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.

The Modern Austen Adaptations

Jane Austen sure knew how to write a great story, as evidenced in the multiple modern-day film adaptations of her work. So I've decided to do a bit of a comparison to see who's done it best, going in chronological order.

Clueless (1995)

This was a really smart adaptation of Emma, transported into LA's superficial Beverly Hills high school scene. Didn't we all fall in love with Alicia Silverstone's irresistably clueless Cher and Paul Rudd as her dorky ex-step-brother?

They got the ingredients just right because although Emma is a privileged meddler who thinks a little too well of herself, at heart, she's a well-meaning and kind person who gets things wrong. It's a nice bit of narcissism for the reader/viewer to be more astute and insightful than the girl who knows everything but her own heart, and it's nice to see her humbled a little.

Amy Heckerling did a great job of injecting absurdist humour, poking fun of modern teenagers (like the bumful of underwear showing under low-slung jeans) while also making them endearing and even quite delightful to watch.

Just as it's easy for people to overlook Austen as a bit of fluff about women's obsession with marriage and climbing the social ladder, it's easy to write off rich kids as spoilt brats. But instead, with both Emma and Clueless, we get a reminder that people are people no matter what social culture you belong to, and that we're really not that different at heart.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

A simply superb adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Elizabeth Bennett as a modern, slightly chubby Londoner in the form of Bridget Jones, played to perfection by Renee Zellwegger. While it isn't strictly true to Elizabeth's character (she's witty and intelligent whereas Bridget is kind-hearted and perceptive but very much accident and embarrassment prone), she's just as endearing.

What they do really well in Bridget Jones is bring the fiery love/hate sexual tension between Elizabeth and Darcy to life while making it really funny rather than dramatic and intense. The foibles of the modern independent woman are humorously portrayed and the common theme of people just wanting love, no matter what era you live in, plays out nicely in what is essentially a love story.

Helen Fielding's humour translates well into film, and the characters are modernised scrupulously well. Even Daniel (the wicked Wickham) is someone you love to hate rather than just hate.

This is my favourite adaptation so far.

Bride and Prejudice (2004)

This is Pride and Prejudice with all the colour, verve, drama and music of Bollywood. Instead of Elizabeth we have gorgeous Aishwarya Rai as Lalita, in Darcy's place we have wealthy American hotelier Will, and instead of starched British manners we get people breaking into song and dance, like the memorable 'no wife no life'.

Gurinda Chadha does a great job bringing this story to life, focusing on the common themes of Austen's England and modern day India - like Mrs Bakshi's obsession to marry off her daughters (if only Mrs Bennett had had the resources of IndianMatchmaker.com) and the idea of arranged marriage versus love marriage.

There are a few times when it slips into a little bit of cringe, like the love scenes of Lalita and Will looking into the sunset, playing in the fountain and walking on the beach, which perhaps were deliberately OTT to poke gentle fun at Bollywood films, but overall it's a good girlie film and quite true to the original novel.

From Prada to Nada (2011)

I watched this a little reluctantly as I had a feeling I might regret it, but as an adaptation of Sense and Sensibility I felt a certain responsibility to watch and report. It's a Latina version that's tried to do a cross between a cultural Bride and Prejudice type thing on an obviously smaller budget, and a playful Clueless thing without the witty script.

The Dominguez sisters fall from great heights when their wealthy father passes away and they're relegated to the very modest East LA home of their very Mexican Aunt - a culture they've had almost nothing to do with and in fact seem quite ashamed of at first.

Almost from the first scene the characters are more like caricatures and the level of predictability is breathtaking. But it's not all bad. I liked that Nora (the ever-responsible Elinor) is re-envisioned as a law student fighting for the underprivileged, but I wasn't so crash hot about the stereotyped Mexican cleaners whose case she takes up and, through the process, falls in love with her boss Edward Ferris. Colonel Brandon is reinvented as a thug-looking tattooed handyman/artist with a heart of gold (a very surprising turn by an unrecognisable Wilmer Valderrama, The 70s show's Fez), which isn't too bad, but the very passionate Marianne is turned into a spoilt shallow rich girl who totters around on high heels in constant miniskirts and just wants to marry up to go back to Beverly Hills. In the end she bears almost no resemblance at all to Austen's original character.

I wouldn't recommend this movie unless you want to pass an hour and a half with Latina cliches and some vague semblance of Austen's plot. In my opinion, this is probably the worst adaptation.

Have I missed any movies that have moved Austen's novels into the modern day? And which is your favourite?

