A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White

Today is Edmund White's birthday and A Boy's Own Story has recently been reissued as an ebook by Open Media, so it seems fitting to celebrate this book today, one of the author's most famous novels. My thoughts below are something which I first posted in 2009 on the blog Chroma. For the original special Valentine's Day post, I gathered a group of authors such as Jackie Kay, David Plante, Sophie Mayer, Aaron Hamburger and JD Glass to comment on queer books they heart/ones that have influenced them the most. I still heart this novel and return to it occassionally to read passages which have particular resonance. Edmund has also produced a stunning body of work from the definitive biography of Jean Genet to historical novels such as Fanny: A Fiction (a personal favourite) and Hotel de Dream to great books of memoir such as My Lives and Inside a Pearl, which was published last year. Fans will be excited to hear that he finished a new novel just last week! But A Boy's Own Story will always remain an extremely special book.

Photo of me & Edmund in London, 2005

I read this novel as a teenager and discovered in White's beautifully rich prose an articulation of feelings I myself was struggling to understand. Speaking to other gay men and reading about people’s relationship to this book I’ve found that many have experienced the same thing reading this brilliant novel. It’s startling that a story so specific and entwined in it’s particular time and location can touch upon such universal feelings, taking on personal meaning to so many. It also felt brave and honest that the great betrayal at the end of the book doesn’t conform to a facile love story, but hints at impulses inherent to queer identity which have the power to divide us as much as bring us together.

The Room by Jonas Karlsson (translated by Neil Smith)

Have you ever worked alongside an oddball? Someone who has a markedly different way of dealing with people socially which makes your need to work alongside them somewhat uncomfortable? Most people have at some point. The pressurised environment of an office seems particularly prone to small personal clashes between people with different social techniques. The most striking example in my own memory is when an online marketing expert was recruited at my office. The directors asked him to spend a few minutes with all the employees so he could get an understanding for what they do. He took this as an opportunity to evaluate everyone’s workload and lecture them about how they should do their job better. Unsurprisingly, this made him few friends. He frequently spoke to people with an arrogant superior air - even when he was unquestionably in the wrong. Yet, he seemed baffled as to why he was socially alienated from everyone in the office. He didn’t last long at my company.

“The Room” is a novel about a person named Bjorn who is very much like this and it’s narrated from his perspective. At one point he states: “They [people] think that as long as they do their best, everything will work out okay. You have to remind them. You have to show people like that what their shortcomings are.” The people Bjorn works with don’t enjoy how he arrogantly shows them this. He has a very regimental, strict attitude towards his work and work habits. Every fifty-five minutes he allows himself a few minutes break. It’s on one of these breaks he discovers a room near the office toilets. Inside the room is a perfectly ordered and ordinary unused office. Bjorn finds it comforting to spend time in this tranquil space. The only problem is that no one else can see it and all available evidence shows that the room doesn’t actually exist. When he’s inside the room, his co-workers only see him standing in the corridor staring at nothing with a totally detached manner. They remark: “‘It’s like you’re just not there.’” It’s like the room is a mental space Bjorn needs to gather his wits about him, but the narrative surreally plays with the question of whether this room has a tangible existence.

Because of the stark, plain language of the narrative and the preoccupation with Bjorn’s sense of self-consciousness, comparisons could be made between this novel and post-modernist writers like Samuel Beckett or Eugene Ionesco’s only novel “The Hermit” or existentialists like Knut Hamsun or Jean-Paul Sartre or Franz Kafka. Because of the office setting and the upset his small antisocial actions cause, this novel also has the feel of Merlville's "Bartleby, the Scrivner." Bjorn’s character has an anonymous feel similar to many characters created by these writers because we’re given so little background about him other than how he left his previous job because of difficulties he had with co-workers and a brief reference to being punched in grammar school. But this novel has a much lighter, brisk tone and its ideas don’t extend far enough into the cerebral thoughts of these writers to really merit comparison. Joshua Ferris’ office-set novel “Then We Came to the End” is a much more apt reference for “The Room” because it is concerned more with the social manners, career tactics and office politics it explores. Bjorn’s behaviour and some of the things he says to his co-workers is really outrageous. Because the reader is totally entrenched in his point of view it’s made to feel completely rational. But, of course, we can’t help thinking how angered we’d feel if someone said these things in our own offices.

A case could easily be made for Bjorn being diagnosed as a sociopath. Or perhaps he has tendencies similar to certain kinds of autism which make social interaction very difficult. No mental health diagnosis can be made because when Bjorn is directed to get treatment from a psychiatrist the bureaucracy he encounters dismisses him as not worth the time. Sometimes in the narrative Bjorn uses the second person speaking to “you” but the “you” could almost be himself he’s speaking to because Bjorn has a very intense internal dialogue with himself. He also feels a definite remove from other people where he believes he can see things more clear-sightedly than them because of his superior intellect: “I suddenly felt how lonely it is, constantly finding yourself the only person who can see the truth in this gullible world.” His removal from his workmates and strategic plans to ascend in rank sees him bring his office to a point of crisis. The ending is both thrilling and teasingly elusive in meaning.

The Morning and the Evening by Joan Williams

Since the holidays have just passed and we’re in the glum of winter, I was feeling somewhat nostalgic and in the mood to read something older so I decided upon this new Open Road reprint of Southern-writer Joan Williams’ 1961 novel “The Morning and the Evening.” Set in the small town of Marigold, Mississippi, it centres primarily around mentally disabled 40 year-old Jake who is abruptly left living alone to fend for himself. Moreover, it’s a portrait of the town focusing on different characters’ perspectives chapter by chapter. Jake, who is a mute, gets a few chapters devoted solely to him and, unsurprisingly, Williams’ narrates these sections in a more “poetic” voice which is nonetheless effective and moving: “he felt words inside him the way he felt music.” The novel captures the feel of small-town Southern life with evocative descriptions and distinctive characters such as an older woman quietly addicted to a (legal-at-the-time) form of liquid opium or a black man named Little T whose lifelong ambition is to catch a legendary elusive catfish. The book’s great power is the way in which it explores the tension people feel between being both an integral part of their community while also remaining essentially isolated.

The townsfolk who has known Jake all his life rally around to help him get by while he lives on his own until a misunderstanding causes Jake to lash out in a way that disturbs all of the residents. He’s committed to an insane asylum which, in this instance, happens to be well funded and a positive nurturing environment. It’s fascinating reading about the process by which a few members of the community go about having Jake sectioned. There are a number of legal hoops for them to go through, but it is frighteningly easy. An administrator at the institution remarks how this leads to many people being wrongly committed and it takes some time to get them out. Expecting a riotous environment a visitor finds the place more filled with people overwhelmed by their circumstances: “She’d never realized before it was nervous breakdowns that sent folks here.” This is a rather surprising representation of a mental institution in this time period. It’s a testament to how well-meaning some staff can be in wanting to rehabilitate the ill, but the novel makes a good case for more stringently regulated methods to deal with how people are institutionalized.

