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.
I can’t really explain what attracted me to Bill Bryson’s new biography of William Shakespeare. There are much weightier books I trawled through as a student, and at only 200 pages I wasn’t sure what Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World as a Stage could offer. However, he excuses his brevity by reminding us that Shakespeare the person is largely a mystery; although we know some key facts about his life, the years of his birth and death, who he married, how many children he had and so on, there’s nothing particularly substantial that’s survived history that even begins to explain his genius and enduring appeal. So as Bryson doesn’t attempt to provide an academic study into any of his plays – Bryson’s a man of facts and figures and not poetry and drama (and he’s more likely to tell us how many words feature in Hamlet as opposed to the themes it explores) – he aims to put Shakespeare into context instead, and we learn about London and the world of the theatre circa 1600.
And this period is always interesting to read about. Bryson is particularly keen to relate the grisly torture and execution that befell traitors and heretics, and he’s also keen to report on poor diet and sanitation, the very low life expectancy and of course the recurring visits of plague. He also gives a very good picture of the theatres of the time, how they came to be and what they were used for. For example, while crowds were prepared to stand watching several hours of Shakespearean tragedy (and as far as we can tell greatly enjoy it) they were also happy to watch bear baiting on another day in the same theatre. This is a book that really enjoys explaning just how different and remote the times were. As well as mentioning the well known restraints of the Elizabethan theatre (such as the fact that the female parts were always played by boys), Bryson carefully describes the life of the actors, from the huge volume of lines they were expected to learn (an actor was required to perform great feats of memory, having to keep several lengthy plays in his head – worrying I suspect if he was already cast as King Lear), how they were forbidden to wear the vast array of costumes outside of the theatre, and the penalties for drunkenness, lateness and the more serious crimes of enraging the monarch.
So Shakepeare’s actual personal life, cloudy at the best of times, acts as more of a bit player in this book. Bryson keeps assumption – always the temptation of a Shakespeare biographer – at arm’s length. The gaps in Shakespeare’s life – did he live in Italy as a young man, was he a soldier? – the questions – what did he really look like, how did he spell his name, was he gay, why did he only leave his widow his second best bed in his will? – are treated as mysteries that will never be resolved. Bryson is also prepared to knock him off his poetic pedestal; Shakespeare was lucky because many of his arguably equally talented contemporaries – including Christopher Marlowe – died young. He also dilutes some of the points often made to argue that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays – or at least collaborated – because they showed an unusually detailed knowledge of law and nautical expertise and anyway were just too good for an ordinary chap from Stratford upon Avon who didn’t go to university. Bryson argues that he was just naturally intelligent – bright, eager to learn, naturally gifted, and if he appears well versed in some subjects he’s terrible in others, for example showing an awful grasp of geography. And, most importantly, if the author of the plays was someone else pretending to be Shakespeare – what exactly was the point in that?
Bryson also tackles the much celebrated fact that Shakespeare had an extraordinary vocabulary – the average person today now knows at least twice as many words as the Bard did; although he concedes that it’s what you do with them that matters. And Shakespeare invented an extraordinary number of words – leapfrog, zany, critical, assassination, unmask – and many phrases were either coined by him or first recorded in his work – cold comfort, cruel to be kind, salad days, flesh and blood. More than any other writer, before or since.
This is an enjoyable book but I couldn’t help thinking it was written with the tourist in mind, somebody who might pass the Globe in London whilst on holiday and were keen to learn a little more. There’s nothing wrong in this, and as I’ve said Bryson does give a good portrait of the era that shaped Shakespeare’s work – and without some grasp of the times it’s hard to understand the plays fully (but we’ll never go all the way, and Bryson points out to the reader who might think they know it all that there are just some lines that remain forever incomprehensible). I wanted Bryson to revel in Shakespeare’s lines a little more, I wanted him to prove to me that he loved those lines, to celebrate all the wonderful things that Shakespeare has done for him, but this is too sober a study for that.
But I hope the tourists visiting the Globe buy themselves a ticket as the only way to really appreciate Shakespeare is to see a good production, and you need to know nothing about the man’s personal life. He can remain an enigma, as possibly he chose to do. I can speak from experience – the 2000 Globe production of Hamlet with Mark Rylance was the best thing I’ve ever seen in the theatre. It will be hard to beat.
This is a book I didn’t want to read. To be honest I found Nick Hornby’s last novel A Long Way Down somewhat weak, and this latest – Slam, an attempt at teen fiction – simply didn’t appeal at all. And to be really honest, I only considered picking it up after my wife had bought a copy through the half price offer with The Times. And I only started reading it because I found myself suddenly and inexplicably bookless. So it was a pleasant surprise to find Hornby back on top form with his best work since High Fidelity.
Slam is told in the familiar voice that’s characteristic of all Nick Hornby novels. Self-depreciating, very funny and observant, with comments on everyday life usually annoyingly obvious in the I wish I’d thought of that sense. The voice here is one of a fifteen year old boy, but Hornby only alters his style slightly to result in a minor variation on any of his previous narrators. The strength in the book lies in how Hornby takes a well tackled subject – teenage pregnancy – and makes it very witty, insightful and at times moving.
