by ELG Gray

Portnoy’s Complaint

Pager turner: 6/10
Heart tugger: 5/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 3 stars

Portnoy’s Complaint is funny. And a relief! It isn’t (I don’t think) a book that I would put on the top 100 list of the 20th century (it came 52nd), but it is enjoyable and I appreciate it for its unconventional and ballsy approach to writing.

Alex Portnoy is the narrator, and frankly, the book is a massive diatribe. He is a 33-year-old Jewish man in New Jersey/New York living in the ’60s and obsessed with sex. His life – his overbearing parents, scorning of God whilst maintaining Jewish customs, everything – fulfills all stereotypes. But he still has a few good adventures as he recounts his life stories and rails against his misfortunes and his psyche. And did I mention he was obsessed with sex? Let’s just say there were a few moments reading on the morning train that I was concerned about what other passengers might think of me if they were reading over my shoulder.

If you are put off by a little bit of explicitness, definitely don’t pick this up. And imagine how it must have been received in its day! It caused a tremendous stir, and I can’t but respect him and his publishers for putting it to press. If you are able to push past some obscenities and offensive words to catch the humor (and a bit of irony) of Alex screeching in all caps, ‘LET’S PUT THE ID BACK IN YID’, then definitely give this book a go.

Subtlety is not Roth’s strength; by the end I definitely felt I had ‘gotten it’ about 5 times over. But he does manage to capture Alex’s great frustration and outrage as he sits, fuming, on the psychologist’s sofa. I was outraged with him, if occasionally somewhat more amused and embarrassed by his anecdotes than he was.

I suspect this book is on the list because it was so unprecedented when published. A trailblazer, of sorts, in socially accepted digs at religion, americana, and sex. And it is done in good humor, or so at least I choose to read it. But, given that after all it really is a massive rant I don’t quite think I can give it more than a solid 3.

12.01.13

by ELG Gray

Offshore

Page turner: 6/10
Heart tugger: 5/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 3 stars (but on the low side of 3)

I liked Offshore, which won the Man Booker prize in 1979. I was tickled by the tendency of the characters to refer to each other by the names of their boats; and particularly pleased by the character, Maurice, who changed the name of his boat to Maurice in response to this.

The book is about a small group of people who live in house boats at Battersea Reach on the Thames, London in the early 1960s. Quite pleasingly, I coincidentally discovered that the modern-day bus route 319 passes has a stop at Cheyne Walk, right where the characters are traipsing about.

The characters are, to say the least, an eclectic bunch. The best two, by far, are the 11 and 6-year-old daughters of Nenna, the abandoned wife. They are both feral and precocious, which is an improbable and impressive combo.

The trouble is, I just didn’t quite ‘buy’ any of the characters. They were a bit too … out there. Some of their inner monologues are clever and convincing, but as a set, I just never quite got Into the book. I never saw myself amongst them. And so, in spite of the fact I actually KNOW where the book takes place, I kept getting tangled in location, time, and events. Which is actually a bit embarrassing given that nothing particularly unusual or exciting happens. Yes, one of the characters is a male prostitute, but the author, Penelope Fitzgerald, steers clear of any sordid details. So the characters – apparently doing deep-and-meaningful things – to me just seemed to be bopping about.

As it is an award-winning book over a certain age, my edition of the book has an introduction. I usually try not to read them until after I’ve reviewed, so that I’m not unduly influenced. But this time I did, and I am going to borrow the term ‘tragi-farce’, which describes the tone of the book well. It’s dark, but not depressing. It would make an excellent Christopher Guest film.

*Anything* after 17 days of Ulysses would be a pleasure, but on reflection while I liked Offshore (and enjoyed my personal connection to it), I would think it was average overall. And the ending was thoroughly unsatisfying (again, fab for a movie, but…)

11.13.13

by ELG Gray

Gilead

Page turner: 6/10
Heart tugger: 8/10
Thought provoker: 7/10
Overall: 3 stars

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson is the warmest-and-fuzziest book I have read thus far in my great book quest. I would not go so far as to say it is Happy, but it is much more heart warming than the previous 8 I have read. The biggest difference is that the narrator of the book is a content, and his contentment sets the tone for the story.