A photo of silver screen idol & the face of Wheaties cereal boxes Johnny Mack Brown is pinned to the wall in character Jud's room

The novel strikingly presents the way racial relations in this time period were handled in daily small town Southern life. There is a sense whereby people of colour for the most part live and work companionably alongside the white residents of the community, but only if the general understanding that they belong to another class is upheld. It’s understood among these white residents that the “worst boys” are ones who “took Negro girls as a lark and otherwise told impossible tales of their prowess with white ones.” When two people who are both married have an affair, it’s remarked that if the man’s wife were to find out what’s been going on she “wouldn’t care nearly so much if it was a Negro; she’d know it wasn’t somebody he was in love with.” At one point Little T presses slightly against the conventions: “For the heck of it only, he had not long ago referred to a white man, in public, by his first name. A white man, overhearing, had said, ‘Boy, I believe you mean Mister Bill, don’t you?’ The longstanding racial divide relies upon these small behavioural checks to uphold the way non-white residents are stationed below the white ones. Thereby this presents the insidious way racism can bear a smiling face as long as certain boundaries are maintained.

It’s interesting that this book began as a short story which Williams grew into a novel. It makes sense that this is the way it was constructed as many of the towns people’s chapters could be taken in isolation. Usually only a few details, mostly pertaining to Jake, act as the line which connects all their stories. The way in which she captures the solitude people can feel amongst groups and Jake's idiosyncratic way of dealing with the world reminded me strongly of the much more recent novel The Thing About December by Donal Ryan which I read a year ago. Williams writing is often strikingly beautiful particularly when she portrays the atmosphere of Mississippi: “During the long, overgrown summer the citrus smell of mock orange had filled the air; now that languid smell was lost on an air crisp and sharp with the aroma of leaves beginning to dry.” Not only does she show a keen sensual awareness for the landscape but touchingly portrays the passage of time as experienced by the residents so familiar with the elements around them. This novel allowed me to live amongst all the most joyful aspects of this particular community while making me grateful (much like the character of Jud who quickly moves away when he’s old enough) that I don’t have to actually inhabit it any longer.

Updates

I may not be updating this blog as frequently as I have been because I'm working on my novel. This is the only mention I'll make of this as I'm self-consciously aware how contradictory it is to continuously go on social media and blogs discussing the writing you are apparently working on. There is even a hilarious/tragic Penguin book and twitter account dedicated to sending up writers who are apparently “working on my novel.”

The thing is I have a great opportunity. An editor at a major publisher has expressed an interest in a novel I've been writing for some time. He's gone out of his way to meet with me and edit my writing. Anyone who cynically says publishing houses are only filled with marketers looking to increase profits are wrong because there are editors with a true passion for writers/writing. This happened by chance and is unconnected with this blog. It came about as a side effect after a job interview I went for. Who knows if it will come to anything, but it'll be great motivation to carry on and write more. As you can probably tell from mentions I've made before about stories I've written being published and my heavy engagement with what I read that I like to write myself. I've been publishing my own fiction for years in literary reviews and anthologies. I had a short novel published with a small press that won a book award when I was fresh out of college.

I love reading and using this blog to better articulate how I feel about what I'm reading as well as connecting with other passionate readers. But between doing a full-time job, working as a massage therapist on weekends and working on my own writing I don't think I'll have as much time to read and write about what I'm reading. There will still be updates. Just not as many. Of course, if I could spend all my time reading and talking about books with people I would. I'm not paid for doing this blog; in fact, I pay to keep it. It's a pure passion project and I only write about books I'm interested in. But the new year is motivating me to get my priorities straight. This could be a great opportunity and I ought to go for it. No doubt I'll still be checking in with other blogs and hearing what others are reading. My already mile-high “to be read” pile will no doubt continue to grow exponentially. The great thing about books is that they'll always be there waiting to be read.

My Top 10 Books of 2014

In total I’ve read 86 books this year. Most of them were newly published novels. If you read my reviews, you’ll know how much I engaged with and got out of many of these books. Just because I’m picking ten to highlight here doesn’t mean I think many of the others aren’t great works in each of their own unique ways. There’s no way to really compare the inventive distinct voice of “A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing” with the refreshing perspective on WWII that “The Spring of Kasper Meier” gives or the majestic view of an extensive family in Calcutta that “The Lives of Others” provides. Still more difficult is to judge books of short stories against each other. While some stories in books like “All the Rage” or “The American Lover” or “The Best American Stories of 2014” could be counted amongst the most powerful things I’ve read this year, other stories in these books haven’t stuck with me as much. And, of course, browsing other best books of the year lists, I’m aware just how many other new much-lauded books I simply haven’t had time to read yet. I haven’t even read this year’s Booker prize winner. But I think winter is designed for cosy afternoons inside catching up with reading while drinking cups of tea.

The ten books I’m singling out here simply had a tremendous personal impact upon me. I’d gladly thrust copies into the hands of any reader and call them essential. Click on the titles to read my full thoughts on each.

Arctic Summer
A section of writer EM Forster’s life is fictionally mined by Galgut to reveal the power of a quiet life. It hit me like a punch in the face.

The Blazing World
What could be the most inventive and daring artistic hoax of the century forces us to question our assumptions about gender and the meaning of art.

The Walk Home
This short novel about a Glaswegian boy caught in the crossfire of ideological and family struggles deserves to be more widely read and remembered.

The Incarnations
Fantastically inventive and the most relentlessly entertaining book I’ve read all year, Barker’s novel of stories within stories subversively questions the meaning of identity.

H is for Hawk
This memoir about grief breaks the mould showing Macdonald’s very personal experience of managing her feelings through training a goshawk and exploring the life of writer TH White.

How to be Both
Smith is a revolutionary writer. Language is never a passive, dead thing in this author’s books. In this new novel her words perform gymnastics and make me want to do backward hand-springs.

The Paying Guests
No two love stories are the same. This novel gives us the tale of a most extraordinary affair that shows how we can be both generous and selfish in passion.

Lovely, Dark, Deep
Many books of short stories come across as uneven, but every tale in this collection stands out. Using an impressive arsenal of literary styles, Oates writes about people as far ranging as an unlikeable victim of cancer who won’t tell anyone about her illness and a viciously aggressive teenage boy writing about his death.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
Rachel Joyce’s literary sequel to her popular first novel, shows an elderly woman physically inhibited by her illness shining light on her lifetime of experiences like a prism reveals the entire spectrum of colours.

The Repercussions
Two disparate stories that are divided by a century come together in this tremendous and emotionally-enthralling novel about war, photography, sexuality and race.