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen book review

You'll have to forgive me because I'm about to gush. I LOVED this book. I loved the way Franzen manages to get so far inside a character's head it's hard to believe they're not really in your world. I loved the way the relationships between the characters dip and dive in a rhythmic pattern much like a dance. And I particularly loved Franzen's writing. It's seemingly simple but layered with complexity and insight in a way that makes you catch your breath at just how exquisitely one can wield the English language.


On the surface it's about a suburban New York couple, Patty and Walter Berglund, and the course of their marriage. They're ordinary people - so terribly ordinary - Walter the earnest nice guy and Patty smiling-so-hard-it-hurts to be the person she believes she should be but is falling short of. But it's in their very ordinariness that the novel becomes quite extraordinary.

In a way I think Freedom is about our need for particular people in our lives, and how it can inhibit our desire to pursue our individual liberties (our 'freedom') when what we want and what they want don't align. The way relationships tie people together, so when we pull at our end of the string, it can't help but affect those attached to us. Action and consequence are no better highlighted than in Patty's desire for Richard Katz, Walter's best friend and weathered rock star.

Katz, oddly, becomes one of the most intriguing characters for me. His love for Walter seems at odds with his image, yet when he hurts him, it's almost like he's doing it more for Walter's sake than to betray him. In the end you wonder if Katz, despite not really knowing himself, is actually the best judge of the human heart in clearly seeing what Patty and Walter's marriage really was (which neither of them were able to do or at least admit to), and then smashing it in order to put it together as intended. Or was he just a selfish bastard? There's that too.

All the main characters are complex and completely three-dimensional. There are even instances where things are set up so you expect a certain outcome, but the character's thoughts and feelings defy your expectations of what-should-happen-in-a-book with the realness of their instinctive response. It is simply marvellous. For example, when Richard goes back to see Patty and is full of coolly hesitant anticipation, but when he sees her he realises she's a pain in the butt and she's gotten kinda old. But it still doesn't stop him from wanting her.

The reversal of expectations extends through to the plot, where Patty and Walter's relationships with their kids crossover at a point when they're at their worst and in most greatest need. Patty basks in the glow of Joey's confidence and success while Jessica is an image of her responsible dad. Yet when the shit hits the fan, all the allegiances change and they find strength in the opposite parent/sibling. There's a certain elegance to this, as it shows just how much Patty and Walter need the influence of the other in their lives.

Despite how much I enjoyed Freedom, I'm ready to admit it's not a perfect book and it's not for everyone (if you get easily frustrated, don't even bother). There are a few things that, in my mind, weren't quite resolved. Like Connie's weirdness. Okay, we do begin to like her better by the end of the book, especially as she rises in Walter's estimation. But still - are we supposed to forget that she's a complete kook? Ultimately I thought she must have a mental disability (causing her unhealthy obsession with Joey), but I guess that's pretty true to life. From my time working with The Salvation Army and their clients, I realised there are a LOT of mentally unbalanced people out there somehow managing to function in the world, so I guess it's a reflection of reality.

If we're talking themes I think it's about human nature: our raw motivations, our inability to quash unhealthy desires even in the face of the purest love, the influence of the family on the individual, and the difficulty (but not impossibility) of changing our base and often selfish nature. But there is still hope.

It's easy to see why Jonathan Franzen is touted so hugely in America as a rising literary force (what a cliche, but in this case true). He could write the back of a cereal box and it would very likely win the Pulitzer Prize. I'm giving this 10/10.

The Three Incestuous Sisters, Audrey Niffeneger

This offering from Audrey Niffenegger of The Time Traveller's Wife fame is an adult picture book that, unfortunately, is not about a lesbian love affair between sisters. That might have been interesting.

Not to say that this book isn't. It's just... less interesting than the title would have you believe.

The Three Incestuous Sisters (why 'incestuous'? Where are they incestuous? And is my obsession with this unnerving? I just want to know what led her to choose this word, apart from the fact that it's so loaded) is a surreal tale about three orphaned sisters (Bettine, Clothilde and Ophile) who basically bust up over a guy. The writing is sparse and accompanied by Gorey-esque images of mostly grey hues (this is Edward Gorey who wrote and illustrated the tongue-in-cheek The Recently Deflowered Girl. Come to think of it, aren't our tongues always in our cheeks? I don't get this phrase at all).

Niffenegger has called The Three Incestuous Sisters 'the book of my heart, a fourteen-year labor of love' in the afterword, and describes the laborious process of creating the aquatint images. The book was meant to be a work of art, with only 10 limited leather-bound editions including almost 100 hand-coloured, individually printed, aquatint etchings on hand-made paper (a ha! That explains why Claire in The Time Traveller's Wife has that same obsession. Clearly Niffenegger is married to a time traveller!), accompanied by hand-set type.

