Madly, Deeply - The Alan Rickman Diaries

 

 I always feel there’s something slightly underhand, immoral even, about reading someone else’s diaries. As a journal/diarist myself I would be horrified if anyone were to read my words. For me, anyway, the diary fulfils several goals. It’s an aide memoir when you need to remember when, where and with whom you did what and why! And it’s like a conversation you have with yourself, no holds barred, chastising both yourself and others, triumphant when things go right , whingeing at the unfairness of life, critical of those who interrupted your own personal rhythms, a place to expound your own theories and philosophies of subjects, metaphysical, existential and downright prosaic et cetera et cetera. But did that stop me reading Alan Rickman’s diaries? No it didn’t!

I did wonder whether those of us who are diary keepers respond to someone else’s diaries differently from those who are not diarists. I found myself understanding many of Mr. Rickman’s comments that were not always complimentary about friends and colleagues but I can imagine people that don’t keep diaries feeling outraged perhaps. I also wonder how much editing went on of entries that might be deeply contentious.

Something I found fascinating as someone who tends to be a little starstruck at times was the multitude of entries referring to “famous people“ who are his friends. People like Emma Thompson and Ruby Wax with whom he did everyday things like meet for lunch or go round their houses. These diaries offer us a personal insight into people we know only from their work on stage and screen.

It was interesting also, to read his take in response to events I had only read about in the news. I remember being sad, objectively, reading about the death of Natasha Richardson but for Alan Rickman it was devastating because she and her husband, Liam Neeson, were good friends of his. 

It was very revealing to read of Mr. Rickman’s thoughts about his own art and craft, the highs and the lows, the creative frustrations and the ultimate successes alongside those irks that all of us have from time to time with plumbers and electricians and the problems of owning property!

And I found it profoundly moving as Mr Rickman descended into his terminal illness how the entries became brief, monosyllabic almost. And after reading I felt sad that we’ve lost a man so talented, so creative and so intelligently critical of himself and the world he inhabited.

I was fortunate enough to win a copy of this book from a Canongate Books draw! My diary entry for that day was very upbeat! 😉 

The Judas Tree - Amanda Jennings - Blog Tour

 

 In spite of the fact that this turned out to be an e-read rather than a physical book with its annoying split lines and non-uniform font sizes not to mention the publishers mark every few pages I could not put this down! I was riveted.

Psychological thrillers are plentiful these days but I think what makes this story stand out is that it has some points to make as well as being an entertaining and page turning read.

Let us examine the blurb for a moment……

‘At a bleak boys’ boarding school in Cornwall in the eighties when bullying is rife, Will and his best friend, Luke, are involved in a horrific incident that results in Luke leaving.

Twenty-five years later their paths cross again and memories of a painful childhood come flooding back to haunt them both.

Will’s wife, Harmony, is struggling after a miscarriage that has hit her hard, and wishes Will would open up about what happened. But as Will withdraws further, she finds herself drawn to the charismatic stranger from her husband’s past, Luke, and soon all three are caught in a tangled web of guilt and desire . . .’

One of those rare things  - a blurb that encapsulates concisely all the salient points about the book!

The main characters, Harmony, Will and Luke are skilfully constructed and developed.But the bit part players are no less fundamental to the novel. It’s a fast paced narrative so critical for a psychological thriller but the pace never obscures the issues at the heart of this story. Issues that will put your emotions through the wringer.It’s dark but ultimately redemptive.

I suppose what chills the most is the deep-rooted effects of bullying and the deep scars that can be left not to mention the devastation of miscarriages. The balance between the domestic/psychological thriller element and the wider topics is well executed. I also thought it was well plotted and there were hints all the way through which keeps the reader on their toes and always guessing.

What I also found interesting is that this book was originally published in 2014 under a different title – the Judas Scar. A reissued publication from HQ stories that will hopefully catapult the book towards a new audience. At the end of the book the author offers a perceptive and fascinating insight into the provenance of the story and her writing of it.

