The Miniaturist

Fiction has been on the back burner for me for quite a while now. I tend to be a binge reader, and recently I've been ploughing through non-fiction, especially getting to grips with the Puritans and blogging about my discoveries in a blog of the same name. It took a recent trip to Amsterdam to whet my appetite for the novel again. I had bought Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist some weeks before, but standing in front of the dolls' house at the Rijksmuseum, which inspired her to write the story, reawakened my interest in finishing it.

The real dolls' house on show at the Rijksmuseum

Shortly after returning to the UK after that weekend break, I did just that. Walking along the Herengracht canal and the Golden Bend where the heroine, Nella Oortman lived, was just the impetus I had needed. I marvelled at how skilfully the author evokes the life and times of the wealthy Dutch merchants at the centre of the story, with her attention to detail. Her research into seventeenth century Amsterdam fashion, food, furniture, trade, social customs, religious practises and the legal system, is very evident.

While Burton succeeded in transporting me back in time to this fascinating city, constructing a completely authentic setting, I didn't quite buy into her young heroine's self-assurance and command of the situation she quickly becomes embroiled in. Nella Oortman comes to Amsterdam at the tender age of eighteen as the new wife of one of its richest merchants Johannes Brandt. this girl from the country with no experience of city life, suddenly has to deal astutely with wily merchants twice her age, doing deals over sugar, writing very accomplished epistles to the miniaturist of the title, and taking command of a fast-moving situation, which threatens life, liberty and livelihood.

The other major strand that I found quite hard to swallow, was the whole premise of the miniaturist's spooky insight into the minutiae of the Brandts' household. Its members are always sneaking around the dark corridors of the merchant's house, eavesdropping at keyholes, but to imagine that the miniaturist has the same kind of access, or has in fact some kind of occult psychic powers that enable her to see straight through walls, seems preposterous....yet these were the theories that sprang to my mind when reading the plot. Even so, I happily suspended my disbelief, and enjoyed being drawn into the intrigue and the sinister voyeurism that I imagined was taking place.

Reaching the end of the novel, I felt that overall, it was an enjoyable, well-written book, especially heightened by my visit to Amsterdam and exposure to the artefacts at the Rijksmuseum. Plus, even if Nella's transformation into a self-assured, assertive merchant's wife in a man's world is slightly unbelievable, I do love a feisty, young heroine. Many fellow novelists have declared The Miniaturist to be an accomplished novel, which it definitely is. If you are looking for an atmospheric, suspenseful, historical story with great characters, you won't be disappointed.

A God in every Stone

This is a totally engrossing novel with a grand sweep of history, capable of transporting you to another time, place and culture, in a way that stone and marble relics of an ancient past in repositories like The British Museum simply cannot do. Not only do the stones come alive, but in the person of Vivian Rose Spencer, the young archaeologist at the novel's heart, we experience first love, betrayal and loss in heart-wrenching intensity.

After writing so consummately about Nagasaki in a previous novel Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie felt challenged as a Pakistani to discover the fascinating history of the city of Peshawar. Once she had narrowed her brief to focus on the city museum, a story opened up for her linking an emissary of the Persian king Darius, the fate of the precious artefact he was bearing, and the efforts of various archaeologists to unearth it in the early twentieth century. All of this is brilliantly woven together with personal stories of heroism and bravery in the Great War, extracts from Herodotus about ancient kingdoms, the rise and fall of empires, chance meetings on trains, and a non-violent political protest in the city in the 1930s, which turned into a bloodbath. Loyalties are challenged, protagonists cross paths unaware of the significance of their meeting, and people and objects are lost and found.

This is her sixth novel, and the second one that I have read, and with both of them I've felt that I was reading something truly epic and accomplished. I have been left wanting more of her writing. Others have said that this reads like a classic. It would make a brilliant film too. As the Sunday Telegraph critic says:"Love, politics, history - it has it all."

The Rosie Effect

I had so enjoyed Graeme Simsion's debut novel, The Rosie Project, featuring his dysfunctional scientist Don Tillman, that I was wary of reading the sequel. The first had made me laugh out loud in several places, and I wondered how Simsion was going to be able to match its humour and originality. I need not have feared, for Don Tillman's second outing continues to be just as charming and engaging as his Rosie Project was.

