Wonder Boys

What is it that I loved so much about Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys? It's hard to capture now that I try to write my thoughts down. In fact, I think it's the books that I really love that I find the hardest to blog about perhaps because it's those books that are hardest to disect and analyse. Part of me wants to keep the experience of reading Wonder Boys whole and untouched. On the other hand, I want to rave about a book that I love and encourage others to read it in the hope that they have the same experience. So here goes...

One thing that I love about this book is that it is so totally different in subject matter to the two other Chabon books I've read. Compared to the noirish detective fiction of The Yiddish Policemen's Union or the epic adventure of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, it could have been written by someone else. And yet... there is a certain consistency of style and language that Chabon maintains despite his amazingly wide-ranging subject matter. He writes with such confidence, with long winding sentences that never trip over themselves and feel fresh and honest and clever and... ok, I'm getting too breathily enthusiastic now.

So what's Wonder Boys actually about? The narrator is Grady Tripp, a writer and academic who has written some very successful novels in the past but finds himself now stuck on an unfinishable novel called 'Wonder Boys'. Rather than writers' block, Grady has a kind of writers' diarrhoea and his draft has reached colossal proportions with no end in sight after seven years of writing. Grady is forced to confront his failure to complete the novel (and the possibility that maybe 'Wonder Boys' isn't really very good) when his debaucherous, lecherous, old friend and editor Terry Crabtree (played by Robert Downey Jr in the film version- what perfect casting!) arrives in town for a literary festival and to see when the book will be ready.

At the same time Grady finds himself tied up in the worries of his student James Leer, a troubled and talented young writer, and his mistress who just happens to be dean of the university and is also pregnant with Grady's child.

What follows is a few days of complete chaos as Grady, fuelled by alcohol and drugs, stumbles from one disaster to the next. There's a dead dog to dispose of, a shoot out, a stolen car, a wife who has left him, a Passover dinner, Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, booze, cigarettes, dope, and all the while the sneaking suspicion that Terry will uncover the truth about the unfinished manuscript in Grady's study.

Despite the chaotic messiness of the plot, Chabon never lets his material get away from him. This book is never self-indulgent and its free-wheeling plot is actually cleverly constructed to build the picture of a character who has lost control of his life. Chabon writes very well about writing in Wonder Boys, capturing the way we can lose perspective on our own work. Through the character of student James Leer he explores the constructedness of writing- James lives through old movies and uses them to construct much of his writing and, it is revealed, his life.

There is such a wonderful use of humour in this book as Grady's adventures descend into the ridiculous, but there is also a wonderful humanity. Chabon never loses sight of his characters, and while they might land themselves in cartoonish scenarios, they themselves never become cartoons.

This is a really hard book for me to describe mostly because I just loved it so much, and I'm not sure I've done it justice here. The most I can say really is go out and read it yourself if you haven't done so already.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm in love with Michael Chabon. How did I not see this before when I read The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and thought it was only 'pretty good'? Clearly I was in denial because after reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union for my book club and then quickly following it with Wonder Boys, I can't believe I wasn't raving about Chabon years ago.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is Chabon's take on genre fiction, in this case the hard-boiled detective novel. All the usual factors are there: the troubled maverick detective, a body in the first chapter, crosses and double crosses and a plot that moves along at a cracking pace. Chabon works his magic to make something new out of this familiar terrain. The main way he does this is by setting his novel in a re-imagined world, one in which a homeland for Jews is established after World War II in Sitka, Alaska. Tension is created by the imminent 'reversion' in which the homeland will be returned to the US and the 'frozen chosen' of Sitka will be out on their ear.

The novel begins with the murder of a young, chess-playing heroin addict in a cheap dive of a hotel which also happens to be where detective Meyer Landsman is currently residing. Landsman becomes obsessed with solving the crime, despite the more pressing concerns of his own mess of a life, and it leads him into the dark and secretive world of the Verbover sect, a group of devout and corrupt Jews with their own plans for survival after they are kicked out of Sitka.

The plot is fast and clever but it is Chabon's use of language that really sucked me in. He channels Raymond Chandler and his ilk but then gives it a twist of his own. This is smart, funny writing that still has real emotional pull. Here's a taste from early in the book, introducing the main character:

According to doctors, therapists, and his ex-wife, Landsman drinks to medicate himself, tuning the tubes and crystals of his moods with a crude hammer of hundred-proof plum brandy. But the truth is that Meyer Landsman has only two moods: working and dead... He has the memory of convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from a blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down.

