by ELG Gray

Midnight’s Children

Page turner: 2/10
Heart tugger: 4/10
Thought provoker: 8/10
Overall: 2 stars

My copy of Midnight’s Children is 647 pages long. I know this, not because I finished reading the book only a few minutes ago, but because I have checked how many pages I have to go probably about 447 times (I didn’t check the first 100 – that’d be rude, and I could do the math quite easily the last 100). This book was long. And it was a chore.

Now before I rant overly much about the hard-slog-reading-that-is-the-first-two-thirds-of-this-book I would like to conduct a bit of a thought experiment that I learned whilst reading Daniel Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’. I think (hope?) Salman Rushdie would approve. The true experiment isn’t exactly possible, but hopefully you’ll get the idea. I am going to describe this book in 6 words. First, three positive words. Then, three negative words. Then I’ll do it the other way ’round. Using the same six words. Bear with.

Positive: magical, intelligent, organic
Negative: dense, meandering, self-important

Now, think for a second about what impression this leads you with. Now try to forget the words.

Ok.

Negative: dense, meandering, self-important
Positive: magical, intelligent, organic

Think again about what impression this description leaves you with.

In his book, Kahneman is using a similar experiment show how humans are effected by first impressions. It is meant to do a great deal more than describe novels, but hopefully I can use the device to demonstrate how I feel about this book, resulting in a confusing mix of ambiguity and frustration. Which, to be fair, is probably what Rushdie was going for.

In the positive-first scenario I go away thinking that Midnight’s Children is a book of magical realism, a splendidly original and creative piece of fiction that brilliantly characterizes the birth and trials of India as a nation, that happens to be a bit self-indulgent and long-winded. And, upon reading this description, I don’t disagree. The way in which Rushdie manages to tie the life of Saleem (the protagonist) inextricably from that of his country – from the moment of his birth through his first 31 years – is intellectually fascinating. And worthy of a place in the top 100 books of the 20th century. (It come’s 90th)

In the negative-first scenario I get the impression that a windy-but-intelligent author has a good idea, but it. He’s intentionally perverse. And a bit mad. My gosh does he use a lot of ellipses … It does … I think … get to be a bit much. And I know I am occasionally one to get carried away with punctuation and capitalization. And why the need to recap so often through the book? And isn’t the part in the jungle just a bit much? And it astounds me how a book can manage to be Both meandering AND dense. That is a literary feat fit only for as much sarcasm as I can muster. And, as I pause to re-read this description I also agree with myself. I didn’t like the book. There are lots of others that I think I would give awards and plaudits to, instead.

I both liked and didn’t like this book. My ratings err on the ‘didn’t like’ side as a word of caution. It took me nearly three weeks (including two inter-continental flights!) to read this book. It would normally take me days. But I do feel good for (finally!!) having read it.

The front cover of my copy has a quote by the Sunday Times that describes Midnight’s Children as ‘vital’. Whilst my personal taste would disagree with the connotation of necessity, I very much agree with the idea of this book having vitality. (If you can make it through the first quarter of the book – during which the main character and narrator hasn’t even told of his own birth.) There is humanity in this book. And it is an utterly original idea.

Finally, this book features on both the Modern Library and Man Booker prize lists. Which means, it was recognized in its day and retrospectively – which is impressive. And I can understand that it is of historical significance, and for the ‘positive scenario’ described above. I can understand, but not personally Agree with it purely because I found it to be quite so unreadable. It’s a book I am proud to have read, but wouldn’t particularly advise you to read!

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.

10.03.13

by ELG Gray

I, Claudius

Page turner: 5/10
Heart tugger: 6/10
Thought provoker: 9/10
Overall: 3 stars

I, Claudius is number 14 on the Modern Library’s top 100 books of the 20th Century. I can see why. This is a book I very much appreciate for its astuteness and unusual voice. I am pleased I read it and my brain was very much engaged (I even occasionally chuckled) but I’m not sure I Really Liked it.

As the title suggests, the book is an ‘autobiography’ of the Roman Emperor Claudius, of his life before he became emperor in AD 41. His full name is Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The stories and intrigues of his life, as really the only surviving member of his family through an incredibly political period of Roman history, are fascinating. And the events (I discovered afterwards) are all true. His thoughts and personal opinions are of course fictional, but by all accounts, plausible, given that his personal papers were all burned just prior to his death. As such, the book does a fantastic job of presenting itself as a history (Claudius himself is a historian) and in the book the occasional indentation appears where the date is simply noted in the margins. I’ve never seen that before. But it is a useful metric of marking time, which flows in fits and starts in the book to coincide with the more interesting portions of his life – or this lives of those around him.

So the era, the presentation, and the stories themselves are fascinating. And Robert Graves does an amazing job of giving Claudius an intelligent, thoughtful, occasionally irreverent tone of voice that is very compelling. Claudius is believed by many of his family as an idiot – he stammers (which gets worse when he’s nervous) and has a few physical tics – but as a reader you cannot help but like Claudius. He has a heart.

And yet, despite these excellent elements, I didn’t find myself that eager to read more. I put the book down for a few days. There are a lot of people and names. Many of the names are very, very similar. It gets confusing and tangles. And whilst you feel for Claudius, and he describes some of the despicable deeds of others, I somehow didn’t connect. I never really got angry when the poisoners poisoned and the beheaders decapitated. Now, I can put this down to Claudius’ self-professed career as an unbiased historian, so it is very much in-keeping with his character. But that doesn’t make it a particularly enjoyable read, it just makes those who have read it appreciate the author’s skill.

So, would I recommend? If you want something a bit intellectual, and you like history – then yes. To read something that you will appreciate having read? Most certainly? But if you want to be entertained, moved, or empowered? Maybe skip it and come back when you’re feeling a bit more cerebral. Or want to catch up on your Roman history without having to actually read a history book.