Rosie and Don have now decamped to New York, followed by their friend and serial philanderer Gene, whose marriage is on the rocks. Both of them are working at Columbia University, but things soon become quite complicated, not only because Gene has moved into their apartment, but also because Rosie has unexpectedly fallen pregnant. Predictably, Don deals with this news by going into overdrive, reading scientific papers on pregnancy, devising schedules and diets, and unintentionally driving Rosie to distraction. Don's eccentricity, which occasionally leads to unexpected and alarming outcomes may have seemed attractive and exciting to Rosie when it was just the two of them, but now seems to be a possible barrier to their future as a family unit. As the pregnancy progresses, she fears that Don won't be able to relate to their baby, and wonders if she would be better off as a single mother.

Simsion manages to extract humour and concern for his protagonists' future, without becoming twee or predictable. I found myself really caring about the feelings of a man, who is not noted for being able to feel or express his own emotions. I also loved the cast of characters he gathers around Don for male bonding and mutual support, and how Don becomes a kind of champion for them all.

It's a less obviously funny novel than the first, but this is because there is more at stake than two individuals and their happiness. I think that because of the stakes, it's a deeper, more engaging read; plus there are still cocktails and lots of great foodie details to enjoy.

Total Control

I think I've just read my first American blockbuster thriller, and I very much enjoyed all six hundred and eleven pages of it. It was top quality hokum, entertaining and strangely old, with its talk of modems and floppy disks, and yet technologically challenging. David Baldacci definitely did his homework, as he goes into great detail about the inner workings of the Federal Reserve Board, Internet fraud, terror plots to down airliners, corporate takeovers and the FBI.

His highly attractive and intelligent heroine, is Sidney Archer, an attorney at Tyler, Stone, who finds herself caught up in the murderous intrigue of a billion pound takeover battle for CyberCom, between two rival firms: Triton Global and RTG. When her husband, Jason is implicated in a fraudulent deal to sell one firm's secrets to the other, and then is presumed dead on a sabotaged passenger plane, Sidney's life and the lives of her parents, and young daughter Amy, are in grave danger.

Sidney sets out to discover the secrets that Jason was hiding from her, and in the process to clear his name; but with the FBI following close behind in the shape of experienced agent, Lee Sawyer, she has to stay one step ahead, and find out who she can trust.

Baldacci ramps up the pace and tension, as Jason's enemies close in on the beleaguered Sidney, and the Feds try to keep a tail on her. It was hard not to see the novel as one of those intelligent legal thrillers, like John Grisham writes, with Lee Sawyer's character played by Gene Hackman. It would be a big name, big budget affair, with one of those deep, raspy voiceovers on the trailer: "Total Control. Once you have it, you'll kill to keep it!"

So yes, a bit Hollywood in places, from the intelligent and beautiful, gun-toting widow, to the seasoned Federal agent, who falls under her spell, and the cold-eyed assassin stalking dark corridors, dispatching people in gruesome ways. We get a big gun battle, and a cliff top show down, and it's a rip-roaring read, full of suspense and dirty dealing from start to finish.

Miss Wyoming

I couldn't resist another Douglas Coupland novel, which I picked up in the free book exchange in my local shopping precinct, at the same time as Waterland. Miss Wyoming, is about ex-Beauty Queen, second-rate actress, and former rock star wife, Susan Colgate.

  

Susan has had the kind of nightmarish upbringing embodied by the beauty pageant contestants of that most excellent film: "Little Miss Sunshine". Pushy moms, spraytanning, back combing and primping their little girls, making them look too old for their years, sacrificing their daughters to their own egos, and the beauty pageant meat market. Susan's mom, Marilyn, is a prize fighter of a mom, resorting to plastic surgery and blackmail to get her daughter on top of the winner's podium. "..it doesn't  matter if Miss Iowa cures cancer on stage, or if Miss Idaho gets stigmata, my daughter wins."

Similarly, John Johnson, as a producer of big budget movies, has had the same exposure to Tinseltown, and all its follies. "John's role was to walk into a room where nothing really existed except for a few money guys .....John would conjure up a spell for these Don Duncan's, Norm Numbnuts and Darrens-from-Citicorp. He had to cram his aura deep, deep, deep inside their guts, spin it around like a juicer's blade, then withdraw and watch the suits ejaculate dollars." (Coupland has the best darkly comic take on Fame's skewed reality, and is a genius with words.)

