Legend of a Suicide, David Vann (book review)

I chose David Vann as my V author for The Great Library Challenge, and I wasn't disappointed.

Legend of a Suicide is a collection of a novella and four short stories... but I wish someone had told me that before I started. I read it as a single long novel, and the fact that the characters are the same in all the stories didn't help with the confusion.

The book is semi-autobiographical, as it's about a boy named Roy and his suicidal divorcee father Jim who's a retired dentist who fails at fishing and eventually buys a house in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, and asks his son to stay with him for a year and then commits suicide. In real life, David Vann had a ex-dentist suicidal divorcee father who failed at fishing, bought a house in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, asked David to stay with him, and then committed suicide shortly thereafter.

The short stories are lovely to read in themselves - beautifully written, poetic in their descriptions and Vann manages to capture the many micro-subtleties of human emotion - but it's the novella that's a breathtaker. The novella is the part that describes Roy and his father's adventure in remote Alaska, doing the Bear Grylls survival-thing: hunting, fishing and building things. In the book, Roy accompanies his father in a desperate attempt to keep him alive, as he's sure that left to his own devices, his father will commit suicide. In real life, David turned down his father's offer of going to Alaska with him, and soon after, his father committed suicide. The novella is like a kind of emotional and/or spiritual purging for Vann, imagining what might have happened had his decision been different.

The raw emotions and truly pathetic weakness of Roy's father is simply infuriating. He sobs himself to sleep every night (with his 13 year old son sleeping in the same room), makes emotional confessions to a boy not old enough to process them, attempts to kill himself by stepping over a ledge in the middle of nowhere (how on earth did he expect his son to survive if he'd died?) and tries to emotionally blackmail his second wife into taking him back by saying he'll shoot himself through the head right there on the phone with her if he doesn't. All this leads to tragic and shocking consequences that you simply don't expect, a sudden twist from the author that simultaneously brings (one imagines) release and revenge at the same time.

Legend of a Suicide is a truly intriguing read that continued to haunt me for a few days after. 

The Lonely Polygamist, Bradley Udall

Bradley Udall was my 'U' author for the Great Library Challenge, but since I've been so slack with blogging, it's been ages since I read this book so my review will be very brief and probably not very accurate.

The Lonely Polygamist is about Golden Richards, a polygamist in Utah with 27 kids spread across four wives (he's made up a song to remember all their names)... but as the title suggests, he's still lonely. It's hard to imagine that someone just wakes up to find themselves the centre of a great big family, but that's almost exactly what's happened to Golden - his life is barely of his own choosing, but somehow as he's ambled along, he's managed to pick up wives and children like other people pick up stamps or rocks.

Making the family seem normal is one of Udall's great achievements in this book. Although Golden is in a situation most of us would never find ourselves in, it's hard not to sympathise with him as he tackles his inner emptiness, or with his wives who want him to 'man up' and take charge instead of ducking for cover all the time, or with his kids who just want a piece of him. Their emotions and underlying tensions are the same as any dysfunctional family in any country in the world, which makes the whole polygamy thing barely even an issue, despite it being central to the novel.

I guess the main point of the book is seeing Golden's character develop from a passive bystander to an active participant in the life he's created, and the ripple effect it has on the other characters of the novel. Apart from Golden's own story, we're also afforded glimpses into the lives of Trish, the neglected fourth wife, and Rusty, the most troublesome and neglected of all the kids. Like Golden, they're lonely also, and they all drift along in their own individual worlds rubbing against each other but never quite connecting.

The Lonely Polygamist is a lovely book in its own way and written really well, but if I had to criticise, I'd say it was just a tad too long at over 600 pages.

Dr De Marr, Paul Theroux

I chose Paul Theroux for The Great Library Challenge T author because he's one of those authors you hear about but (in my case anyway) have never read. 

Dr De Marr is an eerie novella with a very creepy cover and several even more creepy illustrations throughout.

The story is about very short identical twins, George and Gerold De Marr, who are bound to each other by intense hatred and a desire for the other's death. When their parents pass away, they finally sever the invisible umbilical cord between them and live their lives free of each other for decades, until one day, George suddenly appears on Gerald's doorstep out of the blue. 

Shortly after, Gerald finds George dead in a chair upstairs and soon begins to unravel the seams of his mysterious secret life. He finds that George has been posing as a wealthy doctor, and soon enough, he assumes this false identity to enjoy its benefits. But of course, the very things that George was running from catch up with Gerald and he finds himself very quickly out of his depth.

Theroux writes with an eerie absence of emotion that casts shadows on every page. The handful of characters that appear in the pantomime are hard to read as they all seem to have their own agenda, of which you're constantly left in the dark.

It's quite a horrid story, adeptly told, with the punchy circular logic of a good short story. But personally, I like my stories with a little more light.

