing friendship that is quite patent as one moves through this correspondence that covers the years 2008 to 2011. As witness to the extent of the friendship, Coetzee, who is clearly the more reserved of the two, starts off by signing his epistles to Auster with "all good wishes", but finishes with a "yours fraternally".

There are too many good things in this book to name them all, but the sincerity and spontaneity of the tone, and the authors' capacities to jump from one topic to another whilst remaining interesting are remarquable characteristics throughout. The subjects covered are as varied as the authors' centres of interest: writing and reading, naturally enough, but also sports (both watching and playing), political situations here and then, financial crises, friendship, eating habits, travel, the significance of street names, sex and love, music and films.....

Reading this correspondence, I felt pangs of envy not to have had such an opportunity myself, to be able to build a male friendship throught this epistolary means, as well as through the quite regular meetings that the two manage to contrive, together with their respective wives and despite the distance that separates them. The authors do not always totally agree on everything, but they share viewpoints on a wide range of subjects and manifestly stimulate one another with their points of view and observations. There are constant twists and turns in their minds as ideas flare up and then fizzle out. Reading this book is like sitting in on a fascinating conversation that lasts all day. And indeed I managed to read it during a day-long journey from Bratislava to Paris involving two buses, two planes and some time in two different airports. Time is never "wasted" if you have a good book with you!

I was struck by one passage, amongst others, in which Auster talks about a particular aspect of novel writing, namely setting the scene for the action. He says at one point, taking the reader's perspective and the example of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice which contains almost no visual descriptions: "But how can you see a room in a book if the author doesn't tell you what is in it? You therefore make up your own room, or graft the scene onto a remembered room. This explains why each reader of a novel reads a different book from every other reader of that novel. It is an active engagement, and each mind is continually producing its own images." 

I feel that this has an clear echo in my professional field of wine tasting. Each taster has his own experience of a wine, which is precisely why it can be very hard to get people to agree about the flavours and impressions of a given wine.

so read on ......

Another piece of Roth

I have written about a couple of books of Philip Roth before on this blog. This American author has to be one of the most talked about and yet difficult authors on the current literary scene. Well, almost current scene as he has recently announced his retirement from writing). 

Roth has perhaps been talked about too often for other reasons than his writing, which is brilliant, questioning, sometimes tortuous and always (at least in the 3 books that I have now read of his to date) totally fascinating. He can of course be annoying, repetitive, cantankerous, manipulative and so on. These are perhaps simply  other measures of his importance as a writer: Roth asks a lot of questions, of us as well as of himself, and they are not always comfortable ones, and not always easy to answer.

Take the latest book of his that I have just finished: The Counterlife, which was first published in the USA in 1986. The construction is as fascinating as it is sometimes confusing, as Roth alternates between the characters of two brothers, sort of alter-egos, and their ficticious lives, each of which may (or may not) incorportate auto-biographical elements. The theme of the book, apart from those of death, sex and married life, revolves quite extensively about "jewishness" as Roth puts it himself, as it explores various ways in which the current world, in New York, Israel or England, ignores or reflects this "condition" either as a claim to identity or as a reason for rejection, starting with what is perhaps the authors own point of view of distance and neutrality from all things not only religious but also concerning so-called racial "identity".

Although the commentaries seen on the cover of the edition that I bought laud Roth's "comic genius", this in not a hilariously funny book, although it is rife with derision and has its totally slapstick moments like the attempted hijacking of an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to London, and the baseball catch (a little earlier, and by the high-jacker) against the Wailing Wall of Jersusalem. His portraits of characters are as precise as they are pitiless, whether they be of prim and frustrated upper-class English ladies or of militant Zionist fanatics living in West Bank colonies.

Another highly recommended novel by Philip Roth who digs deeper and laughs more sardonically that most authors.


Read on.....

A good read: books of the past year

I tend to read episodically and mostly when travelling, at least as far as spending hours with a book goes. Maybe I need to get rid of my TV to push up my reading capacity? But there is rarely a day that passes without my dipping into some book, even for a few minutes. I also tend to read several books simultaneously, and of different natures. Not novels: these I read one at a time, but non-fiction of different kinds plus a novel. An acquaintance of mine who also has a blog (in French) recently published a list of the books he had read over the past year, with comments on each of them. I was impressed and thought I might do the same. However this list will not include comments on each work as, for many of these I have already written articles on this blog, and, if you are interested, you can find these in the section names "Read on".

