History, Love | A History of Love

A new post! This one about a book I borrowed from Alison, whom I believed salvaged it from a charity shop some months back: 

A History of Love by Nicole Krauss. 

I'm going to start by quoting directly from Marie Claire's four star review as it lends itself well:

' Krauss's complex Russian-doll structure demands - and repays - concentration. But the characters are so vivid and human that it never feels like hard work. '

Almost, but not quite.
There was just one critical moment as I was about two-thirds of the way through and I lost sync as to whose story we were currently involved in & had to scurry back a few pages to reconfigure. Up until that point, I had felt spurred on in my reading of it and involved with the characters and their plights and quests across the pages. I guess because of the multiple layers and dynamics as to who knows who, if you lose the voice & story, you lose your way entirely. 

Character list being somewhat complex, as:

• Leo Gursky, Bruno ... Alma (Meriminski) ... Isaac Moritz
• Alma Singer ... Charlotte, Bird & David Singer
• Uncle Julian, Mischa & Herman ... Jacob Marcus
• Zvi Litvinoff, Rosa ... Leopold, Alma; Isaac Babel

That was the one weak link which changed this from being a fabulous, captivating read for me to a great, & otherwise, incredibly strong read.

1. Everything else that was good:

I loved the captions which introduced us to Alma's quirky way of thinking and also how that in turn, helped structure her story, her quest.

It's multilayered - full of character and observation and the tragicomic qualities of life. Metafiction; being so beautiful with its understanding of words as memory, words which comfort, as well as words turned to pages - as seen with Charlotte - which suffocate & stifle. 

It's brave due to its use of "unconventional typography". How many writers would stake an otherwise blank page to emphasise the process of writing or reading? Or a character's way of thinking? I loved especially how this was used as a open book format, with Leo's & Alma's journeys happening step-by-step, side-by-side.

The character of Alma: her determination & fortitude; the loss of her father, desire to prompt her mother to love again & intervention with the exchange of letters; her romance with Mischa & exploration of teenage love/lust. 

The character of Bird & Alma's influence on his need "to be normal"; how he handles this and how he aids the resolution of the ending - surely making him the kindest, altruistic figure of them all? 

The shared history of the oldest men, their war stories and subsequent flight from Poland. The eureka! moment as Jacob is exposed as Isaac; the horror at Isaac's plagarism of his estranged father. 

The sheer humanity - the love shown, loves lost, fears, dreams, laughter and tears. 

The inclusion of A History of Love as 'book-within-a-book'. 

The sheer poetry of 'once there was a girl...' 

________________________________ 

Plot: ***
It's labyrinthine but Krauss impressively pulls all the varying threads back together by the end. 

Fun: ****
Really engaging & enjoyable. Plus a lot of wry, observational humour used.
Krauss gently poking fun at the idiosyncracies of each character & using that humour to build them up. 

Novelty: **** 

Yes. There aren't many novels out there, this brave & successfully experimental. 

Overall: ***
I'm glad I read it; I'll no doubt revisit it again.

"They start with Darling"

From the Times,
The Most Romantic Love Letters Ever with this wonderful observation:

Today, time and distance no longer stand between lovers. With a twitch of thumbs and the press of “Send” we can be within reach. We can hear the beloved voice instantly on our mobile phones. A moment’s yearning can be instantly gratified. What have we lost!

And yet there is still the magic of the written hand, the addressed envelope, the intimacy of recorded words. Katherine Mansfield sits down to take pleasure in being alone — “I long to write you a love letter tonight” — and there follows the most eloquent, personal and beautiful expression of love. It is unique and for all time. Texting can’t do that.

... along with the after-reality in Duffy's The Darling Letters

                            Even now, the fist's bud flowers into trembling,
the fingers trace each line and see
the future then. Always... Nobody burns them,
the Darling letters, stiff in their cardboard coffins.

[ . . . ]

                      Once in a while, alone, 

we take them out to read again, the heart thudding 

like a spade on buried bones. 

All hail the Woolf:

"Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack."  ~ Virginia Woolf

Targeted FB Ad: 

"Do you ever walk into a book store and get completely overwhelmed?"

 

Sensible Response: 

'Do you ever think your marketing is a misdirected waste of time & space?'  :P

In Other News | Pratchett

I've started reading Pratchett, thanks to the successful persuasions of the Boy. 

I began with Reaper Man, which I loved: clever, witty & dry.

The character of Death worked to WIN ME OVER. ENTIRELY. 