The Case of the Missing Books, Ian Sansom: book review

The Case of the Missing Books is the first of a comedy/mystery series involving reluctant hero Israel Armstrong: a chubby, bumbling, Jewish, not-entirely-inept librarian.

The plot begins when Israel lands in the middle of nowhere, Tumdrum Ireland, having accepted a librarian position only to discover that it's for a mobile library (apparently the bottom rung of libraridom). To add insult to injury, he's forced to live in a barely-converted chicken coop with a quirky family of brother, sister and their grandfather, he doesn't have enough money to return home without receiving his first paycheck, and all the library books have gone missing and the council won't let him out of his contract until he finds them.

I was led by the back cover and many reviews to believe that it's a funny and delightful book, but as much as I wanted to like it, it just wasn't the hilarious comic caper I'd hoped for.

The characters are drawn a little too hard like "quirky locals" and they end up as single dimensions of a big farce, like the overweight Linda Wei who constantly crams junk food in her mouth at every opportunity and punctures her scenes by passing gas.

It's gentle humour that attempts to please, but ultimately failed to engage this reader.

Reviewed as part of the Great Library Challenge, author S.

Prospect Park West, Amy Sohn: book review

I have to apologise for the brevity and vagueness of this review, but I read this book around two months ago and just haven't had the chance to blog about it. However I'm resolved to review all the books I read as part of the Great Library Challenge so I'll try to dig into the recesses of my memory and give a quick review.

Prospect Park West is about first-time moms in a particularly yuppie area of Brooklyn that seems overly populated with young at-home mothers. There's bored and sex-starved Rebecca who laments her glamorous old life, 'hasbian' Lizzie whose lesbian tendencies begin to return as her husband's work-related absences increase, freakily intense Karen who will stop at nothing to get a Prospect Park West postcode for her son, and beautiful but insecure movie star Melora, whose entire life, including her adopted child, seems to be a public relations exercise.

The story is fast-paced and laced with a dark wit that's not exactly mean-spirited, but far from kind in its portrayal of at-home mums. The characters swing between the type that's obsessed by their kids (Karen) to the mum who almost seems to fear being in the same room alone with their child (Melora), but in every case there's some type of self-destructive behaviour linked to a sense of lost personal identity stemming from the birth (or adoption) of their child.

It's a theme that appears almost despite itself, as Sohn busies herself with witty observations and poking fun at her characters. The book seems to be in a rush to end, and certain storylines are left hanging and unresolved, so there's a sense of unfinished business at the end. Apparently Sohn is writing a sequel, but I doubt I'll be coming back for seconds.

Murder at the Academy Awards, Joan Rivers

Author R for the Great Library Challenge.

I've been somewhat fascinated by Joan Rivers since reading all the profiles and reviews that came in the wake of the documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. What's most fascinating is that she's so candid about her desperation to be the centre of attention in Hollywood and her shameless antics for staying there.

With a career that literally spans decades in front of the camera, Ms Rivers has turned her hand to writing and along with Jerrilyn Farmer (the author of the Madeline Bean culinary mystery series) penned this novel, which I vaguely understand may be turned into a series.

In Murder at the Academy Awards, the protagonist Maxine Taylor is the extremely-thin veiled literary doppelganger of Rivers herself. She and her daughter Drew do what Rivers and her daughter Melissa do in real life: stalk celebrities on the red carpet for interviews as they head into the Academy Awards ceremony.

The mystery begins when one of Hollywood's brightest young starlets, who also happens to have been a close school friend of Drew's, drops dead on the red carpet mid-interview with Max Taylor. Very soon, Max is on the chase, using her wiles to enter rehab under false pretences and crash glamorous parties to find the murderer and clear her daughter's name.

It's an easy to read, light-hearted romp that basically expounds the cleverness of Max Taylor and her love for her daughter Drew. However, Rivers' sharp wit doesn't translate that well in written form, and many of the gags seem rather belaboured. It's all in the name of fun though, and if you can wade through the heavy name dropping and you don't mind the re-imagining of Hollywood with Rivers and her daughter as the nucleus, you may enjoy it.

Here's an interview with Rivers from Amazon editorial:


Q: What kinds of books do you enjoy?
A: At my age, anything in large print.

Q: Is it true when they say that you should “write what you know”?
A: Absolutely, which is why my next book is about having thighs that are visible from outer space.

Q: What is it like having a novel published at the age of 75?
A: I am so old, even the spine of my book has osteoporosis.

Q: Computer, typewriter or pen and paper. What tools did you use to write your first book? 
A: Chisel and stone.

Q: Are you one of those writers who work at home in a dirty old bathrobe without showering for days? 
A: Yes, except for the part about working at home.

Q: What’s the first step in getting a publisher interested in your book?
A: A check for fifty grand made out to “cash”.

