Mile-O's Book Reviews

Atiq Rahimi: Earth And Ashes

First published in 2000, Atiq Rahimi's Earth And Ashes is a short novella set in his native Afghanistan (he's another one of those writers that run away to France, like Milan Kundera and Gao Xingjian when the going gets tough) during the time of the Russian occupation. Told in the second person, it puts the reader into the shoes - or should that be sandals? - of Dastaguir, and elderly man sitting at the roadside with his grandson, Yassin, for company.

The story revolves around Dastaguir (that's you!) taking his grandson to see Murad, the link between their generations. Murad works in a mine out in the mountains, a barren landscape of loose rock and dust. His mother, wife, and brother have just been lost when their village has been razed to the ground by Russian bombs. Dastaguir, with Yassin, has travelled to the mine to inform his son of the fate which has befallen their family.

The writing, like the landscape, is sparse but conveys much. The translator has brought a certain pathos to the words so that the losses of war imply tragic emotions without explicitly stating. Not only are family members lost but their homes are gone, the war seems to have beaten them, and, since Yassin has lost his hearing from a bomb blast, there is the hint of tradition being lost. Oral history is worthless when passing it down to a boy who cannot hear.

Earth And Ashes is a great little tale, it's brevity in no way indicative of its power. Despite its setting, the fable of Dastaguir, by inviting you to see with his eyes, opens it up to be more of an international affair. The landscapes are blank enough for you to fill in the details; the oppressors mentioned only in name for you to replace with your own.

Guillermo Arriaga: A Sweet Scent Of Death

A Sweet Scent Of Death is the second novel by Mexican author and screenplay writer, Guillermo Arriaga, although you probably sort-of know him better as the guy who wrote Amores Perros and 21 Grams. It's one of those novels that you know from the start whether you are going to like it, or not.

It is the story of a small Mexican village, Loma Grande, where one day the naked body of a teenage girl is found, and how the finger of blame, when coupled with hearsay, escalates to such a point that it ends with violence. A local boy, Ramon Castanos, had an unspoken of fancy for the murdered girl but his grief leads the villagers to believe they were actually secret lovers. The girl's secret letters, peppered with coded messages, lead him to believe that she felt the same way for him. And the villages, wanting the murder avenged, force Ramon into killing her attacker. But who was it? One man claims to have seen frequent visitor, the Gypsy, frollicking in the bushes with the murdered lady but it was actually Gabriela, who is married to Pedro Salgado, and he would kill her if he knew she was cheating on him. So, unable to defend the Gypsy she can only watch on helpless, much like most of the implicated characters here, as events snowball to the denouement.

It's a great plot, but it belongs in the movies. A Sweet Scent Of Death reads like a movie and it's for that reason I knew I wouldn't like it from the start - I did, however, press on. The translation, also, felt lacking, the prose sometimes feeling lifeless.

There's too many characters in this novel, most with little to add to the narrative other than to goad Ramon into killing the Gypsy. And, due to its cinematic style, the author rarely gets within the heads of his players, preferring to describe their actions. Rather than someone swither over to kill someone, a shaky hand for illustration, it would have been far more satisfying to get inside their head and show the turmoil and guilt they felt.

Overall, a good idea with great plotting but let down by some really shoddy prose. If Arriaga ever gets round to it, then you'd be best served waiting for the film to come out.

Louise Welsh: Tamburlaine Must Die

I read Welsh's first release, The Cutting Room, when the paperback was released and I read it during a day off work. Looking back, I wish I'd went to work but my memories of the book were that it was dull. The only interesting part, for me, was Glasgow and being able to comment on places I knew. I don't even remember the ending or how it came about; it just happened and thought along the lines of "Whatever, almost done now!"

So, given that it was a first work, I decided to try her second, the historical novella called Tamburlaine Must Die. Here's the blurb from the inside cover:

1593 and London is a city on edge. Under threat from plague and war, it's a desperate place where strangers are unwelcome and severed heads grin from spikes on Tower Bridge.

Playwright, poet and spy, Christopher Marlowe has three days to live. Three days in which he confronts dangerous government factions, double agents, necromancy, betrayal and revenge in his search for the murderous Tamburlaine, a killer who has escaped from between the pages of his most violent play...

Tamburlaine Must De is the swashbuckling adventure story of a man who dares to defy both God and State - and discovers that there are worse fates than damnation.

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From that you would think it was a fun bit of historical fiction rife with twists and turns, dark moments, and something to say on the topics of religion, the state, crime, and the black arts. Instead it's a fast paced dirge bereft of anything resembling excitement or content. But, just to shock you, it has a bit of gratuitous homosexual sex to kick off the proceedings.

