Tuesday, May 31, 2011

A Visit from the Goon Squad

If you look up the word "goon" in the Dicitonary one of its meanings would be someone who has committed a crime. Although Egan doesn't use it in that sense in the title of her book it is still a very relevant description of time and how it swiftly, maybe even mercilessly catches up with even the best of us. But the question that poses itself is what will you have done with your time when that goon makes itself visible?

 "Time is a goon right? you gonna let it push you around?" appears twice in the book, once close to the beginning and once towards the end of the novel. By then the characters have matured (or not) and start to realize the consequences of their decisions taken twenty years ago in the throes of their youth and the start of their adult lives when one feels invincible and for some characters maybe overwhelmed by the life ahead of them.

This is a happy and sad book. A book about relationships, breakups and love in all places and all forms. It is a book about new beginnings and the end of dreams. A book about death in all its forms; not only the physical but the dying of dreams, of youth and at times of hope.

The writing is so fluid and the transition between characters and their interactions is so subtle that you find yourself unwilling to stop the journey and once it ends come the final scene all you want to do is live it again and again. This book begs a second, a third maybe even a fourth reading if you've got the time.

Monday, May 30, 2011

First Ladies by Kay Burley

The blurb at the back of the book:
Suave PM Julian Jenson has just been re-elected. The nation's darling, he has an elegance and natural charm in public. But in private the cracks are starting to show. At his side is his wife, Valerie. Trim, tall, well-educated but deeply unhappy - with her son and daughter away at school, alcohol is becoming a trusted friend.
Sally Simpson is at the peak of her game. Powerful editor of the bestselling magazine Celeb, she can't wait to take her rightful place by Julian's side.
Sexy TV reporter Isla McGovern has caught Julian's eye, and she will do anything (or anyone) to get to the top.
When the three women meet, so begins a perfect storm and only one can emerge as the First Lady.

What Bookfabulous thinks:
As soon as you catch a glimpse of this book on the shelves you'll know what to expect until you read the author's name. This is chicklit at its juiciest but with a very important twist. The book is written by no other than Sky New's cut-throat journalist Kay Burley. It is a novel set in the seedy world of politics in London and its main character is none other than suave British PM Julian Jenson who has just been re-elected and is the darling of the nation.

With great politics in the novel comes great debauchery and a free licence for the PM to do whatever he pleases. As much as he is suave and charismatic as much as he is a bigot and a sexist pig really. He changes his women as frequently as he changes shirts and we are introduced to him in the novel at a time when he thinks he is in love with tabloid editor Sally Simpson who he seems to think is his true soul-mate. Sally is a rather vulgar, self-made woman who has only one thing in her sight: to be the next First Lady.

Julian has obviously got a lot of issues with commitment and the search for love (perhaps maternal) that he seems to have suffered from at an early age when his mother and father sent him off to boarding school. He recalls having run away only to be met at the station by the police (summoned by his parents) who take him straight back to school. That is the only mention of Julian's past in addition to the fact that he comes from a very wealthy and well-connected family. That memory is the only time throughout the novel that I felt any sympathy towards Julian who is most often cruel, self-absorbed, over-confident and cocky up until the two mistresses and his wife are thrown together in one room. As you can imagine, all hell breaks loose.

Valerie, Julian's wife, is a bored politician's wife who has sacrificed a lot to be a PM's wife. A once successful woman in the publishing industry she has now turned to the bottle for company with her busy husband constantly away and her two children at boarding school. With all the sleaze in the book she must be what elegance and grace is all about even at her darkest and worst moments.

Julian Jenson's right hand-man is none other than his spin doctor Ben Watson. A vile character that you find really hard to warm up to. Unethical, rude, depraved. loathsome and totally sexist, he is evil personified. Towards the end of the book although you know his fall from grace is being hatched you cannot but wish it were more degrading, more horrible and that Kay had given it a few more pages for us to gloat.

We also have air-head Isla McGovern who due to her beauty finds herself in a steamy romance with Julian Jenson. She is inexperienced but soon learns how things in the capital are done.

This is a very entertaining novel with proper laugh aloud moments. I guess with the superinjuntions flying left right and center this will make a more plausible read. In fact this book is such a gripping and easy read that makes it the perfect summer holiday companion. Its only drawback I would say is its author and to truly enjoy this book for what it is you just have to forget who it was written by.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Ben in the World by Doris Lessing

This is the sequel to The Fifth Child

In this sequel we find Ben Lovatt, the neanderthal, out in the world on his own. With no family or friends he is left all alone to fend for himself. So the question here is: How does a person with limited intelligence and with a lack of social skills get by alone in the world? The answer: with real difficulty as we find in this novel and also with extreme ease. Sadly, just as happiness comes easily at times, cruelty takes place just as easily too.

This sequel is brilliant in that we learn more about what is taking place inside Ben's head. A thing we kind of wanted more of in The Fifth Child where it was more about his parents and siblings and their struggle to cope with the fact of having such a "person" in their midst. The violence, the hatred and ultimately the betrayals take their toll on Ben and throughout the book he remains wary of people and friendships.

