Book 7 and 7.1 Review: “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis and “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” by Gail Honeyman

So I tried, I really tried, picking it up at monthly intervals, putting it down, tries the audiobook, remembered I’d quite liked the film. I also get that it is clever commentary and usually I can cope with toxic masculinity in my fiction. But honestly, life is too short for me to read “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis. I can’t get through it. I give up. And read “Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine” by Gail Honeyman instead. 

So it’s taken me a little while to write this review, I’m not entirely sure why but I suspect it is laziness, and I must admit I found the first few chapters a bit of a chore. It’s only when you begin to “get” Eleanor’s character a little more, with her complete lack of understanding of social norms, her clear (but not always culturally acceptable) values, and her rejection of tacit expectations she doesn’t completely understand (the Hollywood waxing section is hilarious) that you begin to warm to her and want to know more about her back history. 

I genuinely didn’t see the end twist coming, and originally thought it was a little hokey. But having done some research and reading about the Hearing Voices movement, I think it may be more credible than I had initially given it credit for. It was also refreshing to see a cast of warm, caring and lovable male characters from central Glasgow, as I tend to think of Irvine Welsh novels in relation to the setting. Raymond the work mate is a genuinely lovely “what you see is what you get” man who loves and cares for his mum,  and Sammy the elderly family man whose accident, and subsequent kindness help Eleanor overcome her own childhood trauma. 

An excellent first novel, with a sense of hope and optimism for our individual futures. Well worth a read.

Book 6 Review: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist is a strange read, it gave me warm and fuzzy feelings but the intricacies of the plot are somewhat forgettable. This magic-realist, modern fable (as read by Jeremy Irons in the audiobook) is strangely soporific and gentle, although as a didactic tale it is somewhat lacking in that I have failed to put my finger on exactly what the moral message is.

It feels much older than a novel written in 1988, with overtones of religiosity, fatalism and simplicity. Although I suspect something has been lost in translation, and I am sure I have missed subtle context clues familiar to the Brazilian audience.

This is a Marmite book- ultimately polarising, but very accessible and designed to be a comfort read with a cup of tea on a sunny day. Some people will find it inspiring and some will find it patronising. I found it both in equal measures delightful and inconsequential. The cucumber sandwich and Earl Grey tea of afternoon reads.  

Book Review 5 The Wasp Factory- Iain Banks

In parts funny, disturbing and (most worryingly) relatable, this is a tale of violence, identity and sympathetic magic. The problem is I am not entirely sure what it is trying to “say”. It is well written, imaginative, well structured and ensures you keep turning the page through the narrator’s statement of accepted “facts” which are not explained until a later chapter.  

The brutality is sometimes without context, and Eric’s depraved psychoticism stretched credulity as a result of a single horrendous experience and a series of everyday disappointments. But, if taken as a fairy story, with the island representing a fantasy kingdom, it has the same gothic appeal as an Angela Carter story. The exploration of gender identity is not entirely (or at all) convincing, however, again, if taken as metaphor for the realisation as we leave adolescence that we may not be the person we ascribed to, be it works. What astonished me is how “normal” and likeable the author himself is (was, R.I.P.) in interview, giving the impression that the “ultraviolence” was intended to have an air of slapstick about it (Ye ken me droogs? What a mash-up sequel that would be!)

The sense of the ordinary within the extraordinary and description of place was extremely effective. I had mapped out Frank’s kingdom in my head, sacrifice poles and all! However, I am still not entirely sure why or how this novel has found its way onto the A-Level course syllabi?

It’s a rural, Scottish, teenage American Psycho before there was an American Psycho, a fictionalised Confessions of a Sociopath crossed with a Little-Red-Riding Hood style bildungsroman. It is unique and I imagine for the time ground-breaking, and difficult to pin down- hence the plethora of references to other similar-but-not-really-that-similar texts. 

And it is also extremely entertaining. I disagree with many reviewers that it conveys a sense of the macabre and depicts graphic scenes of animal torture. Yes there is death and yes the torture is disgusting, but it feels so over the top as to be implausibly ridiculous. 

It feels to me much more of a black comedy- the novel equivalent of The League of Gentlemen. It is simply too absurd, incredible and frankly silly to be otherwise.

Book Review 4 Life of Pi- Yann Martel

I read this a few months ago, but was really lax about writing a review. I think the problem is that whilst I really wanted to love the book (and there were an awful lot of things I did like) overall I found it a pleasant read, but it didn’t have any lasting emotional resonance. 

I loved the sing song lyrical quality of the language, that was reminiscent of Hindi. I also enjoyed the themes and big ideas and the narrator was likable. However, for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on I kept losing my place or drifting off part way through the story. 

