Contemporary Reads: The Tenderness of Wolves

The Tenderness of Wolves (2007) is the first novel by Stef Penny. Set in Canada in 1867, much has been made of the fact that Penney has never been to North America. I do not think that is the problem with this novel. The setting is convincing enough. I just found the book a bit long for what it is and was not particularly fond of the style.

If you want to read a more positive review, please click here.

Contemporary Reads: Everyman

Everyman (2006) is the latest novel by Philip Roth. It is a book about death and physical decay or illness but it is not really sombre or pessimistic. What I admire about this book is the fact that this meditation on death does not resort to religion or philosophy. I am also completely puzzled as to how Roth has made it worked so well.
This is a great novel and I look forward to reading earlier works by this author.

Contemporary Reads: The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory (1984) was the controversial debut of Scottish writer Iain Banks. It is the story of sixteen-year-old Frank who lives on a Scottish island with his father, a retired scientist. His brother, Eric, has just escaped from a mental institution and is on the loose. Frank himself is a very unstable character, to say the least. He has killed three children and several animals.

At the end of the book Frank discovers that he is not a man. His father had told him that a dog had bitten off his penis when he was younger, but in truth, Frank is in fact female. His father had been using male hormones to disguise this as part of a sick experiment.

With graphic violence and a disturbing plot this novel received mixed reviews when it was first published in the UK. It has since been hailed as one of the must reads of the 1980s.

Contemporary Reads: In Between the Sheets

In Between the Sheets (1978) was the second book of short stories written by Ian McEwan. As its title suggests, the stories are largely about sex. They are shocking and at times uneasy. As can be expected, they are nowhere near the quality of his most mature works but still worth reading for his fans.

Modern Classics: Seize the Day

Seize the Day (1956) is a novel by Saul Bellow charting a day in the life of 44 year old Tommy Wilhelm. Wilhelm lives at a New York City hotel with his elderly fater, Dr Adler, after having separated from his wife following an affair he had. He has also recentently been laid off his sales job. Another guest at the hotel, Dr Tamkin - who claims to be a psychologist and a poet - convinces Wilhelm to enter a joint stock market venture that would result in Wilhelm losing his money.
Although the novel is about 1 day we learn much of Wilhelm's past: He once tried to make it as a screen actor in 1930's Hollywood. His "scout" Maurice Venice turned out to be a pimp. We also learn much about Dr Adler's relationship with a son he does not or perhaps cannot understand. Dr Adler is a hard working Jewish professor. He is stern and at times difficult and refuses to help Wilhelm.
While looking for Dr Tamkin, Wilhelm goins into a chapel where a funeral is taking place. The novel ends with Wilhelm crying at the stranger's funeral.

Contemporary Reads: On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach (2007) is Ian McEwan's latest novel. It is a short novel largely devoted to Edward and Florence's wedding night in the early 1960s. Through a series of analepsises (flashbacks) and the use of stream of consciousness, we soon understand the importance of that night for a couple of newlyweds who are only 22 y/o at that time. He, a recent history graduate from a rural background; she, a promising violinist from a typically academic and politically conservative Oxford environment.

Britain in the early 1960s was still a country pretty much sexually repressive were most youths would arrive to marriage being very naive about sex. McEwan takes us back to that time brilliantly. Even the likes of me who were born at a much later date very soon into the novel begin to understand what these two characters are going through that night.

Tragedy strikes when Edward comes too quickly and Florence - feeling guilty - runs off to the beach. What ensues is an argument in which she declares herself frigid and even suggests that they should have a sexless marriage. She even says that she would be happy for him to procure sex elsewhere. He finds the idea unbearable and that night they part for good.

On the last few pages we follow Edward's life as a singleton throughout the years and can even guess a certain regret at not having accepted Florence's offer.
Another doubtless triumph by Ian McEwan.
Other books I have read by the same author: The Cement Garden, The Child In Time, Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Saturday and Atonement.

Untranslated Lit: Où es-tu? (Where are you?)

Où es-tu? (2001) is the sencond novel by Marc Levy. It is the story about two young lovers, Philip and Susan who are separated when Susan decides to move to Honduras to carry out humanitarian work. Only meeting occasionally at Newark airport, the young couple gradually grows apart.

