Showing posts with label literary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literary. Show all posts
Hot freaking DAYUMMM
The Handmaid's Tale is one of my favourite books of all time, and when a friend of mine linked me to an article that called The Power 'The Handmaid's Tale for the ipad generation' I knew I had to take a look.
In many ways that article couldn't be more on the nose. Right down to certain incredibly interesting structural decisions that I won't spoil, The Power touches on the themes presented in Atwood's famous dystopian novel and updates them for a globalised, technologically connected generation. Even without this literary heritage, however, The Power stands alone as a compelling thought experiment and a brilliantly executed novel.
“It doesn't matter that she shouldn't, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”
The very basic premise is that, in our modern day and age with the world exactly the same, teenage girls all around the globe suddenly develop the ability to generate and harness electricity. This suddenly turns the tables in places like Moldova, where thousands of women are trafficked as sex slaves, and gives girls all over the world, especially in places where they are more obviously oppressed, a power to fight back and claim authority for themselves. This of course creates havoc with the establish gender hierarchy, even in places like America and Britain where many believe sexism no longer exists and, like many novels that explore the possibilities of a new world order, it all goes very well until it doesn't. We watch the slow tipping from a Utopian vision of women claiming liberation, down a very steep, slippery slope.
Alderman explores the problems created when one type of person is able to claim all of the say and authority over another, from replacing the older male host of a daytime television show with a younger, prettier model, to more explicit sexual violence and oppression. In doing so she unapologetically holds up a mirror to the way we live now, and shows how shocking and strange it is when the tables are turned and we can see the gender norms we live by for what they are.
One of my favourite aspects of the novel is the inclusion of drawings and diagrams of historical artefacts, some fictional and some not, reimagined in a clever way to show historical bias. She includes two figures discovered in the same location and dating back to the same period in history, one depicting a man with his forearms extended and another of a woman with one arm raised. They have been labelled by historians as 'Priest King' and... 'Dancing Girl'. Through a reimagining of historical bias Alderman shows quite clearly how we paint societies we knew nothing about with our own gendered assumptions and colour two figurines, who could just as easily have been a revered Queen and a serving boy, with a lens that reinforces sexism back throughout history and reaffirms our own assumptions that things have always been this way and should therefore continue... which is stupid af.
“He feels excited. He feels ashamed. He wants to talk to her, but he is afraid. Maybe he imagined it all. Maybe she will call him a bad name if he asks her what happened.”
I have the odd issue with the text. Firstly, the character Roxy and her 'Cor Blimey!' Dick Van Dyke style brit-speech made me wince a few times, and there were occasional events in the novel that felt a bit heavy handed, like they were thrown in as a quick pointer to 'also this problem' without feeling organic to the plot, and it would have felt more natural to have them weave in with the narrative so they didn't feel like add-ons. Nevertheless I absolutely loved it and would be more than happy for it to win the Bailey's Prize for which it's been shortlisted, I definitely think the structure and the thought and the relevance of the novel make it something that should be read and appreciated by as many people as possible.
Alderman's tale is absolutely not a poetic tribute to how women should be in charge, it is a ballsy and fearless display of the tragic stupidity of assuming that one gender should be in some way more valid and have more opportunities, purely because they can cause the most damage, and the ways in which everybody suffers because of sexism, and what happens when we stop seeing the oppressed as human. Pick it up if you haven't!
Thanks for reading!
I was very kindly sent a copy of The Power for review by the publisher. All opinions are my own and all that.
* Review copy provided by the publisher... to someone else who kindly let me have it
Published 20th October 2016
I'm reluctant to call it a sequel, because although it is set in the same universe, it follows characters at whom we only got a passing glance during the first book. I thought this would be a problem, I thought that the characters and their relationships in Long Way were the strongest point of the book, and I wanted to see more of them so I started the novel very aware that I wasn't going to see my favourite characters again.
But honestly it didn't matter. After ten pages I was back in the lovely, rich universe Chambers has created and rather than following on from the last book, it takes us in a different direction and allows us to explore her reality from a whole new perspective.
It's hard to explain the premise of the book without hugely spoiling the first one, but I will say that it has the same warmth and joy to the story, and explores the same themes of making your own family, the complexities of gender, diversity and considering other people as people, even if you don't really understand or relate to them. It has such modern values and steers away from cliche and trope at every turn and it's a joy to see where a narrative can be taken when it isn't just pushed lazily along the usual paths. There is also some serious social commentary, including something I read as an unapologetic side eye at the way in which we all know our clothes and luxuries are made by slave children in the developing world, and yet we do nothing about it... because we don't see those people as 'real' people with 'real' lives. Chamber's really has her finger on the social pulse and knows what the more 'modern' reader wants in a book.
