Juxtabook

Reading Round-up

A couple of short reviews whilst I catch up on the reviewing back-log. First up is The Justification of Johann Guttenberg by Blake Morrison. Blake Morrison is the oddest of writers. He seems to have written something really very decent in a large number of genres from autobiography to literary criticism to sociology to poetry. He also wrote the first book I ever sold, and he is local to here, his parents having been the GPs for the next town, in fact he went to school at the bottom of our road. So all in all I have quite a soft spot for his work.

The Justification of Johann Guttenberg is a novel of the life of the inventor of the printing press. Written in the first person, it is presented as though Guttenberg is dictating to a scribe and from the start we have lots of asides about the nature of the writing process, dictation, scribe, manuscript, printer and so on.  The subject matter will no doubt interest many of you, centering as it does on the creation of books.

Guttenberg is created by Morrison as a fascinating but self-absorbed man, and indeed a selfish one, who is the originator of one of man's greatest achievements, but at great personal and emotional cost. Each page is well crafted in Guttenberg's measured voice and nothing is without interest and the whole thing is very enjoyable, but this is not really a plot driven narrative and it therefore lacks much in the way of page turning qualities. As I say I enjoyed every page but once I finished a chapter and went to do something else I wasn't champing at the bit to return to the book. It is not therefore something to start when you need not just quality writing but real distraction. It would be very good for those who read several things at once as, kept on the bedside table, with a chapter read here and there, The Justification of Johann Guttenberg will be a great if rather gentle pleasure.

Next was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This my third novel by Ishiguro. I loved both The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans but by my reading of this novel I was finding the reserved, flawed first person narratives a bit wearing. Nothing wrong with it, it is perfectly inoffensive literary fiction, but it failed to really engage my interest.

Coasting

For those not familiar with the north of England, it is amazing how narrow it is here, east to west. From our fairly central point is is easy therefore, in the course of Easter break day trips, to go...

Coast...

...to coast.

 

The top is here and the bottom picture is here.

Testament by Alis Hawkins

Testament by Alis Hawkins is sensationally good from start to finish. Hawkins has taken the popular spiral narrative split across eras approach but everything that she has done with it is new and fresh. The result manages to be both a cozily satisfying page turner and breath takingly ambitious.

The historical vein is set in the late middle ages and deals with the conception, gestation and birth of two very different Tobys. The first is a much longed for child of a middle aged couple. Simon and Gwyneth, both Master craftsmen, have being trying for a child for years and in the meantime they have acquired two adopted children Alyson the embroiderer and Henry, now also a Master Mason. After twenty years Simon and Gwyneth almost give up hope, then they are blessed with a baby, Toby. Toby's arrival does not fit the expectations they have of a child and they spend the first part of his childhood trying to come to terms with these changes and with each other's reactions. This portrait of a marriage is always subtle: there are no headline manoeuvres, no victim, no villain, just two people trying to adjust.

The second Toby is the college. Another luminous off-the-page creation, subtle and light, is the fictional third ancient English university town of Salster. In this parallel world we have Oxterbridge: Oxford, Salster and Cambridge. The life of the modern town is dominated by the Lollard endowed college Kineton and Dacre, known as "Toby" for reasons lost in the mists of time, time of course which we have access to via the spiral narrative. This college was designed and built by Simon and Gwyneth Kineton working for the Lollard merchant Richard Dacre. Both the medieval version of this town and its modern equivalent are rich in detail without being weighted with facts trying to create an actuality. There is no sense of 'trying' about the writing; we read and the town of Salster just is.

The medieval scenes are beautifully worked with the complexities of personality, church, politics and stone stitched with silken precision. The modern scenes utilise a range of narrative strategies including email, something with works with the plot and is not just a quirky add-on. In the present day we follow the potentially tragic Damia Miller, and orphan from a traveller family now grown up and finding out how to truly settle down for the first time in her life. Having worked with homelessness charities she has her first conventional job promoting Kineton and Dacre. No longer so rich, "Toby" college needs money and support as it fights merger with the upstart Northgate College and its cynical principle Iain Baird, a delightfully villainous player. A fire reveals a mysterious medieval wall painting and it is the exploration of this painting's artistic and historical origins that brings together the medieval and the present day.