I will try to separate the titles into categories. They are not in any specific order by the way and in no way indicate a preference. I am also quite certain to have forgotten some of the books read in the past year, including ones I have really enjoyed or which have taught me things, as I don't write them down as I go along. Maybe I should in the future...

Non-Fiction

Siri Husdvedt: Living, Thinking, Looking (essays)
This I am currently reading, in bursts and in an excellent French translation published by Actes Sud. Very thought-provoking, often brilliant, and sometimes quite hard to follow, at least in the essays that dip into neurology and pychoanalysis.

Etienne Klein : Discours sur l'Origine de l'Univers 
Also very hard to follow for a non-scientific, but the concepts make one dizzy as he approaches Planck's wall and discusses the varous theories of the origin of the universe, and even the concept that there was an origin.

Michel Serres : Petite Poucette (essay)
A bit drawn-out and chatty. He has a point but he labours it too much and I couldn't finish this, short as it is

Benjamin Lewin, Wine, Myths and Reality 
Good, well written and clear. Debunks some things, explains many more. Very wide ranging and takes into consideration the markets for wines and their influences through history on the wines produced, an essential point totally ignored by most books on wine.

Martin Gayford: A bigger message, conversations with David Hockney 
Fascinating. I have already written about this here, and discussed Hockney's work which I greatly admire.

Gustav Herling : Un Monde à Part (memories of a Polish prisonner in Stalin's camps)
See article. Horrifying, obviously. Makes one admire human endurance also.

Steven Clarke: 1000 years of annoying the French (history revisited with humour)
Indispensable for anyone living between the two cultures of England and France (see article)


Fiction (crime etc)

Michael Connelly: The Black Box
Masterly: see article. I am pretty much a Connelly unconditional but this has to be one of his very best.

Jo Nesbo : The Leopard
First and only book I have read so far by this Norwegian crime writer. Very impressive (see article)

Philip Kerr: The Berlin Trilogy (March Violets, The Pale Criminel, A German Requiem)
Excellent dip into the murky past of nazi Germany and the suite of that war. He must have researched this extensively. There are another four in the series out and I will surely get to them some day.

James Lee Burke: ???
Read one book by this author of the US's deep south and loved it but I cannot for the life of me recall the title. I will return to Burke soon!


Fiction (other)

Albert Camus: L'Etranger
Re-read this short, relentless masterpiece in French after a 40 year interval. Indispensible

Sébastian Faulks : A Possible Life
Very good, with an unusual structure that sets up questions (see article)

Philip Roth: The Human Stain
This has to be one of the greatest novels I have ever read (see article)

John Fante: The Brotherhood of the Grape
Maybe not the best Fante but still a good read. Clearly very autobiographical

Julien Barnes: The Sense of an Ending
Moving and beautifully written in a low-key style (see article)

Denis Lehane: The Given Day
Brilliant "historical" novel that taught me a lot about aspects of US culture and early 20th century history (see article)

Sarah Blake: The Postmistress
Not indispensible. Has its moments though (see article)

Branimir Scépanovic: La Bouche Pleine de Terre
How fate and misunderstanding leads to horror. Short and pitiless story from this author from Montenegro, read in a French translation (see article)

Jean-Michel Guenassia: Le Club des Incorrigibles Optimistes
The best French novel I have read this past year.

Read on...

The Black Box: Connelly at his very best

I believe that have written several times here already about the work of Michael Connelly, who has to be one of the very best crime writers currently working. I have just finished his latest published book, entitled The Black Box, and I consider it to be one of his best ever and certainly top of my favourites list of those that have Detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch as the hero.

Michael Connelly and one of the covers of his latest Harry Bosch story

Of course I will not tell the story of this book here, and of course I recommend it strongly to anyone who enjoys the genre. But there are some things to be said about this book that may speak more to those who have already read some of Connelly's 30-strong opus, which is mostly fictional and, as far as I know, entirely crime-based. 

