Contemporary Reads: The Book of Evidence

Freddie Montgomery is the name of the narrator/protagonist of John Banville's novel The Book of Evidence. This book is his confession of the two crimes he committed, or is it. As it is all narrated on the first person in a highly subjective manner we never know how much of his account is real.

Freddie comes across as much remorseless as Albert Camus' Meursault in The Outsider. The first of his two crimes readers might feel inclined to pardon him for: stealing a Dutch painting that had belonged to his family until his mother ('the old bitch') sold it. His second crime, killing the maid who caught it in the act and his lack of repentance for her death make him one of the most despicable characters in literature.

This is a dark grim masterly written novel. It is the first of a trilogy: the other two books are Ghosts and Anthena.

Contemporary Reads: The Cement Garden

I know, this is my third post about an Ian McEwan book in a very short period of time. I promise it will the last for, at least, a few weeks. In my next few posts, I will be discussing The Book of Evidence by John Banville, Beyond the Black by Hilary Mantel, Jack Maggs by Peter Carey and Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald (although not necessarily on that order).

Going back to The Cement Garden, this short novel was the first published by McEwan in 1978. It tells the story of four siblings: Julie, Jack, Susie and Tom and their breavement after both their parents die in short sucession. After their father dies of a heart attack, their mother becomes very ill. She dies in the house and Jack and his sisters decides to bury her in the cellar. They are afraid they'll separated and taken into care.

The children live in the house undisturbed until Julie's boyfriend, Derek, is introduced. He becomes very suspicious about the strage smell coming from the cellar and soon finds out the truth. This is not revealed to the reader until the final chapter. In is also in the chapter than the sexual tension latent from the start between Julie and Jack is resolved when the lie together naked and he penetrates her. Derek, having witnessed the scence goes to the cellar to unbury the cadaver and calls the police.

Very disturbing but masterfully written as always. No wonder the writer used to be called Ian Mcabre early in his career.

Other books I have read by this author: Saturday, Atonement, Enduring Love.

Contemporary Reads: Enduring Love

This 1997 novel by Ian McEwan has been remarked as having one of the most beautifully written opening chapters in contemporary literature. Enduring Love opens with a balloning tragic accident in which Oxford professor John Logan dies.

One of the men who tried to save him is science journalist Joe who had been out on a picnic with his partner Clarissa. Later that night at their London flat Joe receives a telephone call from Jed Parry who tells him that he loves him before Joes hangs up.

Soon, it will become apparent that Jed suffers from de Clérembault syndrome or erotomania. Jed starts to stalk Joe and sends him several letters. At first, Joe keeps all this to himself for a couple of days until he decides to confide in Clarissa. Clarissa dismisses Jed as a harmless crank. However, as Joe does some research into de Clémbrault he becomes very worried about his own safety as he learns that people who suffer that condition may appear harmless at the start they always reach a point when they become violent and dangerous. Joe's preocupation is construed by Clarissa as obsession and, as a result, their relationship suffers and she eventually moves into another bedroom.

Joe travels up to Oxford to visit John Logan's widow, Jean. She suspects her husband was having an affair as she found the contents of a picnic in his car. She makes Joe promise that he will talk to the other witnesses to try to find out is there was a woman with John although he himself does not remember seeing her.

Back in London, Joe tries to talk to the police who also dismiss the case as Jed has not at anytime made any threats. Finally, Jed hires someone to kill Joe at a restaurant where he is with Clarissa and her family. Even after this incident the police fails to act appropriately.

Joe is buying a gun for his own protection when he receives a telephone call from Jed who is holding Clarissa hostage at the flat. When Joes gets to the flat he shoots Jed and calls the police.

In the final chapter we learn that John Logan was not having an affair. He had simply given a lift to another professor and his young student lover who were to afraid to come forward as witnesses as they did not want their relationship to be made public.

Enduring Love is a compelling novel. The story is gripping the style - first person narration - draws you in from the first line. This is a joy to read.

Other books I have read by this author: Saturday, Atonement.

Contemporary Reads: Saturday

Ian MacEwan's latest novel Saturday takes place on February 15, 2003. Much like James Joyce's Leopold Bloom in Ulysses or Virgina Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, we follow Henry Perowne's train of thought and actions for a single day.

Unable to sleep neurosurgeon Perowne gets out of bed in the wee hours of Saturday morning. When he sees a plane in flames coming down on Heathrow airport, he fears the worse - a terrorist attack. However, he finds out this is not the case as he catches glimpes of the TV news throughout the day.

