The Painter's Daughters - Emily Howes (2024)

 

Rating: Excellent

Another book club read, another historical fiction novel, but The Painter's Daughters is a quality example of this sometimes maligned genre. Thomas Gainsborough was an excellent landscape portrait artist, pretty much inventing the form due to his love of landscapes combining with the need to produce portraits to earn enough money to keep his family going. Married to Margaret, the illegitimate child of the union between a commoner (see below) and the Duke of Beaufort, they had two daughters, Mary (Molly) and Margaret (Peggy). As the novel's name suggests, this is about the lives of Molly and Peggy, as told through Peggy's voice, who, although the youngest of the two, spent her life looking after Molly. Molly suffered from an unnamed mental illness that led her to take flights of fancy and risked being sent to an asylum, a terrible fate in the eighteenth century. The historical aspects of The Painter's Daughters are fascinating and, from the research I undertook, stays true to what is know about the Gainsborough family. The novel follows the family from country Ipswich in Suffolk, to Bath and then onto London. As the daughters get older the pressure to fit into normal polite society mounts, and so does the narrative tension as Peggy attempts to keep Molly in check and navigate the demands and mounting frustration of their mother, who is alarmed by Molly's mental illness and their inability to fit in. There are also chapters involving said commoner, Meg, whose unfortunate story is told via past flashbacks and brings the present world of the Gainsboroughs into sharp relief.

Howes is a skilled writer, and considering that The Painter's Daughters is her debut novel, it is remarkably assured. Howes descriptive powers are such that scenes are vivid and encompass all the senses, in particular those set in the bustling streets of Bath. Although sometimes relegated to the background, Thomas Gainsborough comes to life as the affable and eccentric painter of renown. The scenes involving him painting in his studio are fascinating, atmospheric and beautifully written. The Meg chapters build in tension, despite the prior knowledge that everything does work out, Howe's makes you worry and care about her eventual fate. Peggy and Molly's story is tragic, yet contains many moments of tenderness and hope. They are extremely sympathetic characters and in Howes skilled hands they come to life. All of the characters are well developed, from the daughters themselves, through to Thomas, Margaret and the array of minor characters, such as Gainsborough's patron, the humorously named Thicknesse, his eventual wife Ann Ford and finally the bounder, (the operator of the playboy type*) of the story, Johann Fischer, an oboist of dubious renown. Fisher's presence in the Gainsborough house-hold is insidious, flirting with both sisters without compunction. That the sisters' story ends in tragedy lends a melancholic tone to The Painter's Daughters denouement, however the novel is still satisfying. Most of the book club members enjoyed the novel, finding it easy to read and replete with fascinating historical detail. It was remarked that The Painter's Daughters would be a great holiday read, although one with some substance and emotional clout. Recommended, whether you are on holiday or at home with a cup of tea and a cat on your lap.

* See Whit Stillman's film Damsels in Distress (2011)

In the Approaches - Nicola Barker (2014)

 

Rating: Excellent

First of all, In the Approaches is a very strange novel. Secondly, only an English author could write such a novel. In the Approaches is a multifaceted beast, a romantic comedy, of sorts, a surreal tale of eccentric characters being very odd in the English country-side in the 1980s, a metafictional narrative, a rumination on faith and, also, terribly chaffed and inflamed buttocks (yes, you read that correctly). The narrative unfolds in alternating first person chapters, mostly swinging between the two main protagonists, Franklin D. Huff and Carla Hahn. Hahn is a resident of the sea-side village of Pett Level in the UK and Huff is a visitor, on a quest to try and discover what happened many years prior when his wife lived and worked there, before she was horrifically burnt in a bomb blast. Stylistically it is a difficult novel to get used to, Barker loves to leave sentences unfinished, the thoughts of the characters are left there hanging as they try and make sense of the situation and how they feel about it all. She also loves parentheses (apparently this is a hallmark of Barker's writing), so much so it is made fun of throughout the novel, particularly by one of the minor characters, Clifford Bickerton. Bickerton is a thoroughly post-modern character, complaining about having to be part of the story, raging against the author (referred to as 'she') and undergoing an existential crisis due to his self awareness about just being a minor character in a novel. At one point printed words stream out of his mouth as he has a breakdown, trying to deal with the awfulness of it all. It is, in actual fact, all quite entertaining.