Chabon also litters the text with his own brand of Yiddish slang that gives the alternative world that he has created a feeling of authenticity. It is this attention to detail that makes Sitka really come to life.

There is a certain strange freedom with writing within an established genre. Rather than it being formulaic, I think a good writer uses the shared understanding between reader and writer to leap-frog straight into more interesting territory. In genre fiction there is less time spent on establishing just what the book is and more time getting on with the really interesting stuff. Or that's what Chabon manages anyway. Sure, there are plenty of badly written crime novels, but there's lots of really turgid 'literary fiction' and the whole snobbishness around genre fiction is really undeserved, especially when you read a crime novel as good as this.

In my next post: why Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys is my new favourite book. Yes, folks, it's definitely love...

Coming out of hibernation

The days are short and fresh. The nights, long and cold. It's mid-winter and that means report writing, head-colds and that feeling that this month will never end. But finally on the last day of June, I've found time for a catch up post. Rather than go through each book in its own proper review, I think I'll just sum up my recent reading.

I bought The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyon for no other reason than that it had a great cover. I should have known that wouldn't work out so well. It's not that I didn't like this book but it rather felt like time in my life that could have been better spent (on a really good book, say). Doyon peoples her novel about a small and miserable backwoods town in the US with a cast of unlikeable characters. It's not just me, she spends time telling the reader that Cedar Hole is full of losers, which frankly does not make for an exciting reading experience. I don't have to love the characters in a novel but I have to be interested in them. Doyon is a capable writer and there are some interesting moments in the novel. I just don't think this book knows what it wants to be. While Doyon seems to be aiming for a comic novel, some of the quite dark and serious subject matter breaks the mood and left me feeling unsatisfied.

On the hand, I absolutely loved The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. I really can't sum this up and do it any justice so I'll break my word and leave this one for a longer review. Just trust me that it's fantastic.

Finally, I quickly devoured Stephanie Meyer's young adult vampire novel Twilight over the weekend. This novel has been huge amongst girls in the age group that I teach. I would have loved it as a 13 year old but unfortunately it seemed a bit thin to this jaded adult. The novel is about Bella Swan, a teenager who moves to a small town in Washington where she meets and falls for the mysterious and devastatingly handsome Edward Cullen. Surprise, surprise, Edward's not like other boys. It takes about five minutes to work out he's a vampire and about another five to get sick of the total power imbalance between Edward, the dangerous vampire with super strength, and the frail, accident-prone and completely trusting heroine, Bella. Give me Buffy the Vampire Slayer any day. At least it was obvious in that show why a centuries old vampire might find the teenage girl interesting as anything other than food (and satisfying to know she could beat him if it came to a fight). Still there is plenty of seething sexual tension (very inoffensively portrayed) to explain the huge appeal this book has to its audience. Try Peeps by Scott Westerfeld if you want an example of how this sort of thing really ought to be done.

Hearts and Minds

One thing I enjoy about fiction is the ability it has to show you a part of the world that you know little about. Sometimes a novel can make you feel like a true insider in a way that few other mediums can, by making you feel you inhabit a place and time completely. Hearts and Minds by Rosy Thornton was one such novel for me. In this novel, Thorton reveals some of the workings of the cloistered and arcane world of life in a Cambridge University college, a world seems quite strange to the outsider.

The fictional St Radegund's College is a women's college that has, for the first time ever, appointed a male head of the house. The new 'mistress' is James Rycarte a former tv journalist and foreign correspondent. Rycarte's position as an outsider is a useful device for explaining the complex world of the college to the reader. Through the course of the novel Rycarte comes to understand the peculiarities of the college, with its balance between different academic factions and a fiery student council, and the many obscure traditions and protocols of the centuries old college.

The other central character in the novel is Martha Pearce, dedicated Senior Tutor at St Radegund's, mother to a worringly aimless daughter, wife to a hopelessly self-centred husband and ultimate peace-maker and diplomat in the quagmire of inter-personal relations between staff at the college. Martha and James find a connection at once and together they negotiate various crises, including a student rent strike and the ethical dilemma of accepting a wealthy Italian parent's enormous financial donation.

For me, Martha was the most convincing character in the novel. There was something about her constant feeling that she can never do enough for her family or in her demanding job that seemed to ring true. Her efforts to hold together her marriage to her lay-about poet husband were frustrating but all too believable, as was the difficulty she has watching her daughter fall ever further into depression.