The narrator is a 76-year-old man named John Ames, writing to his 6 year-old son about all the things Ames would like to be able to tell him as an adult, but can’t because of the very great age gap between them. Whilst there is something bittersweet in such an undertaking, Ames is so happy to have a son and a family at all that I was much more impressed with the warmth and love of the endeavor than the morbidity of it.

For all its warmth (perhaps because of it), Gilead is really the ramblings of an old man. It’s a journal. There are no chapters. The style and tone adds charm, but also makes it occasionally tedious. Especially given that the man is a Congregationalist Reverend (whose father and grandfather were also Reverends), prone to philosophical debates and conjectures. Refreshingly he isn’t one to proselytize, but it can get a bit heavy. Several times I had to stop myself from skim reading. Prepare yourself for the inevitable conflict about predestination. He doesn’t like it, either.

So the book is about religion, and love, and parenthood. It is about loss and friendship and family. It tells a story (or set of stories) about a small-town in the Midwest and its history. Gilead, by the way, is the name of the fictional Iowa town. Set between 1880 and 1957, it touches on the events of both World Wars, and recounts a great deal about its Civil War legacy and abolitionist heritage. It’s a nice book, and if nothing else a very interesting chronicle of a life that lived to see huge technical and social change. Plus, you cannot help but to like Reverend Ames, who is clearly a very, very nice man.

What makes it award-winning, I suspect, is that it tackles a really interesting concept: what a parent wants to teach a child. Knowing you are not going to be present for most of your child’s life – what do you say? Are you selfish? Philosophical? Instructional? Supportive? Robinson, I think, does a lovely job of exploring all of the above.

It’s just that Gilead just didn’t wow me. I got through the book pretty quickly, but mostly because I had 6 hours of train-time over the last several days. I liked reading it, but it didn’t really compel me to keep going. I didn’t Need to know. Throughout, the book inspired me, and touched me, but didn’t – quite – move me.

10.30.13

by ELG Gray

His Family

Page turner: 5/10
Heart tugger: 5/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 3 stars

His Family, by Ernest Poole, was published in 1918 and was the first book to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I had never heard of it, and honestly I didn’t know what to expect, but I was intrigued to see what that first book, from that era of American history, was going to be about. So, in the age old tradition of saying cliches are bad but then doing precisely what they say – I judged the book by its cover.

My copy of His Family is a paperback, and the cover is mostly black and glossy. It is nearly perfectly square and unusually large at probably 7 by 7 inches. It’s not that thick (277 pages) and the font is a pretty good size. On the cover, the title is in white and there is a white rectangle cut-out that shows a sketchy drawing of a man (60ish-years-old) sitting at a dining table with a family, colored in with pastels. To my mind, all of this confirmed my prejudgment to think the book might be a bit antiquated, but looked quite sweet. Maybe a bit story-book-ish? Maybe just plain and unadorned.

The first few chapters only furthered my modern-prejudiced view. The book starts off quietly. The world it depicts is small: a 60ish year old man named Roger Gale (as depicted on the cover) is in fact a widower living in Manhattan, with 3 grown daughters and 4 grandchildren by the eldest. The younger two (aged 27 and 30 or so) are unmarried. And it takes place over a few years, around about 1913-1915. The writing is straightforward, and whilst I wasn’t particularly sucked into their lives I thought it was pleasant, even if I was a bit frustrated by Roger’s self-admitted distance from his bustling family of a mother, a debutante, and a teacher. I thought it might be an apt portrait of family life at that time. And it is. But I wrongfully misjudged what that should mean.

As the novel progresses, it deepens. Not nice (though not horrible) things happen to the family. And it very much takes on a Goldilocks and the Three Bears feel: where ‘Too big’, ‘Too small’, and ‘Just right’ are loosely equated to the three daughters being, ‘Too old-fashioned’, ‘Too fast and flippant’, and ‘forward thinking but respectful’. The parallels between their personal lives and the wider changes and growth of society is heavy handed, but intelligent and interesting.