Once I got used to Barker's idiosyncratic style and settled into the characters and the story-arc, In the Approaches shaped up to be a satisfying read. The characters are potentially irritating, in particular Franklin D. Huff, but Barker manages to make them endearing and their continued perplexed state of being becomes a plus, rather than a minus. Just how Barker manages to do this is somewhat of a mystery, as the seperate ingredients seem like a recipe for irritation, rather than satisfaction. Perhaps it's Carla Hahn's propensity to continually flick her hair behind her ear with her hand, or her tendency to take no heed of feminine gender norms. Perhaps it's the chapters entirely given over to a parrot called Baldo (or is that Teobaldo?) who shrieks and scratches its way through what seem like entirely too long chapters (yet somehow, in the end this works). Or perhaps it's the mystery of the thalidomide child, Orla, who became saint-like in her obsession with Christianity before her death and who went on to influence proceedings in gnostic ways that perplex many of the characters who inhabit In the Approaches. Perhaps it is the romantic pull and push between Huff and Hahn, which involves a dead and rotting shark under a bed, a tiny sauna perched on a clifftop about to fall into the sea, and the strange smell of eucalyptus that surrounds them both. Intrigued? Then maybe this is the novel for you. The novel's denouement is oblique and perhaps a tad disappointing because of it, but then Barker is not a typical author prone to cliches used to wrap things up neatly, after all, the novel is aptly named, as in the end, the reader, like the characters who populate the novel, is also trapped in the approaches. 

Euphoria - Elin Cullhed (2021)

 

Rating: Admirable

Sylvia Plath was a brilliant writer of both verse and prose and even the most casual reader of literature would know something about her. Her only novel, The Bell Jar (1963) made a huge impact on me when I read it some eighteen years ago, it seemed brilliant and radiant in its intensity, despite its challenging subject matter. Plath was married to English poet, Ted Hughes, and during her last year she was living in Devon whilst pregnant with their second child. Their marriage unraveled and Plath ended up living in London with her two children whilst Hughes pursued his need for ‘freedom’ (as quoted in the novel) with another woman. Plath’s tumultuous relationship with Hughes is well documented and for most of the rest of his life Hughes was attacked by feminists and critics for having treated Plath poorly or for even being the cause of her death. Elin Cullhed, in an interview, relates how she read Plath’s journals during a trip to England when she was twenty, which made a big impact on her. Then years later, during a period in which Cullhed was diagnosed as having extreme exhaustion, she was inspired to write a novel about Plath’s last year before her untimely suicide at the age of thirty. In Euphoria’s forward it is noted that the depiction of Plath is a fictional one, a 'literary fantasy' as Cullhed puts it, a notion that the reader should remember while reading the novel. 

