planet impiazzi

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
First class writing of a funny, moving story. The first couple of chapters are quite difficult, as Foer's style is certainly not run-of-the-mill. But this book is a process - the writing develops as you read it, following the relationship between the narrator & author (there's some complicated metafictional stuff going on here too).

The story follows the histories of two Ukranian families - one Jewish, one not - and delves into the traumas suffered by villages during WW2. Light reading it isn't. But Foer made me laugh out loud and cry too, and gave me plenty to think about.

Highly recommended - stick with it past those first two chapters!

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Interesting & readable story about a young woman's struggle with depression. Plath's semi-autobiographical novel lucidly describes the experience of 19 year old Esther's mental breakdown, and treatment in a 1950s asylum. Not the cheeriest of books, but well written, thoughtful and worth a read.

Falling Out of Cars by Jeff Noon
Fabulous. I was already a big fan of Noon's writing, and this is definitely up to his standard of challenging, lyrical, literary mindfucking. This is a book about words and images - about what would happen if the semiotic world we live in broke down. Here, images proliferate and disengage themselves from what they represent. Signifiers fail, meaning can no longer be comprehended, we are adrift in a sensual overload that refuses interpretation. How do we know who and what we are, if there is nothing stable to measure experience against? How can we communicate with each other if we can't express what our senses tell us? Fascinating stuff.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Not for the faint-hearted, this is a very dark first-person narrative about a Wall Street broker in the late 80s. The protagonist, Patrick Bateman is the American Psycho of the title. The narrative is an unrelenting description of his almost unbearably superficial life, his obsession with brand names & designer fashion, trendy restaurants, and as the book goes on, his increasing mental disorder. The book details his sadistic fantasies, and the torture and murders he commits.
There were parts of the book that I couldn't bring myself to read.

Did I enjoy it? No, I don't think I did, but it was a very compelling book - I stuck with it because I needed to know what would happen - wanted him to get caught. The scariest aspect of it was that Patrick appears to the world to be an attractive & socially able character. When he confesses his crimes to an acquaintance he isn't believed. But underneath his suave persona, a madman plans pain & suffering.

I think I'll read something more cheerful next.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I loved this book. Fabulously inventive, and beautifully written - and so original.

The story follows 9 year old Oskar as he searches for clues to the lock that a special key will open. Oskar lost his father in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the book explores his grief, and looks at how we construct history and come to terms with tragedy. By examining the family history of Oskar's parents & grandparents, the writer considers the ways that we cope with the horrors of war, and how we manage relationships in the context of trauma.

A very moving book, highly recommended.

The Island by Victoria Hislop
This cliche-ridden book is the story of four generations of women from a Cretan family. There is a certain amount of historical interest in the detail of the leper colony of Spinalonga, but for the most part I found this a very averagely written 'airport' novel, which gallops along trying to cover a century of life on a corner of Crete. Hislop tries to do too much, and succeeds in creating a sketchy family saga/romance, touching on some local customs and traditions, but failing to really delve beneath the surface of the characters.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
After reading Hoban's The Bat Tattoo, and hearing good things about Riddley Walker, I had high hopes for this book. I wasn't disappointed - it was an interesting & absorbing read.

The story is set in Kent, a few centuries into the future, among the survivors of a terrible war. Reading & writing skills are treasured by a select few, but for the most part stories & histories are oral, shared, embroidered, evolving as new mythologies. The narrative is written phonetically by Riddley, in his own dialect. And that works very well - just like in Trainspotting where you hear the voice in your head. He tells of his society, rife with inequality and superstitions, and refers in passing to the history and events that have led to his situation.

Russell Hoban has an amazing imagination, and a gift for sharing it.

The Bat Tattoo by Russell Hoban

This was an extraordinary book, a beautifully written love story peopled by real characters, honest, mature and thoroughly readable.

"Is that all there is?" is the question the characters are all seeking to answer. All are looking for a way out of their own personal Babylon. Written in the first person, but by three different narrators, each chapter is embellished by the distinctive voice of the teller and their preoccupations as they make excursions into meditations on art, history and identity.

Funny, moving and thoughtful. Highly recommemded - and for me, I think, the beginning of an exploration of Hoban's other novels. I'm amazed he has been writing for such a long time and I haven't come across any of his work before.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is, without doubt, a first class storyteller. This book held me spellbound – all 637 pages of it.

It tells the story of Iris Chase and her family, through the 20^th century. Narrated by 83 year old Iris, we get not only Iris's own life in retrospect, but also an embedded novel, also called The Blind Assassin, which tells of a 1930s affair between a married woman and a political agitator on the run from the authorities, and a sci-fi story told by the man to his lover over the course of their infrequent meetings. Iris's life story takes in the momentous historical events of the first half of the century – WW1, the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, WW2 – as well as the changing role of women in society, while the sci-fi story is a clear metaphor for the political and social upheavals of the era.

Iris's subversive perspective, self-deprecating but loaded with the cynical wisdom of experience, is immensely charming and likeable, and Atwood's literary brilliance ensures a narrative that perfectly expresses character and context.

A feast of a book. I savoured every bite.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
After having this recommended to me by two friends, and then Yorkshire Soul enjoying it so much, I had high hopes for this book. But I was SO disappointed.
While I liked some of the descriptive writing, I found the narrator/writer to be so self-absorbed, and irritatingly arrogant that I threw it down halfway through chapter 10. It is so 'me me me'. Some of his observations on life in Mumbai were quite interesting, but they were juxtaposed with a myriad of epiphanies as Roberts reflects on his own disastrous life. I just didn't have the patience for him or his book.
So be warned.

However, I'm told that it is being made into a film starring Johnny Depp. Now that might be worth seeing.

The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett
A very thoughtful, interesting novel about arctic exploration in the mid-nineteenth century that considers the attitudes and theories of the time towards evolution and race.
Well researched and informative, Barrett's book tells of an expedition that leaves Philadelphia to search for the lost Franklin expedition of a decade earlier. While the foreground is fictional, the setting is not. I learned a lot about the context of exploration and the debates surrounding evolutionary theory.
But it was also a good tale, well told, that held my interest to the end. Full of suspense at times - would the party survive a winter trapped in the ice?
A recommended adventure.

The Enchantment of Lily Dahl by Siri Hustvedt
I quite enjoyed reading this, but ultimately was left feeling a bit unsatisfied. Hustvedt raised lots of interesting questions about representation, and examined the faces we show the world and their 'truth' or otherwise. And the story held my attention. The characters were diverse and the community well observed and interesting. But in the end I think there were too many unanswered questions - beyond what you would expect of a good postmodern novel. There were loose narrative threads that I found frustrating.
So I don't think this is as good as 'What I Loved', which is a truly marvellous novel. I have 'The Blindfold' sitting on my shelf waiting to be read, and I'll see how that compares.

I have to confess I've been hanging out over on MySpace a bit recently. But I haven't quite forgotten blogger.

Have a read of Carfree Times, which has some great articles, and tempting photos of Portuguese towns that make me want to run away from this mucky traffic-clogged city.

And allow me a little pre-birthday self-indulgence by sharing some llamas.