My thanks to HQ stories for a place upon the blog tour.

A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki

 

This is my second Ruth Ozeki book this year and both of them have been Canongate Books readalongs . And I am much the richer for the experiences. This is a quite extraordinary novel steeped in Zen and quantum philosophy and expanded within the delicate, expansive prose that is the hallmark of Ruth Ozeki’s writing. An exploration of time – of pasts and presents. Two of the protagonists in the novel, Ruth and Oliver, made me wonder whether there was an autobiographical slant to the story. Did the author come into possession of a Japanese teenager’s diary? Or is it a way of emphasising the writer’s personal stance on writing and time? It’s a fascinating device, for sure.

It is a deep novel that touches on some fundamental aspects of contemporary life yet also encompasses timeless, enduring truths and philosophies. There are abundant footnotes to explain the Japanese words and there are several informative appendices dealing with some of the ideologies covered in the book. It’s a multilayered narrative with letters, diaries and straightforward first person storytelling. It’s rich, evocative and profoundly thought-provoking.

Nao’s story delivered through her conversational diary will tug at your heart, she endures so much. And Ruth takes her role as anonymous confidante to the ultimate. There are some unforgettable characters –  104-year-old Jiko , so wise, so influential. Nao, herself, and her father whose true integrity is only revealed towards the end of the story all weave their way into Ruth‘s life on Vancouver Island. 

Both Ruth’s story and Nao’s seem to punctuate each other, almost as if they are coexistent. There is a sense of magic running through the story, inexplainable occurrences that imply a strange karmic connection between both writers - Ruth and Nao. 

Like many works of substance it is futile to try and pin it down,  for thoughts keep presenting themselves long after the book is closed and a review is written! But surely that is the mark of an extremely good book?

 

My thanks to Canongate Books for a gifted copy and the opportunity to be part of the readalong.

Lucy by the Sea - Elizabeth Strout

 

Part of me dreaded a spate of covid-19/lockdown novels although I understand the need to express the tangle of emotion that the situation provokes in so many of us. But having just finished this novel of Elizabeth Strout’s I feel it just might be the definitive pandemic novel. It’s so astute and perceptive to the needs of the individual and the many that I felt completely blown away by it. It’s a Lucy Barton novel. I’ve read them all now and I love them. Olive Kitteridge puts in an appearance too which further endeared the novel to me! But I think it would have worked as a pandemic novel whoever the characters may have been, the fact that it is Lucy Barton just adds to the richness because for the first time the reader has a shared experience with the characters in the novel.  We can examine put own feelings and reaction to lockdown and compare them with Lucy’s and William’s. It’s a strange thing but it brings us closer to the character.

In Oh William we learnt of Lucy’s marriage and divorce from William but we also saw the strength of their friendship. This is further explored in Lucy by the Sea as she and William enter lockdown together in a Maine beach house. Strout uses the lockdown situation to explore relationships and examine them in close proximity but she also ensures that there is no falling out of touch with the wider world - events like the riots in the Capitol and the murder of George Floyd are referenced. Ongoing situations from the previous book are developed and a satisfying sense of continuity prevails.

Strout’s  style, as ever, delights. The almost confidential, conversational easy flowing narrative belies the earnest and sober states that are being written about. And we can see that Lucy has existed in a kind of lockdown all her life, but her utterance at the conclusion of the book was so profoundly true in its simplicity and clarity that it fair took my breath away!

‘We are all in lockdown, all the time.We just don’t know it, that’s all.’

Lucy is older now, not as old as me yet! But I will be sad when there are no more Lucy Barton novels. I’ve come to view her as an acquaintance of sorts whose intrinsic vulnerability and self doubt I can relate to and so much comfort and reassurance is derived from such characters.

