Reviews in Brief

I've been on a bit of a reading spree and find myself unable to finish up a proper length review before I dive into the next book, so I thought I'd give you some quick snippets instead. All three of these novels are (unexpected) quality and deserve a mention.

Cox
This was my other pick at the Heathrow airport. I'm a rower and there is never any sort of fiction about the sport, so when my eye caught the title of this book I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled when I looked at the cover more closely and discovered that someone had managed to take all of the sexual innuendo that rowing generates and turn it into a romance novel. Cox does manage to escape most romance novel pitfalls (no bodice ripping or heath wandering here) but in the end it is a story that I loved because it was set in Oxford and about rowers. I doubt many other people would share my utter glee, but it's worth a peek at least. There are some yummy Olympic hopefuls, and enough reality to keep things grounded and moving along.

Falling in Love with English Boys
This novel takes the form of a blog written by a sixteen year old spending the summer in England. She's been dragged there by her mother and does not expect to enjoy herself much. However she manages to find her very own Prince William and the story takes the typical course of young adult romance. However, the saving grace lies in the narrator Cat's interest in things other than boys and lip gloss. Her story is paired with a diary of a young girl from the 19th century that Cat is supposedly reading. The two plots intertwine nicely and the inclusion of historical elements that show up in both stories is refreshing. Cat also finds herself spending time with a truly amazing group of friends, who are glamorous and intelligent, and best of all, willing to take Cat under their wings and be a good friend to her. I found myself wishing I could hang out with this group of girls too. There is a universal appeal to this novel that lends itself to recommendation, particularly to those who enjoy a good snarky young adult protagonist without actually reading a young adult novel.

Water for Elephants
I committed the cardinal sin of book lovers when it came to this novel, and saw the movie first. However, the book is amazing and much better than the film, although I will say the film does it justice. The author has taken the time to understand old time circuses and the detail of both sides of that world is gripping and powerful. I never wanted to put this book down, the characters are that well done and the story that compelling. Having the narrator switch back and forth from being an old man trapped in a nursing home to being his spry twenty three year old self works well, and my compassion for him builds as the novels goes on, so that by the end of the story you are gunning for him to make it, no matter his age. There is romance, intrigue and action, all gritty and intense and a must read for anyone who loves books.

Right, so there you go. Hope you find something excellent to read. Perhaps in exchange tell some people about this blog and start following it yourself!
Cheers.

The Stranger's Child

Picking up a book at Heathrow airport is a special process. You are choosing what form of entertainment will singularly be available to you for the next seven or so hours. It’s a rather daunting choice when you look at it closely, and lets face it, airports aren’t exactly known for their stellar selection of novels. Imagine my surprise when I stepped into the bookshop at Heathrow on my way back from Oxford and found Alan Hollinghurst’s latest novel, The Stranger’s Child, staring me down from an upper shelf. The store was offering a buy 1, get 1 deal, and since I already had one book in my hand, I found myself grabbing this one with the vague remembrance of reading another Hollinghurst novel earlier in the year. For those of you who are already familiar with Hollinghurst and his general subject matter, you will appreciate the wonderful irony of the other book I was holding being titled Cox. For those of you unfamiliar with this author, his agenda must be put rather bluntly. Hollinghurst is a gay author writing about gay characters; with the goal of breaking the established divide between a love story and a gay love story.

            In this particular novel, the reader is treated to not just one gay character, but many, spanning the decades of the sweeping family drama. Hollinghurst introduces his readers to Cecil Valance, a charming young Cambridge poet, who is visiting his friend (and lover) George’s house for the weekend. With his brash wit and unmatchable belief is his own desirability, Cecil leaves the household in a whirlwind of varying feelings and memories, that are followed throughout the subsequent sections of the story, long after Cecil himself has faded into the background. Particularly embroiled in this ongoing story is George’s younger sister Daphne, whose presence throughout the rest of the novel serves as the continuous thread for the story, even as sections deviate away from her personal thoughts and into those of outsiders trying to understand the part she played in the famous poet’s life.

            This segmented structure of the novel seems to be an attempt to keep things fresh and the reader interested over the course of five hundred plus pages. Hollinghurst only lets the reader begin to understand where the narrator is coming from and what they aim to do before rapidly shifting, often moving ahead in time at least a decade or two. We meet George, Daphne, a confident schoolmaster called Peter, and Paul, a nervous biographer, and finally a bookseller called Rob. The novel loses steam in the sections that are told from Peter and Paul’s point of view, partially because they occur within a similar time frame and introduce many of the same figures we’ve already seen. Paul is also simply an unlikable man, too nervous about his sexuality to ever be happy and too overconfident in his ability to write Cecil’s biography to ever have much success. The last section of course calls this initial assessment into question, but then again, that seems to be the last sections purpose anyways. Towards the end of the novel, the question of which narrator can the reader trust comes up, as earlier points of view are discredited in their old age and newer ones are revealed to have been keeping vast secrets. In the end it seems Hollinghurst aims to leave the reader guessing, and perhaps even a bit unsatisfied with the knowledge that we may never truly know what happened in a particular instance, even if we were there. No amount of later research, or discovery of lost books will help us to piece together the mystery. It is simply lost to the blowing smoke of time.

