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Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Going nowhere
Neverwhere
By Neil Gaiman
Almost every person who lives in or visits London must imagine what goes on in the tunnels underneath that great city. Its history is so long and complicated; remnants are scattered all over the town, so surely the networks of secret tunnels must be crammed with history’s waste. The potential for exploring this idea in fiction is massive, and Neil Gaiman has admirably taken on the task.
In Neverwhere, he has created London Below, an entire world underneath the London most people are familiar with. London Below is populated with unique and memorable characters (the eccentric earl of Earl’s Court, a swashbuckling adventurer, ghoulish Burke and Hare-inspired murderers) and a great deal of wacky scenarios. London Below is a bizarre place to the outsider – but probably no more so than London Above – and it certainly functions as a living city.
And so it is a great shame that after having created this exciting, wonderful world, Gaiman disappoints the reader with a weak plot and poor storytelling. Inventive settings and fun characters are not nearly enough. A good novel needs a strong theme, something the writer wants to say about the world, or a way of viewing the world at least, and to persuade us of this the writer can call on his characters and setting. Gaiman simply gets too wrapped up in injecting more and more originality into the text and forgets that he’s supposed to tell a story too.
The plot is shockingly weak – once Richard, the Alice of this Wonderland, is installed in the Underside, as it is sometimes called, the main thrust of the story becomes his companion’s quest to investigate the death of her family. But potential twists and turns in this adventure are vague; it becomes increasingly frustrating that plot development is continually sacrificed so Gaiman can introduce another creature or custom of his underworld. To this end, the reader never feels like a local. Middle Earth is much more complex than London Below, and yet Tolkien ensures that the reader feels instantly a part of it. In Neverwhere, we’re never more than a guest.
By Neil Gaiman
Almost every person who lives in or visits London must imagine what goes on in the tunnels underneath that great city. Its history is so long and complicated; remnants are scattered all over the town, so surely the networks of secret tunnels must be crammed with history’s waste. The potential for exploring this idea in fiction is massive, and Neil Gaiman has admirably taken on the task.
In Neverwhere, he has created London Below, an entire world underneath the London most people are familiar with. London Below is populated with unique and memorable characters (the eccentric earl of Earl’s Court, a swashbuckling adventurer, ghoulish Burke and Hare-inspired murderers) and a great deal of wacky scenarios. London Below is a bizarre place to the outsider – but probably no more so than London Above – and it certainly functions as a living city.
And so it is a great shame that after having created this exciting, wonderful world, Gaiman disappoints the reader with a weak plot and poor storytelling. Inventive settings and fun characters are not nearly enough. A good novel needs a strong theme, something the writer wants to say about the world, or a way of viewing the world at least, and to persuade us of this the writer can call on his characters and setting. Gaiman simply gets too wrapped up in injecting more and more originality into the text and forgets that he’s supposed to tell a story too.
The plot is shockingly weak – once Richard, the Alice of this Wonderland, is installed in the Underside, as it is sometimes called, the main thrust of the story becomes his companion’s quest to investigate the death of her family. But potential twists and turns in this adventure are vague; it becomes increasingly frustrating that plot development is continually sacrificed so Gaiman can introduce another creature or custom of his underworld. To this end, the reader never feels like a local. Middle Earth is much more complex than London Below, and yet Tolkien ensures that the reader feels instantly a part of it. In Neverwhere, we’re never more than a guest.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Dangerously good
Dangerous Love
By Ben Okri
Okri has written the perfect elegy of a doomed love affair. In Dangerous Love, the star-crossed lovers are not only battling with the tensions of a problematic relationship but also their own very difficult personal circumstances and confusions.
This enables Okri to paint a very complex portrait of his characters, to elevate Dangerous Love from a simple love story along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, which has already been retold plenty, to a book that tackles identity and modernity. His hero Omovo is a beautiful character. He is sensitive and naïve but never once irritating for it: Omovo questions, probes, retaliates – and is forever caught between a difficult reality and an even more sticky mental disposition. Okri is not content with having readers merely connect with Omovo, and through his careful characterisation, Okri ensures that readers breathe simultaneously with the enchanting, living creature he has created. The precision of Okri’s prose – his most realistic I have read – makes this an absolute certainty.
