Book Review

 

Word's Worth - A fiction Writer's Guide to Serious Editing by Jane Riddell

 (available in paperback on Amazon.uk Amazon.com and Amazon.fr) As reviewed on Amazon:
 

This is a handy practical tool to use when editing your novel. I found the tables of Overview Editing and Line by Line Editing particularly helpful. As suggested I added my own sins to watch out for. Riddell explains the various elements well with clear examples following each definition. I found the section defining narrative closeness and distance particularly interesting. Following the methods suggested makes editing a more structured process rather than an arduous task. Having these guidelines result in a sharper piece of work. A lot of writers may begin editing their novel without a clear idea of what to correct. One can get overwhelmed with too much information on the internet. If you are struggling to find where to begin, this will guide you along myriad paths with tips that are easy to follow.

  

Water's Edge by Jane Riddell (available on Amazon.uk/com/fr)

As reviwed on Amazon

The gentle pace of the novel is deceptive as the plot moves forward page after page with twists and revelations at every corner. The varying viewpoints work well as we enter the heads of the characters and have a clear idea of their dilemma.

Set in Brunnen, Switzerland, the novel follows an English hotelier Madelena who invites her children for a family reunion. Portia, Vienne, Annie and Lawrence arrive, each troubled with their own inner demon. The tension mounts as the family members weave in and out of hotel corridors and pool side - accidental meetings seemingly inevitable, avoided at the last minute. At times it reminded me of a play.

The viewpoints switch with ease between characters. Madalena has a revelation and a request to make and is uncertain about the reception of her news. Annie has just lost her female partner and their baby-to-be to the biological father. Vienne is unsure of her husband's feelings for her. Lawrence is battling with guilt over unresolved problems with his late father. Although we never really see inside Lawrence's head, his dialogue with Annie and Madalena reveals a fair bit of his personality.

For a work of "quiet fiction" (as Riddell describes it) the events take place at a brisk pace, slowing down when necessary to take in the view, comment on a menu or capture the landscape, its flora and fauna.

This novel deserves to be read in one go, to keep up the momentum. I read some of it on the shores of Lac Bourget in France and felt spiritually very close to the drama taking place by another lake just across the border.

A wonderful debut, well-written, confident and mature I look forward to reading more of Riddell's work.

Review of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Read by Open House Book Group in April 2013

The opening line of the novel “The circus arrives without warning” draws us instantly into this world of mystery. It is a circus that is not preceded by advertisements, but just appears one day as if by magic.  Le Cirque des Rêves, the Circus of Dreams is a world of magic, real magic.

Surreal with a sinister twist were my first thoughts as I read the first few pages. A circus turns up out of the blue, is open only at night and is dressed entirely in black and white. It soon becomes apparent that a dangerous game has been cooked up by two magicians, Hector Bowen, alias Prospero The Enchanter and Mr A. H- the man in the grey suit.  The opponents are to be chosen to pit their magical wits against each other. Prospero chooses Celia his six year old daughter and Mr AH an orphan who goes by the name of Marco Alisdair.

The circus is formed by series of circles in the true meaning of the word, circle. Likewise, the plot consists of many different circles intertwining with each other.

Erin Morgentern’s plot is too intricate to be summed up in a few lines. Facts mesh with fantasy. Images meld into illusions. We are never certain what are real. Over the years Marco and Celia play out their performances with intense technique, passion and true magic. Predictably they fall in love and fight to save the circus and themselves.

I normally dislike plot-driven novels especially ones involving magic realism. This novel is an exception. I did not really care how it ended but enjoyed the magic unfolding.  



Review of After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

Read by Open House Book Group in March 2013



 Having read and been bowled over by Kafka on the Shore by the same author, I had high expectations from After the Quake. After all, we all felt very strongly about the subject. Set at the time of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, it has huge emotive value. Yet I have to say that the short stories left me totally unmoved. In fact I could not even finish the book. Kafka on the Shore was imaginative, creative and dealt with the weird and beautiful in such a credible manner that you believed him when he talked about fishes falling from the sky.

