Initially seemed overwrought, overly precious, straining too hard for profundity. But it grew on me.
It's the eve of world war two. A deaf mute RomaniInitially seemed overwrought, overly precious, straining too hard for profundity. But it grew on me.
It's the eve of world war two. A deaf mute Romanian boy, son of the cook at a big house, who obsessively draws. It was largely the descriptions of the drawings that were overwritten and overly melodramatic. He is a charmless character too. As mysterious as a wild animal. The book came alive for me when the narrative switches to the love story of the young girl whose parents own the house and then her relationship with the deaf mute boy. The second half of the novel, after the war, was much more compelling. Definitely an author I will read again....more
The Round House is narrated by Joe, a thirteen year old Indian boy (I hate the term “Native American": it sounds patronising to my ears unless you’re The Round House is narrated by Joe, a thirteen year old Indian boy (I hate the term “Native American": it sounds patronising to my ears unless you’re going to call all white Americans “ex Europeans� or some such nonsense: “Indians� might be daft but at least like “cowboys� it summons up the exotic wonder and affection of childhood) living on a reservation when the events depicted in the novel take place. When his mother is raped and becomes a shell of her former self Joe is catapulted into a premature spiritual crisis. He wants justice but sees no signs of it arriving. He becomes disillusioned with his father as he learns how ineffective he is in his role as a local judge. The cases he tries all of a somewhat petty nature. Neither does he have any religious faith to provide guidance since the tribe’s spiritual life is on the decline as a result of the long term banning of all their traditional ceremonies. Only a few elders are still connected to the old ways. The depiction of a powwow was interesting as all its former significance seemed to have tapered to little more than an excuse to show off for the opposite sex, a mating dance. Joe will seek guidance from his father, one of his elders and from a Catholic priest, none of whom quite provides answers. When the perpetrator of the rape is identified and arrested but then released because white men can’t be prosecuted as a result of absurd disputes of sovereignty and jurisdiction related to Indian territory he will have to take the law into his own hands.
I thought the ideas behind this book deserved a slightly better execution. It begins really well and ends really well but is prone to flabbiness in the middle section. I’d have liked it to be tightened up, perhaps fifty or so pages edited out. It also deserved a more complex baddie. The rapist isn’t very convincing except as a prototype of malevolence. On the whole though this was a novel I enjoyed and it raises important issues concerning the rights of minority groups. In fact it made me sad that difference is becoming almost outlawed in our modern world as if the ideal is to homogenise the entire human race. Of course the insistence on difference, personified at its worst by ISIS, sometimes leads to violence so on one level it’s understandable we want everyone to be one happy family but there’s also the risk of losing so much culture and spirituality in the process. Erdrich did a great job of showing me what a rich cultural heritage the Ojibwe tribe have....more
Arcadia takes us from an enactment of utopia to the dawning of a dystopian nightmare in the span of its 280 pages. It focuses on Bit, the first child Arcadia takes us from an enactment of utopia to the dawning of a dystopian nightmare in the span of its 280 pages. It focuses on Bit, the first child born into a 1960s hippy commune which begins with only a few charismatic acolytes and ends with thousands. We see Arcadia through his eyes, and he in turn sees it through the filter of Grimm’s fairy stories, the only book he has access to as a child. Groff does a really good job of showing us the world through a child’s sensibility � the wonder and the terror alternating in equal measure. It isn’t however until cracks start appearing in Arcadia and the inevitable expulsion becomes imminent that the book sparks into full life. “Arcadia feels like a book with the pages ripped out, the cover loose in Bit’s hand.� From about pg 70 I was utterly engrossed.
Bit’s love interest in the novel is the cold, self-destructive Helle, the daughter of the cult’s founder and lead inspiration. If this novel has a weakness it’s maybe the relationships. They all veer dangerously towards idealisation or exaggeration, whether it’s Bit’s unrelenting love-in with his mother or his passive devotion to the narcissistic self-serving Helle. Bit is at times a bit of a wimp. You want to shake him out of his benevolent, almost masochistic passivity. I also never quite understood why Groff made Bit so short � he’s barely five feet: it made Groff’s constant claim that he was attractive to women, in particular thin willowy girls, implausible as a dynamic. If she made him short as a metaphor for his stunted growth it wasn’t worth sacrificing plausibility in his relationships for such a lame metaphor.
