missing books

A Man called Ove

Mr. Weston's Good Wine

My Life in Houses


and awaiting Oscar and Lucinda

October 2016 - Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

A very select group had a lively evening and among many other topics did discuss the book. There was agreement that the opening pages, which described a man leaving a funeral and deciding to visit a childhood home, engaged the reader and suggested that the story would be an easy read of reminiscences. The first notes of something very different came after his arrival at a seemingly traditional old-fashioned farm run by a mother and a grandmother, a daughter having apparently gone to Australia after the events that had occurred many years previously. The boy who had been living nearby had, after witnessing the suicide of his parents  opal miner lodger, sought refuge from an abusive father and unlikeable mother in a friendship with the daughter who seemed to be a couple of years older than him. A sequence of bizarre events followed, many quite gruesome, involving possession and magic, harpies and a fairy ring. During these events it became apparent that the Hempstock family at the farm were not normal humans and were virtually immortal, and that they had powers to fight evil and protect the good, which they eventually succeeded in doing. As an adult the boy had only vague memories of the titanic struggle for good in which he had taken part, and seemed nearly as bewildered on re-encountering the Hempstocks as the readers of the book, who were left with a lot of questions:-

Who or what were the Hempstocks?

When was the book set?

Whose was the funeral?

How old was the boy?  said at one point to be seven, but remarkably mature thinker -

What was the point of the opal miner?

How did his mother become an optometrist?

Was it a fairy story? Was it an allegory? Was it Sci-fi?

Who are the intended readers? Settled for teenagers but it did grip adults.

Despite all these questions there was general agreement that the book had strengths. The plotting was bold, the characters were vividly portrayed, especially the Hempstocks, and the writing had clarity and style.

Marks (from 5 people) Average 6.5 Range 6-7

July 2016 - England and Other Stories - Graham Swift

Sample of comments about this book:

-This book put me off reading. 

-Didn’t like the tenor of the stories – some were so negative.

-Would never read him again.

-Didn’t encourage her, nothing there that made her want to read another of his.

-Finished it and congratulated herself, but nothing stayed with her.

-Didn’t know what he was getting at.

-Didn’t see the point of them, very few had an outcome. Like vignettes.

-Not the sort of thing you want to read.

-Almost as if he was writing down ideas for stories.

- A couple of the later stories were quite interesting, but it was a lot of work to get there. 

3 of the six of us didn’t finish the book.

A couple of people thought that some of the stories were well written, but someone thought that it was poorly written.  Maggie wrote “I'm ploughing my way through the short stories but have yet to get to one which is in any way uplifting but in fairness I'm less than halfway through! I can appreciate, however, the skill in encapsulating a tale and painting believable pen portraits of the characters in just a few pages.”

He is supposed to be quite well thought of as an author. It was suggested that we try “Last Orders”, but I don’t think that we will be searching the shelves for the book.

A comment about the marks “5 for effort, but I don’t know whose”

Marks – 0  5 5 4 4   à 3 ½

June 2016 - Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

The story of Nora, who has just lost her husband Maurice, and has to work her way through her grief before she can be more optimistic about the future and her life with her young sons and improve her relationship with her older daughters who have left home. It is set on the East Coast of Ireland, with some references to the contemporary politics of the late 1960s to early seventies. 

Oonagh thought it improved on 2nd reading. Others described it as immersive while you read it, but easy to get distracted. 

It was described as about a process;

Nora had disappeared into her marriage and now it had tragically ended, had to chart a path through to a more independent future.

On discussion we thought Nora a not very likeable character but understandable.

Marks, very uniform, all 7 with one 8.

Drinks: 4 decaffeinated, 2 caffeine heavy and 1 tea.

March 2016 - The Marlowe Papers - Ros Barber

This was a full length novel written in blank verse- specifically iambic pentameter- modelled on the writing of William Shakespeare or possibly Christopher Marlowe.

The tale purported to be the story of Christopher Marlowe in exile as a heretic and atheist, at a time when religious extremism was rife under Elizabeth 1. He travels under a range of aliases often carrying out espionage missions for the Queen. He continues to write the entertaining  plays for which he gained renown and popularity in England ; but must now write under a nom de plume as he escaped from England having been helped to stage his own death. He steals the name of William Shakespeare an aspiring author who rarely leaves his country home.

