Dark Magus: The Jekyll and Hyde Life of Miles Davis - Gregory Davis and Les Sussman (2006)

Rating: Mediocre

I absolutely love jazz, but I'm the first to admit that it is not for everyone. I've always advised the jazz novice to begin with Miles Davis, due to the fact that he both excelled at and helped create so many types of jazz that he offers something for everyone. It's just a matter of finding a way in, but if you want to read something to help you try and understand Mile Davis, then unfortunately Dark Magus is not that book. I found my copy in a pretty cool op-shop in Melbourne, it has a great cover and when I opened it the couple of paragraphs I read convinced me to spend all of five dollars to gain access to a family member's thoughts about the great man himself. Gregory Davis is Miles Davis's oldest son and as such he spent a great deal of time with him as his PA, bodyguard and general dogsbody. In the introduction Gregory promises "...not just another chronicle of his life and career..." and also that there are "...no sour grapes to this book..." He then proceeds to give a fairly chronological account of Miles family, his childhood and early years developing his jazz career. To be fair it does contain quite a bit of information that only a close family member would know, which is mostly interesting. As for the sour grapes, well, Gregory does go on to talk about being cut of the will (which is rightly something to be upset about), so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there. Apart from the first six chapters, which covers Miles early years, most of the book does jump around in time and features chapters named after either albums or songs, such as Quiet Nights and Miles Ahead. Miles Davis had a career that was so multifaceted, influential and successful you'd think there would be no end of amazing anecdotes and obscure facts to bring to light. Well, they are there, but are buried within repetitious accounts of Miles moods, his impulsiveness, his women, his drugs and his apparent Jekyll and Hyde duel nature.

Miles Davis, contemplating his moodiness.

I can’t help but feel that Dark Magus is marred by Gregory Davis’s inherent closeness to his subject. It's not a book about Miles the music-maker, rather it is about Miles the moody patriarch. What is missing is some kind of insight into his music-making impulses. Miles seemed to be able to make the intangible tangible in his music, channelling something authentic from within to create some incredible music, perhaps the greatest in jazz, period. Another problem is that there’s not much in the way of revealing insights into his relationships with key musical colleagues, there’s Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie early on and Clark Terry (Bebop trumpeter) writes the foreword, but what about the likes of Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul and Herbie Hancock? Possibly Gregory was not privy to such musical relationships, despite being his eldest son (born in 1945), PA, bodyguard, whilst living with Miles on and off for years. It’s a shame, but I would not recommend Dark Magus to anyone interested in his music. It’s as much Gregory’s story as it is Miles, and that’s fair enough, but Dark Magus seems like a wasted opportunity. Also the quality of writing in Dark Magus is subpar at best and could have done with some judicious editing to improve the constant repetition and the banal style. For insights into Miles Davis the man, it's best to look elsewhere, such as Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, by Ian Carr (1999), which I read in the era before I started writing this blog. Or perhaps Miles: The Autobiography, with Quincey Troupe (1990), which I haven't read, but Miles apparently over-uses the word 'motherfucker' a great deal, which sounds promising to me! 

The Anniversary - Stephanie Bishop (2023)

Rating: Mediocre

Even though I finished The Anniversary only two weeks ago I've had to look it up to remind myself what it was about and what happened across its interminable length. I'm finding it difficult to even write this review, such is my antipathy toward the novel. In any case, here I go: JB Blackwood, a novelist, and her famous filmmaker husband, Patrick, twenty years her senior, embark on a cruise in order to rekindle their relationship. There's much more to it, of course, taking in such weighty themes as the nature of narrative, which is often fragmentary and opaque (as the novel keeps reminding you) and the power imbalance that can exist between men and women, especially in the creative field, and, of course, the mysterious nature of marriage. It turns out that Patrick was JB's tutor (what a surprise!) and JB's rather naive crush turns into a marriage in which both fuel the other's artistic endeavours, until it all comes to an end on the cruise to celebrate the couple's anniversary (hence the title...). The story is told strictly from JB's perspective in a very claustrophobic first person style, with no direct dialogue, rather JB informs the reader what other characters are saying and doing. JB's perspective totally dominates, which is part of the thematic point of the novel. It doesn't take long to suspect that JB is an unreliable narrator and that the reader is only privy to a skewed and distorted version of events, both in the present and the past.

Marketed both as a mystery and a thriller, The Anniversary is neither. JB's musings have a soporific effect on the mind and body, as she endlessly ponders her past, her marriage, the publishing industry and most of all, the loss of Patrick, who has 'mysteriously' fallen overboard during a storm off the coast of Japan. Unfortunately there's no mystery about it, as it is obvious that JB herself was directly involved. It's hard to be sympathetic toward her, she is a distinctly unlikable character. For a novel to really have emotional resonance it needs to make you care about what happens to the principal protagonist, however I didn't care at all about JB's predicament; her struggle to get through the demands of an author tour right after the death of her husband, her traumatic childhood due to her mother's disappearance, and her attempts to outrun her part in Patrick's death. The novel slumps badly during a lengthy middle part in which JB stays with her sister's family in Australia, which very obviously explores the dysfunctions that lay at the heart of her wider family. The Anniversary does have something going for it, it is easy to read, but unfortunately it reveals itself to be one of those popular fiction novels masquerading as literary fiction. There's lots of them out there and perhaps that's what the novel is being compared against, surely this is why it was long listed for The Stella Prize? The Anniversary was a book club read and I have to report that it is one of the worst received novels in the near twenty year history of the Subiaco Library Book Club. I ask members to rate the novel out of ten at the end of each session and ninety percent of the ratings fell below five. No mercy was shown toward the novel by the members, making my comments in this review seem tame in comparison. Enough said!

 

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.