The social commentary on the place of motherhood in women’s lives is blatantly the major theme. Nearly a century after the book was published the idea of the ‘modern mother’ – the balancing act that the author discusses – remains entirely relevant, if initially surprising. There is also a wider reflection on war and humanity and the book is a window into the mindset of Americans as it was feeling the pains of the First World War in Europe, but before the United States entered the conflict.

The book, also, has the surprisingly endearing feature of having the final two words of the book be, ‘…his family’. Which is a nice touch. Particularly if you read the first part of the sentence; but I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

On reflection, the cover makes the book out to be more old-fashioned and simple than it is, though it definitely is not a book of great subtlety. I would not put it down as a forgotten classic because it can read what I think some might call ‘Dickens extra-light’. But I enjoyed it, and feel I have learned a lesson in so doing. I would recommend it to anyone who wonders what it might have been like to be born a hundred years earlier.

10.03.13

by ELG Gray

Wolf Hall

Page turner: 5/10
Heart tugger: 7/10
Thought provoker: 10/10
Overall: 3 stars (I can’t officially bring myself to give it 3.5, but I unofficially can’t help it)

Wolf Hall, by Hillary Mantel has gotten a lot of press. I remember it getting the Booker prize 4 years ago and thinking, ‘I definitely should read that’. I do love historical fiction, so an award-winning, highly acclaimed work of historical fiction sounded brilliant. But, bizarrely, I tried, and failed. I couldn’t get into it, so after slogging through the first couple of chapters I gave up. A few years letter, Hillary Mantel’s second novel in the same series called Bringing up the Bodies also receives the Booker prize. ‘Right,’ I think, ‘if this author’s second book has ALSO won the durn prize, I must have been missing something. I must have.’ It took 2 more attempts, but I now admit that my first impressions were wrong. Patience is a virtue – one that I really must learn to cultivate.

The book itself is clearly a work of incredible brilliance. Hillary Mantel’s writing is just so well crafted. And clever. The word-play, particularly around some of the other characters names, is brilliant. Now, I know the character of Thomas Cromwell himself is meant to be clever (many historians have portrayed him as conniving) but the author has to be even more clever to create a being that embodies that oh so well. And somehow Mantel even makes him likeable, and intriguing.

In some ways the book actually is reminiscent of I, Claudius, which having also just read I can’t help but mention. But Mantel’s characterization of Cromwell is much deeper, I think, than Graves’ of Claudius. I related to Cromwell, and his surroundings, a great deal more. And though similar amounts of intrigue and nastiness is going on around them, Wolf Hall is much darker than I, Claudius. And as such, I like it much more.

The darkness of the book, the tone, is probably what made those first 30 pages so impenetrable for me. Which in retrospect I understand. But to have to try 3 times to start a book – I can’t quite forgive it. Admittedly once I got into it I was drawn so ever-deeper, but I never really felt like I had to keep going, that I had to know more. Now, perhaps the fault is more my own in that as I am more familiar with the Henry VIII time-period in which it is set, I did fundamentally know what was going to happen to the main characters in the story. Which, to be fair, makes the author’s task all the more difficult. But, I am not the type of person who likes knowing how things turn out from the beginning. I found the whole premise of the movie, Titanic, incredibly challenging. So, I admit to some bias.

I have to call out the fact that I’ve given it a 10 for ‘thought provoker’. I really struggle to give things perfect scores. Really. But I don’t know how a book could be better word-smithed, or from such an unusual perspective, or to be so enveloping. I did periodically think I was IN the book. And, as the book is quite complex and I had to re-read bits of I, I cannot fathom how a book could have more subtlety and creativity. Perhaps it was that enveloping feeling of being surrounded by the book that meant I didn’t feel hugely compelled to *keep* reading. Stagnant isn’t quite the right word, but you can, hopefully, see what i mean.

So, if you are considering reading this book, here is what I recommend:

Imagine everything you think of when you think about a ‘beach read’. Completely inverse it. That’s Wolf Hall. So read it, just don’t bring it anywhere near sand.