Breakfast At Libraries: March 2015

Friday, 27 March 2015

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

As I write this blog post, Sierra Leone has just been placed on lockdown for three days in a bid to stop the spread of the Ebola virus, and despite the fact that the number of Ebola cases here in the UK currently stands at just two (both non-fatal), the level of anxiety and tabloid-fuelled panic remains high. It seems that the fear of any kind of pandemic is something we can't quite shake off - and I personally am both fascinated and terrified by them.

Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven begins with a renowned actor, Arthur Leander, dying from a heart attack while playing King Lear at a Toronto theatre. Within hours of his death, it transpires that hospitals worldwide are besieged with cases of the deadly Georgia Flu, and once the pandemic takes hold, it's clear that nothing will ever be the same again. Twenty years later, a mismatched group of travelling players travels North America performing Shakespeare to the few survivors - including a community that has sprung from the passengers and airline staff stranded at a quarantined airport on the day civilisation effectively came to end.

Station Eleven isn't a dystopian adventure story: although it's very much about survival, the daily mechanics of this are secondary to the much more interesting psychological elements of living after, and through, what is essentially a form of apocalypse. Kirsten, a former child actor who was on stage with Arthur Leander the day he died and now wandering with the Travelling Symphony, can't bear to part with a glass paperweight and a mysterious science fiction comic that gives Station Eleven its title and has odd, distorted parallels with the post-pandemic world. Clark, in his airport home, collects once commonplace but now entirely useless items for a Museum of Civilisation - credit cards, mobile phones, stiletto shoes. Others choose to follow a charismatic prophet who seems to provide them with a pseudo-Christian cult rationale that helps them to make a twisted sense of the horrors of the pandemic and its aftermath.

Station Eleven is also set apart from most dystopian novels by focusing equally on the lives of selected characters before the flu pandemic, some of whom will survive it, and some who won't - but all of whom are, like Kirsten and Clark, linked to the late Arthur Leander. It explores the ways that one person's life can, even after the civilisation of which they were part has effectively been wiped out, influence the lives and beliefs of many, many others - positively and negatively. All the characters are portrayed with remarkable sensitivity and largely without judgement, and this is a gripping novel despite its unhurried pace.

Moving, thoughtful, sad and often quietly terrifying, Station Eleven is also oddly life-affirming in a low-key, non-showy sort of way. There is a sense of weariness about it, a sense of life slipping away, but also a hint of a world gradually starting to be reborn. As Miranda, creator of the Station Eleven comics, lives her last hours one night on a Malaysian beach, the lights of huge, stationary ships full of the dying are symbolic of the world ending - yet decades later, distant lights on the horizon are a sign of some form, at least, of recovery.

Wednesday, 18 March 2015

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

It’s already been widely publicised that Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant is a fantasy novel, with the words ‘Tolkien’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ being casually bandied about. However, it has about as much in common with Tolkien or Game of Thrones as Nineteen Eighty-Four has with The Hunger Games or a Raymond Chandler novel has with Alexander McCall Smith – they’re superficially part of the same broad genre but that’s more or less where the similarity ends. In any case, whether this is or isn’t a fantasy novel is frankly neither here nor there; it shouldn’t make any difference whatsoever to the way it’s read or understood.

The Buried Giant is set in a version of post-Arthurian Britain peopled by Britons and Saxons and yes, there is a dragon, there are ogres, there is a quest of sorts, but its language feels more like that of a traditional fairy-tale, and its episodic plot gives an impression more of an allegorical epic. There is little sense of the characters’ inner thoughts or feelings, and their reactions to and interactions with one another are matter-of-factly expressed, most often through dialogue.

This is heightened by the omniscient narrator, whose viewpoint takes in not only the characters’ actions but also the full scope of history. At times, we’re addressed as modern readers, at other times, as readers who might conceivably have lived in Saxon roundhouses. These sorts of inconsistencies are jarring, but clearly deliberate; we’re expected to take notice of them. When the omniscient narrator is revealed to have an identity, these oddities begin to make a sort of sense, and this is one of the more powerful moments in the book – although much is still left unexplained, and I’m not sure there is quite enough effort made to bring the narrative together.