On the credibility side is is to be noted that Connelly has a background as a crime reporting journalist in Los Angeles. He has used for many years now, and in the majority of his novels, a recurrent character (people call them "heros", but I don't like that word) known as Harry Bosch, but whose real first name is Heironymous (yes, like the painter).

Inevitably, the darkness of the painter Bosch's universe has a clear connection with the murky world and sinister scenes that a murder investigator like Detective Bosch has to deal with, in and around comtemporary California. But Harry Bosch, although often haunted, is not all about darkness.

Aspects of this complex character's life emerge gradually as one reads, in the many novels that revolve around him, through the stages of Bosch's professional life as a cop, then as a private eye, before he goes back into the police force. His latest phase is that of a "cold case" investigator, re-opening unsolved cases years after the crimes were perpetrated, with the help of current forensic techniques to obtain evidence that will help solve them and provide some form of belated justice to the victims of the crimes. Because Bosch clearly deals with nemesis. The ending sentences of The Black Box show this very clearly. Bosch is talking to the brother of the victim of a murder that dates back 20 years, having taken place during the riots that tore up part of Los Angeles in 1992. A murder which had nothing to do with this violent reation to the acquittal of the police beaters of Rodney King, but everything to do with the arrogance and cynicism of a bunch of former soldiers in the first Gulf war. In these final sentences, Bosch is talking over the telephone to the brother of the murdered woman in Denmark. The brother talks first:

"I have waited twenty years for this phone call...and all this time I thought it would go away. I knew I would always be sad for my sister. But I thought the other would go way."
"What is the other, Henrik?" Though he knew the answer.
"Anger...I am still angry, Detective Bosch."
Bosch nodded. He looked down at his desk, at the photos of all the victims under the glass top. Cases and faces. His eyes moved from the photo of Anneke Jespersen to some of the others. The ones he had not yet spoken for.
"So am I, Henrik", he said. "So am I".

Nemesis, Bosch is motivated by nemesis. At times, this involves his dark side, but also his push for a form of justice as much as his will for revenge, as indeed the story of the Black Box reveals, and at times the divider can be narrow. Connelly not only masters the plot and the supense, he also seems tp show, by small glimpses, parts of himself as well as the tender side to his Bosch character. Harry loves his daughter who now lives with him and says she wants to become part of the police force. But she also has her classic adolescent difficulties with her parent (or the other way around). Bosch is a jazz fan with a major soft spot for Art Pepper. And so on. Nothing is simple, but the plot goes on.

You should read Connelly, and not just one of his books. This one took things to another level for me.

Read on... 

  

Sebastian Faulks: A Possible Life

How do you select the books that you choose to buy and/or to read? I suppose that I use a mixture of good past experience with that authour, interest in the subject matter (for non-fiction essentially), rcommendations by friends and acquaintances whose opinons I respect, recommendations by librarians (same respect required), and, quite often, good reviews in newspapers or magazines. It was one of the latter that pushed me to buy, during a recent trip to London, the latest book by Sebastian Faulks, an apparently well-known British writer but of whom I must confess that I had never heard. On the strength of what I have just finished reading, I have clearly been missing something, and fully intend to get hold of another of his books whenever I can.

the man (right) and his latest book cover

A Possible Life, which was published in 2012, is not a classical novel in the sense that the five stories it contains are separate and differ both in their setting (time and space) and nature. Faulks also subtly varies his style for each story, enhancing their individual character. Yet one is clearly induced, by their being grouped together, but also by three short lines added on the back cover, to imagine and sense links between them. And the links are those of life, of humanity, and perhaps just a shade of what some might term mysticism, although this is neither a word nor a concept to which I hold many candles.

Here are these lines from the rear jacket cover, and I am curious to know whether they are the publisher's or the author's idea, since they do not appear in the book itself, merely on the jacket:

Every atom links us
Every feeling binds us
Every thought connects us  

I will not tell the stories or anything about them here in case one of you out there might want to read this book and have the full effect of discovery that is, at least to me, so much of the pleasure of reading. I will however give you the titles to the five parts of this book, as I think thay provide some useful clues as to the author's intentions:

Part I). A different man
Part II). The second sister
Part III). Everything can be explained
Part IV). A door into heaven
Part V). You next time

For me the strongest parts by far were I, III and V, although all five parts have their strengths. Part V would stand alone as a novella in its own right, with its 100 odd pages. Faulks has the capacity of placing you in different situations at and different periods, of getting involved with (or not, but for reasons that make you think) his characters, and for telling stories well. I am looking forward to reading some more of his work.

so, read on...