Like Flies from Afar - K.Ferrari translated by Adrian Nathan West

 

Oh this is delicious, darkly humorous, violent and irreverent but oh my goodness what an entertaining and immersive read it is. Wonderfully translated by Adrian Nathan West Like Flies from Afar follows the rather unpleasant Luis Machi through a torturous few hours after he discovers a corpse chained in the trunk of his flashy BMW. Nouveau Riche, self-made Machi who snorts his way through life and tosses people aside like discarded tissues is consumed by thoughts of who could possibly have set him up in this way. He is as crooked as the day is long so it’s unsurprising that somebody might be out to get him. But in this bitingly sharp, satirical Argentinian noir Ferrari has concisely taken us on a rollercoaster ride that you don’t really want to stop no matter how distasteful some of the subject matter is. In some ways it reminded me of Pascal Garnier. You know you shouldn’t but you’re almost rooting for the protagonist to succeed. And sometimes you can’t believe that anybody has the audacity to behave as Machi does much less an author finding the words to shock and entertain in one fell swoop. It’s crisp, muscular writing that gives you just enough detail to let your imagination run free. And that ending! Oh what a stroke of genius! This is the kind of story that could be made into such a good film. Provided it got past the censors that is!

Thanks to my local library for not just having a copy on their shelves but reserving it for me.

Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney

This book seemed to be all over social media for a while. This can do one of two things to me. It can send me scuttling off in the opposite direction as I flee most manner of potential hype. Or it can set my bookometer into motion so that I can do nothing until I have my grubby, little hands upon the book. You’ve probably realised that with this book the former applied. I did go on to read Normal People not long after it was published.  I enjoyed enough.  But it was the TV adaptation of Conversations with Friends that sent me bookwards.  I enjoyed the screen adaptation immensely. I had also watched Normal People on TV which I didn’t feel was anywhere near as good as the book.So my logic told me that if I enjoyed the “Conversations …” series the book would be even better!  Was it?

For a debut novel ‘Conversations…’ is impressive. It is an erudite, intellectual novel populated by sharp and acerbic characters. The exploration of relationships is piercingly perceptive and the understanding of the characters is so acute you feel they are people you’ve come across at some point in your life. There were times when I couldn’t stand any of them for various reasons -  apathy, judgemental, opinionated, needy but there were also times when all four of them broke my heart. A curious paradox. Or is it? Isn’t that what people in real life do to us all the time? And I think that’s what made the novel seem very real. What I didn’t get, though, especially given that ‘Conversations….’ is the title is why the entire novel lacked any kind of speech marks. I get the rebellious writer thing - wanting to eschew all the constraints of grammar and punctuation. But then go the whole hog. Ditch the capital letters and full stops, do the entire e e cummings thing or have I missed something fundamental? I understand that some people will have the opinion that the omission of speech punctuation forced the reader to attend more closely to what was actually being said. That’s an interesting concept and I guess as readers we are also individual. That wouldn’t apply to me. Maybe that’s paradox because obviously I noticed there weren’t any but I don’t think the inclusion or omission would have any effect on how I processed the writing. 

On paper the synopsis sounds like a regular run-of-the-mill affair novel. Two best friends, once lovers, meet up with a married couple and become friends. One of the best friends has an affair with one of the couple. But the thrust of the book is more about the interrelationships, the dynamics between all of them and how each individual character deals with the situations they’re in. It’s compelling and it’s fascinating as each of the characters cross paths with each other in various ways and their frequent failures to understand where the other is coming from.

So, was the book better than the series? In many ways the series was very faithful to the book there was swathes of dialogue lifted straight from the text. But there was some juxtaposition of events and locations. But overall I think I prefer the book! That’s usually the case.I’ve got mixed feelings about this desire to translate work of fiction to the small, or the large screen. I like that it can bring a new audience to an author and maybe inspire them to seek out the books for themselves. That can only be a good thing.

Urgent Matters - Paula Rodriguez - Blog Tour

Argentinian crime noir? Not a term you’re familiar with I’ll be bound. But I bet you said the same at the advent of the Scandi noir phenomenon. If this novel by Paula Rodriguez is anything to go by Argentinian noir may be the next big thing.