I followed that through with Wyrd Sisters (due to it being a reworking of Macbeth - my favourite part probably to do with the literal mis-interpretation of 'staying in to wash your hair') & am now onto The Colour of Magic.* 

I've noticed the earlier book doesn't run quite as smoothly in holding together all the different subplots but I'm enjoying the Hero archetype and Gods who play dice for a pastime. 

.  .  . 

I'll be spending part of the summer travelling between Scotland and France, via Cambridge & London so my plan is to take What Is The What and The Book Thief for company, as they have long awaited my attentions. 

Possibly because I've been storming through the Mills & Boons available in circulation between members of our craft group. The costume detail in Conquering Knight, Captive Lady was well up to scratch in its representation of C.11th dress - the author had clearly done her research.   ;) 

*Simultaneously finishing off Waking the Dead & starting The History of Love. 

I'm trying to get down to having just two books on the go.

Yancey's "Prayer"

I first picked up Prayer in January 2007; I've only just laid it down as finished tonight. It's rare that a book takes me so long as I can devour a novel within hours, so long as I don't get sidetracked by life. 

So why linger so long with it unfinished? I wanted to savour it, I wanted to study it and apply myself to it as a scholar. I was glad to hear Di mention at Home Group recently that she considered Prayer to be the most academic of all Yancey's books and the hardest one to work through. 

It doesn't lend itself in the same way as some of the others where you can just ease into reading a chapter and then lay it down til the next evening. It's dealing with a fundamental part of our relationship with God and for that, it deserves some respect. 

There's still thematic Yancey threads running through it from his journalistic past and worldwide experiences of struggle, the letters people send in to him to speak of their heartbreak and their rejoicing in their walk with God. 

I'm glad to have read it & to have lingered that long. It taught me anew about Jesus and the patterns he modelled with prayer and the encounters of people like Peter and Paul. 

There was a recurring affirmation of 'Prayer is' used throughout the book and each time I stopped and pondered and saw anew how multi-faceted the nature of prayer is. 

Mostly I learnt of the partnership and of God's attentive ear, the Spirit's groans and the desire to communicate.

 I learnt of prayer as a continual state, of breath prayers and a way to aid change and be changed. Of how if we present our requests, very often they will represent themselves back to us in a different light. 

I learnt that even the wise and greatest stumble in keeping the channel for prayer open and articulate and that the simplest acts can offer a prayer in themselves. 

And lastly I learned that Abba Father wants our words of desires and fears and longings and rejoicing, no matter how poorly we seem to express ourselves; because prayer keeps company with God.

 

Huzzah.

Shane Claiborne | The Irresistible Revolution

This is possibly so much like cheating, it's not true.

Ah well, here goes: My thoughts on The Irresistible Revolution. 

It still counts a book blog entry, right? ;) 

Other than that, I'm still studying/reading Yancey's Prayer & I read Prince Caspian over the summer. 

Oh & I finished If Nobody Speaks Of Unremarkable Things which is *just beautiful*. 

I'll write on that next - and soon!

The day I cared again

What is the what - Dave Eggers

Growing up in the eighties was confusing at times. I think maybe the most difficult question I asked my parents concerned South Africa, and maybe more importantly the UN. If so many people are being forced to live in poorer circumstances, how can the world just stand by and watch? Why does the UN even exist if we cannot help?

In the nineties, the Netherlands were blessed with some great new comedic talent. One particular group, de Vliegende Panters captured the apparent apathy through a song called Sarajewo (rather freely translated):

I count the bodies, and the sun, it burns
I see intestines, an appendix - no!
A rectum! - Ah yes, a rectum - no!
Sorry, it is the twelve finger... duodenum
- I see intestines everywhere
spread out in the streets
with all the hatred
of all the Hutsies - no! The Tutus!
They were the Hutsus and the Footsies
- On Mururoa, or no, Ruanda,
In Ruanda... in Madurodam.

Oh the misery, on this hump of clay, we're so involved
with all the hatred - I could cry! We're so righteous,
so righteous in Sarajewo, or no, Ruanda, and
Chechnya, and idunno! Sarajewo, or no, Ruanda, and
Babangida, and idunno! And
All will die.

And finally, in the noughties, I reached that stage. So many conflicts, so little we can do! With all the politics and history involved, it even seemed to difficult to form an opinion on any of the situations. As a result, I became indifferent. It was easy enough to get rid of any guilt, paying a small contribution to the WWF. I even - after a healthy glass of wine, and courtesy of a tearjerking Annie Lennox song - donated a more considerable amound to Children in need, or some other BBC show. The fact that I forgot what it was for is testament to the situation I was in.

