Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner

Isabel Waidner has invented such a unique style of writing that's a mixture of social commentary, wildly creative imagery and buddy humour. I feel like Waidner is a modern-day Joe Orton. “Sterling Karat Gold” is a play on Kafka's “The Trial” in which an innocent character named Sterling is arrested after unwittingly being drawn into a bull fight in London's Camden Town. Sterling faces prosecution by a corrupt judge, enlists the help of friends, grapples with their lost father, stages a radical theatre production and uses space ships to cross time barriers. If this sounds too fanciful let me assure you that these stretches of the imagination always feel rooted in real-world issues and reflect the feeling of being marginalized within oppressive systems. As a character named Chachki states at one point: “correcting falsified narratives is important; but conjuring counter-realities even more so.” The bizarre quest which Sterling embarks on has the effect of liberating these characters and the reader from the restrictions and limitations we are forced to live under by plotting out new possibilities. It's also fantastic fun to read and gives a warm sense of camaraderie. 

The novel begins with Sterling stating that they lost their father to AIDS. It's gradually revealed that in his football career he had an affair with Justin Fashanu who was and still remains the only major English footballer to come out as gay. He later committed suicide. In the narrative, Fashanu becomes a kind of imaginary step father to Sterling. As in Waidner's earlier novel “We Are Made of Diamond Stuff” the referencing of real-life historical figures serves as a cultural reference point for individuals who broke through the static of the mainstream narrative to make their voices heard, but were ultimately strangled by society's restrictive perceptions about their identity. In addition to considering this history, Waidner's novel is also a powerful contemplation of the absurdity of the world today reflecting the feeling that “we were non-consensual participants in a reality put together by politicians, despots, more or less openly authoritarian leaders.” This leads to dangerous disillusionment and resignation because of the sense that “we're alive in a substandard fiction that doesn't add up.” Through this visionary new fiction Waidner shows how we don't need to settle and conform to the reality we've been offered but can boldly make our presence known and reform the mainstream narrative.

Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo

It was such a thrill to be at the award ceremony on the historic night of Bernardine Evaristo's Booker Prize win for her novel “Girl, Woman, Other”. At the time I was a great admirer of the book and was aware of her reputation, but I had no idea how many years of hard graft and dedication the author had devoted to reaching this point. Now, reading her memoir “Manifesto”, I also have such an admiration for this creative individual who has fused her experience and imagination to produce a body of literary works which artistically reflect the breadth of our culture and celebrate individuality in all its wondrous forms.

In concise sections Evaristo lays out how she got to this point by describing her diverse family background, the places she's lived, the relationships she's had, the community and politics she's engaged in, the development of her distinct form of fiction, the writers and figures who've inspired her and the ambition to persist as a creative person. She describes her experience with such charm, wit and wisdom it's extremely enjoyable to read. Evaristo wholly embraced the platform which winning the Booker Prize gave her and I've been in awe seeing how busy she has been chairing this year's Women's Prize, speaking on panels, providing endorsements for books and curating the 'Black Britain, Writing Back' series which included the excellent novel “Bernard and the Cloth Monkey” which I read earlier this year. This memoir is subtitled 'On Never Giving Up' and the book is really a wonderful testament to how the creative individual must persist and express themselves no matter what hardships are encountered. 

While Evaristo poignantly describes her fluid sexuality engaging in affairs with men and women, one of the most arresting things about her story is learning about the abusive relationship or “torture affair” she had with a woman she calls “The Mental Dominatrix”. Here she found herself in a dynamic where she was mentally and physically abused in a way which sapped her creativity and spirit. Not only does this testify to how we can become trapped in such a destructive dynamic, but it sheds new light on the section of “Girl, Woman, Other” concerning the character of Dominique who was in a very similar situation. Knowing now that Evaristo was writing from experience makes this part of her novel all the more heartrending.

I also greatly appreciated her many pithy observations about how aspects such as gender, race, nationality as well as sexuality all play a part in who we are and how we exist in society but don't define us. In an ideal world these things wouldn't even need to be defined but because of the various imbalances and prejudices which persist they still play an important role. For instance, she describes how “Men and women live in the same world, but we experience it so differently.” It means that fiction and art play such an important role in expanding our point of view to really see how other people see the world. I admire the dedicated way which Evaristo has persisted in doing so over her life no matter the peaks and pitfalls of her profession as a writer and how she will continue to reflect the world back at us in exciting new ways.

Little Scratch by Rebecca Watson

Authors have used innumerable methods and styles of writing to describe the physical and mental experience of everyday life in fiction, but Rebecca Watson has developed a technique which feels wholly unique. “Little Scratch” is the story of a day in the life of an unnamed young woman in London from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. The text is spaced across the page in a way which captures the repetition of the character's actions or how she might be thinking one thing while doing something else or how she might be surprised by a physical sensation like hot water. In this way we get a feel for the overlapping/simultaneous thoughts and sensory experiences she has throughout the day which at first appears to be an ordinary day like any other, but gradually it's revealed that she's really struggling to deal with a traumatic event. Encountering text which deviates so radically from the uniform paragraphs we're accustomed to might feel gimmicky or alienating at first, but it soon felt totally natural to me as I got into the rhythm of writing. It's also highly relatable because it captures something true about how we judder throughout our days getting lost in distractions or small obsessions or the tedium of office life or how we avoid thinking directly about things which seem insurmountably difficult. Watson creatively shows this to be both comic and tragic. 

Reading this book I became newly attuned to the way consciousness works. Within the process of thought we can get caught up in trivialities and possibilities which won't ever happen. I became aware how the imagination takes such a presence within our minds that we can playfully distort reality or build fictional narratives about the world around us to suit our desires. Watson demonstrates this in an early scene where the narrator observes someone with a small dog that looks like a bear and suddenly starts conjuring fantastical scenarios around it. She also shows how our laziness can become justified by thinking ourselves out of a situation. For instance, when she throws the remainder of an apricot away and misses the bin she goes on an elaborate train of thought about how it's the gesture to get it into the bin which really counts and how if she's questioned about the litter she'll refuse to accept any accountability. Obviously, it'd be much easier to just pick up the apricot and throw it away properly but it felt realistic how she avoids doing what's clearly sensible. The same proves to be true for larger issues in her life and this is conveyed in a poignant way. While the novel is mostly funny at first it slowly reveals the more serious issues she's avoiding and this is encapsulated at one point with the devastating line: “Is silence lying?”