My Favourite Wife, Bill Parsons (book review)

Apparently Tony Parsons (my 'P' author for the Great Library Challenge) has sold a ton of books so I decided to give this one a go. The short verdict: failed to grab me.

The protagonist is Bill Holden, a 'good' man and ambitious lawyer who, in his drive to make partner, moves to Shanghai with his beautiful and intelligent wife Becca and their adorable four year old daughter Holly. If they sound typical, it's because they are. The family is a walking, talking, one-dimensional modern cliche of the Western world.

Becca, who initiated the move, finds the craziness of Shanghai overwhelming (a major factor being the discarded baby she finds in the trash of their luxury highrise apartment, populated largely by the 'second wives' (a.k.a. mistresses) of rich men) and takes Holly back to London for a while. During her absence, Bill takes up with JinJin, a local leggy second wife who is lonely during the long absences of her married partner.

Parsons paints Bill as a man caught between two worlds: troubled by the corruption he finds in the dizzying economic growth of Shanghai and trapped between two loves. Although most of the ingredients are there (Bill is genuinely interested in the plight of second wives and feels more keenly for the Chinese locals than his Western counterparts), his character never quite reaches the complexity required to engage our empathy. Parsons' attempt to keep Bill high-minded backfires quite badly too, as it smacks of Western elitism and hypocrisy, because when you strip away the facade, the basic fact is that he is cheating on his wife with a local, just like many other men before him. The layers of supposed complexity are simply that: contrived to make his affair with JinJin appear more a matter of the heart than the other major male organ.

Normally I quite like hearing the male perspective in modern fiction (Nick Hornby and Jonathan Tropper for example), but I just couldn't find the connection point with this novel, so it totally failed to engage me. Sorry Mr Parsons.

Nothing Serious, Justine Lèvy

Justine Lèvy was my chosen author L for the Great Library Challenge.

I admit I chose the book based on the cover and the limited options in the library's L section. I had no idea that it was a literary sensation when first published in France in 2004 under the title Rien de Grave. It won the Prix Littéraire Le Vaudeville and overtook The Da Vinci Code in sales.

Having read the book, it's hard to fathom how the work in itself could achieve such a feat. It's a very intimate stream-of-consciousness story told from the point of view of Louise, the author of a well-received novel, daughter of a dizzyingly famous father, and whose husband has recently left her for his father's model girlfriend.

But couple the plot with the background of the author and you understand the sensation. Justine Lèvy's first work, Le Rendezvous, was published in the mid-90s to rave reviews, her father is France's most famous superstar philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, and her husband famously left her for his father's girlfriend, model and singer Carla Bruni (now France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy).

Her real life public scandal has been turned ingeniously into a novel, which at best is beautifully poetic, and at worst is mind-blowingly self-indulgent.

Nothing Serious starts at Louise's grandmother's funeral, where she finds herself in jeans and unable to cry. Both points are significant. She's in jeans because she feels like an 'ex-woman' since her husband's defection and can't bring herself to wear dresses anymore, and she can't cry because she's become incapable of emotion, an 'empty shell'.

The novel interweaves the events of the past (the unravelling of her marriage with Adrien) with her current life (in a relationship with new lover Pablo), revealing slowly the narcissism of her husband and her own severe insecurities. Both are overwhelming, so it's hard not to see the end of the marriage coming a mile away, even if you're as severely myopic as Louise is.

Her myopia acts metaphorically for her inability to see beyond herself, beyond her own state of loss and devastation, choosing to see and be seen as 'fuzzy, without outlines'.

What we see in the novel is the internal processing of loss. She writes most often about, and addresses passages, to Adrien. Some of these are transcendent prose:

He drags frantically on his cigarette, runs his hand through his hair, looks at himself in his watchface, and starts up again better than before, why he hesitates between Marxism and ultra-liberalism, his infallible painful memory, his memories that are poisoning him, his sadness, his melancholy, it's devouring me do you understand, it's consuming me.

At other times, her musings are terribly immature:

I tell myself I'll never love him, whatever he does, whatever he says, because love is atrocious, because love always stops one day and I never want to experience the death of love again.'

In a way, it's a novel about learning how to cope with life - or rather, how not to. Louise loses herself in her love for Adrien, turns to drugs to become the woman she thinks he wants in a desperate bid not to lose him, then dives into relationship after relationship to fill the void after he leaves.


*SPOILER ALERT BELOW:*

Ultimately, the author's... let's say 'youth' rather than 'immaturity' comes through rather strongly, though it's disguised as wisdom. It's a bit like Blues Clues - the paw prints aren't particularly subtle. She can't wear a dress because she's an ex-woman = at the end, Pablo buys her a dress. She hasn't had her periods in 7 years since the termination of her child with Adrien = in the end  her periods come back. She's myopic and doesn't want to see = in the end she decides to have eye surgery so she can see clearly. Also in the end, there's a sad acceptance that life is about loss, and shouldn't be taken seriously. Ironically, that's exactly what the novel does: it takes itself very seriously indeed.


