A Fine Balance
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The Sea is a brilliant book. I don't think it can be matched for the quality of its poetic prose or the cleverness of its imagery both sharp and subtle. It arouses intense feelings of nostalgia, loss, impatience and relief - it's really quite extraordinary.
This is the Booker prize winner that sent the media into a frenzy because the author, D.B.C. Pierre (real name Peter Warren Finlay) is a former drug addict who conned a friend out of a whole apartment somewhere in America. (He said he used some of the prize to pay him back). It wasn't really a book I wanted to read because (a) it's full of foul language and has no apparent literary qualities (b) it's narrated by a real smartarse who speaks like those morons I sometimes see on TV. This type of 'gonzo' adolescent slanginess was what also put me off The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Pulitzer Prize or no.
Shakespeare used to use Venice as a setting for wickedness and corruption because Italian cities were fair game and a beaut contrast to the respectabilities of England. McEwan has used Amsterdam as a place of freedom to do dreadful things with drugs and state-sanctioned deaths, and to deliver a shocking finale to this very entertaining book. A reviewer called Kirkham on Amazon dismissed this book as 'middle-brow fiction British style - strong on the surface, vapid at the centre', but I don't agree.
Life of Pi is probably the most popular of all the recent Booker winners, still on prominent display in most of the independent bookshops I patronise, and often featuring in polls of favourite books. There's a recent illustrated version too, which is probably going to become a collector's item, but I don't like it even though it's beautiful. I prefer to imagine the story and settings for myself.
This story is superb. Atwood is one of the best writers of our time, and everything I've read of hers (The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride, Oryx and Crake and The Penelopiad) has been terrific. The Blind Assassin is complex, and readers have to be content with ambiguity, but it's well worth it.
Iris is the narrator, but that's not clear at first. She's an old woman, remembering, setting the record straight (she says) for her grand-daughter, Sabrina. She ponders her sister's suicide and a parallel story, a strange fantasy novel , which seems to the reader at first to be completely irrelevant. It is supposed to have been posthumously published by an unidentified pair of authors, then the author of this story-within-a-story is revealed as Iris's dead sister Laura - but it's not, and eventually it becomes clear that Iris wrote it herself, not Laura.
Two sisters, relics of an older time when women were merely decorative pawns, bought and sold to enhance the social position of the men in their lives. In class-conscious Britain, the Chase family would have been dismissed with a haughty sniff as 'Trade', but in Canada, in the backblocks beyond Toronto, theirs was a respectable old family with a asuccessful manufacturing business and the girls had to 'marry well'.
Why, I wondered, did Richard Griffin, a wealthy industrialist in his own right, want to marry Iris when her father's button factory failed? Was the Chase family name really so valuable that a dynamic man like him would want an insipid, ineffectual wife? All the efforts of Winifred, Richard's awful sister, to mould Iris as a suitable wife failed; like Laura, Iris became dreamy and feeble (and didn't eat) to avoid unpleasantness, and she's a failure as a society wife.
Both Laura and Iris are besotted by Alex Thomas. He was some kind of subversive during the Depression, presumably in the pay of the Russians; then he's involved in the Spanish Civil War and finally killed off in WW2. Laura learns of his death through a telegram because he had named her next of kin, a message from beyond the grave that shows which sister he preferred.
Iris is the narrator, so we're told that Alex loved her, but he was also Laura's lover. The strange stories interwoven with the main story purport to be Laura's account of events, but as we eventually know, they were really written by Iris. They tell of meetings in sleazy rooms, of Alex composing SF fantasies, and how he finally sends one of these stories off for publication. Through these co-authored stories we see Alex for what he is: brutal, ruthless and manipulative; the female contributions bring softenings, happy endings and kindness. When Iris finds a copy in a trashy store, she's surprised to find that her 'blind assassin' and the 'mute virgin' have been omitted from the story. Stripped of her fantasies, the story is what her behaviour has been: merely sordid.