Something to Hide - Elizabeth George (2022)

 

Rating: Mediocre

This is the first book I've had to read for the library's book club for quite a while. At over seven hundred pages long I'd hoped that it would be worth the effort, but it turned out that I could only last two hundred pages. It's rare for me to give up on books, particularly book club books, as I display a reasonable degree of dedication. However Something to Hide is the dad-bod* of novels - bloated, bland and with a curious self belief that it is better than it actually is. The novel is a police procedural, with a detective called Lynley on the case (although we do not encounter him until one hundred pages in). This is George's twenty-first Lynley novel, so obviously plenty of readers enjoy these books. The novel has a seriously important theme - the effort to stop female genital mutilation, however the narrative is so slow, the style so overly descriptive, and the characters display a level of blandness that is enough to irritate and not care, that such an important theme is rendered inert. I could go on, but I just can't be bothered. My lack of enthusiasm for this novel has bled over into this review, making it almost as bland. Read this novel only if you are already a fan of the series and, I guess, crime/police procedurals in general, although I'm certain there are better ones out there. 

* I used this description when talking about the book to a library casual, so I decided to use it, even though when written down it loses something along the way...

The Vixen - Francine Prose (2021)

 

Rating: Mediocre

The Vixen begins rather promisingly, with main protagonist Simon Putman witnessing the live to TV reporting of Russian spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, being executed via electrocution in 1953. Simon's mother was an acquaintance of Ethel Rosenberg, and therefore the Putman family is understandibly upset. Simon is a Harvard graduate who ends up getting a junior position at a New York publishing firm. Eventually he's given the job of editing a potboiler novel based on the Rosenbergs, called, wait for it, The Vixen, The Patriot and The Fanatic. The real The Vixen novel is a middling novel at this point, with attempts at humour from Simon's constant insecurities about, well, pretty much everything. It is difficult to write novels that are funny and I've noticed over the years that authors try to generate humour via character's insecurities. However when it is over-done, as it is here, the reader quickly becomes very irritated, as I certainly did. I did marginally enjoy the accounts of Simon's times at Harvard and some of the scenes at the publishing firm, however Simon is a totally unlikeable protagonist; totally insufferable, and although I acknowledge that he's meant to be like that, it just doesn't make for good reading.

The novel picks up when the supposed author of The Vixen, The Patriot and The Fanatic is introduced. Anya Partridge is a wild impetuous young woman who takes Simon on a rollercoaster ride of passion and lusty madness. Anya is a vital spark that improves the novel immensely. Unfortunately she disappears, leaving both Simon and the reader in a forlorn state. Such was my subsequent disinterest in the narrative, I sped-read the last half of the book, which is a rare thing for me to do. There are some revelations in there, but I just didn't care at all. During The Vixen's denouement I just wanted it to end, but it dragged on, and then ended suddenly, with a life-lesson for both Simon and the reader. This was a book club read and I wasn't the only one who didn't enjoy the novel, in fact it is one of the worst rated novels in the book club's fifteen year history, and that's saying something. I'm sorry Francine Prose, but we just didn't like the novel, maybe because we are Australian? Perhaps American readers would warm to the novel more, with its cold-war setting and propaganda and 'fake news' themes. 

Tiger Tiger (AKA The Stars My Destination) - Alfred Bester (1956)

 

Rating: Mediocre

I picked up a copy of this novel, a 1967 edition, from a second hand bookstore in an old house situated on the main drag of a small country town in Tasmania a few years ago. Then a while later I coincidently read online that it contained one of the best 'escape from an impossible situation' scenes in literature. Now that I've read Tiger Tiger I have to say that I don't necessarily agree, it wasn't that spectacular. I chose the novel as a potentially great holiday read, and at first it lived up to that need. Tiger Tiger is certainly a rollicking read, with some impressive pacing and the main protagonist, Gully Foyle, is a wild character bent on revenge. The novel is set in the twenty fourth century, a time when, inexplicably, the ability to teleport (they call it jaunting), has transformed human society. Basically humans can travel by thought (an influence on The Church song of the same name?), which certainly opens up some fascinating narrative possibilities.

What ultimately let's Tiger Tiger down is that the novel's over the top nature becomes wearying around two thirds of the way through. It's like listening to two Queen albums at once. The prose is too florid, the twists and turns too frequent and the whole idea of humans being able to teleport by the power of thought alone becomes increasingly ridiculous. I don't necessarily need literary fiction to be particularly realistic, let alone science fiction, but it really started to grate after a while. Tiger Tiger does have quite a spectacular ending, which really sticks it to 'the man', but by that stage I think I had eye strain from rolling my eyes too much. Ultimately Tiger Tiger doesn't come across as a parody of the 1920s - 1940s era of pulp science fiction, or even as a homage, but as an attempt to emulate its style, perhaps in order to appeal to the teenagers of the 1950's, who after all would have still been science fiction's main market. The sometimes unfortunate depictions of female characters bear this out. I'll mark this one down as an entertaining enough holiday read that stands as a period piece for the curious.

The Man Who Saw Everything - Deborah Levy (2019)

 

Rating: Mediocre

The Man Who Saw Everything is a novel in two parts. I quite enjoyed the first part, but unfortunately my level of interest completely fell away during the second half. The novel concerns Saul Adler, a very good looking young man who is hit by a car having his photo taken by his artistic girlfriend at the famous Abbey Rd crossing in 1988. His girlfriend then breaks up with him just before he embarks on a trip to East Berlin to undertake research, where he becomes romantically entangled in the lives of a brother and sister who are compromised by life in the Eastern Block. The first section is told from Adler's point of view, however during the second half of the novel you come to understand that his self perception and his perception of those around him is significantly lacking. Adler is again hit by a car at Abbey Rd (or is it the first and only time? I have my suspicions...) in 2016 at age 56. He is badly hurt and spends the second half of the novel in a hospital bed being visited by people from his past, while ruminating over his life in an opiated haze.

