Booker reviews

Yes, am back in London. First things first. Long overdue, I know. But better late.....

Reviews from this year's Booker Mela:
(Cat: I am still waiting for yours)

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Gathering by Anne Enright - Falstaff
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid - Veena
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies - Falstaff
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones - Falstaff, Veena
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - Falstaff, Bill
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn - Falstaff, Veena
Consolation by Michael Redhill - Falstaff
Animal's People by Indra Sinha - Falstaff
Winnie & Wolf by A.N. Wilson

On Chesil Beach

Falstaff's review of McEwan's On Chesil Beach here.

All Mela reviews up until now available here.

This and that

Generally busy at work and stuff. So couple of random updates.

1. So I had to go to the US Consulate yesterday to get visa done[1]. (Aside - TR: Exactly how many times have you been to the States in the last ten years? I had eight entries and the form had enough space for at least four more. Or is this some special form you Profs have to fill?) Having not been to the US consulate in a while, I had forgotten how painful the experience is. So anyway, I was sitting in the waiting room cursing myself for not carrying a book when I saw this Visit USA Travel Planner lying around. Page 47 - a half pager about the great lake state of Michigan with a couple of pictures. The star picture looked familiar, so I looked again. Lake Michigan, yes, but the skyline was that of Chicago! Stealing the Chicago skyline to con poor Londoners to go to Michigan! WTF?

2. This whole magic realism thing. I love it, some of my favorite writers fall into this category but I always felt that I never completely got it. I wouldn't be lying if I say that for the most part, I am partial to the non-magic world. There, I have said it. Shoot me. Now for the part which is going me get me tortured. These writers who weave all this magic stories. Its not that they are not capable of doing the real world (yeah right, Marquez can't do real world), after all, the best of these writers are the ones who tie in the real so gloriously with the unreal (or the "internal" if you want to call it that), but its that they are just not serious enough about reality. I think at the end of the day they just don't care that much about it. But if you bloody well have so much passion for it and you can write about it so well, why do you need to resort to these magical experiments (especially when they are simply not your forte)? Why the fuck do you need Saleem Sinai when you have Animal? I don't get it. But apart from that, I loved it. If you read just one on the shortlist, read this book. It's a ride you won't forget that easily. Indra Sinha's Animal' s People. My pick for the Booker.

[1] Yes, yes, I am going to the see the city by the lake. The second reason why I took current job (first being the rent) was that I get to go to Chicago thrice a year. So cool, no?

Mister Pip

Falstaff reviews Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip here.

My review of the same book:

The blurb was all about the transformative power of books, and how a lone white man in a remote South Pacific island changes peoples' lives by reading Great Expectations to them during a blockade. Doesn't exactly sound promising, does it? That's what I figured too, and I gave up for a while after reading the first chapter. The book begins with the narrator talking about a white man nicknamed Pop Eye who used to drag his huge native wife through the village on a trolley in the afternoons. This Pop Eye guy even has a red clown nose. The writing was simple and engaging but really, I wasn't going to read another of these things. When it appeared on the shortlist a few days later, I felt vindicated - yes, look, they even put it on that shortlist, it can't be that good. Yesterday, I decided to give it one more try - after all, its about Great Expectations[1], how bad can it be?

Well, not bad at all. Its the best of the ones on the shortlist that I have read but that doesn't mean much as the other two are the McEwan and the Hamid. But that's really all that I can say about it! The story is set in the early 1990s, and it is narrated by Matilda, originally of Bougainville, now an immigrant Australian. Matilda is thirteen when the blockade begins. The world has forgotten their fertile little island, the boys have all gone to join the rebels ("rambos"), the "redskins" fly above in their choppers, the teachers have taken the last boat out. Mr Watts aka Pop Eye, the only white man in the village agrees to teach the children. He introduces them to Mr Dickens through Great Expectations. Matilda, like most other children immediately takes to the rimy mornings and the marshes of Victorian England, and falls in love with Pip and Joe Gaggery. To her mother's chagrin, Pip becomes more dear to her than the relatives in the family tree, or the God that her mother worships with a dangerous intensity. The situation worsens as is expected, and its only a matter of time before the redskins get to the village. Any world would be nice to escape to in such a situation, and (I guess) Dickensian England qualifies.