Philip Roth and the Human Stain

I have been skirting around reading Philip Roth for some years now. Many have told me how great a writer he is, and I have, in recent years, bought a couple of his books with the firm intention of starting one day. But I had shirked before the task, rather like one hesitates before leaping off the high diving board into a swimming pool. Such hesitation can be fatal, especially when prolonged, so I have finally taken the plunge. I did so a week ago, with his novel entitled "The Human Stain", which was first published in 2001.

The opportunity of considerable reading hours was provided by a transatlantic air journey, from Paris to Philadelphia, with its inevitable cohort of queues, hanging around for connections, and quite a few solid hours sitting above the Atlantic. Having started it in the waiting zone before leaving, without so intending I finished the book at the precise moment at which my plane touched down at Paris CdG on my return journey. I felt that, in a way, I had been totally immersed in the world Roth creates in this book for my whole trip.

All I can say (at least to start with) is that Roth easily lives up to his reputation. The Human Stain is one of the most remarkable and gripping books that I have read for a long time.

I hesitate to list the vital topics that he touches upon in this book as they are so numerous: friendship, betrayal, race, pretention, frustrated love, jealousy, admiration, sexual passion, violence, the lasting effects of war, family relationships, forgiving, forgetting, not forgetting, concealing the truth...the list goes on. And he tells a story, with all its twists and turns, handled as a suspense, with his characters taking shape clearly at times and then changing, moving out of focus for a while, ever shifting in the kaleidoscope of their lives.

In  addition, Roth occasionally lets go in a couple major rants about the contemporary (he was writing this in the late 1990's) social, political and media scene and what it reveals about his country, the USA. He does this through the first person figure in the book, who is named as the writer, Zuckerman, a recurrent character in his books and, I imagine, himself. I will give you an extract from one of these in a minute.

But let's start with the beginning, which is the quotation that Roth inserts in the fly-leaf of his book. This is from Sophocles' play Oedipus the King:

Oedipus: What is the rite of purification? How shall it be done?
Creon: By banishing a man, or expiation of blood on blood...

This sets the main theme of the book and enlightens the chosen title: The Human Stain.

The first chapter of The Human Stain is entitled "Everyone knows". It immediately made me think of the Leonard Cohen song, "Everybody knows". The link, through title and words, is quite appropriate, although perhaps fortuitous.

http://youtu.be/GUfS8LyeUyM

In this first chapter, the literary fireworks start pretty soon, with the author's diatribe against the hypocrisy and self-righteousness that washed over America during the Clinton/Lewinsky episide in 1998. Here is a slice for you:

"It was the summer in America when the nausea returned, when the joking didn't stop, when the specualtion and the theorizing and the hyperbole didn't stop, when the moral obligation to explain to one's children about adult life was abrogated in favor of maintaining in them every illusion about adult life, when the smallness of people was simply crushing, when some kind of demon had been unleashed in the nation and, on both sides, people wondered "Why are we so crazy?", when men and women alike, upon awakening in the morning, discovered that during the night, in a state of sleep that transported them beyond envy or loathing, they had dreamed of a mammoth banner, draped dadaistically like a Christo wrapping from one end of the White House to the other and bearing a legend A HUMAN BEING LIVES HERE. It was the summer when - for the billionth time- the jumble, the mayhem, the mess proved itself more subtle than this one's ideology and that one's morality. It was the summer when a president's penis was on everyone's mind, and life, in all its shameless impirity, once again confounded America."  

The intricacies of the themes, the subtlety of the characters, the power of the writing and the plot of The Human Stain should perhaps not be recounted in articles like this. It is far, far more than a succession of passages of brilliant writing like the above. The Human Stain is a deeply moving and questioning book, often funny, often sad: like a mirror held up to life. I will be reading more of Philip Roth's work very soon. I heard that Roth has recently declared that he is now finished with writing. Perhaps understandable. At least I have a lot of catching-up to do as there must be another 25 novels by him that I have yet to read.