The book begins with an ageing Briton couple, Axl and Beatrice living almost communally in a subterranean village, deciding to set out to find their adult son. They can’t remember his name, are not entirely sure where he is, and indeed have gone for long periods without remembering that he ever existed at all: the Britain of The Buried Giant is shrouded in an oppressive mist that refuses to lift and is affecting the memories of its inhabitants. When people leave the village, they are fast forgotten. Axl and Beatrice, despite their touching devotion to one another, have few memories of their own pasts; while their relationship has clearly lasted for decades and seems to be a loving one, they can’t be completely certain that their happy marriage has always been so.

Shortly after their departure, they stop at a Saxon village, and it’s really here that we (and they) begin to acquire vague, intangible wisps of the past. How did the Britons and Saxons pass from what once a state of violent conflict into an uneasy peace? Why does Saxon warrior Wistan think he has met Axl before? Why does Beatrice see the bones of children where her travelling companions see none?

The novel as the whole, rather like Ishiguro’s earlier book Never Let Me Go, is about the way societies face up to – or don’t face up to – terrible things. Forgetting has its own consequences, but remembering can be devastating too. Do Axl and Beatrice owe it to those wronged in the past to lift the mist that clouds their memories, or in doing so, will they unleash another wave of atrocities?

In reality, Britain was ravaged by battles between Britons, Romans, Saxons and Vikings for centuries – and King Arthur himself, constantly evoked throughout the novel and represented by an elderly Sir Gawain, is at least in a part a ‘memory’ collectively constructed to create a false, romanticised British past. There are obvious parallels to contemporary situations too – how do Bosnian Muslims relate to their Serbian neighbours after Srebenica? How can Spain forget the Civil War when the bodies of those murdered by Franco’s forces are still being uncovered?

The Buried Giant is also, however, about love and loyalty. There are small-scale wrongs to be remembered, too – betrayals on a personal, but painful, level that might also be revealed when the amnesia-inducing fog is lifted. A mysterious boatman tells Beatrice and Axl of an island where people walk in eternal isolation from everyone - including their spouse, unless they are truly in love. Could any couple feel confident in making that journey? And conversely, could any relationship survive the implications of the decision not to do so?

There are elements of The Buried Giant that are gripping, fascinating and deeply touching (the ending moved me to tears). Equally, I did feel that the detached, matter-of-fact style employed throughout, particularly in the dialogue, detracted somewhat from the characters and the depth of their experiences. I am certain this was a deliberate technique on Ishiguro’s part, and it’s one that we see elsewhere in his work, but I didn’t feel it worked here as well as it works in Never Let Me Go, when the truth of the characters’ fate seems all the more affecting as a result.

Saturday, 14 March 2015

Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn

Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn (no, not that Anthony Quinn) has widely been billed as a murder mystery, in which a serial murderer known as the Tie-Pin Killer stalks the streets of 1930s London.

However, if you actually pick up this book looking for detective fiction you will probably be disappointed, as while it's the actions of the killer that tie the main characters together through a series of meetings, coincidences and misunderstandings, the mystery element of the plot occupies by far the fewest pages of the interlocking story arcs and is subject to almost no analysis whatsoever. There is no detective work involved and no exploration of motive; in fact, you are unlikely to give a toss who the murderer is at all.

For me, though, this didn't matter in the slightest. I enjoyed this book so much and became so invested in its characters and their relationships that I was perfectly happy for the murder plot to - as, I suspect, was the author's intention - play second fiddle.