Bizarrely, I found the first part, setting up the story and introducing the characters more interesting than the episode with the tiger on the boat. 

It is definitely readable and enjoyable, but also ultimately for the most part forgettable. 

So although it isn't on the reading list, I have just finished listening to the audiobook “Things in Jars”. I loved the author's unique voice and the performance by Jacqueline Milne was extremely well judged. The musicality of the language and the unique take on the mermaid myth, kept me binge listening and I completed the whole novel in a couple of days and immediately bought any other Jess Kidd books that I could get hold of on Audible. A brilliant find!

Book Review 3: “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley

Fundamentally, the problem with this book is the narrator, Victor. He is thoroughly detestable. A selfish, cowardly, irresponsible, excuse ridden, narcissistic d****e-bag of the highest order.  And unfortunately, it is Victor Frankenstein’s POV that we are forced into for the majority of the novel. My hatred for and frustration with the self-pitying, feckless behaviour of the (pseudo) protagonist made this an irritating read for me- and to an extent I think this was Shelley’s intention. Victor isn’t designed to be the likable, affable, morally “good” man fallen from grace he believes himself to be, and the horrific events that befall those around him are of his making. However, this doesn’t make him any less grating!

The "monster" (to me reminiscent of Caliban with his lyrical speech and enforced isolation, being neither man nor not man) is eloquent and persuasive when he asks his creator to account for his misdoings. So, you’ve got to ask yourself, if an infanticidal, demonic, bag of sewn together corpses is actually more engaging than the main storyteller, is that storyteller really the right character to be telling the story? 

Now, with all that said, it is an important book. A work by a female author with strong female characters (albeit background characters) who was only nineteen when she wrote the initial draft. Very impressive. But, for me her youth is evident. When we teach secondary  school pupils to write creatively, we often give them the ambiguous instruction “show don’t tell”, and for me the book is more of a list of horrible and horrific events told in a Chinese puzzle box style story within a story, rather than an engaging and “complete” narrative. It feels like she chooses to place focus on the wrong “bits”- for example the whole of chapter nineteen where Victor travels the British Isles, comments briefly on the local architecture of each town and city and then repetitively reminds us that he couldn’t enjoy the surroundings because of his angst. And I would have at least like to have seen some of the courtroom drama when Victor is tried for the death of Clerval...

So, I hate to be “that” gal, who poo-poos these fantastic works of fiction (we know they’re great because some clever-britches told us they were) but in all honesty, the novel ain’t that good, and I’ll maintain that stance no matter how clever the britches of the opposing schools of thought. I think the continuing appeal is in it’s universal themes: parenting, nature versus nurture; morality and scientific advancement- and the whole idea of stitching a creature out of corpse-parts and electrocuting it to life is pretty darn cool. And there are some really effective horror scenes, such as the vignette of Victor ripping apart project lady-monster (I kind wish she had a name- a working title- but given he can’t even be bothered to name monster number one I guess this was all too much to hope for). 

It’s readable, but it’s value, for me at any rate, lies in the offshoots and creativity it has spawned, rather than the work itself. 

Book Review 2: “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson

Okay, so I am one of those people who definitely saw the film before I read the book (and having now done the background reading I am even more impressed with Gilliam’s direction which uses some seriously creative camera angles to replicate the constantly expanding and contracting drug dependent points of view).

Whilst I understand that America’s post counter-culture, folksy racism/ misogyny/ homophobia [insert prejudice here] is subject to criticism by the author, there was more than one occasion where I found the discriminatory language jarringly unnecessary. It really dates the piece.

That said, on the whole, this is a really excellent read, and I was in equal parts disgusted and amused by the antics, and found myself (to some degree of shame) identifying with some of the scrapes and situations the Doctor of Journalism and his legal crony got themselves into- I mean who hasn’t found a casualty or two in their bathrooms following an impromptu house party? (Although I do wonder how events might read to those who avoided misspending their youth...)

It’s a short, pithy searing indictment of American culture, society and the tacit implication (or actually come to think of it- pretty explicit statement) that substance abuse is the only way to deal with and make sense of the chaos. So, one could argue, still pretty relevant.

Violence is frequently a first recourse, the idealisation of capitalism is metaphorically “burned to the ground” (yet antithetically also a cause for admiration) and towards the end a primate bites into an old man’s skull. What’s not to like?

Book Review 1: “The Master and Magarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov

Firstly, I didn’t intend to write an essay on this novel. However, once started I found I had a lot to say, and the more I thought about the plot and characters, the more ideas and parallels were sparked, so I am hopeful that the verbosity of this review can be forgiven.