On his way to a squash game, he is involved in a minor car accident with three men coming out of a famous strip club. Attacked by their ringleader, Baxter, Perowne suspects this shady character is affected by some rare neurological desease and gives him an impromptu diagnosis and mentions a possible experimental cure for it. This unsettles Baxter, who we learn is bound to mood wings due to his condition, and Perowne manages to flee the scene. He makes his way to the gym through the masses of anti Iraq was protesters in Central London.

After been beaten up on the squash game he goes to visit her demented mother in the home she lives in. He goes home and then out again to his son's Theo's blues band rehearsal in Notting Hill.

When he gets home, his daughter, Daisy - an about-to-be-published poet who lives in Paris - arrives home after many months absence. Soon, the reast of the family: Perowne's father-in-law, the celebrate poet John Grammaticus; his wife Rosalind, the talented lawyer; and his son Theo back from his rehearsal. Only that holding a knife to Rosalind, Baxter, forces his way into the house accompanied by one of his friends, Nigel. He has come to take revenge for his humiliation that morning.

In a scene of high tension, Baxter and his ally keep the whole family hostage in their living room. Baxter makes Daisy take off all her clothes which reveals her pregnancy unbeknown to the family until then. When Baxter discovers that she is a poet by seeing the proof of her books, he makes her read out loud one of her poems. However, she justs recites an old poem her gradfather taught her in her childhood. Baxter is moved by the poem and after a few reprises asks Daisy to get dressed and tells Perowne that he wants to learn more about the cure for his illness. When Baxter and Perowne makes it upstairs to find the information about the cure the doctor bluffed about, Nigel flees the scene leaving the rest of the family alone. Theo runs upstairs and him and Perowne managed to overpower Baxter and throw him down the stairs. This the end of the nightmare.

Later on that evening, Perowne is called to hospital to operate on Baxter. The novel ends early on Sunday morning with Perowne falling asleep in bed with Rosalind.

Like it's predecessor Atonement, this novel is one of great substance which is also immensely readable.

Other books I have read by this author: Atonement.

Untranslated Lit: L'étranger (The Outsider)

The Outsider or The Stanger (according to different translations) is a 1942 novel by French writer Albert Camus.

It is a very short novel written is a very straightforward languange which is probably why I have been able to read it in the original French.

The novel's protagonist/narrator is a pied-noir (an Algerian of European descent) named Meursault. The novel opens with news of his mother's death. While attending her funeral, Mersault shows not sympathy and is incapable of shedding any tears.

Soon after returning from her mother's funeral in the Algerian country side, Mersault starts an affaire with a girl called Marie.

Later on, he will killed an Arab when he gets into an imbroglio to do with Raymond, his friend and neighbour's ex-lover. He is trialled and condemned to death. One of the persecution's arguments for his guilt would be his blatant lack of remorse and the fact that he seemed indifferent during his mother's funeral.

Before his execution, Mersault will manage to argue with the chaplain because he suggested that he should turn to God. The novel ends on the night before his execution.

The Outsider has been classed as an existential novel and as such probably best enjoyed by teenagers than adults. At least, that's the feeling I got while rereading it and remembering how enthusiastically I had felt about it when I first read it aged 15.

Modern Classics: Foe

Foe is a short novel written by South African Nobel prize winner J.M. Coetzee.

Picking up on 18th century English novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, it tells the story of a Susan Barton who became marooned on an island inhabited by a man named Cruso and a former slave that he calles Friday.

Eventually, all three are rescued although Cruso dies onboard before reaching England. Susan will ask author Mr Foe to write her story.

Among Foe's themes are gender and race relations, colonialism, and the problems of narrative. It is, therefore, a must read for anyone serious about literary fiction.

Other books I have read by this author: Youth, Disgrace.

Contemporary Reads: Atonement

This 2001 novel was written by British writer Ian McEwan. Its opening setting is the Tallis family's country house in Surrey on the hottest day of the summer of 1935.

Part One describes the events of that day and how they changed the lives of the three main characters of the book: Briony, Cecilia and Robbie. Briony is the youngest of the Tallis' children. A 13 year old with a fantastic imagination who fancies herself as a writer. Cecilia is her older sister who has come back from Cambridge with a third in English. Robbie is the son of their charlady who, being quite intelligent has had his Grammar school and Cambridge education paid for by Mr Tallis. In fact, he has also just returned from Cambridge although, unlike Cecilia, with a first.

