BOOK REVIEWS - British Council Tokyo Literature Seminar

Holly Golightly is perhaps one of the most fascinating characters of modern American fiction. At first glance, this Manhattan party girl leads a carefree life going against all social norms and is surrounded by her followers, most of whom are middle-aged men she picks up at bars. These men are her only source of income. She is a “lopsided romantic” forever dreaming of a more exciting, glamorous lifestyle. However, as the story proceeds, we learn that her flighty exterior conceals a complex character. Deep down inside, she is struggling to find a place she can truly belong to, like Tiffany’s where she feels secure and where nothing very bad could happen. She is like a wounded wild animal that needs to be rescued but can never be caged and tamed. In fact, she is a runaway child bride from rural Texas. When her husband comes up to New York to get her back, she refuses to return. Later she plans to marry a Brazilian diplomat, but is mercilessly dumped when she is arrested for being unknowingly involved in drug smuggling. In spite of all these misfortunes, she tries to make the best of things and leaves New York for Brazil in search of a new life, but it is hard to imagine her ever finding her “Tiffany’s” and settling down. 

Unlike the Audrey Hepburn movie which is a love romance, this novella is a character study of a wandering, enigmatic girl. The story is narrated in the first person by Holly’s upstairs neighbor she befriends. He is a writer or a would-be writer with no name whom Holly calls “Fred” after her beloved brother. “Fred” is what is called the “Capote narrator” who takes part in the storyline getting as close to his object as possible, but remains an observant outsider throughout the book. This makes the narrator’s relationship with Holly unique. It never develops into love between man and woman but remains a close friendship based on sexual neutrality, which reflects Capote’s sexual orientation – he was gay but had a strong nonsexual attachment to the opposite sex. Holly who sometimes seems naïve and vulnerable but other times experienced and vivacious is depicted so vividly that we can’t help but wonder where she is and what she is doing now. A brilliant read. 

This edition also includes Capote’s three short stories. House of Flowers tells a story of a girl who was once a prostitute but finds true love. A Diamond Guitar is about a life sentenced prisoner who becomes a friend of a young new inmate. Eventually he is betrayed by his young friend but cherishes bittersweet memories of the friend who brought him a longing for the outside world he will never go back to. I was deeply impressed by this poignant story when I first read it in college. A Christmas Memory is also an unforgettable story evoking pathos and childhood nostalgia. It is a young boy’s recollection of his friendship with his much older cousin. A bit too sentimental for my taste but still very touching. 

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This book deals with racial issues in 1930s Alabama. In the fictional town of Maycomb, Tom Robinson, a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman is put on trial. Atticus Finch, a white lawyer assigned to the case heroically defends the accused, but Tom is declared guilty by the white jury, which was common in those days in the Deep South where blacks had hardly ever had a jury find in their favor.

The story is narrated from the perspective of a young girl, Scout, who is Atticus’s daughter. Through her innocent, childlike eyes, which sometimes overlap with the eyes of an adult looking back on her childhood, the Maycomb community’s racial and social prejudices are revealed. When Atticus is appointed to defend Tom, the whole town expresses hostility towards the Finch family. The townspeople discriminate not only blacks but also those who are different from themselves. The Radleys, for example, are treated as outcasts for not going to church like the others. Their son Boo, who seems to have a mental disorder, is regarded as the town’s bogeyman. Burning with curiosity, Scout, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill try to take a peek at the spooky Boo, who is kept inside the house, without success. When Scout and Jem are attacked by Bob Ewell who incriminated Tom for raping his daughter, Boo comes to rescue the siblings.

The book’s message is easy to understand but comes across as rather preachy. The novel lacks the subtlety and multidimensional characterization often associated with great literature. The characters are portrayed as being either stereotypically good or evil. Atticus is the perfect man with a strong sense of justice. Tom is a mockingbird – an innocent victim of a racist white society, and the Ewells are evil white trash. The complexity of human nature is never really explored in the novel. ( In my humble opinion, true evil lies in those who know what is right and wrong but are willing to let others do what they are too afraid to do themselves. )

Nonetheless, the book is well worth reading because of the powerful description of the world around the narrator. This incredibly precocious girl compellingly tells us about her family life, her neighbors, her summers spent with Jem and Dill, and the whole town affected by the trial, bringing Maycomb, Alabama to life. At the same time, she shows us how she is growing up while being confronted with injustice. Although the story is about what life in the South was like back then in the 30s, it does not feel dated because of its timeless, universal themes of childhood innocence and the harsh realities of life children must come to terms with. This is a book for everyone, both young and old.

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Set in early 1950s Vietnam during the decline of French colonial occupation, the story starts with Fowler, the narrator, telling us about the murder of Pyle, his young American friend. Fowler is a world-weary, middle-aged British war correspondent, content with his opium pipe and his young Vietnamese mistress Phuong. His stance as a journalist is neutral – just reporting the facts and not getting involved. Then comes Pyle, a naïve, patriotic ideologue who is supposedly on humanitarian mission to aid the war stricken citizens of Vietnam. Fowler’s seemingly peaceful life is shattered when Pyle falls in love with Phuong and takes her away from him with a marriage proposal. His admiration for Pyle’s youth and seriousness that he has lost long before turns into hatred. Later Fowler learns that Pyle is an undercover operative trying to establish a “Third Force” that will fight against Communism. His hatred for Pyle grows stronger when innocent civilians are killed in a terrorist act Pyle is involved in. Fowler finally abandons his neutrality and takes deadly action.

On one level the book can be read as Greene’s criticism of what cynical Fowler defines as “American innocence” epitomized in the person of Pyle. Pyle naively believes all his deeds are done with good intentions, never realizing their disastrous consequences. “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused (p.52)," says Fowler. When many Vietnamese civilians including children are killed in a badly timed bombing, Pyle justifies himself with blind faith in his pureness of motive. “It was a pity, but you can’t always hit your target. Anyway they died in the right cause….they died for democracy (p.171)."  “You can’t blame the innocent,” says Fowler, “they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity (p.155)."  So, Fowler eliminates this political fanatic. Considering the fact that the book was published in 1955, this is a prophetic work on America’s further involvement in the country which ended in total disaster.