Hearts and Minds is fairly light reading. It isn't trying to be anything terribly deep and meaningful, the cover even hints that the book might be aimed at the (cringe) 'chick lit' market. Fortunately Thornton avoids the major pitfalls of that genre and does not sink into sentimentality. There is the suggestion of a romance that is very nicely resolved at the novel's end. The plot is restrained, maybe at times a little too restrained. I don't think it would have hurt to inject a little more drama into the story, but it's a small quibble with what is essentially an enjoyable read.

This novel was kindly provided to this delicious solitude by the author.

Victoriana

Hot on the heels of having read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I recently found myself reading yet another modern take on the Victorian novel. Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith is a rip-roaring yarn set in 19th century England. Waters draws on the tradition of social realism, combining it with a good dose of the Gothic, to create a page-turner of a novel. The plot flies along, taking the reader on what is a pretty entertaining ride. This is a Victorian novel seen through a contemporary lens. Characters swear and have sex, something that doesn't happen much in Dickens.

Waters writes skillfully and entertainingly but at times this book stretched the bounds of believability for me. Somehow everything works out a little too neatly and the coincidences and connections are forced at times. I found the experience of reading Fingersmith very much like reading Waters' more recent novel Nightwatch. Both were great fun but neither really stayed me. Waters' writing seem to promise something that it doesn't quite deliver. Fingersmith plays around the edges of some really interesting ideas, such as the role of women and women's sexuality in Victorian England, but it never quite soars for me. I'm interested enough in Waters' writing though to want to read her novels in the future, just to see if they ever really fly.

A bit of this, a bit of that

The new school term started on Monday and, as usual, that means not much time for reading or blog-writing in this part of the world. However the beautiful autumn weather (we even had dusting of snow on the surrounding hills the other day!) bodes well for cosy indoor activities ahead.

I've been slowly making my way through Tristram Shandy, a book that I am finding quite easy to read in fits and starts because that is how it is written. It is funny and playful, but at the same time I think Sterne creates some wonderful characters. Uncle Toby is my favourite so far, with his unwavering obsession with the battle that left him, well, not quite all man.

I also squeezed in a quick read for my book group which met last week- Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. This is a short novel, translated from the Norwegian, about a man, Trond, reflecting on some of the formative experiences of his youth. It is written in a very distinctive style. There are long, almost dream-like sentences, describing the idyllic Norwegian countryside of Trond's youth, and the countryside that he has now returned to as an ageing man. Petterson describes the simple physical tasks of rural life with great beauty. I could almost feel I was there.

As with all literature in translation, I sometimes wondered how much of the word choice was down to the translation process. Sometimes there is a slight awkwardness to the words and the phrasing, but it suits the character of Trond and I like to think it would be there in the original too.

Out Stealing Horses has a fairly pedestrian, coming-of-age plot, that falls into cliche at times. I won't give away too much here but when Trond's father's secrets are revealed I thought it was all a bit too predictable. In some ways the plot doesn't live up to Petterson's skillful descriptions and thoughtful insights into character. Still, this is an enjoyable read and a reminder that they do write novels that aren't crime fiction in Scandinavia.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke was just such a pleasure to read. It's not often that a book is enjoyable in so many ways. From the thick creamy paper of the cover, with its gorgeous font, to the quaint charcoal illustrations, the book itself is a sensory experience. And that's nothing compared to how fun it is to actually read this novel.

Susanna Clarke creates a world in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that is utterly believable. The novel takes place in a version of 19th century England which is much like the one we know, except that this England has a history of magic dating back to a golden age in the middle ages. The tradition of 'English magic' has fallen into decline and it is the aim of magicians Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange to restore its proper place in English life.

Primarily, Clarke is concerned with the characters in her novel. She doesn't get carried away with the whizz-bang fireworks aspects of fantasy and magic (well, maybe she does a little towards the end, but by then the reader is so convinced by the characters and wrapped up in the plot that they would follow her almost anywhere). The novel centres around the two magicians of the title. Norrell is a bookish, scholarly type who is secretive and suspicious about the motives of others. His aim is to hoard away knowledge about magic so that it won't fall into the 'wrong' hands. Unfortunately he is also ambitious, and in trying to win himself a position of authority with the government he uses a dangerous form of magic to bring a woman back to life, leading to all manner of strife.

Jonathan Strange on the other hand is gregarious and likeable, but with a tendency to take risks and to be attracted to the darker side of magic. He seeks out Norrell as a tutor and, although he finds Norrell infuriating at times, the two compliment each other and form a strong bond. It is only when they are separated by Strange's posting at Wellington's side during his war with the French (magic proving very helpful in battle) that cracks begin to show in their relationship.