Testament's great successes is that it pulls off the double trick of creating one fictional city, utterly convincingly, in two different eras about 700 years apart. I can't believe that I can't have a day trip to Salster to see where the novel is set. But despite the serious ambition of the novel's scope Alis Hawkins is not afraid to play, and the seriousness of the lives of the medieval characters are balanced by a cast of minor characters in the modern era that remind me of E M Forster's description of minor character in Jane Austen, echoing the nature of Mrs Bertram who is essentially a flat, wryly observed, caricature but who can be "popped" up to three dimensions for a moment in the psychological sun.

The ending is almost literally heavenly as the complex characters, out of time and playing in your head, are kept in another place that preserves humanity in the widest sense: a sort of universal memory. It is like It's a Wonderful Life: we see how lives are always bigger than they seem and have lasting effects.

Testament is a truly fabulous novel. It is like nothing else that I have read recently and is fresh and unpredictable, tackling some brave and unexpected subject matter with real taste and feeling, while just being oh-so-mysterious and characterful and readable. Like the lantern roof on which Gwyneth works it is intricate and should feel heavy but the end result is lacy and filled with light, light, light. I don't know why I am not seeing more reviews of Testament in the blogosphere. It is not just my book of the year so far but is also in my top ten books of the last ten years. Pity the book I review after this ...

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If you review Testament I would love to read it, please let me know and I will add a link here.

The picture of Ely's lantern roof is from this blog.

The books that don't exist on Amazon

If like Cornflower you have noticed some weird book details on Amazon recently you might like to read this.

Italian Grammars and Porcupine Papers

Helping my father buy an Italian grammar, La grammatica degl’ italiani by Trabalsa E Allodoli, I turned to colleague Marijana Dworski whose shop in Hay-on-Wye (or website) is the place to go for all things linguistic. It turns out that the copy my father is buying belonged to Prof. Falla, who edited the Oxford-English Russian dictionary which will interest Dad, and is the sort of thing a good book dealer can tell you when re-homing a book. In the ensuing conversation Marijana explained that she knows Prof Falla's daughter, and recommended that I looked at her website Porcupine Papers. I am glad I did: there are lots of lovely Italian craft papers, as well as hand made books and journals - a website really worth a browse. My eye was taken by the books paper:

 

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson is as near perfect a murder mystery as it is possible to get. Set in the 1930s it features the wonderful Josephine Tey as a main character. The setting is fascinating located as it is in London's theatreland. It is obviously well researched and, from a theatrical point of view, clearly a labour of love.

Under a pen name Gordon Daviot, Josephine Tey has had a runaway West End hit Richard of Bordeaux but it has not brought her much happiness. She hates the London meetings and the pressure of business. She also hates having been sued for plagiarism by a fellow writer. In her despondent state she has a long train journey from her Scottish home to King's Cross enlivened by the company of a young fan on her way to see Richard of Bordeaux again before its run finishes. It is an unlooked for encounter and one that surprises Josephine in that she takes to the girl, Elspeth, and finds her engaging where normally she might have been irritated by such enthusiasm. Shortly after they part Elspeth is murdered and Tey is more shocked than she can believe. This excellently written opening is then slightly undercut by by rather long winded, but I suppose necessary in crime fiction, scene setting and character introducing, but it is not long before the narrative proper picks up again and we're off.

Tey is not the detective. Her close friend Archie Penrose of Scotland Yard takes that role. He is remarkably like Alan Grant, Tey's own fictional detective, because, of course, Tey bases Grant on Penrose.  Tey is involved throughout but is no Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher sleuthing away on her own account. Instead she provides a sounding board for Penrose as he unravels the mystery that entwines itself ever tighter round Richard of Bordeaux and its cast.

An Expert in Murder is a sharp, well paced mystery, a textured work of historical fiction, and is far removed from the pastiche into which it might have fallen. It recreates London's interwar West End and the odd flash back to WWI in equally fine and layered fashion. There is no romanticisation of war nor death nor the worst of human relationships. This is not a lace curtain and tea table mystery but something far deeper and gutsier. This theatreland is highly bohemian and heavy with sexual feelings, as well as murderous ones. Characterisation of stage stars, thwarted writers, designers, producers, lovers and families is handled cleanly and without over-adornment or fuss. Tey the inside 'outsider' makes a good focal point giving the narrative both polish and depth. The outcome is surprising and believable and the work as a whole manages to pull off being both charming and gritty. If you love the works of Josephine Tey, the 1930s, theatre, or the theatrical mysteries of Ngaio Marsh, of which you will inevitably be reminded, then you will love this. Do read it. Delightfully, it is the first of a series, and I can't wait for the next.

