4/5
At some point on your road you have to turn and start walking back towards yourself. Or the past will pursue you and bite the nape of your neck, leave you bleeding in the ditch. Better to turn and face it with such weapons as you possess.
Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black
Hilary Mantel’s highly original and very odd novel received much praise when it was published in 2005. Somehow it has managed to escape my attention until now, following a lucky find in my favourite second hand bookshop. The novel follows the life of Alison, a medium, as she tours provincial towns with her psychic stage act. As she reconnects her audience with those lost to the spirit world she fights her own personal battle in keeping her private fiends at bay. Beyond Black has some very unsettling moments, but it’s a sinister story that manages to inject moments of comedy. Mantel is a very good writer, and even though this novel is a touch overlong at 450 pages, it is well worth reading.
Probably what surprised me most is that Beyond Black is far from what my paperback edition attempts to sell it as:
One of the greatest ghost stories in the language.
Philip Pullman
I’m not sure how many ghost stories Mr Pullman has read, but this simply isn’t true. M.R. James it isn’t, and the blurb is misleading as Hilary Mantel probably wouldn’t appeal to fans of the traditional ghost story (or even fans of Philip Pullman). The ghosts in Beyond Black are only visible to Alison, and as the novel progresses we delve further into her disturbing childhood. Her fiends represent very real monsters, and Mantel skilfully explores how horrors in the real world can easily surpass any in the supernatural. In the book, a minor character claims that, wherever you are, a rat is only six feet away from you. Similarly, Hilary Mantel suggests that something evil and unsettling is always lurking just below the surface. But that’s not necessarily anything supernatural.
Nastiness aside, this novel has some brilliantly subtle characterisations. Colette, Alison’s assistant, is very well drawn, as are Colette’s foolish husband Gavin and Alison’s pitiful mother. Even Morris, the ghost who personifies all of Alison’s woes, is strangely compelling. And true to the best ghost stories, if you really want to label it with a genre, this novel is wonderfully suggestive, and Mantel keeps the truth just beyond your grasp. You have to work to unravel this, which makes it all the more satisfying.
3/5
Another view of a ruined London in a distant future. Like Will Self’s The Book of Dave, J.G. Ballard’s 1962 novel The Drowned World also considers a vastly changed city. With global temperatures soaring, London is drowned by advancing waters as giant alligators, snakes and other primeval nasties slither into view to reclaim the world. A band of scientists decide to stick around, charting the changes to a just about recognisable landscape of submerged department stores and tower blocks. Where Self uses modern landmarks to sketch out his future – the wheel on the South Bank features prominently – Ballard has his cast seeking refuge at the top of tall buildings, and the Planetarium – perhaps a more potent symbol in the early 1960s of Man’s imminent conquest of the stars – is reduced to a dark and menacing underwater cavern. The celebration of outer space becomes trapped in inner space, explored by divers in space age protective suits.
The Drowned World is a well written science fiction novel, but I was disappointed by its lost opportunity to exploit the landscape of London just that little bit more. The premise reminded me of one worthy of H.G. Wells, but – like the devastation in War of the Worlds – the Master would have relished in the chance to describe the city, district by district, as it was claimed by the sea. Ballard also doesn’t delve deeply into why this ecological disaster has occurred; it’s a natural one caused by solar flares (or something equally vague), rather than Mankind bringing it upon himself (he fails to predict the concerns of climate change that a modern novel would eagerly seize upon). Ballard’s interest lies in suggesting human degeneration, something that would have certainly interested Wells. Deep within us all lie fears of the primeval swamp, an innate terror of the reptiles and insects that lived on the Earth millions of years before us. As London is engulfed in water and rising temperatures, these fears also rise in Ballard’s cast – making interesting reading as they slowly succumb to nighmare and madness.
