Burial Rites

Burial Rites is Hannah Kent's first novel, and I am astounded that a young, Australian woman could write with such command of Icelandic culture, folklore and history, as to make the reader feel totally immersed in the nineteenth century setting. Not only that, but with an economy of phrase she shows mastery over her characterisation of the condemned woman in her story: Agnes Magnusdottir, and the family who are forced to give her board and lodging on a remote farmstead, while she awaits her execution.

Kent had become intrigued by the real-life story of Agnes, whilst living in Iceland as a seventeen year old exchange student.  It was an obsession that stuck with her, so that later, when undertaking a PhD at Flinders University, she decided to make Agnes the subject of her research.  She had never undertaken any biographical research, or attempted to write a novel. No wonder she credits so many Icelandic librarians and archivists in her acknowledgements.

Agnes is one of three condemned to die for the murder of two men, Natan Ketilsson and Petur Jonsson at another farmstead in the North. Her fellow accused are being held with different families, and being ministered to by different priests. Agnes has requested a particular priest as her confessor, the young assistant,Toti, who visits her regularly at the farm. Her spiritual wellbeing is his foremost concern, as he seeks to prepare her to face death. In the close confines of the "badstofa", (the communal Icelandic living/sleeping room, see picture below), we learn about Agnes' life, intertwined with the lives of the local farming families and their servants. The isolation and loneliness of living in a remote location, the claustrophobia of a long, dark Winter in a small community, and the close scrutiny afforded to an outsider, which the author experienced as an exchange student, all resonate here. 

As the novel builds inexorably to its climax, she describes the bleak, unforgiving landscape in lyrical prose of stunning intensity, whilst Agnes' tortured internal monologue is laid bare. It is insightful, beautiful and heart-rending. In Hannah Kent's own words, the novel is a "dark love letter to Iceland." I recommend that Eyjafjallajokull permitting, you should read this astonishing debut novel, and book your flight!

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books

Here is a candidate for the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in "The Shadow of the Wind." It was built in 1592 in a vast complex of buildings at El Escorial.

The Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, near Madrid

The Shadow of the Wind

"Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books", a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles," reads the blurb on the back of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's novel:"The Shadow of the Wind." As life imitates art, I also have gone to my shelves of forgotten books, and chosen the same title as the protagonist Daniel. However, since the various reviews on the inside cover describe this novel as ingenious, entertaining, compulsive and downright unforgettable, it is ironic that it has ended up gathering dust in my library!

Daniel's whole existence is saturated with books.  He and his father live above the family's second-hand bookshop, "an enchanted bazaar" in old Barcelona, handed down from his grandfather, and destined to be his own one day. "I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day." Being an only child, like Daniel, and with older parents, I could recognise these childhood friends immediately.  The smell of dusty or pristine pages, and the feel of a physical book in one's hands is something that an e-reader simply cannot replicate. (Music-lovers would say likewise the joy of pouring over the artwork and sleeve of a classic vinyl album versus an iPad/MP3 experience.)

Early one morning, when a ten year old Daniel wakes up screaming, because he can no longer remember his dead mother's face, his father decides that it is time to introduce him to the mysterious Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It presents as a type of bibliophile's Gringotts: a secretive, magical basilica of books graced by "impossible geometry," and staffed by hardcore members of the secondhand booksellers' guild. Whenever a library disappears or a bookshop closes down, these guardians ensure that the books are not consigned to oblivion. In fact, it strikes me that the ladies in my local book exchange are providing a similar service to our town, in making sure that somebody's unwanted books, never end up in landfill, but have a new life being shared around other readers. The only difference is, that it is housed in a tatty, former Superdrug store, with ramshackle shelving in a dingy shopping centre, surrounded by Pound Shops and empty units. Zafron's version is more picturesque, tucked away just off the Ramblas, with ancient fixtures and fittings, frescoes, marble staircases, and a whiff of the sanctuary about it.