The narrator is also a writer who frequently thinks about the book she wants to write or ways she can get into the literary scene rather than actually writing. Again, this feels highly relatable and though it can seem like a cliché to write a novel about the experience of wanting to be a writer, Watson addresses this in the text as well when reading a review about a book heavily based on an author's own life: “before having read the book, and despite liking autofiction! liking blurred memoir! still thinking, oh stop, stop with the talk about yourself, make something up, anything, anything, escape from yourself, just give me someone else's sincerity apart from your own, not your own!, trauma borrowed from yourself reads sore, feel it in me too much, no distance right now, need distance”. It seems almost contradictory that we often want authors to write what's true and important to them but also to use their imaginations to take us somewhere far from the author's own experience. It's interesting how she conveys this sense while also knowing that she doesn't want to confront the terrible thing that has shaken up her life.

Though I read this novel in its physical form I also listened to it as an audio book. When reading the physical book it's interesting to see all the gaps on the page and the way the text is creatively laid out, but it was also a unique experience hearing how this is conveyed in the audio book. Of course, pauses are used to dramatic effect but in some sections the overlapping text will be read simultaneously so you get a strong sense of how the narrator is thinking one thing while doing another. Sometimes books which use such a unique format feel like they are just being wilfully different, but this novel departs from a conventional narrative form in a way which is truly meaningful. It gets at the truth of experience to an almost uncomfortable degree. I found it highly relatable how she gets annoyed at someone on public transport because she can't read the title of the book they're reading, but I also got irritated with the narrator for being so consumed with such trivialities. However, I realise that what I'm really irritated with is myself because my mind is so often consumed with similarly petty or silly things. This novel has a disarming effect and I admire how it creatively presents experience in a way which feels truly novel.

Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett

We're accustomed to reading coming of age stories that attempt to faithfully reproduce the experience of growing up and the transition into adulthood, but “Checkout 19” by Claire-Louise Bennett takes a radical new approach. The narrative is an account of a young woman reflecting on her life thus far and roughly follows the linear trajectory of her development. Events such as period pains, moving to a rapidly-growing city, a tumultuous romantic relationship and a traumatic occurrence are recounted. However, her experiences have been refashioned by the process of memory till they feel like smoothed stones lodged in the gut: “I experience, every few years, an urge to recall this moment and the events that preceded it. Not only to recall it, but to write it down, again. Again.” We don't necessarily get a fully rounded picture of an event but an impression of the predominant feeling which remains because of certain encounters or experiences. Her account adheres to a different form of truth which is influenced as much by the imagination as it is by history. This is a life dominated by reading and writing which are just as real or more real than concrete experience. The story isn't so much a quest to know what is true, but a refreshingly honest account of this state of being. 

The reading life permeates her experience to the degree that when thinking back to certain time periods they are more dominated by lists of what authors she'd read or not read at that point rather the particulars of her circumstances. As I was reading these sections I found it geekily pleasurable mentally ticking off which authors I've also read, which I still want to read and which I've not heard of before. Moreover, Bennett writes in such a compelling and sympathetic way about the process of reading: “Certain written words are alive, active, living – they are entirely in the present, the same present as you. In fact, it feels as if they are being written as you read them, that your eyes upon the page are perhaps even making them appear, in any case, certain sentences do not feel in the least bit separate from you or from the moment in time when you are reading them. You feel they wouldn't exist without your seeing them. Like they wouldn't exist without you. And isn't the opposite true too – that the pages you read bring you to life? Turning the pages, turning the pages. Yes, that is how I have gone on living. Living and dying and living and dying, left page, right page, and on it goes.” This is such a gorgeous description of the dynamic way we interact with the text of books and why we connect so strongly to certain literature.

As she continues to read throughout her life she becomes aware of not only the sexism which permeates some literature but the gendered way readers are treated. This naturally draws her to only read female authors: “There came a point I don't know when exactly when I'd read enough books by men for the time being. It happened quite naturally – I don't recall deciding I'd had enough and wasn't going to read any more books by men for a while, it was just that I began reading more and more books by women and that didn't leave me much time anymore to read any books by men.” This is such a glorious way of putting to rest the assumed superiority certain male authors project, but equally Bennett skewers the way certain male readers arrogantly claim literature as belonging to them exclusively. “Women can't withstand poetry, seemed to be Dale's view. Women are beautiful and tender creatures and poetry breaks them, of course it does. Poetry rips right through you, makes shit of you, and a man can be made through you, makes shit of you, and a man can be made shit of and go on living because no one really minds, not even the man. The man likes it in fact, likes to be made shit of so that he can sit there and drink his head off and declaim one epithetical thing after another and all the other interminably taciturn men believe he is an exceptional man...” Reading this I found myself frantically nodding along recalling some self-consumed self-righteous male readers I've encountered.

There were plenty of other passages I connected with as well. In her childhood she describes the experience of being made to work in a group at school and how the result of these collaborative projects was disappointing compared to the quality work she knew she could do if working on her own. I definitely shared this kind of solitary work ethic. Even though I felt a strong connection to some parts of this novel, there were also other sections and tangents which eluded me and felt so abstract I honestly can't pretend to know what they are about. Perhaps my confusion partly comes from the unique way the author's account is a blend of the past and the fiction she wrote. When recounting a memory of a train journey she describes how: “I've a feeling I was wearing a green hat but I might be wrong about that, that might have been the woman I made up years later who takes a train to see friends of hers a day earlier than they expect”. Though this is intriguing and playful it can also be quite disorientating for the reader. Some parts of the book concern a fictional character named Tarquin Superbus whose quest to find the single sentence written in a library of otherwise blank books goes awry. As curious and bewitchingly whimsical as these sections are they felt at times like a distraction from the more interesting narrator's point of view.