Hughes and Plath

Euphoria is a novel intense with emotion and inner psychological tension and in this sense Cullhed has succeeded in portraying both a troubled individual and a marriage compromised by interpersonal and professional struggles. Written in the first person point of view of Plath, the prose is ripe with a heightened state of self-awareness, of neurotic desperation and self-sabotage. The portrayal of Plath's state of mind is suffocating and unrelentingly neurotic and, as a result, Cullhed has done Plath no favours, as she comes across as impossibly demanding and impossible to live with. Ted Hughes was undoubtably flawed, but the Plath of Euphoria weakens her position as a hard done by literary genius who battled depression while not getting the sympathy or help she needed from a husband who ultimately cheated on her and left her caring for two young children. Hughes comes out of the novel in quite a sympathetic light and with Euphoria so heavily weighted toward Plath's first person perspective it seems very unbalanced. Ultimately it’s an exhausting read and in the end I was speed reading just to get it over and done with, which is, obviously, never a good sign. I'm also troubled by the moral implications of putting words and thoughts into the mouth and mind of such a well know literary figure and portraying Hughes' and Plath's relationship in such a skewed manner. Despite the 'literary fantasy' warning at the beginning of the novel, I can't help but feel that readers will come away from the Euphoria with the notion that they have an accurate perception of Plath in her final year and her relationship with Hughes. Ultimately I admire the quality of the writing, but didn't enjoy the novel overall, an impression shared with many of the book club members, although some did enjoy it unreservedly. Euphoria is a flawed novel with dubious moral standing, so read with caution!

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson (2003)

 

Rating: Admirable

Around the turn of the twenty first century William Gibson stated that any possible future that he could imagine would not be as weird as what was happening in the present. Accordingly, Pattern Recognition was the first of his novels to be set in the (then) present, so weirdly it is now set in the past. It has been a long time since I’ve read a Gibson novel, longer than the life of this blog. Pattern Recognition attracted me due to its fantastic premise, involving a female protagonist, Cayce Pollard, who displays allergic reactions to logos. Cayce makes a living as a marketing consultant, the worst her reaction is, the better the logo. Cayce is employed by the marketing company, Blue Ant, owned by the toothy Tom Cruise-like Hubertus Bigend (one of the best character names ever). In London to meet with the Blue Ant marketers, Cayce starts to experience a sequence of unsettling events, including being bullied by Blue Ant hard bitch, Dorotea Benedetti. In addition, Cayce, along with a world-wide coterie, is obsessed with very short arty film clips (referred to as ‘the footage’) that appear intermittently via the internet, and are created by an anonymous source, a source that Bigend wants to uncover, seeing it as a brilliant marketing art-form. Bigend, all toothy and hirsute, uses his persuasive powers, basically oozing cinematic charm, to hire a reluctant and paranoid Cacye to track down the creator.

Gibson, feeling weird in the (then) present

Pattern Recognition reveals a Gibson different to the one who produced significant novels such as Neuromancer (1984) and All Tomorrow’s Parties (1999). I always felt that although Gibson’s ideas were brilliant, technically his prose was slightly clunky. Not so with Pattern Recognition, in fact after only fifty pages I was comparing his prose style with that of DeLillo and Ballard, and I started to see the world differently while under the novel’s influence, something that happens rarely (but does with Ballard and DeLillo). Typically, Gibson displays a fine degree of cultural insight, tapping into the opaque signs and signifiers that lurk in our oversaturated media dominated world (as it already was back in 2003). Curiously, however, there are some quaint uses of technology; to watch segments of the ‘footage’ Bigend uses a potable DVD player! The novel was published six years before Smartphones became sophisticated and cheap enough to completely change our interactions with media, therefore DVD technology seems completely out of date as a portable medium now. Gibson produces some brilliant lines, and the novel is replete with visually expressive writing. The overall feel is very noirish, especially when Cayce ends up in Tokyo, perhaps the most natural environment for a Gibson novel. Despite an excellent start the novel begins to taper off about two thirds of the way through, particularly after several mysteries are cleared up. The novel’s denouement is melancholic (a good descriptor for the overall tone of the novel) and subdued, which was disappointing after such an intriguing beginning. Recently I read that short stories tend to be all middle, which is an appropriate descriptor for Pattern Recognition, as it doesn’t quite ignite. Overall, the novel is full of promise that doesn’t completely deliver, but I haven’t been put off and will read the second and third books in the trilogy, Spook Country (2007) and Zero History (2010).  