In After the Quake, the same attempt is made to create a world of fable, full of characters such as a talking Frog. The first few stories capture snapshots of the lives of several Japanese people. In one, a salesman suddenly deserted by his wife is asked to deliver a mysterious package. In another a man who has been brought up to believe he is the son of God meets a man who may have been his mortal father. The relationship between the mother and son is unnaturally close, bordering on incest. There is a flicker of humour when the mother uses the word "knowledge" as a euphemism for sex. A timid, unambitious collection agent is asked by a giant Frog to save Tokyo from destruction.

I am afraid much as I wanted to like this collection of short stories it did not really grip me.

 

Fall of Giants by Ken Follet

Read by the Open House Book Group in February 2013

Reviewed by Rachel Keeling


 

If you loved Downtown abbey then this book is for you. ‘Fall of Giants’ isa huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911 and the Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, are linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. In a plot of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, FALL OF GIANTS moves seamlessly from Washington to St Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty.

The way the stories intertwine and effect different parts of history, is cleverly written and keeps the readers interest. However the political detail is often heavy and sometimes difficult to follow if politics are not to your liking. The human interest within the story reflects real life, and ‘Lucky Lev’ is particularly likeable with his seeming ability to turn round every situation to his advantage.

The description of life in the trenches was chillingly realistic, and brought home the full horror of war, emphasising its futility and hopelessness. The story combined historical facts detailing the loss of life with an emotive connection to the characters of Billy and his platoon. The reader finds himself desperately hoping that Billy makes it home.

One of the themes that comes through in the book is the arrogance of men versus the courage and resilience of the women.  The leaders of the countries take their people to war sometimes unnecessarily, due to their postulating and a basic inability to communicate with each other.  Whereas the women learn to survive and rebuild their lives in the midst of chaos. The women seem to demonstrate courage and love in all its forms. Maud sets up the paper, Ethel rebuilds her life, Katerina learns to survive, and Lev’s mother is filled with resolution not remorse after the death of her husband.  There becomes a struggle for a survival at any cost for both the men and the women, both on the battlefield and through the shortage of food.

The book does neatly come to a conclusion, and is complete as a single read, although it also leaves you with a desire to read the second book in the Trilogy as you wonder where fate will take the families in the future. A little too long, but good if you like historical fiction.

 

When God was a Rabbit

Read by the Open House Book Group in January 2013

The opinion of our readers have been summed up well by our group leader Michele Wanneau

Described by our reading group as “Overall people quite liked the book, a story about family, love, friendship, the tone of the book varies from highly amusing to deeply melancholy, a lot of different little stories back in the 70's in the UK up to nowadays ! It did ring a bell to the British members like Rachel who said this was exactly her time and she remembered that sort of life in England at that time!! There are similarities to what we lived through in France, 1968 the year of all the changes and the revolution!! “ 

My review:

With its intriguing title and a fresh narrative voice of a child, the novel begins with a promise that it ultimately delivers. The novel tackles dark topics like sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and torture with incredible ease, never plunging us into despair, rather lifting us out of the mire with the humour of a born raconteur and the optimism of the good.

In brief, Elly is a precocious four year old growing up in the 1960s/70s England. This period of time has been captured credibly as it reminded on of our readers of her childhood. Elly finds it difficult to make friends with people her own age. Mr Golan, an eccentric octogenarian befriends her and as we find out soon enough, he eventually betrays their relationship. While Elly treasures her friendship with a Holocaust survivor and his exotic food and rituals as being something rather special, her brother Joe exposes it as child abuse. How else would she know about Golan’s circumcised penis? 

Joe promises to guard her secret and get her a proper friend. This friend turns out to be a Belgian hare who occasionally speaks to Elly. She names him God much to the consternation of her Sunday schoolteacher.  Elly’s mother has been suffering from depression since the death of her parents in a car crash.  Her father is rather a self-centred pompous man.  Consequently, Elly grows up without the attention of either of her parents. Joe is her lifeline. Into this lonely world enters Jenny Penny and her world is never the same again. Jenny is a riot of colours in her black and white world. 

Elly’s friendship with Jenny spans several decades with a long absence in between when Jenny is in jail for murdering her abusive husband. As a child Jenny’s world is chaotic to say the least. Her mother is a funeral groupie, and stability is something completely absent in their lives. When Elly’s parents win the lottery and move to Cornwall Elly readjusts to another life. Yet her friends like Arthur, an ageing dandy, or Gloria, once a star, are still much older than her. Elly and Joe are closer than most siblings are. Their bond is unshakeable until that day on 9/11 it would almost be shattered forever.

