Other People: A Mystery Story - Martin Amis (1981)

 

Rating: Excellent

Other People is the fourth novel published by Martin Amis and was the first after he had quit journalism to become a full time writer. It certainly shows, as the novel is a significant step up from the prior three, as good as they were. This is serious literary fiction, featuring particuarly dark themes, a unique narrative structure and surreal perspective that tests the readers' abilities. J.G.Ballard described the novel as a metaphysical thriller, which is an apt description. The narrative's main protagonist is Mary Lamb, an amnesiac whose memory is so far gone that she doesn't even know what people, clouds, cars and other such ordinary phenomena are. We are given the impression that she's received some sort of medical treatment and has been released back into the community without much thought of the consequences. Mary's subsequent adventures involve becoming mixed up some with dubious individuals, such as alcoholics and criminals. The quality of character building is such that you feel genuinely concerned about what might happen to Mary, a concern that becomes wrapped up in the mystery of what has happened to her and why. There is also a second narrator who seems to know the answers to these questions, but is not letting on. This narrator interjects every so often to comment on what's happening to Mary, who as the novel progresses manages to attract misogynistic trouble wherever she goes, including being sexually harassed and obsessed over by various men. Mary is very attractive, and she slowly realises the power of this fact as she finds out more about who she really is, encouraged by the mysterious character of a policeman named Prince, who turns out to be an important character with nebulous motivations.

I say, old chap, what the fuck is Other People about?

Other People reads like a David Lynch narrative, with a disturbing dark mystery at its heart and a plot that seems to twist in on itself with little regard for the reader. I had to think long and hard about just what was going on and ended up looking online for answers; if you really want to know, here's a great cogent synopsis. The writing is absolutely superb, featuring a narrative voice that could only be that of Amis. His turn of phrase is uniquely suffused with irony and dark amusement. Within a plot that is like a möbius strip, Mary's amnesia becomes a great device for Amis to render the world as bizarre and alien. Via this device the world is revealed be a darkly surreal realm inhabited by deeply flawed, dysfunctional and, on the whole, dangerous humans. Mary, like Little Red Riding Hood, ventures forth into danger with apparent innocence, until she discovers the power of who she really is. The ending is mysterious, intense and ultimately satisfying, even though it is difficult to fully understand. A deep think about what has gone on in the novel and the nature of Mary's predicament is called for, but even then, like David Lynch's best films, it is a slippery thing to contend with. Other People is a strange little beast of a novel, it's both realism in terms of its social satire, but also surreal in its metaphysical themes and overall structure. It's an easy novel to admire and as various critics have duly noted over the years, it is undoubtably where Amis really hit his straps. Now, onto Money (1984), eventually, that is... 

God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Christopher Hitchens (2007)

 

Rating: Admirable

For a long time I avoided reading any of the works published by well known atheists (personally I'm in a position beyond atheism, but more on that later), such as Richard Dawkins, but having never read any of Hitchen's work, and knowing that he copped a great deal of heat for his atheistic views over the years, I thought I would find out just how against the notion of god he was. Turns out he was quite extreme in his atheistic views and God is not Great is an all out attack on organised monotheistic religion (eastern religions also come in for some flack as well). Some of the chapter headings certainly make his position clear, such as 'Religion Kills', 'The Metaphysical Claims of Religion are False' and 'Is Religion Child Abuse?' His argument style is forceful, compelling, but not always to the point. Hitchens frequently labours his arguments, but on the whole he hits home with quite devastating critiques of core religious notions, such as that humans need religion in order to lead moral lives. His takedown of the ten commandments is something to behold, arguing that some of the commandments actually existed to encourage bloodletting and racist behaviour (in particular within the context of the historical tribal origin of said commandments). Hitchens explores many of the inherent contradictions and problems found within religious belief - bigotry, homophobia, hostility toward scientific progress, misogyny, coercion, in particular toward children, and its righteousness and intolerance toward other modes of thought and ways of living. At one point he argues at length that monotheistic religion has a close affinity with totalitarianism, making some salient points to support his controversial thesis. If I were religious I'd find the book to be a direct attack on my very being, fortunately I'm not, so I quite enjoyed it.

Proof that god does not exist.