Eventually, Philip marries journalist Mary and has a child, Thomas. Meanwhile, Susan also has a child, Lisa. When Susan dies during a hurracane, Lisa comes to the States to live with Philip's family.

On Lisa's graduation date, Susan reappears. We learn that she did not die during the hurracane. She decided not to bring her daughter back to Honduras as she thought she would have a better chance of growing up with Philip and his family in America.

Other books I have read by the same author: Et si c'était vrai (Just Like Heaven).

Contemporary Reads: The Child In Time

The Child in Time (1987) is one of the early novels by Ian McEwan. It tells the story about how children's author Stephen and her wife, Julie, had her 3-year old daughter, Kate, kidnapped. How their marriage suffers and they only come to terms with it after their separation and Julie's new pregnancy.

We also learn about Stephen's parents' life in old age and as a young couple. And there is also the storyline about Stephen's first publisher, Charles, who later becomes a government minister and a favourite of the Prime Minister only to resign at the top of his game and retire to the countryside where he'll end up committing suicide.

This is a novel essentially about children and parenting but also a great reflection on Time and its passing.

I'm an inconditional of McEwan's and I am yet to read a book by him that would prove me wrong.

Other books I have read by the same author: The Cement Garden, Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Saturday and Atonement.

Plays: Doll's House

A Doll's House (1879) was Ibsen's first major success. It caused great scandal at the time due its ending: its protagonist Nora abandons her family after her husband discovers she had forged her dead father's signature to borrow money. She did it to finance a trip to Italy that would save her husband's life.

A realist play about women's role in Victorian society that shows Ibsen's concern with women's rights, or human rights in general.

Modern Classics: Tempest-Tost

Tempest-Tost (1951) was the first novel by Robertson Davies. It eventually also became the first in his Salterton Trilogy together with Leaven of Malice and A Mixture of Frailties. They are all set in the fictional town of Salterton in Ontario, Canada.

This novel is about an amateur theatre group which is trying to put together a summer production of Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Maths teacher Hector Mackilwraith falls in love with the young and beautiful Griselda Webster. When Hector is absent half way through the play and passes out backstage, everyone thinks he has tried to commit suicide.

This novel attempts to be comical without quite managing to do so successfully. However, I do look forward to reading later works by Davies, particularly The Dertford Trilogy written two decades later.

Plays: The Tempest

The Tempest (c 1610-1611) is one of the late romances written by William Shakespeare.

A shipwreck, magic, an island on the Mediterranean, spirits and assasination plots are all elements of this play with a happy ending here love and reconciliation are possible. Prospero with his magic controls the destinies of Miranda, Ferdinand, Ariel, Caliban, Alfonso, Gonzalo, Sebastian, Trinculo, Stephano and Boatswain. Thus, Prospero could be read as an autocratic playwright whose plotting and stage directions lead to a happily resolved endind.

"O brave new world, that has such people in't."

Other works I have read by the same author: Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III.

Modern Classics: White Noise

This is the second or third time I have read White Noise (1984) by Don Delillo. It is a dark, tremendously funny, novel about the greatest human fear: death.

Part campus novel, part thriller, part family drama, this is the story of academic Jack Gladney and his fourth wife Babette and all their children. Jack is the man who introduced Hitler Studies to North America. Both Jack and Babette are afraid of death although they try to keep it from each other. Babette has been secretly exchanging sex for a new experimental drug with Willie Mink. The name of the drug is Dylar and its purpose is to combat the fear of death. Once Jack finds out, after the whole family suvives an "airborne toxic event", he shoots him.

I have tried with other works by Delillo like Underground and Cosmopolis but have not been able to finish either. White Noise, however, is one of the modern American novels I have enjoyed the most.

Plays: Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler (1890) is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Its protagonist Hedda Tesman (née Gabler) is one of the most fascinating characters in literature I've ever come across. She is manipulative, intelligent, unpredictable, ambitious, dishonest and suicidal.

This play is one of the best ones I've ever read. There'll certainly be more Ibsen on this blog soon!

Contemporary Reads: The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner is the first novel by Khaled Hosseini. I found the book interesting as I thought it explained quite well the contemporary history of one of the countries that has featured more prominently in the news since 9/11, Afghanistan.