This is the kind of fantasy novel that Charles Dickens might have written had it ever occurred to him to write fantasy. While this is unapologetically a fantasy novel, the genre that it has most in common with is the 19th century novel. Clarke draws on the 19th century both for setting and style. The humour and naming of characters struck me as very Dickensian, and there is a touch of Austen to the depiction of social relationships and manners. Surprisingly this pairing of genres really works to create something which, to my mind at least, is quite new and refreshing, although I'll admit to not being a big reader of fantasy so maybe this has been done many times before!

At almost 800 pages Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a long novel, but it is to Clarke's credit that it never feels long. I was totally swept up in the world that she creates and can't imagine how this novel could be shorter. In fact, I wished it could have gone on longer! I can't recommend this novel highly enough and will definitely be reading more of Clarke's work in the future.

Starting Tristram Shandy

I have finally begun reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (to give it its full, very 18th century title) by Laurence Sterne. It's slow reading so far, but still lots of fun. I find myself constantly looking up the footnotes at the back of the book. I so much prefer it when the footnotes are on the same page- it's still distracting but at least you don't have to be leafing back and forwards all the time. I suppose I could just skip the notes but my curiosity gets the better of me each time and I worry that I'm missing something crucial.

I seem to have digressed into discussing the footnotes when I wanted to write about how funny this book is. It's probably the influence of Tristram Shandy that has me losing my thread; the story is full of constant digressions with only the slightest nod to a narrative structure. The novel is, however, very funny and often very, very rude. I love that about 15 pages in the narrator finally finishes his dedication and then offers it up for sale:

If therefore there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount or Baron, in these his Majesty's dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel dedication, and whom the above will suit, (for bye the bye, unless it suits in some degree I will not part with it)- it is much at his service for fifty guineas;- which I am positive is twenty guineas less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius.

Hopefully I can keep up the momentum with this book, it requires quite a lot of concentration, at least for my poor brain, but will be worth it in the end I know.

I've also just finished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and am trying to put together a post that in some way captures the wonderful-ness of it.

On Chesil Beach

Warning: Spoiler ahead.

She watched him, willing him to go slower, for she was guiltily afraid of him, and was desperate for more time to herself. Whatever conversation they were about to have, she dreaded it. As she understood it, there were no words to name what had happened, there existed no shared language in which two sane adults could describe such events to each other.

This section occurs about two thirds of the way through Ian McEwan's novella On Chesil Beach and it really gets to the heart of what the book is about. Edward and Florence are on their wedding night. It's 1962, before the sexual revolution, and things do not go well. Both are crippled by nerves and fears about sex and it is their lack of a shared language to speak about such things that creates a disastrous situation.

On Chesil Beach is a painful reading experience, not because it is badly written at all, but because of the awful awkwardness, fear and shame that both characters feel on their wedding night. On top of their inability to discuss their fears about sex, McEwan also includes a class conflict: Florence is from a batter educated and wealthier family than Edward. This class issue is emphasised during the intense emotion of their first (unsuccessful) attempt to have sex and to my mind, it is partly Edward's feelings of inferiority that mean he cannot understand what Florence is really feeling.

McEwan centres the entire novel around one short evening but this never feels limiting or claustrophobic. This is because he uses the wedding night as a springboard from which to explore the two main characters' backgrounds and childhoods. There is a dark hinting at some sort of sexual abuse in Florence's childhood that helped me to believe in what seemed at first an unreasonable fear of any sexual contact with Edward, who she clearly loves desperately. Edward it seems is determined to do what he feels he is supposed to do, what society expects of him, and thus cannot consider any suggestion of other ways that he and Florence might organise their married life.

It is no surprise then that things don't end well for the couple, although part of me was happy that they were able to go off and explore beyond the confines of what seemed a rather limiting relationship. McEwan describes the rest of Edward's life but I wanted to know more about Florence and whether she ever did have a satisfying sexual relationship, although I suspect she doesn't. Some readers have criticised the lack of historical accuracy in the novel and it does seem lax of McEwan to not get at least the simplest facts correct such as when albums were released and so on, but for me this was not a barrier to enjoying the story. In the end I felt as though he might have exaggerated circumstances somewhat. To my mind, the shame of a failed marriage and divorce would have been a pretty compelling reason for characters as conservative as Edward and Florence to stay together, but on the other hand I can see that they had reached a point of no return.

On Chesil Beach is a reminder of the terrible price of ignorance. I finished this book feeling so thankful that I have grown up in a world that values openness and education about sex so that hopefully none of my peers experience anything like what McEwan's characters go through. Thankfully we now do have that shared language that Florence and Edward so desperately needed.