Jones's writing is simple but clever, folksy in a way, and his descriptions of the island and the people are charming. The problem though is that it doesn't go much beyond "charming". The characters are stereotypes, (though they speak in a really endearing manner) and its left to the reader to figure out why Pip should prove to be important to Matilda or anyone else for that matter. Its almost as if any other book or character would have done quite as well - why Pip? why Dickens? (As Falstaff points out somewhere in his review, one gets the feeling that Enid Blyton and the Famous Five would have done quite as well)

But wait, we aren't done with the story yet. Jones is not content with letting Pip live in his fictitious world, and this (sort of) saves the book. The redskins arrive, and seeing the beach-side shrine that Matilda built for Pip, they are convinced that Pip is a rebel and demand that he be handed over. With that, Pip is solidly in the island, he is one of them. Atrocities happen as expected and I don't want to give away the rest of the plot but will just say that it involves a story within a story narrative where Mr Watts spins his life, the stories of the islanders, and the story of Pip, basically everything that we have read so far into a neat yarn spread over seven nights. Interested? Go read.

Again, Jones is a clever writer, and I especially liked the way he describes the atrocities of war. So simple, understated, matter-of-fact and yet it conveys so much. The problem is that you don't really feel for the characters - I am reading about these brutalities thinking how clever the writing is, and not really about what the thirteen year old protagonist is going through and that doesn't seem quite right. Also, Jones unfortunately doesn't end the story in the island - he goes on for another fifty or so pages about Matilda's Dad, and Australia, and England and Dickens which is all very inane and serves no purpose whatsoever.

So did I like it? Yeah, it was nice. Pleasant reading. The writing is cool, some parts of the narrative are engrossing, and its good to see the author going beyond just the escapism theme. Worth a read, I would say. But it doesn't stay in the mind - because the characters are two-dimensional, the plot is contrived (which would have been okay if the characters were sketeched out well), and Jones tries a little too hard - he so much wants not to be the outsider, and he so wants us to like the characters that the effort is what shows up throughout. Not much in terms of results.

[1] Is there anyone in the world whose favorite Dickens is not Great Expectations? Really?

Animal's Spirit

Falstaff's review of Indra Sinha's Animal's People here. I think he likes it - I didn't read the review in its entirety as I read a couple of chapters at the bookstore and would like to read it without any spoilers. So.

Booker shortlist

Booker shortlist is out. Here.

On the shortlist, we have:

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Animal's People by Indra Sinha

Mela reviews so far:

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Gathering by Anne Enright - Falstaff
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid - Veena
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies - Falstaff
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - Bill
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn - Falstaff, Veena
Consolation by Michael Redhill - Falstaff
Animal's People by Indra Sinha
Winnie & Wolf by A.N. Wilson

The shortlist includes a couple of books that I think shouldn't be there, but hey, there's a reason why they don't let me sit on these things! Its been a very unproductive work for me in terms of reading but hopefully can make up for that later in the month. Anyway, we still have a month to go, so if you have any reviews up, let me know.

On Chesil Beach

Another Booker review as part of the Mela. Bill (yes, Bill. See what all some "well intentioned laziness" on my part can do!) on Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach:

The billboards in London are announcing the film version of Atonement. As a person who really liked that book, I am very skeptical of a film version starring Keira Knightley, and by the director of last year's Pride and Prejudice, no less. What I would have no problems with, however, is with them adapting On Chesil Beach to the screen. It might even improve on the book, since it's hard to see how they could make it worse (famous last words).