This novel is superbly written especially for a debut. Winman has a distinctive style of well written prose spiked with humour. Her characters are never dull. She handles homosexuality in Joe and their aunty Nancy in a refreshingly commonplace manner. However this brings me to question how acceptable it would have been in that era to have a gay sister and a son without a hint of dispute or raised eyebrow. They seem like an ordinary family not mixing in an eclectic bohemian circle. Elly’s father accepts his sister’s lifelong crush on his wife and even approves when he hears the two women have kissed at last and got it out of their system.

The characters are believable on the whole but at times Elly seems overly precocious quoting Nietzsche and discussing unplanned pregnancies. She admits she has the maturity of an eight year old and I think that would have been a more credible age.

Other than these minor faults, the story is poignant and touches the heart.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

Read by Open House Book Group December 2012

In the wake of the campaign for women’s rights under the Taliban regime, made by Malala, a fourteen year old Pakistani girl, this book is a perfect follow up to our raised awareness of the appalling conditions faced by our sex in certain parts of the world.

This is a non-fiction book documented by an American journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon who was searching for stories about female entrepreneurs in Afghanistan. Their existence being denied by the male community, Gayle had to strive hard to find the elusive success stories of women who operated businesses under the strict Taliban regime, risking everything to feed their families.

Gayle found Kamila Sidiqui, who at a tender age had assumed the role of breadwinner after the male members of the family fled the danger zone. Her story was unique. 

As the Taliban took over their country overnight, the women were banished indoors. They could not attend schools, universities, much less work. Raised in an educated family where the daughters were encouraged by their father to obtain an education, this sudden change was soul destroying. Days of sitting at home reading old novels bred apathy. Kamlia was restless. She was looking to do something meaningful with her life. On one of her journeys into town, dressed in a full length chadri, she noticed that the dress shops were still open. Underneath the burqua the women still needed to wear dresses. Some were beautifully embroidered.

Kamila saw a business opportunity. These shops would need dressmakers to supply dresses as it was getting increasingly difficult to import things from Pakistan. She herself knew nothing about sewing but her sister Malika was just the person to teach her. Malika already ran a successful business at home, making exquisite dresses for women. Kamila went alone to see her sister, risking being caught by the Taliban street patrollers, who insisted women must be accompanied by a man at all times. In an extraordinarily short time, Kamila and her sisters learnt the art of making dresses. Their home run business attracted many clients as well as new recruits.

Kamila was interested not only in running a successful business but helping the community at large. She did this by introducing a new concept. She recruited young girls to be apprentices, who would learn a new craft and in the meantime help their business fulfill its orders. The unexpected feather in their cap was finding out that an urgent order for wedding dresses was made by a Taliban family who knew about and approved of the all-female home business run by women with decent morals. However, Kamila was meant for greater things. She was approached by an NGO run by UN Habitat to be involved in community projects. As usual Kamila excelled in this sharing her business acumen with others. 

The book has heart-stopping moments particularly when Kamila is stopped by Taliban vigilantes on a bus when she was on her way to attend a UN meeting in Pakistan. Her swift talking helped her to escape arrest or being beaten up. We know such incidents occurred regularly when a woman was cruelly beaten up for being out in the streets alone. It only needed a minor misdemeanor like wearing high heeled shoes under the chadri to be thrown in jail or worse. Kamila’s journeys to the bazaar to meet with and talk to male shopkeepers were fraught with danger as women were banned from talking to men who were not family.

              

Kamila’s courage and excellent business skills were inspirational. I was completely caught up in Kamila’s endeavours and was anxious to find out if they succeeded in the end or if indeed they all survived the difficult years.

Readers in our group did not like the journalistic style of writing while acknowledging that this is a non-fiction book and one cannot expect it to read like a novel. All in all it was an interesting book because it showed us the life of women behind the veil.

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Winner of the Orange prize for fiction 2011

Read by Open House Book Group November 2012

For a young author her style is undoubtedly mature. Her lyricism emerges with surprising ease at various points in the novel “Twenty minutes in, the road hairpins, and when you take this turn, wait for the blaze that strikes from across the valley, where the pine forest stands dense and silent;”.

