Tomas Nevinson - Javier Marias (2021, English edition 2023)

 

Rating: Sublime

I had prior warning that Tomas Nevinson is a superb novel from both a colleague and a library patron, both of whom have excellent tastes. Turns out that they were right. Marias, who unfortunately passed away from covid induced pneumonia in 2022, was considered to be one of Spain's greatest ever writers. He was prolific, producing some sixteen novels, along with short story and essay collections. Apparently he was somewhat of a curmudgeon, complaining about the trials of modern life in his regular newspaper column. Tomas Nevinson is his last novel and is one of those works whose brilliance is apparent within the first few paragraphs. The prose is crystal clear, sophisticated, erudite and compelling. Told, initially at least, from the first person perspective of the eponymous protagonist, the novel is deeply psychological and philosophical, both thematically and literally. The first hundred pages are dominated by Nevinson's musings regarding his past, his present situation as a retired agent (from MI6) and his sunset job as a public servant. He meets his former boss in a park in Madrid, the debonair and sinister Bertram Tupra. Tupra wants Nevinson for one last job. They move to a cafe where Tupra tries to railroad Nevinson into taking the mission, which involves living in a north-western Spanish town called Ruan in order to investigate three women, one of which aided and abetted ETA terrorists from the Basque region. That's all that happens in the first hundred pages, but somehow, despite the glacial pacing and Nevinson's digressive musings, it is utterly compelling and absorbing.

Marias had a massive personal library

Essentially Tomas Nevinson is, like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch (2013), an example of modern realism, giving no concession to the narrative greed of the modern reader. The pace of the novel adheres to the pace of living as a spy in a Spanish town, complete with the mist that obscures the figures walking back and forth over the main bridge opposite where Miguel Centurion (Nevinson's undercover alter ego) lives, spying on the three Ruan woman via various means.  After the long opening chapters in which Nevinson ponders his life and the way forward in the first person, here the narrative slips seamlessly into third person, until you realise that the narrator is actually Nevinson, referring in the third person to the actions and thoughts of Centurion. It's a skilful and clever sleight of hand by Marias, one that works extremely well, drawing you into the deep psychology of both Nevinson's character and that of his alter ego. Marias characterisations are superb throughout, the metrosexual Tupra is exceptional and, in particular, the husbands of two of the suspects stand out; one a vain and egotistical dandy dressed in lurid suits, the other a conceited control freak, arousing himself erect by play-fighting with his antique swords. Within all of the musings and serious moral themes there's some canny humour to be had.

Pondering The Trolley Problem

Tomas Nevinson is an examination of the moral conundrums of the famous Trolley Problem. The moral complexities Nevinson grapples with is confounding for Centurion (see what I did there...?), but crystal clear for the likes of Tupra and his many and varied associates. It's a complex but rewarding moral maze for the reader to get lost in, always compelling despite frequent slow passages of digression and almost neurotic musings from Centurion. Tomas Nevinson is a companion piece (specifically not a sequel, according to the author himself) to Marias' prior novel, Berta Isla (2017). They stand as individual works, however a library book club member who went on to read Berta Isla commented that it shone useful light of Nevinson's psychology and his back-story with Berta, who is Nevinson's wife. Berta does feature in Tomas Nevinson, but Berta Isla is her story, told from her perspective, allowing the reader to consider Nevinson from the outside, which indicates that it is probably best to start with Berta Isla. As someone new to the works of Javier Marias, I can't wait to read all of his work; at last, another worthy literary author discovered, too late to enjoy him while alive, but I'm sure that his brilliant work will live on.

Crime and Punishment - Fydor Dostoevsky (1866) This version translated by Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokhonsky (1992)

 

Rating: Admirable

"Why do people who read Dostoevsky look like Dostoevsky?": Here Comes a City - The Go-Betweens (1996)

For the record, I don't look like Dostoevsky, but by the time I finished Crime and Punishment I certainly felt like I could relate to how Dostoevsky might have felt (bleak, to put it bluntly). I thought it was time to try and read some of the Russian literary greats and chose to begin in the most obvious place with Dostoevsky. Firstly, reading a novel that was written in the middle part of the nineteenth century is a very different proposition to reading novels written a century later. It takes a while to adjust to the archaic writing style, let alone the very Russian archaic writing style. Crime and Punishment is written in the third person, but it is a very closed third person. The famous main protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, very much dominates the oppressive narrative with his nihilistic world view. It is extremely claustrophobic and bleak, with scenes dominated by Raskolnikov cowering in his hovel of a bedsit or wandering the dark streets of St Petersburg; or scenes involving the many other characters talking to him, or talking about him to each other as if he isn't in the room. I wouldn't be giving anything away by mentioning the double murder he commits in the first part, as it is one of the most famous murders in literary history. The murder scene is quite gruesome, but what Crime and Punishment is really all about is what happens in the aftermath of the murders, enabling Dostoevsky to explore the moral quandaries of human nature and the intellectual and spiritual scaffolding humanity places around itself to cope with what lies beneath. As a precursor to the existential writers of the twentieth century, like Sartre, Celine and Camus, Crime and Punishment is a fascinating read. Raskolnikov rejects pretty much everything, God, religion, the State, education, work, money and close relations with other humans. He is completely alienated and is a totally unsympathetic character, to the extent that you couldn't even refer to him as an antihero. It's hard going and I needed to read the novel in three seperate periods of time. Frankly it was a triumph of will just to finish it, maybe I should have read Nietzsche in-between to give me strength (apparently Nietzsche loved Dostoevsky's work).