Secrets and Awkwardness

There is a nice symmetry in my reading at the moment. I have just finished Open Secrets by Alice Munro and am now about half-way through Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and it occurs to me that both books deal with the quiet and awkward moments between people that are not often the subject of 'great' art.

Munro's short stories are wonderfully thought-provoking. She knows just when to end a story, finding the balance between some sort of resolution and still leaving the reader with something to think about. Her stories in this collection all revolve around interesting and often unconventional female characters, particularly women who are unconventional in their sex lives. She finds drama and poetry in the everyday. I loved her deceptively simple writing style and unique perspective on small town life, and I will be reading some more of her work very soon.

I still haven't made up my mind about On Chesil Beach. So far I'm enjoying McEwan's writing, as I have in his other novels. The situation is interesting- two young people on their wedding night in the early '60s, both of whom are sexually inexperienced and ignorant in a way that seems incredible today. My reservation at the moment is that he seems to be saving the lion's share of sexual dysfunction for the female character and somehow that seems unfair. I'll wait until I finish the book before I say any more, however.

Recent Reading

I've once again let my reading overtake my blogging, so I thought I might do a kind of catch up post rather than write at length about the last couple of novels that I've read. So here goes...

Some of you might have read my whinge about Bel Canto a couple of posts ago. Well, I finished it and suffice to say my opinion did not change. Ann Patchett's novel left me very cold. A part of why I didn't like it was that I though it was incredibly unrealistic, however on Friday night I watched a documentary about the hostage siege that Patchett used as inspiration and found out that she stuck surprisingly close to what actually happened in Lima, Peru. The Japanese embassy there was taken by a group who wanted to capture the President. When the President wasn't there the group got stuck with a huge group of hostages and no exit strategy. In some ways the real drama was crazier than the fictional version. In real life the hostages even went so far as to allow the press into the embassy for interviews during the siege. Amazing. Unfortunately I still don't like the novel.

After Bel Canto, Engleby by Sebastian Faulks was refreshing, if you can use that word to describe a novel about a seriously disturbed person. It was refreshing for its originality, black humour and unflinching examination of a very dark subject. It's hard to talk too much about this one without ruining it, although I think most readers would find the ending of the novel fairly unsurprising. Faulks' narrator, Mike Engleby, must be one of the most interesting and well-drawn characters in recent fiction. I felt confronted and disturbed by this book, but in a good way!

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield was much hyped on its release, in part because so many bloggers were given it for free, thus sparking a debate about the ethics of declaring or not declaring where you get your books from before you write about them. For the record, I bought my copy fair and square at a book fair last week. The Thirteenth Tale is fun Gothic mystery/ romance. It's very readable and fairly insubstantial. I had hoped for something cleverer from a book that is so concerned with reading and writing. Unfortunately I felt that Setterfield was somewhat milking an audience that she knew would be interested in a book about a young women writing the autobiography of an older, very famous author who has finally decided to 'tell her story' after a lifetime of weaving fiction.

And now I'm deeply absorbed by Alice Munro's collection of short stories, Open Secrets. I've been meaning to read something by Munro for so long and am glad to find her exactly as interesting as has been claimed by others. The stories in this collection so far offer a thoughtful perspective on ordinary lives, pointing out the extraordinary in small town, domestic life. The intricate level of observation reminds me of Annie Proulx in some ways, but the writing is more direct and less heavy with imagery. I can't wait to read the rest of this book.

Here, Bullet

Last year I heard an interesting interview by Philip Adams on Radio National with American war poet Brian Turner. Turner has served in Iraq and his poetry describes his experiences there. During the interview he read the title poem from his collection of poetry, Here, Bullet. I found it moving and confronting. To say he reminds me a little of Wilfred Owen might be going too far, but there is something of the same feeling of immediacy. You can find out more about Turner here.

Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

Bel Canto

I'm trying with Ann Patchett's novel, Bel Canto, I really am. I want to like it. I've heard great things about it from other people. And I'm keen to be a girly swot and get it read by Monday for my bookclub.

But I'm really struggling here.

I just find it so boring. The plot centres around a group who have been taken hostage in a mansion in an unnamed poor South American country. The group includes a famous opera singer, a wealthy Japanese CEO and his translator, and the Vice President of the country in which the events take place. These are possible the world's nicest and least competent terrorists. They have barely hurt anyone and seem utterly confused about why they are actually there. So the siege turns into a weeks-long ordeal where not much happens (at least so far). There is much description of the boredom experienced by the captives which I can totally relate to, feeling much the same myself whenever I pick up this book.