Greene’s insight into human vulnerability and sinfulness is fascinating. The plot with twists and turns reads like an excellent thriller. Highly recommended.   

Published by the Penguin Group

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Vivien, the narrator, is the daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, living in 70s London. Now she is in her mid-twenties and wants to know about her family roots, which her parents refuse to tell her about for no apparent reason. She is also interested in her uncle, Sandor, a slum landlord who was once called “the King of Crime.” Accidentally, she meets him in a park and takes on a job of writing up the story of his life. Along with the frame narrative, Vivien relates her own stories – about her somewhat empty life after her husband’s sudden death, about her sexual relationship with one of Sandor’s tenants, which also seems empty, etc.

Basically, this is a novel about identity – how Vivien tries to find her place in British society. The first 70 pages or so seem promising, but the book falls apart when Sandor steps into the spotlight to tell his life story. From then on, Vivien becomes a somewhat marginal character, with the result that the book loses its focus. In addition, half hearted meditations on what clothes symbolize make it more unfocused, leaving the reader wondering what this novel is really about.

The character of Sandor is based on that of the Notting Hill landlord, Peter Rachman, but his characterization is not deep enough to convince the reader that even a monstrous criminal has a human side. In fact, contrary to the book’s intention, Sandor is depicted as a flashy but nice person throughout the novel, thus failing to make a profound impact on the reader. Vivien, who is loosely based on the author herself, a daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland, is not so compelling a character either. She is shallow, does not come alive and seems to remain an outsider in her own life.

Some parts of the novel ring true such as the isolated, reclusive lives of immigrants, but other parts – a chance meeting in the park, a forced, abrupt ending, etc. – seem so contrived that one might wonder how this book made it to the Man Booker shortlist. A disappointing read.

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According to Balram, the protagonist of this novel, there were one thousand castes in India in the old days, but these days there are just two castes – Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies – and the latter which the vast majority belong to, are just waiting to be eaten up by the former like roosters caged in a coop. There is enormous apathy among the poor towards their plight.

Balram comes from what he refers to as “Darkness,” where people live in extreme poverty and deprivation. The name “Balram” was given by his school teacher because his father was so busy pulling a rickshaw and his mother was so busy suffering from TB that they forgot to name him! From a school inspector, he also gets a nickname “white tiger,” the rarest of animals in the jungle, but soon he is forced to leave school to work at a local tea shop. Later, he learns how to drive and is hired as a driver and a servant by Mr Ashok, the son of a Mafia-type landlord. While working for Ashok, Balram undergoes every humiliation servitude requires. He also witnesses greed, corruption, and injustice deeply embedded in upper caste society. Ashok, a liberal, Americanized gentleman, turns out to be nothing more than a coward. Balram is almost sent to jail when he is framed by Ashok and his family for the hit-and-run killing Ashok’s wife is responsible for. He finally decides to break free of the Rooster Coop he has been trapped in and join the corrupt world of Big Bellies by murdering Ashok and stealing his money.

Although being still on the run, Balram becomes a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, the country’s IT center. Staying up late in his office with a bright chandelier above him, he tells in a sardonic voice the story of his life in the form of imaginary letters addressed to the Chinese Premier who is about to visit India.

     I was corrupted from a sweet, innocent village fool into a citified fellow full of debauchery, depravity, and wickedness. All these changes happened in me because they happened first in Mr Ashok. He returned from America an innocent man, but life in Delhi corrupted him. (p.197)

My first reaction to this novel was, “How lucky I am to be a Japanese!” Yes, this is a work of fiction but the book’s extremely negative view of present-day India is probably not far from reality. We know that Balram’s account of life in India is exaggerated and caricatured but no one can deny that this country is very much still under the shackles of the caste system. And yet the book is highly entertaining and enjoyable, as it never gets preachy in bringing up those serious social issues. The portrayal of Balram is like that of an anti-hero in a picaresque novel whose behaviour is not moral but who is still likeable. Besides, his witty storytelling with a lot of dark humour keeps us turning the pages. This is a very well written black comedy.

Also, Balram’s relationship with Mr Ashok ( who somehow reminds me of the author himself ) is intriguing. The book depicts compellingly how his admiration for his master turns into hatred. This is not a usual servant-master relationship. There seems to be a strange sort of oneness in which Balram and Ashok are interchangeable – Ashok has to die for Balram to live like a man, but he seems to continue existing inside Balram. Balrum’s unique logic of murder adds an extra dimension to the story.

     Murder a man and you feel responsible for his life – possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they know his foetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life. (p.46)

Well worth reading.       

Published by Atlantic Books

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Set in early 20th century, the story begins with a scene in a life class at London’s Slade School of Art and develops through the interactions of three major characters, Paul Tarrant, Elinor Brooke and Kit Neville. Paul, the protagonist, is doubtful about his artistic abilities, thinking that he might be just wasting his time there. Elinor, also a student at the Slade that Paul is drawn to, seems more promising. A fellow artist Kit, who is also in love with Elinor has already established a reputation in London.

Soon their somewhat privileged and isolated art world is interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. Paul enlists in the Belgian Red Cross as an orderly in a field hospital and an ambulance driver. While working behind the front lines, he finds in him an inner urge to capture on canvas what he witnesses in the war-torn Belgian town of Ypres. The author’s unflinching descriptions of gruesome scenes – a wounded soldier whose eyeball swings against his cheek, an amputated leg kicked across the floor by a surgeon etc. – convey the devastating effects of the Great War on human lives. These descriptions provide a stark contrast to the seemingly peaceful England where Elinor, still a student at the Slade, turns her back on the brutalities of war, declaring that “war is like an accident that happens to you” and that “art should not depict things that are not chosen.”