My Top 10 New Films of 2014

This list may come across as if I’m trying to be a bit high brow. Believe me, I appreciate some good big budget movies like ‘Bad Neighbours’ which was utterly hilarious and the time-twisting action of ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ which was really entertaining. But when I think back on the many films I’ve watched this year these are the ten that made me think the most about them afterwards and made me want to watch them again to try to understand their meaning. They may not all be easy views - although there is much pleasure to be gained from all of them - but they are all powerful and haunting.

Gloria
I missed this film when it played at the London Film Festival last year so was thrilled to catch it upon its small release. Divorced 58-year old Gloria goes to singles bars in Santiago looking for love. She’s determined, free-minded and prone to overzealous passion. With a fantastic soundtrack following the ups and downs of her romance, this is an emotional and engaging film.

Her
Set in a future that is more recognizable than filled with sci-fi fantasies, ‘Her’ is another film about a divorced individual looking for love. But in this film he finds it with a piece of artificial intelligence – a disconnected voice that adapts and changes as the system learns more about him. Like other AI stories problems arise when the computer becomes self aware, but this is more a story about the modern perils of digital relationships and misdirected expectations in love.

Stranger by the Lake
Part suspense story, part erotic gay film and part commentary about the danger of desire, ‘Stranger by the Lake’ is a French film that works equally well on many levels. Set on a nudist beach it’s about a man named Franck who frequently attends this gay cruising ground. What at first comes across as a simple story develops into a tale filled with psychological complexity. The idyllic playground morphs into a vicious battleground.

Under the Skin
Adapted with a heavy amount of changes from the novel by Michel Faber, this film imaginatively portrays a strange being in the form of Scarlett Johansson driving a van through the streets of Glasgow hunting for men. This film conveys so much about the warped nature of desire and the complex formation of identity. It features an incredibly creepy score by Mica Levi which I was lucky enough to see performed live at the Southbank Centre alongside the film’s screening.

Pride
It’s impossible to imagine that two groups as disparate as a loose gathering of London gay activists and striking miners from a small Welsh village coming together, but this really happened in 1984. I was hesitant about seeing this movie when its trailer made it look like a hokey feel-good comedy, but the film is entirely absorbing and emotional and inspiring. It’s also been a fantastic platform to raise awareness for Gay’s the Word bookshop which features heavily as a meeting spot in the film and is still going strong today.

The Imitation Game
This film is another impossible-but-true story about Alan Turing’s instrumental contribution to cracking the enigma code which no doubt massively helped win the second world war. This central story is bookended with the sad details of Turing’s troubled personal life including his early heartbreak and later persecution as a homosexual where he was chemically castrated under government mandate and driven to suicide. It’s an incredible story that memorializes a man who should have been celebrated but was tragically vilified. It made me cry.

Ida
It’s startling how spare and simple the dialogue in Ida is, yet how powerfully complex its meaning. Set in 1960s Poland, a young nun named Anna goes in search of what became of her family during the second world war. Paired with her spirited aunt Wanda they travel in search of terrible truths where the weight of history threatens to crush them. I was utterly astonished by this beautiful movie.

Two Days One Night
Over the past decade, the Belgian Dardenne brothers have made some of the most moving films about the downtrodden and forgotten. ‘Two Days One Night’ follows Sandra played by Marion Cotillard as a wife and mother who has been struggling with mental health issues. Because of complicated politics at the factory she works at, she’s been voted out of her job and this film shows her desperate journey to try to maintain her employment. So few films deal with the real hardship ordinary people experience trying to keep afloat during challenging circumstances. This film is by no means perfect, but it makes a great impact.

The Golden Dream
This Mexican film also highlights the struggles of ordinary people – in this case young migrants from Guatemala who journey to cross the border into the US. The challenges they encounter are surprising and terrifying. Small unexpected acts of kindness are enough to make you keep faith in the goodness of humanity. At the same time, the failings of institutions show how people in situations as disadvantaged as this can be preyed upon by groups of opportunists.

The Tribe
Daring, original and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Click on the title to read fully what an impact this Ukrainian film about a boarding school for deaf children had on me.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

In surveying a wide variety of best book lists of the year, a book that has come up again and again is this novel by Jenny Offill. I’ve been wanting to read it since the summer when I noticed it sitting on a shelf in the new Foyles bookshop with its striking jigsaw cover. But seeing how highly valued it was by a wide range of people recently convinced me I should finally read it. I did so during one long afternoon on a plane while I was flying from London to Boston. I have to say reading on a plane does have a special sort of ethereal feel to it. Invariably when I read something good while flying it feels somewhat as if I’ve just had an intense hallucination. This novel is short enough that I could read the whole book during my journey. I’m glad I had that space to devote my full attention to it without the temptation to check email or social media in between chapters. It’s an intense peculiar novel that gives a fascinating perspective on relationships and life.

We aren’t told the narrator’s name and we’re not given the names of the main characters beyond their relationship to her like “husband” or “daughter.” Flashes of experiences are recounted. Disparate quotes and references are drawn in to produce thoughtful new perspectives. Wry commentary is made about how ego comes into play in all actions and especially when gauging our passion for those we’re closest to. Although images or thoughts seem to come out of nowhere at times they often pop up again later in the book to make more of an emotional impact. For instance, when describing a phrase from a particularly popular cat meme, the quote is reconfigured to hilarious and meaningful effect to describe her own existential yearning. It’s as if all the narrator has absorbed through life comes seeping out through her consciousness when it’s emotionally prescient. This makes the story feel very natural, but also can make it frustrating because so little is pinned down in specifics.

However, it seems to be an essential part of the narrator’s identity to be deliberately obtuse. She’s prickly and prone to dangerously self-destructive ways of thinking. As a counterpoint to the cosy vision of home life, she sharply observes that “The reason to have a home is to keep certain people in and everyone else out.” There is a severity here as if it were survival which is constantly at stake and not the standard wayward passions of love. Unsurprisingly, sticking to conventions of marriage with children isn’t for her. Her relationship becomes increasingly complicated as her own ambitions clash against the demands of family life. She adamantly refuses to subsume her own desire to achieve things though she comments that “Some women make it look so easy, the way they cast ambition off like an expensive coat that no longer fits.” She fights to maintain her independence with mixed results because she refuses to build relationships that are built upon too many compromises.

This is a striking and original book with a powerful voice which is alternately devastating and hilarious. It’s so appropriate that a puzzle features on the cover as at the end I felt in a muddle about how to fit all the narrator’s experiences and references together. The narrator herself seems to have the same dilemma. Because of this it’s effectively unsettling and thought-provoking.

Why Books Are Like Family

I’ve been back at my family’s house in Maine this week for the holidays. It’s a particularly nostalgic visit as my parents are planning on moving house next year so it will be my last time being in the house I grew up in. I’ve also (to my horror) been asked to clear out the many boxes of books I’ve stored here which won’t fit in my apartment in London – which is already chock-full of books. Of course, I’ll save a few but the rest of my carefully acquired collection I’m giving to a good bookish friend who runs an antique and ebay-selling business with her husband.

