Surfacing

Surfacing is a difficult book to love.  I’ve grown accustomed to Margaret Atwood’s later stuff and her later style.  I haven’t actually read much of her earlier work and this (being only her second novel) certainly falls into that category.  It feels like an early book too- less formed then something like Cat’s Eye (and a lot shorter) but still well worth the read.  This is a strange novel.  From the outset you seem to know where it’s going but all of a sudden the clear narrative driving force (the question of what happened to the narrator’s father) that you’ve followed disappears like a will-o’-the-wisp and you find that you’re left standing alone on uncertain ground.

It tells a fragmented story of an unnamed woman returning to a remote island in Quebec following the disappearance of her estranged father.  Very little is really resolved, instead what emerges is a disjointed account of isolation and infidelity and an inability to love.  Our narrator does not return to her childhood home alone; she brings with her married couple friends Anna and David and her partner, Joe.  These three are city dwellers and so are pretty much unable to look after themselves in a place with no electricity or indoor plumbing.  According, the narrator quickly assumes responsibility for them, leading to a downward spiral.  She cracks under the pressures of womanhood.  She is a divorcee who has left her child with ex-husband, having never really felt attached to it- the whole familial responsibility thing, it’s fair to say, isn’t her bag.  Having cracked under the pressure of it all, she eventually runs wild returning to the childhood haven of nature; falling back onto the information she was taught when young.

There’s feminism in Surfacing too; I get the feeling there always is with Atwood.  I’m not sure how effective it is in this book though.  Yes, the narrator has a breakdown because of her experiences as a woman, but at the start of the book she’s already abandoned a child that she felt so disconnected from that she refused to acknowledge it as her own.  She does not use gender pronouns in relation to this child; it is a removed and abstract thing.  Her whole attitude to the child is couched in language that makes her sound deluded, or at least suffering from some form of mental disorder.  As a result, the pressures put on her are called into question and her breakdown becomes less about her femininity and more about her mind.  The points where the feminism is strongest is when it doesn’t apply to the narrator; incidental things like Anna mentioning that her husband’s potential fury and abuse because she forgot her make-up on an overnight camping trip, or the descriptions of religious oppression and restrictions on women’s outfits in the nearby town.

There are moments in this book that really remind me of Cat’s Eye; things that I think Atwood returned to and developed further in her later novel.  Both the narrator of Surfacing and Elaine in Cat’s Eye grow up with nature due to their father’s professions and the way they are forced to abandon nature is remarkably similar.  As the girls start school and beginning socialising with other children their age both go against their family’s wishes and get involved in the church, due to curiosity and a need to fit in more than any strong religious leaning.  Naturally, for both, the religiosity is short lived.  I always like it in books when you can see the evolution of an author or a return to previous ideas.  It gives a sense of development and flow and it reinforces the fact that art isn’t created in a vacuum.

I don’t think I’ve summed up just why Surfacing is difficult to love, I’ve gotten distracted by feminism.  This seems to happen a lot.  It happens in life too.  It’s hard because nothing is clear.  It is not just the case that the narrator is mad and so her perception of the ills of the world and the treatment of women invalid.  Whenever women describe their oppression it sounds a tad insane, but the main instance of potential male insanity has a logical explanation.  Also, we never really do find out what happened to her father, which is really irksome.

My next read is a return to Iris Murdoch with The Nice and The Good.

Moon Palace

Moon Palace is an objectively phenomenal book.  If I’m quite frank, it wasn’t the most enjoyable of Paul Auster’s books to read.  I far preferred Mr Vertigo and The Book of Illusions but the more I think about it, and I can’t stop thinking about it, the more impressive it becomes.

The story is a deceptively simple one; directionless after graduating from college Marco Stanley Fogg falls into lethargy.  He quickly becomes homeless and spends a summer in New York’s Central Park scavenging through bins.  Following a dramatic rescue from himself he gains employment as a carer for one Thomas Effing, which leads in turn to a recounting of Effing’s own wandering in the (far more literal) wilderness and subsequent introduction of his equally lost son, Soloman Barber.  When I was reading it, as I said, I wasn’t too impressed.  The twist, I thought, was obvious.  But now I’m not so sure.  There’s so much foreshadowing that I don’t think it’s meant to be a twist at all.  Auster links the three stories in subtle yet persistent ways.  Themes and ideas repeat throughout the three tales so that it seems that the three men live slightly different permutations of the same larger story.  It’s an elegant thing.

Another reason that I enjoyed this book after the fact was that I’m starting to get a sense of Auster as an author.  This is the fourth book of his that I’ve read and I’m starting to notice reoccurring motifs.  The obvious triptych narrative structure and urban setting that link Moon Palace and The New York Triology aside, there are ties to Auster’s other works. Like Walt in Mr. Vertigo, Marco Stanley Fogg is alone in the world and ends up seeking out surrogate father figures- having never known his.  The narrative of Thomas Effing is also remarkably similar to Hector Mann's in The Book of Illusions.  Both men fake their deaths and abandon their fortunes to head out into the American wild and live a simpler life.  These two stories also show a fascination with American legends, although this time it’s not the movies but the Wild West that Auster focuses on.  Effing drifts through Utah, killing the notorious Gresham Brothers and riding off into the sunset with their stolen loot- it’s such a common narrative trope.