Paul and Elinor’s relationship inevitably becomes difficult due to their different views concerning the place of art in war. While Elinor paints in safety pastoral landscapes of England, Paul improves as an artist whose paintings and drawings come alive through his wartime experiences. His painting of a young man who has had his jaw blown off impresses his teacher Professor Henry Tonks ( a real-life character who served as an official war artist ) who once considered Paul to be a failure.

The novel implies that art can survive massive devastation and undoubtedly the reader recognizes how important the role of art is in wartime. Certainly art as an expression of humanity is quite relevant in such dehumanizing situations. However, as a reviewer for The Independent points out, the reader might find something uncomfortable about the novel because of the crucial divide between the reality of the war and the artifice of fiction, painting or of any form of creative work. Does art hold any meaning to those who are lying in the military hospital hovering between life and death? Does it have any place in the stark realities they are actually experiencing? For all the vivid descriptions of the horrors of war and the author’s choice of theme which is quite appropriate, the novel feels somewhat shallow, as the terror of the war is observed and described but not really lived. ( Maybe I am asking too much.)

The major characters are all interesting but not compelling enough for the reader to identify or empathize with. From the outset Paul seems to have difficulty in getting involved with others. His war experience does not change his selfish, detached attitude. Elinor seems to love only herself and thus is unable to love others. Kit is the only character who develops from a mere opportunist into someone who comes to realize the true nature of art and human beings, but the relationships of these three seem all disconnected.

This is a decent novel but not a great one. This book is better than Double Vision, one of Barker’s earlier works, in which loose ends hang like a tattered curtain.

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This is not a particularly interesting book – in fact, there are some parts that are quite boring – but the story was written not by some amateurish novelist but by one of the celebrity authors of contemporary American literature. So, I decided to figure out what this novel is all about. I tried to make sense out of this seemingly nonsensical story and  the following is what I came up with.

The novel mainly consists of two biographical stories; one is that of Marco Stanley Fogg, an orphaned young man and a Columbia graduate, and the other is that of Thomas Effing, an eccentric old man in the wheelchair. After experiencing homelessness in Central Park in New York City, Marco finds a job as a live-in caretaker for Effing who later dictates the story of his life to Marco. By sheer coincidence, Effing turns out to be his grandfather. Marco also finds and meets his long-lost father Solomon Barber who is Effing’s only son.

I personally don’t like stories with too many coincidences but it seems that Auster tries to explore his philosophical issues of fate and chance and their effect on our lives through this novel. When asked why he became a tramp, Marco explains, “Our lives are determined by manifold contingencies,” “…I thought that by abandoning myself to the chaos of the world, the world might ultimately reveal some secret harmony to me, some form or pattern that would help me to penetrate myself (p.78)."  I neither agree nor disagree with what Marco says but if his words are true, there might be some hope in the world where seemingly meaningless randomness pervades.

Another issue that Auster seems to bring up in the novel is the meaning of paternity. What is striking about this story is the absence of mothers/wives and their love in contrast to fatherly love – Uncle Victor’s love for Marco, Effing’s concern for his son, etc. Marco’s mother refuses to marry Solomon and is killed in a traffic accident when he is a child, with the result that he is brought up by Victor. Effing’s wife i.e. Solomon’s mother screams curses at Solomon when she is in labour, “I’ll smother him in there first. Monster-boy, monster-boy. I won’t let him out until I kill him (p.263)."  Kitty, Marco’s lover, refuses to give birth to their baby while Marco wants to be a father, and leaves him.

Unfortunately, I got the impression that the above-mentioned issues are not dealt with deeply enough to make the reader concerned about the themes of the book. Also, Auster’s frequent reference to the moon is too allusive and a little annoying. Does the moon symbolize something unattainable such as maternal love both Marco and Solomon failed to receive? Or does it symbolize lunacy? Hope in the future? Or does it allude to the wax and wane of Marco’s life? He loses everything, regains it but loses it again in the course of his self searching trip.

Marco’s pursuit of his identity continues while he is traveling from New York to the West and the novel ends with some hope indicating there is life to start anew.

The main characters are depicted as caricatures rather than real people but I can identify with some of them to a certain extent; with Solomon who is forced to live a pathetic life because of his immense size, or with Marco who once ends up as a tramp because of his fatalism ( As far as I am concerned, the most interesting part of the book is Marco’s life in extreme poverty and his homeless experience in the park ).

Some people might like this book because of its strange, dreamlike atmosphere. Others might not because the story does not develop in any logical way and reads like a big joke. Read and decide for yourself.

Published by Faber and Faber

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This novel tells the story of an Afghan man named Amir who, in his childhood, betrays his loyal friend Hassan. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Amir and his father Baba escape to the United States where Amir becomes a successful writer. One day he receives a phone call from his late father’s best friend Rahim Khan. Amir goes to Pakistan to meet him and learns that Hassan is Baba’s illegitimate son and that he was killed by the Taliban. At the request of Rahim Khan, Amir returns to Afghanistan to search for Hassan’s orphaned son Sohrab and after rescuing this half-nephew from the Taliban captivity, Amir takes him back to the US to adopt him.

In spite of some stereotyped characters, the novel starts out brilliantly with an engaging first half that depicts in depth childhood complexities, tension and conflict in the father-son relationship, and the hardships of immigrants in the US. Unfortunately, the second half of the story descends into a poor mixture of soap opera and action drama relying too heavily on clichés, coincidences, and convenient plot devices. As the story progresses, it becomes ridiculous with an implausible sequence of events ( this is just too much even for a melodrama ). How come Rahim Khan who is supposed to be responsible for the adoption of Sohrab mysteriously ( and conveniently ) disappears, leaving a letter that doesn’t make any sense? This is one of the instances of contrived scenarios.

In addition, too many foreshadowing and plot-advancing devices make the story predictable. Things always turn out as expected, with the result that intended twists and climaxes are undermined. For example, the part where Amir goes to great lengths to get Sohrab an immigration visa is quite annoying. The reader can figure out that he will be brought to the US anyways and in fact, this immigration problem is so easily solved with just one phone call from Amir’s wife whose uncle happens to work for the INS.