Whatever Welsh's intentions were with this novella, they were most certainly not achieved. She sets the story in London, a city for which authors down the years have shown us all the nooks and crannies, but the pages are lifeless. London, who should be a character in herself, comes across as a sleepy hamlet. The novella hints at issues such as religion and politics but they are mostly background mentions, tangential to the story of Marlowe that this book deals with. And, finally, the characters, including the narrator, are lack-lustre, each one failing to leap out of the page which is hardly the stuff of a self-proclaimed swashbuckler. At the very least it could have looked deeper into the Marlowe history rather than seem like a below par interpretation of German film, Run Lola Run, with one act.

The problem with Welsh's writing in Tamburlaine Must Die is that she seems to rely too heavily on nouns to create pictures. So, rather than waste paper by building up an atmosphere in a dusty bookshop, for example, she just lists books and other curiosities: ballads, woodcuts, poems, romances, prayer books, etc. Despite all the people in the bookshop, there is no life in any of them.

All in all, it's just a dull book with little to say on anything.

John McPhee: Oranges

First published in the 1960s, Oranges by twice Pulitzer winning journalist, John McPhee got a limited lease of life back in 2000 when Penguin reissued it as a modern classic. And while it’s an interesting little book covering pretty much everything to do with oranges, the reportage within doesn’t so much as ground the book in its time than date it

You may think that there is not much to say about fruit in general, never mind being specific. But that’s where you’d be wrong as, it turns out, the orange has a catalogue of facts literally bursting with juicy trivia. It begins with uses for the fruit around the world, covering methods of eating, seasoning, and even cleaning the floor and removing grease. It explores the etymology of both the fruit’s name, and it’s scientific name, Citrus Sinensis. Along the way, as it spouts nugget of information in quick succession, we see the orange in history as it began its two thousand year westward journey from China to the Americas until orange growing and juicing became a worldwide industry within itself.

Splitting up chapters of trivia, McPhee shares the outcomes of his meetings with orange barons, orange growers, and other assorted industry types. While interesting to read, the text is littered with anecdotes containing names that will mean nothing to anyone other than their immediate families. And, to top it off, there is a section whereby we learn of new methods being introduced to improve the industry that, even if you have no experience of it, you know has long since been superceded by methods. It doesn’t take a genius to know that in a world rife with technology and technological gains, that the huge workforce mentioned in Oranges has long since been made redundant or replaced by immigrant workers.

McPhee’s style is immensely readable, the way he dances from fact to fact a delight to read, and when he injects some humour to his catalogue of orange facts, you can’t help but raise a smile – at the joke and in appreciation of its wording. His anecdotes do drag, and I think it wouldn’t be uncommon to breath a sigh of relief once they conclude.

It’s a quick read and a quirky subject, and McPhee’s research is to be commended, although much of the journalistic writing –reading it forty years on from publication - has soured. That said, if you know nothing of the orange industry – and oranges in general – then Oranges is a fun little book that should quench that specific hole in your trivia.

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa: Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

I bought the new Penguin Classic, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Japanese author, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), with the intention of furthering my knowledge of Japanese fiction and its writers beyond Mishima and the spaghetti obsessed Murakami. What I found in this collection is an interesting mix of stories providing an adequate introduction to Akutagawa, but not enough, perhaps, to interest me further.

Preceded by a foreward by the aforementioned Haruki Murakami, the collection is split into four parts by translator Jay Rubin. This division is to differentiate the works between different parts of the author's short life much like Picasso's output can be pigeonholed into such periods as blue and rose. So, we have his early retelling of Japanese legends and anecdotes through to conflicts between native religion and Christianity missionaries, on to modern works highlighting both tragic and comic circumstances, before reaching his biographical work in which he showcased his own madness.

For me, the earlier stories of Akutagawa proved more interesting. Rashōmon, which provided the title for Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film, is followed by In A Bamboo Grove, the story upon which the film was based. The Nose, a comic tale of vanity, is followed by the great Dragon: A Potter's Tale, which in turn is followed by the wonderful, albeit predictable, Hell Screen, a story about an artist who requires to see his subject matter so that he may capture it on canvas; thus, when commissioned to paint Hell, he sets about having his vision of Hell recreated before him so that he may recreate it with measured strokes.