All these years on, The Drowned World survives as a worthy effort to produce a celebral and quality science fiction novel, a hard objective in the sci-fi weary world of the early 1960s. Maybe because of this Ballard treats his subject a little too seriously, there’s room for humour in even the most inhospitable of landscapes – at least on the page. There is also an uncomfortable shift into Heart of Darkness territory towards the end of the novel; an unwise move as it will always be impossible to emulate Conrad. But The Drowned World does have an effective ending, and it’s worth reading, especially as its author had boldly chosen to stick with a genre unfashionable at the time. Admirable.
4/5
At night Dave worked the mainline stations – Victoria and Paddington mostly. The west of London felt warmer in the winter, better lit, less susceptible to the chill of deep time. The fares were frowsty under the sodium lamps. In the back of the cab they slumped against their luggage, and Dave drove them home to Wembley, Twickenham and Muswell Hill. Or else they were tourists bound for the Bonnington, the Inn on the Park or the Lancaster – gaunt, people-barns, where maids flitted through the lobbies, cardboard coffins of dying blooms cradled in their arms. In the wee-wee hours he parked up at an all-night café in Bayswater and sat reading the next day’s news, while solider citizens lay abed waiting for it to happen. His fellow night people were exiguous – they wore the faces of forgotten comedians unfunny and unloved.
Will Self’s novel follows the mental decline of a London taxi driver called Dave Rudman. Seperated from his wife, estranged from his son, Dave slips further into a bleak and confusing world. Reality takes a very weird detour and, when broken, raving and wired on anti-depressants, Dave decides to write it all down. And he doesn’t come near to imagining the legacy he’s creating. Five centuries later, with London flooded and largely unrecognisable, its degenerate citizens worship a new Bible. A book found amongst the remains of the forgotten past – The Book of Dave.
The Book of Dave is a challenging yet compelling read. I was daunted at first by this lengthy novel and came close to abandoning it more than once. It wasn’t until I was at least a third of the way through that it began to grip; I was gripped by Self’s sheer inventiveness, his gift for language and his imagination. It’s one of the most difficult books I’ve read for a while, but Will Self is a highly original and bold voice. As the chapters alternate between Dave Rudman’s sorry life, his decline chronicled between the late 1980s and early 2000s, and the dreamlike future, the reader is given no easy task in making sense of this novel. But if the future chapters are at times unfathomable, they serve well as a nightmarish echo of the present day story. And for me, the contemporary setting worked the best. At first I found Self’s writing grimly reminiscent of Martin Amis’s approach to the city in London Fields; an over the top and detached view, but he soon surpasses any comparison with Amis and reveals what a distinct, mature and gripping talent he has become. And a great London writer – his view of the city is original, romantic and disturbing. And in my mind accurate – he knows his London.
Where in lesser hands The Book of Dave would result in a pretentious and unreadable mess, Self manages to pull it off. A great writer, an infuriating writer. At times I was genuinely moved by this book, and doffed my cap to his skill as an author. At other times I was screaming at him to cut the incomprehensible chapters and get back on track. But that’s Will Self. To get him, you’ve got to love him and you’ve got to hate him. But you can’t ignore him.
4/5
I was quite ill last week with a cruel stomach bug. When not in the bathroom, I took the advantage of spending my time curled up with the cats and reading. Luckily for me my companion was Essays in Love by Alain de Botton. This is a writer who first came to my attention a few years ago with the excellent The Art of Travel. But like countless others, de Botton was cast to the back of my mind with all the other writers I really must read again.
So I was very glad to get reacquainted . Essays in Love is de Botton’s very first book, written in 1993 when he was in his early 20s. Semi-autobiographical, it charts a relationship he has with a young lady called Chloe. The couple meet on a Paris to London flight and proceed to embark on a not particularly unusual love affair. What is remarkable however is de Botton’s writing, especially in how he can make the ordinary and common incredibly fascinating. The wonders of this chance encounter (he marvels over the incredible odds that they sat next to one another on that particular flight), are followed by all the joys and complications of love – that first breakfast together, the introductions to parents and friends, the unpicking of past histories, the rows, the doubts, the plucking up the courage to say I love you. Throughout the book de Botton examines the nature of one who claims to be in love, the characteristics of the passionate, the unwise and the irrational. Why does he have a terrible row with Chloe over her odd choice in shoes? Especially when his newsagent’s choice in shoes is even odder? If he loved his newsagent would he react in the same way? And why does he react with jealously to Chloe’s actions, even when he knows his suspicions are unfounded and absurd? And so on – pondering over every mad notion anyone in a relationship has ever entertained.