At the risk of sounding both ignorant and uncultured, I found this novel (at least at first) bloody hard slog; not least because the Russian characters have three names, plus a nickname, plus a pun on their name (none of which work particularly well in translation and all of which sound rather similar to the English untrained ear). As an example- Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev (who seems to be referred to by any and all of these names) is also known as “Homeless” and “the poet” is a key character in the opening section of the novel. To further demonstrate: there are 17 different names that start with A that are used to refer to 15 different characters with Andreyevich used as the middle name of a bereaved uncle, who makes a journey from Kiev after his nephew is beheaded in a freak tram accident- and Andrey the buffet manager at a Moscow theatre. Clear as mud right? And that is before starting on similarly named characters with the initials M, P, L and S! At my last count there were 45 distinct characters, and I am fairly sure there will be some that I have missed. Hence, I did a lot of re-reading to work out exactly who was doing what to whom.

Additionally, I would suggest you need to be wary of the different translations. The distinct changes in meaning are subtle but important. To triangulate I had three versions at my disposal: Hugh Aplin’s translation (available for free on Kindle), the audiobook version translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (which I listened to simultaneously when reading the book to come to my own interpretation, and the subtitles for the Russian TV miniseries from 2005 when I gave up trying to work out who was who from name alone!

So those were my “technical” issues (if you like) with engaging with this novel, and this lack of clarity and understanding (and my own lack of contextual knowledge of Stalinist Russia) meant I missed many of the (what I am sure are hysterically funny to those in the know) satirical jokes in the opening section. That said, the random action and quick changes of focus, undercurrent of chaos in Moscow despite entrenched hierarchal structures and clear threat that (any) one could go missing at any time, for an unclear reason gave a clear insight into the mind and fears of a 1930s Russian citizen. No wonder it was available only in censored form for so long.

Despite these hardships, there were some genuinely laugh out loud moments in the first Moscow based part of the novel. The citizens have not lost their individuality, as they scrabble and fight for bank notes in the theatre, which are later revealed to be worthless. Nor have they lost their sense of pride and vanity, which we see in the female theatre goers, so desperate to attain the fashionable French couture (which later literally disappears from their bodies leaving semi-naked citizenesses desperately trying to cover themselves in a scene reminiscent of “Allo Allo” meets “Benny Hill”). When Professor Woland says his show will “expose” what the locals have failed to realise is that it is their (moral) shortcomings that are about to be revealed. The message is clearly, that no government can successfully legislate against human nature.

Oooh- and another fun fact, apparently Woland (later revealed- or perhaps is implied- to be Satan) was the inspiration to the Rolling Stones 1968 hit “Sympathy for the Devil”, well at least that is what my Google-Fu tells me.

Obviously, there were substantial hurdles to leap, however, I found by the second half of the novel, when we finally meet the eponymous characters, I had got in to the swing of things and begun to embrace the farcical surrealism of the novel.

The second “book” marks a change in tone, although it continues to cut away to scenes of Jesus’ sentencing by Pilate and execution (here known in the Aramaic form Yeshua). Ironically it is these scenes that are the most “real” and substantially human, as Pilate’s decision weighs head achingly heavily on him throughout. The Master and Margarita seem to be the only two characters fully invested in the authenticity of literature, and serve as a counterpoint to the heavily censored “monstrous” writing of Ivan and the rest of the writers’ union Massolit, more interested in fine dining and what their positions can do for them then the production of quality writing.

And it is Margarita’s journey of discovery and liberation from the stodgy, miserable societal expectations of that leads her back to her Master. Bulgakov mixes classical myth, Russian folklore and Bible stories to give us an impression of the timelessness of the central romance. As the worlds of communist Moscow and the inner worlds of the Master and Margarita collide, we are informed of the former’s desire to excuse all magic (and mischief) as the product of mass hypnosis, when the latter (and the reader) are fully aware of the spiritual significance and dimension of the events.

Clever, astute and in places laugh out loud funny, this novel none-the-less requires a level of dedication from the non-Russian speaking reader. Worth a read? Yes. Worth a re-read? Maybe not.  

The List! Edited as read.