What bothers me most, however, is Baba’s adultery revealed at the midpoint of the novel. This is where the book loses its focus. Isn’t this story supposed to be about Amir’s childhood betrayal and his atonement? It is really disappointing that Mr. Hosseini mixed Amir’s sins with Baba’s, or rather replaced Amir’s with Baba’s in order to keep the story moving. Instead of making the situations extravagant with Baba’s graver sins, the author should have adhered to his initial point, or should have written another novel of repentance that begins with, “I became what I am today on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1964 ( the year Hassan was born ).”

As for the setting, the first part gives some insight into Afghan society and culture before the Soviet occupation whereas the portrayal of present-day Afghanistan reads like a cartoon version of what we know about that country via TV news.

This is a book for soap opera lovers but not for intelligent readers like you and me!

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Set in post-apartheid South Africa, the story revolves around David Lurie, a middle-aged, twice divorced professor at the Cape Technical University, and his fall from grace.

David is a sort of antihero who, by abusing his power as a teacher, seduces Melanie, one of the students in his class on the Romantic poets, and as a result, is charged with sexual harassment. Being contemptuous of the university committee that demands not only an admission of guilt but also a public repentance, David refuses to apologize and accepts his dismissal in disgrace from the university. He then heads for the Eastern Cape where his daughter lives as a farmer and a kennel keeper. She is helped by her black neighbour Petrus who was once her employee but, under the new laws of this country, is soon to become a property owner aspiring to gain more land by making Lucy’s farm his own.

While staying with Lucy, David starts assisting Bev, a friend of Lucy’s, at her animal welfare clinic where animals are brought in to be euthanized rather than to be treated. One day David and Lucy are attacked by three black men. David gets injured; Lucy is raped and gets pregnant. Finding out that one of the assailants is a relative of Petrus, David’s distrust of Petrus and his reluctance to face the new realities of South Africa represented by Petrus and his people grow stronger. Lucy, on the other hand, accepts the misfortunes that have befallen her and decides to give birth to a baby conceived through the rape as if to atone for what whites have done to blacks in the past. Towards the end, David also accepts his lot in humiliation and ends up as a ‘dog caretaker’ whose job is to incinerate euthanized dogs.  

The whole novel is pervaded by a sense of futility. It seems that the political change hasn’t brought much improvement to this country. Lucy’s penance seems to be useless to the people she is sacrificing herself for. In spite of being a former professor of communications, David cannot communicate with anyone except with wordless dogs he comes to love. After he realizes that he has been self-deceptively romanticizing his affairs with women, a chamber opera on Byron which he is planning to write no longer carries a romantic tune but gets grotesquely distorted. He eventually loses not only his sexual arrogance but also his dignity and is reduced to a raw existence like that of a dog.

How pathetic! But I would like to believe that it is not altogether hopeless, as the author seems to imply that there might be some truths of life which only those who have fallen thus far can see. “…it is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again…To start at ground level. With nothing….No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity,” says Lucy to her father. The ending where David plays his Byron opera on a toy banjo to a crippled dog which he keeps but is to be put down soon is poignant.

This is a terribly bleak story but it leaves you pondering what it means to be human long after reading the book.

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Veronica, a house wife in her late thirties, was brought up in the Hegartys, a large Irish family with twelve children. She has just lost her closest brother Liam who drowned himself in the sea off Brighton. While collecting his body from England and preparing for his wake, she recounts her memories of Liam and the Hegarty family saga spanning three generations in a stream of consciousness manner.

She seems to be trying to make sense of Liam’s death by doing so, but her memories and stories are sometimes imagined and not always true. Even Liam’s childhood abuse by his grandmother’s ex-lover, which Veronica sees as the indirect cause of his suicide, might be unreal.

What draws the reader’s attention in her account is the constant use of “I” – “I remember making love to …” “I am officially mad now” – which indicates that her main concern lies in her own self. In fact the book is not so much about the dead Liam or the Hegarty family history as about Veronica’s own past and present – how her seemingly happy marriage with two children was shattered by the stark reality of her beloved brother’s death and how she is still gripped by the overwhelming power of the Hegarty clan. “You cannot escape from those whom you did not choose to love but love nonetheless,” the author seems to be saying. Now Veronica has a slight nervous break down and is bitter toward everyone around her as if blaming others could compensate for her sense of loss and her empty life.

This is not the kind of book everyone would like. Veronica’s monologue sometimes gets self-absorbed, leaving the reader behind. Her made-up story about her grandmother’s sex life seems gratuitous. Her use of language is sometimes repellent. She describes her mother as a “piece of benign human meat.” Her grief is “a confusing feeling – somewhere between diarrhoea and sex” and “almost genital.”

At first I didn’t like Veronica’s self-indulgent ramblings but came to sympathize with her toward the end of the novel. Like Veronica, I was glad and somehow relieved to know that Liam had a child. It felt like Liam had returned to life again. I also liked the ending with a sign of hope that Veronica will be resuming her normal life. It was not a bad read after all.

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Isobel is an angst-filled teenager living with her dysfunctional family in the nostalgia-provoking town of Lythe, which once was a great forest. Her mother mysteriously vanished eleven years before. Her father who also went missing shortly after her mother’s disappearance came back with a young new wife. There are also a misfit brother, a grumpy aunt and a creepy lodger. Isobel and her brother want to know what really happened to Eliza, their missing mother, but the other family members keep silent.

On her sixteenth birthday, Isobel experiences a time slip into the past. From then on, the story starts jumping back and forth between past and present, weaving several alternate worlds. In the past chapters the shocking truth about Eliza is revealed while Isobel keeps experiencing a series of time warps in the present chapters. Her world gets so weird and perplexing that it is hard to tell if the strange occurrences are her actual experience or hallucinations. This is a world where one can turn into an insect like Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, or into a tree like Isobel once becomes. It all sounds ridiculous ( and I admit there is too much madness in some parts ) but through these nonsensical episodes, the author seems to pose questions about reality and identity. “What is reality? Is reality something absolute or is it a relative kind of thing?” “Do we really know who we are?”  Well, considering these questions, it looks like the Cartesian standpoint of cogito, ergo sum ( I think therefore I am ), the fundamental concept of our existence, needs rethinking. What if there is a possibility of another “I (me)” or several “Is” existing in alternate realities, thinking totally different things???!!!