Robbie and Cecilia had somehow fallen for each other. Robbie writes two love notes to her, one of them being quite graphic: "In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt." He gives this note to Briony and asks her to pass it on to Cecilia. Briony, who is upset because the play she had written for that evening had to be cancelled due to her cousins' inability to perform read the note. Shocked, from that moment on she will think of Robbie as a maniac who has to be stopped. This is only confirmed to her when she sees Robbie and Cecilia fucking in the library that evening and wrongly assumes that he was raping her sister. She will confide on her 15 year old cousin Lola.

Later on in the evening Lola's brothers, twins Jackson and Pierrot, go missing. Search parties made up by all the dinner guests, including Cecilia and Briony's brother Leon and his best friend Marshall and Lola, are sent out into the dark summer English night. Lola is raped that night outside while the search is still going on. She is found by Briony who, although she did not see the attacker clearly, falsely accuses Robbie of the violation. As a result Robbie is arrested the following morning when he shows up in the garden having found and brought back the missing twins.

Part Two is where we discover that Robbie ended up in gaol. He and Cecilia stayed in touch all those years and were reunited briefly after his release. She has become a nurse and he has been enlisted to go to war in France. On this part we follow Robbie's war experiences.

Part Three focuses on Briony. She has now become a nurse like her sister. She attends her cousin's Lola's wedding with her true raper, Marshall. Thus, we discover that is not just Briony who lied and send an innocent man to gaol but also Lola and Marshall who are now getting wed. After the ceremony, Briony visits her sister and tells her that she will confess to the police and her family about her terrible lie. Robbie is present also at that time. But why did she lie? This is not very clear but we do now know it was not out of jealousy.

In the final part of the novel, London, 1999, we found out that Briony has written what we have been reading so far. Her novel (and McEwan's), that echoes Navokov nd Virginia Woolf, is part of an act of atonement that will be completed once it is published after the death of everyone involved in the story. Everything in the novel is truth except for its ending: both Cecilia and Robbie died in 1940 and, therefore, were never reunited after the war.

Contemporary Reads: A Home at the End of the World

A Home at the End of the World is a novel by American writer Michael Cunningham.

It has four main characters/narrators: Bobby, who lost his oldest brother whom he worshipped when he was a lad and then his parents, and ended up living with his best friend's family as a teenager; Jonathan, Bobby's best friend; Alice, Jonathan's mum; and Clare, Jonathan's New York City extravagant roommate.

Every chapter is narrated in the first person by the character who gives the chapter its name. The novel is divided into 3 parts:

Part I describes both Bobby's and Jonathan's childhood and youth. It also gives us an insight into Alice's anodyne married life and motherhood in Cleveland. It contains the shocking moment of the death of Bobby's brother, Carlton, followed by the deaths of his mum and then his dad. In this first part Bobby and Jonathan's friendship develop and they have their first sexual experiences together.

Part II follows Jonathan's life in New York and introduces his flatmate, Clare. It also describes Jonathan's parents' retirement move to Arizona. About to be left alone in Cleveland, Bobby moves to New York with Jonathan and Clare. Soon, Clare will entice Bobby into bed with her and without never quite becoming an item they start their liaison. This will alienate Jonathan who will realise that he is in love with them both and will move out unannounced. He will reappear months later. Jonathan's dad dies on this part of the novel and it is Clare, Bobby and Jonathan's attendence to his funeral that would be the catalyst for their reunion. On their road trip back to New York, Clare annouces that she is pregnant and it is decided that the three of them will raise up the kid as a family. Clare buys a house in Woodstock and a derelict café, The Home Café, that Bobby and Jonathan will make theirs while she looks after baby Rebecca at home. The three of them finally form a family.

Part III sees the return of Jonathan's lover, Erich, who had appeared briefly on part II before Jonathan decided to dissapear. Erich is now very ill and starts spending his weekends at Woodstock with the rest of the family. Alice gives Ned's ashes to Jonathan. Clare decides to take her daughter and go away leaving the café and the house to Bobby and Jonathan. As Jonathan finally feels at home he decides to scatter Ned's ashes.

This is a very fine novel by a very fine writer. It has been adapted to film but please do not waste your time with it (I did). The movie version is a much lower product.

Other books I've read by the same author: The Hours