It’s a rare occurrence for a novel to grab me in the first sentence and not let go until the final word.  Yet that is just what Andrew Sean Greer’s The Story of a Marriage (published in the UK today) almost did.  We’ll talk about the last 13 pages in a moment.

We think we know the ones we love.

So runs the short, intriging and pitch-perfect opening sentence. The narrator is Pearlie, a devoted wife and mother living in 1950’s San Francisco, whose world is about to be knocked off its axis by someone from the past returning to reclaim her husband.   Surprisingly Pearlie’s self esteem is so low that her every action from that point is to protect her son, not fight for her man.  To reveal why she feels and acts this way would be to expose the astonishing revelations which Greer takes great pains to reveal only at the moment of maximum impact.  So I’m certainly not going to destroy his masterplan.  You have to read this for yourself.  Really, you must!

While following Pearlie’s heartache is an emotional rollercoaster in itself, her experiences serve not only to explore the microcosm of one 1950’s American family rent asunder by the legacy of the past.  They open up much wider themes.  The 1950’s, often nostalgically remembered as the good old days, were, in reality, anything but.  Greer’s characters were born in bad times.  Divorce was not easy.  America, recovering from WWII, was already embroiled in the Korean war.  Who were the real heroes?  Those who did their duty or those who refused to bow to the majority view and adhered to their pacifist ideals?  Which experience was the most traumatic?  Where was comfort to be found?  Did money make a difference?  What about the complications of race?  There’s a huge iceberg of subtext floating beneath the surface of Pearlie’s drama.

The precision and beauty of the language held me mesmerised.  The proof copy , supplied via Librarything Early Reviewers, forbids direct quotation.  But I loved this book so much, that I have since acquired a bone fide 1st edition.  And so to Pearlie’s words which cannot fail to resonate with the reader.

The alarm I felt was not just the shock of the words, as startling as someone jerking back the curtain in a dark room, blinding me with painful sunlight.  It was that I had not known my husband at all.  We think we know the ones we love, and though we should not be surprised to find that we don’t, it is heartbreak nonetheless.  It is the hardest kind of knowledge, not just about another but about ourselves.  To see our lives as a fiction we have written and believed.  Silence and lies.  The sensation I felt that evening - that I did not know my Holland, did not know myself, that it was perhaps impossible to know a single soul on earth - it was a fearful loneliness.

Her observations thereafter, introspective reflections from shattered glass.  Bitter-sweet as she relives her history with her husband and observes the obvious tenderness between him and their sick son, all the while planning her escape.  The tension within her building to the denouement, which is written with such exquisite timing that Greer really should have stopped at the final sentence of page 182, a perfect counterpoint to Pearlie’s opening words.

What is one to make of love?

The last 13 pages added nothing for me and I’m looking forward to asking Greer why he thought they were necessary at the forthcoming Edinburgh Book Festival. Even so, it’s a minor quibble with a novel which may well end up being my read of the year.

The 1980’s was the decade in which Brian Moore’s reputation became firmly established.  The Colour of Blood, shortlisted for the Booker Prize,  won the Sunday Express Prize, the Canadian Authors’ Association Prize and the Hughes prize.  One of Moore’s thrillers, I came to it with high expectations, having loved both book and film of The Statement.

I can’t say this one thrilled me though. The ending was too obvious.  Maybe I’ve read too much Moore but I knew that the loose thread in chapter one would be used to sew things up neatly.  The ride to that ending is a 4-day roller-coaster which sees Cardinal Steven Bem, stripped of his regalia, finery and privileges, forced into the life of a fugitive before staging a triumphant return to silence his politically-motivated peers …

Did I mention the word politics?  What’s that got to do with religion?  Do the two mix?  Should they indeed?  Those questions form the underlying theme of Moore’s novel.  Even if the setting is now consigned to history (the novel is set in a Soviet satellite state), the theme is as relevant today as it was in the 1980’s.  The Catholic clergy of this unnamed country - nonetheless clearly Poland - is divided.  Bem is the voice of moderation.  He will accommodate the State provided it does not impose itself on the doctrine of the Church.  Others, however, see things differently and wish to incite the citizens to action.  4 days before an importance religious festival, an assassination attempt is made on Cardinal Bem, after which he is taken, unwillingly,  into protective custody.