However I experienced a bothersome paradox while reading this. Murder is no laughing matter and this story deals with some serious issues, but I found threads of humour running through the story. A black comedy noir maybe?

The title derives from Saint Expeditus, the patron saint of……. urgent matters….. and this Christian martyr could almost be considered as another character in the story. In truth I found it hard to warm to any of the characters, except maybe Evelyn suffering those dilemmas of puberty that provoke sometimes inappropriate responses and actions. But I’m wondering if this was intentional on the part of the author? One of the other characters I enjoyed though was Monica. The paradox was a fine balance of comedy and sobriety. The characterisations are all solid and drive the narrative forward.

Hugo, partner of Marta, father of Evelyn, is on the run for murder. But he happens to be on a train which crashes in Buenos Aires. He escapes the wreckage. No one is sure if he’s dead or alive including those closest to him. The novel revolves around the investigation involving the police, his family, the local mafia and considers how corruption seems to be at the heart of all and impacts on whether justice can ever, ultimately, be served.

A spiders web of characters react and interact across the novel which is admirably translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses who has retained the South American flavour of the prose and with the author create a palpable picture of Argentina.

The novel exposes the shortcomings of the media and the police that in turn lay bare the frailties and the egos of those affected by the entire situation. But there are no neat resolutions at the end of the novel either, the reader is left to ponder the outcomes of subtly implied conclusions. I found it absorbing and quite compelling in places, disjointed in others, as indeed life can be, especially when people are propelled into extreme circumstances.

It’s a promising debut novel from an erstwhile journalist and writer who has confined herself to non-fiction up to this point and I await her future work with interest.

My thanks to Pushkin Press for a gifted copy and a place upon the blog tour. 

The Fugitives - Jamal Mahjoub

 My previous encounter with this writer was via one of his Crane and Drake novels, The Trenches,  under the name Parker Bilal which I enjoyed immensely. So I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of The Fugitives thanks to Canongate Books.

Interwoven with an engaging humour The Fugitives tells the story of the Kamanga Kings, disbanded now but a cult jazz band from the Sudan. The thoroughly likeable Rushdy who is the son of an original band member is instrumental (no pun intended) in responding to a request from Washington DC inviting the group to perform by encouraging them to reform, albeit with a different lineup. And so the action takes place in the Sudan and in the USA subtly allowing the reader to grapple with the differences between two cultures, two nations.

The book is as entertaining as the music that the mighty Kamanga Kings play, jazz aficionados will love it. It’s original and treads a tightrope between humour and the serious. It achieves an almost perfect balance between expansive humanity and abrasive politics. Trump is president need I say more? So themes of Islamophobia and racism are present. But somehow, in spite of the gravity of such themes the book never presents as too intense or oppressive.

The characters just leap off the page at you, quirky, imperfect, but human and real. Rushdy is the cement that glues them all together and if sometimes the action borders on the almost farcical it is Rushdy who brings us back to the most serious. I loved him because he doesn’t always see what’s right under his nose but his motive seems so pure and well intended the way he flounders made me want to give him a big hug.

There are some wonderful observations in the book - ‘ When life begins to fade, it’s the bright moments that stand out.’ uttered by the ageing Alkanary, another of my favourite characters perhaps because she was older and I could identify with her.

Some of the soul-searching exchanges between Rushdy and his best friend Hisham contain similar truths - ‘We should be living in the present, thinking of now, and of the future, not tying ourselves to a dream our parents had.’

The music too is palpable and it’s almost as if the book has a syncopated beat that runs through it to mirror the musical numbers that the Kings play. It’s a celebration of music, of jazz and of how unifying music can be. 

As a story it’s an absolute delight, with some cliffhangers (almost literally!), it entertains and it seeks to provoke some consideration from the reader on a variety of themes. I really enjoyed the writing. It was one of those books that left me with a sense of satisfaction when I concluded it.