Then there is the impending romance between some of the captives, which I really don't find convincing. It's a hostage drama and... a love story? It's like Mills and Boon does An Evil Cradling.

There is no doubt that Patchett can write well. Her characterisations are interesting and initially the premise seemed promising. I'm only half-way through so maybe it will pick up. It could be me. Maybe I haven't given the book my full attention. Maybe it's my mood or the weather or something and maybe I'm being terribly unfair to Bel Canto. Perhaps I've missed the point.

I'd love to hear the thoughts of others on this one. Can I hold out hope for the second half? Have I totally missed the point? Is Bel Canto, in fact, an inspirational masterpiece? Please, I'm ready and willing to be convinced!

Vampire Cool

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld is one of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages. I raced through it in one day last weekend and then passed it straight on to my husband who had the same experience.

Scott Westerfeld has built himself a reputation as one of the most exciting writers of young adult fiction at the moment, especially with his sci-fi series, Uglies. I've only recently discovered his work but in the couple of novels that I've read, I've been impressed with his ability to take a genre like sci-fi or horror and make it his own. His novels are underpinned by well-thought out philosophies and scientific concepts. In Uglies, he focused on our society's obsession with beauty, imagining a future where everywhere has an operation to make them uniformly 'beautiful' at sixteen. In Peeps, Westerfeld considers what modern science knows about parasites and uses it to explain an outbreak of vampire-like behaviour in New York City.

Peeps centres around Cal Thompson, a young university student who becomes infected by a parasite. Luckily he is immune to some of the parasite's nastier side effects (fear of light, a violent temperament, a taste for human blood) and becomes what is known as a carrier. He does get some of the cooler side effects though, such as fantastic night vision, super strength, a very good sense of smell and the world's fastest metabolism. Unfortunately he also develops a very active sex drive as the parasite tries to spread itself. Since even kissing a girl would be enough to pass on the parasite and turn her into a crazed, flesh eating vampire, he faces considerable challenges.

Cal is contacted by a secret organisation, mostly made up of other carriers, who are given the task of containing the parasite. He must track down and capture all his past girlfriends and, eventually, find the carrier who infected him. It is during the search for the girl who gave him the virus that he meets an attractive young woman, Lace, who quickly finds out more than she should about Cal's mission. Cal finds himself in a difficult situation as he falls for Lace but knows that he can't even kiss her without passing on the parasite.

Westerfeld alternates chapters of the story with chapters about the weird and wonderful world of real parasites. It sounds like a strange technique but it works. Learning about the bizarre parasites that really exist makes Westerfeld's fictional vampiric parasite much more believable. He also writes about the science of parasites in such a funny ad entertaining way that it never feels intrusive in the story.

There is little to fault in Peeps. It is smart, funny and fast-paced. Thankfully Westerfeld avoids the kind of po-faced seriousness that seems to plague some vampire books and films. The ending is all a bit rushed but it's a small criticism. This is definitely one for older adolescents and adults who are happy to go along for the ride.

Australian Crime

Until recently I had never read any Australian crime fiction but I can now boast about having already read two examples this year. In January I read Eden by Dorothy Johnston, which is not only Australian crime fiction but is also set in Canberra, thus continuing my mission to read books set in the capital. I have also recently finished The Broken Shore by Peter Temple, which I'll write about first because I can't praise this novel too much.

Peter Temple won the 2007 Duncan Lawrie Dagger for his novel, The Broken Shore, the first time an Australian author has claimed the prestigous prize. I can see why the judges might have chosen Temple's novel as I was absolutely blown away by it. The action takes place in a small coastal town in Victoria. Temple is careful to establish a strong sense of place. I could almost feel the cold winter rain of his setting and his descriptions of rural Australia are spot on. Take this passage for example:

Farmland had once surrounded the village of Kenmare like a green sea. Long backyards had run down to paddocks with milk cows oozing dung, to potato fields dense with their pale grenades. Then the farms were subdivided. Hardiplank houses went up on three-acre blocks, big metal sheds out the back. Now the land produced nothing but garbage and children, many with red hair. The blocks were weekend parking lots for the big rigs that rumbled in from every direction on Saturday- Macks, Kenworths, Mans, Volvos, eighteen-speed transmisssion, 1800-litre tank, the owners' names in flowery script on the doors, the unshaven, unslept drivers sitting two metres off the ground, spaced out and listening to songs of lost love and loneliness.