Two days ago, I wouldn't have thought I would say this of a McEwan book. Even the books that are admittedly not his best, like The Innocent, for instance, are books I admire for his precise descriptions of mood, of characters. He can create an atmosphere that you know is fictional but are engrossed in nonetheless. With those expectations, this book comes across as even more of a disappointment than it would have been otherwise.

The story is about the honeymoon night of a young English couple, in the year 1962. Florence and Edward are trapped hopelessly in an old-fashioned conventionality, unaware of the approaching sexual revolution (nineteen-sixty-three, as Larkin tells us. I don't know much more, but this guy surely does). This is the first time either of them are going to have sex, and both carry a heavy baggage of anxieties and preoccupations. A lot of repressed emotions, things left unsaid, and endless fumbling later, the night will end in tragedy.

The plot of course is nothing to write home about, but McEwan can transform even the thinnest of plots and make it engrossing. This time he doesn't actually succeed, partly because the characters are extremely unconvincing caricatures. Florence comes from an upper class family, with an Oxford philosophy professor for her mother and a successful businessman for her father. She herself plays violin in a classical music quintet. (what else!) And Edward is from solid middle-class background, with all his friends gone to trade schools. He is busy trying to hide his country background at University by pretending not to know the names of trees. Not satisfied with this rich girl poor boy dynamic, we then get chaste girl horny boy also. Florence has once before run away screaming when Edward placed her hand on his groin. Edward cannot stop longing for sex, in the "long lazy afternoons, before going to sleep, after waking up" before his wedding.

McEwan seems to set out to explore the consequences of repression and decorum, in a polite English world. The mood is set by the very first sentence: They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. That sentence pretty much sums up the book. My problem with the book is that he never delivers on the promise of the sentence that follows: But it is never easy. Embarrassment is not unknown during a first-time encounter with sex even in our enlightened times, and surprising though it may seem, people actually did have sex before the sexual revolution (in industrial quantities too!). Exploring that era needs something more than a "Oh, they couldn't talk about it".

What Was Lost

First, Falstaff doesn't seem to like The Welsh Girl

Moving on to what I think of Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost:

There's really nothing I have to say about this book that hasn't been said already, far more eloquently too, but I liked the book enough to risk the repetition charges so here goes. (But I promise to keep it short)

In 1984, ten year old Kate Meaney opens her own detective agency Falcon Investigations and sets out to find crime in Green Oaks shopping center. Kate lives with her grandmother in a run down Birmingham neighborhood and goes to school with kids from the housing estates. She spends her summers and holidays at Green Oaks hoping to nab bank robbers. Kate is intelligent and diligent, and her attempts at being a real detective makes those of us who attempted this at fourteen feel very stupid. Kate thinks she has a prospective suspect, and the book moves on to 2003 to the lives of a security guard Kurt who sees Kate's ghost on CCTV, and Lisa, a duty manager at a music store whose brother was suspected of having something to do with Kate's disappearance. Green Oaks has grown too during these years, into the sprawling monster that we all know by different names - Schaumburg Mall, Oxford St, The Forum. Kurt and Lisa, miserable in their dead-end jobs and lives, get together to find the little girl gone missing nearly twenty years ago and the mystery is finally unraveled.

Life as seen through a ten year old's eyes is not exactly easy to do, but O'Flynn does this almost effortlessly - the first part of the book which deals with Kate's drab life and her adventures, or rather her search for exciting adventures is charming and utterly delightful to read. (Of course premium office supplies are very important to an effective investigator. Who among us has not been enamored by the stationery cupboards in school and in the stores and not deemed them essential for whatever it is that we were doing right then?) The professionalism that Kate displays in her investigative work is exemplary, something that only a precocious ten year old is capable of, and something which will make you fall in love with this child with her monkey.