There are many such well-written lines which paint a vivid picture for the reader and bring the landscape to one’s doorstep.  She has a wonderful way with words and makes the ordinary seem extraordinary.  Yet, The Tiger’s Wife promised more than it delivered. She is the poised girl you meet in a bar who seems articulate and intelligent until she speaks and you don’t understand a word she says.

Most of our book group found the plot awkward and confusing. There are three strains of storyline running through the book-the narrator’s quest to search the truth behind her grandfather’s sudden and mysterious demise, the tale of the deathless man Gavran Gailé, and the deaf-mute wife of Luka’s strange relationship with the tiger.

The novel opens with the memory of a trip to the zoo by Natalia and her grandfather. They stand outside the tiger’s den. Her grandfather holds a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. Later we hear about the day the tiger who wanders around town in search for food. The story is set in a fictional town somewhere in the Balkans and loosely chronicles the war.

The narrator is a young idealistic doctor following in her grandfather’s footsteps. On her journey to Zdrevkov clinic where she and her friend Zora inoculates the children, Natalia hears about her grandfather’s sudden death and is determined to find the answers. There are diggers in the vineyard searching for the body of a loved one who was killed during the war. The diggers sense his unhappiness and that is making them sick.

The novel is full of secrets and superstitions, magic realism blending in with harsh reality. Somehow the essence of the story is lost amongst the myriad of characters and settings. The scenes change too quickly for the reader to grasp the story.

In brief, for me, it was a difficult novel to understand fully and embrace. Perhaps a good bit of editing would have streamlined the plot.

 
The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

Read by the Open House Book Group Grenoble in October 2012

Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.

The story opens with a motley group of asylum seekers being set free without paperwork into the unknown countryside of England. They have been let loose into a bewildering world without any money or contacts. Some have little or no knowledge of the language. Little Bee however, speaks the Queen’s English learnt during her two years in Blackhill detention centre. Born and raised in Nigeria, Bee has no idea about Western civilization. All she has in her pocket is the driver’s licence of Andrew O’Rourke, whom she had met on a beach in Nigeria. She is certain that once she manages to find Sarah and Andrew, all would be well. They had saved her life after all, on that horrific day in her land.

The novel alternates between the viewpoints of Bee and Sarah. Sarah is a journalist and runs a magazine in London. Their worlds could not be more apart. Sarah wears Fendi shoes. Bee has never seen a dishwasher.  When Bee walks all the way from Essex to the leafy suburb of Surrey, she is shocked to find her would-be savior dead. Andrew has committed suicide. Sarah’s world is in turmoil. Her guilt is evident at having taken a lover after years of growing apathy between herself and her husband. He was not made of heroic stuff. Neither is she the person she wanted to be. She had had visions of raising important social issues through her magazine but it churns out what is popular amongst its readers. Her whole world seems not quite real. Fittingly, Charlie their son wears a Batman outfit and fights the baddies. Sarah has her feet securely in the wealthy Kingston-upon-Thames suburb but her heart along with the middle finger of her left hand has been left behind in Africa. We don’t find out until much later in a beautiful flashback of how Sarah comes to lose her finger. On a sun baked beach in Nigeria Sarah had been ready to give up a digit on her hand to save the lives of two young African girls she had only just met. She had stood up to the soldiers wielding machetes. A tad unreal, we are nevertheless caught up in the drama and heroism of the moment.

Bee’s story is told in her newly learned English voice with a sweet taste of her native Nigerian tongue. In fact the author has fun in the first chapter letting one of the asylum seekers speak English words in an authentic Nigerian accent “dis ooman ain’t got no mo-tee-Vay-shun. Ain’t dat right, darling?” Bee stays with Sarah for a while. Their relationship though initially shaky improves with time as Sarah gets to know the girl better. Bee is far older than her tender teenage years. This is perhaps not very credible especially in the scene where she confronts Sarah’s boyfriend.  The reader is aware that despite Sarah’s efforts to prevent Bee from being found by the authorities, their past will not go away. Somehow or another they would have to confront their demons. It is naïve on Sarah’s part to think that she can save Bee. A trip back to Nigeria is unwise but inevitable.

The novel raises important questions about the rights of asylum seekers. As a member of our group asked “how far would you go to save a family of asylum seekers knowing certain death awaits them if deported to their land of origin?” The subject is emotive and as always it is difficult to find the magic answer. Even if you sacrificed everything would it save others like Bee?