Books I'm giving away

Going through these treasures makes me consider why we develop such an emotional attachment to books. They are just paper, but they also feel like friends or family. Is this because with fiction we can feel so close to the characters found inside as we’re privy to their innermost secrets, thoughts and the events of their lives? Or because the ideas of the authors can sound so in sync with our own? There are certainly many books I’ve felt this with growing up. I’ve identified with a wide range of disparate characters over the years. I felt this early in life reading about Shea, a sole descendant of a great fighter, in the fantasy novel “The Sword of Shannara.” As a teenager I hoped I could become the thrifty, clever and enduring character of Úrsula Iguarán in Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” In college I sympathized deeply with uncertain Delia Grinstead in Anne Tyler’s “Ladder of Years.” In Eugene Ionesco’s only novel “The Hermit” the existential fears of the protagonist whose consciousness moves inwardly like a logarithmic spiral became my own. I wanted to approach life with the same determined logical process that detective-hero Xavier Kilgarvan takes in Oates’ novel “Mysteries of Winterthurn.” These are characters that became a part of me – that I both aspired to be like and learned from.

There are also many books I’ve acquired over the years which I haven’t read yet, but which seem to me to contain great potential. They are books whose meaning is more than just what’s written inside but the ideas I think it might contain. Since I haven’t actually read them yet, they exist for now as projections of the books I imagine them to be and the wiser person I hope to be once I have read them. Like relatives who you never actually speak to, you know that they are there waiting in case you want/need them.

Books are a physical presence in our lives. They sit on the shelf or piled by the bed or stay packed in a rucksack when we travel “just in case we need something to read.” They have a distinct smell. Their covers have a satisfying texture and weight. Used books sometimes have sentences underlined or old ticket stubs tucked between the pages. New books have a satisfying crispness like they are an important cultural document which will last forever. You glance at these objects and your mind connects fleetingly with what they contain. Your heart feels connected.

Of course, I’m only getting so ponderous and reflective about books because getting rid of so many (most of which I acquired in my university years) is making me sentimental. But I think it’s meaningful the way bookworms have such a precious attachment to their own personal libraries. They are more than just objects in our lives, but things we’ve spent some serious alone time with. Getting rid of them feels like sending granny to the old folks’ home when you know you’ll probably never see her again.

Have you ever had to make a painful book purge? Do you have some books you’ll refuse to ever part with?

Thunderstruck by Elizabeth McCracken

I’ve read such positive reviews of Elizabeth McCracken’s fiction and enjoy her engaging Twitter account so much, that I’ve been very eager to read her writing for quite some time. “Thunderstruck” is a collection of short stories which is vibrantly alive and demands the reader’s attention. If I were to hazard a comparison, her fiction is as inventive as AL Kennedy’s whose story collection All the Rage I reviewed earlier this year. It’s a cliché but the language and metaphors McCracken uses are really so refreshing that they make the reader re-view the world. There is also an absurdist tinge to her fiction (informed no doubt from authors like Ionesco who is referenced in one story) which is a form of writing that really thrills me. The stories are full of engaging, quirky characters who chaotically navigate through the narratives in ways which surprise and left me thinking about their meaning long after.

Many of the stories contain an unsettling edge as if chaos and violence lurks beneath the surface of ordinary physical objects. A suitcase falling over is likened to an animal collapsing in death. “Rubber bands in every drawer and braceleting every doorknob – why were old rubber bands so upsetting?” The physical world is imbued with feelings giving it a life of its own. Animals are also burdened by the sensibilities of humans who keep them. The emotional life of fish is speculated upon as thus: “if the fish were unhappy, we couldn’t tell. Maybe they wept in the terrible privacy of their tank.” In the mercenary environment of these narratives there is no subliminal desire for the characters. Everything is brought to the forefront by the narrator in a way that is both bewitching and startling. An uptight children’s librarian aggressively confronts the innocent sibling of a suspected murderer. A grandmother has an overwhelming urge to bite children. A mother wishes her daughter had died from a head injury rather than see her live incapacitated. Here the world is stripped down of façade. It’s raw and as fun-filled as it is fatal.

At the same time, there is a tremendous humour to this writing that often shades into the macabre. It celebrates the ridiculous of how strangely our desires pull us to do things we don’t understand. It assiduously points out the gravitational pull of the frivolous and petty over the profound. Often in these stories the ego feeds into people’s reactions to events – especially events that shouldn’t be about them like someone dying or helping an abandoned boy try to find his mother who has disappeared. The writing shows how we are terminally invested in narratives of our own making. McCracken delights in playing with language as well. Meaning is stretched out so metaphors sometimes become the reality in these characters' lives. The narrative voice can slide between stances of being totally objective to the collective "we" to being firmly entrenched in a character’s consciousness to speaking directly to “you” the reader. Although this sometimes jars, it shows the world view presented to be malleable and open to multiple perspectives and interpretations. Is what you’re being told the author’s perspective, a character’s or your own? It can be read in multiple ways. And this, like all great writing, makes you want to read it again and again.

The Martian by Andy Weir

To start out with, I have to make a confession that I’m a bit of an outer space geek. I’m not that into Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. What I’m more excited by are factual books and programs about space. One of my favourite before-bed activities is to read an oversized book someone bought me about the universe or watch the excellent BBC 1999 miniseries The Planets which provides a well-documented history of space travel. Ever since a holiday I took to Death Valley where I got to ride in a convertible with the top down and stare at the crystal-clear star-filled night sky I’ve been entranced by the stranger-than-fiction fact of the universe. So ever since hearing about Andy Weir’s massively popular novel “The Martian” described as a Robinson Crusoe story on Mars I’ve wanted to read it – especially since I actually read “Robinson Crusoe” earlier this summer. This novel is a true phenomenon as it was originally self-published, topped the Amazon bestseller list through a swiftly growing fan base and has since become a huge best-seller that’s edged into lots of top books of 2014 lists. It’s also being made into a film starring Matt Damon which is due to be released late in 2015. With all this hype, I was expecting a meditative story about man’s isolation in the universe as well as a riveting adventurous tale. I found the book to be entirely about the later.

The book starts in the middle of the action with astronaut Mark Watney suddenly finding himself stranded on Mars when the crew of the Ares 3 mission are forced to evacuate because of a large dust storm. He’s been slightly injured but able to secure himself in a small habitat that’s been set up on the planet. However, the other crew members of his mission assume he died from his accident so continue on their journey back to Earth and Mark has no ability to contact NASA to let them know about his predicament. All he has on this barren dusty planet is the relatively small habitat, a short supply of food, exploration equipment that’s been left behind and a few potatoes. How to get out alive? The novel is about Mark’s struggle to survive. It’s made up of alternate first person accounts by Mark logging in diary entries (Mark emphatically declares “I might die, but damn it, someone will know what I had to say.”) and passages about what’s happening on Earth and in the mission’s space ship.