Though the bulk of the novel is written in the first person, the opening and closing sections are narrated in the collective “we”. It feels like the individual is a twin being that is in constant dialogue with herself. She reinforces the validity of her point of view by agreeing and building upon it. This creates an oddly hypnotic rhythm which is reminiscent of a Beckett play. Part of me would have liked to see the entire novel written in this way. But then I would miss the forceful and directly personal way that this story is a celebration of books as they are exchanged, discussed, revered, dismissed and ignored. It does not just list authors but shows the physical presence of books, the room they take up, the difficulty in moving/keeping them and letting them go. It's also a testament of the impulse to create, to revise, to fashion out of experience an impression of life which is universal. It's the force which gives meaning to our existence when we're stuck in a job which is as tediously repetitive as scanning items at a store's checkout.

Matrix by Lauren Groff

I was in the middle of reading a much-acclaimed new novel recently and the experience was dragging because I wasn't gripped by it so I decided to put it aside and pick up Lauren Groff's new novel “Matrix” instead. French lesbian nuns in the 12th century! This is what I need! That's not to say that it's appealing just for the subject matter. The story delves into the mind and heart of its heroine Marie de France in such a compelling and complex way that I'm still pondering the larger meaning of this tale. On the surface it's very different from “Fates and Furies” which is the only other novel I've read by Groff. Yet, it's a continuation in the way this author so cleverly and sympathetically elevates the stories of women who mostly appear in the margins of storytelling. 

The novel begins with Marie, an illegitimate child of the royal court being written out of history as she's sent to permanently live and work as a prioress in a dilapidated and impoverished abbey in Angleterre. In this foreign land and in circumstances much more humble than the life she lived before she's meant to quietly reside out of sight from larger society. But Marie is a large woman - both in body and spirit and she's going to make her presence known. As we follow the story of her long life we see how she not only reinvigorates this rundown countryside abbey but establishes a sisterhood among the nuns who live there. It's a vividly told and dramatic tale which takes the richness of its protagonist's inner life as a given because she has so much more to offer than the opportunities she's given. Yet, the novel also really excels in how it interrogates the way Marie might unknowingly contribute society's rocky evolution.

It did take me a bit of time to get into the rhythm of this story because it moves swiftly through the years and there's a large cast of women to keep up with. Given the time period the average lifespan wasn't too long so often newly introduced figures don't last long while others continue to appear in the background. As soon as Marie becomes really established at the abbey and makes it into a profitable enterprise the novel leaps forward to much later in her life when she's going through menopause. This felt jarring at first but I suppose so much of her life is made up of routines which are only punctuated by some dramatic events such as an attempted siege of the abbey by a gang of resentful locals and the holy visions which occasionally overcome Marie. These inspire her to make dramatic changes, but are they really decreed by the mother of God or are they driven by Marie's own ambition and ego? This question is dynamically explored as the abbey comes to take a prominent place in an increasingly capitalist society. I really appreciate how this book presents the way economic changes on local levels gradually spread to affect civilization as a whole in a way similarly referred to in the novel “Cathedral” by Ben Hopkins.

Rather than living humbly the nuns find themselves with better garments and more to eat than the locals. Marie's decisions and authority start to feel more tyrannical than being concerned with the welfare of the community or even her sisters. She's also motivated by a wish to impress queen Eleanor who she's been (romantically?) infatuated with since she was a teenager participating in the crusades. The way both Marie and some of the other nuns psychologically and spiritually rationalize and act upon their romantic and sexual needs is handled in a really fascinating way. The majority of women at the abbey are people who don't fit in anywhere else because of how they look or their personalities or their position in society, yet they find bonds here which are mutually fulfilling: “in this enclosure there is love enough here even for the most unlovable women.” Of course, there are still petty arguments, disagreements and long-held grievances as there would be amongst any group of people. But the way Groff writes about the complexity of their inner and outer lives shows that these women weren't simply a benign presence in the wings of history.

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie)

Every year there is excited debate about what author will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and this year one of the top contenders that readers were speculating about was Annie Ernaux. Since I had a fairly free morning and while I was waiting for the prize announcement to be made, I thought I'd get to reading the most recent book to be translated by this author whose work I fell in love with starting with “The Years”. It's very short – just under 50 pages! And it centres around the subject of a married man that the author/narrator had an affair with for a couple of years. It's an all-consuming passion which takes over her life for this period of time. Her focus is not on the details or moral drama of the affair, but the impact passion has upon an individual: “I do not wish to explain my passion – that would imply that it was a mistake or some disorder I need to justify – but simply to describe it.” In doing so, she illuminates how we can become completely entangled in heated passion in a way that defies all logic and reason. Ernaux uses her characteristically rigorous sense of self enquiry to raise larger questions about the nature of desire, imagination, time and memory. 

One of the most fascinating aspects of Ernaux's writing is the openness of her narrative to take shape in the way which will best convey the meaning and heart of her subject matter. She describes how: “I felt I was living out my passion in the manner of a novel, but now I am not sure in which style I am writing about it, whether in the style of a testimony, or possibly even the sort of confidence that can be found in women's magazines, maybe a manifesto or a statement, or perhaps a critical commentary.” This book defies genre or any conventional form. Yet, its construction feels perfectly suited to what she wants to say and there's a masterful precision to her ideas. If most writers were to do this and discuss the book's construction so openly within the text it would feel intrusively self conscious, but with Ernaux it feels like a sincere and conscientious way to explore the subject matter. The book even moves from the past to the present tense because she realises that she's gradually being released from the grip that passion has on her which traps her in memories of her lover. At the beginning she's outside of the flow of everyday life, but by the end she's rejoined the stream of time and can reside again in the present.

It's curious how feverish passion causes us to idealize the lover. In the midst of this the lover can feel like the greatest person in the world, but afterwards we can see all too clearly that individual's flaws. Ernaux is careful not to reveal many details about the lover in order to respect his privacy and because his identity really isn't the subject of this book. We do know that he comes from a country outside France and that he doesn't even speak French that well. The fact that the narrator can't communicate that clearly with him almost seems to add to the way he's fashioned into an ideal and how nothing about their relationship is clear except the sexual desire between them: “I would only ever be certain of one thing: his desire or lack of desire. The only undeniable truth could be glimpsed by looking at his penis.” However, rather than recounting the details of their encounters, Ernaux focuses instead on the excruciating interim periods between their meetings and the force with which this passion controls her life.

