Swamplandia

The title of the novel Swamplandia! relates to its primary setting - a fictional theme park located on an island off the coast of Florida.  The theme park is owned and operated on a shoestring budget by a family whose matriarch is the show's star - a woman who swims and wrestles with alligators.  Struck down by cancer, the woman leaves behind a father, husband, son and two daughters.  It is through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Ava, that we see how the family falls apart, comes together and falls apart again throughout this tragedy.  The story takes several unexpected twists and turns, part-way through becoming almost fable-like.  Ava decides that she will become the world's youngest alligator-wrestler, her sister starts talking to spirits, her brother defects to a rival theme park, and all manner of adventure happens.  All of it is written exquisitely.  If there is one word I would use to describe this novel it would be 'vivid'.  You really do get a sense of the Florida swamps, and of what young Ava and her kin are going through.

I picked up Swamplandia! partly because of its quirky premise, and partly because it was voted by Times as one of the top 10 books of 2011.  It is quirky, and it's also very good, however it is a lot darker than I had expected.  If you like the sound of this book and aren't put off by an occasional delve into the sinister, then it might be for you.

The Big Sleep

This collection of Raymond Chandler novels has been sitting on my bookshelf for quite some time, waiting to be devoured and adored and generally given the respect due to a Times Top 100 book.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  I just couldn't get into The Big Sleep, try as I might, and right up to the very end I found the book ungratifying.  It may be a bit of a pat explanation but I attribute my lack of interest to my gender.  I'm generally not one for drawling action scenes in movies either so it perhaps isn't surprising that I gave an exasperated sigh every time a drawn out stand off or monologue took place. 

It is certainly a book that cried out to be turned into a movie, which is of course what happened (it's a classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall), and this leads into my second problem with the book.  I found it lacked originality because it is written in the voice of the protaganist, detecive Philip Marlowe.  Philip Marlowe is THE original trenchcoat-and-fedora-wearing, scotch-drinking, cigarette-smoking, stacatto-sentence-speaking detective.  I've seen him plaguerised in cartoons, tv shows and movies my entire life.  So The Big Sleep has really been ruined for me due to the deference that writers around the world have given it.  Nothing in the story or characterisation was a surprise, so I was bored.

Chandler is widely considered to be the Godfather of the detective novel and the second book in this collection, Farewell My Lovely, is thought to be his best work.  For these reasons I may try to pick up the book again, but it won't be any time soon.

Florence & Giles

I have always been partial to a Gothic tale (my favourite authors are the Bronte Sisters) so when I happened across this book with a Times recommendation that read 'Imagine The Turn of the Screw reworked by Edgar Allen Poe' emblazoned on the front cover, I had to pick it up.  I went through this book at a breath-taking pace.  It is compelling, atmospheric, dark, claustrophobic and so very well-crafted. I heartily recommend it.  It is written in the first-person, from the perspective of a troubled little girl and though we see the world through her eyes, the information that is provided means that an adult reader can solve mysteries that are beyond the reasoning of the protaganist.  The conclusion of the book is stunning, and not quite what you might expect.

I don't think I could give a better summary of the plot than the one provided on the back cover (at least not without giving too much away) so here is the back cover text:

1891.  In a crumbling New England mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence and her younger brother Giles are neglected by their guardian uncle.  Banned from reading, Florence devours books in secret, and twists words and phrases into a language uniquely her own.

After the violent death of the children's first governess, a second arrives.  Florence becomes convinced she is a vengeful and malevolent spirit who means to do Giles harm.  Against a powerful enemy, with no adult to turn to for help, Florence will need all her intelligence and ingenuity to save Giles and preserve her private world.  This is her chilling tale...

The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides is the debut novel of Greek-American author Jeffrey Eugenides.  Set in suburban Middle America, in what I would guess to be the 1970s, it begins with the suicide of Cecilia Lisbon, the youngest of five gorgeous blonde daughters to a local school teacher and his wife.  The suicide causes the family to become social pariahs, and as they struggle with their grief and the shame of bringing a dark and abnormal event to their community, the family find themselves watched from behind closed curtains by the very society who has made them outcasts.

It is through the prying eyes of a group of school boys that we see the fates of the members of the Lisbon family played out.  The book is written retrospectively from the point of view of a group of boys who went to school with the Lisbon girls, and have since grown into middle aged men.  This is the first stroke of genius from Eugenides.  By writing in the voice of a group (“We learned only years later”) the reader gets to experience events from the point of view of the community - the denial, manic obsession, and general lack of understanding as the suicides play out. 