The Bee Sting - Paul Murray (2023)

 

Rating: Excellent 

Paul Murray is an Irish writer and fittingly in the long tradition of Irish literature The Bee Sting is an epic literary work filled with weighty themes and experimentation with form. Essentially a novel about family dysfunction, it also deals with wider themes, such as climate change. The Bee Sting weaves a tapestry of alternating perspectives into a whole that is, at times, overwhelming and demanding to an almost maddening extent. The Barnes are a wealthy family living in a town just outside of Dublin, with the patriarch, Dickie, running a car dealership that has run into financial trouble. This appears to upend the family dynamic, with his wife, Imelda, and their two teenagers, Cass and PJ at odds with each other and themselves. However, there is far more going on under the surface due to a dysfunctional past that has led the Barnes family to an inflection point of crisis. Murray reveals the inner perspective of each character in turn, piecing together a narrative jigsaw puzzle that eventually leads to an understanding of both past and current events. The reader is granted direct access into the mind of Imelda via Murray’s use of stream of consciousness for all her sections. An old Modernist technique, it causes the reader the tumble over her thoughts and actions, as if you are inside her traumatised and harried mind. As a technique it is a risky move, as the lack of punctuation makes it difficult to read, but you do get used to it and ultimately it is totally appropriate for Imelda, as her experiences form the backbone of the narrative. In the latter stages of the novel Murray utilises second person intermittently, which, once again, takes a bit of getting used to, but it effectively places the reader right in the shoes of the characters.

The Bee Sting has been critically successful and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for 2023, however once I finished it, I realised that, for me at least, it is a novel to admire, rather than one to enjoy, at least in a conventional way. Strangely, however, despite my misgivings, that The Bee Sting is far too long, has too many unsympathetic characters and forces you to relent to the overwhelming urge to speed-read large sections, I did enjoy it in a weird, almost perverse kind of way. The novel is a challenge to read, which brings its own level of enjoyment, depending on what you want from a novel. The plot presents a host of surprises, most that were already lingering in the background, but not visible enough for the reader to guess (except for the actual bee sting, that was obvious). As the plot twists and turns, it propels the reader on through a sea of words that often present a real drowning threat. It doesn’t help that all the main protagonists are dysfunctional, which makes for bleak reading, even the humour is darkly ironic. Despite these challenges The Bee Sting is a fine novel, and I can’t help admiring Murray’s literary bravery with his liberal use of narrative techniques that challenge the reader. There’s also the shear bulk of the book to consider, coming in at over 650 pages, which places unrelenting pressure on the modern reader’s attention span. Read The Bee Sting, give it a chance, but be prepared to be pushed beyond the boundaries of literary endurance. Many of the book club members hated the novel with a passion, but the few that did admire it, also hinted at some enjoyment, or at least satisfaction that they finished reading it.

Blood on the Moon - James Ellroy (1984)

 

Rating: Mediocre

Most regular readers of this blog would know that I don't read much in the way of crime, but I've long known about James Ellroy, in particular his tragic back-story, with his mother's unsolved murder. I also know that he is an intense guy and this was confirmed when I read about his upbringing, in particular after his mother died, but that's another story. I picked up an omnibus (I've always loved that term...) edition of all three novels in the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy, his first major series of novels, preceding the L.A. Quartet (1987 - 1992), which includes L.A. Confidential (1990), which was then made into a great movie of the same name. So, a big build-up, but unfortunately I was disappointed. In an introduction to the omnibus written by Ellroy, he talks about reading Red Dragon (1981), the book that helped inspire the Silence of the Lambs (1991) movie (along with the book of the same name), after writing Blood on the Moon and realised that it was far superior. Blood on the Moon is Ellroy's third novel and you can tell that he's learning to write as he's actually writing; it's a transitional piece of writing, and I assume that he improved later, as he is so well regarded.  Here the writing is poor, in that you can see the joins, it's a bit clumsy and ham-fisted. The depictions of character psychology, and this includes the renegade sex-addicted cop, Lloyd Hopkins himself, comes across like a lurid cartoon. Everything is exaggerated into a hyperreal state, including the dialogue and scene descriptions. It became tiresome after a while unfortunately.