But not now. Thanks to Valentino Achak Deng.

With so many conflicts, so many disadvantaged, so many children underfed and dying of various illnesses and accidents, there are bound to plentiful harrowing stories to inform the masses. The media just pick what they want to hear - Lions? Great! More explosions! You lost your parents, your family? Sure... - and often do more harm than good. At least, all the stories seem to merge into one, and it is repeated in every conflict. Apparently, all I needed was to hear one person's story, from the beginning, with no added sugar.

Valentino Achak Deng (Achak) is a refugee from Sudan, and even though he only arrived in Atlanta in 2001, his story is about a conflict long before Darfur arrived on our radar. Like Iraq, Sudan is the result of a colonial mishap, where at the end of the British reign, lines were drawn in the wrong places. Like Iraq, it is too difficult a story to tell in a book review, and even Achak cannot paint the full picture in his 500-page life story.

Achak met with Dave Eggers (from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) through his contact from the Lost Boys refugee program. He had a story to tell, but needed someone to write it in a more consistent and narrative fashion. The collaboration has worked out for the best. Eggers surprisingely managed something more coherent than his heartbreaking work, linking Achak's observations and experiences in Sudan with his modern life as a relocated refugee in the US.

The backdrop shows us how Achak is attacked in his own home in Atlanta, and how he's dealt with by the burglars, the police, and the hospital. He comes to the realization that after a few years in the States, he still depends on other people, and he has never managed to give them something in return, other than failure and misery.

In the mean time, Achak tells his story. To the burglar's child, to the police officer, to the hospital administrator, to the people visiting the gym where he works, to us. The first part of his story he tells us how he grew up in Marial Bai, Southern Sudan (near Darfur), where Arabs and Dinka, Achak's people, seemingly lived in harmony. As the government grows more and more corrupt, and the Dinka feel more and more marginalised, clashes are inevitable. Eventually the government incites hatred amongst local Arab tribes and supports them to pillage Dinka villages, including Marial Bai. Achak spends most of the attack hiding in a tree, but ends up having to run for his life, not knowing what happened to his friends and family. This is in the early to late eighties.

It's an incredible story. And it does involves lions, crocodiles, helicopter attacks, explosions. But most life and death situations are about perseverence. If you give up, you die. If you sit yourself down, rest against a tree, close your eyes, you're gone. The large line of boys travelling through Southern Sudan, including Achak, will pass. Boys die every day, most of them exhausted, underfed, leaning against a tree.

It's a never ending story. The Lost Boys will reach Ethiopia, and with the experience of burying his friends, Achak becomes a burial boy at the camp - a rather safe job compared with the water boys who need to fear the crocodiles and the wood boys who need to fear any wild animal that might prey on them. Knowing the leader of his line of boys, Achak manages to get into school, and get some form of education. But Ethiopia has its own share of problems, and the local people don't particularly enjoy having to share their land with thousands of refugees. When the Sudanese are forced to leave - the UN officials left as soon as the first shots were fired between Ethiopian and Eritrean forces - they are followed by a barrage of gunfire and mortars, and again Achak runs.

It's a change of focus. Along with the many miles on foot, we learn with Achak while his world grows bigger each day. He hears of Ethiopia, he sees a white man, who must be God, but is only an Englishman. He ends up in Kakuma, where he becomes close friends with a Japanese aid worker, who Achak feels shouldn't be there. No one should be leaving family and friends and safety behind to live in dire circumstances in Kakuma, or any refugee camp. Ideally. The two end up leading a drama group that is allowed to go to Nairobi, a city with buildings of three stories and higher. With a mall. With his girfriend, they find what surely must be the best shop in the mall, with all the lights, which ends up a grocery store.

Telling someone your story, fictionalised as it may be, might be the most powerful tool we have - why else should we know how to speak?

I am alive and you are alive so we must fill te air with our words (...) All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist.

The historical setting, the age resemblance, knowing that whilst I was on holiday in Portugal when Diana died in Paris, when Achak was in Nairobi confused how the whole city could be in mourning over one person he'd never seen. Knowing I was on my way to my journalism class as Achak was on board of his flight, ready to leave for the US, whilst airplanes became weapons and destroyed the Twin Towers. I always cared about the lives of my friends, but this book has turned my indifference back into care, and although this is only one man's voice, I will remember his story as I hear about the many conflicts that may come.

