Author: inspirationalreads

Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Hoeg

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Book #157

Reviewer: SweetP (first published 5 August 2012)

 

Smilla Jaspersen thinks more highly of snow and ice than she does of love. When her six year old neighbour falls to his death she is convinced that his death was the result of foul play and not an accident as the police believe. As a Greenlander, Smilla has always felt at odds with her new home in Denmark, and she is lead back to the icy frontier of her roots as she begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the boy’s death.

This book is hard to categorise, and describe. At times it sweeps the reader away on achingly beautiful and poetic descriptions, there’s a real sense of atmosphere – ice becomes a character of its own, and the cold seeps out of the pages. And then in the turn of the page there is a clunkiness to the prose that grates and made me feel like something had been lost in translation. (The book was originally written in Danish).

Smilla is at turns, provocative, with an inner strength that is admirable as she hunts for the truth, and then at other times her motivations are a mystery, or she utters something that seems just plain… odd. She portrays a sense of aloofness, a disconnection with the world around her which at the beginning was interesting, but by the end I felt like her voice had been lost a little. The plot too, at this point seemed to ramp up to ‘the big reveal’ only for it to feel forced and the ending rushed and incomplete.  I also remember feeling this way about the film adaptation that I watched many years ago – there is very little I remember about the film actually (except that Gabriel Byrne starred) but I do recall a sense of disbelief that the ending ‘went there’.

That being said, the setting was incredibly fascinating. The ‘sense of snow’ was incredibly evocative and exotic. We, in New Zealand, have one word for snow – the Inuit people have so many – Smilla’s gift for the ice was probably the thing that held the book together for me. I didn’t know anything about Denmarks’s relationship with Greenland and the issues globalisation has caused there – so that too was something I enjoyed learning more about.

I have a suspicion that this book will linger in my mind for a long time, but I don’t think I will be rushing to reread. I gave it 3/5 stars.

The Turn of the Screw – Henry James

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Book # 789

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

 I am going to start with a straight-out confession; I found the writing of this book difficult which directly affected my enjoyment of it.  Now, I’m not going to claim I am hugely familiar with 19th century style of  writing, but I love me some Austen and have recently read and enjoyed some Wells and Wilde.  I had heard that Henry James could be a bit more taxing and so I thought I would start with this, one of his shorter novels and one that appealed to the sinister, horror-fan that I am.

The book opens on a Christmas Eve night.  A group of friends are sitting around when one says that he has a manuscript of a now deceased former governess.  And so, from the perspective of our un-named governess, our story begins when she comes to care for two young orphans.  Hired by a remote Uncle whose main stipulation is that he wants no contact whatsoever in regards to the children’s care, our young storyteller meets the younger of the two first.  She is immediately caught up in the child’s beauty and is quick to grow genuine care and affection for young Flora.  Flora’s older brother Miles is away at school, but the first note of not all being right is struck when a letter arrives advising that Miles has been expelled from school.  Distraught at such news, when Miles does arrive home the governess is also charmed by his beauty, enough so to put the letter aside and dismiss it as an error or failing on the part of the school.  All seems to be going along perfectly when our storyteller begins to see a man and a woman in and around the house, both of whom are strangers to her.  She soon learns that she is seeing the ghostly appearances of her predecessor, Miss Jessel and her lover Peter Quint, ghostly because the are both now dead.  From here the situation only worsens for her as she begins to suspect that the children are aware of these visitor and are actively interacting with them.  It seems that the close relationship that Jessel and Quint had with Flora and Miles in life has continued after their death.

This story is genuinely creepy.  The children are unnerving with their angelic appearances being at odds with the knowledge and co-operation with our spectral duo.  And it is their barefaced lies in the face of interrogation, their sweet voices and their sly smiles that really ups the ominous tone.  The appearances of our not-so-dearly departed two also startle but all of this is undone by the very wordy and long-winded contemplation of our narrator.  This introspection and its intensity are there to make the reader begin to doubt that everything is right with our governess and her version of events, but it is just so wordy and long-winded (repetition and italics.)  I am a reader in this day and age and not that of when the book was written, so I can’t comment on the appropriateness of this.  All I can comment on is that it made a short novel seem really long and a chore to finish.