The library copy simply couldn't live up to the textures and depth the original artwork was created to convey, so what we have left is very sparse prose and haunting images on flat glossy paper. The problem with this is that the book promises too much. The size alone (9½" x 12½") juts out of the shelf, demanding attention, and then the title causes your eyes to pop. 

Then you open it up and in a snapshot, the story is this: The three girls were happy together until the late lighthouse keeper's son, Paris, comes along and falls in love with Bettine, the youngest sister who's a pretty blonde. The eldest, Ophile with the dark blue hair, becomes jealous and mistreats Bettine, forcing Paris and Bettine out of the house. It leads to tragedy, death, regret and reconciliation which I won't go into for fear of spoiling the ending.

The book has fairytale elements: the pretty blonde gets the guy, the ugly older sister acts like a shrew (actually it doesn't say she's ugly - I'm just guessing) with an undercurrent of tragedy, but the story never goes beyond itself to create something really magical. The strength of the book is in the illustrations (do I have to keep calling them 'aquatints'?) that provide the macabre, dark gothic feel that the storytelling seems to lack.

What's interesting is that Niffenegger wrote The Time Traveller's Wife in between creating this book, so essentially it was like her way of procrastinating. Yet the side project eclipsed her main one, and probably also had a lot to do with getting it published too.

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 Happiest Refugee, Anh Do

I honestly can't remember the last time a book had such an emotional impact on me. The Happiest Refugee constantly had me alternating between laughing out loud and being on the verge of tears.

I almost didn't read it. I'd seen Anh Do on TV occasionally, but never particularly followed his comedy or had any particular interest in him. Also, I don't do memoirs. I tried to read The Long Way Home once upon a time but even the embiggening story of Nelson Mandela couldn't catch my fiction fancy. However, one day I read a positive book review about The Happiest Refugee, so with a Borders gift card in hand, I toddled over and bought it. Little did I know it would be the best $34 I would spend on a book in all of 2010.

It's not exactly a literary tour de force - sometimes there are awkward turns of phrases that highlight the fact that the author is a comedian, not a writer by nature - but it's an absolutely compelling read. Through anecdotes and smaller bite-sized stories of a larger whole, Do tells us about his family's harrowing escape from Vietnam, the struggles of their early arrival in Australia and the career that took him into the loungerooms of families across the country.

When you read the book, you understand the reason for his success. Do is revealed through every word and every page as someone with good sense, keen humour, high intelligence, a lot of determination and even more gratitude. It's an uplifting and positive read that celebrates the richness of life, rather than dwelling on the poor-me aspect that many memoirs tend to do.

Through the funny stories and anecdotes, we're told about the enormity of his love and respect for his mother, his struggles with and ultimate forgiveness for an absent and alcohol-abusive father, and the mark they left on this young Vietnamese boy who would grow up with a never-say-die outlook on the world interpreted through a humorous eye.

Not only is The Happiest Refugee funny and touching, it's also full of (dare I say it) immigrant wisdom. It reminded me of moments when I was growing up, like my dad looking sadly at the vandalism of a public train and telling me, 'Why destroy public properly? It's there for our benefit, so destroying it only destroys ourselves'. I could identify with Do not only in the physical things (both being Asian and growing up in western Sydney), but also in the non-tangibles, like the instilled gratitude towards our adopted country and the desire to give back.

Regardless of whether you can identify with him or not, I guarantee you'll enjoy this book. It's the sort of book I wanted to buy as a gift for everybody I know, but three bookstores I went to had already sold out of them. I'm not surprised. Get your hands on it if you can, however you can. You won't regret it.

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

The third book in my Vampire Fiction series:

Interview with the Vampire begins with an intriguing and gripping premise: Louis, a 200 year old vampire from New Orleans, permits an interview with a young journalist, retelling the story of his life. The nerves and fascination of the reporter fuel our own, as we hear Louis's story of his 'making' by Lestat, the vampire who created him in order to share his wealth and plantation.

Despite his newfound vampire status and appetite, Louis never quite lets go of his human nature, which makes for a fascination and haunting tale of internal struggle and external strife. Louis and Lestat, locked in an unsatisfying relationship of co-dependency, mutually create Claudia (against Louis's desire to inflict vampirism on anyone), a young girl who grows into a deadly and intelligent young woman trapped in a little girl's body, and eventually incites Louis's betrayal of Lestat.

Claudia and Louis travel the world to find others of their kind, discovering them finally in Paris at the Theatre des Vampire. Louis finds his soul mate in Armand, and from this point, the novel becomes extremely homo-erotic despite the absence of actual physical sex (except when he feels the 'hard sex' of Armand's slave boy press against his body as he offers himself to Louis. For bloodsucking, not for sex - get your mind out of the gutter).