No wonder then, that two damaged individuals from the shallow end of life, are looking for something with deeper meaning. When John has a near-death experience of soap star, Susan Colgate persuading him to come out of a coma, and subsequently bumps into her at a restaurant, he feels like they are destined to be together. John decides that with Susan he "might actually raise something better out of himself than a hot pitch for a pointless film. Something moral and fine inside each of them might sprout and grow." The only problem is, that Susan has gone missing, but with the help of Ryan from the local film rental store, and his techie girlfriend Vanessa, John is determined to track her down.

It turns out that both of them have form, when it comes to disappearing and reinventing themselves. In a series of flashbacks, we are given clever glimpses into their tawdry past, interspersed with their current quest to find love and happiness. The plot may be as unbelievable as a Hollywood blockbuster, but it is thoroughly entertaining, and darkly comic. Although it may seem trailer-trashy, and as light as a bucket of popcorn in places, as with all the Coupland I've read, it really gets to the core of the human condition.  His characters mess up, and they mess up big time. Then almost heroically, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again, always hoping for something better.

Waterland

After leafy Surrey, we travel to the Fens, for something far more grittier, and full of silt: Graham Swift's Waterland. this novel is the winner of many prizes, but I'm not sure whether I will enjoy navigating it. However, I am curious to experience his story-telling, and as Swift himself says:"Nothing is worse than when curiosity stops."

Swift's narrator, Tom Crick, about to be forced into early retirement from his post as a History teacher, drop kicks the syllabus into touch, and instead, regales his class with his own local history. In particular, he enters a game of wits, and verbal sparring with the class anarchist, Price. At times it is hard to work out whether his pupils are actually before him, or whether they are a figment of his imagination.  Dreams, visions, superstition and madness are themes which run through the book, like eels running down a river to the sea. In fact, the whole epic sweep of the story is running through the Fens to the Wash.

Tom has been an educator since his youth, undertaking to teach his older brother Dick how to read and write, when their parents had given up on his schooling. Whilst Tom is clever and academic, Dick is a lumbering hulk, slow at learning, but good at practical, hard labour.

As the adult Tom unravels the story of his life, interspersed with snippets from revolutionary France, History becomes very much HIS story. The author is continually posing the question: "What exactly is history?", and blurring the edges between recorded events and reality. Everyone has their story, for Man is "a story-telling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories."

Events in the past, have a tragic impact on the future, and mistakes of youth turn out to haunt the perpetrators for the rest of their lives, for "History is a thin garment, easily punctured by a knife blade called Now."

I reached the end of the story, when all the tales had been told, and felt that I had read a great novel, which had connected me to the landscape of the Fens, and the lives of the Fenlanders. It does what all great literature does: it makes the reader feel more alive, and to appreciate how incredibly fragile is our grip on life and sanity.

Notwithstanding

I have just finished Louis de Bernieres' collection of short stories, set in a fictional Surrey village called Notwithstanding. It is loosely based on his own memories of growing up in a similar place, and it captures beautifully the rhythms of rural life, but especially the eccentric, quintessentially English characters who inhabited such villages in the past.

Nowadays, Surrey villages are more likely to be filled with wealthy incomers, who commute to London, or by weekenders, who stay in town all week, and escape to their second homes at the weekend. Local families have been out priced, and have had to move away to work. Consequently, these stories hark back to a lost world, populated by retired Majors, Molers and the Hedging and Ditching man. He seems to pop up at the side of the road in every story, as villagers move from A to B, which is a lovely touch, linking all of the stories together. We catch glimpses of certain characters who have had their own stories written, making guest appearances in others, even if they just appear fleetingly in the distance, or at the side of the road. The reader feels like they are getting to know the layout of the village, and to recognise its inhabitants from the highest to the lowest, and from the younger to the older.

The author demonstrates impressive knowledge of country ways, including the precise tackle needed to catch a Pike, and how to lay out a new putting green. In addition, he seems to know a considerable amount about wind instruments and music.

Although initially the stories seem to have been published individually in a range of newspapers and journals, they gain considerable charm from appearing together in this collection. It is very hard to pick a favourite, as they are all equally appealing.

I love the variety of people and stories on offer here. Some are funny and gentle, whilst others are poignant. The effect of the whole is like taking a literary warm bath. It is a winsome book, which I was sorry to finish. Traditional, old-fashioned and charming, like the best of English villages.