The subject matter of the book is appallingly dark – death, murder, adultery, incest, etc. And yet the story is told in such a playful, fairy tale manner, full of wit and humour, that we are drawn right in. Only after we laugh out loud, do we realise the sad truths of life. All the characters are compellingly depicted, especially Eliza, who is called a vamp. A fabulous read. Highly recommended.

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Now, this is one of the dullest novels I have ever read. The plot is clumsily devised and characters, who lack motivation, are drifting aimlessly in the story.

Daniel Wright, a British art cop is assigned to investigate the rumour that someone at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is involved in a robbery. So, he comes to Italy but is not interested in this investigation. It seems that his real intention is to get closer to one of Caravaggio’s stolen paintings “The Nativity,” which he happened to have a glimpse of in southern Italy. Daniel was once a passionate man who loved Caravaggio and wrote his doctoral thesis on this painter. But now his passions in art are gone. He seems to think that by getting back the missing painting he can recover his passions and can get his life back on track. Or he might just be hoping to impress others by doing so. But he hasn’t planned anything in detail about how to retrieve the painting. ( Maybe this passionless man is not so passionate about that either. ) So, he just hangs around and meets Francesca, a senior curator at the Uffizi. She is said to be a rising star in this great art establishment.

Anyway, Daniel at last decides to carry out his plan without giving it careful thought. Francesca agrees to help him although we have no idea why she does so. ( Maybe she does so just for fun, as she keeps saying that her life isn’t very exciting. ) So, she takes a few days off work and heads for southern Italy with Daniel where the local Mafia keeps the painting. Unfortunately Daniel miserably fails to retrieve the painting and that’s all there is to it. No tension, no humour or anything.

The only part of the book that is interesting is how famous stolen artworks are handled in the underground world.

My advice? Don’t spend your time and money. Go read something else. 

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One night, being driven by inexplicable fury, Malik Solanka, an ex-Cambridge professor and successful dollmaker, finds himself standing over his sleeping wife and child with a knife in his hand. Solanka who got scared of the harm he might be doing to his family flees from London to New York City, holding in his arms his doll Little Brain which has gained such worldwide popularity that it has got out of the creator’s control. Little Brain is like his delinquent daughter he hates and loves.

In New York Solanka wants to “erase” his past and “reset” his life, but contrary to his wishes, this megalopolis bursting with material plenitude makes him feel uneasier than ever before. People here all seem like puppets dancing to excessive consumerism with their strings yanked by America’s delusive wealth and power. Their daily lives are so numbed by multimedia and information overload that the media-induced experience feels more real than what they actually experience. According to Solanka, people live such deluded, polished lives that “the great rough truths of raw existence have been rubbed and buffed away.”

In this city of grand illusion Solanka meets two young women. One is Mila Milo who is a human version of Little Brain. Mila, while playing an incestuous game with “Papi Solanka,” encourages him to start a web-based science fiction series performed by his newly created dolls. The series becomes an instant hit. The other is Neela Mahendra, an ethereal beauty Solanka falls in love with. She is from an island in the South Pacific where the oppressed who are influenced by Solanka’s web site sci-fi are attempting a coup.

While condemning others for their falsehoods, Solanka himself loves an imaginary world more than anything else. He is an escapist who has no guts to face facts, a sort of pervert who prefers phoney sexual experience to the real thing. But at the same time, he knows that the world of fantasy can reveal greater truths about reality, thus inspiring his creativity as a dollmaker.

In fact, the actual story is set in the borderland between reality and fantasy where characters are more like puppets than actual people. After vividly depicting life in New York in the summer of 2000, the author takes us to Solanka’s sci-fi world and further to the imaginary island of Lilliput-Blefuscu where Neela is from. She has now become an activist taking part in the coup.

It is a bit perplexing to wander around the realities and virtual realities within the story but the author has the skill to turn these episodes in the far-fetched settings into such convincing allegories that the fictitious world inhabited by the dollified characters comes to life. Their world feels as real as the world we live in. ( Or shall we say our world feels as unreal as theirs? As we know, the modern world is far from “the great rough truths of raw existence.” )    

As for the protagonist’s “inexplicable fury,” the word “angst” seems more appropriate – the angst over life that doesn’t seem quite right. It is a sort of identity crisis in which one’s life has somehow slipped out of one’s hand like creation that has outgrown the creator. Or is it the angst over the erosion of what has once overwhelmed him such as passion, hope etc.? Anyway, it is a bit annoying that the book keeps referring to fury in all its variations when Solanka’s problems do not seem to lie exactly in fury itself. And to our ( or my ) disappointment, the author makes this troubled man redeemed so easily by Neela’s sacrificial love. I didn’t know Mr Rushdie was such a romantic! The author himself seems to be trapped in the make-believe world of “love changes everything.”

Having said that, Fury is quite an enjoyable read if you don’t mind listening to Rushdie’s ramblings loaded with references to pop-culture, the Greek gods and goddesses, etc. 

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Set in early 20th century Finland, which was then part of the Russian Empire, the story revolves around Eeva, a girl in her mid-teens who is left an orphan after the death of her revolutionary father. She is sent from her hometown of Helsinki to an orphanage somewhere in the countryside. Unlike other orphans, Eeva is a literate, intelligent girl who reads Pushkin. Thomas Eklund, a middle-aged widowed doctor employs her as his live – in – maid. Although Thomas carries out his job, tending to his patients with generosity, he lives like a hermit in an old house surrounded by forest. His only daughter Minna has left home and rarely visits him. But his life in solitude is shaken by the presence of Eeva when he finds himself in love with her. Minna notices her father’s secret love and warns Eeva to keep away from him. Eeva, who has no interest in Thomas is only too glad to return to Helsinki to be reunited with her childhood friend, Lauri. The last half of the story takes place in Helsinki where Eeva and Lauri become lovers. Eeva is worried about Lauri who is involved in the growing revolutionary movement against “Russification.” She is also suspicious of Lauri’s friend, Sasha, who is an activist himself exerting a great influence on Lauri. These activists are plotting to assassinate the Governor–General of Finland. Lauri is arrested after the police are tipped off about the assassination plan and is sent to prison but finally comes back to Eeva.