The main characters in Curtain Call are a joy. Actress Nina Land is a modern, independent woman, but fears for her future as both her career and her small inheritance appear to be dwindling. Stephen Wyley, a renowned society portrait painter, is fast falling in love with her but is painfully aware that by doing so he is betraying his blameless wife and children. There's also larger-than-life theatre critic Jimmy Erskine, a monstrously conceited coward who is, at the same time, somehow saved by Quinn's skill from being completely insufferable. Like all the characters, Jimmy has something to hide: he's gay at a time when this could not only end his career but put him in prison. His long-suffering secretary Tom Tunner, despite being straight, is trapped in an amusingly marriage-like relationship with Jimmy, while at the same time concealing from him that he suffers from epilepsy. Finally, there's the fabulously named Madeleine Farewell, a kind, sensitive middle-class girl whose apparent impoverished gentility becomes a cover for her profession, which as you can probably guess, is the one commonly known as the oldest.

Each of them has a multitude of faults, yet you can't help thinking you'd happily sit down to dinner with any one of them, and Jimmy - the most flawed of them all - is possibly the most entertaining of the lot. There is a sense of genuine tragedy about Nina and Stephen, and the relationship between Madeleine and Tom is utterly charming from the very moment they meet.

Moreover, in the huge cast of supporting characters, there isn't a single one I couldn't immediately believe in; Quinn really does create portraits with words with all the skill of Stephen's paintbrush. Nina's theatrical dresser Dolly, Stephen's daughter Freya, Madeleine's pimp Roddy, Jimmy's Hungarian Jewish friend Laszlo - every one of them is as memorable as the major players.

Equally vivid is the setting. The London of the 1930s, with its theatres, nightclubs, semi-respectable boarding houses and Lyons Corner House cafes, is almost a character in itself. The clandestine gay scene, and the appalling injustice of the anti-gay laws of the time, are brilliantly evoked. The looming threat of World War II is already present - Madeleine's strange dream about a London ravaged by fire and its houses turned to matchsticks is surely no coincidence - and there's home-grown fascism to contend with too, including a guest appearance from William Joyce, latterly better known as Lord Haw-Haw.

The style of Quinn's prose is perfectly suited to the period setting. It's witty, occasionally brittle, and never overblown; precise, yet stylish - the dialogue, in particular, is close to perfect. There are aspects of a comedy of manners in the language at times, and yet also of Brief Encounter, and of Golden Age detective fiction, and, fittingly for a book that seems to cross genre boundaries, all the elements combine into a deeply satisfying whole.

Friday, 13 March 2015

Terry Pratchett

Do you ever have that sudden sense of shock that comes not so much from a thing itself, but from the degree to which it unexpectedly affects you?

When I learned today that Terry Pratchett had died, I was startled not so much by his death - like most people, I was aware of his health problems after he was diagnosed with an early-onset form of the 'embuggerance' of Alzheimer's disease - but by the sudden lurch I felt in my stomach when I heard the inevitable sad news. While I'd kept an eye on what he'd been doing, and closely followed his campaign for the legalisation of assisted dying, I hadn't actually read his books for a fair few years. Why, then, did I find myself so genuinely and deeply upset in a way I rarely am when a famous person passes away?

Probably because I was a huge fan of Terry Pratchett during a time in my life when being a fan of anything is a particularly big deal - and throughout the years when I was at my most painfully awkward, and desperately in need of some assurance that there were other awkward nerds out there who liked the same things I did and found the same things funny. I took the first three Discworld novels - The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites - during summer 1988, when I was 12, I think because the library were promoting them as an 'If you like Douglas Adams, you'll also like...' suggestion. I read them all one after the other, and as soon as I'd read them, I went back to the library to look for more. After that, I decided I had to own them too, and when I had to save up pocket money or wait for Christmas and birthdays if I wanted to own new books, actually owning a book instead of borrowing it from the library was a big decision. For years, a Pratchett paperback or two, all with the original, highly distinctive Josh Kirby cover art, appeared in every little pile of presents I received.

The thing that blew me away about the Discworld series was that, while the books were extremely funny in a way that chimed perfectly with my sense of humour at the time, they were also damn good fantasy novels in their own right. They poked fun at the tropes of fantasy fiction, yes, but they were never parodies, never pastiche. The plots were clever and complex, the concepts dizzyingly imaginative, and the pace of each book built steadily to proper, exhilarating, pacey adventure. The characters were almost Dickensian in all their larger-than-life glory, but also oddly believable. At the heart of every Discworld book there was also a tremendous warmth and charm.