Blues People - LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

 

I first came across LeRoi Jones in my pocket poet edition of the Beat poets which I bought in 1973, which contains his poem Way Out West which he wrote for Gary Snyder. So he’s always been in my consciousness as one of the ‘Beats’. In that poem he refers to Nat King Cole underlining his appreciation and understanding of the importance of music within the common consciousness. Criticised for communism, anti Semitism and homophobia during his lifetime Jones remained outspoken regarding his beliefs. So I was intrigued when Canongate Books offered me the opportunity for a gifted copy of ‘Blues People’ republished this year.

‘ The middle-class black man bases his whole existence on the hopeless hypothesis that no one is supposed to remember that for almost three centuries there was slavery in America, that the white man was the master and the black man the slave. This knowledge, however, is at the root of the legitimate black culture of this country. It is this knowledge, with its attendant muses of self-division, self-hatred, stoicism, and finally quixotic optimism, but informs the most meaningful of Afro-American music.‘ 

LeRoi Jones seminal work on ‘Negro music in white America’ is an erudite and intellectual consideration of the development of blues and jazz. But it is also a condensed and passionate history of African Americans from the early days of that living genocide, known as slavery, through to 60’s America. This updated version contains a introduction by Jones, (who changed his name in 1965 to Amiri Baraka) in 1999. 

It’s a powerful work that also exists as a sociocultural history of a people but intertwined with the development of some niche genres of music. Music has always been unifying force at numerous levels. It can express, as most art forms can, the most intense feelings and passions. 

‘What was so powerful and desperate in this music that guaranteed its continued existence? The music was an orchestrated, vocalised, hummed, chanted, blown, beaten, scatted, corollary confirmation of the history’

Blues, jazz, soul, R&B are all dissected within this deceptively slender volume. It’s a book that will assist any attempt to learn and understand about the history of black America. And it’s almost as if the music is the tool with which that history is being told and unfolded. It’s a substantial piece of work that seeks to analyse in depth without bias towards any one musician or genre. It allows the reader a detailed overview of blues and jazz which is fascinating. But it also offers the reader food for thought that is particularly pertinent within the context of #BlackLivesMatter in our contemporary world.

My thanks to Canongate Books for my copy.

The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twan Eng

 

This is a quite breathtakingly beautiful novel about one woman’s attempt to find closure for the atrocities she and her family suffered at the hands of the Japanese in World War II. It’s a multilayered book and really defies any meaningful synopsis. On one hand it is an ambitious work and on another it presents as a work with some staggeringly simple truths. So many themes are explored within the expansive, poetic narrative. It examines memory, those we choose to remember and those we choose to forget. It explores the futility of war and conflict. There’s the politics and history of south east Asia contained within its pages The book is full of love and hate and prompts us to reflect on how the two can often become entangled into one indefinable emotion. The book is in some ways a study of paradoxes, the devastation of war combines with the creation of beauty exemplified by the garden of Aritomo. In fact it’s a sublime observation of yin and yang at work. 

There is a collision of cultures, Malaysian, South African, Chinese, Japanese. There are secrets and revelations, there are mysteries solved and unsolved. There is violence and there’s peace. And running through it all is the garden. Aritomo’s garden, which symbolises so much of how life could be, should be lived?

Yun Ling is the constant in the story and in many ways it is her story. But like many stories there are numerous others who play a part, appearing and disappearing, fading in and fading out. And I think the story shows how people touch our lives, for good and for bad and how their actions leave footprints on our souls. It’s a haunting story. Something else I find fascinating was that as I began to read I believed this story to be the work of a female writer. It isn’t. And I was impressed by the sensitivity and empathy toward the female perspective. Despite some of the disturbing incidents in the book, overall I found it to be a book of peace and calm.

I’m not surprised that it was shortlisted for an award. It is not a run-of-the-mill novel. It is a work of literature. I was lucky enough to take part in Canongate Books readalong which offered me the opportunity to read and reflect upon the book in sections which is not normally how I like to read but it seemed perfect for this particular book.