That other Lisbon girls die should come as no surprise, given the plural in the book’s title, and it is with this knowledge that Eugenides makes his second stroke of genius in emotionally manipulating the reader.  As the reader knows what is coming, they’re left with a queasy sense of unease and almost a sense of self-disgust for following something so grim.  It’s the same sort of unease you might get from watching a gruesome TV crime drama.  We know what is coming but we can’t look away.

The Virgin Suicides establishes Eugenides as a skilled author who can evoke a world in succinct sentences.  He’s one of those writers who is very sensory and this is what gives his work a realism.  Everywhere he takes you, you know what the place smells like, tastes like and sounds like as much as what it looks like.  I respect a writer who doesn’t make the reader chase after long waffly sentences without sacrificing atmosphere.  And this book is certainly atmospheric.  The oppressive sense of impending doom is there from the start – in the opening pages you almost feel like you are entering into a supernatural thriller.  His dark descriptions of the family home also bring to mind Flowers in the Attic, which I read as a teenager and can barely remember aside from a vivid atmosphere of gloom.  I expect The Virgin Suicides will be just as haunting, and will stay with me for years to come.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

I have been thinking about Japan a lot lately.  It has always been on my list of places to visit, but lately it seems to be following me around.  Like when you get a new car and then you suddenly start noticing how many other cars of that make there are on the road.  Or noticing a song that seems to be everywhere.  I keep noticing things that are Japanese - fragments on TV, a mention of a visiting lecturer, food, people - and get this nagging instinct that I should go there. It isn't the right time for me to go for a number of reasons (two being cost and fear of imminent nuclear danger) so it stays on my list of long term goals for now.  At least I have plenty of time to learn a little more about the place and culture, and books are a great place to start.  I love fiction and I think fiction books can tell you as much about a place as non-fiction guidebooks, so I was pleased to be given a couple of Japanese novels for my birthday.

I have just finished reading Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto.  It's really more of an novella than a novel and in the edition I was given, it is paired with Moonlight Shadow - another story by the same author.  Kitchen is about a young woman named Mikage who loses her only family (her grandmother) and is so stricken with grief that she cannot function.  She is taken in by a school acquaintance, Yoichi, and his unusual mother, Eriko, who works in a transvestite club in Tokyo.  Yoichi and Eriko have also known terrible loss within their lifetimes and help Yoichi to cope with her grief by giving her refuge in their kitchen.   Kitchen is very well written and has been immensley popular in Japan, selling millions of copies.  This says as much about the Japanese as the book itself.  Both are gentle, eloquent, graceful and unexpected.

The accompanying novella Moonlight Shadow also dealt with themes of loss and renewal, although it has a sci fi spin to it which is a bit absurd. 

Franny and Zooey

I've been having a bad run of luck with books.  This one I picked up while on holiday.  The local second-hand bookshop was full of self-help guides or survival manuals (you can guess what sort of locals lived there) so it was slim pickin's.  I chose Franny and Zooey as it's a literary classic, so thought it would be a safer bet.  I should have known that I would not like it, as it is by J.D. Salinger - the author of Catcher in the Rye, another classic that I loathed.  And I essentially disliked this book for the same reason that I disliked that - I hated the primary character.  While reading 'Catcher' I wanted to throttle Holden Caulfield for being a smug, arrogant, pretentious know-it-all.  Zooey is just as obnoxious.

Franny and Zooey is set in New York in the late 1950s.  It follows the siblings of the Glass family, who are all considered geniuses and as children were stars on a general knowledge radio quiz show.  All of the 'children' (now in their 20s) are high-strung, analytical, neurotic and have trouble socialising (no doubt in this day-and-age they would be labelled as suffering from aspergers).  The first quarter of the book is written from the perspective of Franny, the only sister of the family, in the lead-up to her nervous breakdown.  The rest of the book is written from the perspective of Zooey, her older brother, as they both arrive back in Manhatten to stay with their parents in the family home.  Throughout the course of the book we discover that two of their older brothers have died.  One during WWII, and the other more recently from suicide.  The last third of the book is essentially a debate between Franny and Zooey over the meaning of life and religion.

As the book is full of trendy slang, it has not dated well, and as I mentioned previously, the character of Zooey is not particularly likable.  I did admire how the author manages to sustain a quarter of the book being set in a bathroom, but overall the book was not to my taste and I would not recommend it.