Although some of us opened this book with some trepidation, we found it readable once we got into it. This was helped in some part by the way the verse was laid out on the page so that it was usually clear who was speaking. It helped too, that there were clear chapters often with helpful headings and some of them very short. The chronology of events, though, was not always easy to follow.

I'm not sure that any of us were convinced that CM was in fact WS but we all acknowledged the huge
amount of research underpinning this work. We recognised many of the historical figures included.

The Marlowe papers prompted an animated discussion, during which we were reminded that the written works of the Elizabethan and earlier periods grew out of an oral tradition.

Comments included:
I enjoyed it more than expected but could only read it in bite size chunks.
Enjoyed it but not something I'd usually read for pleasure.
Clever. I learned from it. A satisfying read
I loved it. It flowed over me. The love scenes were beautifully written.

Several of us admired the effort behind it and the ability to sustain the medium of verse in such a long work.
One person did not enjoy it as much, being concerned about the historical accuracy. And found it took a lot of reading to extract the story.
The scores:6;7;6;7;5;7;8 = 6.5

April 2016 - The Great Stink by Clare Clark

A first novel, and the title puts you off. Of the six of us at the meeting, only 3 had read it, and one had tried. One found the thought of William cutting himself very gruesome, and didn't think he would have come home from the Crimea with the wound that he had. Self-mutilation in the sewers would surely have infected and killed him back in London.  We read for pleasure, not to be dragged through London's sewers, but the actual story  was quite good.

There are two stories here, one about William May the engineer on the London Sewer project, and the other about the poor man Long Arm Tom and his dog, who roams the sewers collecting rats for the rat fights.  William specifies the bricks for the new tunnels against the desires of his boss Hawkes who has the builder English  bribing him for the contract. When William insists that the contract goes elsewhere, English is found dead and William fitted up for it. William has periods of madness and is sent by his employers to an Asylum, but  then taken to the hulks to await trial. His wife cannot take the madness and is trying to forget him, despite the reduction in her circumstances.

Tom meanwhile sells his dog to the 'Captain' who gives him a written contract to supply the rest of the money in two more instalments, but then defaults. He is bitter about this, as he and the dog had a very close relationship, probably the only one of his life. Tom cannot read, so doesn't know what this contract actually says.

Both  William and Tom have hidden stuff in the brickwork of the sewers.

In trying to prove William's innocence, his lawyer is in the sewers when Tom comes down with the Captain to recover the bill of sale, which is actually a bill of sale for some straw that will prove Williams innocent and convict Hawkes. This is where the two stories come together as the Captain and Hawkes are actually the same man.  William is freed while Hawkes goes to the gallows.

William is reunited with his wife, and moves to the county to become a gardener. And Tom has his dog.

A mystery right through until the only good news at the end.

It is not Dickens- there is too much descriptive information about the sewers that is continually repeated.  Here is the pumping station that William was working on before he went to the asylum: http://www.crossness.org.uk/index.html.

As the author was an academic, and it was remarked that she had done a lot of research and couldn't bear not to use it.

Marks were 1,6,5,6  giving 4.5 as an average.

February 2016 - Monogram Murders - Sophie Hannah

From Maggie:
I must admit to struggling a bit with this one. I'm not a great Hercule Poirot fan and found him a similarly tedious and pompous character as in the originals. But I suppose that's something of a tribute to the author who has maintained the Christie style. I'm just thankful that we didn't have to endure him waxing his moustaches in this one!
The other main character Catchpool , I found equally unsympathetic. What a wimp! Hopefully, a century on , our detectives have a bit more nous. But on the other hand he was facing an extraordinarily complex (and dare I say unrealistic), plot.
Having said all that I can appreciate that many of the characters were well drawn and the whole thing was well constructed although the pace of it was a bit slow for me.
My score is therefore 6

This book was slightly tedious. I wanted to make sense of the whole mystery, but Sophie Hannah kept introducing more  and more characters and more plots. In the end I couldn't see the wood for the trees, and even after I finished the book I kept going over it in my mind  trying to fathom out what was relevant and where the red herrings, and my, there were loads of these. All in all, I didn't really like this book. Hercule Poirot was very annoying by not sharing his thoughts with Detective Catchpool who was supposed to be in charge and what a dim-wit he was.  Catchpool seemed to be working on his own, not leading a team.  I got so annoyed that they didn't follow up important clues as they came along and went around the houses before delving into them. I felt all along that there were two plots, but the pair didn't realise this until halfway through the book.