The first part of the novel which deals with traditional, idyllic life in the Finnish backwoods is in sharp contrast to the second half of the story taking place in the hustle and bustle of the modern city of Helsinki. People living in the countryside seem so far away from the social upheavals in the capital city. Thomas loves birch trees, cherry trees, and vegetable gardens around his house. He often treats sick children in the orphanage free of charge and is compassionate toward pregnant women giving a home birth. Here we see Eeva working energetically as a housekeeper with her strong sense of dignity and integrity. Although she is just a servant of the doctor, she considers herself an independent individual belonging to her own self. She believes she has the right to do what she chooses to do. Her self-confidence might be the very thing that attracts Thomas. However, when Eeva returns to Helsinki, the place she has been longing to go back to, her fascinatingly feisty character somehow fades away. Although she tells Lauri to preserve himself which means to keep himself what he is, Eeva herself seems to have lost her individuality. She becomes an ordinary girl who only wants her private life with Lauri. The portrayal of Eeva as a faceless, characterless character in the latter half of the book is a little disappointing. In this section set in Helsinki, Dunmore brings up the themes of the personal versus the political; she seems to be trying to tell the reader that one’s integrity can be exercised more in one’s daily life than in an extraordinary though shadowy life of a political activist and that one’s true happiness exists in one’s personal life. However, the issues are not fully discussed leaving the reader in frustration.

Apart from Eeva, there are some interesting characters in the book. Thomas whose only satisfaction seems to come from self-sacrifice is one of them. Johanna, his late wife, married him on the rebound – he was never loved by her. This might be the reason for his having an affair with a friend of Minna’s, an affair Minna never forgives her father for. The depiction of Thomas enhances the novel with conflict and tension. Also, Sasha, a Russian revolutionary intrigues us by his sinister attempts to betray his “comrades.” He has many faces but no identity of his own. We want to know more about this enigmatic character but are abruptly shut out of his life when he commits suicide - Dunmore could have developed this character.

To sum up, this is a very well written novel with all the details of cultural and historical backgrounds of Finland at the turn of the century which we know so little about, but is finally a somewhat unsatisfying read.

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Now, I would like to tell you about the well-known vampire story, Dracula. Everyone knows about this world-famous story but most of us are more familiar with film versions and I suppose only a few have read the original story written by Bram Stoker over a hundred years ago. I don’t know how well-versed you are in vampire myths or in Count Dracula himself but the original Dracula story is a bit different from that of the movies. For example, the Count looks much older early in the novel. He doesn’t sleep in a coffin but in a box filled with earth. Did you know that he can crawl down his castle wall like a lizard? He seems to be quite fond of going out of the castle in this lizard fashion. At the end, contrary to vampire traditions, he is killed not with a stake but with a knife. This ending is a bit of a disappointment, as the Count is destroyed so easily by his pursuers after all this adventurous chasing and being chased from England to Transylvania, the Count’s homeland.

The narrative style is quite interesting, though. The story is told from multiple viewpoints of the main characters ( other than Dracula himself ) through a series of diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings which must have been a unique method at that time, giving the impression that the story is based on truth. In this way, we get the overall picture of the Count while getting frustrated with the protagonists’ ignorance of the Count’s supernatural forces. ( Oh well, we cannot blame them, as we know better than they do about vampires through numerous films and plays. ) But here comes Dr Van Helsing, a specialist in vampires. He is a scientist but also an expert in the study of superstitions. He is a great threat to the Count, who is attempting to extend his power into the British Empire and eventually, with the help of the other vampire hunters, Van Helsing destroys the Count.

Like many sleepy Victorian novels, the book sometimes lacks pace, making the story tedious for us contemporary readers. But if you are interested in 19th century literature in terms of cultural, social, and historical backgrounds, there are many themes you can find about Victorian England. On a social level, you will learn about Victorian morality and female sexuality. In those days, women had to be under men’s protection and domination as an innocent ( and ignorant ), caring, and motherly existence, thus maintaining the male hierarchy. “Voluptuous” women were considered to be harmful to this male-dominated society although in reality, wild dreams of male imagination were often stimulated by sexy girls’ wantonness. According to some critics, repressed sexuality can be found here and there in the novel. For example, stakes are said to represent phallic symbols. Sucking blood can be seen as a metaphor for sexual intercourse, etc, etc. Count Dracula who is not dictated by sexual morality seems to like victimizing voluptuous women more than anything else in the world!

On a cultual level, scientific developments such as Darwinism forced people to question their religious beliefs that had been held over centuries. The use of the icons of Christian faith – crucifix, sacred wafer – to drive away the Satanic Dracula shows Stoker’s warning against rationalism and seemingly almighty science.

Also, there is a theme of East vs. West. In the mid 19th century, an increasing number of immigrants from Eastern Europe were of great concern to the British Empire. Many of the immigrants were Jews looking for a better life in the modern metropolis of London which was then the economic and industrial centre of Western Europe. The invasion of Britain by Count Dracula represents this huge anxiety that mid 19th century Britain experienced about non-Anglican, non-Christian immigrants from the “uncivilised East.”

It is true that all these themes give us an insight into the novel but what appeals to us most is the horrifying powers of the supernatural and superstitions which reflect the darker, mysterious side of human nature. No doubt Dracula stimulates our secret wishes to gain youth and immortality even at the risk of taking others’ lives. If you are a man, how can you resist the idea of staying young by sucking the blood of “voluptuous” women!? This is why the novel has enjoyed long lasting popularity.