That being said, there were many passages that were beautiful in their description and effective in the imagery they evoked.  It is clear to see why James is heralded as a master.   The following is when the governess lets go of the reserve that is holding her back from directly addressing the matter with the children

“Where is Miles?”

There was something in the small valour of it that quite finished me.  These three words from her were in a flash like the glitter of a drawn blade, the jostle of the cup that my hand for weeks and weeks had held high and full to the brim.  And that now, even before speaking, I felt overflow in a deluge.

Just when my mind would start to wander, a phrase or paragraph like the above would pull me back in and make me appreciate why this book is on the list and just what it was contributing to my ongoing reading education.

At the end of the day, to admire the technical proficiency is good, but I want to enjoy what I read and to learn and grow from it but not feel like it is an assignment to endure.  It is a horror story and it achieved what a horror story should; it was creepy and eerie and frightening as well.  But I am pretty sure that boredom is not on the list of what a great book is supposed to do and yet boredom is the overriding memory I take away from it.  I give it a 2/5 rating.

Less Than Zero – Brett Easton Ellis

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Book #240

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

American Psycho has become arguably the book that Brett Easton Ellis is most known for; it became famous for being controversial in its graphically violent portrayal of serial killer Patrick Batemen and its comment on the materialistic excess 1980s America.  This theme of excess, corruption and an almost savage detachment of emotion in coping with the depravity that is an inevitable product, is central to Less Than Zero his first book, written when he was only 21 years old.

Clay has come to LA, on Christmas break from college.  In a wide circle of friends, he is one of a small number that has gone away for college, a decision that is more revealing than what a first glance would indicate.  For Clay and his friends are a generation of privileged children, with access to money, sex and drugs and no restrictions or boundaries. It is through Clay that we experience this lifestyle; he is part of this, this is where he grew up, these are his friends and he is used to the endless rounds of parties, drugs, sex.  But just because he is used to it , it doesn’t mean that he is comfortable with it.  The reader is fed these scenarios through a filter of a kind of forced emotional numbness that becomes harder to maintain the more time he spends back in LA.  The depravity becomes increased as his friends and acquaintances push to experience things that will dent their apathy.  More drugs, a snuff film, an under-age sex slave, the fascination with a dead body in an alley where the first instinct is to tell your friends so they can come and stare rather than call the police.

This novel is insidious by nature.  The minimalist, indifferent tone lulled me into reading in an disassociated manner.  There were no out loud gasps or truly horrified moments for me; it wasn’t until a few moments after reading a certain passage that I had to pull myself up and realise that yes, that was a snuff film that they were playing at a party and yes, it seemed to be being enjoyed by most there.  Clay’s voice and by extension Ellis’ writing conveys exactly what is intended, and it is horrible and magnificent all at the same time.  Clay reads as one note; detached.  But as you read on you realise there is more to our young narrator.  He cannot tell his younger sisters apart yet there is a twinge of something when at 13 and 15 they speak of sexual ideas and experiences.  At a family vacation with his grandparents, he appears to be the only one concerned about his grandmothers illness.  His unease at not being able to locate his best friend and when he does, a not-so-obvious sadness at what has become of him.  He is part of the story, but he also represents the audience for this story too.  It is a note of morality, albeit very small, in a place where the moral compass has well and truly been broken.

At the time of its release, this novel shocked and disturbed.  It is no less disturbing now, but the shock value has been watered down a little in a society that has access to anything and everything at their fingertips. What is interesting is that it still feels relevant over 30 years later, where a reality star can be made out of somebody who has nothing else to offer other than a glimpse into their glamorous and excessive lifestyles.

I always feel a bit funny saying that I enjoyed something that is obviously quite (for want of a better word) icky in nature.  But the skill in the setting of tone and the subtle ways in which Clay is both participant and observer is to be admired.  This is a strong warning to those who do not like their fiction to be served with a side of debauchery and graphic displays of such – avoid at all costs.  My above examples are there as warnings as well.  While not as descriptive as American Psycho, it is still disturbing in nature and content.

There is a follow up novel set 25 years after the events in the book called Imperial Bedrooms of which I am yet to read but am looking forward to.  As for Less Than Zero, a strong 3.5/5 rating.