The Man Who Saw Everything is an ironic title, as Adler does not see himself as others see him and Levy uses this as a means to explore the notion that life, perception, and history itself is fragmented and unreliable. An argument could be made that the the novel is quite clever in its exploration of such themes (it's a divisive novel, with a portion of my book club members loving it - the others were totally dismissive), however both Adler and the narrative failed to hold my interest and I became totally indifferent to its (actually limited) charms. Adler is not a particularly likeable character, he is obviously both damaged and narcissistic, which is fine, as I often enjoy antiheroes, but coupled with the fact that the narrative becomes so diffuse and opaque, there is very little motivation to spend the time to work out what is actually going on. While I was still writing this review I began reading the Christos Tsiolkas novel Damascus (2019) and the difference between the two novels made me realise that post-modernism is totally dead. Tsiolkas' brutally straight-forward writing style was incredibly refreshing and dynamic compared to the oblique exploration of the subjectivity of reality in The Man Who Saw Everything. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi (2019)

Rating: Mediocre

I've read quite a bit of Japanese fiction and I love the spare, poetic prose and the unique narrative forms that are often employed by many Japanese authors. Before the Coffee Gets Cold looked promising, with an intriguing time-travel premise. In a small, very old Tokyo cafe you can sit with a coffee and travel back in time, but you can only stay as long as the coffee remains warm, and if you don't drink it before it gets cold then you are trapped in time. It turns out that there is much more to it than that, but unfortunately it also turns out that this novel is fatally flawed. Firstly Before the Coffee Gets Cold very obviously suffers from having been adapted from a play and then translated into English. The prose is stilted to the extent that I could almost be willing to believe that it was written by a wooden post. The first section - 'The Lovers', is frustrating to read due to a great deal of hesitant and fragmented dialogue, one dimensional characters and, to be frank, a flirtation with sheer narrative tedium.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold does improve gradually, with some reasonably believable emotional scenes between husband and wives, two sisters and, lastly, a mother and child. The main characters are fleshed out slightly more, but the dialogue remained very stilted, resulting in a low ceiling for sympathetic connection with the characters and their various travails. One intriguing character, who is a ghost, forever trapped somewhere in-between the past and the present (I assume...), but occupying the very seat that allows time travel, could have presented an opportunity for some fascinating narrative possibilities, however she was underused and remained merely a narrative device. I'm certain that performed as a play the novel's themes of fate, tragedy and the healing opportunity afforded by a change of attitude, would have come across much better, but as a novel it totally fails to convince.

Space Ark - Thomas Huschman (1981)

Rating: Mediocre

After the intense intellectual stimulation of Slavoj Zizek I needed something light and easy, so I reached for Space Ark (say it loud with lots of echo...), a book I found in a curio shop in Mt Barker in the heart of the south west of Australia, the kind of shop that sells all the stuff your grandma had plus records and books. As I had hoped Space Ark is pure pulp science fiction and was thoroughly relaxing and entertaining. They really don't write them like this anymore; I doubt any novels in recent decades would open with the lines: "Morning sunlight streamed in through the big cathedral windows. Twenty mental retards were at play on the smooth, polished floor." Three hundred years in humanity's future a scientist with the snappy name of Centaurus has discovered that a nearby supernova will shortly decimate Earth, but when he reports this to the Earth system president, Hassim Dupre, he is locked up and the information is suppressed. Hubschman makes a point of revealing how the powers that be distrust what the science says in order to protect the status quo of their power hungry and corrupt government - sounds familiar? Replace climate change with the supernova and you have a pulp science fiction novel for our times.

Centaurus is rescued from his incarceration by one of the mental retards (who's just faking it...) and is given a lift on a makeshift space ark, complete with animals and a leader who is actually a Simminoid, an ape who has been given human hands and has had human DNA spliced into his makeup to make him into an intelligent slave (this is a thing three hundred years from now). Of course they leave in the nick of time, only to discover that they are being pursued by Dupre and his military space ships. The novel basically becomes a sometimes tense chase narrative and as these kinds of stories go it is entertaining enough. What lets the novel down is its rather simple dialogue and a narrative that is light on explication. The space ark travels "...away from the sun at better than the speed of light-quite a bit better...", but no attempt is made to explain how this is done. Elsewhere it is indicated that Einstein's theory of relativity has been superseded, apparently by the return of Newtonian theories! Towards the novel's denouement a hopeless situation is rectified by an ex machina plot device that is cliched to say the least. This leads to an ending with mystical overtones that I both appreciated and groaned about. I'm probably being a bit unfair with my rating for Space Ark, as it provided me with great entertainment, but when comparing it to other great science fiction novels and writers it suffers in comparison, so my Simminoid hand is forced.

The Shadow District - Arnaldur Indridason (2013/2017 in translation)

Rating: Mediocre

The Shadow District is the second crime novel I've read in fairly quick succession, due to the crime genre theme we are exploring in the Subiaco Library book club. Once again, I am reasonably unfamiliar with crime fiction, however I know a great novel when I read one and unfortunately Indridason's novel is not one of them. Technically the novel is much better written than Belinda Bauer's Snap (2018), however unlike Bauer's novel The Shadow District is just plain dull. I'm not sure if it is a problem with the translation but the writing style has absolutely no dynamism, no shifts in tone and for a crime novel, almost no tension. The cold case mystery is intriguing enough, but due to the previously mentioned problems when all is revealed there is no excitement or satisfaction generated at all. It reads like how I'd imagine a police report would be presented, just the bare bones of what happened with no stylistic finesse at all. 

The narrative is set in Iceland both during WWII and in modern times, although really it could have been set anywhere. The characters too are uniformly dull; the two inspectors in the WWII sections, Flovent and Thorson are serviceable, and a little better is retired cop Konrad, who solves the mystery of the cold case during the modern era, however they are all mostly forgettable. It's a shame really, I did want to enjoy The Shadow District, but it merely served to pass the time, read out of duty until the next book on the reading list comes along, which is Yukio Mishima's Runaway Horses (1969). I'm hoping for better things from one of Japan's greatest writers and I'm certain I'll be rewarded.

The Idea of Perfection - Kate Grenville (1999)

Kate Grenville is a well-known and respected Australian author who has been publishing novels since 1985. Grenville hit significant cultural pay-dirt with her novel The Secret River (2005) that offered an engaging and visceral depiction of early European settlement in New South Wales. The Idea of Perfection was also successful, winning Grenville the Orange Prize in 2001, impressing the judges with its eccentric Australian setting and portrayal of the development of an awkward love affair between two damaged individuals. Previously I read The Secret River as part of the library’s book club. I was impressed and the novel was also generally well received by the members. The Idea of Perfection, however, was a major disappointment and polarized my book club members into two camps, those who absolutely loved it and those who loathed the very pages the words were printed on.