*SPOILERS END*

You know how there's that theory that gay actors shouldn't receive the same accolades for a gay role as straight actors playing a gay role, because they're really playing real-to-life? I kinda feel that way about this novel. On first glance it seems like a searing and raw insight into a woman's post-divorce brokenness, crafted cleverly between the past and present to show her emotional state. But knowing that this was actually the author's own story makes me think it's really more a series of glorified diary entries, milked to create a thin plot.

It's kind of like Jennifer Aniston writing a book about an actress whose famous husband leaves her for another actress who adopts kids from all over the world. Now that would knock The Da Vinci Code and Twilight off the bestseller lists all over America, regardless of her writing talent.

Fortunately for Lèvy, she does have literary talent. However, both her books, for which she's received acclaim, have been bordering on diary-pilfering. I understand that people are best at writing what they know about, but I'd like to see how she goes writing a novel that's not based so closely on her own life.

The Shopaholic Series - 3-in-1 review, Sophie Kinsella (The Great Library Challenge author K)

When I got to K in my great library challenge, I decided to go with Sophie Kinsella because her novels are so hugely popular and I wanted to know what the big deal was.

I have to admit that my expectations were low. So very sadly low, reflecting the state of chicklit, in my opinion. Good ones are very few and far between. But Kinsella delivers on every count: slightly dizzy but very endearing character? Check. Romance? Check. Funny-slash-disastrous situations that make you laugh? Double and triple check. And this is where the books really win out: Kinsella has masterful comic timing and uses it to great effect.

The heroine is the shopaholic herself: disaster-prone Becky Bloomwood, who starts off in the first book (The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (also published as Confessions of a Shopaholic)) as a bored journalist at a money magazine who is unable to curtail her love of shopping, despite threatening letters from the bank and maxed out store cards. She's irresponsible and a bit ostriche-head-in-sand when it comes to finances, leading her into impending disaster, which of course she'll bounce out of better than ever, and with a super-hot boyfriend to boot.

What did you expect? I told you it was chicklit, right?

In the second novel, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, her adventures take her to the Big Apple, where super-hot boyfriend Luke Brandon is starting a new branch of his super-successful business. But her super-spending (amongst other things) takes their relationship to the brink of disaster, which she deftly handles in the end, learning a little something along the way.

In the third novel, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Becky digs herself further and further into a hole with her dithering as Luke comes to terms with his feelings for his birth mother, and two weddings are organised in different continents on the same day.

I have to admit, if Becky was my friend I'd give her a good shake and a talking to, because common sense seems to elude her until she's forced into a position to make good, but it does make for great comic fodder. And despite her dithering and disaster-proneness, she has a good heart. By the end of each novel she seems to grow and develop in character, but at the start of the next novel, she stumbles again, which is probably actually very realistic but could be frustrating if you cared too much.

There are classic chicklit elements that could get tiresome awfully fast (like the impossibly good looking and successful boyfriend, the ability to fall head over ass into good fortune), but Kinsella reinforces Becky's underdog status, ensuring that she remains endearing and flawed, and thus relatable.

In certain respects, Shopaholic reminded me of Bridget Jones's Diary, as Sophie Kinsella and Helen Fielding appear to have very similar comic sensibilities. Personally I think they're both really good writers (which shows in their books), and thankfully they redeem the overwhelming hovel of crap that chicklit tends to attract. Their heroines are larger than life versions of ourselves, and their adventures have a bigger arc with greater romantic rewards than you'd find in reality, which make them a great escape.

I'd highly recommend the Shopaholic series for light reading, suitable for holidays, on the beach, in-flight and when you're feeling down and need a pick up. I only meant to read one but ended up reading three!

There are three more books out now (Shopaholic and Sister, Shopaholic and  Baby and Mini-Shopaholic) but I think I'll space them out to avoid overdosing. Thank goodness for Christmas holidays!

Light Boxes, Shane Jones (The Great Library Challenge author J)

Okay okay, I know you're thinking, 'I thought you were going to read James Joyce for your J author!' (because, of course, you care so incredibly much about my Great Library Challenge). But, I've been defeated. Round one: Ulysses.

At first I was determined to conquer it at some point, even if not now, but I've thrown in the towel and have to admit: I don't care about two drunkards who ramble around Dublin making no sense. I just don't care. So there, literary gods.

Moving on.

Perhaps from the trauma of trying to read such a hefty book, I found the smallest alternative possible in Light Boxes. It's literally a small book, around A5 in size, but the content... oh the content. Thank God I put down Ulysses or I might never have found Shane Jones.

