It wouldn’t be right to say that I fully understood The Raw Shark Texts. And it would be wrong to pretend that it’s an outstanding piece of work. Steven Hall’s novel begged me just a little too much to be loved for its wackiness. But I will hand it to him for writing a very refreshing piece of fiction, and one where greatness does on occasion shine through very brightly.
Eric Sanderson suffers from a rare form of memory loss, leaving gaping holes in his timeline. Eric Sanderson is haunted by a previous Eric Sanderson, a man who teases Eric (our Eric) with glimpses of the past. Letters arrive, featuring instructions and code. Snatches of journal entries (from the old Eric) tell us that he is bereaved by the death of his former lover in a scuba diving accident. The new Eric stumbles on, meeting and falling for an enigmatic young girl called Scout and a cat called Ian. There’s a mad professor with Einstein hair, a meme fish called a Ludovician and an interesting homage to Jaws.
Steven Hall is a talented writer, although ever looking to impress. Infuriatingly so. This novel veers too often into absurdity. The author Mark Haddon described it as being similar to The Matrix. I would describe it as being closer to the films written by Charlie Kaufman that include Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Interestingly, it is easier to compare The Raw Shark Texts to cinema than it is to literature. But unlike most films, that wrap up in under two hours, this novel is far too long. It’s worth spending time on if you have the patience to; I found the ending quietly moving, although largely I was disappointed.
Dare I say it, a weird kettle of fish.
Devil May Care is a new James Bond novel written by Sebastian Faulks to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth. Where many authors might take the opportunity to apply a modern makeover to 007 this is very much Faulks writing in the style of Ian Fleming. He is ever careful to avoid slipping into parody, and reading the opening chapters confirms that Faulks has done his homework on Bond’s history. He’s also a wise choice for the job, his diverse back catalogue including such stunningly different novels as Birdsong, On Green Dolphin Street and Engleby prove he’s keen to turn his hand to most things. And we can now tick spy fiction off as another of his successes.
Like the Fleming back catalogue, Devil May Care isn’t great literature but it’s a great spy novel. Faulks effortlessly recreates the 1960s to follow where the original series ended. The Cold War comes to life, and the technology of the day charmingly shines through (agents having to make landline calls, and double agents cunningly pulling telephone wires out of their sockets). There’s also all the ingredients of classic Bond – the beautiful girl, crazed Oriental assassin, super villain with a grudge and a deformity. Add to that the wining and dining, a dozen trademark Bond hot showers, and a classic train-bound fight to the death. And throughout Faulks manages to plant the image of Sean Connery in my mind. At least his physique and looks; the action scenes reminded me of the recent authentic version of Bond as portrayed by Daniel Craig.
Tired, broken and in need of a drying out period James Bond is enjoying a well earned sabbatical. But as with most Bond novels, holidays are cut short by a call from M. Returning to London Bond notices the young, long-haired and carefree on the streets and smells the tell-tale aroma of cannabis. It’s 1967, and drugs have a firm foothold in Devil May Care. Bond is on the trail of a criminal mastermind who is planning to maim England badly through drugs. The novel takes time, there’s long passages of dialogue and an excellent early stand-off in the form of a tennis match between Bond and his enemy before things pick up. Faulks sets the scene wonderfully. There’s also the international flavour you might expect. As well as London, the action shifts from Paris to Iran and Russia.
Published by Penguin, the end papers of the book add Devil May Care to the Bond canon that includes Fleming’s fourteen original books and, interestingly, Charlie Higson’s four young Bond novels. The Kingsley Amis Bond effort from the late sixties is not included, nor the various novels that appeared in the eighties and nineties. If Sebastian Faulks is the official heir to Fleming then it’s unclear if he’s willing to write any more novels. If he isn’t, then this is a shame. Devil May Care is highly enjoyable, and I fully expect the paperback blurb to include the cliché “enjoyable romp”. Add to that “Bond is back – at his best”.
When I was 20 I worked briefly as an assistant in a record shop. It was easily the worst job I’ve ever had; the oppressive concrete of Hammersmith Broadway, the rude, insistent, positively insane customers I had to face. And the odd types who work in record shops. And the sheer monotony of a job that somehow fails to meet the romanticism you first attach to it. So I was interested in reading Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost, the first novel of a writer who’d endured the same job as me and chosen to set her debut work in a huge, sprawling shopping centre.
What Was Lost reminded me a lot of Jonathan Coe; similar in writing style and similar in how a mystery spanning two decades lies at its heart (although it’s years since I’ve read it, I was reminded a lot of Coe’s House of Sleep). O’Flynn’s mystery surrounds the disappearance of a young girl who, we learn from the opening chapters, daydreams through her waking hours as a would-be detective. Essentially we are in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time territory, but the novel begins to pick up speed when it jumps from 1984 to 2003. A long time after her mysterious disappearance we follow some of the shopping centre staff who are all, as you might expect, linked in some way to the girl.