One day, Afghan emigré to the USA Amir receives a phone call from his father's best friend, Rahim Khan, in Pakistan. This event prompts him to remember his childhood in Kabul, his fleeing to America via Pakistan after the Soviet invasion, his settling in America, his marriage to fellow Afghan Soraya, and the death of his father Baba. The most interesting part of his account is his relationship with his Hazara servant Hassan. Hassan and Amir were brought up together and were best friends. They are both motherless and raised by their fathers. Their friendship is nuanced by their different social class and ethnicity. Hassan grows up illiterate whereas Amir will eventually become a published author in the USA. The two "friends" are split after Hassan is raped by Hitler-admirer Assef while Amir witnesses hiding and does not intervened. Hassan and his father Ali leave the house in shame. Baba never does find out why.

Amir learns from Rahim Khan that Hassan was his half-brother and that he had left an orphan in Taliban-ruled Kabul. He rescues the child, Sohrab, from the twisted Assef who surely enough had ended up joining the Taliban. Amir adopts his nephew and with Soraya all three become a family in San Francisco.

Half way through the book we get a glimpse of the Afghan emigrant experience in the USA, which I found quite enjoyable too. However, what I most enjoyed about the novel are the first chapters that depict Amir's and Hassan's childhood in pre-Soviet and pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

I did not care much for the last chapters and the "not-without-by-nephew" saga which I found too much soap opera like for my taste.

Modern Classics: The Waves

Virgina Woolf described her book The Waves (1931) as 'playpoem' rather as a novel. It is in fact a highly poetical work and one of the essetial texts not only of Modernism but of English literature.

It is wise that readers follow Woolf's advice and approach this work as a poem. Once you accept that what you have on your hands is not a 'conventional' novel, reading it becomes a superbly rewarding experience.

Other books I have read by this author: Mrs Dalloway and A Room of One's Own.

Great Classics: Jude the Obscure

I have just finished reading Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (1895). I can see how this novel was shocking to the Victorians but I found Hardy's pessimism almost unbearable. Although I started off really enjoying the novel, and found Jude's character extremely interesting and complex after he elopes with his cousin Sue I just found myself reading gradually becoming more and more depressed.

I have recently bought a few Victorian novels that I intend to read over the next few weeks (perhaps months). I suppose I am trying to fill in the gaps of my education. In that sense, I am glad I've read Jude the Obscure.

Contemporary Reads: Cat's Eye

Cat's Eye (1988) was the ninth novel published by Margaret Atwood. It is a Bildungsroman charting the life of painter Elaine Risley.

This novel explores brilliantly the complex relationship between a bully, Cordelia, and her victim, Elaine. We also get to see how this relationship changes throughout the years from the victim's perspective. As with all books by Atwood I read to date, Cat's Eye does not fail to impress.

Other books I have read by this author: The Robber Bride and The Blind Assassin.

Great Classics: Silas Marner

Silas Marner (1861) is George Eliot's shortest novel. It tells the story of a lonely weaver in the town of Raveloe in the early 1800s.

Silas is a foreigner in the community. In his home town of Lantern Yarn, he had been a prominent member of a dissenting church until he is set up by a friend and falsely accused of stealing. When he settles in the village of Raveloe he leads a lonely existence until one night Dunstan Cass, son of a squire, steals his gold thus unleashing a series of events that will change his life.

When Silas announces that someone has stolen his life's savings, the village people rally around him and everyone starts seeing him in a different, more positive light. Soon after the theft, while all the prominent people, including Dunstan's brother Godfrey, are at a New Year's party, a stranger woman who is on her way to the village with her baby girl dies in the snow. The woman, called Molly, who we learn is addicted to opium is Godfrey's secret wife and the baby is his daughter. Silas finds them both and takes the baby to the party in search of a doctor. Even when he recognises the baby as his daughter and Molly as his wife, Godfrey does not own up to this and keeps it a secret for years while Silas raises the baby girl as his own. He names her Eppie (short for Hephzibah, his deceased sister's name).

16 years later, Dunstan is found dead and Silas gold is retrieved and return to its owner. Dunstan had died on the night he stole it. This discovery prompts Godfrey to confess his secret to his wife Nancy. The couple decide to go and see Silas and Eppie to reveal the truth and to propose they adopt the girl. Eppie is shocked to hear this and refuses to be adopted as she feels Silas to be her rightful father and does not want that to change. The novel ends with Eppie marrying Arron Winthrop.