The question is who are his would be assassins and who are his captors?  The Communist state or an extreme branch of the Catholic church which will not reconcile itself to Bem’s point-of-view. 

We still live under tyranny: the tyranny of an age when religious beliefs have become inextricably entwined with political hatreds.

As in Lies of Silence Moore depicts religious extremism as a destructive force.  However, for once, and I have to say that for me this was the particular and refreshing strength of The Colour of Blood, we see Moore convincingly depict the mindset of a sincerely religious man, a man of conscience.  Cardinal Bem may have developed an arrogance to accompany his high office but his private,  prayerful moments are humble and devout.

I am Your servant, created by You.  All that I have I have through You and from You.  Nothing is my own.  I must do everything for You and only for You.  Tonight at the meeting I was obsessed by politics.  I thought of the danger to our nation.  I did not think of the sufferings we cause You by our actions.  My fault, my most grievous fault.

Impressive words from the pen of a devout atheist.

(Originally posted on themoorethemerrier.wordpress.com on 05/06/2008.)

One thing seasoned bookworms never, ever do is run out of reading material.  We have an insane fear of being marooned without a printed word or two to ponder.  The world will stop spinning, won’t it?

 So last week, after a two-hour drive, I arrive at the beautiful Harmony Gardens in Melrose, home to the Borders Book Festival.  What a gorgeous place to sit down and bookworm away for an hour between events.  With a view like the one on the right, I can ignore the ugly portaloos behind me!  First I pop into the Festival Marquee and attend a recording of Book Cafe.  First thing Clare English does is ask the audience for some fine examples of fiction.  I should have known the day was not going to proceed as planned when I drew a blank ….. a real mental block … not even my beloved War and Peace came to mind!

After the recording (which is airing on the 7th July) I left the marquee to find that the sun had disappeared, the heavens had opened and I was wishing I had brought my winter coat.  This is Scotland after all where all four seasons can be compressed into 5 minutes.  How can I have been so naive!  A dash across the lawn to the teashop - nothing to beat a cup of the best beverage in the world.  Squash down in a corner and get the book out of the bag …. only the book’s with the winter coat …. at home.  Calamity!

Fortunately the teashop is sharing its space with the bookshop.  Time for a browse. No chance now for the book-buying embargo - the one that was supposed to last until the announcement of the Booker longlist.  So it I was that I acquired this book, the perfect match for  a perishingly cold and wet Scottish summer’s book festival afternoon.

In Cold Ink: On the Writer’s Tracks - David Robinson

The author is the books editor of The Scotsman and the title a homage to Truman Capote’s seminal faction In Cold Blood.  Tracking the blurred line between literature and life, Robinson’s interviews and essays on 20+ predominantly contemporary, predominantly Scottish authors, is perfect for dipping in and out between cups of char.  Last Saturday I headed straight to the interview with Janice Galloway in which she relived her visit to the Schumann’s old house in Duesseldorf during her writing of Clara.  I followed that with a trip to India in the company of William Dalrymple’s White Mughals (and added to the virtual TBR in the process). Thereafter, I defrosted some more with another cuppa before heading off a very breezy tent to listen to a fascinating talk by Salley Vickers about her Canongath myth When Three Roads Meet. 

Great company, shame about the weather.  Lest it be said I never learn from my mistakes, I’ve already prepared a checklist for next year: raincoat, thermals, travelling blanket, book! 

A proper Sunday Salon post later today but in the meantime, this is a personal post to Gautami Tripathy.  I haven’t received your details so the Conrad that I’m trying to giveaway still lies forlornly on the sideboard.  Please email me at lizzysiddal at yahoo dot com.

Courtesy of Canongate via

Anne Donovan’s debut novel, Buddha Da, was both critically acclaimed and avoided with a large bargepole by myself.  Probably due to the fact that it is written in Scots.  However, with a few more years in Scotland and the successful completion of Sunset Song, under my belt, I was ready to tackle the trials and tribulations of an adolescent Glaswegian female, particularly when Libarything offered me a review copy.

Ok, so I’m a little late for this review to qualify as early.   The book was published in the UK on 1st May.  It was the Scots and the imagined effort that made me pick it up and put it back down again a few times.  Anyway I finally dived in …. and do you know, I was swimming within a couple of pages.  No effort involved with the dialect at all!