At the beginning of the book Doris Lessing speaks in a foreword about "The Cages" found in research laboratories in London. The Cages in the book have been placed in Brazil and so we know that something terrible is going to be attached to their mention. It is both shocking and deeply sad to know that in some way we could all see this coming and yet its harrowing arrival still takes the reader by surprise.

This is a harrowing book not in the graphic sense but in the questions it poses to the reader. What is humanity and how do we measure human life? What motivates us to exploit the disadvantaged and how common is it to see something wrong happening and yet not try to stop it? Can a wrong ever be righted?

Throughout the story there is a deep sense of foreboding that gets larger and larger as page after page Ben's future becomes more and more complicated. And at the end of the book not only as the reader are you at your last breath but left with a deep sense of guilt that will make you want to read the book again for Ben's sake.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

South of the River by Blake Morrison

At first I was going to label this book as a bit of a tedious read. Packed with characters (five), it is quite trapping. Quite trapping to the extent that it could be suffocating at times. But I do believe that for fictional characters to invoke in me such a degree of irritation (Ned) and boredom (Jack) only means that the writer is a very very good one.

The story as the title suggests takes place along 'South of the River' and is rich with description and factual events. It broaches politics (the high hopes envisaged by all as the Labour party comes into power and progressively its demise), sex, fidelity, family and family values, racism, death, partnership, women's liberation, fox hunting as well as a variety of other issues that come about in the course of the novel as the characters go about their daily lives. Lives very similar to our own. It does unmask what British society has become; namely the society that the Blair government has produced whether intentionally or not but has nonetheless. I won't pass my judgement onto you but will leave you to make your own.

As I mentioned I stopped short of giving this book an undeserving review. The whole book (according to the author in one of his interviews) was inspired by foxes that lurked around the area of his residence in Blackheath. At various parts of the book we are taken through stories of foxes ranging from the amusing to the utterly incredulous to the absolutely horrifying to say the least.

I was amused but not a believer until last night when I was rudely awakened by the sound of a screeching bone chilling wail which, as I looked out of the window, belonged to a squirrel whose ill fortune had made it breakfast to a canny fox. I will never forget that howl or that wail that seemed to be not only an echo but a confirmation of what Morrison had written and now I know without a shadow of a doubt that it will be some time before I forget this book, if ever.

South of the River by Blake Morrison

Monday, May 09, 2011

Candlemoth

Candlemoth by RJ Ellory

For those of you who liked The Shawshank Redemption you'll love this one. This 391-page book published in 2003 is a page-turner. Once you start reading it becomes so very hard to put down.

The first of Ellory's novels it takes place during the turmoil events of America in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Mind you this is not history in its boring detail more like conspiracy theories that would make for great dinner table conversation at that dull don't-know-anyone-here party. Try it and you won't be disappointed.

The plot revolves around two boys, one black (Nathan) and the other white (Daniel), who meet and bond over a baked ham sandwich in South Carolina. They are six years old and the story begins with Daniel accused of the brutal murder of Nathan and is in prison on Death Watch at the age of 37.

A novel about friendship, first love, Vietnam, murder, guilt, human nature and how the choices we make, however insignificant, may live to haunt us for eternity. Tissues at the ready for a very emotional finish.

Sunday, May 08, 2011

The Perfect Romance!


Soul mates from birth, Karim and Raheen finish one another's sentences, speak in anagrams and lie spine to spine. They are irrevocably bound to one another and to Karachi, Pakistan, a city that is violent, polluted, corrupt, vibrant, brave and ultimately home.
As the years go by they let a barrier of silence build between them until they are brought together during a dry summer of strikes and ethnic violence and their relationship stands posed between strained friendship and fated love.

What I thought:
Let me first tell you a story (true one) about me. A time not so long ago (it doesn't all have to be real, does it?) I fell in love. I remember it like yesterday. The meeting of the eyes, the butterflies in the stomach, the stolen glances, all the innnocence that first love brings with it. And then of course that long awaited kiss that sends shivers up and down my spine to this day (maybe now with maturity also comes a cringeing grimace as well). The years have gone by considerably since that first flutter of the heart and yet its bittersweet memory lingers on. If you have ever felt that way then you will get to revisit that feeling when you read Kartography.

Kamila Shamsie has managed through her superb character Raheen to translate onto pages what it feels like to be overwhelmingly in love or better to the point up to the ears in it. There is almost a sense of denial that a love could be so strong as we see Raheen doing her best to pretend that it is not there or hanging on to disaster just so that it might actually prove her right and that the love she imagined was there was never there at all.

It is a tale of deceit o
n another level and how parents lie or hide events from their children hoping to protect them only to find that they have messed them up even more. They do it unintentionally and you end up unbelievably willing to exonerate them of blame when you find out how messed up the parents are to begin with.

This is a story also about the scattered people of Pakistan. Those who left before it all went bad and yet kept up with the news to prove that they had not forgotten and those who stayed behind to deal with the horrors of daily life. Both seem lost and out of place in each other's lives. This is a story about the truest love man is capable of but also about what mankind does to each other in the name of certain beliefs. This story will linger with you for a considerable time.


This is a very affecting book and you need to have two things ready before you start reading: A box of tissues and water-proof mascara (I recommend Maybelline). Enjoy!