Of the later stories there are few standouts, although that may just be my preference for stories set in a highly romanticised medieval Japan than in a period (the 1920s) in which I know little of the nation. The stereotypical legends of samurai, peasants, and overlords sit far more comfortably with me than a beautiful history deeply influenced by western imports. One of the better stories is Horse Legs, a Kafkaesque tale in which a Japanese Gregor Samsa wakes to find that he has equine legs, complete with hooves, and there follows comic situations as he attempts to hide his secret from everyone, notably the wife whom he shares his bed. The Writer’s Craft was another story that sat well with me, a tale about how the appreciation of an author’s work is not determined by the time put in but by how others interpret it within their own lives.

The collection gathers together a blend of Akutagawa’s well known short pieces in addition to a bunch of stories translated to English for the first time. While some of these freshly translated stories appealed, I couldn’t help feel it was a cynical attempt to force a few new tales on those already initiated with the author’s work: one story, for example, is just a fragment of a longer unfinished piece.

Akutagawa’s writing, at least in translation, is certainly vibrant and his stories come at you from all manner of narrators, the most common seeming to be told from the point of view of someone who witnessed the events but was not integral to the plot. Later stories, such as The Life Of A Stupid Man, show interesting attempts at style but the narrative (a series of numbered paragraphs with individual titles) is so personal that it would seem to be only of interest to friends and family of the author, in addition to Akutagawa scholars.

All in, this book serves to give me an introduction to the author and, with the extensive footnotes, a further understanding of different periods in Japan’s history. But, given my indifference to many of the stories, especially Akutagawa’s more personal pieces, I doubt I’ll go in search of his previously translated works, although the occasional retelling of previous Japanese tales may be enough to pique my interest in much the same way a cookie may keep me satisfied until teatime.

SJ McAbney said:

meaning to review another two Ishiguro novels, some more Faber, Steinbeck, and more, but I'm conscious of the time between now and then.

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Have you read Never Let Me Go? I thought it was excellent. Chillingly futile and sad though. For that reason I'd be reluctant to read it again soon.

I've started A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. Reserve judgement for now.

dt01pqt said:

Have you read Never Let Me Go? I thought it was excellent. Chillingly futile and sad though. For that reason I'd be reluctant to read it again soon.

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I read Never Let Me Go and thought that, while it was a great book, it still wasn't as good as The Remains Of The Day. I think that the latter, having a narrator who deceives himself, just pipped it in my Ishiguro league because unreliable narrators are far more interesting than those simply trying to make sense of the world around them.

Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has written a novel that seems to be mentioned in the same breath as Never Let Me Go, because of the subject matter. The novel is Oryx & Crake, but given that I'm not a fan of Atwood's style I'm unlikely to read it.

SJ McAbney said:

I read Never Let Me Go and thought that, while it was a great book, it still wasn't as good as The Remains Of The Day. I think that the latter, having a narrator who deceives himself, just pipped it in my Ishiguro league because unreliable narrators are far more interesting than those simply trying to make sense of the world around them.

Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has written a novel that seems to be mentioned in the same breath as Never Let Me Go, because of the subject matter. The novel is Oryx & Crake, but given that I'm not a fan of Atwood's style I'm unlikely to read it.

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I think they are both good books. What I thought was interesting in Never Let Me Go was how the clones are not like us and how it is designed to make the reader feel uncomfortable because of the distinct lack of resistance and their morose attitude to the inevitability of their fate. Also how they don't try to understand everything, only what immediately concerns them. In their mindset the best that they could hope for was a delay in some sort of official capacity.

Uzodinma Iweala: Beasts Of No Nation

Trying out a debutante author can be a huge step into the unknown but, with praise from Rushdie, Ghosh, and a number of British broadsheets adorning the cover, it’s a step I decided to take with Beasts Of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala, an unsentimental study of war through the eyes of a child soldier. And it doesn’t disappoint, providing a detailed series of events that add background to the stories of civil war in Africa that we often see in the news, although its arching tale of chilling conflicts and unspeakable acts is somewhat let down by a somewhat fortunate conclusion - for the character, that is, and not the reader.

Agu, our narrator, tells us not where he is from or how old he is but begins by giving an account of how he became a soldier when his village was raided and he ran from the scene into the clutches of a band of rebels. Then, before he knows it he is following the command of two men (early twenties, at most) called Commandant and Luftenant as they lead their band of boy soldiers across the nation for the cause.