The Idea of Perfection is set in the fictional New South Wales town of Karakarook, which is the kind of Australian small town that writers love to portray; the town itself is like a lovable character and the locals are eccentric and quite one-eyed in their opinions. Into this environment comes Harley Savage, a heritage expert hired to put the town on the cultural map in an attempt to turn the financial fortunes of the town around, and Douglas Cheeseman, a vertigo suffering engineer who is charged with replacing an old wooden bridge with a steel and concrete bridge. Although the two protagonists come from very different worlds they have in common a high degree of social awkwardness and family backgrounds that left them with a sense of inadequacy.

The novel’s thematic focus is, not surprisingly, the concept of perfection, or more precisely that perfection is inherently subjective or even an illusory notion. Municipal powers view the town’s old wooden bridge as both an unsafe eyesore and vastly inferior to a modern steel and concrete bridge, yet the wooden bridge stands as an example of the brilliant craftsmanship of another era and is ‘perfect’ in its own way. Both Douglas and Harley view themselves as wholly imperfect, yet the reality is that they are perfect for each other. The theme of perfection is explored in a far more interesting way via two of the novel’s minor characters, Felicity Porcelline and Alfred Chang. Felicity is the bank manager’s wife and she is obsessed with the eradication of imperfection, down the extent of only allowing herself a couple of smiles a day lest she create unwanted wrinkles on her pretty face. Her affair with Alfred, the town’s Chinese butcher, is one of the novel’s few highlights and in fact I found myself wishing that they were the main characters, rather than the predominately one dimensional characters of Douglas and Harley.

As with Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things (2015), Grenville’s novel suffers from stylistic heavy-handedness. The absolute awkwardness of Harley or Douglas is emphasized at every opportunity, repeated again and again to an intolerably irritating degree. Each time either of these two characters appeared I found myself cringing and desiring the company of Felicity and Alfred instead. Any humour or exploration of human psychology was hampered by the overwhelming irritation generated by Grenville’s self-conscious prose style. Grenville is a fine enough writer with a long and successful career behind her, but unfortunately and perhaps ironically The Idea of Perfection, to my subjective judgement at least, is far from perfect. Any critical assessment of literature involves both subjective and objective elements and prior to the book club meetings to discuss the novel I wondered whether it was one of those books that just wasn’t for me, however many of the members had the same reaction, but some also enjoyed both the characters and what the novel had to say thematically. Sometimes a novel has value precisely because it is divisive; such novels can get people thinking deeply about the nature of narrative, and that in itself is valuable, even if the novel is, in the end, found wanting.

The Torch - Peter Twohig (2015)

Peter Twohig’s book The Cartographer (2012) hit the right note with book buyers and became a run-away popular fiction success. Set in the year 1959 in Richmond, a working class suburb of Melbourne, it featured an eleven year old boy who took shelter in the drains and lanes of the city to escape the man responsible for a murder he accidentally witnessed. The Torch begins shortly after the end of The Cartographer and the child protagonist is one year older and is, you guessed it, up to shenanigans in the drains and lanes of Richmond, this time seeking the kid known as Flame Boy before he, gasp, strikes again.

The Torch begins well enough, with the un-named protagonist (he refers to himself variously as The Spirit of Progress, The Railwayman, The Ferret and is called the Blayney Kid by most of the adults) having to move with his mother to his grandfather’s house due to their home having been burnt down by, you guessed it, Flame Boy. Unfortunately it’s not long before the flaws of this novel become all too apparent. There are a multitude of characters, literally hundreds; most are incidental and many are caricatures of what is supposed to be your typical Australian of 1960. As the book progresses there just seems to be no end to them, causing the principal characters to get lost in the general commotion. The Blayney Kid’s narration is chock full of Australian colloquialisms that are initially endearing, but soon become so irritating that the inward groaning starts to become audible. The attempt at giving the Blayney Kid some psychological depth with his angst over his twin brother’s death and his nascent romantic adventures fall flat. All the fires, car crashes and marauding criminals could have had more impact if the narrative had more tension, instead the same tone persists throughout. The rather flimsy plot, of which I do not wish to go into because, frankly, it’s just not worth it, is stretched out like an old rubbery elastic-band across the novel’s 457 pages. In the end, despite some faint hope, nothing truly significant is revealed and you look at your watch and think, my god I’m still alive (I’ll be putting in these blatant Bowie references for some time to come).

The Torch was selected by my library book club members, perhaps due to the success of The Cartographer, but at the meetings many were underwhelmed and disappointed and seemed to be enjoying their coffees much more than the book they had to trawl through. Perhaps if this shaggy dog tale had been more rigorously edited and had lost about half of its length it could’ve been a contender. The Torch came close to becoming only the second book on this blog to be rated as ‘reprehensible’, but it was saved by the fact that The Finkler Question was just so awful that other books have to try really hard to be its equal.

A Brief History of the Future - Jacques Attali (2006)

I bought this book on a whim a year ago, having spied it on the shelves of one of my favourite bookstores, Diabolik. I thought I’d better read it before the future arrived, not realizing that it had been published in 2006! I’ve long been a sucker for any kind of media that attempted to forecast what the future may be like. We do seem to be on the cusp of massive changes on this planet, but just what will they be? Will it is be dystopia or utopia for humanity? Typically the future will probably be somewhere in-between these two extremes. When you pick up a book entitled A Brief History of the Future the expectation is that it will have at least some feasible answers. After all, according to the blurb on the back of the book Attali had previously predicted the financial rise of Asia, the advent of what he refers to as ‘nomadic technologies’ and the GFC. I approached this book with great enthusiasm, but unfortunately left it feeling underwhelmed and entertaining the thought that I would make a better futurist than the likes of Attali.