Laura is our record shop assistant enduring the nightmare customers and staff, whose own brother also disappeared after being linked to the disappearance and questioned by the police. Kurt is a security guard, who sees a mysterious girl on the CCTV late a night, apparently lost in the empty, labyrinthine corridors. The novel manages to successfully combine humour with sadness; there are some very funny scenes surrounding Laura’s working days (her aggressive, burnt out colleague in the easy listening section is quite hilarious), and there are also many moments of dashed hopes and regret in Kurt’s background story. But best of all What Was Lost offers a very subtle and eerie ghost story, and whilst the solution of the “whodunnit” is not particularly surprising, the explanation of the “whydunnit” is very well constructed. A fine debut.
Then we Came to the End by Joshua Ferris gave me one of the strangest reading experiences of recent years. My reaction to the book slid from liking it to hating it in only three stages.
The novel begins as a well written and amusing study of office life in Chicago. The style reminded me very much of Joseph Heller, especially his novel Something Happened, which many fans prefer to the more celebrated Catch 22. A sort of White Album vs Sgt Pepper debate. Anyway, Then we Came to the End starts promisingly and I liked it a lot, although there was the nagging doubt at the back of my mind that the book was far too Hellerish. So a word of advice to anyone who’s not a fan of Joseph Heller: don’t read this book.
The first section is quite lengthy and begins to grate because the story doesn’t really go anywhere; there’s no real story at all – simply a series of dryly observed views of office life overshadowed by the depression of the workers facing the onset on redundancy. There’s funny passages – very funny in places – and some excellent dialogue that captures the pettiness and absurdity of office life. Ever stolen somebody’s chair after they’ve left the job because it’s a far better chair than your own? You’ll be hesitating before doing it again after reading this novel.
Ferris does something interesting by changing gear for what I’m calling the second section. This is an althogether more sombre series of chapters following a single character – the office manager as she faces breast cancer. I found it an outstanding piece of writing that surprised me in its sadness and insight. Unfortunately once this section is over Ferris returns for act three and he appears to have lost interest in proceedings. The last 150 pages or so of the novel was one of the biggest struggles I’ve had with a book for a long time. I didn’t want to trawl through any more of the Hellerish style and Ferris appeared to have lost focus. The novel became more of a drag than getting up for work on a winter Monday morning.
So a curate’s egg; funny and incisive but a little too close to the style of a classic author, and really just too long. Where are editors when you need them? At half its length this would have been much better, possibly an outstanding debut novel, but it’s ultimately boring and repetetive, undoing all the good done in the early chapters. And very overrated.
There’s that buzz you get from discovering new authors that you love. The latest for me is Dan Rhodes, and I’ve just finished his rather wonderful Gold. This is his fifth novel, described by The Times as savagely funny, startlingly original. I can’t argue with that; I suspect that when people describe books as laugh out loud funny they don’t actually mean that but Gold is indeed laugh out loud funny. It’s let your eyes water in a giggling fit funny, put the book down while you pull yourself together funny. Gold had members of my family asking me what I was laughing at and if I was alright. Books don’t do that to me very often.
Gold is hilarious, well written, peculiar and strangely moving. I think I love Dan Rhodes because I suspect that all his novels are like this. I suspect he is a consistently good writer. Gold follows a young Japanese girl called Miyuki on her annual holiday to an eccentric Welsh village, full of idiosyncratic characers who congregate in the local pub, drinking beer and competing in pub quizzes. They go under unusual nicknames such as Tall Mr Hughes, Short Mr Hughes and Septic Barry, but all are beautifully crafted characters that could fill a novel of their own – although one of the skills of Rhodes is that he can effortlessly flesh out his characters by only hinting at their full biography. Miyuki appears to lurk in the shadows, leading a lonely existence; holidaying alone every year, filling herself with beer and junk food, reading endlessly (I know, there’s nothing wrong in that) and slowly filling us in on the backstory of her life. Rhodes makes Miyuki – fairly ordinary – a fascinating, real and touching character (another skill) and Gold sails far above the simple comic novel I was anticipating.
Put simply, if you want to add Dan Rhodes to the ever growing list of your favourite authors then read Gold. You can then attempt to answer the difficult questions of how to form a band but never perform or write any songs, whether it’s in your best interest to become a violently rude pub landlord, how to make your contact lenses dance on a hot stove and if Frazzles really make a perfect side dish. But best of all just enjoy the brilliantly subtle and moving ending. I read the last page twice. I’ll read the whole book again. Intrigued? Then read it.
There’s nothing like discovering new authors you love, and Dan Rhodes has given me the best buzz in a long time.
Previous Page |
Next Page