There are some good, tense moments in this novel. However, after a while, it came across as a bit repetitive despite an impressive array of new obstacles that are put in Mark’s way. I got slightly bored through parts of it where the structural formula of each section starts to read like science – science – dilemma – scientific solution. It was a bit like watching an episode of Star Trek Enterprise where the viewer is presented with a seemingly impossible technical problem which is swiftly solved at the end of the show with a scientific solution that could never have been foreseen by us dumb civilians. Worried about freezing cold oxygen and nitrogen coming out of your regulator? Use the 1500 watts of heat from a buried lump of plutonium to constantly reheat the air. Duh! I’m being a bit harsh as it is all quite clever and I’m sure Weir did a massive about of research. All the science mumbo jumbo is made palatable for readers because Mark dumbs down the language and maintains a jocular tone in his diary entries. His tone gets a bit hokey at times, but is entertaining.

Less successful are the scenes between NASA technicians, publicity staff and mission crew members. Many exchanges occur with somewhat stilted dialogue and, although there was some character development between these people back on Earth, I didn’t care much about these characters. While Mark struggles with maintaining basics like eating and breathing, a media storm whips up on Earth where all of civilization wonders how Mark will survive. Although I realize NASA was under pressure because of this to help rescue Mark I did start to wonder: how much is it costing to save one man who willingly took this high-risk job? Not only is there the money which no doubt could have gone to helping thousands of lives on Earth. A Chinese scientist also remarks upon the mission to rescue Mark that “The operation is a net loss for mankind’s knowledge” as other important scientific space mission are abandoned in order to aid Mark’s retrieval. Mark himself acknowledges that attempts to save him must have cost “hundreds of millions of dollars.” I know the reader is supposed to be gripped and root for Mark’s survival, but even though he’s a nice guy I couldn’t help wondering if all that sacrifice is really worth it. It makes Weir’s overarching statement about the inherent goodness of humanity and the innate desire to help our fellow man falls a bit flat.

The Schiaparelli Crater on Mars

For a book that takes place on another planet and in outer space, there is very little description about what any of these extraordinary locations look like. However, Weir is good at describing Mark’s gradual physical breakdown from living on the Martian territory and the cringe-worthy smells that arise from breathing re-circulated air in a confined space that allows precious few bathing opportunities. Apart from the extremely occasional observation about the environment: “I never realized how utterly silent Mars is. It’s a desert world with practically no atmosphere to convey sound” all of Mark’s entries on Mars are about the minutiae of the science and technology he has at hand. Granted, he had already been on Mars for his mission before the book started so perhaps he was no longer awe-struck and he’s more consumed with immediate survival. However, he admits to having long periods of down time which he primarily spends watching old episodes of the show Three’s Company he found on another astronaut’s hard drive or reading pulp novels. He’s more reflective about these bits of ephemera than the condition of being stranded on another planet. Even when he has moments to appreciate the spectacular nature of his location such as this moment when he reaches a crater: “I got up to the rim, and damn, it’s a beautiful sight. From my high vantage point, I got a stunning panorama” there is no further description offered. He might as well be a tourist describing the view over the Grand Canyon. Granted, his character is a scientist not an artist, writer or philosopher. However, I would guess most scientists that pursue space travel so rigorously do so because they harbour underlying questions about the meaning of our existence in such a big empty universe. Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco is startlingly eloquent when pondering the meaning of humanity and the cosmos. Personally I would have enjoyed Mark’s narrative more if he were more than just a dry-natured, straightforward goofy guy.

This is where this novel diverges sharply from “Robinson Crusoe.” For all of Defoe’s questionable insights into human nature, at least he spends some time contemplating a man’s existential position when physically cut off from the rest of humanity. To be honest, the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars is even more intellectually searching with long passage of time devoted to Paul Mantee’s looking at wonder at the alien landscape and experiencing a piteous sense of isolation. Also, the film poster of a spaceman in a torn suit clutching a near naked man is much more appealing and enjoyably kitsch than the cover of “The Martian” but that just shows my personal taste.

Although I was expecting somewhat more of a literary novel, this book is not much more than a well-conceived straightforward thriller as it’s all about the plot rather than showing any reflective insight about life or doing anything interesting with language. Weir has a background in computer science and that very much comes across in his writing style. That’s totally fine as parts were thrilling and the novel gives a thoroughly convincing (at least from my extremely limited knowledge of science and technology) account of the logistics of trying to live on Mars as well as launching a wild NASA rescue mission. I just want a bit more from the novels I read and it felt like the author avoided any opportunities there were to bring alive the awe-inspiring fact of outer space or describe what must have been a visually spectacular place. In other words, I feel like this book is passive entertainment but in no way enriching. However, I am excited about seeing the upcoming film. With such a massive budget it will no doubt be spectacular and thrilling and actually show the beauty of space.

My short story 'Making Tea in the Dark'

Image from outside the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho on April 30, 1999 after the explosion.

I wrote a short story called 'Making Tea in the Dark' which references the 1999 London nail bombings. These were a series of three explosions targeted at minority groups which were organised by a militant neo-nazi sympathiser named David Copeland. I created a fictional victim of the attacks and the story follows his mother as she deals with conflicted feelings of isolation, anger and grief. I'm pleased this story has now been published in The Wells Street Journal. On Thursday I read the story aloud at the University of Westminster. You can read it online here: http://thewellsstreetjournalsubmit.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/making-tea-in-the-dark-by-eric-karl-anderson/

Best American Short Stories 2014 edited by Jennifer Egan

Short stories are like unwanted orphans. Some lucky ones are published in major periodicals or an author’s collection or win a prize. But even great short stories can appear in a literary review and remain largely unread except by a devout following of readers. They languish in the background waiting to be noticed. Thankfully the Best American Short Stories anthology helps to highlight some stellar examples of story telling every year. This year’s anthology holds particularly impressive examples with stories that differ wildly in form and subject matter as well as spanning many different time periods and locations. The narrator of one story is former female soldier suffering from post traumatic stress while another narrator has kidnapped her stepson and yet another narrator is a closeted macho fraternity brother. There is a story set in 1370 and a story set on Antarctica and a story with sprawling multiple endings. It’s particularly touching that this anthology includes a beautiful, unusual story about a marriage disrupted (or perhaps not) from an affair by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who died in April of 2013. Every other author has written what might be called “added bonus material” for the end of this anthology where each of them discusses their inspiration for writing her/his story.