Light Boxes is a heartbreakingly beautiful book, a melancholic fable about a town afflicted by eternal winter as 'February' refuses to loosen its grip. At the centre of the story is a simple family: Thaddeus, Selah and their daughter Bianca.

The townspeople look to Thaddeus, a balloonist, to lead their revolt against February as they attempt all manner of acts of war: using tall poles to forcibly move the dark clouds, wearing shorts and pretending that June has arrived, pouring boiling water to melt the snow and trick winter into leaving. But no dice.

February is not your average one-dimensional bad guy either. He's a complicated figure - one you can't quite work out because his issues are so deep ranging. And he's arbitrary, like using the priests to ban flight, and then one by one, kidnapping the children, including Bianca.

The prose is as close to poetry as you can get, and is richly imaginative and impossibly tender. Typography is put to good use and various other tools, like lists and changing perspectives, add layers to the story.

Light Boxes evokes so many feelings, a bit of whimsy but mostly sadness. I constantly felt like I had that expression that I hated on Gwyneth Paltrow when she won the Oscar - eyebrows contracted and lifted in the middle, mouth in a small O, like you're half in pain and half in pleasure.

It's a beautiful read and I highly highly recommend it.

PS - I just did a google search on it and found out that apparently it's now officially achieved cult status. Well, as officially as you can get with cult status. From the original independent print run of 500, it got picked up by Penguin Books and distributed globally. The original pints are now worth $200!

Sleep No More, Greg Iles (The Great Library Challenge author I)

I had a hard time choosing an I author for my Great Library Challenge because I'd read most of the ones suggested to me (thanks for the suggestions LO and FB) and my local library had only a single shelf of I authored books. So I simply chose the author most represented in that section (with 4 books, Greg Iles had 30% of the shelf space market at Surry Hills Library) and chose the book that sounded most interesting.

Although it's not the sort of book I'd normally choose, the case for Sleep No More was strengthened by Stephen King's recommendation on the cover: 'a thriller that really thrills, a shocker that really shocks'.

Was it really? I tentatively read the first few chapters, prepared to swap the book for another I author if I didn't enjoy it, but the next thing you know, I was halfway into the story with no intention of stopping. It really was a thriller that thrilled.

The premise is that John Waters, an oil well driller with a good business and generally happy family, is suddenly approached by a strange woman who purports to be imbued with the spirit of his ex-lover, an obsessed fatal-attraction type who was raped and murdered 10 years ago. She claims that through the act of sex, a portal is created whereby she can overtake the use of her 'host's' body through orgasm (I know the temptation to laugh is strong, but resist. It gets chilling.).

His incredulousness turns to fear when she starts to prove that it's really her - it took her 10 years to make her way to him (like a game of 6 degrees to Kevin Bacon) from the man who raped and murdered her all the way into the body of an attractive young woman in his hometown in Mississippi, but now she's back and she still wants him all to herself.

Sleep No More combines horror and suspense with elements of supernatural fantasy to make a very compelling read. There were only two points in the book when I fell out of the spell, through an overused cliché or lame turn of phrase, but otherwise I was pretty engrossed.

It's a shame that the climax was rather unsatisfactory and lets down the build up that Iles achieves, but a plot like this is understandably difficult to resolve. It's just unfortunate that the final pages (which still manage to elicit a certain number of chills) takes it from a cinema-worthy psycho-sexual thriller (of the chilling rather than titillating kind) to a midday movie.

The Radleys, Matt Haig (The Great Library Challenge author H)

The Radleys appear to be a very normal family living a white picket fence life: Peter the doctor, Helen the artist and their two kids Rowan and Clara, who are rather average if a little intolerant to sunlight, quite pale and somewhat sickly.

Noone suspects that the members of this suburban family are actually vampires - especially not the kids, who don't know themselves, until one night, Clara defends herself against a bully and bites his hand. With her first taste of blood, the Radley secret comes spilling out.

This was my first foray into vampire fiction, and like Clara, I liked it. Matt Haig writes deliberately sparse prose that is free from unnecessary flourish, excess drama or gratuitous violence. There's a certain elegance to the writing, which I imagine is something that sets it apart from modern vampire fiction (think Stephanie Myer).

Peter and Helen are abstainers (vampires who choose not to drink blood), who have turned away from their blood-soaked past for the sake of their children. After seventeen years of cover ups and lies, they are forced to deal with their identity to help their children navigate their way around the background of who they really are. It's a family drama in which vampirism is a suppressed form of life, that once unleashed can't be contained. But more than that, it's about learning to accept oneself, and in a strange way, the acceptance of their vampire identities make them more human.