This is a moral tale or rather an educating tale where love, loyalty and roots are important values. The reader will noticed that Silas is not a Christian, he does not celebrate Christmas or recognise Jesus. He will remain unconverted throughout the book. In fact, he changes very little, it is rather others' perceptions of him that gradually change after his gold is stolen and fatefully 'replaced' by an orphaned child.

Great Classics: North and South

North and South (1855) by Elizabeth Gaskell is a love story as much as a socio-political novel. Like most novels of its time it was originally published serialised. This accounts for its length and also for the fact that each chapter (there are 52 in total) ends with a cliffhanger.

The novel tells the story of how a Southern English family ends up living in the fictional Nothern industrial town of Milton (largely based upon Manchester). After Margaret Hale rejects a marriage proposal from Henry Lennox, she and her parents move up North from Hampshire when her father leaves the Church due to 'his opinions'. Her brother Frederick is living in Spain after having been expelled from the army after a mutiny he took part in. He cannot come back to Britain for fear of being recognised and hung.

A few chapters in, there is a shift from the idyllic discription of rural Southern England and its gentle society to the harsh, unrefined, industrial Milton. Mr Hale becomes the tutor of self-made man and factory owner John Thornton. Margaret also makes the acquaintance of ill ex-factory worker Bessy and her father Mr Higgins.

Throughout the ensuing chapters, Margaret begins to appreciate life in Milton and to understand its social workings. Some significant events take place: there is a big strike, Mr Thornton falls in love with Margaret and Bessy dies. Mrs Hale herself becomes very ill and asks Margaret to write Frederick a letter requesting he comes to England at once to see her.

Mrs Hale dies during Frederick's visit. When Margaret accompanies her brother to the train station and drunkard recognises him and Frederick pushes him to the ground before boarding his train. A few hours later, the drunkard dies. When the police comes round to see Margaret she falsely denies her being at the train station that evening. Mr Thornton stops the police enquiry after the death as he is aware of Margaret's involvement. However, he wrongly believes Frederick to be Margaret's lover and shares this with his mother.

This event takes John and Margaret farther apart as the former holds a low opinion of the latter and the latter feels obliged to keep her secret for her brother's sake. She is also tormented because of her lie and because she thinks John believes her to be a liar.

Mr Hale dies in Oxford while visiting his old friend and Milton man, Mr Bell. Before Mr Hale's passing, Mr Bell promises him he will look after Margaret as he had grown fond of her during a recent visit to the North. Margaret moves to London with Auntie Shawn, cousin Edith and her husband Captain Lennox and his brother Mr Lennox. She learns that Frederick has got married in Spain and does not wish to ever set foot in England again. Upon Mr Bell's death, Margaret becomes an heiress and, in a turn of fortune, John Thornton's landlady (or landlord as it says on the book).

Mr Higgins, who is now working for Mr Thornton, tells him the story about Frederick's visit years ago. Margaret's character is restored on John's eyes and he travels down to London for their reunion on the final chapters.

North and South, like all Victorian novels, is plot-heavy so I have left out many plot developments. I believe, however, that I have outlined the main ones of this great classic.

Contemporary Reads: The Story of the Night

The Story of the Night (1996) by Colm Tóibín is set in Argentina during the 1980s. Its protagonist and narrator is Richard Garay, a half English Argentinian young man living in Buenos Aires.

The novel is made up by three distinct parts:

Much of the first part is devoted to Richard's relationship with her staunchly English mother, his casual gay sex encounters in the city, and his work as an English teacher. One of his students is Jorge whose father Sr Canaletto fancies himself as candidate to the presidency. By the end of the first part, Richard meets Jorge's brother, Pablo, who has just come back from California after 10 years.

The second part gets really political and I found it really interesting. In this part, Richard and Pablo start a relationship. I particularly appreciated Tóibín's erotic writing which made their relationship really believable and touching.
The thrid and final part is quite harsh as it is when both lovers find out, separately and after they have broken up that have AIDS. After a chance meeting at the clinic they find out that they both have it and move it together again.

The book has certain inconsistencies and some of the episodes depicted somehow lack cohesion. However, I did not mind this much as the novel is so moving and shocking and truthful to the male gay experience that I would put it next to some of the novels by Edmund White, Allan Hollinghurst or David Leavitt.

Other books I have read by the same author: The Master.