THE SHOCK OF THE FALL BY NATHAN FILER

THE SHOCK OF THE FALL  by Nathan Filer

Winner of the 2013 Costa First Novel Award.

The author works in the mental health service of the NHS. He is also, according to his website, a performance poet, of some note in the UK. Such a person as this must have a remarkable insight into the human mind, and also possess the gift to put it all into word pictures for the rest of us.

It was a real privilege to be let into the mind and soul of a schizophrenic young man who realises things aren't quite right, but seems determined to overcome the problems he is currently facing. Matthew is 19 years old and is narrating the story of the last 10 years of his life.  It is 10 years since his brother, who was 12, died while the family was on holiday at a camping ground. His brother, Simon, had Downs Syndrome. The family was a close knit one, and Matthew describes his parents, his grandparents and his brother in loving and descriptive words. Simon's death, for which Matthew feels 100% responsible, affects everyone very, very deeply. His parents sink into their own awful grief, Matthew blames himself and as the years pass feels increasingly unable to cope with daily life due to this enormous burden he carries around with him. His grandmother, Nanny Noo, is the one constant in his life, always there, always compassionate - the one really significant adult in his life. 

The one thing Matthew never loses during these years is his ability to write down what he is going through and this becomes the one therapy that helps him get through a trauma that just won't let him go. The narration covers the 10 years from the day of the death to the present, but jumps around a bit during the years of this time period, which does take a little concentration, as he seems, to me, to be in and out of hospital quite a bit! His descriptions of hospital routine, and his unbelievably dull, boring and most awful time there would bring out a cry for help in anyone. You know then that you are reading the words of an author who knows what he is talking about.

I don't normally go for books like this. But it had received good reviews, and of course a first novel award. Many of reviews on Amazon and Good Reads are 5 star - very high praise. It seems a lot of these readers have either had experience of some sort of mental health issue themselves, or been close to those who have. I didn't get quite the same feeling of stunning and awesome from this book, but certainly feel as if my own mind has been opened more to what a mental health illness would be like.

Published in the US as "Where the Moon Isn't", apparently with some edits.

CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

 CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

The saga just keeps getting better and better. Hot on the heels of 'The Hunger Games' - book and movie, and with the 'Catching Fire' movie in its last days in my neck of the woods, I threw myself body and soul into reading prior to viewing.

Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous. There is considerably more depth to all the characters, to the terrible predicament they find themselves in, and a lot more at stake in their personal lives as well. The three lead characters, Katniss, Peeta and Gale are no longer just teenagers. They may be a few months older in a physical sense but they have matured well beyond their years with the stuff they are confronted with.

The story begins with Katniss as she and Peeta begin a victory tour of all the Districts. Unwittingly the two of them find they are the symbols contributing to unrest and possible rebellion against the Capitol. To keep a cap on it all, President Snow forces them to the arena to once again fight for their lives.
 
This is very dark stuff, and I can't help compare this series to that of Harry Potter. Both deal with very dark issues and themes and the world being saved by very young adults. But always at the back of my mind with Harry Potter is that is about magic, and so far more fantastical than this series. Even though there is no magic here, the forces of good against evil, might versus meek, authoritarian government versus the people, are the same themes as in Harry Potter. As a parent, however the idea of children fighting each other to the death is way more repellent than anything Voldermort threw at Harry and his crew.

To be honest, I didn't find 'Catching Fire' as compelling a read as 'The Hunger Games', but the movie more than made up for that. For me, a rare case of the film being better than the book.  'Mockingjay', the third book in 'The Hunger Games' series is, as I write, climbing perilously to the top of my book reading pile.

A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN by Sulari Gentil

 A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN by Sulari Gentill

What a pleasant little romp this book was. This Australian author has now written five novels with Rowland Sinclair as the central character, this book being the  first in the series. The setting is Sydney, early 1930s; the depression is biting hard with no sign of economic recovery on the horizon. People are looking for alternatives to the current democratic and capitalistic systems they are living under. Communism and its reds under the beds is extending its reach as far as Sydney, appealing to the younger,  educated, bohemian population. On the other side, the rise of fascism is appealing to the wealthy land and business owning sectors of the population who see communism threatening their own economic base.

Young Rowly falls somewhere in the middle. Youngest son of a very wealthy landowning family, he was too young to go to war, but his two older brothers both did, one not returning. He leads the life of the very wealthy young Sydneysider, but having been blessed with an artistic talent he is drawn to the bohemian side of life rather than the business  of managing the family wealth. Much to the disdain of his older brother Wilfred. (Rowly drives a Benz, Wilfred drives a Rolls.) Rowly lives in the family pile in Sydney with three of his equally bohemian, communist leaning, but very poor friends - fellow artist Clyde, poet Milton, and the ethereal, beautiful and widely adored Edna.