The Emily of the title is Emily Bronte, with whom Fiona, the heroine, is fixated from a young age.  It’s the Wuthering Heights syndrome.  But Fiona is bright and can differentiate in a way that not many Heathcliff/Cathy fixated fans do.

Nice means you bumble along, no giving anyone offence, you’re no specially anything anyone can put their finger on, you’re nice.  No one in Wuthering Heights is nice.  Good, bad, mad, yes, but no nice.

Fiona’s life mirrors that of Emily in certain respects: a lost mother infuses tragedy, colour, confusion and trauma.  Then there are the usual adolescent issues - inappropriate passion which adds self-imposed trials to her tribulations.  In the vernacular,  it’s a bit of a guddle.  Yet, throughout Fiona remains a sympathetic character despite breath-taking thoughtlessness on one or two occasions.  Her anger is channelled into her art: smashed barbies, burning houses, which allows her to stay close to home and her dysfunctional family.  But can she escape the legacy of Emily’s ghost?

The dramative pull of the narrative is strong but spoiled slightly with ends that are far too neatly tied - a sugar-coating provided by an implausible saintly Sikh. 

Fiona’s story won’t live long with me, I’m afraid, in contrast with the portrait of the city of Glasgow. While the descriptions won’t make the heart of Glaswegians rejoice, they are guaranteed to raise a cheer in the city on the other side.

Glasgow’s always putting on festivals but Edinburgh always manages to dae it bigger and better; there’s something feels haund-knitted about the way we dae things.  Mibbe all the folk that know how tae run them get snapped up by Edinburgh and we get left with the has-beens.  Mibbe it’s because Glaswegians cannae seem to go anywhere without leaving trails of sweetie wrappers and fast-food packages lying around behind them.  Ot that we don’t know how tae dress.  Or talk.  Or something.

As a hand-knitter, I’ll forgive the insult, but aye - it’s certainly true that Glasgow has some catching up to do with regard to the book festival.  The following pages, however, describing Fiona’s night out at the Glasgow Festival of Light have me entranced.  Anyone know the dates for 2009?

Salley Vickers describes the approach made to her to contribute to the Canongate myths series as a gift. A trained Jungian psychoanalyst, her antipathy to Freud and his interpretation of the Oedipus myth meant her material was a given. However, in the course of writing and researching Freud, the man, she found him becoming more sympathetic as a human being. And so it is that psychoanalytical antipathy and human empathy create an interesting tension in Vickers’ retelling of the ancient Sophoclean tragedy.

The novel is set mostly in London during the late 1930’s where Freud and his immediate family have settled following their escape from Nazi Vienna. Freud is dying from oral cancer, a result of his heavy cigar habit. As he lies dying, he is visited by the ancient Greek, Tiresias, who proceeds to educate him in the “real meaning” of the myth. In a series of conversations, spanning months in which the horror and pain of Freud’s final illness is made manifest, Tiresias describes first his life as an interpreter of Delphic oracle and then the catastrophic fulfillment of the infamous Oedipus prophecy.

The contrast between Tiresias’ poetic language and Freud’s earthiness (”Virginia Woolf, all head, no genitals”) imbue texture and wit. So, too, the opposition of the supernatural and rationality. From a slow start, the novel truly comes to life as Oedipus insists on unravelling his own life by demanding the knowledge that is going to destroy him. Plenty of irony accompanying tragedy as Tiresias debunks Freud’s Oedipus complex. As Vickers pointed out at the Borders Book Festival last Saturday, Freud shoehorned a small part of the myth to fit his theory.

Neither Freudian nor Jungian (I am too uniformed to make a judgement), I find Vickers’ arguments persuasive. On a more solid and subjective footing I can also say that this is the most enjoyable of the three Canongate myth retellings I have read. The idea behind the series is excellent, yet I’ve found the execution mediocre up till now. While Atwood’s feminist Penelopiad is interesting but ultimately unconvincing, Winterson’s Weight is purely self-indulgent. Vickers’ contribution is a cut above both of these. Although fuelled by a personal agenda, Vickers does not forget the skills on which her literary reputation rests. Already mentioned is the poetry of Tiresian language. Particularly satisfying too, the parallels drawn between the fallen Oedipus and the dying Freud, both in personality and situation. Thus does this volume provide incentive enough for me to continue reading my way through the series.