The small print

Plot: I guess I'm grading whether someone's life is worth reading. But it depends on how it's written, and even though it is presented a novel, it is with such honesty, and with such care for putting it in perspective, that it can measure up with the best. *****

Fun: Right. How can reading about a teenager fighting for his life through the deserts of Southern Sudan, seeing his friends die left and right be fun?! Well, read this book. There's a lot of wit in the presentation, and since for most of the book, Achak is only a child, we learn about the war from a child's point of view, giving at times comic relief to a harsh situation. ****

Novelty: There must be more books by or about refugees. There should be more. But I haven't read them. And I doubt they are all as carefully constructed as this. *****

We should write about books again!

I picked up Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy last Friday as I had a trainride home & books keep accompanying me back down to Yorkshire (Labyrinth, Tractors..Ukranian) but I can't seem to get started on them or have them hold my attention for long enough.

Waugh isn't entirely new to me - it was one of the texts for Literatures of World War II in 3rd year. But with it being 3 volumes long, I only got part-way through Book II last time so I'm recapping the bits I remembered (soldier, Halbadiers, ends up in Scotland) & bringing back to life everything else I had forgotten (quite a lot). This time I hope to finish it.
(And it's an Everyman classic, mmm ... cream-coloured pages, yum. I love Everyman books - they feel like such a treat.) Hopefully it will absorb me enough, along with my patchwork, to keep from pacing the floors at home this Christmas.

  I've also decided that I will use the New Year to finish off Penelope, the last chapter of Ulysses - making good use of my pseudo-Scottishness with having two days off & thus bringing my four-year journey to an end. I'm quite looking forward to it.

I've also had The Magus recommended to me as a post-Ulyssses pick-up and there's Gideon Mack waiting for my attention and some serious JS Foer exploration to be done too! I was contemplating re-reading Northern Lights, prior to seeing the Golden Compass, which I visited before but not read properly.

I read a teenage novel the other evening, one of Iona's called Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty ... I used to adore her Granny was a buffer girl when I was at Middle School, it was quite in keeping with my historical/romantic nature then :) I might write on that next - it did use He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven after all!

I'm still ambling through both Yancey & Ovid but I did recently read High Fidelity on recommendation ...

High Fidelity: It started as part of a 'mixed-media conversation' with Carl during the Fringe where we were talking about asides to the audience/camera (like Branagh's Iago in Othello on film) & how it's more of a theatrical device & isn't employed that much for film. Carl mentioned that it's used in High Fidelity & it works ... so I figured book first (always, always - unless there's a time constraint), then film.
   The way Carl talked about HF made me want to know more ... Rob, the main character seemed to be either screwed up or screwing up other people (intentionally, or not). Carl perceives the character (at least, from the film) as working through his issues & is also interested in how Robert wants to portray himself as a victim, even if that doesn't match the events we, the audience/readers, can see unfolding.
  He also said that there's a sense of improvement in how Rob recognises his misinterpretations & by adjusting his behaviour, begins to redeem himself.

I wasn't entirely sold on the novel's ending ... I thought Robert's impulsive behaviour towards the end undercut the love resolution somewhat. But he does have an epiphany of sorts & gets his life back on track, even if it's done in a passive way.

In the end, I liked the book more than I expected to. (I think the whole laddish protagonist concept put me off - like Will in AAB, I though it'd be more of the same.) It did make me laugh out loud at times but equally it also made me grimace at Rob's behaviour & thoughts too. A level of selfishness & lack of compassion that I just did not like.

I enjoyed how the book was situated, very much 'of the time' in the decade & all the musical references were gorgeous :) I think I'll probably go back & read it again though, in a year or so.

Now I want to read Amis' The Rachel Papers which is meant to be similar but with a wilfully corrupt male protagonist who brings about the girl's downfall. I think it could be interesting to see how the two compare ... Amis' protagonist sounds to be much darker and more Machiavellian - it might make me like Robert more!
____________

For HF then,  
Overall, it sits at a high ***
- I don't love it but I don't necessarily loathe it. I quite enjoyed it.
It's better than AAB as it reads more intelligently.
- I think having music at its centre gives it a heart which helps provide Rob with the emotional depth that would otherwise be lacking if the reader only had his actions to take into account.
- Fun *** ... it worked, was funny & it engaged me emotionally.
- Novelty *** ... Hornby is the 'good author in the overpopulated genre'. Enough said.
- Plot *** ... Basic premise but done well
(esp. 'the journey of redemption', delving back into the past etc).