It's certainly an unromanticised view of Australian rural life.

Temple's detective Cashin is in many ways a cliche. He is posted to the country, tired and physically damaged, after a traumatic incident with a criminal in the city. He is battling with personal demons, as well as fighting other cops within the system. And of course an intriguing murder drops right in his lap.

It is to Temple's credit that he takes these standard features of the genre and makes them fresh. I believed in his characters. They speak and act like people I know. Temple captures the complexity of small town life, weaving class and racial tension into the plot with ease. Rarely has an author so accurately depicted the relationship between white and Aboriginal communities in small towns. The Broken Shore moves steadily and inexorably towards its resolution, using the conventions of crime fiction to create something fresh and absorbing.

Eden by Dorothy Johnston is another in her series featuring Sandra Mahoney, a security consultant who develops an obsession with the death of an ACT politician in a brothel. Johnston takes some pains to capture Canberra in January, a month when the city all but shuts down while most of its inhabitants escape the hot weather and head to the coast. The dry Canberra heat radiates off the pages and even as a reader I felt relief when the action shifted to a much cooler Sydney.

Johnston's story moves along at a steady pace, but for me this novel was too dry (and not just because of the weather). Much of the exposition seems awkward and forced. The plot is interesting but Johnston is so keen to reveal information to the audience that she does little to package it in an interesting way. Conversations are often unrealistic and clues are uncovered a little too easily. Nevertheless the premise and the crime are interesting enough for me to consider giving Johnston's work another go should I get the chance.

Coming Soon

Reading plenty at the moment but not writing much. The beginning of the school term seems to mean I can do one or the other, but not really both. Anyway, I'm working on a post raving about Peter Temple's wonderful crime novel, The Broken Shore. I also want to go on about how good Scott Westerfeld is (I read his vampire novel Peeps in a day!) and, strangely, am enjoying fantasy set in Medieval Japan courtesy of Lian Hearn's novel Across the Nightingale Floor, the first in her Tales of the Otori series.

I've also joined a new book club and had much lively discussion about Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, some of which I hope to share with you.

Anyway, enough writing about what I'm going to write! Hopefully, I'll actually get a decent post done sometime soon...

Books on Film

In the last week I have seen two film versions of favourite novels of mine, The Golden Compass and Atonement. Although both were generally well done, it's a strange experience seeing a novel you love as imagined by others.

The film of The Golden Compass was probably always going to be a bit disappointing for me as I love Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy so intensely. The Hollywood version is true to the book and visually stunning but, as is common with films of books, the story is simplified and some of the harder edges are removed. The ending is considerably changed to make it much happier than the cliffhanger that concludes the book, which is understandable given that the film is aimed at children, but also a little patronising to the audience. The quite strong anti-organised religion message in the book has also been toned down by the film-makers making this a rather anaemic version of Pullman's very interesting and challenging ideas.

It also didn't help my enjoyment of the film that I have a probably quite unreasonable dislike of Nicole Kidman, who I think has a kind of anti-charisma on screen. I'm aware that not everyone shares my opinion on that though. Friends who have seen the film without reading the book loved it, so perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of this one.

On the other hand, I thought the film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement was just stunning. The film-makers managed to capture the subtleties of the novel quite cleverly and the film is visually stunning. Keira Knightly is surprisingly good and looks just gorgeous in the 1930's fashions her character wears, and James McAvoy, well, let's just say I have a serious crush on the guy and could spend hours watching him on screen no matter how bad the film. In this case though, his acting is great and the film is really quite good. If you tend to cry in films though, be warned, I cried for a least half of the film. I'm pretty sure I was joined by a majority of the audience at the film's devastating end.

There are some very interesting ideas about personal responsibility and truth in McEwan's novel and these translate well to the screen. In fact, seeing the film reminded me how visual the novel is, particularly the early events that revolve around glimpsed scenes and moments that are mis-interpreted by the young child Briony. While the more post-modern aspects were a little distracting for me in the novel, they worked well on film.

I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks of either film.

On the Jellicoe Road

I read On the Jellicoe Road, a novel for young adults by Australian author Melina Marchetta, on a rainy night while staying in a caravan on holidays at the beach. Branches were brushing the roof and the wind howled and screeched, rocking the caravan. I could have been at sea, lost in the blackness of night. Perfect reading weather. Perfect for reading this un-put-downable novel until it was finished in the early hours of morning.