Why didn't Jennie and her man just flee after the deed and set up a new life somewhere else?

Average of marks: 5.

2015-Dec-Jan16 Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Only three people going to be available for our meeting, so it was cancelled and perhaps we'll have a discussion about this book next month. 
 
My Comments:
Difficult to get into as I don't read fantasy/Scifi any more. Post apocalyptic story. the world has been completely reformed and people are classified by the colours that they can see into a hierarchy with purple at the top and grey at the bottom. Stupid thing like colour is fed to the gardens in CYM just like a printer, yet the medical profession works by colour patches for every ill, The numbers of the patches are in threes, but go up to 300+ and not like the HTML colour codes which are 0-FF for Red-Green-Blue.[html-colour-codes.info] 

Spoiled a bit by two homonymal spelling mistakes (p379 l8 Towed for toed). Our hero is the 12 year old son of a colour-swatcher (medico) that is sent to a remote village to replace their man who has died. There are elements in the village that are subversive, including Jane who Eddie falls for. People undergo an Ishihara test to determine what colour they are, and try to marry up. That's a sub-theme of the book. There are people trying to get out, and a colour master trying to find out what has been happening. I got drawn into it by the half-way mark. Tommo is the ultimate fixer, for a commission. The final impression is that Eddie is going to do whatever he can to undermine the world management committee that sets the rules and see that they are enforced.

Things like the periodic upsets when things from the past are banned and the populace gets ever backward, yet has developed carnivorous, self maintaining roads and has replaced railways with monorail travel are hard to live with, and trees that eat people.

Despite that, would I read the next book in the series? I have got to know the people so maybe. The author has some weird ideas and I wonder if he is writing to warn us of the state of our nation. 

Mark [6]

Ros's Comments

I thoroughly enjoyed Shades of Grey. Had some moments in the first chapter when I thought it so bizarre that I wondered whether to continue. The control by colour vision is a  totally novel concept - only possible in science fiction- and it seemed to work. It took me a  while to start to suspect that there might be a dark controlling aspect. Made me think of Wool by Hugh Howey. 

 

I liked the characters, enjoyed the humour and the overall idea is very clever. Loved the names both of people and places and the spoons and particularly the Apocryphal Man - when he realised that he could be seen……

 

It is quirky and witty and I would give it 8/10 and hope that there might be time in a future meeting when we might discuss it again, because I would love to…… Thank you Lis for introducing me to Jasper Fforde!

 

Note to Ros: Many years ago, perhaps before your time, we had read 'The Eyre Affair'.

 

 

 

November 2015 - The Goldfinch - Tartt

A former pupil of Rembrandt, Fabritius is regarded as a lost genius; barely a dozen of his works survive following the 1654 explosion in the Delft gunpowder Arsenal which killed hundreds of people including the young artist. One painting, often acknowledged as his masterpiece, is an exquisite tiny oil of a goldfinch, chained lightly by the ankle to its metal perch, affixed to a wall. 

As with Fabritius’s own sudden demise, The Goldfinch opens with catastrophe: an explosion at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, where 13-year-old Theo Decker and his mother have dropped by to see an exhibition of the Dutch Golden Age. She is killed in the disaster, her last words to her son seem prophetic: “I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.” 

Theo’s coming-to in the wintry stillness of the bombed-out galleries, his fear, disorientation and claustrophobia, the still lifes on the walls staring glassily down on the dust and rubble-covered scene, is a shocking opening to the book.