The cause itself is never mentioned; Agu doesn’t actually know what he is fighting for. He is only able to differentiate between the time before war came (which becomes more and more a faded memory) and now. But, to aid the cause, Agu’s troop find themselves killing at random, raping women, burning villages to the ground, and stealing. Beasts Of No Nation is a catalogue of man’s inhumanity to man in the time of war and its lists expands to include prostitution, cannibalism, and child sexual abuse. While never explicit in his description, it’s the suggestion of these acts, as described by Agu, that resonate.

As a soldier, Agu doesn’t know what he is meant to be doing. In fact, the only soldiers who seem to have a clue are Commandant and Luftenant:

Commandant is yelling, TENSHUN and I am seeing that now all of us is standing here and all of us is forming tenshun very quickly. Then, Commandant is saying to us that we should be behaving ourself and looking sharp and resting well well that we will be knowing what is happening in some time. Everybody is listening, but nobody is really understanding what he is saying about moving to the front and fighting the enemy in this place or that place because I am never seeing this place or that place for my whole life. Anyway, it is not mattering too much because I am just following order and not having to do anything else. After he is shouting on us like this, he is telling us to dismiss and make camp.

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Rather than be soldiers, the kids are more interested in looking like soldiers. They carry guns or machetes and wear uniforms to show status. Uniforms, itself, becomes a loose term since any clothing they can find – soldier, policeman, etc. – is taken from the dead and wore with pride.

As you can tell from the quote above, Agu’s narration is given authenticity by mixing tenses, incorrect use of plural and singular terms,. The effect, at times, can be poetic and his voice assumes a wonderful rhythm. There were a couple of times where I had to read the sentence again to work out what had just been said. My only criticism of using this style is that Agu has a limited vocabulary and I noticed him using the same similes (like bullets; like ants) on multiple occasions. Fair enough, given that it’s the character’s voice, but it felt like the narrative could achieve more with some extra vocabulary.

If I was to have any major criticism of Beasts Of No Nation it is that Agu is surplus to requirements within his own narrative. The conclusion of the novel (or, at least, the penultimate conclusion) is perpetrated by another character which renders Agu as observer and not master of his own destiny which one would hope for in a character study.

Of the aforementioned reviews on the cover of the book, the one that rings true most is Rushdie’s, when he says “this guy is going to be very, very good”. It’s a good little novel, it shows some truth about conflicts we rarely think of when war is mentioned, and gives a voice to the images of child soldiers splashed occasionally on the news; but it’s not quite perfect.

Ian Cross: The God Boy

Were it not for my rather unnatural obsession as regards collecting all of the Penguin Classics, I may never have heard of The God Boy by New Zealand journalist, Ian Cross. Written in the late fifties, this debut novel falls somewhere between Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye (which I am yet to read) and Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. I believe it is hailed as a classic in his home land - in much the same way Grassic Gibbons’ Sunset Song is in Scotland – and forms (or at least once formed) part of the school curriculum – but don’t quote me on that.

The story is told by thirteen year old Jimmy Sullivan who is recounting the events in his life two years previous when his world changed forever. His world back then was the coastal town of Raggleton where he lived with his parents and went to Catholic school. His elder sister, Molly, lived in Wellington. Jimmy’s day to day activities include going to school, hanging around with his friends, and talking with an elderly Raggleton resident (called Bloody Jack) down by the harbour. When not embroiled in such pursuits he turns his attention to the question of God.

Jimmy has a problem with God. While the sisters at school feed him all the usual nonsense, his interpretation is that God is a literal being. And, when he is told that God frowns upon bad behaviour by punishing those that sin, Jimmy believes that he is being reprimanded from up on high when the family life around him begins to disintegrate. His father’s a drunk, his mother has a secret abortion, and their disdain for each other grows throughout the novel. Jimmy, always thinking he is to blame, attributes their arguments to the new bike he begged for and received and even offers to give it back if that will stop the trouble.

Aside from such innocence, Jimmy has some methods for dealing with the strife in his household. He calls them his ‘protection tricks’ and whenever his parents devolve into quarrel he finds solace in singing songs and plunging his hands into scalding hot water. His confusion around Catholic ritual is typically shown here in that, while he doesn’t care for all that religious stuff, his songs sometimes include the Hail Mary.

All through The God Boy, Jimmy’s anger grows until one day he lashes out at God and finds a new mean streak (swearing at an old lady, throwing stones at a friend, smashing a window) which, when the novel’s end comes around, Jimmy believes is what he is being punished for until he realises that he is not to blame – he’s made all the effort and God hasn’t even lifted a finger.