Within this backdrop of rising political tension in Sydney, Rowly's loved uncle is murdered. Dissatisfied with how the police investigation is progressing, Rowly takes it upon himself to try and solve the murder and along with his three friends, ingratiates himself with the local fascist movement, putting himself onto a path of some danger, but, as you would expect, with a successful outcome.

The real hero of the story is the city of Sydney itself and the political-economic climate of the time. The author has researched the period and the city with some zeal. Each chapter is headed by a newspaper article of the day, and there is loads of detail on the personalities of the day, clothing, food, drinking habits, and other minutiae of daily life. This was really quite a bizarre time in the life of the average Sydneysider, and there were some very strange goings on, none perhaps more bizarre than the official cutting of the ribbon for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge being upstaged by a fascist crack pot. The characters mentioned in the press of the day all feature in the novel, including the ribbon cutter, the state premier, prominent police officers, and political party leaders.

It is all highly entertaining in a very Agatha Christie sort of way, and with enough menace to keep the reader interested, although I would not say it is a page turner. Perfect really for a leisurely summer read.

DECEMBER READING: PARIS by Edward Rutherfurd

DECEMBER READING: PARIS by Edward Rutherfurd

Well, there is no doubt that this is a very big book - covering 700 years of that iconic city, and trying to do so in 800 closely written pages. Wow. Big. And apparently this is one of his shorter novels. Unsurprisingly 800 pages is not enough to incorporate a detailed and complete history of the City of Light. I expect the author's greatest challenge was what to put in and what to leave out. Who runs the city of Paris also runs France, so leadership is the dominant thread through the book, forming the background to the characters and their stories. So Louis XIV and XVI, Napoleon, the Gestapo, and the Catholic Church as well as the leaders post-French Revolution feature strongly.  Paris is also known for its iconic architecture - the story of the Eiffel Tower features. The reader learns a lot about the geographical layout of the city from its early  Ancient Rome days and the continuity of  such structures as Notre Dame, the Louvre, Sacre Coeur, the main roadways, and above all the the river Seine. This is all fascinating stuff, and the maps at the beginning and end of the book - one of Paris in the Middle Ages, and the other of Paris in the late 1890s - show how this city has grown and moved outward, yet still retaining its core.

Against this historic and cultural detail, the author has woven the stories of a number of families ranging from the aristocratic de Cygne family, the working class Le Sourd and Gascon families, the more bourgeois Blanchard and Renard families, to the Jewish family Jacob. The family tree at the beginning of the book is absolutely invaluable because the author tells the story in the most confusing way possible jumping through the centuries, back and forth in time, introducing different members from the families at different times. The book opens in the late nineteenth century and next chapter we are in the thirteenth century, next chapter a bit later in the nineteenth, then to the fourteenth century and so it goes on. Each chapter introduces new people and plot lines, then the next chapter has other family members meeting new family members of a previously introduced family. Aaagh, gets very confusing!

But, despite all the trickery, this is a very readable and enjoyable book. 800 pages whizzed by, as did 700 years. This is a city that continues to be very high on my list of places to go, and this book has only increased my desire to do so. The author clearly loves the city, but I would very much have liked for there to have been more about the French Revolution - after all this is where much of the modern history of France and Paris itself all started. The chapter on the Terror of 1794 was very good, but I get the feeling the author assumes that all readers have prior and detailed knowledge of the mechanics of the Revolution of 1789, which I don't believe would be the case.

DECEMBER READING: LETTERS FROM BERLIN by Kerstin Lieff and Margarete Dos

DECEMBER READING: LETTERS FROM BERLIN by Kerstin Lieff and Margarete Dos

Growing up in the West learning 20th century WWII history, we took it on board that the British, the Americans and for a while the Russians were the good guys. The Germans and the Japanese were the bad guys - simple as that. History, of course, is always perceived and told from the viewpoint of the person telling it, and often the viewpoint of the other party/ies is minimised, ignored, glossed over or dressed up in a way to enhance the teller's version. We never, ever learnt about the history of the war from the German point of view, from the Germans themselves, and it is only in recent years that the children of those who lived during the war years are now telling the stories of their parents and grandparents. And about time too.

Almost as interesting as the story itself, is the process taken to have the parents'/grandparents' stories told. Often there is so much pain and trauma that many of these stories of survival go unheard. In this particular instance, after some persuasion, Margarete made recordings of her story with her daughter Kerstin, and after her death in 2005, Kerstin took it upon herself to compile the recordings into a book. She also found diaries and photos which have greatly enlarged and enhanced the oral recordings made by her mother.