Edited to add some links to other reviews:

The Overdecorated Bookcase here.

A Work in Progress here.

Harriet Devine's Blog here. Harriet's mother is one of the characters in the book.

And the winner is...

...Molly, who recommended The Book Thief as her new classic. Thank you to everyone for your entries. The answers to the question make a  great to-be-read list. Molly, do get in touch, I have emailed you so you should have my email address, if not leave a comment and I will try again!

On a different note... I came a cross something on the Picador blog which might be of interest. It is the description of the modern paper trail left by publishing a book, and details the sorts of things that Picador archive. I thought other might be intrigued so if you haven't read it already you can do so here.

52 Poems

This cute Faber poetry widget is available from 52Poems. I tried to pop it in the sidebar but it is just a bit too wide. When I clicked 'add to typepad' it added itself as a fresh post. It might work better on blogs hosted elsewhere. In the meanwhile as it has created a post for itself I will just provide a link to the post on the right and we'll see if it successfully changes over time.

Thank you to everyone for your entries for the giveaway. Just a few hours left. Winner announced tomorrow.

Giveaway reminder

Just a quick reminder about our book giveaway. The question is, "What recently published book do you think deserves to become a classic in Time?" To enter this draw, for a surprise book, just answer that question in the comments below or on the original post before midnight on Wednesday April 8th.

There are a number of other giveaways on this week so might also like to visit:

Cornflower

Save Ophelia

Kiss a Cloud

Savidge Reads

Edited to add, there is also a draw at Farm lane Books which you might like to visit:

Farm Lane Books

The Damned Utd by David Peace

I bought this little wonder for my husband for Christmas. He is not normally a novel reader but he started this on Christmas Day night and couldn't put it down, in fact he followed me about the house reading bits to me. I just had to have a read myself after that.

The Damned Utd by David Peace is based on the true story of English football manager Brian Clough. For those not familiar with Clough he was a charaismatic, eccentric and very successful football manager in the 1970s and 1980s. He had great success with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. Between managing those clubs he spent 44 disasterous days managing Leeds United. Leeds were the previous year's champions and had been managed by Cloughie's rival Don Revie; Clough prided himself on the the fair play of his teams and now he was off to the hard men of 'dirty Leeds', a team he had publically loathed. What happens next is not pretty.

The story, and it is a fictional version, is told day by day through the increasingly paranoid and desperate medium of a characterised version of Brian Clough. All the famous ticks of the real Clough are there: the brashness, the ego, the willfullness, the charisma and the odd vulnerability; he is both an entertainer and an inspirational despot. The mind of this verison of Brian Clough is not an easy place to be, depressed as he was, and gradually succombing to alchohol, but it is also witty, unexpected and oddly charming at the same time. Lightening the tone, the 44 dreadful days are interspersed with memories of Clough's own football career, his time with long-term collaborator Peter Taylor at Hartlepool and then the breakthroughs and successes of his Derby days. Clough is not always likeable but he is a mesmerising figure.

The subject matter may be popular but the prose style is not. It is a difficult, highly literary read that simultaneously drains you whilst pushing you onto the end of the novel whether you like it or not; like some kind of demented personal trainer. But like any well planned exercise it is really well worth the effort (whether you like football or not). The mind play and the charactisation are superb, and because this is focusing on Cloughie, master of the one liner and throw away comment, it is not just a dark book but an extremely funny one. There are no long pass-by-pass descriptions of football. It is the politics and characters off the pitch on which we focus. A superb achievement, which I highly recommend, but not a comfort read. I gather the recently released film is a much softer version incidentally.

If you know nothing about the Brian Clough/Peter Taylor story then the following bits of documentary from youtube might help before reading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US_-hm0-zP8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeL7mXJgCYM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYExt-G7His&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOFjqh9463Q&feature=related

There is also an excellent review of another David Peace book Tokyo Year Zero, which sounds equally uncompromising in style, on Ready When You Are, CB.

BAFAB giveaway

It is Buy a Friend a Book Week again and I am running a giveaway. Amongst Simon's questions that I answered yesterday I think the most interesting was "What recently published book do you think deserves to become a classic in Time?" To enter this draw, for a surprise book, just answer that question in the comments below before midnight on Wednesday April 8th.

I will announce the winner on April 9th. I am happy to post anywhere in the world. Also, if you are hosting a BAFAB draw yourself please let me know and I will do a round-up mid-week with links to all the draws that I know about.