With Kurt and Lisa, O'Flynn is not as comfortable - a bit clunky when Kurt and Lisa talk about their unhappy states of mind but O'Flynn doesn't delve too long there; she switches to their everyday tasks and the people they work with, and these parts are lovely. A missing brother who sends birthday tapes every year, a mother who still shops in the High St, a conversation with a co-worker given to violent urges, a corporate trainer who goes on about helicopters and ladders, the imminent store inspection which (almost) never materializes all manage to be so depressingly funny. The most important character in the novel other than Kate is Green Oaks itself and here, in describing the mall and the people who inhabit it, who make it the monster that it has become, O'Flynn is just perfect. How does one manage such a scathing critique of the lives we lead in what is clearly an emotional story about a missing girl? Or wait, is it really the loss of our moral and intellectual lives that O'Flynn is talking about while cleverly inserting the poignant story of a ten year old detective? Well, you will have to go read the book to figure that out.

So all's perfect then, you ask? Not really. In an attempt to tie in all loose ends, the plot becomes way too twisted. But if you think this book is about the plot once you have read it, you need to get your head checked. Really. Oh, and one more thing. Falstaff mentions this in his review but I have a feeling this will sound more credible coming from me - What Was Lost is one of the most accessible books that I have read in recent months. Just because Falstaff loves it so much does NOT mean its not readable. Quite the contrary. It is a fast read and in all probability, you will finish it in less than three hours. O'Flynn's success is precisely that she manages to put in so much in what is a hugely enjoyable read. (And it is to find authors such as O'Flynn that we have long lists. And Melas!)

PS: Just received word from library that three of my reservations Mister Pip, Winnie and Wolf, and Darkmans are all available for pickup. The weekend is looking very good, methinks!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Since Falstaff's refused to review a couple of books, I figured I will do them first before moving to the others. Here's my take on Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist

In a cafe in Lahore's Old Anarkali district, a bearded Pakistani named Changez converses with an American who happens to be in the area. The conversation is one-sided, humility mixed with a good amount of sarcasm. The narrator talks about his life in the States and his reasons for his return to his homeland. His intentions and the identity of the American remain unknown; they are immaterial. Changez's story goes something like this:

Changez comes from an upper middle class family from Lahore where even the women are professionals. His upbringing is that of a typical upper class male (though slowly dropping off from that strata) in the developing world. He goes to Princeton on a scholarship and his life there is unremarkable. After a successful interview with a valuation firm called Underwood Samson (US), Changez moves to New York. He takes to NY and US, and the focus of his life is on "fundamentals" as US wants it to be. He rises fast and becomes the Boss's favorite. He also gets into a relationship with an all-American Princetonian called Erica, and through her is inducted into NY society.

While on a business trip to Manila, Sep 11 happens and watching it on TV, our man smiles at the symbolism of it. Back in the States, the world is changing. The attack on Afghanistan, racial profiling and slurs that he is subjected to, a trip back to the homeland, another trip to Chile where the client talks to him about janissaries and most of all, the alienation of Erica who now lives only in nostalgia all make Changez realise that he is wasting his time in the States. He quits his job, packs his bags and moves back to Pakistan. Whether he is a different kind of a fundamentalist now, one which the world is more familiar with, is left unanswered.

Its a nice enough setup, interesting in a number of ways. Hamid's writing is smooth and the book is a real fast read. The atmosphere is just right - one gets the feeling of sitting in a cafe, chilled out, listening to this man's story. Hamid, like good diasporic writers is very good with cultural displacement - his comparisons between Manila and Lahore, his reactions to Erica's father's remarks on Pakistan, the lack of refinment that he finds in his fellow Princetonians, their disregard for money, even the smile when the Towers come down are nice touches which most immigrants in the New World will be able to associate with. But beyond that, there's nothing more to the book - the plot is trite, Changez's transformation is too simplistic. The characters - Jim, Erica, Changez - are engaging but they all seem etched out by pop Western imagination than by anyone who's walked the streets of Lahore and Mahattan. The monologue, Changez's relationship with Erica which mirrors his relationship with America, the names of the characters are all interesting but in the absence of a credible storyline they seem mere stunts that are there to make up for the lack of a plot.