What let me down slightly that at times the situation did not always seem real. Alain and Chloe appeared a little too text book and showed all the too obvious stages in a relationship, from conception to bitter break up. At the end of the book, depressed and defeated the lonely de Botton slips into the self indulgent despair we’ve all slipped into. And that doesn’t make the final chapters easy reading. But perhaps this is his intention. Alain and Chloe are text book lovers because they are like us all, we notice the obvious hallmarks because we are all doomed to repeat the pattern.
Alain de Botton is a thoughtful writer with a neat line in self deprecation. He is also very funny, one of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud. Like his other work Essays in Love is peppered with references to philosophers and their writing but skilfully done as to not alienate the reader. What’s ultimately, and strangely, satisfying is that even though he writes very wisely about the subject he has probably learnt nothing. As he hints at the end, like all foolish lovers he will keep making all the same mistakes again.
5/5
My children were at the centre of my life, circled at a distance by my writing. I kept up a steady output of novels and short story collections, largely because I spent most of my time at home. A short story, or a chapter of a novel, would be written in the time between ironing a school tie, serving up the sausage and mash, and watching Blue Peter. I am certain that my fiction is all the better for that. My greatest ally was the pram in the hall.
Living with his family in Shepperton, J.G.Ballard published his first novel The Drowned World in 1962. Two years later, his wife tragically died after succumbing to pneumonia on holiday in Spain. The still young writer brought up his three children on his own, filling his days with science fiction between the school run. In his excellent autobiography, Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, Ballard remembers raising his children with great pride and affection. This was never a time of struggle of stress, and in his old age looks back to mourn the loss of young children buzzing around him:
But childhood has gone, and in the silence one stares at the empty whisky bottles in the pantry and wonders if any number of drinks will fill the void.
But Ballard doesn’t spend too long mourning what’s gone, and although there are many dark moments in his life, this book is a joy to read. He was born in Shanghai in 1930 and spent the first sixteen years of his life there, several of them in a prison camp when his family were interned by the Japanese during the Second World War. His experiences formed the background for his most commercially successful novel, Empire of the Sun, although anyone familiar with this work should still read Ballard’s new autobiography. It’s a very straightforwardly written yet immensely moving memoir, following his life after the war through medical school, the RAF, family life and success as a writer. He doesn’t dwell on the horrors he witnessed first hand (such as the murder of a Chinese peasant by Japanese soldiers that he stumbles across at a railway station) and he doesn’t try to pry too deeply into the influences that have shaped his writing (surrealism, Freud, the grisly cavadars he encountered as an anatomy student). Miracles of Life reminded me what an unpretentious writer he actually is – and an obviously warm hearted man.
The bulk of Miracles of Life covers the years up to the 1960s; as Ballard grows older time passes very swiftly and the last 20 years are covered in as many pages, although he still manages to include interesting passages on working with Spielberg and his return visit to Shanghai in 1991. There’s also many interesting snippets of his life, such as his volatile friendship with Kingsley Amis and his current literary pals – one of his best friends is Will Self. His oddest associate is probably the young man called Cyril he knew as a fellow internee in Shanghai, who dreamt of changing his name to something more theatrical and becoming a famous actor. Cyril later became Peter Wyngarde, the camp and dashing 60s tv star Jason King.
It might be too early to talk about books of the year, but Miracles of Life is just that – very readable and enjoyable. The final pages, when Ballard reveals the urgency for writing the book, are also very moving. I couldn’t recommend this book enough.
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