Dostoevsky, looking like Dostoevsky after reading Dostoevsky

I've read that Dostoevsky is not necessarily known as a great literary stylist, or even as a storyteller, but that he is all about exploring ideas. Crime and Punishment is best read with this in mind and it will help, just. It's a hard slog through a dialogue heavy narrative, in particular during the scenes involving multiple characters, where it is hard to keep track of who is saying what and just who is in fact there, as each character is know by at least three different names. It is extremely long-winded, with whole chapters going by with not much happening in terms of action or plot, just long extrapolations of conjecture, philosophy, or just downright misery. With this in mind it is useful to remember that authors in the nineteenth century were often paid by the word and their works were serialised, giving them an income for as long as they could spin them out. The novel does not arrive at its main thematic thrust until 260 pages in, when suddenly Raskolnikov's murderous actions makes sense in terms of his world view. The novel then became a bit easier to read, for a while! One of the main problems, from a modern readers' point of view, is that there is not much in the way of extrapolation from the author, Dostoevsky's authorial voice is mostly absent, instead the characters explore the novel's themes via dialogue, or via their actions, which are often confusing or confounding. Looking on Goodreads I noted that some readers proclaim Crime and Punishment as one of the greatest novels ever written, while others condemn it as a bloated wreck of a novel, with few redeeming features. I sit somewhere in-between, whilst I appreciate the novel's historical importance, in particular in terms of its ideas and themes, I did not enjoy reading it much at all. However I'm pleased I've read it and it hasn't put me off reading other novels by the Russian literary greats. If you read Crime and Punishment, do some prior research and keep in mind that it was written for an audience very different to us and that will help you through the challenge of actually finishing it. Good luck!

Death Holds the Key - Alexander Thorpe (2024)

 

Rating: Admirable

I read this novel as a tie-in with the Subiaco Library Book Club and the Fremantle Press Great Big Book Club author talk event held at Subiaco Library. Fremantle Press is a great Perth institution, an independent publishing house of some repute. Local authors Alexander Thorpe and Robert Edeson spoke about their respective novels, resulting in an insightful evening of cosy crime. As with many crime novels, Death Holds the Key is part of a series, called the Itinerant Mendicant series, which has a nice archaic ring to it. The novel is the second in the series, following on from Death Leaves the Station (2020) and features a nameless, short statured monk who has the tendency of getting involved in solving murder mysteries. This time the action is set mostly in Western Australia's wheatbelt region of Kojonup in 1928. The central plot device is a locked room murder mystery in which much the hated patriarch, Fred O'Donnell, is found shot dead in his locked study with signs of a struggle and no weapon to be found. Enter rookie detective Hartley, sent from Perth to investigate sightings of a robed figure who is, prior to the shooting, creeping around and arguing with O'Donnell. Hartley soon encounters the mendicant monk and they make an entertaining investigative pair. The mendicant monk is intelligent and observant, but does not give much away until he really needs to, an ideal foil to Hartley, who is unconfident and nervy and doesn't feel up to trying to solve the mystery off his own bat.

Thorpe deliberately (I know this, because I asked him at the author talk...) writes in the rather formal style of the era. It works quite well, particularly during scenes set at the O'Donnell homestead involving the extended family,  although readers unfamiliar with such period stylings might find it both a bit staid and verbose. Thorpe does well to bring the extended O'Donnell cast to life, with distinct personalities and attitudes that make them potential suspects. The central mystery of how Fred was killed stays alive long enough to engage the reader, but it is the why that is more interesting. In this regard there's some surprises lurking within the narrative not usually associated with gentile cosy crime. Of course there's red herrings, twists and turns and some reprehensible characters that cause problems for the friar and detective. Along the way there's also a trip from Kojonup to Perth in which period representations of familiar Perth landmarks stand out as highlights. There's something about reading a narrative set in your part of the world, even if it is nearly one hundred years ago. Overall Death Holds the Key is a classy (and on occasion, humorous) novel that does enough to engage the reader and fulfil all the usual cosy crime tropes with a little finessing that will keep fans of the genre happy. Worth a read to relax while supporting a local author and local publisher.

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).