One of my workmates described this book as being like 'a literary group hug', and she's totally right. Chambers shows how you can create characters with compassion rather than just to be put through hell for cheap entertainment, and how you can show characters facing difficulties and overcoming obstacles, however awful, and growing as people, rather than spinning into turmoil just so that we as readers can watch the train crash.
I really hope that we get to see the crew from the first book again, but I really think that this book holds it's own with a cast of new characters and very different surroundings, as well as expanding on the world we only got a glimpse of in Long Way.
I can't wait until this comes out, because I can't wait to introduce more Waterstones shoppers to the joys of the Wayfarer universe. If you haven't read Long Way, read it. Then buy and read this when it comes out. You won't regret it. If in doubt come to Waterstones in Newbury and talk to any member of staff who will tell you how much we all love it.
Ok I'll go now. READ IT.
That was our mistake, I think. One of many mistakes. To believe that boys were acting with a logic that we could someday understand To believe that their actions had any meaning beyond thoughtless impulse. We were like conspiracy theorists, seeing portent and intention in every detail, wishing desperately that we mattered enough to be the object of planning and speculation. But they were just boys. Silly and young and straightforward. They weren't hiding anything.
Cline's debt novel follows a teenage girl named Evie, living in the summer of 1969 in California, she sees a group of dirty, tough but strangely enigmatic girls in the park, stealing food from bins and learns that they are part of a group following Russell, the charming musician, living on a ranch together getting high and practicing 'free love' while he vies for a record deal from his famous friend Mitch.
If you feel like this rings any bells that sound like 'Charles Manson', you'd be right. This is essentially a fictionalised retelling of the the events surrounding the Manson 'Family' who formed an infamous cult-like group in the late 1960's. When I learned this I was worried this would read like a strange 60's style Phillipa Gregory novel*, but I needn't have feared. Cline simply uses the events of the time as a tool through which to explore a multitude of issues and ideas and it works beautifully. The Girls is an incredibly compelling novel and would make an excellent summer read for people looking for something with more substance and power than the usual Marian Keyes.
I also worried that the book would entail me watching a young girl fall for and fawn over the Manson stand-in Russell, and that the novel would be a 'love story', but it isn't. Well it is, but Russell isn't in it. This is a love story between the girls, and then mostly between Evie and Suzanne, one of Russell's major followers. The energy between them crackles and burns throughout the novel, they get jealous of each other, they pine for each other's company and sleep in the same bed together. Russell is barely in this, the overarching cause and effect of the plot but in no way the story's focus. I love that in some ways Cline shines a light on the lives of the woman who became lumped as 'Manson's girls', but were never given attention as humans with stories beyond brainless followers and I loved that.
Evie is an excellent protagonist. Both unlikeable and incredibly relatable, she is that sullen shrugging teenage girl who can;t stand in a way that she feels she looks natural and searches desperately for any glimmer of what might look like affection from the boys around her. Cline does an unbelievable job of capturing the depth and complexity of the inner lives of teenage girls, which are often dismissed as shallow and shrill. For me personally it actually became uncomfortable to read in parts, just because the exploration of the ways in which teenage girls, just like me and my friends were, allow themselves to be manipulated and used and treated like shit, because finding a boy who looks like he loves you is the absolute priority.
I have become so tired of teenage girls reduced to the lyrics of '#Selfie' when in fact the every day of a girl that age is so much more raw and fraught than that. I have only seen this reviewed by other women, and I would be absolutely intrigued to know how this felt to male readers, whether it gave a different perspective on the girls they knew in their teens.
Evie exists in two times, as a middle aged woman in the books 'present', and as the young girl she looks back on. Both feel very tangible and real and although some reviews I read argue that present day Evie intruded on the main story, I found that narrative to be a wonderful contrast of the impetuous teen, with her older and wiser self. The present day story also acts as a horribly accurate commentary on how teenage girls haven't changed, and how they still allow themselves to be humiliated and mistreated in the name of male validation. Some of the scenes in the present narrative were truly upsetting, because they take place in modern times and ring so much closer to home.
The writing in this is sublime. Emma Cline knows just how to turn a phrase without sounding smug. The writing doesn't sound like it was written, which is the ultimate compliment to an author. The entire book is written with confidence and skill without ever feeling that the 'crafting' of the words impeded the flow of the storytelling... looking at you Anthony Doerr. I truly felt the starchy heat of 1969 California, and the crippling embarrassment of being caught in a lie as a teenager. Cline really is a fantastic writer... bitch.
I mean it's not perfect... I'm sure it isn't, but I really can't think of anything I didn't enjoy about this book. If you do have a sensitive disposition, particularly regarding younger teenagers and sex then maybe approach with caution but I feel that even that aspect was handled beautifully.
So yeah... Maybe read this one. I was tempted to just reread this the other day, but I have far too many unread books on my shelf to do that just yet. It comes out 16th of June in hardback and I think I may even purchase it, just so I can actually give Emma Cline some money, for this I think she deserves it.