Good Omens, the non-Discworld novel that Pratchett co-wrote with Neil Gaiman, probably remains in my top ten reads to this day. As well as being an entertaining satire and a fantastically affectionate homage to countless horror films, and really quite dark on many levels, it is still a strangely life-affirming, comforting read, and soon became my go-to reading matter during the toughest times of my teens. It was the only book I could bring myself to pick up the day I found out that my mum had breast cancer, and the only one I wanted to read after my grandad died. All Pratchett's books gave me a focus and brought me comfort during bouts of what I now understand wasn't adolescent angst but clinical depression. When I wrote to him to ask him some questions about his books, he sent me a charming, personal and characteristically funny letter in response.

There are thousands of people - many of them my friends - who will be feeling bereft today upon hearing that Terry Pratchett is no longer with us, and who will feel bereft all over again when suddenly Christmas comes around and there is no sign of a new Discworld book in their stocking, full of the adventures of all the memorable characters he created. No more Rincewind, no more Captain Vimes, no more Granny Weatherwax - no more The Luggage, even.

There will, of course, still be Death. There's always Death. But thanks to Terry Pratchett we might not fear him quite as much as we used to.

1948 - 2015

Saturday, 7 March 2015

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

After enjoying The Cuckoo's Calling, I moved straight on to its sequel The Silkworm, the second novel in the Cormoran Strike series written by JK Rowling under the pen-name Robert Galbraith.

Given the story behind the publication of The Cuckoo's Calling, it's interesting that The Silkworm has a literary setting. Author Owen Quine has disappeared, shortly after submitting a manuscript to his agent that cruelly and obscenely lampoons a number of well-known figures from the world of publishing, along with his wife and mistress. It's his wife, an awkward, long-suffering woman who bears a passing resemblance to Rose West, who hires Strike - not because she thinks anything's happened to Quine, but simply because she thinks Strike will be able to persuade him to come home. However, this is a murder mystery after all, and in the course of investigating Quine's disappearance, Strike soon uncovers a much more sinister mystery.

Although the murder central to The Silkworm is so gruesomely elaborate that it wouldn't be out of place in David Fincher's Se7en, the book still the has the structure and style of a traditional Golden Age detective novel, with Strike edging his way into Quine's somewhat alien world to gain access to suspects, and pitting his skills against those of the police, a conflict complicated by the fact that the investigating officer is a former Army colleague of Strike's. In fact, many more of Strike's friends, acquaintances and relatives also appear in The Silkworm, and while it's not entirely plausible that they would all be quite as helpful to the investigation as they are, their presence is always welcome for the insight it gives us into Strike himself.

In the unlikely event that you didn't warm to Strike and his assistant Robin in The Cuckoo's Calling, you would need a heart of stone for them not to win you over in The Silkworm. Both immensely likeable in their own right, the awkward relationship between them is endearing. The aftermath of Strike's broken engagement to the troubled, unstable Charlotte and the disapproval of Robin's own solidly reliable fiance Matthew are also key to this novel, and are a suitable counterpoint to the dark intensity of the investigation itself. There is also great deal of wit to this book, and a great deal of warmth, all of which balances out the snobbery, spite and egomania that Strike encounters as he delves into Owen Quine's background.

The less favourable reader reviews of The Silkworm and its predecessor on Amazon sometimes draw attention to a lack of pace and an unnecessary dwelling on detail. Detailed description, and fairly long reflections on the inner musings of the characters, are indeed noticeable in The Silkworm, although for me, they add to the novel's appeal rather than detract from it.

I can see myself getting as excited about the next Robert Galbraith book as I currently do about Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway novels or Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series - and for similar reasons: a recurring cast of likeable, occasionally quirky characters, cleverly-constructed crime plots and a good-humoured warmth that contrasts with the very genuine darkness of the central mysteries.