1/2

A very interesting article in today’s Sunday Times which asks if book-burning is too good for some books!

One book always springs to my mind when conversations turn negative.  A book that has sold in its tens of millions, is allegedly life-changing and beloved by many.  Yet the only award I’d give it is for crimes against the environment.  Think all those dead trees.

The book?  Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.

Don’t question me on the detail.  I read it about 5 years ago when it appeared on the BBC Big Read top 100.   But I do remember the one thing in its favour.  It’s mercifully short.

What about you?  Are there any books that make you see red?

…. dogs do somewhat differently!

Congratulations, gautami tripathy -  Conrad’s “Secret Agent” is on its way to you.

I can still count the number of sci-fi novels I’ve read on one hand.  H.G. Wells - The War of the Worlds, H G Wells - The Invisible Man,  John Wyndham - The Chrysalids, John Wyndham - The Day of the Triffids and now John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos.  I’m delighted to say that I’ve enjoyed all of them without exception.  Perhaps I should read more.  Do you have any recommendations?

I was particularly gratified reading The Midwich Cuckoos when, despite the paucity of my knowledge,  I spotted and understood the intertextual allusion the H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds.  I’ve read that I cried, an absolutely inappropriate feeling of achievement at the moment Wyndham’s main characters are despairing of their enemies and wishing for traditional aliens, aliens of the Martian, of the Wellsian kind.  For  Wyndham’s aliens are in human form, children born of Midwich women, who are all impregnated during an invasion which lasts a mere 24 hours. All kinds of ethical dilemmas rising to the surface when the civilized inhabitants of Midwich come to realise that the Children must be annihilated before they begin to annihilate.

Wyndham didn’t think of his works as sci-fi. He called them “logical fantasy”, which he wrote so logically, that the idea becomes plausible. The Midwich Cuckoos is not really focussed on the aliens or even the ultimate showdown. It’s an exploration of humanity, the consequences of the invasion and how middle England would remain civilised in the face of adversity. How the villagers pull together despite their burning resentment about being used in this way. The palpable relief when the births produce children, not two-headed, slimy deathray wielding monsters. Disquiet follows only a couple of weeks after the births and as the years pass, the differences and the supremacy of the Children becomes apparent. 

It becomes manifest that these really are cuckoos in the human nest- another species that will ultimately herald the destruction of homo sapiens on the planet, should they be allowed to survive.

But who will undertake this loathsome task?  An individual, the military, the government?  It’s a mighty problem and one which Wyndham addresses with satirical bite.  When is murder justified?  Is it murder if the victims aren’t really human?   How can a democratic government address the issue and still remain popular?  The situation is fraught with weighty matters and while the issues are thoroughly aired between characters, scattered and well-paced dialogue ensures that plot is not sacrificed to debate.  Sprinklings of well-timed humour add to the enjoyment of the read.  We all know how canaries were used in the mines.  Read chapter 1 to find out how one poor canary was used to map the boundary of the exclusion zone around Midwich during the 24-hour invasion.  I shouldn’t laugh really but it’s impossible to resist ….. the poor bird!

… is a common malady, particularly in my occupation - software design. I don’t suffer from it much too during out-of-office hours.  Not even in the face of a TBR like the one on the left. That’s about 1/3 of it and even I’m beginning to think that too much of a good thing, while not exactly bad for the soul, is certainly bad for the living space.  So I’m thinking up strategies for reducing.  Suggestions in comments please, particularly if you’d like to enter a draw for a lovely gilt-edged hardback beribboned Collector’s Library edition of Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent”.   One of my all-time favourite reads.

The draw will take place, by a method yet to determined (indecision reigns once more), during next Sunday’s Salon.  All countries eligible.  Package will be sent surface mail to non-UK destinations.

However, the real source of consternation this week has been the publication of  the 2008 Edinburgh Book Festival program.   25 years old this year, the Festival has come up with an extraordinary program and I could finance a return Glasgow-Toronto flight with the cost of the tickets to all the events I want to attend.  I have spent 3 days pouring over the program.  I have mounted a virtual trolley raid on the library catalogue, sifted out the books already in hand.  I shall spend the following week browsing the candidates and by next week, the tickets will be purchased and my summer reading program will be fixed.  With a fair wind, I may even get some real reading done!