If you made it this far, well done! My next review might be less gushy... maybe.
Thanks for reading
Isabelle
xox
This review copy was kindly sent by the publishers in exchange for an honest review.
Tampa is a book I was surprised I had not heard more about. It is described as a modern day Lolita, and follows our protagonist Celeste Price, a beautiful, cunning young woman with a near manic lust for fourteen year old boys.
The novel is incredibly compelling. Horrible yes, but compelling. I read this in two sittings, unable to really get it out of my head until I was done with it and even then it hung around in my brain, gnawing away at me. Nutting pulls no punches with her story and the reader gets every grisly detail of a very unapologetic plot. To say the story is enjoyable might be pushing it, but it was certainly 'entertainment'. The story moves surprisingly quickly and it's hard to put the book down when you are being pulled into this hideous but fascinating character study. There are incredibly graphic scenes involving teenage boys, and the ways in which Celeste's narration describes people around her, particularly those she considers ugly are pretty gruesome and unsavoury. The novel is excellent at really confronting the reader. The scenes that we would rather look away from are written so well we can't help but keep going and there are certainly moments where the reader is challenged in their own fascination. All of this is awful, all of this is terrible, and yet we keep reading, we sit and watch these events unfold, out of the sick fascination we all have when it comes to 'taboo' sex.
My major qualm was how incredibly simple the character of Celeste Price is. She is very interesting and you watch her with this sort of horrible fascination, but ultimately as a 'realistic' character she lacks any depth. She is not just a pedophile (hebephile technically), she is also a nymphomaniacal sociopath. Her entire brain is filled, all the time, with wanting to bang teenage boys and how much she hates literally everybody else... and that's it. There's no hint of moral dilemma, no attempts to understand herself or appreciate her husband for what he does for her. She is a one track mind the entire time and undergoes zero character development from the first page to the last. Even at the moment in which she is faced with what she has done, and the consequences for those around her, all she can do is shrug and say 'It's just what I like.'
In some ways I can see Nutting's intentions with this. Celeste is incredibly beautiful and as such gets away with everything she does. I think partially this book serves as a critique on how we treat beauty as somehow equating to morality, and Nutting shows that even the prettiest face can often belong to a thoroughly nasty piece of work. On the other hand it does nothing to add to the current discussion about sexual attraction to children and sex abuse. In fact it takes a step backwards and reduces the idea of 'the pedophile' to this mindless, abusive animal with no other aspect of their life, as opposed to what they are: People, some of whom do terrible things, and some of whom resist their feelings, never acting upon them at all. Casting a pedophile in the light of sprouting out of the ground and prowling off to find victims does nobody any good at all, and I may have preferred a more nuanced portrayal, whereas Celeste is nothing but a caricature.
I feel Nutting had clear objectives when setting out to write this book, and managed to achieve what she wanted and create a really good book while she was at it, however I wish she had made things more complex, more nuanced, and not resorted to shock factor to propel the book forward. I would certainly recommend it, and did really enjoy the experience of reading it, but I feel any book that tackles a topic of this magnitude socially, it must be done cleverly, and with care, and I feel in some ways Nutting blundered into this without crafting the novel that her ideas and intentions deserved.
If you've read this let me know what you thought! I imagine there are some pretty strong opinions out there.
Thank you for reading.
Isabelle
xox
The Vegetarian - Hang Kang - 2015 - Portobello Books
While scrolling through my pictures that I'd taken of this book while reading it I became very aware that I hadn't managed to get a single one where I wasn't about to eat something... The irony is not lost on me but at least I didn't use the McDonald's pic...
This book has been getting a lot of attention recently, and I've been making more of an effort recently to read more diversely, and to read translated works. I'd also just finished All the Light we Cannot See and The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet which are both pretty chunky, slow burning books, so I was looking for something short and snappy to break things up. All of these factors culminated in me reading the Vegetarian, and I'm so glad I did.
This book is short, but it is not an easy read. It is a rather harrowing account of a meek, submissive Korean housewife, beginning to lose her mind. It's hard to explain too much of this book without ruining the very carefully constructed narrative, but essentially her story is told in three acts, through the eyes of first her husband, then her brother-in-law, and finally her sister. We follow her through the eyes of other characters so we never get a true account of what is going on inside this woman's head, how mentally sound her decisions are, to what extent she understands what she is doing. It's impossible to truly identify with her, as such she remains a distant, though not unsympathetic character throughout the novel. In many ways this story isn't really even about her, it's about the people around her, and their reactions to watching this woman completely turning her back on societal expectations and decisions. It's about her husband, worrying more that his wife's eating habits will embarrass him in front of his co-workers, than the reasons she is suddenly eschewing meat. It's about her brother-in-law, an ageing failed artist, who sees his sister's wife's sudden transformation as a spark that could rekindle his artistic fervor. Through all of the acts, it is about her sister, a self made woman who has survived by always doing the right thing, faced with this sudden act of rebellion, wondering whether her own life is simply slavery to societal expectation and nothing more.