God is not Great is not without its flaws however. Although Hitchens does, at times, show some levity toward the more reasonable aspects of religion, he does, on the whole, focus on its extremes; righteous evangelism, war in the name of god, targeting of homosexuals and so on. Although I'm a long time atheist I can see that religion has done some good for humanity (the bad far outweighs the good however). Hitchens also comes across as a true essayist, rather than an academic, blending opinion and facts (some of which are potentially incorrect - although many of the critics pointing this out wrote for religious journals it seems); he very much writes with his own voice, for better or worse. This sometimes involves coming across as arrogant or pompous, in particular when he uses overly emotive insults when describing certain people, referring to them as 'ludicrous mammals', 'pathetic' or 'absurd'. Hitchens is unrestrained in his distain, which is understandable, but it can come across as unnecessarily strident at times. Still, these are minor quibbles, and God is not Great stands as a decisive lancing of the purulent boil of monotheism, done in the most painful way imaginable. As for me? Well, about four years ago I went from being an atheist to embracing existential nihilism and have been much happier ever since. Essentially not only do I believe that humanity has no viable future, but also that humans have no inherent worth, if we became totally extinct it just wouldn't matter at all, the universe would not care. It's very freeing and I advise it for any free-thinking individual. It doesn't mean that you don't care about people, life, or being fulfilled, it just means that if it all ends, then what of it? I'm sure Hitchens would have approved had he lived, however both he and his close friend, Martin Amis, have died, two of the greatest godless literary buddies in history. RIP, but not in heaven or hell...

Proof that god does exist?

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (2013)

 

Rating: Sublime

Donna Tartt is due to publish another novel, there's been ten years between each of them, her time well spent meticulously constructing each one. I hope she follows her modus operandi now I've finally read The Goldfinch, I'm all out of literary masterpieces to read and she owes us another. Is the novel really that good however? After some initial doubts, that dissipated after about one hundred pages in, I looked on the net for how it had been received initially to find that opinions were split between the novel being lauded and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 and demonised as a glorified YA novel, with one critic from The New Yorker regarding it as representing the "infantilisation of our literary culture." He goes on to reference the horror of adults reading Harry Potter novels, which is an interesting critical barb considering that the novel's main protagonist, Theo Decker, is referred to as 'Potter' by his friend Boris, a Ukrainian juvenile-delinquent who is bursting with dark energy. I find such criticism curious, did the critic forget about, for example, American canonical novels such as J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951), with its dysfunctional teenage protagonist, Holden Caulfield, and going back further in literary time, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Both novels used youthful viewpoints to critique the adult world. Often significant novels need some time to be truly recognised for what they are. Regardless of what some critics thought, The Goldfinch is brilliant modern realism, vivid and exquisitely detailed, Tartt's descriptive abilities are superb, her prose beautiful, her turn of phrase breathtaking.  The world she builds is one to get completely lost in. Although the novel is long (864 pages), it appears, like a Tardis, even larger on the inside, it's a total literary marvel. 

The Goldfinch - Carel Fabritius (1654)

The Goldfinch begins with a thirteen-year-old Decker losing his mother in a terrorist attack that targets the art gallery they have visited in New York. Decker leaves the resultant wreckage with his life and the Goldfinch painting in his backpack. It becomes both a treasure beyond its artistic value and a burden. The novel follows Decker's life in the aftermath of the attack. Such is the brilliance of Tartt's prose you are right there with him through it all. One of the novel's strengths is the utter believability of the characters lives, you get to know them as if they are people you have personally met. This is why, despite the novel's obsession with detail and sometimes slow pace, the narrative has such a powerful pull. At one point, long after Decker had been taken to suburban Vegas by his dysfunctional father, where he meets Boris, I wondered when this part was going to end. There's page after page spent in the sun-blasted days and insular nights of the Vegas suburban desert, getting wasted on booze and weed and whatever else Theo and Boris can get their hands on, that it borders on tedium (this is hard-core realism after all), but then much later in the novel Decker is thinking about that time and you feel a sense of nostalgia that's profound, as if you've lived it yourself. I even began to think about that part of the narrative during times when I wasn't reading the novel, as if I'd lived it. The Goldfinch is epic, contains genius level prose, and is utterly intense and believable. You care so much about what may happen to the characters the tension becomes almost unbearable. There is, however, a feeling that The Goldfinch is not for every reader. Some will perhaps become bored, or daunted by its epic length, glacial pace and psychological intensity, but it's worth attempting and persevering with, even if there's doubt there; its one on the greatest novels I've read and I can tell you absolutely that it is well worth the ride.