His father informs him that " According to tradition, the first time someone visits this place, he must choose a book, (I got three at the book exchange!), whichever he wants, and adopt it, making sure that it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive." Daniel chooses "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julian Carax, or quite possibly the book chooses him, as the ring chose Bilbo. He himself feels certain that the book had been waiting there for him for years, since before he was born. Once he has this book in his possession, his life becomes inexorably bound up in the mystery of Carax's identity and fate, with the suspense building layer upon layer, in a dance of shadows.

I was enchanted by Zafon's evocation of Barcelona in the aftermath of the Civil War, struggling with the legacy of those tumultuous days. We see its glorious architecture, and its seedy back-street quarters, and feel the fear and mistrust of its ordinary citizens towards those in power, particularly the corrupt and evil Police Chief, Fumero, and his henchmen.

However, there is humour in abundance too, and I especially loved the rather florid character of Daniel's bookshop colleague, Fermin Romero de Torres, a noble rogue, who definitely has the funniest and best lines in the book.

It is hard to pigeon-hole this novel, which has been described variously as " thriller, historical fiction, occasional farce, existential mystery and passionate love story." It definitely has aspects of all of these! As the mystery man Julian Carax observes:"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you."

Mayhem

A while back, I was given a hardback copy of Sarah Pinborough's "Mayhem": a novel about grisly murders in Jack the Ripper's London. A colleague had been invited to the book launch, because she was a friend of the novelist, and because I was dog sitting for her, on her return she gave me a lovely signed copy of the book.

Gruesome murders are not my usual penchant, although I have to say, I did rather enjoy "Tom-All-Alone's" last year, which has some macabre detective work, and sinister undertones, in similar vein to "Mayhem". What this book has in addition, is a large helping of the supernatural, since the supernatural and fantasy are Pinborough's preferred genres.

Her protagonist, a Police surgeon, by the name of Thomas Bond, becomes obsessed with finding the murderer who is stalking the back streets of Whitechapel, making Jack the Ripper look positively mundane.  He is haunted by the dreadful murder scenes he has witnessed, and the supernatural evil he has sensed. Sleep eludes him, and he wanders through the seedy opium dens of London, looking for the release that drugs can give him, topping this up with frequent doses of Laudanum.

Whilst I found the narrator's voice in the first half of the book a little confusing, nevertheless, she had me hooked by the halfway point, building the tension at quite a pace. She scatters a few red herrings as she weaves the Police enquiry with the unorthodox detective work of Dr. Bond, the seedy underbelly of the metropolis, and a smattering of Eastern European folklore.

I started to suspect several of the main characters as possible murderers, which is a sign of a good crime writer, and to worry about the welfare of the more vulnerable ones. With her hero telling the story in what is essentially a drug-induced haze, it begs the question: "What is reality?" Throw the supernatural into the mix, and the borders become even more blurred.

Not my usual territory then, but an enjoyable thriller with plenty of atmosphere. Just avoid dark corners and shadows, check the wardrobe, and look under the bed before you decide not to turn out the light!

Dog-sitting (for cheese!)

Exchange is no robbery!

With great excitement, and a smug sense of achievement, I took five of the books I have read since the Summer to our local book exchange and out of the house. However, the smugness soon wore off when I emerged with three different titles, unable to leave the premises without my quota of three.

I was looking for another Lionel Shriver, but couldn't find one.  Instead I settled for Nick Hornby's "About a Boy", Douglas Coupland's "Miss Wyoming", and Graham Swift's "Waterland".

Well, I will just have to be content with having shifted two novels out of the house, and not into landfill. Must try harder next time!

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

I'm back in Afghanistan again, after my last visit with Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. A country where life is so complicated, difficult and downright dangerous at times, surely cannot fail to produce compelling subject matter.

   
The tag-line on the front cover is "One little cafe. Five extraordinary women..." which is exactly what the story is about. The main characters and their entourage make occasional forays into Kabul's shopping districts, or rural Afghanistan, but usually the action comes to them in the coffee shop. As with Hosseini's book, the plight of Afghanistan's women is a central theme, but we are also given a glimpse into the traditional Afghan male mindset.