Attali notes in his forward that the shape of our future is being set by events and choices that we are making in the present; therefore logically past events have always set the future in motion. With this in mind he then proceeds with a potted history of the past, including when life itself emerged from the oceans and that momentous time when our ancestors first began to walk upright. This chapter reads like a highly generalized and accelerated version of prehistory, which unfortunately doesn’t give the reader much confidence in what will follow. There are also some glaring flaws, although they may well be caused by a fault in translation (Attali is French). Attali refers to the likes of Homo ergaster and Homo heidelbergensis (and others) as primates, when I’m certain the correct term is hominids. Also some assertions are already dated, with Attali claiming that “All these primates - neighbors but not of kin - coexist without interbreeding.” In recent years a great deal of evidence has emerged that interbreeding between some hominids was occurring. These criticisms are perhaps unfair, however much more glaring is the total lack of referencing throughout this and the following chapter. Attali makes claim after claim regarding the lives and practices of early humans without citing any kind of reliable sources. Is it really “doubtless” that cannibalism began 300,000 years ago? And that around 160,000 years ago slavery began? What discoveries or research led to these notions? Are we just meant to take his word for it? (like I ask you to take mine?).

The long chapter entitled ‘A Brief History of Capitalism’ is far more coherent and persuasive, despite its lack of citations. Attali details the history of what he refers to as the mercantile order and suggests that as the mercantile order evolved over the centuries it fostered more and more individual freedoms and therefore became an engine of democracy. Attali’s principal argument focuses on the nine ‘cores’ of the mercantile order that have been at the forefront of capitalism over the centuries - Bruges, Venice, Genoa, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, Boston, New York and currently Los Angeles. This long chapter leads to, almost inevitably, a chapter entitled ‘The End of the American Empire’. Logically the evolution of capitalism over the centuries points to an inevitable decline in the dominant core, something that has happened again and again; mostly caused by internal dysfunctions, mainly financial, and challenges from the outside. Attali’s arguments are persuasive simply because it is all too easy to see past trends emerge again. He argues that as soon as post 2030 the “ninth form will have lived its day” and that America could become a Scandinavian style social democracy or a dictatorship. Well, we’ll see!

As to what comes next Attali points to three possible ‘waves of the future’ for this century: planetary empire, planetary war and planetary democracy. While it is too complex to adequately sum up how and why each wave could be possible there are a number of key points for each worth noting. Planetary empire involves a possible decoupling of the mercantile order from a central city core, becoming a roaming entity mostly via the borderless world wide web. Planetary war all too ominously involves multiple scenarios ranging from endless minor conflicts to all out war involving what he calls ‘pirate’ entities taking it up to the major powers. ISIS is certainly shaping up to be such an entity. Planetary democracy is, rather optimistically, the inevitable endgame for the century. While some of his arguments for this third wave are sound, some are also are also dubious. Attali cites the emergence of  ‘vanguard players’, or ‘trans-humans’; altruistic citizens that will “...run relational enterprises in which profit will be no more than a hindrance, not a final goal.” The cynic in me can’t help but consider that this viewpoint is naively Utopian and that humanity will not be able to curb its self destructive impulses.

A Brief History of the Future is a moderately interesting book with some compelling ideas. Ultimately, however, the book is flawed, particularly the chapters that deal with the future, which simply make too many assumptions. It’s a tough business this futurism, but in a strange way Attali makes it appear that anyone with some understanding of history and capitalism could give it a go. I’m certainly ready and willing. I have a reasonable knowledge of emergent technologies and have a pretty good understanding of history and current events. Hey - I’m a futurist! Personally I believe that certain emergent technologies could completely alter society and what it is to be human, even more so than current computer technology coupled with the internet. If genuine AI technology is developed, possibly coupled with quantum computing, then that would be a huge game changer. If longevity drugs, now entering an exciting research and development phase, come to fruition, then society and the economy will be challenged with significant changes that have never been seen before. These three technologies (five actually - but don’t get me started on robotics and 3D printing) were touched on only briefly by Attali, leaving me to think that his vision of the future is only part of the possible story at best.

In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin (1977)

I read In Patagonia because it features in 501 Must Read Books (2007) as an example of great travel writing. I found a copy sitting on top of a pile of donated books to the library; it was not accepted into the collection due to its poor condition and in fact it degraded badly as I handled it, the brittle cover breaking off and pages falling out whilst I was trying to read it on a crowded work-bound train. I was primed to enjoy In Patagonia, but unfortunately it was not to be and often I found the people on the train and the view racing by more entertaining.

In Patagonia is not your typical travel writing; its structure is fragmented and a significant portion of the text concentrates on past events in Patagonia, rather than Chatwin’s own ‘adventures’. For example Chatwin traces the movements of Butch Cassidy and his gang, who fled to Patagonia in the early 1900‘s to avoid the authorities. The book is filled with the lives and histories of significant people who spent time in the region and ordinary immigrants who hoped to to make their riches with the wool trade. Chatwin’s writing is elegant but quite formal and I felt like there was something missing as the book progressed, perhaps a sense of adventure or danger, instead there are more potted histories and land owners complaining about the government. Chatwin does succeed in giving a strong impression of Patagonia’s landscape, which seems mysterious and breathtaking; a land of half mythical prehistoric creatures and mountainous terrain.

I mostly enjoyed the first half, however In Patagonia’s limited charm began to wear thin and the mini history lessons and formal style became almost intolerable. It’s not often I consider giving up on a book, but I came very close with what is meant to be a classic of travel writing. In amongst the historical anecdotes the closest Chatwin came to adventure was walking a mostly disused trail through a mountainous region. He ends up thinking he is lost as darkness approaches, only to hear cars nearby. Relieved he promptly camps for the night and is safe and sound the next morning - exciting stuff! If travel writing is meant to make you long to wander the world’s lost byways, then In Patagonia fails miserably. Far better is Ryszard Kapuscinski’s brilliant The Shadow of the Sun (1998), detailing his travels through Africa. Kapuscinski’s writing conveys tension and verve that Chatwin doesn’t come close to emulating. This particular copy of In Patagonia days are numbered and it will end up in the recycling bin; a nice metaphor perhaps?