This is most certainly not a saccharine or nostalgic account of a love affair. Ernaux describes passion as a destructive force which leads to pernicious thoughts and grievous actions. Not only does the passion annihilate any other pleasure she has in her life, but she longs for self destruction to reclaim that sense of closeness: “One night the thought of getting myself screened for AIDS occurred to me: 'At least he would have left me that.'” Equally disturbing is her compulsion to go “to the place where I had a clandestine abortion twenty years ago... As if hoping that this past trauma would cancel my present grief.” It was quite a shock to suddenly be taken back to the incident and physical location described in Ernaux's book “Happening”. Yet, it doesn't feel like Ernaux is justifying or judging the simultaneously exhilarating and poisonous effect that passion has upon a person's life. Rather, this text functions as a kind of testament which can be a touchstone for others who have felt such passion. The fact that Ernaux ultimately judges this passion to be “meaningless” adds to the persistent mystery of why it is a force that so feverishly grips our lives.

When I finished reading this book I went online to see that Ernaux has not won the Nobel Prize this year (the award went to the great Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah), but I hope one day she'll receive this honour.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

I've never felt that keen on reading “Lady Chatterley's Lover” because I always assumed it was a bonkbuster dressed up as literary fiction. This notion probably comes from my vague awareness it was banned for obscenity reasons in both the UK and US. But given that I'm eager to read Alison Macleod's lengthy new novel “Tenderness” which is about Lawrence's life and the fate of “Lady Chatterley's Lover” after his death I thought it'd be interesting to read the original novel first. So I was delighted by what a thoughtful and engaging book it is. The story revolves around Constance who is married to Sir Clifford, a Baronet and author of middling writing that nonetheless gets him press attention. He sustained a war injury which has left him paralysed from the waist down so their lives become purely intellectual rather than physical and consist of evenings of thoughtful debate with members of the upper classes. Gradually, Connie becomes very depressed and in her wanderings over the estate happens upon reclusive gamekeeper Mellors. Their guarded acquaintance gradually builds to a passionate affair complete with frolicking naked in the rain and giving pet names to each other's genitals. But this only comes two thirds of the way through the novel and the story is more about class division and different kinds of self realisation that can be found through love. 

Sir Clifford firmly believes that natural hierarchies are formed through class division, but Connie is naturally wary of this position and is more sympathetic to Mellors' more anarchic attitude which rebels against the traditional English social system. I appreciated the way Lawrence shows the competing positions of different characters in regards to romance and love. This includes a number of peripheral characters in addition to the central figures of Sir Clifford who develops a strong attachment to his nurse Mrs Bolton and Connie's passionate affair with Mellors. Of course, their intellectual reasoning about the dynamics of sex don't always align with how they feel when confronted with the reality and it's engaging how this plays out over the course of the story.

Though Mellors is more in the background at first he comes to dominate the text in the later part of the book when vociferously giving his opinions about women and the class system. Since the narrative cedes to his position it's natural to assume that this is the point of view Lawrence himself is most sympathetic with and the character he probably identified with the most. Some criticism I've read such as Joyce Carol Oates' essay “At Least I Have Made a Woman of Her: Images of Women in Yeats, Lawrence and Faulkner” seems to take this as a given. Certainly, Mellors' views are alarming given his grievance over his broken marriage as well as his hatred towards lesbians and Jewish people. Moreover he expresses murderous rage. But I don't like to naturally assume that Mellors is a mere cipher for Lawrence's own views. He is a character and there are certainly figures in the novel such as Connie's sister who criticise Mellors and offer alternative points of view. I assumed that his influence is felt so strongly because Connie herself has been romantically captivated by him.

The sexually explicit parts of the novel weren't nearly as cringe-worthy as I expected them to be. They did make me chuckle a bit and it's still somewhat shocking to read certain words being used knowing when this was written, but I think these sections work well because the characters also take them in good humour. They seem to revel in how filthy and explicit they're being in the way that lovers can do when totally indulging in each other's bodies. What made me more uncomfortable was an early section of the novel where Connie strips in front of a mirror and critically evaluates her body using disparaging terms such as “greyish”, “sapless” and “meaningless”. In contrast, when she glimpses Mellors washing his body outside the male form is presented in an idealized way. It makes sense to use such descriptions as the novel is about how Connie comes to fully inhabit her physical body as she engages with sensual as well as intellectual aspects of reality. Nevertheless, it feels dicey when a male author writes about women's bodies in such a derogatory way while men's bodies aren't subject to the same critical gaze in the novel.

Having recently read Sally Rooney's new novel “Beautiful World, Where Are You” I couldn't help thinking that her books are in some ways modern versions of a Lawrence novel. The way she focuses on class politics and the sometimes uneasy relationship between mind and body complement a lot of the issues Lawrence raised. Looking into it more, I was glad to see I'm not the only one who has made this parallel since it's something Claire Jarvis remarked upon in her article 'Contemporary Clothing' and James Marriott states “Lawrence's seriousness about sex should appeal to fans of Sally Rooney” in his article 'Why millennials should read Lawrence'. I feel somewhat ashamed I hesitated reading Lawrence for so long because I assumed his writing is out of date and his books are more concerned with indulging in sensuality rather than describing the complicated dynamics of sex. Though this novel certainly isn't above criticism, it's much more compelling and surprising than I expected. The pernicious effect of a novel being subjected to a famous censorship trial is that the criticisms lobbed at it seep into people's impression of a book they have not actually read and though I reject censorship it still influenced my assumptions about this novel. I look forward to reading more of Lawrence's work to discover what other curiosities his books contain.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

This is the third novel I've read by Elif Shafak and I love the sheer heart and humanity of her fiction. Her work does what the best writing should which is to give a voice to the voiceless and start a conversation about divisive social issues which affect us all while telling an engaging story about characters I grew to really care about. “The Island of Missing Trees” is part love story and part history of recent deadly conflicts in Cyprus. Greek Cypriot Kostas and Turkish Cypriot Defne are teenagers who form a strong romantic relationship in a taverna. When war breaks out their world is torn apart. Many years later in England their teenage daughter Ada struggles to come to terms with her parents' past and she's also dealing with the fact that a video of her experiencing an emotional outburst/breakdown has gone viral. This may sound like an obvious device for exploring the personal ramification of national discord, but like Ada who claims she understand the division which ravaged her parents' lives there is much more to the story and intricacies which require deeper consideration. Gradually we get the full tale of Kostas and Defne's past which is especially heartrending because it also involves another tragic love story about the gay proprietors of the taverna they meet in. It's a vibrant and sweeping saga that I got fully wrapped up in with all its moments of humour and sorrow. 