Though it's not a comedy, there is some humour in the novel, which mostly comes from the account of prominent vampires in the past: Lord Byron, Jimi Hendrix (one vampire school of thought says they're one and the same, Lord Byron simply having adopted a new identity for a new generation), David Bowie, and more obviously, Bram Stoker. Peter's brother Will (an unashamed practising vampire whose entry into the household wreaks havoc) says Prince's musical decline happened when he chose to become an abstainer. LOL

The Radleys is an enjoyable novel, not in the sense that it's fun or funny, but because it's a well written story that, at its core, is about being empowered by being yourself. It's a story that, ironically unlike vampires, has a soul.

Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert: book and movie review (also the Great Library Challenge author G)

Eat Pray Love the book

It wasn't the easiest thing to get into and I must admit I would've left it only half-finished if the movie wasn't coming out so soon. However, I'm glad I finished it because the latter half was better than the first.

It's as though Elizabeth Gilbert distilled her personal diary to write this book – it has the intimacy and warmth of someone not holding anything back, but it's also very beautifully written so you know she's crafted her words and stories carefully to bring the best of her experience to paper.

I started off skeptical – after all, it's about a privileged New Yorker running out on her marriage and real life to spend a year in exotic locations 'finding herself' – but I ended up won over. It's not just about her running away, but also running towards. She's seeking something more than herself (God) while seeking to find herself, and it becomes a spiritual journey where, by the end, she discovers contentment and a self-identity that she seems not to have had before. Who can argue with that?

Eat Pray Love the movie

Despite the presence of Julia Roberts and the lush international scenery, Eat Pray Love doesn't really work as a movie because ultimately the story is boring to watch on screen. It's such an intimate spiritual journey that most of the action happens in the interior, which doesn't translate well to an audience who expects a climactic movie experience.

Apart from the breakdown of her marriage in the beginning, there are no major highs or lows – it's all a very linear journey of self-discovery. At times, especially the beginning, the movie felt like a string of 'this is a re-enactment' scenes from a reality TV show – especially the use of that hazy filter and backlighting the first time she goes to Bali. Then the showdown scene between her and Felipe (Javier Bardem) at the end just didn't ring true to me at all. Maybe it's because it didn't happen in the book, but I was totally prepared for them to deviate from the plot of the book (in fact I expected it), but even then the whole scene seemed rather a false attempt to create some dynamic in an otherwise flat movie plot.

My conclusion

I thought that the critics were unduly harsh about the story when the first movie reviews came out, but I can see why they would have come to that conclusion now. In the movie, you don't get the full in-depth experience that you do with the book, so it's easy to overlook the whole thing as the self-indulgent whims of a Western woman.

In fact to be honest, that's how I first felt when the book topped all the bestseller lists and caused such a scene in the book-reading world. I avoided it for a long time and only decided to read it finally because I watched Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk and thought she sounded awfully wise and well-grounded.

After reading her book, I'm more convinced of that assessment. It is a wise book, full of lessons learned and lots of humour too. She has a great writing voice, and there were a lot of moments that resonated with me as a reader, which I'm sure is why the book was so popular.

Now onto H of my Great Library Challenge. I decided on Matt Haig and wanted to read The Radleys, but the library didn't have it so I'm now waiting for my book to arrive from the Book Depository. Any suggestions for an author beginning with 'I' would be appreciated because Surry Hills library only has a single short shelf for I, which consists of approximately 11 books only. Help!

The Great Library Challenge: Fforde, Jasper The Eyre Affair

'Ingenious - I'll watch Jasper Fforde nervously'

Terry Pratchett

After reading this quote by Terry Pratchett, I couldn't resist picking this book for my F author in the Great Library Challenge. I can see why Fforde has been likened to Pratchett - he creates a nonsensical world of parallel reality, injects a good dose of humour and drives the plot at a furious pace.

The protagonist, Thursday Next, is a SpecOps agent in the LiteraTec department, who quickly becomes embroiled in the chase for the evil Acheron Hades. Hades is hellbent on wreaking havoc in the literary world - by which Fforde means the real literary world of fiction - and enters Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre manuscript with an intent to sabotage.

Next's chase leads her to Swindon, where she manages to cross time barriers, parry with her ex- for whom she still harbours a flame, incur the wrath of the powerful Jack Schitt (yes that's really his name) and follow Hades into Jane Eyre to change the course of the story.

Next is a protagonist you can really grow to like. She's tough, self-deprecating and smart, even though she doesn't have it altogether. The fact that she's flawed is a lot of her charm, and returning to her Swindon hometown throws her square into the path of her ex-, Landon Parke-Laine, and her quirky family (time-crossing father, absent-minded mother, multi-religious brother, Aunt Polly and brilliant Uncle Mycroft - whose name was apparently borrowed from Sherlock Holmes' genius brother).

Any literary snob (or anyone with pretensions to literary snobbery) with some smarts and a sense of humour will love this book. There are some very funny ideas that often stretch the bounds of belief, woven through with enough intelligence and classic literary knowledge to make them believable. (Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? How many John Miltons can one town contain?) I'm sure I missed or only half-got some of the references, because my literary perch is not that lofty.