Ben is our teenager in question, obsessed with skateboarding and the hero of the pastime Tony Hawk (not to be confused with Tony Hawks by the way, who often appears on Radio 4 panel shows). The title of the book refers to accidents that befall the skateboarder, often prone to conflicts with concrete when their concentration slips. There’s a hint of loneliness in Ben’s life; he talks openly to the Tony Hawk poster in his room, and his mum feels compelled to drag him along to a party hoping he’ll find a nice girlfriend there. This is where things start to get complicated, a slam of gigantic proportions, and Hornby’s skill as a novelist means he can inject life into much used themes – divorced parents, class differences, adolescent woes – to make them fresh and interesting on the page. He also uses a very clever device – but I won’t spoil it for you – to allow his narrator small and sobering tastes of his immediate future. Slam is a growing up novel, a coming of age novel and story about coping with adulthood when it’s thrust upon you, and Hornby managed to keep me glued to the page throughout, quite an achievement as I was initially quite determined not to enjoy the book.
After a gradual decline into disappointment Nick Hornby has delivered the goods again, and Slam has reminded me just how good he is. It’s easy to forget; after Fever Pitch came a deluge of would-be Hornbys with their humourous tales of everyday British life. A particular type of novel – usually written by males born between the late 50s and early 70s – appeared everywhere and still continues to do so. But Hornby remains the master.
I enjoyed Tom McCarthy’s Remainer so much that I’m going to re-enact my enjoyment. Let me explain what I mean. I plan to hire an actor to fly to Madeira and sit on a hotel room balcony drinking the local beer, recreating the scene of me – on a few days holiday break – reading the book. The actor will read the book for most of the day, alternating between balcony and bedroom depending on the weather (note to self: need to find a way to recreate last week’s showers), leaving the room periodically (outside the scope of this re-enactment, but let’s assume he’s out doing odd bits of sightseeing and eating). He will appear to be enjoying the book tremendously, his face alternating between studious concern and mirth. He’ll be dressed in shorts and a flowery holiday shirt. When he’s finished the book he’ll turn back to the front and start again. Oh yes, and I’ll hire another actor to play my wife, lying on the bed and reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, and another to play the maid, ever eager to change the towels.
Have I gone mad? Perhaps. But anyone who’s read Remainder will hopefully understand perfectly, especially if they enjoyed this absorbing insight into the complications arising from an addition to repetition. Remainder has an unnamed narrator, suddenly eight and a half million pounds better off following compensation for a freak (but unspecified) accident. Recovering physically and (ostensibly) mentally, he throws his money into the stock market before deciding on a more offbeat project. Half remembered, half dreamlike, he imagines an intricately designed and populated building; piano music heard from a distant room, the smell of cooked liver wafting from a downstairs kitchen, cats walking across an adjacent roof. His great wealth allows him to recreate the dream exactly – proving that money will get you anything you desire. He buys a block of flats and converts it to his exact vision, hiring actors to play the roles of its inhabitants, including a designated “liver lady” and pianist. One re-enactment leads to another; from a rudimentary visit to a garage to drive-by shootings and eventually the idea of recreating a bank heist, the scenes renacted and recreated for our narrator, and replayed endlessly on a loop to satisfy him.
What makes Remainder such an excellent novel is McCarthy’s attention to detail and logic. Real life ephemeral scenes – such as the changing of a tyre – are opened up to show their fine detail and reliance on random and unique properties. Tripping over a kink in the carpet, dropping a bag of litter, all chaotic but carefully recreated. Reading this I became immersed in his narrator’s crazy world, half of me understanding him perfectly and half of me dreading what was to come as addiction is usually seen to spiral out of control. And McCarthy keeps you on edge right until the last page, where we reach a partially unresolved although somehow satisfying end. I’ll say no more because you really do need to read Remainder to appreciate just how good it is; well-written, absorbing, original, scary, mad.
Sometimes it’s hard to overcome your disappointment in a book.
Louis de Bernières published Birds Without Wings in 2004, a novel I regard highly and a work I really believe to be his masterpiece. It’s a big read; difficult and demanding at times, but so well written and executed that I’d place it alongside Dickens. Four years later comes A Partisan’s Daughter, a much slimmer and slighter work, and one that after taking me only a day to read has left me crying out for something more substantial.
A Partisan’s Daughter is an enjoyable enough novel. Mostly. Set in London in the early 1970s, it follows Chris, middle aged and dull at only forty, who approaches a girl who he believes to be a prostitute in an uncharacteristic moment of despair tinged with madness. Recovering from this awkward mistaken identity, the two, English and Yugoslavian, forge an unusual friendship, Chris visiting the run down house where the girl resides to share stories. The exchange appears one sided to Chris; he cannot compete with the exotic, exciting and sometimes disturbing visions from the girl’s past.
As the novel unfolds the reader is invited to question the validity of stories, and de Bernières poses a difficult question for the reader – do we sometimes do things simply in order to create an experience so that we can relate that experience to others? Do we embellish the truth? Do we tell stories to satisfy ourselves and to torment others? The themes are not new but they are well considered. Ultimately though I am disappointed; I miss the large canvas that de Bernières usually works with, he’s a big writer and I’m still waiting for something that will take much longer to digest. And I just hope I don’t have to wait another four years for it.
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