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Story

Mrs Moore comes from England to visit her son Heaslop in the Indian town of Chandrapore. She accompanies Adela who expects to become engaged to Heaslop. There, the two women meet Aziz, a young Muslim doctor and Fielding, the principal of the local government college. Aziz organizes an excursion to the Marabar Caves which ends in disaster. The echo of the caves terrifies Mrs Moore and later she becomes cynical and nihilistic. Adela, on the other hand, imagines she has been sexually assaulted in the cave by Aziz. Aziz is arrested and stands trial. Mrs Moore who believes his innocence is sent back to England but dies during the voyage. Adela herself is not sure if she was really assaulted by Aziz or just had a hallucination. At the trial she withdraws the charge which arouses anger on the part of the British as well as the Indians. Adela decides to break off her engagement to Heaslop and leaves India. Aziz who is now fully anti-British leaves Chandrapore to live in the native state of Mau. Fielding who once was a close friend of Aziz also returns to England briefly. Two years later, Aziz and Fielding meet again in Mau. Fielding has married Stella who is Mrs Moore's daughter. Aziz renews his friendship with Fielding but knows they will not see each other again. Not until the Indians "drive every blasted Englishman into the sea," and then"...you and I shall be friends (p.306 )."

Mrs Moore's experience at the Marabar Caves

One of the most interesting aspects of A Passage to India is that all the main characters in the novel have some symbolic meaning. Aziz symbolizes colonized India struggling to become independent. Heaslop represents Anglo-Indian colonial society and its imperialism. Fielding and Adela show us the incompatibility of East and West. However, the one that puzzles us is Mrs Moore, a thoughtful woman who becomes a friend of Aziz but whose sympathetic personality gives way to apathy and nihilism after the visit to the Marabar Caves. Considering that Mrs Moore is a devout Christian whose spiritual influence later extends to the Hindus, there is no doubt that her role is to bring up the religious theme into the novel. However, the messages conveyed through this character seem to be contradictory. After hearing the monotonous echo that reduces everything to the same dull “boum” sound, Mrs Moore finds herself in a completely barren state of mind. To her, life becomes utterly meaningless. On the other hand, she is admired by the Indians including Godbole, a Brahman, and becomes the deified Esmiss Esmoor. How are we to reconcile these two seemingly incompatible Mrs Moores?

“Pathos, piety, courage – they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value (p.139).” At the Marabar, the echo murmurs in Mrs Moore’s ear. Certainly there are some Hindu implications in her experience of the echo such as the oneness of everything, annihilation of value, but the effect the echo has on her seems too destructive to be considered that she has truly attained Hindu enlightenment. Her devastated state of mind is far from the highest experience of Hinduism which is believed to bring the comfort of all-embracing oneness. Still, it is possible to see that she has had a glimpse of Hindu revelation or has experienced the process of attaining enlightenment, although the glimpse is just a glimpse and the process is not a goal.

As is mentioned above, Hindu philosophy is based on the oneness of God and beings in which one’s “self” is part of God or identical with God. Here, “self” is considered to have no subjectivity i.e. ego and no entity of its own. If there is any entity at all, it must be the entity of God that “self” is identical with. Therefore, in order to attain oneness with God, one must be emptied of one’s ego-self. This process of self-denial is said to be very painful. One must keep emptying oneself, must keep going through “neti neti – not this, not this.” It is a kind of spiritual death in which one is robbed of all the things that had once been meaningful. A void appears here that nothing within oneself can fill.

What we see in Mrs Moore’s all-negating emptiness reminds us of this spiritual journey through nothingness. In a sense, she is a mystic but an incomplete one whose journey to the full insight of Hinduism is only halfway there. The passage that describes her return trip from Chandrapore seems to prove this point. “…presently the boat sailed and thousands of cocoanut palms appeared all round the anchorage and climbed the hills to wave her farewell. ‘So you thought an echo was India; you took the Marabar Caves as final?’ They laughed. ‘What have we in common with them, or they with Asirgarh? Goodbye! (p.198)” The voices of India seem to imply the ultimate truth she is yet to find and maybe never to find while she is alive. It is only after her death that she is fully harmonized with Hindu Oneness.

Although the metaphysical theme is central to this novel, many of the issues concerning the theme remain unresolved. It might be that these matters are intentionally left unanswered in order to indicate “the human predicament in a universe which is not, so far, comprehensible to our minds.” After all, the world is a muddle, the cosmos is a mystery. No matter how we struggle, all we can gain is a partial understanding of the whole truth like Mrs Moore. 

Published by Penguin Classics

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As the title of the novel indicates, Barbara Covett, a history teacher in her early sixties, is secretly writing notes on the scandal of her colleague Sheba Hart. Sheba is a pottery teacher in her early forties having an illicit affair with her fifteen-year-old student Steven Connolly. She is arrested for molesting a minor and is now out on bail living with Barbara on whom she has become totally dependent after the scandal broke. Barbara, in turn, looks after Sheba with motherly care as if she were her own child. Barbara describes Sheba as a naïve, unworldly woman although she is married with two children. Her notes tell us that it was “the Connolly boy” who wielded more power in this student-teacher love affair and when he got bored with the sexual power play, he brutally dumped her. And yet, even after the affair became public, Sheba is still madly in love with the boy, romanticising their relationship. Her obsession is the height of folly.

But why is Barbara writing the story about Sheba? With stalkerish enthusiasm she is writing down every single detail concerning Sheba as if she is trying to possess every inch of her. What is Barbara thinking? While we are reading her account, our attention is drawn more to Barbara herself – the nature of her relationship with Sheba. In fact, this is more a story of Barbara’s own obsession with Sheba than Sheba’s with her student. Barbara is a person who needs someone she can dominate.  Her obsession is such that she gains Sheba at the cost of losing her job and poor Sheba has now fallen victim to her enslavement.