Wolf Land - Jonathan Janz (2015)

 

Rating: Admirable

I've been fascinated by werewolves since childhood. Despite watching most of the modern-day werewolf movies made since the 1980s I've never read any werewolf horror, in fact Wolf Land is the first horror novel I've read since I was a teenager in the 1980s. Horror is not really my thing, but in the spirit of branching out I grabbed a copy of Wolf Land when it was discarded by my library. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised, as Wolf Land is a well written decent into gruesome and gory werewolf mayhem. The novel is nicely set up with the introduction of the principle protagonists who are on their way to a bonfire party prior to a ten-year school reunion. We meet Duane (nicknamed Short-Pump), Savannah, Glen, Mike and the loser of the group, Weezer. They all have their issues, regrets and angsts, mostly around relationships, but for Mike, the big-time baseball player who went off to the big leagues and failed, there's bigger regrets, but that all pales into insignificance when a weird guy turns up to the bonfire and transforms into a werewolf, an impressive one at that. The ensuing carnage is entertaining and ticks all of the werewolf thrill requirements.

Janz handles the balance between character development and horror action well, by the time of the first attacks you feel like you know enough about the characters to care about them before they either die or become horribly injured. The actual horror elements are intense, detailed and gory, but there is enough well played out psychological exploration of the characters in the aftermath of the initial attack to make things more interesting. Some of them, of course, are destined to become werewolves themselves and the way this plays out differently among the group of friends is engaging and satisfying. There are some intense transformation and attack scenes that would satisfy any werewolf fans and the werewolves themselves are massive creatures. Also the usual theme of werewolf origin is handled without too much cliche and enough variation to create something new. However I'm marking the novel down a bit for two reasons, firstly one of the female characters, Joyce, is a librarian, but is a bit of a cliche, she's inhibited, a bit plain and does her research, hmmm. The second is that when things really get going in the latter third of the novel the carnage is unrelenting, getting more and more extreme. No doubt horror fans love and demand this level of gory action, but after a while it becomes a bit cartoonish and loses some of its impact, there's only so many times you can cringe at another eye being gouged or scenes of slaughter with intestines and heads everywhere. Still, Wolf Land was a fun ride and great holiday reading.

The Hand-Reared Boy - Brian Aldiss (1970)

 

Rating: Excellent

The Hand-Reared Boy was given to me by a close friend with the words - 'This is filthy, you must read it!' It is, indeed, filthy, but also a fascinating examination of what it was like to be young and sexually experimenting in the 1930's. It is also written in a readable, yet never trite style, which I'm sure helped the novel to be retrospectively nominated for the Lost Booker Prize for 1970 in 2010, although it was not short-listed. The novel follows Horatio Stubbs from childhood and into his late teens, chronicling his sexual experiences with, wait for it, himself, his brother and sister, the family maid, girls of his own age and a little older, boys of his own age and then an older woman at his boarding school just before the outbreak of WWII. It is an unrelenting cavalcade of sex, I'm not even sure that everything I just referenced is an exhaustive account. There's plenty of masturbation, both solitary and mutual (hence the novel's title), but then as Horatio gets a bit older and meets Sister Virginia Traven, who works at the boarding school he attends, he is initiated into the adult games of sexual pleasure, and then to its eventual darker aspects.

Aldiss, a very naughty boy?

The Hand-Reared Boy is certainly no Helliconia Trilogy and would come as a surprise to fans of Aldiss's fine science fiction. There's not much information to be found online, in fact there isn't even a Wikipedia entry for the novel. Apparently it is based on Aldiss's own childhood experiences, which somewhat goes against his appearance as a fairly strait-laced looking English gentleman. The novel is the first part of a trilogy, based on his experiences in the army during WWII, A Soldier Erect emerged in 1972, followed by A Rude Awakening in 1978. Despite the sexual nature of The Hand-Reared Boy, it should be taken as a serious account of growing up and exploring burgeoning desires. My only real worry is regarding the part of the novel set in Horatio's public boarding school, during which the boys basically experimented on each other sexually in the most caviler way. Was it really like that I wonder? Were English public school boys really at it most nights in each other's beds? If so there would have been a lot of visits to the nurse for RSI injuries!   