As the pages turn, Iris finally realises what the reader has already concluded: Richard has a penchant for young girls and his taste extended to Laura. He forced Laura to abort her child, but the child Iris bears is Alex's. Iris names the baby Aimee, but she's not much loved by her mother, who's not a loving person at all....She's a real old misery. She paints herself as exploited and bullied, but she's scornful of Reenie and her daughter Myra - both of whom are good to her in her old age. She's very conscious of money and status - her own social standing is ambiguous, but she's delighted to see Winifred snubbed.
So, who is the blind assassin? The one who doesn't see, sent to murder the sacrificial virgin as a way of challenging the status quo? Not Alex, although by seducing both girls he's just the same as Richard, only seedier. I think that Iris is - she pretends to be the mute innocent who finally reveals all, using Laura's name to publish the book that ruins Richard's career. She does this under the pretext of needing to tell the truth to Sabrina, in a vain attempt to win back her grand-daughter's affection.
It's Iris who tells Laura that she had a secret affair with Alex, so that Laura drives off a bridge in despair. It's Iris who publishes the book and drives Richard to suicide. Her choices are vindictive, cruel and spiteful; she seems not to have a real freind or confidante anywhere. When her daughter and grand-daughter reject her just as Myra's mother Reenie finally does, she has no one to blame but herself.
It's beautifully written, capturing the tone of the period with details of clothes, buildings and politics, and Atwood has complete mastery of her characters. Iris is a sardonic snob, much given to judging others and utterly wrong about people because she's so superficial. And yet, we feel just a little pity for her in her loneliness, at the end.
I finished reading this book and journalled it on 31.3.2002.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
Barry Unsworth’s epic tale of greed and suffering centers around two men in the eighteenth century- Matthew Paris, a doctor aboard The Liverpool Merchant- a slave ship bound for America and his cousin, Erasmus Kemp, landlocked in a Victorian romance that eventually leads to the latter’s emotional downfall. Through The Merchant, the author explores the ghastly triangular trade where baubles are bartered for slaves along the West Coast of Africa en route to the new world, and re-bartered for goods that would be sold in England completing the somber triangle. The title, Sacred Hunger, is as profound as it is original; just as profit is sacred to those who strive for it, so is the drive that impels them, the hunger which finds a dark apotheosis in this brilliant work that in its essence raises philosophical questions much like Camus’ The Stranger.
Few characters in modern literature evoke the degree of terror and brutality as that of the captain of the vessel-Thurso, a shrewd and merciless reprobate greatly feared by his crew. Paris, the slaver’s doctor on the other hand is in strong contrast to Thurso, as a man remarkably enlightened for the century and era he was born into. The Doctor’s reason for embarking on such a calamitous voyage aboard The Liverpool Merchant that had little monetary benefits to offer is steeped in tragedy. For him, it was less a perilous adventure than escape from a land where his happiness was impossible. No stranger to suffering himself, one cannot help but be touched by the good Doctor’s genuine empathy towards the slaves eventually leading him to make decisions that would change the course of his life forever.
Although sections of Sacred Hunger are vaguely reminiscent of Spielberg’s movie Amistad, the novel is unlike anything ever attempted before in terms of mastery of craft- Unsworth’s words delineate history with enormous detail-from wanton acts of necrophilia to the bourgeois delicacies of English households, nothing ruins this high-wire act across the valley of time; and in terms of plot, it is flawless. Utterly convincing. There are no cheap gimmicks here-not an iota of pretense. Despite everything-the squalor, the abysmal cruelty human beings are capable of, the humiliation of the weak, the triumph of greed; it would be puerile to call this a depressing novel. It is beyond that. Beyond redemption even. A blasphemous rendering of one thoroughly fucked-up time. The novel is nothing short of a work of genius in that the writing measures up to the monumentally difficult task of re-creating a bygone era to an extreme degree of credibility. It would not be an overstatement to say that Sacred Hunger is one of the most ambitious literary resurrections ever attempted. It is an endeavor that reeks of masterful storytelling entwined with scholarship and a deep understanding of human psychology. Sadly, it remains one of the most underrated works of the 20th century despite being an imaginative tour-de-force.