Sacred Hearts - Sarah Dunant (2009)

Sacred Hearts is historical fiction set in a convent in Ferrara in sixteenth century Italy. Medieval political intrigue melds with the rigors of convent living as the narrative follows the struggles of a rebellious fifteen-year-old novice called Serafina and the egregious demands this places on the Abbess and the apothecary, Zuana, whom is also the most engaging character. Read for the library book club whilst under the influence of various viral invasions (yes, they were medieval on my ass, so to speak), this novel did not sit well with me. Dunant’s prose style is merely adequate, bordering on dull.  Although the historical aspects were reasonably interesting, it was not enough to sustain my attention and provide a counterbalance against the moribund narrative pace, the endless whispered prayers, the smoothing down of habits and acts of god caused by termites. I’ll remember Sacred Hearts as book club fodder and although it has its appeal for some readers I struggled, which forces my hand into giving the novel a mediocre rating.

Canada – Richard Ford (2012)

Richard Ford is best known for his novel The Sportswriter, his 1985 story of a failed novelist turned sportswriter who is faced with the deep crisis of a dead son. Its sequel – Independence Day (1995) won the Pulitzer Prize. Ford is also a noted short story writer and has been seen as being part of the Dirty Realism school of writing along with such writers as Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy, Carson McCullers and of course the great Charles Bukowski.

Not having even read a single word of Ford’s writing previously, I came to Canada as a total Ford novice, absolutely free from any knowledge or opinion. My first impression was that Ford is a writer of nuance and craft, taking his time to build the plot and reveal his characters. At first I appreciated this and warmed to the fifteen year old Dell Parsons, who narrates the novel retrospectively from the vantage point of retirement. Dell lives with his twin sister, Berner and their parents Bev (the broad shouldered ex-airman) and the frustrated Jewish would be intellectual Neeva. It’s a sad grey world of isolation and confusion for Dell and Berner and it slowly becomes apparent that there is a deep psychological element to Canada that is perhaps more evident in hindsight. The motivations of Dell’s parents are murky at best, even to Dell himself, who comes across as a bewildered innocent.

With a narrative pace bordering on catatonic Dell recounts his dysfunctional family life and the events that lead up to his parents robbing a bank. During this long first part Ford’s measured and meticulous style becomes repetitive and Dell’s repeated ruminations about the psychology of his parents decision making leading up to the robbery becomes tedious. When the robbery occurs it’s an anticlimax and the inevitable consequences take forever to arrive; squandering any tension generated by events leading up to Dell’s parents arrest. I’m giving nothing away here due to the fact that nearly every major event in Canada is revealed well in advance (from the first line!), which turns out to be a fatal flaw.

The second part finds Dell deposited in a small town in Canada by a friend of Neeva to avoid the long reach of the authorities. Initially the shift to Canada brings the novel alive, particularly when Dell meets the louche Charley Quarters. Charley provides a much-needed presence, with his seedy manner, penchant for lipstick, rouge and poetry. Dell finds himself marginalized, living in an overflow shack away from the main hotel in a one-horse town that survives due to geese hunters visiting from America. Suddenly the reader’s interest is revived and the pathos of Dell’s situation hits home. But once again any tension generated is wasted when the dodgy character of hotelier Arthur Remlinger comes to the fore, with his oblique character traits that fascinate Dell so much and his semi-interesting back-story as a political radical. There is a climax of sorts, when Remlinger has to deal with his past catching up with him, but its execution is fumbled and it merely becomes just another event witnessed at a remove.

A strange ambivalence permeates this novel; it’s difficult to connect with the characters lives due to Ford’s ponderous style and Dell’s monochrome recollections. There are long sections that you could only describe as being dull, which is frustrating because there is a sense of something deeper lurking there, something that speaks of the dark vagaries of human existence. Dell is fascinated with chess and bee keeping, two seemingly disparate pastimes which actually represent his subconscious need for order in his life which is at the mercy of the capriciousness of wayward adults. If the prose had been more vital and there had been more interest generated by the tension of not knowing what was going to come next then such deeper aspects of Canada would have far more import. Ford can certainly write, as his reputation suggests, however the novel is a disappointment, which is a shame really. 

The Lighthouse – Alison Moore (2012)

It has been such a long time since I actually read this book that I considered not reviewing it at all, but for various reasons The Lighthouse has stayed with me, so I decided to write about it in brief anyway. The Lighthouse is Alison Moore’s debut novel and is notable for the fact that it made the shortlist for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, therefore gaining this slight novel some serious attention.

The Lighthouse is the story of a middle-aged man called Futh, who embarks on a walking holiday in Germany after the dissolution of his marriage. Unfortunately for Futh he embodies the term ‘absolute loser’ and is an almost completely unlikable character. During his circular ramble though the German countryside his bathetic past is thoroughly picked through and it makes for very bleak reading indeed. Futh’s life was initially blighted by being abandoned by his mother, only to be left with his insipid father, who then went on to have one soulless affair after another. Pretty much all of the supporting characters are both dysfunctional and unlikable. I wouldn’t recommend The Lighthouse as a holiday read, unless you particularly enjoy the psychology of human dysfunction.

The fact that The Lighthouse in an entirely depressing narrative does not particularly worry me, it is the fact that it made the Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2012 and has been lauded for its “serious” qualities. The novel does deal with the important theme of how past traumas can shape the future. It is also a precisely pieced together narrative – something akin to a literary jigsaw puzzle with everything ultimately linked to each other. Unfortunately The Lighthouse also suffers from having its internal mechanisms being entirely visible. There are a multitude of all too obvious literary devices used throughout the narrative, all of which could have been either omitted or used with more subtlety.  Within its pages we have lighthouses, moths and that old chestnut the Venus Fly-Trap as all too apparent metaphors. Futh’s circular route through the German countryside, taking him back to the guesthouse he started out from (called Hellhaus – meaning lighthouse in German, sigh…) is a clichéd analogy for the dysfunctional eternal return of his life. The most unoriginal metaphor occurs when Futh meets his childhood ‘friend’ at the supermarket and ends up buying a bun that he had handled, complete with a fingerprint - a heavy-handed metaphor for the fact that Futh’s friend was sleeping with his wife.