One of the most surprising and delightful aspects of this novel is that it's partly narrated from the point of view of a fig tree. And she has lots of opinions! It's very playful the way the tree comes to comment upon the story of these characters' lives as a silent witness while also giving a wholly new view on the situation. Since her conception of time and the interrelationship between all living creatures and the natural world is very different from humans she is able to stand somewhat outside the emotional and political drama of these characters (although she has her own love interest). At the same time she's been physically at this story's centre since she grew in the middle of the taverna and a cutting from her branches was taken to England to flourish in a new form. In this way Shafak meaningfully weaves in commentary about environmental issues which have affected Cyprus over the years on top of the human casualties sustained because of the war. Another point of view given by the narrative I really appreciated was that of Ada's aunt Meryem who comes to stay with the family in England and becomes involved in her niece's life (despite the teen's resistance). She maintains her superstitious belief despite Ada's judgemental attitude and the two come to establish a touching bond. It enforces the fact that Shafak's stories are at heart a celebration of family, love and individuality in all its beautifully varied forms.

The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine

Given that Rabih Alameddine's novel “The Wrong End of the Telescope” is about an Arab American trans woman's trip to provide medical support to Syrian refugees you might think this is a novel which is only about the big social issues of our age. It definitely is about those issues, but it's more importantly about the individuals involved with all their unique personalities and points of view. The author movingly humanizes a world that many of us only see mediated through the news showing the strengths and foibles of a wide array of fascinating people that she encounters. It's written in a style which is extremely enjoyable to read without exploiting the circumstances or people involved merely for the sake of entertainment. The plot is also effective and engaging without overwhelming the narrative. In other words, its primary motivation isn't to make a political point in the way of “American Dirt” but to present people who are neither virtuous or villainous. They are full of complexities and our fleeting encounters with them emphasize their uniqueness. Even if this makes it at times more of a meandering novel than Cummins' book which is like a conventional thriller, it means Alameddine's story is much more meaningful and successful. 

Mina is a Lebanese doctor who answers a friend's appeal to help in her organization's efforts to assist refugees that are arriving on the island of Lesbos amidst their transit to other European locations. She's also dealing with her own personal issues especially to do with the family that rejected her and she uses this trip as an opportunity to reconnect with her brother. Mina is aware that this journey isn't just a philanthropic one, but also has to do with her own ego – although, perhaps less so than some of her fellow volunteers whose primary objective is to take selfies at the refugee camps and beached dinghies. This novel is also about the author because many chapters are written in the second person where Mina is speaking to Alameddine himself who has also travelled to the island and is dealing with his own life issues. It's a fascinating and successful way for the author to circumvent the dilemma of writing a timely novel about certain political issues, acknowledging his limited personal involvement and avoiding only making it a story about himself. While the intimate concerns of Mina and the author are completely valid to consider they aren't caught in an emergency predicament like the refugees they are sincerely trying to help.

The character who is facing a dire crisis in this novel is Sumaiya, a matriarch who has been forced to flee Syria with her family and who is suffering from a terminal illness. She's a vibrant and opinionated individual who desperately wants to help her family move onto a better life even when her own existence is coming to an end. It's extremely moving how we learn about her past, the atrocious predicament she's in and the way Mina gets involved with assisting her. In this way she becomes much more than just a statistic we'd read about in the news. The same goes for many of the refugees we meet through this story including a teenage boy who aspires to become a pop star and a mother who painstakingly decorates the interior of a tent she lives in with sequins “with results Liberace would have envied.” Alameddine writes about these individuals in a way where they are not simply victims but dynamic personalities who rise above their circumstances. It makes this novel a truly inspiring and poignant book.

LonesomeReader is Eight Years Old Today!

I know it's self-indulgent to celebrate a book blog's birthday, but I take a little pride in saying that something I started more or less on a whim eight years ago is still going today and that it's opened up so many opportunities for me. If I were more organized and ambitious I'd probably have started a literary review or became a book reviewer for other publications, but I like the fact that I can just do my own thing here casually writing about whatever books take my fancy and engaging with so many great readers across the world. Some book bloggers I know who have gone on to work in publishing or mainstream media have found when reading becomes a job it loses a bit of its magic. So I figure it's probably best if I keep all the booky stuff I do online as a passionate hobby. 

The thing I enjoy most about it is the opportunity for personal reflection and literary analysis it gives me as well as the ability to connect with other readers. It really enhances my reading experience seeing a variety of responses to new books that are coming out or engaging in discussions about book prizes. And it's still the best feeling when I get a response to a passionate blog post I wrote years ago because that reader has just experienced the book I discussed and loved it just as much and wants to share that feeling with someone. It affirms my understanding that reading is a solitary activity, but it connects us to other readers across time in quite a profound way.

For most of the year I've kept up the habit of writing about a couple of different books per week, but this month I've been a bit slack about blog posts because I had a bad cold for a while and currently I'm on holiday in Lanzarote. Of course, I always bring a big pile of books with me on holiday but inevitably I end up doing fun activities with my partner which means I have less reading time than I do in a normal week. There are a number of books I've read recently including new fiction by Rabih Alameddine and Elif Shafak and some books that were listed for this year's Wainwright Prize which I haven't had time to blog about yet.

Since we're on a Spanish island I've also been enjoying reading some stories from The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories edited by Margaret Jull Costa. My partner and I have been reading a number of these aloud to each other which is such an excellent way to make reading a joint activity. Naturally, there's a real variety of styles and subject matter in these stories which span the past century but it's tipped me off to some writers whose work I'd like to explore more including Pío Baroja, Mercè Rodoreda and Elvira Navarro. The volcanic earth of this region makes it such a curious landscape but a lovely spot for some quiet reading time.

As always, thank you for following my blog and discussing books with me. I'd love to know about what you've been reading recently or what you're looking forward to reading.