The Taliban are a shadowy presence in the background, but most of the plot lines concern either ex-pats working for the armed forces, journalists and civilians working for NGOs, or Afghans themselves and their traditional family values. These, of course, are completely alien to the West's liberal values, and Deborah Rodriguez does a good job of making the reader acutely aware of the vast cultural divide.

My impression was that this novel was accomplished "Chick-Lit", and a kind of "Hosseini-Lite". Whilst I can see men enjoying the latter's novels as much as women, I feel that male readers would find the sensibilities in Rodriguez' novel too cloying and female. I tried to work out what exactly makes Hosseini's writing rise above hers, and all I can say is that Deborah Rodriguez has written a really entertaining book, "as if Maeve Binchy had written The Kite Runner." (Kirkus Reviews) Khaled Hosseini's writing, on the other hand, touches the reader in a much deeper way. There is something noble and visceral about his writing that goes straight to the soul.

If you want a really entertaining, romantic holiday read, with a colourful cast of characters, you can't go wrong with this book.  It also has some great Book Group discussion ideas at the back, including Afghan recipes to share.

I think her own story would be just as good a read.  She set up a beauty school in a war zone, ran a coffee shop in Kabul, married an Afghan Muslim man, later discovering that she was his second wife, and eventually had to flee Kabul with her young son, when their lives were threatened.

She leaves the reader with an appreciation of Afghan culture and tradition, and a respect for its people.  If there is nobility to be found in this book, then it is in the Afghan people themselves, who endure so much.  Not the drug lords or the Taliban Commanders, but the little people in their daily struggle to survive, and to have as normal a life as possible under the circumstances they find themselves in.

Midnight's Children

Did you know that Salman Rushdie was toying with the idea of calling his novel " Children of Midnight"? However, as a seasoned Ad man, he eventually came down on the side of the title with the best ring to it, and the rest is history.

A history book is partly what Midnight's Children is, although like no other history book you will have ever read. It is strange that so many of the people that I have spoken to about this book, have also remarked that they too have never read it, but don't really know why that should be. I picked it up with trepidation, but by page forty-four was completely seduced by the narrator's voice, and enjoying the caustic humour, and its particular Indian flavour.

Rushdie's narrator, one Saleem Sinai, born on August 15th 1947 on the stroke of midnight, at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, declares at the outset that he has been "mysteriously handcuffed to history." He then proceeds to intertwine the history of his own family, starting with his maternal grandfather in Kashmir in 1915 with the birth pangs and subsequent tribulations of the new nations of India and Pakistan.
By day,  Saleem works in a pickle factory. By night he is driven to committing to paper the story of his life; paper that has taken on the unmistakeable whiff of chutney! The two are closely linked, both being a means of preserving: "Memory as well as fruit is being preserved from the corruption of clocks."

Nehru writes to the newborn: "We shall be watching over your life with the closest attention;it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own." I too tried valiantly to watch over his life, but literally lost the plot.  By the time I was half-way through, I had ceased caring, although I skim read the last quarter, which upset me greatly. I really don't like to admit defeat, but Midnight's Children was too much for me. It was a completely over-stuffed naan bread of a book, intent on showcasing the author's genius, at the expense of this reader's patience! I didn't feel that I had the background knowledge of Indian and Pakistani culture,folklore, history and religion to get a true grasp on the subject matter.

Yes, it's a brilliant tour de force, and bitingly funny and inventive, but maybe Magic Realism is just not for me. I felt quite down about being beaten into submission by a book, but was somewhat heartened to discover, during a conversation with friends on a train last week, that two of them had also thrown in the towel on a previous outing with Rushdie's novel. They were now regretting the decision of their book group to choose Midnight's Children as their next subject for discussion. They have a month to read it, and boy are they going to need it!

I may have found the novel indigestible, but I still like chutney.