The Lighthouse is perfect fodder for book clubs, so much so there is even a page on Alison Moore’s website containing questions for book-clubbers. My book club groups (26 members) almost universally pondered over the fact that the book is so highly regarded when they struggled to be engaged with the characters and found the narrative to be obvious and unrelentingly bleak without much reward. After all, this book was short-listed for the Man booker Prize along with the winner – Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies and such writers as the super erudite literary freak Will Self.

This brings us to the question of the worth of literature prizes such as the Man Booker. Mantel’s two winning novels are certainly worthy, but what about the truly excruciating The Finkler Question that won a few years ago – the worst book I’ve ever read? That book still haunts me and I feel like my psyche has been damaged in an insidious way. I’ve heard whispers that judges shirk reading the books, passing the task onto underlings for assessment. I’ve also been told that a former judge revealed in an interview that often the judges are so deadlocked on deciding he final winner that the only compromise is to give the award to a lesser book.

Perhaps the most interesting issue to think about is whether literature awards are actually good for authors and the industry as a whole. With everyone so fixated on awards perhaps many worthy authors and books are overlooked, with undeserving novels getting unwarranted attention whilst the more deserving fall by the wayside. There’s a rich tapestry of literature out there, far more than what appear on award long-lists. So are awards worth our attention? Or are do they create an illusion of quality and are more about the powerful sway of the market? I’m undecided – the jury’s out so to speak, but these days I’m feeling less inclined to read award-winning novels and I’m pretty sure my book club members are too.

1Q84 – Haruki Murakami (2009 -10 / 2011 English translation)

I finally got around to reading 1Q84 after probably just about every other Murakimi fan in the English-speaking world had already read it. Like Murakami’s prose, I’m not in that much of a hurry usually. The publication of 1Q84 in English was a huge event, just as it had been in Japan - such is the impact Murakami has on literature culture. Murakami deserves the attention because one of the great things about his writing is that when you first discover him you can feel invigorated by his unique sensibility and style. 1Q84 certainly has its share of such quality moments, but unfortunately it also suffers from over familiarity and a sense of over-stretching on the author’s part.

1Q84 was published as three books in one – a huge 925 pages of pure Murakami. This is both its strength and its weakness. To try and describe the plot of 1Q84 is perhaps folly; fortunately it is enough to know that it contains most of Murakami’s typical tropes and obsessions. Once again Murakami has set a book in the 1980’s and I wonder why he is so fixated with this period. Perhaps it represents a lost ‘innocent’ era when the web didn’t exist, there were very few mobile phones, vinyl records still sold in their millions and pop music was arguably far less cynical and self conscious.

1Q84 bears all the hallmarks of Murakami’s distinctive style. The narrative quite often has a glacial pace, with plenty of nuance and space. There is also the usual peculiar attention to mundane details about the character’s lives, such as what they eat, and how they prepare their food. Sometimes I wonder if Murakami has Aspergers Syndrome, such is his obsessive attention to detail! Logically it’s more likely that it is a device that helps build tension between the ordinary and the preternatural.

Typically for a Murakami narrative both the main protagonists are in their early 30’s. This is a symbolic age for Murakami characters – an in between age; too old to be innocent and yet too young to be wise. Aomame is a distinctly strange woman, an ex member of a religious cult turned murderess. Tengo is a writer, teacher and is one of Murakami’s lonely men. For all 1Q84’s strangeness it is essentially a love story between these two characters. Their connection is interwoven into the plot, acting as a counterpoint to the obtuse weirdness that percolates through their otherwise every-day lives.

Another hallmark of Murakami’s writing is his tendency to have unresolved narrative arcs, and there’s plenty on offer here. 1Q84 is a mysterious novel and the more you try and make sense of it the more it slips away. But it is useful to remember that Murakami still flies the flag for post-modernism and there are multiple interpretations of 1Q84 that could all be equally valid.

As much as I love Murakami’s writing I found 1Q84 to be a frustrating experience. The first book lures you in with Aomeme’s literal descent into an alternate reality in which two moons hang in the sky. Then there is the mystery of the Air Chrysalis book written by Fuka-Eri, a member of a cloistered mountain cult. Tengo and Aomame are trapped in the realm of the Little People, a place that Aomeme calls 1Q84.

The second book maintains a disturbing tension. We watch helplessly as Tengo’s life becomes compromised by unexplained events. Aomeme works towards fulfilling her destiny as a bringer of justice. New characters are introduced, such as Ushikawa, a sinister man with an ugly oversized bobble – like head. The mystery of the Little People deepens. The second book is vintage Murakami  - weird and strangely compelling despite the slow motion narrative.

The third book is left with the job of tying up all the loose ends leftover from the first two, but then does its best to leave mysteries unexplained and plotlines unresolved. The main problem with the third book is that the protagonists spend inordinate amounts of time holed up contemplating their situation. The normally glacial pace is slowed even further and finishing 1Q84 becomes a matter of tenacity on the part of the reader. Unfortunately the ending is, well, disappointing. For a book that demands such a huge investment in time it’s a pity that 1Q84’s endgame lacks tension and is almost unapologetically banal.

Normally I don’t draw attention to the rating system I use, but 1Q84 is essentially three books published as one. The first book borders on being excellent, but I’ll give it an admirable rating. The second book is excellent and I wish that Murakami had wrapped it up then and there. The third book is mediocre due to its slow pace, lack of tension and an unsatisfactory resolution. Murakami will shortly have a new novel published, so I’m hoping that it will be a return to form because despite my relative disappointment, he’s still worth reading.

The Red House – Mark Haddon (2012)

The Red House is a very adult novel from an author who had principally produced books for children. His big literary hit came with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), a book that was marketed to both adults and young adults. It is notable due to the narrator being a boy with Aspergers syndrome. The Red House seems to be the complete opposite, with its themes of familial dysfunction and frustrated desires. But with closer inspection it is apparent that Haddon is still exploring the subjectivity of individual perspective and the alienation this can engender.