The 2021 Booker Prize Shortlist

It's always interesting to see how the Booker judges will cut their list of novels down by more than half to arrive at only six titles for a shortlist. While last year there was surprise at the absence of Hilary Mantel, this year some will be taken aback that former Booker Prize winner and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro isn't included. I was hoping to see his book on the list – not because of his reputation – but because “Klara and the Sun” is a novel that's really stuck with me and that I've continued to think about many months after finishing it. However, this year's shortlistees are far from unknown. Richard Powers and Damon Galgut have been nominated for the Booker Prize before and Patricia Lockwood's debut novel “No One is Talking About This” was also shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. It's brilliant that this year's prize will raise the profile of critically acclaimed authors Anuk Arudpragasam, Nadifa Mohamed and Maggie Shipstead. Although this is another year where the old school Booker followers can roll their eyes at half the shortlistees being American, the novels in this group really address a wide range of topics and utilize a compelling mixture of writing styles to tell a unique story. 

Though I preferred some of the other longlisted novels over “A Passage North” and “No One is Talking About This” I certainly appreciate many things about these books and agree they are worth a second look. I loved the way that “The Fortune Men” immerses the reader in the point of view of a sympathetically flawed figure from history who was a victim of the United Kingdom's racist injustice. “The Promise” provides an utterly unique narrative which shows the other side of racism in South Africa by locking the reader into the prejudiced perspective of a white family in the years before and after Apartheid. “Great Circle” presents a dual storyline in two different time periods which asks pressing questions about the way history is interpreted while dramatizing an arresting and adventure tale. “Bewilderment” creatively shows a beautifully tender father and son relationship while addressing some of the most pressing issues we face today especially concerning climate change and the extinction of species. It's going to be very difficult trying to determine which novel the judges might pick as their winner. You can watch me discuss more of my thoughts in a reaction video I made about the announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ5Cq-CTdnk

What do you think about this group of books? Are you interested in reading some or all of them? If you've read them all which is your favourite?

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

It's difficult to visualize how a monumental shift in society such as the end of the American Civil War changed the ways in which people related to one another in their communities, but Nathan Harris has imagined one such story in his debut novel “The Sweetness of Water”. Brothers Landry and Prentiss were born into slavery at a Georgia plantation. Though they have left as free men they don't yet have the foundation to build independent lives for themselves and dwell in the forest of a nearby farm owned by a kindly rotund white man named George. While on the plantation Landry suffered immeasurable daily abuse which left him with injuries so severe he can barely speak. Both he and Prentiss also still suffer from the loss of their mother. Since George and his wife Isabelle are also dealing with their own grief and planning how to manage their property for the future, they invite these men to work with them so that they may all prosper. But the brothers' former owner still thinks of them as his property, the locals are wary that the newly freed slaves will take their work from them and a secret love affair threatens to disrupt the social order of this community. The novel follows a series of heartrending events which result from these conflicts and how individuals struggle to insist upon their rightful place in this newly reformed society. 

Though the central characters are sensitively drawn with many quiet, contemplative moments and evocative dialogue, there's something about this story which failed to fully capture my imagination. I think it's to do with how the high drama of the plot felt so tightly controlled in a way that seemed more manufactured than logical. I felt very sympathetic with the story which describes the lives and struggles of people not often portrayed in fiction. The lag between emancipation and the freedom to live as truly equal citizens is a struggle which carries on to this day so although it's a historical novel it feels extremely relevant. It's necessary to consider why this transition is so slow to occur and to realise that there are so many individuals throughout history who've suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the established caste system as described in Isabel Wilkerson's influential book. “Conjure Women”, another debut novel published last year, also imagined the uneasy transition in the years immediately following the Civil War or “FreedomTime” as she labels it in her novel. Nathan Harris presents another compelling point of view but the reach of its story feels too restrained by author's need to tidily bring about a conclusion for the compelling main characters.

I'm always interested in fiction set in the distant past which imagines how queer people would have negotiated intimacy within a social environment which condemned such relationships. Harris presents an example of such an interesting situation, but the gay couple didn't feel entirely believable to me as their interactions often seemed staged for the story. Sections of the novel I absolutely loved were scenes where Landry is able to find rare moments of respite in nature. Harris vividly describes the liberation Landry experiences in a space removed from the expectations and judgements of the community. Unfortunately, we're jolted out of this and other such moments in the novel a little too abruptly. This jostling pace combined with some unnecessarily simplified minor characters detracted from the subtly of emotion found in the author's otherwise excellent writing. Though it always sounds condescending, I think this is a very promising first novel. It's brilliant the author has achieved such success with the attention it's received from Oprah, Obama and being listed for this year's Booker Prize. I hope there's more to come.

The Sisters Mao by Gavin McCrea

I was enthralled by debut novel “Mrs Engels” which shone a light on the experiences and insights of Lizzie Burns. She was a historical figure known primarily as the long-term partner of Friedrich Engels but she vibrantly came to life and into her own in McCrea's fictional account. It dramatically gave a personal slant on Marxism which can't be found in any history or philosophy book while telling a beautiful story. “The Sisters Mao” is not related to that first book in its characters or events, but it is a natural follow up in that it traces the effects of Marxism through the mid-20th century and describes personalities at the beating heart of this ideology. In many ways it's a much more ambitious and lengthy novel that spans multiple decades and countries while slipping backwards and forwards in time. The delicious secrets of its story are also deeply encoded in its structure which theatrically opens and closes. Its narrative also includes an “interruption” rather than an intermission. Performance is at the centre of this novel with all its bewitching flair and ability to convey truths that are dramatically revealed. The experience left me reeling in wonder and pondering its deeper meanings. 

The story primarily focuses on the separate stories of sisters Iris and Eva who are central members of a radical performance collective in London. In 1968 their theatre is on the brink of closure since the cat-riddled building which many drifters use as a squat will be condemned and the owner (who is also their mother) wants to take back control of the property. Iris ekes out a living and helps support the collective by selling drugs while drifting through counterculture parties. Meanwhile, Eva leads members of their group to Paris to join in the notorious demonstrations which occurred that year in protest against capitalism and consumerism. When reunited the sisters hatch a shockingly disruptive plan to make a statement and confront their mother Alissa whose once-progressive values have been abandoned as she's become a mainstream West End actress. The narrative also switches for long sections to simultaneously follow the story of Jiang Qing (also known as Madame Mao) in 1974 when she takes control of a directing a ballet which is being presented for a stately visit from Imelda Marcos and which Jiang Qing wants to slyly use to suppress her enemies within the Party. Though the threads of this plot are somewhat complicated to explain the story gives generous space to each of them making it enjoyable and highly intriguing to follow. Together they also present compelling points of view to consider against each other and the ways in which embracing certain political beliefs warp these fascinating women's sense of justice.