It's an enjoyable romp that manages to suspend your belief and throw a smile on your face. Apparently this is the first of a series of novels about Thursday Next, but I'm not sure if I'll continue with it right now. I get my good dose of silly and witty and Pratchett, Gaiman and Holt.

Onto my G author: I've chosen Elizabeth Gilbert, because I've been halfway through her book for ages now, but haven't been able to finish. I'm taking this opportunity to finish the book before the movie comes out and knock down my G author with one stone.

On a side note, I've found myself really embarrassed to carry Eat Pray Love around because I fear I'll be mistaken for 'one of those women'. However, I was totally won over by her TED talk on creativity, which spurred me to read her book, and I want to finish it now so I can make up my own mind whether it deserves its early acclaim or, more recently, the disdain that the movie has been receiving.

The Great Library Challenge: Eco, Umberto The Name of the Rose

Wow - finishing this book was quite a feat. This very dense and complex mystery is set in a Benedictine monastery in the 14th century before the complete power separation of state and church. The main protagonists are William of Baskerville, a Sherlock Holmes-esque character who is sent with his sidekick novice Adso (the narrator) to investigate some mysterious deaths occurring in the abbey.

The narrative is filled with gothic religious imagery, set in the confines of a cloistered and esoteric sect, and backgrounded by the religious power struggle that defined the church of the day.

The book is dense and multi-faceted - laid simply, these layers are:

• the mystery that William attempts to unravel with every clue: how and why are the monks dying in such strange circumstances;
• the theme of the danger of seeking and/or suppressing knowledge. All the clues lead to the mysterious and closely guarded library - the centre of knowledge;
• social commentary on the atmosphere of the 14th century, the power struggle between the emperor and the pope, and the thinly veiled political machinations that joust in the sphere of religious theology.

In one respect, this is like a high-brow literary version of Sherlock Holmes, although I'm not impressed by the fact that Umberto Eco has apparently never even acknowledged the debt of inspiration (or straight out plagiarism) he owes to Arthur Conan Doyle for the characters and the plot. William and Adso have great chemistry - one the sage, learned and experienced detective, and the other a naiive and innocent novice. There are some great moments of humour in the way Adso faithfully recaptures William's speech, sometimes unaware of the sarcasm or wit it accompanies:

I never understood when he was jesting. In my country, when you joke you say something and then you laugh very noisily, so everyone shares in the joke. But William laughed only when he said serious things, and remained very serious when he was presumably joking.
(The Name of the Rose: Sixth Day; Prime)

Whilst the events of the novel take place within a single week, the plot moves at a snail's pace. Entire chapters are taken up describing things that have no bearing to the plot (like the carvings on a door), and there are more red herrings than a fisherman's basket.

When you finally get to the end, it comes quite quickly and is rather climactic and powerful. However, I do have a bone to pick with Mr Eco. I won't spoil the plot, but suffice (though confusing) to say that the basis of the mystery boiled down to the belief by a single and powerful monk that humour and laughter were a blight on the honour of the church, and that fear is the basis of Godly faith:

But laughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh... but law is imposed by fear, whose true name is fear of God.
(The Name of the Rose: Seventh Day; Night)

But anyone who knows their Bible will know that it preaches the complete opposite of that:

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. (Job 8: 21)

A merry heart does good like medicine (Proverbs 17:22)

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but love, power and a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)

So how is it that so pious a monk believes in a completely opposite doctrine to the Bible? Christian dogma may have changed throughout the ages but the Bible hasn't. Are you telling me that this monk, who knows even the most mysterious books inside out, hasn't read it yet? This kinda ruined the mystery for me because all the work Eco put into making the story so believable unwinds on the hinge of such a trivial detail - much like the apple business at the end of the Da Vinci Code (so wrong of me to even mention that book in this post). Lame.

I know this book is considered a major classic, but I'd only recommend it to the hardcore because it's quite a slog to read, although it is ultimately rewarding. I'd write more about the whole theme on knowledge because it's a fascinating topic, but I've got to mull over it a bit more first, and it's time to move on to F in my Great Library Challenge.

Off the library's F section I go!

The great library challenge: Capote, Truman Breakfast at Tiffany's

I chose this book for my 'C' author because:

• Truman Capote has a big reputation and I wanted to know if his writing lived up to it;
• I never really got why people loved the movie so much, and thought maybe the literary version would enlighten me;
• I was travelling overseas (more in my next post) and wanted something short and quick that I could finish before I left.

I didn't have time to post my review before I left, so it's been two very long weeks and lots of experience since finishing this book, but to the best of my recollection, it was pretty good.