Siblings Richard and Angela were estranged, but the death of their alcoholic mother brings them together and at Richard’s behest they embark on a seven-day holiday in the Welsh county-side in order to bring the family together. An ensemble of eight family members makes for a complicated representation of humanity. In fact the whole human life cycle is covered and it is almost like Haddon wanted use this family to examine each age group’s particular problems. There’s a stillborn baby; Benjy is a typical eight year-old; Daisy, Melissa and Alex represent the teenage years and middle age by Dominic, Lauren and Angela. Old age is covered by the adults parents, which they often refer to and blame for most of their problems.

Using a third person omniscient point of view, Haddon switches back and forth between characters, revealing their thoughts and desires, most of which are thwarted ones. Haddon takes his cues from Modernism, with thoughts and dialogue giving the impression of flowing together and merging with the often abstract narration. This anachronistic form takes a bit of getting used to, as often it is not obvious which character is present in the narrative. The dialogue is presented in italics, rather then in quotations, a convention that further enhances the blurred narrative boundaries.

The Red House is not overtly plot-driven; instead it’s a vehicle for an exploration of the characters particular problems. There’s the usual palette of human dysfunctions, frustrations and yearnings. The younger characters are the strongest; Daisey, Melissa and Alex are convincing teenagers complete with sexual confusion, identity issues and a general disconnect with their parents worlds. Haddon explores outright teenage lust via Alex’s fantasies and clumsy attempts to seduce Melissa and flirt with Richard’s middle-aged wife – Lauren. It’s all pretty accurate stuff.

The adults are curiously bland, although Angela is the most convincing due to her strong back-story, which involves a stillborn baby and a troubled childhood. As the adults muddle through their problems a certain level of tedium develops and when Richard is injured and caught in a storm whilst out jogging the reader is a passive observer rather than emotionally involved with his plight. The characters are not psychologically interesting enough and the writing does not quite live up to Haddon’s Modernist ambitions.

In comparison other books I’ve read recently that explore the theme of familial dysfunction were compelling and intense. The Man Who Loved Children (1940) is both unique and intensely psychologically disturbing. Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010) featured convincing characters with problems that connected with the wider dysfunction of the nation. The Red House unfortunately pales in comparison. Perhaps I’ve been spoilt by the quality of the above-mentioned novels, but The Red House failed to spark the synapses and was merely an exercise in reading rather than a compelling engagement with a strong narrative. This was a book club book and true to form some people thought the novel was absolutely brilliant, which is very different to my point of view, but if the Modernists were anything to go by then each viewpoint is equally valid.

The Stranger’s Child – Alan Hollinghurst (2011)

In 2004 Alan Hollinghurst made literary headlines by winning the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty. Set in Thatcher’s 1980’s Britain it courted mild controversy with its depictions of cocaine abuse and graphic gay sex. Seven years later The Stranger’s Child made the Man Booker long list and then fell out of contention, which led to bitter complaints from those critics who believe that Hollinghurst is Britain’s greatest living writer.

I approached this book with optimism. I hadn’t read The Line of Beauty but I knew enough to realize that Hollinghust could be an interesting proposition. The novel begins just prior to WWI and finds the sixteen-year-old Daphne Sawle reading poetry and awaiting the arrival of her older brother George and his university friend Cecil Valance - a poet from a wealthy family who also happens to be bisexual. Cecil’s impact over the course of his stay is significant; he upsets George’s mother, who suspects the truth of their relationship, causes a servant to marvel at his collection of silken underwear, frolics with George in the woods and flirts with Daphne. Most significantly he writes a poem, supposedly for Daphne, called “Two Acres”, after the name of the Sawles property. After his death in the war Cecil and his poem become immortalized when Winston Churchill quotes from “Two Acres” in a speech.

The events of this first section, just one of five, set the novel up for an exploration of mythmaking, the changing attitudes to homosexuality and the subjective nature of truth. Hollinghurst also devotes a great deal of space to the question of the moral ambiguity of biographers and their trade, particularly during the latter half of the book. Such a concentration of weighty themes seems more than enough to make the novel both entertaining and philosophically intriguing. Disappointingly The Stranger’s Child mostly fails in both regards, although it does have its moments.

The novel’s strengths lay in the way it depicts the evolution of British culture during the twentieth century and how it affected people’s lives. In this regard the scope of the novel is ambitious and does at least move the plot forward. The naiveté and pleasures of the pre war section give way to the bleak post war section, in which Daphne has married Cecil’s brother – Dudley, who is beset by mental problems due to his part in the war. Everyone suffers, including the children, Daphne and an old German woman who comes to an untimely end (a parody of Agatha Christie?). The third and most pleasing section, set in 1967, finds several gay characters, including the future Cecil biographer Paul Bryant, discussing the impending decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain. By the novel’s close, set in 2008, everything’s changed and significantly the gay characters are marrying each other and can now live their lives in the open.

Despite the novel’s initial promise and Hollinghurst’s ambition I was quite often utterly bored with The Stranger's Child. Turgid is a good adjective to use. There is simply too much dialogue, with endless boring interactions between characters at parties and dinners. During these extended scenes the characters are regularly nervous to the point of being neurotic. Often they appear to be hamstrung by politeness and therefore never say what they really mean. Hollinghurst is probably making a point about what it is to be English or even human, but unfortunately it happens so often that you begin to tire of it and start to feel that way yourself.

With many of the major events taking place outside of the narrative the plot is stretched thin and therefore there is virtually no tension generated and no real desire to find out what may happen next, or to invest emotionally in the characters. The novel is also overwritten to the point of exhaustion. No character can speak without a description of their facial expression or how they are looking narrowly at another character or off into the middle distance. Hollinghurst’s writing is incredibly detailed, which is sometimes quite startlingly effective, but his obsession with the minutiae of everyday interactions does not make for riveting reading.

As a literary monument to the cultural history of Britain over much of the twentieth century The Stranger's Child succeeds to an extent, but it is ultimately hamstrung by its flaws. As with most books some readers respond well whilst others do not. A handful of my book club members absolutely loved this book, but most either marginally appreciated it or thought that it was too long and tedious. In the end The Stranger’s Child simply made me yearn for the succinct brilliance of Carson McCuller’s writing. Despite Hollinghurst’s fine reputation my advice is to approach this novel with caution, or perhaps not at all. It seems that the judges of the Man Booker prize were right after all.