While “Mrs Engels” focused on how a loving relationship is intimately transformed by closely-held ideals, this new novel presents multiple mother-daughter relationships which have been deeply complicated by living out longstanding ideological beliefs. The intense bitterness Eva and Iris feel towards their mother revolves around an alarming incident which occurred in 1956 when the girls were still adolescents and the theatre collective run by their parents viewed Maoism as a great red beacon of light since Stalinism had proved itself to be an epic catastrophe. It's ominously stated how “This pain was the kind caused by a mother's hand, and the honey of revenge was the only medicine for it.” Jiang Qing and Chairman Mao's daughter Li Na is tightly controlled by her mother who draws Li Na into her scheme by using her as a translator when Jiang Qing has a tantalizing private meeting with Imelda Marcos. Natural sentiments become skewed by a belief in a larger system of thought: “Family feelings were not always correct. Sometimes they were a cloak for selfishness and counterrevolutionary urgings.” The parental bonds in this novel have been twisted amidst steely power plays and nurturing has been subsumed by hardened expectations of duty. It's both tense and moving how these interactions unfold. 

Subtle points of deep consideration are worked into this sweeping historical narrative and it raises many relevant contemporary questions about the way we live in larger communities. How do our ideals play out in reality? What visible and invisible power structures are at work behind larger events and figureheads? How does capitalism steer our motives? Also, these compelling and richly drawn characters made me wonder: how do we live honestly? To live honestly within society and with those who we are intimate with sometimes conflicts with the truth of who we are. And what happens when we struggle to be truly honest with ourselves about what we desire and want? An intriguing body artist named Doris within the story plainly states “Truth is always the best option, because it's the radical option, because it's true.” So many of the dramatic acts within this novel are gestures which aim to reveal a deeper truth which people can't see. Though they may be desperate and forgotten theatrical performances, it's a meaningful testament to the triumph of art over history. It doesn't matter that the acts or the performers are imperfect because, as Alissa opines, “society doesn't need perfect art. It just needs people who try to make art. Of any kind. Good or bad. People who are willing to fail, that's what helps societies grow and what, in the end, brings about change”. 

This tremendous and thrilling story reveals the hidden drama at the centre of our lives and our society. McCrea has previously stated that these novels will form part of a trilogy about revolutionary wives. If he continues with this project (as I hope he does) it'll be a monumental achievement. I remember in 2017 seeing a picture of the spouses of several NATO leaders at a conference that included a group of wives as well as Gautheir Destenay, husband of Luxembourg's first openly gay Prime Minister. I never want to be a politician or married to a politician, but if I was I'd much rather be Destenay sitting at a table with wives rather than presidents and prime ministers. Surely they have greater insight into what's really happening in their respective countries and the world than the men in power. Similarly, McCrea has cannily chosen to focus on feminine perspectives from these specific historical periods which is far more interesting and gives an entirely unique point of view about a political philosophy which shook our previous century to its core.

Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney

When multiple friends I know in real life start talking to me about a certain author I realise that this is someone who has broken through to the mainstream. My friends are very intelligent and literate, but they don't generally follow the latest publications with as much geeky rigour as I do along with other readers wrapped up in the online bookish community. Yet, over the past few years multiple people IRL have asked me for recommendations of a book that is exactly like “Normal People”. Few authors have experienced such a meteoric rise to fame as Sally Rooney. Since the publication of her first two novels and the TV adaptation of her second novel, her books have been alternately hailed as representing the voice of a generation and pigeonholed as overhyped naval-gazing millennial fiction. Personally, I feel a bit bemused by any such strident claims as her books strike me as simply well-written, engaging, funny and smart fiction which is well-aligned with our present times. But Rooney's popularity feels more like a chance occurrence which could have happened to any of her contemporaries such as Belinda McKeon, Jade Sharma or Naoise Dolan. Nevertheless, the simmering anticipation for Rooney's new novel “Beautiful World Where Are You” has made it one of the publishing events of the year. I can assure you it's an extremely enjoyable novel and Rooney enthusiasts won't be disappointed. 

When commenting on this new novel most Sally Rooney fans and critics will probably remark on how one of its central characters, Alice, superficially resembles the author. She's published two extremely successful novels and feels ambivalent about the newfound fame she's achieved as an author. And Alice isn't shy about her opinions concerning readers' prying interest in the author's personal life, the vanity of fellow writers and the precarious position books have as a commodity in our current culture. She's also prone to complaining about her privileged position: “They never tire of giving me awards, do they? It's a shame I've tired so quickly of receiving them, or my life would be endless fun.” But she also vividly describes the deleterious effect such fame has upon her: “I feel like I've been locked in a smoke-filled room with thousands of people shouting at me incomprehensibly day and night for the last several years.” We're made aware of how Alice previously suffered a breakdown from stress. Alice's celebrity doesn't change the initial awkwardness of going on a date with someone she meets on a dating app. In fact, it makes it worse when her date, Felix, discovers that she's well known and this squeamish situation is realistically described. Though it's easy to draw parallels between this character and the author and assume Rooney is using this opportunity to vent her own frustrations, it's important to emphasize how the novel contains a carefully calibrated balance of points of view.

Another primary character is Eileen, Alice's best friend since university. Much of this novel's text is composed of messages between these women who now live in separate places since Alice moved to a more rural town in Ireland and Eileen remained in Dublin. They ruminate on a wide range of subjects including religion, history, capitalism, gender, art and concepts of beauty. It's fitting that Rooney's first novel was titled “Conversations with Friends” because this is what all three of her novels concern. It's interesting giving this novel the Bechdel test because Alice and Eileen's messages also include lengthly ruminations about love and their respective love interests. However, it seems only natural that they discuss men at length as I do the same with friends whom I exchange lengthy emails. While Alice begins a tentative relationship with Felix, Eileen experiences a hot and cold relationship with Simon, someone she's known since childhood. Like with “Normal People”, this new novel contains a traditional romantic storyline where the reader is left wondering: will they or won't they get together? And I was drawn into the suspense of this plot as I grew to care and form opinions about the characters as if they were friends of my own.