Read on ......

John Fante and the Brotherhood of the Grape

I have just finished reading John Fante's book called "The Brotherhood of the Grape". Auspicious title indeed for someone who works in the wine business! I had read a couple of Fante's books before, including Ask the Dust and Dreams from Bunker Hill. They seem/are strongly autobiographical, and are always powerfully emotional. The drink aspect that runs through many of these books may well have been a motivation for Bukowski's adoration of Fante, but that is not enough to make them as strong as they are. Anyway I have serious misgivings about Bukowski and no special admiration of people who drink themselves to death.

John Fante

Fante's work revolves a lot around his Italian peasant/craftsman descendance and the world that such personal history implied in western USA as from the thirties. He was born in 1909 and died (of diabetes) in 1983.The conflict-ridden, crazily passionate family relationships of Italian families are recurrent themes, as well as his immediate surroundings in and around LA. His writing is concise, strongly emotive and, to me, brilliantly visual. Not too surprising since he earned much of his living as a script-writer.

This Italian family background with all its messy, hysterical and destructive aspects, and especially the conflictual father-son relationship, forms the whole theme of The Brotherhood of Grape. Fante manages to build this story into a deeply moving work in which full catharsis only comes through the death of the father (of guess what?: diabetes through too much booze). 

Fante's writing is punchy and gloriously descriptive, and at times farcically funny. And his works are always short and powerful. Give them a try, and you won't regret the experience.

Read on....

Bibliography of John Fante (thanks to Wiki)

• The Road to Los Angeles (1933, publ.1985)
• Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938)
• Ask the Dust (1939)
• Dago Red (1940), short story collection
• Full of Life (1952)
• The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977)
• Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982)
• The Wine of Youth: Selected Stories (posthumously, 1985), Dago Red and short story collection
• 1933 Was a Bad Year (post., 1985; incomplete)
• West of Rome (post., 1986), two novellas
• Fante/Mencken: John Fante & H.L. Mencken: A Personal Correspondence, 1932-1950 (post., 1989), letters
• John Fante: Selected Letters, 1932-1981 (post., 1991), letters
• The Big Hunger: Stories, 1932-1959 (post., 2000), short story collection

Michael Connelly and screen versions of crime novels

The official trailer for The Lincoln Lawyer, the first crime novel by Michael Connelly featuring lawyer Mickey Haller

I recently watched the film based on Michael Connelly book "The Lincoln Lawyer" for the second time, this time on TV, having first seen it on the big screen when it came out here in France in 2011. I enjoyed it immensely both times. It stands up really well and I would rate it as an excellent screen adaptation; better than Clint Eastwood's slighly flat and overtly classical version of Blood Work, in which he himslf played the retired (but still active) FBI invesigator Terry McCaleb. The Lincoln Lawyer, directed by Brad Furman, has the feel and pace than is inherent in Connelly's writing, despite the fact that Connelly stayed away from the script writing. 

I have read quite a lot of Connelly's books and reckon him very high in his field. The best? What does that mean? Very good for sure. Connelly can write, he builds a story really well, manages suspense with mastery, and gives his characters flesh, humanity and enough of a dark streak for one not to be totally surprised whatever they get up to. This leaves him plenty of liberty to take his characters to places some way from their starting points. The peregrinations and doubts of Harry Bosch, for example, have taken him in and out of the LA homicide squad, and in and out of relationships too. Mickey Haller is not exception to this trend as having been a defense lawyer to start with, he accepts, in one book the position of Public Prosecutor. This is already anticipated in the scenario of the Lincoln Lawyer, when a police officer asks Haller "just which side do you stand on, Haller?" These guys are credible and all anti-heroes, likeable and smart, but flawed and at a distance from us.

It is as if Connelly knows where his characters are going, but you don't and the game is to discover their paths as the intrigue unravels. And the bad guys are, usually, monstrously perverted whilst remaining credible. Witness "The Poet", or indeed the baddie in the Lincoln Lawyer. No, I won't tell you who he is, but here is a link with more information...

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lincoln_Lawyer_(film)

Read on...(or watch the film)