What Ellroy does have going for him, at this point at least, is his that his intense personality is shining through. There's something compelling about his style which urges you on and sometimes overcomes the poor writing. The plot moves along at a brisk pace too, although it's sometimes kind of ludicrous. The killer is a florid creation, bordering on the ridiculous. His motivations become apparent in the last third of the book, and are kind of cliched. That Ellroy is conflating Hopkins with the killer (I can't even be bothered looking up or recalling his name), showing that they are not that dissimilar, is handled reasonably well. Thanks to Hopkins Protestant ethics he's been drawn onto the side of 'good', although a highly flawed version. Hopkins dealings with women are cliched as well, the women are initially wary and then are irresistibly drawn to him, they just can't help themselves! Even the feminist poet can't help herself! The depictions of the mean streets of L.A. is also cliched, along with the corrupt drug-using gay cop who gets in the way of Hopkins crusade to find the killer. Fortunately the novel ends quite quickly, with the showdown between Hopkins and killer wrapping up before tedium kicks in. Will I read more Ellroy? I'd say so, I'm still curious and I acknowledge that Blood on the Moon is an early book. I don't think I'll bother with the other two books in the trilogy, Because the Night (1984) and Suicide Hill (1985), but I will try the L.A. Quartet, after all, they've been republished as Everyman Classics, so that should count for something.

The In-Between - Christos Tsiolkas (2023)

 

Rating: Excellent

The In-Between, the first book club book after a long break of five months, is the latest novel by Christos Tsiolkas, infamous author of such around the water cooler conversation starters as The Slap (2008) and Damascus (2019), (actually, not a around the water cooler for this one, more like around the pulpit). The In-Between follows too middle-age gay men, Ivan and Perry, as they first date and then embark on a relationship that causes both to have to come to terms with prior significant romantic disappointments. As usual for Tsiolkas the sex scenes are explicit and detailed, especially the initial one between the two main protagonists; Tsiolkas does not hold back, and this may be too much for some readers. There are several such sex scenes throughout the novel, and, after a while, they do come across as a tad performative and become slightly tedious. Far more interesting, however, is the psychological intensity of both men’s attempts to come to terms with their past and to move on into the kind of functional relationship they both really want. In the end it is insightful and tender writing, coming across as very believable and relatable to anyone who’s ever loved and lost and loved again, regardless of sexual orientation. Despite the eye-opening sex scenes and the focus on relationships, the main thematic thrust of The In-Between is really class, as explored in the extended dinner party scene (see below) and also in the stark cultural and societal difference between Perry and Ivan’s worlds. The other major theme is generational change, as explored in depictions of how older gay men had to live, in comparison to contemporary Australia, in which marriage between gay couples is legal and there exists an increased level of acceptance within the community. 

Around the middle of The In-Between Tsiolkas produces the best dinner-party scene I have ever read. Perry is university educated, has travelled widely, and works as a translator, whilst Ivan is a landscape gardener and has barely travelled. At the dinner party, with some of Perry’s old university friends, Ivan is subjected to a thinly veiled, class conscious, ‘friendly’ grilling about his background and worldview. It’s cringeworthy stuff, with the portrayal of Perry’s friends, who on the surface project left-wing acceptance, as judgemental and reactionary. Another interesting aspect to the novel is the device of using minor characters, often ones with no significant presence in the narrative, as a means to observe and comment on the main protagonists. It’s a clever way of thinking about the characters from a perspective outside that of the reader’s, and Tsiolkas uses it to great effect several times. After the brilliant dinner party scene the novel loses some of its focus and tension, in particular when the setting moves to Greece and focusses on another gay couple, however this is a minor quibble, as ultimately The In-Between ends poignantly and effectively with a scene that would touch even the most cynical among readers.