I can only imagine the emotion that came to the surface during the telling of Margarete's story, the courage it took to open up such old wounds and let out the grief and anger there. As we know war is never pretty, and it is always the civilian that cops the brunt of whatever the conflict is. Kerstin Lieff has transcribed her mother's story, adding historical and narrative detail where necessary.  

Margarete Dos was a child when Hitler came to power, and very quickly it seems he became a figure to be feared and obeyed. She is training to be a doctor when the war starts, but quickly moves back to Berlin to be with her mother. She describes vividly the terror and horror of the city being bombed around her. The brutality of the approaching Russians matches the fear of living under the Nazis, and it seems it is more by good luck than good management that Margarete survives this terrible, terrible time. Her mother is of Swedish origin, so late in 1945, Margarete and her mother finally manage to get themselves on a train supposedly taking them to a new life in Sweden. Instead they find themselves transported to a Russian gulag, where again, against the odds they somehow manage to survive. Their return to Berlin after two years sees them trying to restart their lives, along with millions of other displaced people, and eventually they do make it to Sweden.

This paragraph only gives a taste, and does very little justice to this dreadful time in our modern history. Yet again, we are reminded of the strength of the human spirit to survive, the power of hope, and most importantly that for every war that is won, there is the other side, the loser, whose stories are almost never told, but have as much right to be told.  

DECEMBER READING: THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

DECEMBER READING: THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

So... 125,764 reviews on Good Reads, and another 18,382 on Amazon. How could I possibly add to any of them! Very short review then.

How clever to take the main genre of current TV - the reality contestant elimination show and make it something evil and very, very nasty - a fight to the death that the whole of society must watch, and every night of the week. Plus, the contestants are children, fighting for food to feed their own. As a parent I had no desire at all to indulge my reading or movie viewing time in this contrived and utterly senseless story making.

However, by the very virtue of being a parent, you do become entwined in your children's interests. So now that the second movie is out, passionately embraced  by 16 year old, I thought maybe it was time! And yes I am glad I did. Great plot, terrific characters, lots of twists and turns right up to the last page.

The best part about this novel, and I am sure the others in the series are the same,  is what great heroes the three main characters are to young readers. In an age when young girls feel they have to wear very few clothes and twerk themselves to get attention and young boys feel they have to drink themselves stupid and prey on young vulnerable fellow teens, such fine characters as these Katniss, Peeta and Gale are very inspiring. No wonder these books have been such a hit.

Looking forward to reading the next instalment of Katniss, Peeta and Gale. Off to the movies I go!

NOVEMBER READING; THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE by Emily Maguire

NOVEMBER READING: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE by Emily Maguire

Luke Butler has recently been appointed senior pastor at an evangelical Christian youth centre in suburban Sydney. He is in his late 20s, and never known any life apart from the orphanage he was brought up in following his abandonment at birth, or the church to which he has devoted his life to and where he has finally found a family of sorts. He has no knowledge, or indeed any desire to find out about his birth parents or family. Luke's life is one of order, devotion, tolerance and adherence to God and the teachings of the Bible.

Across the road from the youth centre is, in a bizarre situation of polar opposites, a family planning clinic, managed by the very capable, compassionate and real Aggie Grey. Aggie has a complicated back story too, but wildly different from that of the chaste and clean living Luke. She is a counsellor at the clinic, dispensing contraceptive and relationship advice, helping those with gender identity and sexual orientation issues, counselling women with unwanted pregnancies, and dealing with sexual diseases.

The snake on the cover of the book does not need an apple to tell you what is going to happen when these two meet. An instant and dangerous connection sees them both compromising their deeply held values and beliefs. Into this mix comes 16 year old Honey, pregnant, alone and without a clue as to what she should do. She has been treated very badly by the men in her short life, and she is inextricably drawn into the powerful relationship bubbling away between Luke and Aggie.

The time worn theme of two people falling in love at the wrong time in the wrong place is at the core of this novel. And just like Romeo and Juliet, there are myriad forces at play to prevent any lasting happiness. The elephant in the room is 'abortion' and what is seen to be in the best interests of Honey by the pro life and pro choice factions, ie the church and everyone else. As expected, things rapidly spiral out of control, and there is no happy ending in sight.

Despite the deep and controversial subject matter, this is a straightforward and easy book to read. The characters are perhaps a little too stereotyped and one dimensional, but this is an important subject with neither a right or wrong answer that has been intelligently handled.