-BabaYaga
Link to Original Article
This book caused a bit of a storm when it won the Booker in 1997. Some people really disliked it. I loved it, especially the wordplay and the private language of the twins. They way they pick up and distort words and phrases from the adults around them can be very funny at times, as when they turn Baby Kochamma's stern warning to be 'Ambassador of India' at the airport into 'Ambassador E. Pelvis and Ambassador S. (stick) Insect'. At other times this wordplay shows a dawning awareness of the grim and heartless world of adults, as when an angry parent's 'later' delivered 'meaningfully' becomes LayTer, a horrible, menacing, 'goose-bumpy' word.
Last Orders is a lovely book. It won the Booker Prize in 1996, and was made into a terrific film with Michael Caine as Jack.
I finished reading this book and journalled it on 4.1.1999.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
Hotel du Lac won the 1984 Booker and it is superb. Its central question is: what kind of woman should one be? In 1984 we were exploring feminism, but this is not quite what Brookner is on about; her female characters are always circumscribed by their lives and are never able to exercise much in the way of choices...
Such a melancholy, haunting book! It won the Booker in 1983, and no wonder - its a spare, precise prose is perfect for the pared-down life of its central character, Michael K.
The narrator of The Sea, The Sea is Charles Arrowby, an unreliable narrator extraordinaire! He's an aging actor/director, who decides to retire to peaceful solitude by the sea, a fantasy beloved of so many. He buys a horrid little house called Shruff's End which is besieged by damp and void of amenities such as electricity and heating. Still, in summer the sea is lovely, and the weather is warm, and all seems well...
It took less than a day to read this - 180 pages long and easy to read - but it's a rich and fruitful book. It comprises two stories in parallel: the tale of Olivia who abandons her British husband when she goes to India; and of her un-named relative who goes to Satipur some fifty years later to solve the mystery of what became of Olivia. She ends up becoming 'seduced' by India too.
Olivia is naive but adventurous, and she doesn't like the other British wives and their disdain for Indian religion and culture. She is bored by their vapid lifestyle, and she outrages 'society' by visiting the local Naweb, an impoverished rogue in league with the Dacoits (bandits). The Naweb seems to exert a strange magnetic influence on those around him, including Harry, Olivia's only discerning friend and the one who helps her out when things go awry.
In the process of discovering these scandals about her great-aunt , the narrator finds herself following in some of her footsteps. However, whereas during the British Raj Olivia was isolated from the 'real India' by class, caste and custom whatever her wishes may have been, in post-independence India her successor lives amongst Indians, and can make different decisions about how to live her life. Once again India is depicted as a place that attracts those interested in its 'spirituality' but the dropout Chid's distaste for life as a mendicant shows just how silly it is for affluent outsiders to hanker for a life of poverty and hardship.
The title shows that Jhabvala had no illusions about the reality of life for most Indians.
I finished reading and journalled this book on 13.10.05.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
Set in 1857 in a remote British outpost of the empire in Hindustan, The Siege of Krishnapur is the story of the defence of the residency when the sepoys rise in revolt. Written from the vantage point of the besieged British, yet sympathetic to the justice of rebellion against their rule, it shows the British at both their best and worst.
Mr Hopkins, the Collector, is at first a comic figure, but he grows in stature. He reminds me of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, who unexpectedly finds himself at the behest of great forces and must become equal to the task before him despite his inadequacies At the outset, however, Hopkins is convinced of the rightness of the Empire, and his place in it. He is pompous, bossy and preoccupied with C19th progress as exemplified by the Great Exhibition. He loves his possessions as talismans of a civilised life, and there is poignancy in the moment when he must cast these precious possessions into shoring up ramparts about to collapse under the monsoonal rains. He mourns his Louis XVI table when it is ruined too - but in the end, he cares not about possessions at all.