Partway through the book, the story starts to lose steam and Louis's philosophical who-am-I becomes quite tedious, as I'm sure it must have been for him after 200 years. Rice poses a lot of big questions (Is there a God? Who created vampires? Are they inherently evil?) that are never really answered (except the last question, where Rice tends toward no - they've just grown bored and detached through the years and lose the human ability to empathise or love), and in the end we become even more confused about the whys and wheres and hows of vampirism.

The website annerice.com explains that Interview with the Vampire started as a short story which Rice turned later into a full novel. That explains a bit for me, because the pace of the novel is certainly not as good as it could have or should have been, considering the calibre of the writing. Well, most of it anyway. At times it becomes all too flowery and dramatic, but for the most part, it's quite beautifully penned.

Back to the pacing issues: Rice spends way too long dwelling on the early years in New Orleans with Lestat, which in the scheme of things was not as important a chapter in Louis's life as the latter years, when he meets Armand and goes through what appears to be the vampire equivalent of a nervous breakdown. Also, she never answers the obvious question of whether his family has noticed his vampirism (pale skin, aversion to sunlight, sleeping in a coffin... any of it ring a bell?) and the sudden addition of another pale-skinned, sunlight-averse, coffin-sleeping male in the household.

The revelation of what sets Louis apart from other vampires comes late in the book, and Lestat's degeneration leads only to more questions. Why did he set himself apart from the other vampires, when he obviously knew of their existence? Why does he follow them to Paris and desperately ask to talk to Louis and then say nothing of significance to him? And why do I keep imagining him as a badly made-up Tom Cruise?

Overall, I found the book a very intriguing read, but certainly flawed. I'm told the second and third books (The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned are better, but I'm not sure whether I'll read them yet. I only planned my Vampire Fiction series to be a three-part thing, but I'm of two minds whether to read Dracula as well... anyone out there read it yet? Is it better than Interview?

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!

Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris

My vampire fiction journey began well with The Radleys, but it's taken a real nosedive with this clunker.

Dead Until Dark is the first of the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, which spawned the True Blood television series. Apparently True Blood is masterful. Having read this book, I can say that must have been quite a feat for the producers.

Okay, let's overlook the ridiculous names. Sookie is a telepathic barmaid who sees her mind-reading powers as a disability and acts like a deer in headlights when others treat her as odd. Bill (Bill! Has there ever been a less sexy name?) is a vampire who's just returned to the small town of Bon Temps to integrate with the humans. Sookie saves his life and promptly falls in love with him. It seems his only attraction is the fact that she can't read his mind, because otherwise he's pretty boring. Laconic, no appreciable sense of humour and not particularly high up in the vampire hierarchy.

The story is told from Sookie's perspective but one can't help but hear a middle-aged author indulging herself a little too much. Sookie is beautiful, has big boobs, is tough but soft, and is desirable to everyone (humans, vampires and everything in between). Oh and did I mention she has an orgasm every time? Like every time. 

The plot itself is surprisingly decent, which leads me to believe that Charlaine Harris is a good story-creator, but not a particularly good storyteller or author. The writing is clumsy and cringe-inducing and the climax is left so far into the plot that when you get to it, you don't care too much. I actually put the book down to do something right in the middle of the climax and didn't pick it up again for another two days. That's unheard of for me; usually I have to know what's going to happen next, but all the eyeball rolling and cringing left me rather untouched by the end. Particularly cringe-inducing was the appearance of an extremely famous now-dead singer incarnated as the vampire Bubba. Seriously.

The characters were one-dimensional and never develop very much, but presumably this is because Ms Harris is busy setting up the following books that have since built her Southern Vampire empire.

If you're a fan, don't hate me. Obviously I'm voicing the opinions of a minority, because this book has received glowing reviews, and not even just from the publishers.

If you want a bit of a thriller with human-vampire sexy scenes thrown in, this might be for you. If you want something you won't be embarrassed to read on the train, then maybe give this a miss.

Sinking my teeth into vampire fiction: a beginner's journey

I started my foray into vampire fiction with Matt Haig's The Radleys, which I really enjoyed. I think that, combined with the fact that I'm stalled on J in my Great Library Challenge (shakes fist at James Joyce), have contributed to my new challenge: read and compare vampire fiction.

Someone in my book club mentioned that the True Blood TV series is based on a book series that wasn't too bad, so I've borrowed book one from that series (Dead after Dark by Charlaine Harris). Someone else suggested the classic Dracula (hang on, is dracula a vampire? are they the same things?) or maybe it was Interview with a Vampire. Yeah that sounds more like it. But my dracula question remains.

