by ELG Gray

American Pastoral

Page turner: 6/10
Heart tugger: 7/10
Thought provoker: 9/10
Overall: 4 stars

You know the expression, ‘so good it hurts’? Well, Philip Roth’s American Pastoral is sort-of the inverse of that. It hurts so much … it’s good. The story is so gut-wrenching. So over-the-top human, you get sucked in and hurt along with the main character’s hurt. It definitely isn’t a happy book, but it is compelling and thought provoking.

In American Pastoral, the narrator is Nathan Zuckerman, a Jewish man living in the 1990s (now in his 60s) recounting not only his own life, but the life of his childhood local hero – Seymour ‘Swede’ Levov. Needless to say, the Swede’s charmed existence of being the realisation of the American Dream in the heavily Jewish New Jersey of the mid-century doesn’t last him through his entire life, though it takes Nathan some digging to uncover what happened. Precisely what *does* happen, and how the Swede himself feels about it is never entirely clear, but Roth does a phenomenal job of showing us our options for interpretation, and getting me to ponder imponderable questions about social upheaval and personal trauma.

The focus of the work (there are lots of intricacies, and don’t want to over-indulge details) is Nathan uncovering the fact that in the 60s/70s the Swede’s daughter is somehow involved in a local Vietnam war protest which involves blowing up a pharmacy. It kills an innocent pharmacist. How can a ‘together’, charming, good-looking man have produced such a child? Who is this teenage horror? Are her beliefs justified? Did she do it, anyway? And how does this effect his relationship with his own parents, brother, and wife?

As we read more and more about the back-story and the ‘present’ day (the book does a lot of flashing back, reconstructing, and surmising) it becomes teeth-suckingly painful. I wanted to read more, but had to pace myself simply because of the intensity.

Like Roth’s other book I’ve reviewed, Portnoy’s Complaint, the title character certainly has the tendency to ramble and rant, but here it is more targeted, more focused. And I developed a real sense of empathy for a few of the main characters which I lacked in Portnoy. To be honest, I didn’t at all expect the drama/trauma of what I subsequently experienced in reading American Pastoral, but it was well worth it. A definite must-read.

12.12.13

by ELG Gray

Vernon God Little

Page turner: 4/10
Heart tugger: 3/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 2 stars

I got frustrated and read the last chapter of Vernon God Little when I was about half way through the book.

I got a serious telling off at work: ‘…who *does* that!?’

But I just couldn’t help it! What at first seems edgy and full of well-deployed vernacular just gets tedious. Everything everything is ‘fucken’ this and ‘fucken that’ and ‘up your asshole’ ‘shit shit shit’. Vernon, the teenage boy whose story you read, also has something of a bum/butt/ass/anal obsession going on. The book is a satire on the worst parts of American culture; so anything ‘obsessive’ is understandable in the characters, but I have my limits of understanding. So, I wanted to know if the story was really going to go anywhere, or if it would be an annoying, whiny, book. The good news was that I actually liked the ending. It’s sharp.

Having read the pretty good ending, I read the few chapters before that. They were alright. Shed a lot of light on the plot and in so doing, also were a lot more fluid that the jilted curse-word-narrated style of the rest of the book. As it happens, the book is about a high-school shooting in Texas. The teenage Vernon is the childhood friend of the murder (indelicately named Jesus), and is heavily implicated as a second shooter in the massacre. The book features homophobia, xenophobia, obesity, reality TV, gun ownership, and the death penalty for minors. And it is set in Texas. And of course his mother is a weirdo.

In the end, I did read the book. Just a bit see-saw like. At the end of it I do respect Pierre for ‘going for the jugular’ and for managing to tell a story with such harsh language. But I really just felt it lacked finesse, which to me, is what a satire should really be able to say is its forte. The story is simultaneously out-there and predictable; to the point where it became nearly impossible to empathize. And, given the subject matter, for all of the occasionally humorous quips – it wasn’t fun.

I can see potential in a daring author, but I’m not sure the execution (pardon the pun – but I can’t resist) worked this time.

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…)

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.