I still don't get why people love it so much - or more to the point, love 'her' so much. Holly Golightly. Quite a refreshing character in some ways, but totally flighty (not necessarily a bad thing), selfish, social-climbing, racist and immature in so many others. It's easy to love Audrey Hepburn in her very stylish portrayal of Holly, but as a literary character, she doesn't quite pass muster. One can't really understand why so many other characters in the book are obsessed with her, and personally, I think that Capote actually manages to portray a rather emotionally disturbed young lady who can't (or doesn't want to) connect with reality.

However, Capote's narrative style is impressive. He immerses you immediately in the 1950s New York social scene (for some reason I kept imagining everything in black and white) and his writing is like a confident hand in the small of your back pushing you along.

As for the next books in the challenge, I had a hard time picking my D author and easy time picking my E author. The only stipulation for this challenge is that I mustn't have read any of the author's books before.

So D is Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean, and E is The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. Yes, shame on me for having never read him before.

The great library challenge: Bazell, Josh Beat the Reaper

You're right, there have been a lot of 'greats' in the titles of my blog posts recently. Hopefully the content will one day catch up to the overuse of the word.

But back to my great library challenge. Author 'B' (Josh Bazell) is now down and out for the count. So was it the 'ice cold and ferocious read' we'd been promised? Yes, yes and more yes!

The plot begins like a whip held overhead, ready to crack. When it comes down, it takes you with it on a heartpounding ride that races back and forth from his past to the present. It's enough to give you whiplash.

The hero of the book is Dr. Peter Brown, a seriously tough guy in witness protection with a mafia background who is now a doctor. His first person narrative is punchy, informative (complete with footers for the detail-minded) and intelligent. He's a man who's got it all: the smarts, the toughs and a history worth hiding from. But when a patient from the past intrudes into his present, he finds himself in a race to... you guessed it: beat the reaper.

When I googled it for the cover image, pictures of Leonardo Di Caprio abounded, being apparently it's being turned into a movie with Leo playing the main role. Woot woot!

So onto author C of the great library challenge: I chose C for Classic, C for Capote, Truman Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The great library challenge: Akunin, Boris Turkish Gambit

The first author of the alphabet is now down, with Boris Akunin's Turkish Gambit complete and under my belt. Actually, I just found out his real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili, so perhaps he should've been my 'C' author.

I mentioned previously that Akunin had been compared with other Russian literary greats like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The similarity for me as a reader was in that I wanted to skip all the war bits and get down to the human drama. I'm not sure if T or D would have written political crime fiction if they'd been alive today, but if they did, I'm guessing there would have been less swashbuckling action and more human tragedy.

Instead, what we get in Turkish Gambit is Erast Fandorin, a 'gentleman sleuth' in the epicentre of war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, surrounded by intrigue, espionage, and a strong-willed and spirited young Russian woman, Varvara  Suvorova. In fact, there's so much political intrigue that it's sometimes hard to follow.

Turkish Gambit is part three of a series of Erast Fandorin novels by Akunin, and knowing this, I now wish he'd intruded more in the narrative than he does. I like what I've glimpsed of him so far – super-cluey, intelligent, modest to a fault and highly respected – sounds like my kind of guy. In this book, he's the modest hero who does the grunt work, while the story is told from the point of view of Varvara, who has journeyed to the Balkan front to reunite with her fiance, a war telegrapher who is wrongly jailed.

The ending is a little... unsatisfying, but the story resolves of its own volition, thanks to the hero. Also thanks to the hero, Russian crime lit has just gone up in my radar.

Now, onto B. I've chosen Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell, apparently an 'ice cold and ferocious read'. Is it really? I'll let you know.

The Great Library Challenge

I was almost giddy with excitement yesterday when I discovered how close my new office location is to the Surry Hills library, of which I am a member through my City of Sydney libraries membership.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE LIBRARIES?!!!?

Where else can you get a smorgasbord of books, dvds and cds that you can borrow for FREE? Where else can you discover new authors and lose yourself in different worlds in the comfort of a quiet air-conditioned space solely dedicated to readers?

Ah, library memories... in primary school, my friends and I used to get regularly ejected from our local Ashfield Library for being noisy, then I used to sneak back, sans friends, to borrow books and tapes (yes cassette tapes. I am that old.). During high school, the library foyer was primarily the location for my friends and I to hang out and play card games. I think for pretty much most of my life, I've never been without at least one library card on my person.

Anyway, back to my Great Library Challenge. The background to this is that there are SO MANY BOOKS in the world, and my exposure to them is limited. I tend to re-read books I love, read the same authors or in the same genres, and don't often read books unless they've been recommended by trusted sources or received a good public review. So I've decided to go through the alphabet and borrow from amongst authors that I've never read, starting with A.

Beginning the Great Library Challenge is Boris Akunin. According to the back of his books, he's a Russian crime writer who's been compared to Tolstoy and Dostoesvky - let's hope that comparison isn't just based on his nationality. Fingers crossed... let's go!