While readers will quickly identify Rooney's closeness to Alice, I think it's equally easy to see the fidelity she feels towards Eileen. Eileen works as a poorly-paid editor of a small literary review and struggles to pay the expensive rent of her Dublin flat-share. At the launch party and reading for an issue, we see what a meagre life she has selling only two copies of the publication and spending most of her time directing people to the toilets. It's easy to imagine that if Rooney hadn't achieved the fame that she has this could easily have been her life. I also felt a strong affinity towards Eileen who struggles to embrace opportunities which come her way. The narrative takes care to fill out Eileen's backstory more than any other character in the book. We also come to intimately understand the positions of bisexual Felix who works in a gruelling warehouse job and Simon who is a devout Catholic that has a burgeoning career in politics. Each of these characters' positions are dramatically played out in their interactions with each other to show the strengths and weaknesses of each. Rooney thoughtfully tests their points of view when faced with real world challenges and the way in which other people react to them.

At points it feels as if the characters are like Sims figures from that video game where we read how they go throughout their days perfunctorily fulfilling certain duties and actions. I feel like this style of narrative reflects a kind modern self consciousness which has arisen due to social media and the sense that we're living out a simulated existence. A character might get lost for hours on their phone or regularly check dating apps without any intention of arranging actual dates. It's a way in which Rooney so skilfully portrays the feeling of a certain generation within a certain demographic. All her characters are struggling with the way in which to be an adult and feel (as most generations do) that their generation might be the last. Eileen writes to Alice: “I know we agree that civilisation is presently in its decadent declining phase, and that lurid ugliness is the predominant visual feature of modern life.” One of the biggest questions in the book is how will these characters find the motivation to continue and have fulfilling lives when the prospect of a future filled with environmental and societal collapse looms before them. As well as giving a nuanced depiction of friendship and romance, this novel also meaningfully addresses this issue and provides a surprisingly hopeful message. Rooney certainly isn't the only author people should be reading, but her writing is excellent and this new novel is extremely intelligent, moving and I'm sure many readers will strongly connect with it.

Second Place by Rachel Cusk

It's been quite a while since the publication of “Outline” which is the only other book by Rachel Cusk that I've read. I was enthusiastic to try her fiction again by reading “Second Place” since it has been listed for this year's Booker Prize, but now I remember why I've avoided her books. I'm not necessarily put off by the ponderous nature of her narratives or the rarified environments her fiction is set in. It's more the manner in which she writes about her characters which is entirely centred on the self, but avoids getting to the heart of their being. Her narrators seem so intent on intellectualizing their position in life and relationships with other people that I struggle to emotionally connect with their experiences or point of view. I understand this is a conscious choice and sometimes what is left unsaid says more than forthright confessions. But this stance is more troublesome than preventing me from connecting with her characters. It means I actually struggle to engage with the ideas and issues raised in the story because I don't understand the narrator's position.

This most recent novel is told from the point of view of a woman speaking to someone named Jeffers. Who Jeffers is or why she's giving him a detailed account of a particular time in her life is never specified, but it means she controls the entire narrative and the only information we have is through her subjective point of view. Can we trust her perspective? Even though she states “I am determined not to falsify anything, even for the sake of a narrative” we're often left wondering how much she's shaping this story based on what she chooses to recount and what is left out. We never even learn her name as she's just referred to as M. Her story concerns a period when she invited a famous artist (only referred to as L) to her coastal English home to temporarily reside in a small guest cottage on her property that she refers to as the second place. Given that the letter M comes after L we can already see the layered meaning of this novel's title.

At the beginning of the story she describes a disturbing experience where she was hounded by the devil while travelling in Paris, yet the circumstances surrounding this bizarre, haunting encounter remain vague. Though she welcomes the artist L to her home with the hope that their interactions will enhance her life they soon develop an antagonistic relationship and this leads her to characterise him as the devil as well. To believe oneself hounded by such a figure feels to me like an extreme case of paranoia. I started to wonder if L is someone that M has just invented to torment her. Every time they converse she becomes so defensive it's as if there's no way for him to interact with her where she won't take the stance of someone being persecuted: “he emanated a kind of physical neutrality that I took personally and interpreted as a sign that he did not consider me to be truly a woman.” L also brings with him a beautiful and wealthy younger woman named Brett who makes M feel inadequate. It's (probably intentionally) somewhat comical the way Brett so confidently inhabits being a woman and the fact that L is inspired to paint portraits of everyone except for M when really she's the one wanting to be immortalized in art. But this humour didn't have the sympathetic effect which self deprecation or insecurity usually inspire.

It seemed to me that the narrator must have been severely traumatized or wronged, but I could never clearly see in what way. She refers to a difficult first marriage, her struggle to know how to be a woman and feelings of self disgust, but these things are only lightly touched upon without showing their fully complexity. Her identity remains elusive as do other aspects of the story such as a crisis in society which complicates L travelling to their home (the financial crash? the pandemic?) and her career as a writer (are we meant to assume this is Cusk herself?) All this intentional vagueness meant the narrator's various dilemmas regarding her identity and the existential crisis of her existence didn't feel anchored to anything concrete so I found it difficult to empathise with her. She comes across as so self-centred and navel-gazing amidst her idleness “I often found myself with nothing to do. Nothing to do!” that it mostly felt like she was inventing drama in her life simply to distract herself from her boredom.

I was continuously frustrated by the way the narrator failed to consider any inner life other than her own: “Everybody else, it seemed to me, lived perfectly happily in themselves. Only I drifted around like a vagrant spirit, cast out of the home of myself to be buffeted by every word and mood and whim of other people.” It takes a real failure of imagination and lack of sympathy to imagine that everyone else is perfectly content inhabiting themselves. I'm not averse to a story about introspection by someone writing from a place of privilege or pondering the way abstract theories can hone our understanding of identity. In fact, the premise of an unnamed narrator speaking in detail about herself to a mysterious man strongly reminded me of the novel “The Appointment” by Katharina Volckmer. But, where Volckmer's novel succeeded in teasing out tantalizing ideas and complicated issues through such extended contemplation, Cusk's book feels like it's simply posturing and grasping for profundity.