From the light-hearted beginning, with Farrell poking fun at British colonial pomposity and arrogance, events trace the gradual contraction of the 'civilised' world over four months, June to December. By the time of the relief, those within the walls are starving, dressed in rags, and they smell. The women have grey, pasty complexions, and boils. These 'fragile' creatures, formerly limp in the heat without servants to operate the fans, end up washing their own clothes, labouring in the 'hospital' and nursing the sick. But there's no romanticising this as heroism. The Collector notes that the women still ostracise the 'fallen woman', Lucy, and 'British standards' remain discriminatory for the Indians who remain loyal.
Farrell uses irony and metaphor to show that the degradation imposed on those within the ramparts by the siege, is little different to the conditions imposed on the locals by colonialism. The conflicts and prejudices of the community under stress are there to show the reader that British high-mindedness is as vulnerable as any other culture's. Human dignity is in short supply when one is subject to a long inglorious attack, which is what colonialism inflicted on its subject peoples.
Farrell also wrote The Singapore Grip and The Troubles, which similarly deal with the collapse of British colonial power. He died in 1979.
I finished reading this book and journalled it on 22.2.2003.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
When you have heard the story of how I got to Bangalore and become one of its most successful (though probably least known) businessmen, you will know everything there is to know about how entrepreneurship is born, nurtured, and developed in this, the glorious twenty-first century of man. The century, more specifically, of the yellow and brown man. - from The White Tiger, page 4 -Balram Halwai is the mocking, pathological narrator of Aravind Adiga’s Booker winning novel The White Tiger. Born in the Darkness - the underbelly of India - and destined from childhood to be a servant, he tells his story in a series of letters over a seven day period to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China. A self-described entrepreneur and philosopher, Balram explains how he has come to see himself as a white tiger.
The inspector pointed his cane straight at me. “You, young man, are an intelligent, honest, vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals - the creature that comes along only once in a generation?”
I thought about it and said:
“The white tiger.”
“That’s what you are, in this jungle.”
- from The White Tiger, page 30 -
It is this inner view of himself - a rare creature in a savage world - which drives him eventually to murder his master and take charge of his life.
Even as a boy I could see what was beautiful in the world: I was destined not to stay a slave. - from The White Tiger, page 35 -
Adiga has created a not wholly likeable protagonist to narrate the story of an India which is sharply divided between the very rich (and corrupt) and the very poor. The cynical voice of Balram jeers at democracy and uncovers the dark, corrupt world of the wealthy upper class. He pokes fun at China who despite their triumphs ‘in sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, still don’t have democracy.‘
Adiga uses an analogy of roosters in the coop to describe the servant’s (or poor man’s) inescapable status in India.
They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. - from The White Tiger, page 147 -
But for Balram, there is a way out - one of his own making. He resists the pull of family obligation and loyalty to his master and plans his escape through cold-blooded murder.
[...] only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed - hunted, beaten, and burned alive by the masters - can break out of the coop. - from The White Tiger, page 150 -
Rage is what fuels Balram to break free of his caste and become a successful businessman. He takes his destiny into his own hands and does what he feels he must to become a free man. And in the end, he concludes there is really no difference between a man and a demon - only that one has woken up and the other is still sleeping. The message seems to be that there is no good anywhere in India. It is no wonder that Indians have been critical of this novel.
The White Tiger is an interesting story - one that is compelling and blackly humorous despite its negative message. It is a scathing commentary on the divide between the poor and the rich, the benevolent and the corrupt - but, it is ultimately just a very good yarn.
Recommended.
Read an interview with Adiga.
Title: Time's Arrow
Title: Purple Hibiscus