This book is appalling, without being melodramatic. Kang does a beautiful job of treading this fine line of controlled hysteria. The novel shows one awful scene after another, but each is relayed in this incredibly restrained way, never getting to the stage where we're rolling our eyes and the suspension of disbelief has worn thin. Deborah Smith's translation is gorgeous as well. Obviously I cannot compare to the original Korean, but the sparse, beautifully written prose perfectly relays the bleak, bizarre narrative and the ways in which imagery and natural scenes are described is rich and melancholic.
I would really recommend reading The Vegetarian, I'm definitely going to reread it in a few months, as I don't feel the first time round was quite enough to truly absorb the intricacies of the novel and I definitely want to spend some more time picking it apart.
Let me know if you've read this book and what you thought!
Thanks for reading,
Isabelle
xox
I'm going on a little trip next week! As part of my new job I'm being sent on a four day jolly trip to the Waterstones in Cirencester to see their very successful coffee shop and essentially steal all of their ideas. But that also means that my week is going to involve to long train journeys and three nights in a hotel room with a wi fi connection I'm feeling skeptical about. So this means treating myself to some new books to wile away the hours spent waiting for The Walking Dead to buffer:
Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb is one of those authors that I've wanted to get into for a long time. I started reading Fools Errand but realised about a third in that having not read the first trilogy, I was missing out on a lot of information that I needed to really engage with the story. I started the first book in the original farseer trilogy but just wasn't in the right place for it. However Luke (name you might recognise, went to Canada, ended up coming back early, whole other story) has read a lot of Robin Hobb, and tells me that The Liveship Traders trilogy is also a good place to start, so I've bought the first book which is a nice chunky volume that will hopefully keep me quiet, and if I enjoy it, I might purchase the next to from the Waterstones in Cirencester!
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
Another paving slab of a book. I've been very apprehensive about getting this, I have friends who thought it was incredible, truly life changing, but I've heard others call it melodramatic and worthless. Honestly I wasn't really intending to read this, but I'm just so curious to see which side I fall on and how I respond to it that when it finally came out in paperback I caved and bought it. I'm hoping I'll enjoy it, it's going to be quite a time commitment so hopefully it'll be worth it.
Nod - Adrian Barnes
There we go, that was exciting wasn't it? I know I don't do those impressive, ridiculous, double digits books hauls, but when I do that I just find that about two thirds of them go unread and that makes me sad. I find it much easier to buy two or three books, read through those, then treat myself to another two or three. That means they all get read and I don't spend way beyond the realms of sensibility which, when you're a dedicated book buyer, is easy to do.
If you've read any of these and have opinions, let me know!
Thank you for reading!
Isabelle
xox
I don't generally follow recommendations when it comes to books. I usually like to browse through books in shops or online and figure out what I'd like. There's something lovely about finding a gem among rows and rows of choice, and going into a book with no expectations and knowing very little about it. However this Sunday I found myself buying three books, all because other people who share my reading tastes have read and loved them and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
The Vegetarian - Han Kang (trans. Deborah Smith)
I've seen this doing the rounds on Booktube, and have become intrigued by the praise it's been receiving. It seems like every booktuber I enjoy and respect the opinion of loves this book, while a few whose tastes differ vastly from my own were not impressed. It's a dark, gnarly portrayal of South Korean family dynamics and as I've been wanting to read more books in translation and non - white authors, love shorter books and am a sucker for strange unsettling slightly creepy stories, this seemed perfect for me.
All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
Ok so I knew this was about a blind girl in WWII. And honestly that is a premise I felt like I would hate. It sounded like another Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and that is a book I honestly hate. Nothing annoys me more than a book that just cranks out the sad to try and pull the heartstrings and roll in the money. So this was on my 'never going to read this list for several months, however one my oldest friends Holly and my buddy and fellow bookseller Kieran both absolutely love that book have specifically told me I need to read it. So I'm taking the plunge and giving it a try. I'm actually about 50 pages in and honestly I'm really liking it so far!
All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders
I had seen this book on various tables at work. I really liked the cover but never found myself interested enough to pick it up and turn it over to see what it's about. I figured it was probably one of those stories that's described as 'a dazzling portrayal of childhood and identity' or some shit like that. However I started to see it cropping up over Booktube and blogs, and again it seemed to be loved by everyone who shares my tastes. It turns out it's about a mad scientist and a witch who team up to save the world...which sounds amazing!!
I'm really looking forward to reading these now, and if I enjoy them I'll probably find myself taking recommendations more often!
Thanks for reading,
Thanks for reading,
Isabelle
xox
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