The same goes for Ifewiya. She could easily have been painted flatly as the object of affection who cannot escape her marriage as much as she cannot escape her society’s customs. In Okri’s hands, Ifewiya’s portrait is smooth and three-dimensional: her circumstances are the subject of countless books and films and yet Okri tells her story anew. What a deeply moving character she becomes!
An absorbing read from the first page to the last, Dangerous Love is filled with fine imagery, delicate prose and classic characters.
By Ben Okri
Okri has written the perfect elegy of a doomed love affair. In Dangerous Love, the star-crossed lovers are not only battling with the tensions of a problematic relationship but also their own very difficult personal circumstances and confusions.
This enables Okri to paint a very complex portrait of his characters, to elevate Dangerous Love from a simple love story along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, which has already been retold plenty, to a book that tackles identity and modernity. His hero Omovo is a beautiful character. He is sensitive and naïve but never once irritating for it: Omovo questions, probes, retaliates – and is forever caught between a difficult reality and an even more sticky mental disposition. Okri is not content with having readers merely connect with Omovo, and through his careful characterisation, Okri ensures that readers breathe simultaneously with the enchanting, living creature he has created. The precision of Okri’s prose – his most realistic I have read – makes this an absolute certainty.
The same goes for Ifewiya. She could easily have been painted flatly as the object of affection who cannot escape her marriage as much as she cannot escape her society’s customs. In Okri’s hands, Ifewiya’s portrait is smooth and three-dimensional: her circumstances are the subject of countless books and films and yet Okri tells her story anew. What a deeply moving character she becomes!
An absorbing read from the first page to the last, Dangerous Love is filled with fine imagery, delicate prose and classic characters.
Larsson is on fire
The Girl Who Played With Fire
By Stieg Larsson
Every bit as gripping and provocative as the first book in the Millennium trilogy, Larsson’s second novel is a resounding success. The story picks up two years after the events depicted in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We’re brought back into Larsson’s world again by another long, slow opening that carefully sets up the characters and provides just enough intrigue. Then we’re introduced to new and exciting players who are perfect for these books. It’s not long before the page-turning shocks start to emerge.
The development of central character Lisbeth Salander – one of crime fiction’s most startlingly original protagonists ever – is deep, complex and utterly absorbing. She is as layered as the first book led us to believe; Larsson’s intricate knitting of this with his overall plot in this installment is breathtaking.
Nevertheless, this is far from a perfect book. Again, as with the first, this novel suffers from a lack of editing. It is somewhat refreshing to see this in a crime book (which have to be tight) – and it may even be the secret to Larsson’s success – but it is very irritating. Larsson often resorts to cliché to prop up poor character introduction. Too many peripheral players are described forensically the first time they appear when it’s just not necessary. Furthermore, the descriptions are often laboured lists.
The text is also plagued by far too many poor constructions, characteristic of an amateur crime writer (which Larsson was). It’s disconcerting that his editors or publishers didn’t weed these out, and I’d certainly like to have been a fly on the wall in editorial discussions. It’s surprising that this oversight hasn’t tempered the books’ success.
For critics, the public and this reader, there are far too may positives not to rebalance Fire back into favour. It really is a lot of fun reading these books – I’m already looking forward to part three.
By Stieg Larsson
Every bit as gripping and provocative as the first book in the Millennium trilogy, Larsson’s second novel is a resounding success. The story picks up two years after the events depicted in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We’re brought back into Larsson’s world again by another long, slow opening that carefully sets up the characters and provides just enough intrigue. Then we’re introduced to new and exciting players who are perfect for these books. It’s not long before the page-turning shocks start to emerge.
The development of central character Lisbeth Salander – one of crime fiction’s most startlingly original protagonists ever – is deep, complex and utterly absorbing. She is as layered as the first book led us to believe; Larsson’s intricate knitting of this with his overall plot in this installment is breathtaking.
Nevertheless, this is far from a perfect book. Again, as with the first, this novel suffers from a lack of editing. It is somewhat refreshing to see this in a crime book (which have to be tight) – and it may even be the secret to Larsson’s success – but it is very irritating. Larsson often resorts to cliché to prop up poor character introduction. Too many peripheral players are described forensically the first time they appear when it’s just not necessary. Furthermore, the descriptions are often laboured lists.
The text is also plagued by far too many poor constructions, characteristic of an amateur crime writer (which Larsson was). It’s disconcerting that his editors or publishers didn’t weed these out, and I’d certainly like to have been a fly on the wall in editorial discussions. It’s surprising that this oversight hasn’t tempered the books’ success.