As was the case with Fates and Furies, the prose is a constant delight. Bit becomes a photographer and Groff’s prose is masterful at drawing out the poetry from visual moments. “The strong wind rises against the trees so they bend like girls washing their hair.� “The sun and wind pour into the sheets on the line. There are bodies in the billowing, forms created and lost in a breath.�
It’s also super clever how Groff’s descriptions of the early days in Arcadia call to mind the atmosphere of many dystopian novels and prepare you as a reader for the real dystopian scenario which arrives late in the novel when a pandemic arrives, threatening to wipe out the old order of civilisation.
My predominant emotion while reading this book was irritation and I became much more interested in why it was irritating me so much than I was in the My predominant emotion while reading this book was irritation and I became much more interested in why it was irritating me so much than I was in the novel itself. I suppose principally because I thought it was going to be much more literary � a novel that creates the feeling that the characters are generating the plot rather than a novel whose plot creates the characters.
I’ve just looked at other reviews of this book and nearly everyone praises the research. I think what they mean though is simply that she told the story of Han van Meegeren. I first came across his story on the excellent BBC series Fake or Fortune and it’s a fabulous intriguing story. He was a master forger who had an almost foolproof technique of copying old masters. He might never have been discovered had it not been for the war. When the Dutch government found out he had sold a Vermeer, a national treasure, to the Nazis he was tried for treason. Therefore he had to prove to the court that he himself painted the picture.
What the author gives us is a kind of chick lit version of Van Meegeren.
There’s a suggestion this novel asks the question, what are the moral implications of forgery in a world where everyone sees what they want to see? That’s a fascinating question. Unfortunately the novel never really addresses it. It’s too busy trying to sell its film rights. But if you want to read a serious, well-crafted novel about an art forger I’d recommend The Last Painting of Sara de Vos...more
No question twentieth century Germany provides a wealth of material for a novelist and this is the subject of Jenny Erpenbeck's stunningly beautiful bNo question twentieth century Germany provides a wealth of material for a novelist and this is the subject of Jenny Erpenbeck's stunningly beautiful book. It's not easy to give a simple overview of this novel. We get three different versions of the same woman's life. The detail of each life depending on small spins of chance. The woman of Jewish ancestry lives through the aftermath of WW1, the rise of the Nazis and communist rule. I've now read two of her books and they have both been five star reads. ...more
There’s a fabulous observation early on when Smith identifies swearing as a means often of improving the rhythm of a sentence. I’d never thought of thThere’s a fabulous observation early on when Smith identifies swearing as a means often of improving the rhythm of a sentence. I’d never thought of this before but it’s so true. Cussing as a tribute to Shakespeare!
In fact Smith is consistently brilliant at contemporary social observation, at drawing attention to new and revealing speech patterns and behavioural quirks. For example here’s a piece of social choreography that didn’t exist in, say, EM Forster’s time: “To get a laugh Felix high-fived Hifan, kissed Kelly on the cheek, stole a chip and walked on, like it was all one movement, a form of dance.� So often she makes you see social gestures and modes of speech you’re aware of but have never quite processed. She also comments on how television depicts poverty “as a personality trait.�
Leah, Keisha, Felix and Nathan are perhaps better as vehicles of cultural descriptive prowess on Smith’s part than characters we truly care about. Without wanting to give away the plot, the undoing of Keisha’s reinvention of herself wasn’t entirely convincing psychologically and seemed more like a plot device than an inevitable signature of character. Often this novel seems more like a documentary than a novel, an insightful piece of social history. Smith does a brilliant job of capturing the nuances of street life in the decade she describes. A brilliant job at creating a visual map and soundtrack of the small piece of London she’s describing. The relationships in the novel were perhaps less rich and engaging, though she did a good job of depicting the close friendship between two females with observations like this:
“She was in breach of that feminine law that states that no weakness may be shown by a woman to another woman without a sacrifice of equal value being made in return.� ...more
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