The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous

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Book #996

Reviewer: Beth, of Beth’s List Love

Reading the Arabian Nights in not a simple proposition. Not only, depending on the version you read, is it long to incredibly long, but first you have to actually choose a version. I started with the very good Wikipedia summary of the history of the collection and translation of the stories. You see, the various collectors and translators over the centuries have had different agendas in approaching the tales: make them less baudy, make them more baudy, make them fit another culture’s picture of the Islamic culture they portray, make a literal translation of the language (thus losing some meaning along the way), make the story total reach 1001… It’s complicated. After reading Wikipedia, I settled on the Husain Haddawy (spelling of the name on Goodreads is wrong, by the way) translation which is linked here. Haddawy actually has a great introduction that talks about the history of the stories and makes a good case for the choices he and the author from whom he translated the work made in compiling their version. One of the things that he argues, and I agree with him, is that to do this work justice, the translator has to be at home in both the cultures involved, the culture of the tales and the western culture into which they are translated. That way the translation can be true to the original while rendering the tales in imagery and language that create the effect of the original in the new tongue. I have been very happy with my choice of this translation.

The basic premise of Arabian Nights is that a king, betrayed by his wife and hearing of a similar experience from his brother, decides that the only way to have a faithful wife is to marry a woman, sleep with her, and kill her the next day. He is pretty much wiping out the female population of the kingdom when his vizier’s daughter steps in with a plan. She begs her father, who is charged with rounding up wives for the boss, to marry her to the king. The first few stories actually make up part of the argument between the daughter, Shahrazad, and her father, about whether he should accede to her request. Eventually he does, and she marries the king, but brings her sister along, to set up the plan. The sister asks Shahrazad to tell them a story before the night ends, and Shahrazad does, but leaving them with a cliffhanger so that she can live to tell the rest the next night. The process continues this way, with stories within stories and cliffhangers most nights. Shahrazad definitely believes in the power of suggestion, since there are many examples of people being pardoned if they tell good stories or are worthy people. Eventually the king gets the hint and decides that he won’t kill her, and the kingdom is saved.

The stories are wonderful little nuggets, many involving enchantment and demons, most also involving beautiful royals and romance. At times they can seem a little repetitive, but they are still wonderful. Haddawy has preserved the pieces of poetry interspersed in the tales which adds to the pleasure of the reading. I recommend taking your time with this collection, as the tales were intended, rather than reading the stories in large gulps quickly over a couple days. It will be much more fun that way.

Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey

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Book #205

Reviewer: Arukiyomi (first published May 2012)

This was a wonderful book from start to finish. Carey writes with great insight into the vivid characters he has created and his use of metaphor is always insightful. While very beautifully evoking the themes of love and society, this is also a story of something I’m very familiar with: the struggle to overcome our fallen nature while trusting in a God who accepts that we cannot.

Set in the mid 19th-century, Oscar is born to a fundamentalist minister in rural Cornwall, England, Lucinda to immigrant parents in Australia. Both lose parents at a young age and both find themselves unacceptable to their surrounding societies. Although this hardship has quite a different effect on moulding the two of their characters, they both struggle with a passion which they carry as a dark secret: gambling.

For Oscar, this is at once the basis for faith and yet its crisis. He gambles, he believes, because God has instructed him to so that he can fulfil God’s plan. Lucinda gambles because she has the money to burn and because she finds it evokes preternatural tendencies she can barely resist. When the two eventually meet, it is gambling which cements their friendship and the greatest bet of all which is the consummation of their love.

This book is not short and yet Carey writes with an astonishing level of detail. The detail isn’t, as with Tolstoy or Hardy, in verbose descriptions of scenes or the human soul. The detail comes from metaphor. It’s everywhere and makes the novel worthy of a second, more patient, reading. Inanimate objects become alive: houses, buildings, modes of transport, whole countries – all of these are characters in the story. The humans themselves are also exceptionally well-crafted. Each of them is complex and you are never sure whether they are good guys or bad ones. And this is how it should be. Which one of us is, after all, wholly evil or wholly good? We are as varied a mixture of the two as you can imagine, and Peter Carey can imagine a whole lot more than most writers.

There are Booker Prize winners and Booker Prize winners. This one is up there with Midnight’s Children and The Siege of Krishnapur in my top three I think. Would it appear in yours?