For critics, the public and this reader, there are far too may positives not to rebalance Fire back into favour. It really is a lot of fun reading these books – I’m already looking forward to part three.
A most needed novel
A Most Wanted Man
By John le Carré
Many authors have published responses to the war on terror. Every day seems to offer new opportunities for writers seeking inspiration from the events in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the streets in the Western world where plots are hatched and executed. Some authors even dribble all over the fascinating topic and manage to write absolute tosh.
Le Carré has also accepted the challenge, but his perspective is so original, so cleverly woven then unspooled, that it rises above all others. At times I found le Carré’s style too obfuscating and his cast of characters too complex for what is essentially a simple story. But now, having finished the novel, everything is clear. And that clarity stretches beyond plot turns to the book’s ingenuity itself.
There is just something so credible about a le Carré novel – it seems that all other spy books are just schoolboy fantasies in comparison. Le Carré crafts a story that feels real, as complex as one expects espionage and international terror plots would be, without explosions or training camps. In A Most Wanted Man the characters are part of a secretive and sensitive transaction involving money and people. Although it would not make headlines the deal captures so succinctly the mood of the this moment and – I assume – represents the type of activity that is going on across Europe and the world as security forces hone in on suspected terrorists.
Surprising, provocative and constantly enlightening, A Most Wanted Man is highly recommended.
By John le Carré
Many authors have published responses to the war on terror. Every day seems to offer new opportunities for writers seeking inspiration from the events in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the streets in the Western world where plots are hatched and executed. Some authors even dribble all over the fascinating topic and manage to write absolute tosh.
Le Carré has also accepted the challenge, but his perspective is so original, so cleverly woven then unspooled, that it rises above all others. At times I found le Carré’s style too obfuscating and his cast of characters too complex for what is essentially a simple story. But now, having finished the novel, everything is clear. And that clarity stretches beyond plot turns to the book’s ingenuity itself.
There is just something so credible about a le Carré novel – it seems that all other spy books are just schoolboy fantasies in comparison. Le Carré crafts a story that feels real, as complex as one expects espionage and international terror plots would be, without explosions or training camps. In A Most Wanted Man the characters are part of a secretive and sensitive transaction involving money and people. Although it would not make headlines the deal captures so succinctly the mood of the this moment and – I assume – represents the type of activity that is going on across Europe and the world as security forces hone in on suspected terrorists.
Surprising, provocative and constantly enlightening, A Most Wanted Man is highly recommended.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Life affirming
The Death of Bunny Munro
By Nick Cave
Like a sexually transmitted infection, Bunny Munro is one of those characters that you come across rarely but nevertheless somehow stays with you forever.
He is a talented salesman, an abominable father, a deplorable husband and a despicable human being. He drives around sleeping with housewives while his son waits patiently in the car. He wears zebra-print pants. He doesn’t light his cigarettes; he torches them with a Zippo. In Bunny Munro, Nick Cave has created a monster – every bit as loveable as he is awful.
Cave’s magnetic rock-star style is woven into every fibre of Bunny’s being. And it is spread across every page in this hilarious, original novel. The descriptions bring this book to life like electricity to Frankenstein’s monster: they are raucous, filthy and startlingly precise. For example, when he’s exasperated after too much sex, Bunny’s forelock hangs down over his face like a used condom. It is an expertly observed image, full of character and nuance. Cave spurts four or five of these on every page.
Buoyed by this fantastic imagery, the novel roars along as we follow Bunny Munro and his nine-year-old son travelling around Brighton and its suburbs to “shake the money tree”, that is, selling beauty products to vulnerable women who don’t need them. Bunny himself is having much more than a mid-life crisis, while Bunny Junior is enduring a pre-pubescent awakening. Their dialogue is superb, nailing each character perfectly. A riot of a book: it glistens with sweat, substances and old-fashioned rock and roll.
By Nick Cave
Like a sexually transmitted infection, Bunny Munro is one of those characters that you come across rarely but nevertheless somehow stays with you forever.
He is a talented salesman, an abominable father, a deplorable husband and a despicable human being. He drives around sleeping with housewives while his son waits patiently in the car. He wears zebra-print pants. He doesn’t light his cigarettes; he torches them with a Zippo. In Bunny Munro, Nick Cave has created a monster – every bit as loveable as he is awful.