One of the other things that struck me about the book was a far more personal note.  I found it so easy to relate to Marco Stanley Fogg.  After I left university, I had no plan and everything went a bit wrong.  I couldn’t find a job for the longest time and fell into that slump where failure was a foregone conclusion and motivation near impossible.  Like Fogg, I didn’t know what to do and so did nothing until the situation reached crisis point.  Unlike Fogg, I dragged myself out of it before becoming homeless but that experience endeared Fogg to me.  While I think others may be frustrated by his inaction, I understand the fear of knowing how essential it is to do something and yet still being unable to move.

So, Moon Palace is a book that keeps on giving.  At first glance it is nothing special but it’s actually amazing.  Even now thinking about it I’m struck by more points still: the terrific sense of melancholy and missed opportunities that run throughout, for example.  The whole of the novel is filled with a wistful sense of “if only…”  Of course, the book wouldn’t be even half as good if just one of these missed connections had been realised any earlier.  For all the unfulfilled moments, everything in Moon Palace happens exactly when it needs to happen.

My next read is a return to the wonderful Margaret Atwood, this time with Surfacing. 

The Nine Tailors

I have some serious mixed feelings about The Nine Tailors.  On one hand it’s a cracking murder mystery- always a joy; on the other there’s a lot of talk about bell ringing.  Turns out that campanology is no longer en vogue for some very good reasons.  Dorothy L Sayers really went to town on the accuracy (I assume she did, at least, I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to verify any bell related information).  Lord Peter Wimsey also seems to know the art inside and out, despite professing to by only an amateur.  You’d think he’d be all warn out from designing the super successful cigarette advertising campaign in his previous adventure.

The story couldn’t be a further cry from Murder Must Advertise, rather than a slick office full of hard working, fast talking gals; it’s set in the middle of the great East Anglian nothingness.  The high point of the gossip’s still a robbery that happened twenty years ago and all but bankrupted the local lord of the manor Henry Thorpe.  When Thorpe dies, four months after his wife, he grave is re-opened and a mutilated corpse is discovered.  Enter Peter Wimsey.  It being a whodunit, there’s not much more I can say without giving it away.  There are frequent references to Sherlock Holmes throughout the book and The Nine Tailors did remind me of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective in a way that Sayers’s previous book didn’t.  The resolution actually reminded me of one story in particular; naturally to say which would be a massive spoiler.

The only part of the book that I wasn’t keen on, aside from those incessant bells, was the last chapter.  Lord Wimsey returns to Fenchurch St. Paul for Christmas after all is said and done.  The place then promptly floods. There’s a minor plot point which ties the last loose thread in to a ridiculous bow, so I appreciate what Sayers is trying to do, but for me it doesn’t work.  It actually removes one of the things I was really enjoying- the ambiguity and open-endedness.  It’s unnecessary and in many ways makes the story worse, even if this is simply because it denies the reader a happy ending.  I am more than willing to ignore the fact that murder was still punishable by hanging at the time this book was written.  As far as I’m concerned it fades to black when the criminal is carted off to prison.  Then it’s all sunshine and rainbows.  According to The Daily Mail, at least.

On the bright side, The Nine Tailors also features the fantastic Hilary Thorpe.  I have a lot of time for Hilary. She’s a bright young thing who is, quite frankly, far more insightful and better at sleuthing than Lord Peter.  It’s a shame she only features in a few scenes.  The book could have done with more of her wit and charm and less about the bells.  Although, considering how much she has her shit together her continued presence would have probably reduced a 374 page novel into a short story.  So, she’s bundled off to Oxford with her stuffy and disapproving uncle and we’re left with Lord Peter to restore her fortune and freedom.

Minor grievances aside, I did really enjoy this book.  It’s full of love for East Anglia in the same way that I am- name dropping the St Peter Mancroft church (which I do mostly love for its proximity to the library) whilst making jokes about the rampant incest in the area.  I feel like Sayers had the same attitude to the place that I do, even if she was far more into the fens than that cities.  I guess the crux of that issue, though, is simply that no interesting murders happen in Norwich.

I’ve just started Moon Palace by Paul Auster.  It’s slow going so far, but I think it might get fantastic.

Platform

My mother has this way of describing French films as though they themselves are a separate genre.  She half whispers the word “French” as though she’s saying something awfully taboo.  I always imagine it just like that, in italics.  And it struck me whilst reading Platform that it is a book that my mum would deem decidedly French.  Of course, it is actually French which probably swayed my opinion somewhat.  What I’ve always taken my mum to mean by French is fucking and philosophy.  Us Brits are kind of shit at talking about either without either embarrassment or pretension and French culture seems to be wonderfully frank about both.

The book itself is about Michel, a hoary middle aged man with a predilection for whorey young women, and a life changing holiday he takes following his father’s death.  By that I mean, he goes to Thailand, visits some “massage parlours” and then set up sex tourism package holidays with a woman he meets out there and her boss.  There’s a lot of sex and quite a lot of discussion of the tourism industry for 150 pages or so.  This is followed by some arbitrary plot where it all goes wrong at the end.  This is immensely frustrating, as the plot bits are interesting.  The social theory of tourism and consumerist buying habits, less so.  But it is very French.