List Number, Title, Author 1 The Master and Magarita Mikhail Bulgakov 2 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 3 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 4 The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson 5 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 6 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 7 With The Night Mail Rudyard Kipling 8 The Princess Bride William Goldman 9 Sharpe's Tiger Bernard Cornwall 10 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 11 Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes 12 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 13 I capture the castle Dodie Smith 14 Dune Frank Herbert 15 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez 16 The Diary of a Nobody George and Weedon Grossmith 17 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 18 Moby Dick Herman Melville 19 Beyond Black Hilary Mantel 20 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 21 Atonement Ian McEwan 22 The Sea The Sea Iris Murdoch 23 The Stars Like Dust Isaac Asimov 24 Emma Jane Austen 25 Nausea Jean-Paul Sartre 26 Stand on Zanzibar John Brunner 27 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 28 Paradise Lost John Milton 29 The Crysalids John Wyndham 30 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 31 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 32 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 33 Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut 34 Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut 35 The Dice Man Luke Rhinehart 36 Under the volcano Malcolm Lowry 37 Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 38 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 39 Titus Alone Mervyn Peake 40 Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 41 The Code of the Woosters P.G. Wodehouse 42 The Pigeon Patrick Süskind 43 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 44 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressel 45 Tipping the Velvet Sarah Waters 46 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 47 The Bachman Books Stephen King 48 Child '44 Tom Rob Smith 49 In cold blood Truman Capote 50 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 51 Neuromancer William Gibson 52 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 53 Of Human Bondage William Somerset Maugham 54 Life of Pi Yann Martel 55 Uncle Varnye A. P. Chekhov 56 The Colour Purple Alice Walker 57 Sons and Lovers D.H Lawrence 58 The Outsiders S E Hinton 59 Once Were Warriors Alan Duff 60 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Alexander Solzhenitsyn 61 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold 62 Delta of Venus Anais Nin 63 The God Of Small Things Arundhati Roy 64 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger 65 Dracula Bram Stoker 66 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 67 Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes 68 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier 69 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 70 The Secret History Donna Tartt 71 House of Mirth Edith Wharton 72 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 73 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Mister God this is Anna Fynn 75 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky 76 Silas Marner George Eliot 77 Madame Bovery Gustave Flaubert 78 On the Road Jack Kerouac 79 A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving 80 East of Eden John Steinbeck 81 Around the world in 80 days Jules Verne 82 Wild Swans Jung Chang 83 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 84 Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery 85 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 86 The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell 87 The Crimson Petal and the White Michael Faber 88 Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes 89 The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom 90 Mary Poppins P. L. Travers 91 Everyman Phillip Roth 92 Kidnapped Robert Louis Stephenson 93 A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki 94 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 95 A Kind of Loving Stan Barstow 96 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 97 Beloved Toni Morrison 98 Girl with The Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier 99 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 100 Snowcrash Neal Stephenson SUB 1 A Knot in Your Stomach Yvonne Postma SUB 2 David Copperfield Charles Dickens SUB 3 Age of Innocence Edith Wharton SUB 4 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque SUB 5 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa SUB 6 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells SUB 7 Pilgrims Progress John Bunyan SUB 8 Labyrinth Kate Mosse SUB 9 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro SUB 10 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy SUB 11 Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernieres SUB 12 Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson SUB 13 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute SUB 14 Watership Down Richard Adams SUB 15 The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Simon Mawer SUB 16 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov SUB 17 The Cherry Orchard A. P. Chekhov SUB 18 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky SUB 19 Love in the time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez SUB 20 Middlemarch George Eliot SUB 21 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel SUB 22 Persuasion Jane Austen SUB 23 The Cider House Rules John Irving SUB 24 Alias Grace Margaret Attwood SUB 25 Puck of Pook's Hill Rudyard Kipling

100 “classics” as recommended by my Facebook friends. A self-set wider reading challenge.

So... it occurred to me that despite having taught English for nineteen years, I felt like I was not as widely read as I would like to be! Essentially, when you teach classic literature, it tends to be the same texts on a loop (you know them well, you have the resources, the curriculum has a limited selection...yada yada). 

I set myself a challenge, which started with the following FB post “ So Facebook Fam, I am trying to challenge myself to put together a list of 100 classic/ great books to read before I am 50. 2 a year seems doable. The rules are, I can't have read them before, they are fiction novels or plays or collections or poetry, they are well known, I will enjoy them. I have started with The Master and Margarita, and have Emma, Middlemarch and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists on my list. Hit me with recommendations for the other 96?”

150 recommendations later I realised I needed some rules: these were as follows. 

Only one book per author.

I have read the blurb and it the book continues to interest me.

If after 100 pages I can't get into a book, I can swap it out for one of the "substitutes".

I will keep a record of dates completed and comments to create a reading journal.

Books that I have read part of, or on reflection only think I have read have been added to the list.

I will write and post an honest Amazon/ Good Reads or similar review of every book that I finish.

Can be read, listened to in audio, or delivered in illustrated/ comic format or any combination of the three.

And thus the list of 100 books I shoulda already read (but hadn’t, or hadn’t read properly) was compiled- along with 24 substitutes (life’s too short to read what you don’t enjoy). I will publish it in a separate post so that any willing participants can read along with me.