Virtually all the writers included are well established and have published multiple books. So these stories are like fantastic tasters from authors such as Stephen O’Connor, Lauren Groff and Karen Russell whom I haven’t read before and I’m now eager to read much more of their work. O’Connor’s ‘Next to Nothing’ is an episodic story about the lives of two unusual sisters who maintain perspectives so alarming that it’s an utterly enthralling read: “Isabel and Ivy’s natural tendency is to see human society as a pointlessly complex mechanical device of no use to anybody, and most likely broken.” The story’s ending is so shocking I was completely gripped. Groff’s ‘At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners’ manages to compress a man’s entire life into seventeen pages. It emblematizes a particular kind of solitude: “He thought of himself as an island in the middle of the ocean, with no hope of seeing another island in the distance, or even a ship passing by.” The summation of his life is handled so delicately and is told with such exquisitely precise language I found it incredibly moving. Karen Russell’s ‘Madame Bovary’s Greyhound’ focuses on the life and trial’s of Emma’s pet dog. It gives a different slant to the meaning of passion for one of literature’s most famous characters: “Love had returned, and it went spoiling through them with no outlet.” For a canine character that could be taken so whimsically, this story makes powerful statements about love, loyalty and independence. 

Then there are authors whose books I have read like Joshua Ferris, Peter Cameron and Joyce Carol Oates that show in these stories skills and an engagement with subjects which feel surprisingly fresh and demonstrate what dynamic writers they are. Ferris’ story ‘The Breeze’ considers the possibilities of how a couple might spend their NYC evening and the way thwarted intentions impacts their feelings for each other. This is an ingeniously constructed story and all the more impressive when you read at the book’s end that Ferris wrote the story entirely on his phone! The narrator of Peter Cameron’s story ‘After the Flood’ sees an older Christian couple cajoled into taking an impoverished family into their home. The story eloquently explores issues of self-denial, the deleterious effects of grief on a relationship, economic disparity and ethical complications. The narrator is one of those tough-to-like characters who has learned through adversity to keep an arm’s length from being emotionally present in life. She notes how “my presence – or if not presence, for I rarely feel present anywhere these days, my existence” as if the experience of being fully present is too painful. This story artfully demonstrates how memories can haunt an individual through finding parallels in the present. Where the couple in this story attempts to shore themselves up against death through a life of habit and stasis, the couple in Joyce Carol Oates’ story ‘Mastiff’ are more cavalier in embracing adventure when they are unexpectedly confronted by an agent of death in the form of a rabid dog during a hike. This chilling story is a reminder of the inevitability of death no matter the hard-won love and tender companionship two people may find together. The dog is like an anamorphic symbol hanging in the foreground of this skilfully written narrative like the skull in Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors. 

There are plenty of other striking stories in this anthology including Charles Baxter’s story ‘Charity’ which is a sensitive, heart-breaking tale that makes the reader reconsider individuals many could easily vilify or dismiss. T.C. Boyle’s ‘The Night of the Satellite’ shows the way others’ emotions and lives affect us and our own relationships. The protagonist of Nicole Cullen’s ‘Long tom Lookout’ tries to retreat from the world by stealing her estranged husband’s step child and living in a national forest’s fire look-out station with devastating consequences. Craig Davidson’s writing frequently portrays the cunning way damaged individuals can survive despite adversity and his story ‘Medium Tough’ sees him ingeniously reconfigure this theme in his tale of a surgeon born with a defect which causes his body to be disproportionate. This is an example of this story’s mesmerising, determined voice: “I wanted to tell him: Life is all technique. The world is full of us, Aaron. The mildly broken, the factory recalls and misfit toys. And we must work a lot harder. Out-hustle, out-think… out-technique.” In Brendan Mathews’ ‘This Is Not a Love Song’ he touchingly describes a how people idealistically strive for artistic expression before they so frequently become bogged down by life’s responsibilities. Laura Van Den Berg story ‘Antarctica’ is a sustained meditation on grief and what we choose not to know.

Of course, there are some stories which didn’t chime so well with me. David Gates’ ‘A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me’ seemed to me to contain a lot of superfluous detail when short stories ought to be more streamlined. The central metaphor of Nell Freudenberger’s ‘Hover’ about a mother who imagines she can levitate didn’t quite hit the mark for me although the story touchingly describes the psychological discomfort a child experiences in the face of his parents’ separation. Will Mackin gives an interesting take on the frontlines of battle in Afghanistan with some striking descriptions, but the narrative voice in ‘Kattekoppen’ felt to me to be too scattered. As always with the experience of reading, maybe it was just my mood at the time of reading them or maybe the style doesn’t jell with my sensibility. Whatever the reason, these few haven't left as lasting an impression as many of the others. 

It’s been an absolute pleasure taking my time reading through the stories in this anthology. I made a daily habit of reading a single story every morning and felt the effect of each distinctive voice hover in the back of my mind throughout the rest of the day. Series editor Heidi Pitlor gives an impassioned and inspiring statement about what a lively presence the short story maintains in the minds of readers and in the marketplace. While Jennifer Egan acknowledges in her well-reasoned introduction that no such anthology can be truly authoritative despite the 120 stories she considered in total. But nevertheless the “excellent” mission of such a book respectably stands as a celebration of the short story and she gives intelligent reasons for the inclusion of each one she selected. More crucially, she hopes the stories will initiate a conversation. Having read all of these diverse and entertaining stories I now eagerly want to discuss all of them.

Best Books of 2014 – LISTS!

Lists! Lists! Everywhere end of year lists! Newspapers, websites and blogs are awash with enthusiastic declarations of their best books of the year. Wonderful to see familiar books like The Things About December, Station Eleven, H is for Hawk, The Paying Guests and The Blazing World on some lists. Even though I devote a lot of time to reading, I’m always struck with remorse I haven’t got to many of the books that appear on these lists. So I’ve done a survey of these sites to come up with a group of the books I’m most interested in reading but haven’t yet. Which should I read first? Will I get to them all before the ball drops on the 31st? Hmm, probably not. Also, what titles from these lists do you want to read the most?

It’s not surprising that many of the same titles appear repeatedly on these lists meaning lots of small-press titles and worthy unnoticed books have been left off. As such, I’ve also included links below to some author-recommended and alternative sources giving their lists. Do you know of more lists or have you created your own? Please leave a comment and link to them.

I’m going to wait to make my own until the end of December. Yes (I keep telling myself) wait! Seeing these lists I keep itching with a geeky desire to make my own, but I will hold on. Trust me in that it will look very different from some of the lists linked to below.