Maybe... just maybe I might even give Stephanie Meyers a go. Maybe.

The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger (a second look)

This isn't my first time reading The Catcher in the Rye but I have to say it affected me more this time than any other, which is ironic considering that I read it for the first time as an angsty teen and now I'm in my thirties.

The protagonist is 16 year old Holden Caulfield, who's just been expelled from his latest school for poor performance. He's not dumb though, he's just not interested. Still suffering from the effects of his brother Allie's death and in a state of... I guess you could call it depression, he leaves school early and wanders around New York like a self-professed 'madman' for a couple of days before returning home to face the music.

When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down that goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I'll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck. (Chapter 7)

I never noticed before just how funny the book is. It's really a riot and I could barely stop myself chuckling out loud on the bus.

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can. (Chapter 10)

Salinger writes in one of the strongest narrative voices I've ever read. It's completely absorbing and sucks you right into the character of Holden, whether you like him or not (many find him annoying). He's lonely and isolated and horny and angsty and all the things you could expect of a 16 year old, just more heightened. He's at the bottom end of a downward spiral which comes crashing down at the end of his 48 hours of wandering. 

There's an underlying tone of tragedy beneath it all, and through his erratic behaviour we sense an impending doom. A review published in 1951, when the book was still fresh, said:

It’s a sort of lost week end; it’s a boy who can’t go home again; he belongs to a lost generation and lives in a world he never made.... but besides that, and despite your hoots of laughter at Holden’s indomitable speech, this is in essence the tragic story of a problem child, unless indeed it’s an indictment of a problem world. Month in, month out, novels don’t come much better. (source)

Rather than it being an indictment of a problem world, I would suggest that it's just a tale of someone trying to find their place in one. It would explain why so many people are drawn to it, and why others identify themselves with it. It offers no solutions but beautifully captures the troubled thoughts of someone navigating their way.

From my current perspective, I think the breakdown was the obvious conclusion to his not having dealt with Allie's death and possibly even the sexual abuse that he hints at ('perverty stuff' has happened to him around 20 times). When he hits rock bottom, we find that he's telling his story from a psychiatric hospital, possibly the best thing that could've happened to him. Although the novel ends on a bittersweet note, we feel that he is on the way to healing.

A note on the title

I love how the title is explained in the book. Although other members of my book club didn't have patience for Holden, I have a soft spot for him because he has such a tender heart.

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. (Chapter 22)

A note on the author

What really knocks me out is a book, when you're all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. (Chapter 3)

I found this bit quite ironic because although I don't know much about JD Salinger, I do know that he was a recluse. Actually, that's probably why I don't know much about him.

In all honesty though, I probably wouldn't call him up to talk about The Catcher in the Rye because I'd be intimated by his genius.

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.

The Third Twin, Ken Follett (The Great Library Challenge author F)

With around 20 books under his belt, Ken Follett is one heck of a prolific writer, so I thought I'd see what the bother was all about.

The Third Twin is a thriller about the genetic cloning debate and the dangerous mystery that its feisty (and of course attractive) protagonist, university researcher Dr Jeannie Ferrami, stumbles upon.

At the risk of sounding like a pretentious literary wanker, based on this novel alone I have to say that Ken Follett is a great storyteller but not a great writer. The Third Twin is a very fast-paced and absorbing novel, but the narrative voice isn't always believable, and is at times downright awkward.

Firstly, the good bits. It's a hefty book but easy to read, and I couldn't put it down. The story races very quickly (and not at all believably) in the course of a single week or so, in which Dr Jeanne discovers a major cover-up, gets her life threatened several times and takes down the big powerful bad guys.

But the bad bit is that the characters are extremely one-dimensional and while it has a whip-cracking pace, it has no emotional depth whatsoever. The story of Jeannie's raped friend was particularly unmoving and unconvincing. The dialogue is sparse at best and awkward at worst, and the narrative has some major holes and employs a lot of cliches.

To be kind, I'd say it's probably a story for its time. Being published in 1996, it was possibly even ahead of its time. But now, in light of all the more sophisticated and polished stories of a similar vein, it smacks of amateurishness. We've become accustomed to authors who research their topics in depth to maintain narrative integrity, but it feels like this book was written in a hurry with nothing but the broadest ideas about the complex topic it's based on.

Ken Follett paved the story for writers like John Grisham – great airport novelists, but Pulitzer Prize material they ain't. As long you know what to expect, I think you can enjoy his extensive range of published novels, because after all, we all need a good airport novel sometimes.

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: 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.