This is all too maddening of course, but somehow we ( or at least I ) can’t help feeling sorry for the sinister Barbara. She is a terribly lonely spinster whose only companion is a cat. Being contemptuous of people around her, she is socially isolated. Her strange obsession must be motivated by the fear of being an irrelevance to the world. As Barbara herself writes, “there are certain people in whom you can detect the seeds of madness (p.192).” The seeds remain dormant as long as they live relatively comfortable lives but once they are deprived of their pleasant situations, these seeds might blossom into full-blown lunacy. Barbara is one of these people. We can assume that when she came to know Sheba and her seemingly happy family, she began to realise her misery as a spinster, which eventually drove her to form a predatory relationship with Sheba.      

The book reads like a psychological study on how loneliness can turn into madness. Barbara is one of the most intriguing characters of contemporary literature. Her keen, insightful observations about people around her are fascinating ( too bad, she has no insight into her own peculiar behaviour! ). Her sharp though witty comments make the book highly entertaining in spite of its dark tone.

Published by Penguin Books 

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If the world has no beginning or end, time can be considered to run not in a linear way but in a cyclical way which means history repeats itself over and over; the present is the continuation of the past and vice versa. This novel seems to be based on such a philosophy of time and history.

The novel consists of two forms of narratives which are inextricably interwoven by “time.” One is the story told by Nicholas Dyer, an 18th century architect and Satanist who is commissioned to build churches in London. The author uses the 18th century style of writing in this part. The other story takes place in modern day London, centering around a detective called Nicholas Hawksmoor who is in charge of investigating a series of murders that occurred on the sites of the churches Dyer built. We find that these killings are closely related to the ritual murders Dyer committed centuries before. We also find that the detective who bears the name of the real 18th century architect Nicholas Hawksmoor is a reflection of Dyer’s own image. They might even be the same person, as the book seems to indicate that the dual existence of an individual is possible – one can exist both in the present and in the past – if there is no time sequence.

I know it doesn’t make sense but Hawksmoor is more a novel about ideas than plot, rejecting the conventional concept of storytelling, so if you expect some plausible plot line, you will be disappointed. I myself find many parts incomprehensible, some parts pretentious and nonsensical. I believe a great novel creates its own philosophy but great ideas don’t always make a great novel if the plot aspect is given less attention.

Having said that, I have to admit that Ackroyd writes skillfully, evoking the nightmarish atmosphere of old London which turns into a massive necropolis after the outbreak of the plague and the fire. We come to recognize that the present city is built on the past where masses of people have passed through. Dyer’s dystopian view of the world is also compelling. In contrast to the optimistic rationalism of his superior Sir Christopher Wren that one day science will explain away all the mysteries of human existence, Dyer, the creature of darkness, believes that human nature is corrupt, that human affairs are governed by blind power of fate.

        We are governed by One who like a Boy wags his Finger in the inmost part of the Spider’s web and breaks it down without a Thought. (p.16)

         What is Sorrow? The Nourishment of the world. What is Man? An unchangeable Evil. What is the Body? The Web of Ignorance, the foundation of all Mischief, the bond of Corrupcion, the dark Coverture, the living Death, the Sepulture carried about with us. (p.21)

Although the overall novel gives the impression of being too theoretical, the 18th century part where Nicholas Dyer is so vividly depicted is worth reading.

Published by Penguin Books

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The story takes place in the mid 1980s when Nick Guest, a gay Oxford graduate, has moved into the Notting Hill mansion of Gerald Fedden, who is a Tory MP on the rise. It was Gerald’s son Toby who invited his college friend Nick to stay with the Feddens but Toby does not know about Nick’s secret crush on him since their college days. Nick goes on to live with the Fedden family for four years doing a doctorate on Henry James.

Being from an ordinary background, Nick is soon swept away by the glamour of the Feddens’ high society surroundings where he meets wealthy aristocrats and politicians. He even succeeds in asking the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to dance with him. In the meantime he also pursues his gay sexuality having affairs with a handsome black boy Leo and then with a Lebanese millionaire Wani, who introduces him to drugs.

Nick is a self-proclaimed Jamesian aesthete exploring beauty in all its forms – in the grandeur of the Fedden lifestyle, in the mesmerising intercourse with his gay friends. Unfortunately, his exploration is not deep enough to compel the reader’s attention and gives the impression that he merely loves a hedonistic life of wealth, sex and drugs, drifting aimlessly between greed and lust. Although he is clever at insinuating himself into the highest social class represented by the Fedden household, he does not seem to be ambitious enough to become part of this affluent, influential world of privileged men and women. He remains a hanger-on right through to the end of the book with no guts to rise above his present situation. Anyway, he is not another Jay Gatsby or Tom Ripley as some reviewers have pointed out.

Towards the end of the story, his fantasy world starts to crumble. His dazzling experiences end in appallingly stark realities. He finds out that Leo has died of AIDS and his current lover Wani is also dying from the same disease. At the same time Gerald’s liaison with his secretary causes a media scandal which eventually involves Nick. “Gay Sex Link to Minister’s House,” says the press headline. The glittering world he was once so fascinated by now reveals ugliness with all the gilt scraped off. But the fact is, there wasn’t any beauty from the very beginning either outside or inside Nick himself. This is quite ironical, considering that the book is entitled “The Line of Beauty.”

I agree that Hollinghurst is a skillful writer whose prose style is brilliant but unfortunately the novel itself seems rather hollow lacking credibility both in plot and characterisation. “Who are you? What the f*ck are you doing here?” I felt like asking the same question that Gerald asks Nick. It strikes me as odd that a VIP like Gerald allows an outsider to live in his house for four long years even if it was at the request of his son Toby and that this outsider stays there so long for no apparent reason. ( And Toby doesn’t even know why he and Nick are friends, but has simply accepted the evidence that they are! ) Considering that Nick’s relationship with Toby leads nowhere, the author seems to have used Toby just to introduce Nick to the grandiose upper class tale. All these make the novel feel a bit contrived.

If you are interested in the gay lifestyle of the 80s, this novel might appeal to you. Apart from that, there isn’t anything strikingly attractive about the book. 

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