This is the full list of major publications I’ve looked at:

NPR’s Best Books of 2014 - Their site has a rather fun feature where you can organize their picks by reading subject: http://apps.npr.org/best-books-2014/#/_

Maureen Corrigan at NPR also gives an audio list of her top 12 books of the year: http://www.npr.org/2014/12/15/370338890/sometimes-you-cant-pick-just-10-maureen-corrigans-favorite-books-of-2014

Irish Times – Eileen Battersby’s Books of 2014 - Notable for including a lot of translated books! http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eileen-battersby-s-books-of-2014-1.2018927

Electric Literature’s 25 best novels of 2014: http://electricliterature.com/electric-literatures-25-best-novels-of-2014/

Goodreads 2014 Choice Awards chosen through reader votes: https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-fiction-books-2014

The Telegraph Best novels and fiction books of 2014: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10846223/Best-novels-and-fiction-books-of-2014.html

Publishers Weekly’s best 10 books of 2014: http://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2014

Huffington Post’s Best Books of 2014: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/best-books-2014_n_6248016.html

Stylist’s Gallery of Best Books of 2014: http://www.stylist.co.uk/books/best-books-of-2014

The Bustle’s The 25 Best Novels of 2014: http://www.bustle.com/articles/52950-the-25-best-books-of-2014

The Wall Street Journal’s Best Books of 2014 A Compilation: http://graphics.wsj.com/best-books-2014/

The Economist’s Books of the Year Page Turners: http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21635446-best-books-2014-were-about-south-china-sea-fall-berlin-wall-kaiser

Buzzfeed’s Books We Loved in 2014: http://www.buzzfeed.com/isaacfitzgerald/books-we-loved-in-2014

CBC gives a refreshingly Canadian take on the Best Books of 2014: http://www.cbc.ca/books/bestbooks2014/

The Independent’s Books of the year 2014 best fiction: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/books-of-the-year-2014-the-best-fiction-9903446.html

The New York Times gives an exhausting list of 100 Notable Books of 2014: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2014.html

Authors recommend their favourite titles of 2014:

Writer Nikesh Shukla gives an entertaining breakdown of his top books of the year.

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/books/review/whats-the-best-book-new-or-old-you-read-this-year.html

The Asian Writer: http://theasianwriter.co.uk/2014/12/writers-pick-the-best-books-of-2014/

The Guardian (in two parts):

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/29/-sp-writers-pick-best-books-2014

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/01/-sp-writers-pick-best-books-2014-part-2

The Sydney Morning Herald has Australian authors choose their books of 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/australian-writers-pick-the-best-books-of-2014-20141126-11u9m7.html

Bustle Books Writers Pick Their Best Books of 2014: http://www.bustle.com/articles/48177-bustle-books-writers-pick-their-best-books-of-2014-because-rumor-round-here-is-we-read

Interesting Alternative Sources for Books of 2014:

Excellent & articulate book reviewer William Rycroft's Best Books of 2014

Best Translated Book Award Fiction Longlist by University of Rochester’s Three Percent:  http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=9922

Book blogger Thom chooses his top five from the impressive 121 books he's read over the year: http://workshyfop.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/2014-year-in-reading.html

On Scott Pack’s blog he chooses the “big guns” books which he feels are the year’s biggest failures: http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack/2014/12/books-of-the-year-big-guns-misfiring.html

Reviewer John Self lists his 12 books of the year, not all of which he published reviews of: http://theasylum.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/twelve-from-the-shelves-my-books-of-2014/

Bill Gates picks his top books of 2014 in a fun Lego inspired list. Unsurprisingly, many are business/technology books, but it’s a cute video.

Foyles' Jonathan Ruppin makes an impassioned statement about the positive state of fiction and can't choose less than 15 top books: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio/Detail.aspx?blogId=1297

Anna James at A Case for Books also could pick no less than 15 choices: http://acaseforbooks.com/post/105192438613/my-books-of-the-year-2014

Well-read blogger David Hebblethwaite picks his top 12 books of the year: https://davidhblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/my-favourite-books-read-in-2014/

Can't wait to see what's coming in 2015? Hannah Beckerman highlights some of the most anticipated fiction for the new year: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/hannah-beckerman/the-highlights-best-of-fi_b_6325138.html

If you like spending a lot of time longingly looking at covers you may do well in this competition to name books by small details on their jackets. The winner gets book tokens! Enter by Dec 31st! http://www.welovethisbook.com/got-it-covered-2014

Academy Street by Mary Costello

I’ve written before about my overwhelming admiration for Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves.” One thing which makes this novel so extraordinary is the grace with which Woolf captures the full lifespan of her characters and compresses the warm core of them into tightly-knit, terse chapters. Mary Costello does something similar in her short, poignant novel “Academy Street” which follows the life of an Irish girl named Tess from an early age being raised at a farm till her much later years living in New York City. Each stage is presented with the unique quirks which accompany any individual’s life – yet the sentiment found there acquires a universal meaning and becomes familiar. During the journey the reader is held so close to Tess’ point of view it’s as if you are living it fully alongside her witnessing her most crucial moments while being privy to her innermost thoughts. Carried along by Costello’s delicately handled compressed narrative, I was moved by this story particularly for the way it meaningfully represents the plight of a person who feels in her innermost being so quintessentially alone.

The narrative is so deeply couched in Tess’ mind it’s as if anything else in the external world is only seen through the window of a fast moving train. Now and then it alights upon some solid physical objects and the connection Tess makes then is so deeply profound it is almost spiritual. As Tess grows into adolescence it’s observes “Lately the thought that all the things around her, the things that matter, and move her – the trees and fields and animals – have their own lives, their own thoughts, has planted itself in her. If a thing has a life, she thinks, then it has a memory.” It’s an extraordinary way to present the concept of projecting feeling outward into the world so that objects are granted consciousness and memory.

Tess is highly sensitised to her environment but she also feels as disconnected and essentially unknown to the objects around her as she is to the people in her life. Later it’s acknowledged that “She had always felt separate from people, and lately she had the sense that when she was out of view she disappeared entirely from the minds of others. At such moments she siphoned off images from the past and used them to imagine herself back into existence.” The labour of consciously trying to gather a sense of self through the imagined perceptions of others is something we all try to do in the hope that we are seen and remembered. But Tess is aware that individuals exist fundamentally as singular beings – no matter the amount of friends or family one might have.

The smallest details can take on a much larger meaning. Imagery as starkly simple and powerful like any described set piece in a J.M. Synge play fills this novel such as a moment when Tess sees “her mother’s apron is hanging on a nail at the end of the dresser.” The fact of its existence is wrapped with all the memories of the past as well as what could have been and what will not be in the future. It is in perceiving these objects that we are taken out of our minds. At one point it’s observed that “She looked around the ward – at the chair by the wall, the sink in the corner, the man in the bed, people passing in the corridor. It is this, all of these things, she thought, that confer reality.” Particularly in moments of high emotional tension we become aware of the physical world around us. These things make us recall that we are still only biological creatures that exist in a particular environment which is always shifting and changing.

Time takes on a forceful meaning in the novel as great portions of Tess’ life are skipped over, but the narrative holds true to her emotional centre. A sense of loss can accompany every second as it’s observed that “She listens to the clock ticking. Everything is changing.” Especially in moments when we become aware that we have forever lost something or someone we love, time cruelly continues forward and creates change. Just as some passages in the novel are highly attuned to particular moments, in other sections there is a rapid expansion of time to expand voluminously out into a grand overview. It’s as if history surges up out of objects and into the mind before subsiding back into a distantly felt darkness. This rapid compression and decompression of time has a dizzying effect.