When it was released, lots of Melina Marchetta's fans didn't really know what to make of On the Jellicoe Road and now I can see why. Her first novel, Looking for Alibrandi, was (and still is) very popular with teenagers in Australia and was made into a popular film. While I found Looking for Alibrandi entertaining and realistic, I also thought it was a little too simple and straightforward. On the Jellicoe Road is a much more sophisticated novel and one which rewards the reader's patience as the plot lines are slowly revealed. I loved this new style but some young readers might miss the straightforwardness of Marchetta's previous books.

It feels like Marchetta has found her voice in On the Jellicoe Road. She has developed a complex, but highly engaging plot about a young girl, Taylor, who lives at a rural boarding school in western New South Wales. Taylor is trying to negotiate the annual turf war between her school, the kids in town and the local cadet unit, at the same time as she tries to solve the mystery around her friend Hannah's disappearance which is somehow connected to Taylor's abandonment by her mother when she was a young child.

The story is told through Taylor's eyes, interspersed with excerpts from a manuscript for a novel being written by Hannah. Slowly the manuscript and Taylor's story become entwined. There is a sense of menace that lingers just under the surface of the story; there is talk between the students about a serial killer who targets children and speculation about which adult might be the killer. Marchetta also vividly captures the violence and secretiveness of youth as the young teenagers wage their quite vicious wars right under the noses of the mostly ineffective and oblivious adults in the story.

Marchetta also develops a romantic storyline between Taylor and the leader of the Cadet unit, Jonah. This is one of the most successful parts of the story. It is realistically and sensitively portrayed and the tension between Taylor and Jonah really propels the story.

It is so refreshing to read books written for young adults that are challenging and complex. While not everyone will love On the Jellicoe Road I think that if this is the direction that Marchetta is taking with her writing, then I can't wait to read what she comes up with next.

Reading in the New Year

I haven't posted for ages, instead choosing to do some reading, eating, drinking and much playing of cards as the rain continues to fall at my beachside holiday location. I never seem to have much luck with holiday weather. Nevertheless it is pretty good weather for reading and I've managed to get through a couple of novels.

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres is certainly not light summer reading. It is over 600 pages long and takes a few hundred pages to really get going. The story follows the lives of a group of people from a small village in Turkey and through these people de Bernieres essentially follows the history of Turkey in the twentieth century. I found the book similar in some ways to Captain Corelli's Mandolin, the only other novel of his that I have read, but it was less emotionally engaging, perhaps because there was just so much history to cram in, often at the expense of plot and character development. I learnt a lot though, and found the parts about Gallipoli, told from the Turkish perspective, particularly interesting. De Bernieres has a nice, readable style but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to read anything else by him.

After reading about the horrific and violent history of Turkey I turned to Rachel Pine's novel The Twins of Tribeca for some light contrast. Pine is a former employee of Miramax and this is a 'tell-all' novel in the style of The Devil Wears Prada. The tone is light and gossipy, and there is lots interesting inside information on the way films get made (especially the bad ones). Pine never really finds a narrative arc for her story though. Lots of times it felt like something dramatic was about to happen but then... nothing. It's a fun read but fairly forgettable.

I'm still considering plans for reading in 2008. So far the only thing I've thought of is that I should read more classics. In particular I want to read Tristram Shandy this year. I've been planning to read it ever since I saw the great film version with Steve Coogan. Hopefully I will come up with some more plans before the year is half over.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.

Favourite Books of the Year

The end of the year is coming and I'm not reading anything too exciting right now so I think it's safe to comment on my favourite reads of 2007. None of them are particularly current as I rarely read new releases, but I loved all of the following:

The Orchid Thief (Susan Orlean): This work of non-fiction was a real revelation to me. I don't read much non-fiction and I had no interest in orchids so I was surprised at how much I loved Susan Orlean's tale of, well, just about everything to do with orchids. The book is a brilliant character study of the collector John LaRoche and a fascinating description of Florida. It's also ten times more interesting than my description of it. Just trust me on this one.

Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier): I raved about this book at the time and it has stayed with me. Just thinking about the ending has me on the verge of tears. Don't let the dodgy film version put you off. Wonderful writing and a beautiful story. An incredible first novel.

Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf): I've just written about this so I won't say much other than Woolf is a genius and this is deservedly a classic.

Special mentions also go to I Capture the Castle, the classic young adult novel by Dodie Smith, American Pastoral by Philip Roth and Disgrace by JM Coetzee.

It's a strange list of quite disparate books but probably a good reflection of what I've been reading this year. There are some big holes though, such as not reading many pre-twentieth century novels, so now I'm off to formulate my next post: reading plans for 2008...