Initially Theo stays with ultra-polite, wealthy Manhattanites the Barbours, the family of a nerdish school friend. He also meets and develops a sort of father-son relationship with Hobie the partner of the old man in the museum, and a lifelong romantic affection for Pippa who also survived the explosion. After a few months his estranged alcoholic gambler of a father, accompanied by the lovely Xandra, abruptly whisks him to the parallel universe that is Las Vegas, where at first Theo’s only companion is a yapping miniature dog. Later he meets Boris, the boy who will become at the same time both his best friend and worst nightmare and is the character who brings a much needed element of black comedy to what would otherwise have been unrelieved blackness.

When his father dies while fleeing his creditors Theo runs away back to New York and becomes Hobie's business partner. This goes well until some shady characters find out that he has been passing off restorations as original pieces of antique furniture. Then Boris turns up to say that he had taken the Goldfinch from Theo's hiding place and lost it while using it as collateral in drug deals. They go to Amsterdam, kill some baddies, rescue the painting and claim the insurance reward which Theo uses to buy back the mis-sold antiques and so protect Hobie's good name.

The novel concludes with several pages of high-minded whimsicality along the lines that the deathlessness of a work of art can make the keenest losses more bearable. THE END!

Almost everyone enjoyed parts of the book. Most people's favourite sections were the explosion at the beginning and the gangster bit in Amsterdam at the end. There were mixed feelings about the schooldays in Vegas with Boris, but the years in New York through his twenties dragged a bit. The characters were all well drawn and interesting but the story could have been shorter. At the end of our discussion we were left with one big outstanding question:why did the silly boy take the painting in the first place?

Marks.   Average 7

               Range 6-8

October 2015- The Mission Song

The Mission Song - John Le Carre

When the Cold War ended, le Carré, the master of spy thrillers, turned to writing stories set in the third world, continuing the themes about which he clearly feels very strongly – corruption and betrayal. This one is set largely in an anonymous northern island, and is told in the first person by Bruno Salvador, a British citizen (or at least so he believes) who is sent to translate at a conference between a collection of conflicting Congolese tribal leaders/war lords and a shadowy organisation of nameless individuals called the Syndicate. An unnamed British government department has selected him because his background (an Irish Missionary father and a Congolese mother) means that he has acquired fluency in English, French, Swahili and a range of minor African languages. Bruno is initially pleased to help because of his empathy with the people of his homeland. The meeting is ostensibly about organizing a coup prior to planned elections, so that the ‘real’ democratic forces can seize control and the Syndicate can exploit the rich minerals for the benefit not only of themselves, but also of the Congolese people, who will receive the “People’s Portion”. Needless to say, all is not as it seems.

Bruno’s naïvity (and how can one so intelligent be so naïve?) is quickly stripped away as the relations between the Congolese delegates and the representatives of the Syndicate become clearer, and he becomes privy to an entirely different agenda. He is torn between his ethical principles and his professional duty as an impartial interpreter. When he chooses the former, and returns to London at the close of the conference he carries with him evidence of the coup. But remarkably he is still naïve enough to trust people in authority and so more betrayals occur. He is forced to go into hiding with a politically active Congolese nurse with whom he formed an instant romantic attachment after earlier having met her by chance while interpreting for a dying man in a London hospital. This part of the plot stretches credulity too far for me. In the end morality wins and Bruno, with help, does manage to stop the coup, but with serious consequences for him and his new girlfriend. At least they are alive; in real life I suspect they would have ‘disappeared’.

Overall the book is well-written and most of the characters are believable in terms of their dialogue and speech patterns, but the plot, which bears some resemblance to the notorious botched 2004 attempt to organize a coup in Equatorial Guinea that involved Mark Thatcher, is rather turgid and little more than a polemic against the wickedness of Western influence in Africa, even though most of the Congolese characters are just as venal. Reviewers have pointed out a number of weak plot features, which I agree with. For example: how is it that one of the Congolese ‘war lords’ is brutally tortured by agents of the Syndicate, but within a few hours appears at the conference table full of life and none the worse for his ordeal; why doesn’t Bruno copy his stolen material while on the run; and why was he not searched when he left the island at the end of the conference?

Le Carré has written many marvellous spy novels and some of his later efforts after the Cold War era are almost as good, but this is not one of them.

No score available.