So moving to me and to any lover of literature, is the profound connection Tess feels to reading and books later in life. What great reader can’t connect with a line like: “The mere sighting of a book on her hall table or night stand as she walked by, the author’s name or title on the spine, the remembrance of the character – his trials, his adversity – took her out of ordinary time and induced in her an intensity of feeling, a sense of union with that writer.” It’s as if in these passages Mary Costello beautifully articulates the great connection we can have with books as a better way of being in touch with ourselves: “She became herself, her most true self, in those hours among books.” Literature as a great endeavour of the humanities seeks to affix some permanence to the ephemeral reality which causes Tess such existential anguish. But, she is careful to point out, that it’s not for edification that one should turn to literature: “It was not that she found in novels answers or consolations but a degree of fellow-feeling that she had not encountered elsewhere, one which left her feeling less alone. Or more strongly alone, as if something of herself – her solitary self – was at hand, waiting to be incarnated.” This summarizes so perfectly my feeling for the divine purpose of reading and the profound way it can encourage a communion with the self. The “lonesome” aspect of my blog’s title does not necessarily connotate being lonely, but being both alone and in touch with humanity.

“Academy Street” is a careful, deeply thoughtful and powerful novel. It recalls most immediately Toibin’s novel “Brooklyn” for the way it also represents a sense of split national identity. Yet, the author has a particular power of her own for writing about consciousness. It’s bewitching the way Costello represents how in moment to moment existence there is a sloshing back and forth between the deeply-felt internal with the external world. It made me sink deeply into Tess’ experience and read with all my attention – which is what you always ideally want with a good book.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Why are we fascinated by our own destruction? There have always been tales of dystopia where civilization is levelled out with only a few lucky survivors left with the mission of rebuilding it. It feels that there has been a proliferation of these stories recently represented in films and literature. Part of it is to do with fear about the environment, political instability, biological warfare and the fragility of the world economy – all valid concerns! It’d be idealistic to consider that by fictionally playing out these potential horrors it will have a galvanizing effect to motivate us to prevent their happening. Maybe sometimes they do. I think they more likely work as good entertainment because it stirs within us that instinctual physiological reaction where the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated and drives us to a state of survivalist excitement. We all want to believe that we would be clever and lucky enough to overcome the adversities which can bring civilization to its knees. Most tales that imagine civilization’s downfall are inspired by our society’s failings. However, “Station Eleven” - which envisions a particularly nasty strain of a flu virus causing global calamity - differs from these other tales in a crucial way. The focus is not exclusively on society’s shortcomings, but our own personal loss of self and consequent loss of what’s most important to us in life.

The story begins in a Canadian theatre where a famous actor named Arthur is performing as King Lear on stage and suffers a heart attack mid-show. From this evening forward, society crumbles at an alarmingly fast rate as a virus ravages through and decimates the majority of the world’s population. This is no spoiler. Amidst the action of this specific scene the authorial voice makes us bluntly aware of what’s to come and the limited lifespan of the peripheral characters as we’re reading about them. The rest of the novel follows a select few individuals throughout the oncoming calamity – particularly Kirsten who was a girl acting alongside Arthur on stage and grows into a tough survivor who travels between camps of survivors in the far future with a group of Shakespearian actors and musicians. “Station Eleven” shifts back and forth between the past and twenty years after this event to make connections to do with the character’s relationships and how memories are imprinted, changed over time or lost. The author is clever in the way she gradually releases information and keeps the reader guessing what the fate of her major characters will be and how their stories interconnect. The novel gives equal weight to the development of Arthur’s pre-apocalypse story (a man not even personally affected by the virus) as it does to the heart-racing spread of the killer flu and the struggle for survival.

In focusing on the rise of a celebrity, Emily St John Mandel shows how the underlying meaning of the novel isn’t so much about the possibilities for disastrous failings in our society but the way we lose touch with ourselves. Arthur’s drive to succeed causes him to lose connections to the people who have been most dear to him in life and he even begins to delude himself about his own motivations. Arthur goes through a series of marriages and wonders at one point “Did he actually date those women because he liked them, or was his career in the back of his mind the whole time? The question is unexpectedly haunting.” His ambitions meld with his personal intentions and he feels that he loses touch with his essential self. He asks himself: “Did this happen to all actors, this blurring of borders between performance and life?” When he meets up with his oldest friend during the height of his career his friend Clark observes “He was performing” rather than communicating with him on a genuine level. The loss of personal values and the people most important to him are tantamount to the end of Arthur’s world. The survivors of the population-destroying virus are, in a sense, the survivors of this one man’s fractured identity. Having made both positive and negative effects upon them, they scramble to unite and understand the past through the fog of memory.

Still from a 2007 production of King Lear  directed by James Lapine at the Public Theater in NYC where three little girls portrayed early versions Lear's daughters. A version of this production is fictionalized in Station Eleven. Photo by Michal Daniel.

This has a subtle, cumulative effect over the course of the novel which builds to a poignancy not often found in most disaster narratives. Added to this are parallels drawn between the characters’ lives and two other different examples of artistically rendered realities. One example this novel’s continuous references back to the play of King Lear which is Shakespeare’s great parable about how our great accomplishments in life can be decimated by greed, arrogance and delusions of self-importance. The other is based on the novel’s title “Station Eleven” which is a comic book created by a character named Miranda about a group of survivors who scramble to live on a man-made exoplanet which has slipped through a worm hole. Copies of this comic disappear and resurface throughout so that this more fantastical story adds a cryptic under-layer to the apocalypse occurring in the primary story of this novel.

The only trouble I had with this novel is that the story of Arthur’s rise to fame isn’t especially compelling. It takes some time to develop real relevancy alongside the grander narrative about the aftermath of the virus. But once I learned more about Arthur’s wives and the people closest to them it became a very important part of the story – both for the larger point the book makes and drawing connections between the characters in pre and post apocalyptic times. There is also a slightly cringe-worthy scene set in London where a cab driver delivers a dubious line of cockney dialogue. But I only felt this way because I’ve lived in London so long myself and it came across more like a cultural stereotype. However, overall this novel is compelling and impressively told.

“Station Eleven” is an adventurous read as well as a highly-poignant one. There are multiple arresting glimpses of apocalyptic horrors and moving existential moments of solitude. It extends the meaning of Jean-Paul Sartre’s great aphorism by positing the chilling question “If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it?” The disappearance of others happens quite literally over the course of this novel’s dramatic story, but also applies to the individual’s personal reality when he/she becomes alienated from everyone who means the most to them. It makes you reassess the things and people in your life that you may take for granted – which is always a useful reality check.