Eating Like America

Hawaii was breathtakingly beautiful and I had an amazing time, but it's good to be home for a number of reasons, including for my health.  Culinary tourism was fun for a while (see last post) but I got over novelty foods quickly and then found it hard to eat well in America.  Even salads were dripping in oil and deep fried, and outside of the shopping we did at farmers markets it was hard to find good quality fruit and vegetables to cook our own meals.  Eating badly takes its toll on the body, as is very visibly demonstrated in America.  I have always found that if you want insight into local culture you should watch a bit of local television and glean clues from the ads.  In America we vollied between ads for extravagant fast food with dodgy health claims, and ads for drugs to fix multitude health problems.. that are mostly caused from poor diet.

One evening while watching local television I caught Stephen Colbert teasing Michael Pollan about his new book.  Pollan is a journalist who has written a number of dense books on nutrition, for which he has interviewed scientists, doctors and nutritionists.  His latest book is an updated version of his New York Times bestseller Food Rules: An Eater's Manual which condenses what he has learned from experts and translates it into 'rules' which read like grandmotherly advice.  I was impressed enough with what he had to say to go out and buy the book - and it's good.  The advice offered is simple and sound and I'll definitely be incorporating some of the ideas into my life.  I also suspect that the book is something I will use as a reference when I need re-inspiring.  The text is made for revisits, and the illustrations by artist Maira Kalman are delicous.

Gemma Bovery

I am quite partial to a good graphic novel.  A while ago I read Posy Simmonds excellent Tamara Drewe, which has apparently been turned into an OK movie.  I enjoyed the graphic novel so much that I took a punt and bought another Simmond's work, Gemma Bovery and was not disappointed.  This isn't really surprising as there are many similarities between the books.  Both have a female protagonist in her late 20s/early 30s who is dissatisfied in life and ends up in a relationship with someone inappropriate.  Both heroines escape large city life to live in the countryside - Tamara in England, and Gemma in France.  The real differences lie in the stories origins.  Whilst Tamara Drewe was an original story, Gemma Bovery is a tongue-in-cheek retelling of the literary classic, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.  Simmond's version is set in contemporary times, with a slight twist in the retelling, but features the same themes of adultery, debt, empty consumerism and tragedy.

At some point I may pick up Madame Bovary to compare to see if Simmond's version differs much to the original.  Of the differences between Tamara Drewe and Gemma Bovery - to tell you the truth, there isn't much in it.

The Mitfords

I have just finished reading Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford.  It's the latest addition to my collection of books by, or about, the Mitford Girls.  My collection includes several novels, biographies and autobiographies, including two books signed by Mitfords (Debo and my hero Jessica).  I got a bit of grief from my other half for buying the one by Debo.  "You can't complain about being poor if you go about buying signed first edition books by duchesses."

I might write more detailed posts, later on, about each of The Mitfords, but in the meantime you can check out an introduction to The Mitfords that I wrote as a guest blog post over at Ice Floe.   I stand by my recommendation of Mary Lovell's The Mitford Girls.  The  cover unfortunately looks like a Harlequin romance novel, but the book itself is brilliant.  In fact it's responsible for my Mitford obsession.

As for Wigs on the Green...  Well, as far as comedies about fascist's go, it's quite charming.  By no means Nancy Mitford's best work, which is understandable as it's one of her earliest books.  A light read, it would appeal to anyone who likes P.G. Wodehouse.

The Circus Book

One of my most prized possessions is a book I was given for Christmas last year. It is much more than a mere book. It is a treasure trove of history and imagery and stories and romance. The Circus Book, lovingly edited by Noel Daniel and Dominique Jando, covers the social history of the circus from the 1870s - 1950s. Through the kaleidescope lens of a circus ringtop, readers get to view the evolution of American gender politics, global economics and interculturalism.
The Circus Book is extraordinarily generous in it's use of imagery. Rich in both visual and written content, inch for inch it provides ample value for money. This tome is enormous, bigger than most atlases, and comes encased in it's own box. At Christmas I nearly put my back out just unwrapping it.

Patti Smith

My most favourite recent read would be Patti Smith's book Just Kids.  Not only can she perform and write poetry and paint, but it turns out that Patti Smith is an exceptional story teller to boot and the tale of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe is completely riveting.  The book is full of name dropping as she tells of her encounters with the likes of Salvidor Dali, the Factory crowd and Jimmi Hendrix, yet the little details of her life (a meal, a worrying bill) make Patti relatable.  Patti's bohemian beginnings are impossibly romantic, as is her ill-fated romance with Robert Mapplethorpe.  I'm not one to cry while reading, but the end of Patti's book moved me to tears and had me in mourning.