Success - Martin Amis (1978)

 

Rating: Excellent

As every literature lover should know, Martin Amis passed away in May of this year. It came as very bad news indeed, as Amis certainly was one of the best and most interesting writers in the English language of the last fifty years or so. Success was his third novel and is stylistically in the same vein as his first two novels, The Rachel Papers (1973) and Dead Babies (1975). Amis once described Dead Babies as a 'young persons' novel and initially Success reads as though it could fit that description as well, however it ultimately manifests as representing something more; it does not seem to be trying as hard to impress and its grotesqueries are dialled down marginally. There are some typical Amis tropes here however, men named Keith, class snobbery, grotesque sex and lots of drinking; the tone is satirical, witty and biting, featuring dozens of brilliant sentences that pop off the page, but there's also more emotional connection and character depth. Brothers Terence Service and Gregory Riding share a flat in London. They have an interesting history, as Terence was adopted by Gregory's eccentric father when he read about Terence's tragic background. Terence's adopted family are wealthy, as in old-school wealth and Gregory certainly acts the part, with the interaction between the two allowing for some satirical skewering of class conscious England. 

Success has a clever structure, covering a whole year from January to December. Each month is divided into a chapter and within each chapter there are two sections, one each from the perspective of Terence and Gregory. Gregory boasts about his successful life, his money, his cushy job, his good looks, his sex life, you name it, he's the man. Gregory comes across as insecure, a mess, poorly dressed, a loser with the ladies and only just holding on after his traumatic and weird upbringing. Amis completely nails each character, although neither of them come across as the finest of humanity, you can't help but get drawn in to their world view and the little hints they both give about what is really going on. All, of course, is not what it seems, and as the novel progresses the reality of the situation becomes clearer and the notion of success begins to shift. During the course of the novel we are also introduced to the brothers' sister, Ursula, and through their interactions with her we begin to get a real idea of just how on the nose everything is. Success is such an enjoyable novel and although the perception is that Amis's work would go on to mature in terms of thematic heft and writing quality, there's nothing wrong with his early work based on the evidence of his first three novels. Now, onto Other People (1981), a book The Guardian's John Self refers to as Amis's 'first good one,' but surely that was The Rachel Papers, a book I love and want to read again, such was its irresistible qualities.

Old God's Time - Sebastian Barry (2023)

 

Rating: Admirable

There's two ways to look at Sebastian Barry's novel, Old God's Time. The first is a reaction that goes something like this: okay, so this seems like a typical Irish novel, allusive, subjective, but above all, bleak, unrelentingly bleak; however, with some humour emerging through the murk of suffering. Tom Kettle, a retired Irish policeman, is attempting to settle into a quiet old age, when two young policemen knock on his door asking him for help with a cold case about a murdered priest. By this early stage we've witnessed Kettle resist suicidal urges (in fact, one of the humorous parts) and rummage through his memories and thought processes. It's all very depressing, the weather is grey, rainy, overcast. The prose style is claustrophobic, written in close third person, which gives the reader an intimate view of proceedings via Kettle's often hazy and impressionistic point of view. And still, it's depressing, dark and grim. You ask yourself, why am I reading this? Do I really need to read something this grim? This novel is rough medicine, it's no way to feel good, this novel. I wanted to give it up, but somehow I kept on going, I don't like to give up on books. Old God's Time did not beat me, although it made me depressed for the duration.

The second way of looking at Old God's Time, meaning 'a period beyond memory,' is that it is a typical Irish novel, deeply profound, bleak, yes, but also humorous, and above all extremely well written. Barry's prose is a masterclass of both emotional depth and insight. The close third person prose style allows an intimate perspective of a broken man who has, nonetheless, endured. Although Kettle is certainly an unreliable narrator, the cold case that the young policemen come to Kettle about is a brilliant way of exploring his past, with his wife and two children living with trauma associated with institutional abuse. Ireland's dark past is laid open for tough examination and Barry presents the facts in tragic detail, giving the reader profound insight into the terrible abuses meted out by Catholic priests. Old God's Time is a quality novel and is important, as the world needs to know what went on at the hands of priests who had the trust of the community and, supposedly, acted on behalf of God. Now, where do I sit regarding Old God's Time? I fall somewhere inbetween. I didn't have the energy to read such a serious and bleak novel and it didn't draw me in like excellent novels often do. Despite my initial misgivings, objectively it really is an excellent novel, but I've marked it down to admirable. The novel really is much better than that, but it's just a matter of subjectivity really. Recommended for book clubs due to the style of the writing and the seriousness of the themes; my book club members loved it and the discussion was very satisfying.