Michel Houellebecq’s writing is terribly masculine.  I’m not sure if this an intentional thing by him around a matter of factness surrounding sex, or an inability on the part of the translator to come up with any synonyms, but I lost count of the amount of times the word “penetrate” or some deviation of it is used.  I’m pretty sure that Houellebecq’s not going for eroticism in Platform; but “penetrate” is really not a sexy word.  When this is combined with the fact that most of the women that Michel is penetrating don’t even have names and are merely treated as sexual commodities it really isn’t one to get your motor running.  In fact there’s a fairly lengthy defence of the commercialisation of sex.  Michel, if not Houellebecq, is firmly in the “prostitution is empowering” camp.  On top of this, Michel is a forty-odd year old misogynist and manages to find Valerie, a woman in her twenties who is not only enamoured by Michel but actively encourages him to include prostitutes into their sex life.  It’s unfeasible.

For me, Platform is a mixed bag.  While I’m not too keen on all the anonymous sex, I do enjoy the characters’ personal philosophies; whether it be Valerie’s explanation for why she wants to move to Thailand, “The only thing the Western world has to offer is designer products.  If you believe in designer products you can stay in the West; otherwise, in Thailand you can get excellent fakes.”  Or, a dying man’s ruminations on the nature of life and the human condition; “You get old.”  I love these little moments that add nothing but humour to the story. 

The funny moments make it so much more frustrating.  It’s impossible to write the book off as fantasy wank material for men having a mid-life crisis when it is at times charming and witty.  It was also a bit of a learning curve about French culture.  This is a book about tourism and jetting off around the world, set in 2001 that doesn’t mention 9/11.  This is unfeasible from a British perspective, but from the European perspective it wasn’t the event that changed everything forever.  Clearly the benefits of not giving a shit George W Bush are even more far reaching than I ever imagined.  This is probably why the French have so much time for sex and philosophy.

Book number 325 is the return of Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Nine Tailors.  It’s set in Norfolk, so I’m right excited.  

The Cement Garden

I think I’ve said it before, but Ian McEwan’s books tend to fall into one of two tropes.  Firstly, there’s The Guardian reader gets into a spot of bother type, this is contrasted by the semi-anonymous protagonist gets into significantly more trouble but essentially the plot goes nowhere type.  Also there’s Atonement.  The Cement Garden falls into the second category and it’s a solid Ian McEwan book.  I don’t think I’ve ever read anything of his that I’ve truly loved or hated.  He’s good and he’s consistent.  That’s really all I’ve ever had to say about him.

The Cement Garden is the story of four children who become orphans shortly before the school summer holidays.  For a book concerned with their orphanhood, it takes a bloody long time for their mother to die.  Their father snuffs it rather quickly some years before while our narrator, Jack, is busy masturbating in the bathroom.  He achieves orgasm for the first time just as his father is dying in the garden, tying up a “becoming the man of the house” metaphor so neatly there may as well be a bow on it.  Anyway, once both parents have shuffled off this mortal coil, the kids hide the corpse as part of a pact to remain together.  Jack and his older sister Julie take on the role of mother and father and then incest ensues.  Nothing else happens.

I’m not being fair to the book.  Julie and Jack were toeing the incest line long before their parents died.  It’s one of the things that makes me assume this book was based largely on McEwan’s time at the University of East Anglia.  Norfolk is well known as the incest region of the British Isles and apparently (at least, according to the guy who sits next to me at work) there have been proper studies done that do actually show Norfolk has higher rates of incest than anywhere else in the country.  Combine this with an unnatural love of concrete and the only logical conclusion is UEA.  For those of you unfamiliar with the campus, I’ve included a visual aid. 

The problem with the book is that it doesn’t show the descent into depravity and desperation that could come from being orphaned and left without any adult supervision for the summer.  The kids are already weird long before they are orphans and so, rather than proper character development, the book seems to just contain dissociated moments as Jack drifts through life.  The only character from outside the family isn’t exactly normal either.  Julie’s boyfriend is a much older “professional” snooker player.  When he notices something’s up and the whole house smells of corpse, the orphans tell him it’s a dead dog.  He knows it’s their mum and rather than calling the police, he just plays along getting increasingly more offended that they won’t tell him the truth.  The fact that Derek just goes with it means there’s no contrast for what’s happening in the orphans’ house.

I get that everything I’ve just said about The Cement Garden is negative.  I didn’t hate this book, though.  I just kind of nothinged it.  It’s not a book that goes anywhere, but McEwan is a good writer.  Not very much is happening but it’s a well written not very much.  I think that’s what I’m trying to say.  Even if I don’t like McEwan’s stories; I like the man’s style.  This is the last of his books that I’ve come to on The List and it’s not the best of exits.  If anything, it’s left me wishing that there could be one more book of McEwan’s to go.  But I guess, ultimately, that’s what the revised and updated versions of The List are for.

My next book is Michel Houllebecq’s Platform.