Like Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, the narration by a child makes for interesting reading as you are forced to interpret what you are being told. Jimmy, of course, doesn’t know what an abortion is but by reading the clues as he describes the scene (early in the novel) you get the gist of what is happening. His monologue is punctuated with local phrases that emphasise the setting and the inclusion of a few American phrases hint that Raggleton – at its remotest – is not safe from outside influence.

Overall, The God Boy is an enjoyable portrait of a family falling apart through a young boy’s eyes and for all his protests about how he doesn’t care there is emotion within that allow you to see past his objections. I don’t think it’s as engaging as Doyle’s Booker winner but its nevertheless a good enough quick read.

Florian Zeller: The Fascination Of Evil

Florian Zeller, from what I can gather, is the latest darling of the French literary scene. At twenty-six, he is a novelist, a playwright, and a lecturer. And, for one so young, he has received a number of literary awards. His third novel, The Fascination Of Evil, was recently published by Pushkin Press, a publisher well known for producing quality books from international authors, new and old. And, as novels go, it's a mature work with hints of Kundera, dealing with the decline of morals in both Islamic nations and the West.

The story begins with the unnamed narrator preparing for a flight to Egypt for a literary conference. He is due to meet and travel with Swiss novelist, Martin Millet, of whom he is aware but not acquainted in person or in work. And while the narrator, with his girlfriend at home, is looking for a quiet life, Millet is more interested in kicking up a fuss within Egyptian society, spouting his opinions on Islam, and, for most of the novel, finding local women who will have sex with him. This latter desire is inspired by letters Flaubert wrote about his time in Egypt. And, as Millet's obsession grows, the narrator finds himself dragged further into the author's world. Then, without warning, Millet vanishes. The narrator, of course, can do nothing but fear the worst for his companion.

The Fascination Of Evil concerns itself, at a deeper level, with the diminishing power of words. It looks at the suras of the Koran, at their hold over the devout, but then, as Millet learns during a meal, there are those who claim to hold true to the tenets of Islam yet, the minute they head to a more liberal nation, the words that dictate their faith are soon forgotten:

"They're not Egyptian women. They are often Lebanese or Moroccan, but they are not Egyptian. And they only sleep with Saudis, I believe. In any event, for Egyptians, there is no prostitution and no sexual freedom."

"What do they do?" lamented Martin.

"They bugger each other."

Apart from that, the food was excellent.

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Zeller, however, is not like Millet and is not out to upset Islam. Indeed, aside from pointing out the hypocrisy inherent with some Muslims, he also takes a swipe at Europe. The continent has allowed freedom to send it into decline. Political correctness has reared its ugly head and when religious groups (say, Muslims) protest at novels (Rushdie gets an honourable mention), we seek to remove the offence rather than staunchly support it. By seeking to be inoffensive we are watering down our own culture. Such subtexts lend the novel an impressive depth and you can’t help but agree with Zeller’s observations.

The book’s title, as it would be giving nothing away, relates to the feeling of fearing the worst. The narrator comes to feel the fascination of evil when Millet vanishes after a night out hunting women. But the true fascination, as implied by the denouement, is the fear of what is happening to the west. There are many facets in which our continent, the narrator believes, is falling apart, one such example being letter-writing:

It's the telephone, and in particular the mobile, that has killed off the art of letter-writing once and for all. I often think of those women who lived in hope, with the pledge of one single love letter, when the other person, for example, went off to war. Back then, words had a formidable strength, since they decided lives. People waited, and trusted, even without news of the other person, for infinite lengths of time. Today, you start panicking the moment you can't get that other person on your mobile. What's he doing? Why isn't she answering? Who's he with? Anxiety has gained ground. We have entered a period of no return that signals the end of waiting, that is, of trust and silence.

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Zeller’s prose style is not florid – to an extent it’s simplistic, realist. Each sentence serves to make a point or an observation and does so without decoration. If I were to have a criticism it would be the sheer volume of exclamation marks used where they were wholly unnecessary, although that may be a quirk of a translator who had a quote to use up, especially when they would appear in the narrative rather than within speech.

Although The Fascination Of Evil, at times, reminded me of Kundera because of the sporadic digressions the narrator would make, the ending was more reminiscent of Houellebecq’s Atomised in that the narrator goes beyond the original narrative and aims to provide a conclusion to all that has gone before, something, I admit, for which I’m not a convert. But, overall, Zeller succeeds at producing a great tale that offers up some interesting points that merit consideration.

And, while he’s still young, The Fascination Of Evil showcases the wisdom of an fantastic talent who must surely be deserving of a great future in literature. And, since I’ve already been looking into his previous novels, it certainly looks like this novel could just be the beginning to my fascination of Zeller.