The other issue that bugs me about the book is this: we live in times when conversations between the West and the Islamic world are absolutely essential. Fundamentalism can be of more than one kind, everyone who disagrees with America is not a terrorist are all ideas that everyone should be made aware of and Hamid is to be appreciated for starting this conversation. But here's the thing: this book is currently on the Times bestseller list. Millions of Americans read this and (perhaps) think that they understand the other side, the terrorist psyche, they understand Changez. For some reason, that's a little disconcerting.

Don't get me wrong, its a nice enough book and I liked it. I would readily pick it up at an airport bookstore to keep me entertained on a short flight. As long as its understood that this is mostly entertainment, and it is not hugely insightful or substantative. Which is why I think that the right tribute for this book is not the Booker (though considering the times, its not surprising that it made it to the longlist) but a Hollywood adaptation. Which I am sure will happen soon enough.

Booker links etc.

Mela reviews while I have been away: Falstaff on Anne Enright's The Gathering here. And just so that you think he reviews only forgettable books, he think Catherine O'Flyn's What Was Lost a splendid read.

Just got back after a couple of weeks of eating fish and lazing about. Three flight related questions:

1. Can anyone please tell me why is it that in all major London airports (Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted), it doesn't matter which gate you fly into, you always always walk at least 20 minutes to get to the immigration counters? In no other country this seems to be the case. I mean, its not like other airports aren't busy or anything. The most flights that I have taken have been into or out of O'Hare and the most one takes to get to immigration is about 10 minutes. And yes, its busier than Heathrow.

2. Who decides in-flight entertainment on Emirates? They have some comedy where they claim to bring in news tickers from the BBC. On my flight from Calcutta to Dubai, the only two pieces of news that happened were regarding: a China Airlines place that caught fire in Japan and some enquiry into last month's Brazil plane crash. Right after these news stories happened, the pilot announced that we were going to land in Dubai in 20 minutes. That helped me feel better for a few minutes until I realised that we didn't seem to be going anywhere - the plane was just turning around. I checked the aircraft map (which is the only inflight entertainment I usually watch) and I was right! The plane had turned 180 degrees and was heading straight back into the Gulf, at this rate we will be in Karachi in an hour. I was sure this was a hijacking but no else seemed concerned. I immediately tuned to air traffic control (which ofcourse is the only inflight channel I listen to) but only static there. It was another 20 minutes before the pilot announced that we were in some sort of holding pattern which would continue for another hour.

3. Are there any bookstores in Dubai airport? It has numerous department stores and stuff but I couldn't find a single bookstore. On my flight here, I was reading Ryszard
Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life and in an essay on Ethiopia, he talks about how there is only one bookstore in the entire country and even that's filled with empty shelves. Obviously this is just the airport, but the airport is a reflection of the country and consumer traffic through it, no?

Consolation

First of the Mela reviews - Falstaff finds Michael Redhill's Consolation, a novel about preserving the past unsurprising and well, forgettable.

Booker Mela time

Yes, its that time of the year again - the 2007 Man Booker longlist is out. There are a lot of relatively unknown people on the list and since I am running very behind on my resolution of reading one unread author every month[1], this seems like a great way to rectify that. So I am going to try to read as many books on the list as possible. How about you?

Here's the complete longlist. Please let me know if you plan to review any of these before Oct, the 16th.

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Gathering by Anne Enright - Falstaff
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid - Veena
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies - Falstaff
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones - Falstaff, Veena
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - Falstaff, Bill
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn - Falstaff, Veena
Consolation by Michael Redhill - Falstaff
Animal's People by Indra Sinha - Falstaff
Winnie & Wolf by A.N. Wilson

[1] I have read lots of new authors this year but mostly bite-size portions thanks to Granta's Best Young American novelists, so it cannot be counted. I LOVE Gary Shteyngart btw.