Cave’s magnetic rock-star style is woven into every fibre of Bunny’s being. And it is spread across every page in this hilarious, original novel. The descriptions bring this book to life like electricity to Frankenstein’s monster: they are raucous, filthy and startlingly precise. For example, when he’s exasperated after too much sex, Bunny’s forelock hangs down over his face like a used condom. It is an expertly observed image, full of character and nuance. Cave spurts four or five of these on every page.
Buoyed by this fantastic imagery, the novel roars along as we follow Bunny Munro and his nine-year-old son travelling around Brighton and its suburbs to “shake the money tree”, that is, selling beauty products to vulnerable women who don’t need them. Bunny himself is having much more than a mid-life crisis, while Bunny Junior is enduring a pre-pubescent awakening. Their dialogue is superb, nailing each character perfectly. A riot of a book: it glistens with sweat, substances and old-fashioned rock and roll.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Gebbie bubble
Words From A Glass Bubble
By Vanessa Gebbie
Hailed by short story competition judges and critics alike, Vanessa Gebbie has certainly made a name for herself over the past few years. Anyone on the short story scene, so to speak, will have heard of her: she is the short story lovey, graduating to a gig as editor on Salt Publishing’s recent collection of essays on how to write short fiction.
Gebbie’s stories should be top-class. But I’m afraid to say that after reading her debut collection, I was not as impressed as the judges or critics (which include Maggie Gee, Zadie Smith and Alex Keegan). I fear for my own writing career: if I can’t understand what’s so supernova about Gebbie, I’ve no chance of learning from her.
That is not to say that the stories in Words are poor or unmoving. They are original, delicate and illuminating. But they are also clinical and, occasionally, even contrived. Take “Closed Doors”: a story that details the observations of a shoe shiner on the guests in the hotel where he works. Each room has a different guest, a different story, an alternate glimpse at life and how people live it. This premise is so incredibly contrived that I began to think Gebbie had employed it for some greater purpose. When the story ended, I was very disappointed: it felt like an exercise a creative writing lecturer would pull to pieces. (This is made all the more tragic by the fact that Gebbie herself is one of the most respected creative writing teachers in the UK.)
I didn’t like the working-class voices that feature prominently in some stories. To me, they sounded inauthentic and even patronising: the characters sounded stupid and inarticulate just because of their class.
The protagonist in “Cactus Man”, an adoptee who is trying to find out details of his birth parents, knows a lot about botany. The Latin names for houseplants trip off his tongue easily, but Gebbie fails to show why this is central to his character. It remains nothing more than a gimmick.
And yet, Gebbie has won more awards than she’ll have space for in her cabinet for sure. I’m obviously missing something – probably her next book.
By Vanessa Gebbie
Hailed by short story competition judges and critics alike, Vanessa Gebbie has certainly made a name for herself over the past few years. Anyone on the short story scene, so to speak, will have heard of her: she is the short story lovey, graduating to a gig as editor on Salt Publishing’s recent collection of essays on how to write short fiction.
Gebbie’s stories should be top-class. But I’m afraid to say that after reading her debut collection, I was not as impressed as the judges or critics (which include Maggie Gee, Zadie Smith and Alex Keegan). I fear for my own writing career: if I can’t understand what’s so supernova about Gebbie, I’ve no chance of learning from her.
That is not to say that the stories in Words are poor or unmoving. They are original, delicate and illuminating. But they are also clinical and, occasionally, even contrived. Take “Closed Doors”: a story that details the observations of a shoe shiner on the guests in the hotel where he works. Each room has a different guest, a different story, an alternate glimpse at life and how people live it. This premise is so incredibly contrived that I began to think Gebbie had employed it for some greater purpose. When the story ended, I was very disappointed: it felt like an exercise a creative writing lecturer would pull to pieces. (This is made all the more tragic by the fact that Gebbie herself is one of the most respected creative writing teachers in the UK.)
I didn’t like the working-class voices that feature prominently in some stories. To me, they sounded inauthentic and even patronising: the characters sounded stupid and inarticulate just because of their class.
The protagonist in “Cactus Man”, an adoptee who is trying to find out details of his birth parents, knows a lot about botany. The Latin names for houseplants trip off his tongue easily, but Gebbie fails to show why this is central to his character. It remains nothing more than a gimmick.
And yet, Gebbie has won more awards than she’ll have space for in her cabinet for sure. I’m obviously missing something – probably her next book.
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