            The one true fault I find in this novel, besides its pacing issues in the middle, is Hollinghurst’s obsession with not writing about sex. He swiftly draws his characters into erotic situations, hinting like mad at all the dirty thoughts going through the men’s minds, and yet when the moment comes, he immediately cuts away to a different scene. The reader is left with barely a coherent suggestion of what happened. While this works in the context of the novel, and does go against the increase of sex for sex’s sake in many recent novels, there were moments when all I wanted was to have some details instead of heavily veiled hints! In this day and age no one is truly shocked by two men having sex, and there are certainly ways to write erotically without descending into pornography and sacrificing the literary art the author strives for. The Stranger’s Child as been touted by other reviewers as “one of the best novels published this year” and “a remarkable, unmissable achievement.” While I’m not ready to throw my hat in with those calling it the best novel of the year, I will say that for it’s broad scope and slippery subject matter, Alan Hollinghurst has written a novel of substance and charm that is worth putting one’s energies into.

His Dark Materials Series

I never read the His Dark Materials series (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife & The Amber Spyglass) when I was a child. I remember hearing about them, and the buzz they created, and I even managed to finish the first book, The Golden Compass, but somewhere along the way I was distracted. I’m here to tell you that that distraction was perhaps the best thing that happened to me in my literary journey, since I have now finally finished the series, while living in Oxford and as an adult that understands the profound beauty and power of Philip Pullman’s sweeping epic.

I found myself initially intrigued by the main character, a supposedly orphan girl named Lyra who runs wild over Oxford, while being brought up by the many scholars at Jordan College. Lyra is headstrong and lacks manners and polish. I found myself oscillating between liking her and finding her difficult to take seriously. She is at one moment a child, willful and selfish, and at the next moment wise beyond her years. Pullman has captured that strange stage of growing up, where on the brink of adolescence we are all caught between the adult and childhood world. While navigating growing up in circumstances far from normal, Lyra introduces us to a world that is similar to ours but with just enough unusual quirks to keep us guessing. The most obvious quirk of course is that each human being has a daemon, an animal projection of their soul that can shift shape during childhood and then settles on a fixed form when the person reaches adult hood. These are not pets but an extension of that person’s being, and Pullman is brilliant for having come up with such a concrete concept for the human soul.

Lyra’s companion through the series is a serious boy called Will, who is about Lyra’s age but has none of her childish frivolity. He is determined to find his father, cares for his mother deeply, and finds himself caught up on an adventure that changes his destiny. Will is my favorite character by far, perhaps because I forget he is only about thirteen. He sees the world as it is and is quite capable in all of the unlikely and fantastic situations he finds himself in. His devotion to his mother is heartbreaking and his ability to carry the heavy burden placed upon him towards the middle of the series with grace and humility makes him the ideal hero. Reading Will again made me forget that these are books aimed at children, for I could see the man he would grow to become and admired him immensely.

We of course met other memorable characters over the course of the three novels, including Serafina Pekkala, a witch of great age and beauty; Lee Scroesby, an aeronaut from Texas; Iorek Byrnison, an armored bear; Lord Asriel, a man hell-bent on destroying God and Mrs. Coulter, a woman whose beauty and charm hides a dark and complex inner-self. This cast is strong, vitally described and haunting and funny in their turn, pushing Lyra and Will along their prophesized journey.

I feel it would be foolish to even attempt a summary of the plot of His Dark Materials, for Pullman has achieved a story that is on par with the breadth and depth of Tolkien and Lewis. There are worlds upon worlds to be discovered, people of all kinds, magic and theology melting together into a swirl of fantasy that takes up the reader and only sets them down after they’ve experience grief, elation, uncertainty and triumph. The language never condescends, and in fact I often found myself wondering how on earth these were children’s books at all? There is so much in them that made me, an adult, pause and think and therein lies the delight. A child may read them for the adventure, an adult for the theological questions and genuine exploration of emotion and destiny. Just as Lyra and Will don’t understand much of what they’ve done until the very end, the reader may experience the series on multiple levels. It’s ok not to get everything, and even better, it’s better not to be conscious of not knowing. Just as Lyra and Will are unaware of their destinies, the reader goes in without knowing what impact the novels will have on them upon completion. I personally had the tears on standby as I read the last section of The Amber Spyglass, and even during parts of The Subtle Knife. Pullman made me care about every character, never letting someone be purely good or evil, and thus when each character met their particular fate, I felt connected to that result.

His Dark Materials stands out in my mind as a series that must be read, by everyone at some point in their lives. The grace and genius that went into creating this compelling story is something to be astounded by, and I salute Philip Pullman.