THE NIGHTINGALE By Kristen Hannah
THE STORY OF A NEW NAME by Elena Ferrante
THE PRETENDER'S LADY by Alan Gold
What a woman - born 1722 in the Scottish Hebrides, her life is well documented. Her passion for a Scotland free from the iron grip of the English led her into many adventures and many troubles - not just risking her life to save the Prince, but also spending time locked up in the Tower of London on a charge of treason. In the 1770s she lived for a time in North Carolina with her husband and children, only to be caught up in the War of Independence, and then surviving a raid by pirates on the return journey to Scotland. By any account she was an extraordinary woman, and her legendary place in Scottish history is well deserved. And hardly surprising either that there is a mystique and aura about her, that continually fuels the fires of independence, resilience and fierceness so part of the the Scottish identity.
In this novel, the Australian author has taken the bones of Flora's life and created a rollicking good read that will appeal to a wide variety of readers, and not just those of Scottish descent or can lay claim to being descended from a MacDonald of the island of South Uist of the Outer Hebrides. She will be forever known as the saviour of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, aka the Young Pretender, and this is the central narrative of the story. Plus what would a good historical novel be without a bit of romance and bodice ripping in the Scottish highlands surrounded by heather and blustery winds? The background to all this however is just as important to the story. The author has thoroughly researched the history of the time - King George II, his son the Duke of Cumberland whose army famously defeated Charlie at Culloden in 1846 and later known as the Butcher Cumberland for his murderous treatment of the Scottish after this uprising, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, the American War of Independence - all in very rich and exciting detail.
Comparisons of the author's style of writing have been made with Phillippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) and Alison Weir who both write historical novels from the view point of key characters. As a result, fact is used as the starter for the story, but is not necessarily 100% factual in its content. The key word here, emblazoned on the front cover of such books is 'a novel'. A great starting point for further research and reading. For me, the key point of such historical novels, is that we learn so much about stuff - these books are page turners, they draw us in, real people and real events become vivid in our imaginations, such writers make history come alive. How clever is that! And more importantly, provide background to the nature of the world we live in now. For example, why did thousands leave Scotland from the mid-18th century onwards for the greener pastures of unknown lands in America, Canada, and New Zealand? Aside from the weather...
This is a terrific story, well told, great characters both good and bad, and in the light of the referendum that took place last year for Scottish independence very timely. The relationship between the two nations may be cordial now, but it has not always been so, in fact many times over the centuries completely the opposite. Such a story makes me very proud of my Scottish heritage, and has sparked a wish to go to the Hebrides. My only criticism? Some pictures of Flora and Charlie would not have gone amiss, and a couple of maps would also have helped greatly in conjuring up images of the intrepid journey Flora and her prince made.
THE LIST OF MY DESIRES by Gregoire Delacourt
Such a divine book, with its simple enticing cover - buttons: who would have thought. With the added bonus of large font, sizeable line spacing, just 200 pages of heart rending, poignant, beautiful story telling.
Jocelyne 47, married to Jocelyn for 20-something years, two grown up children, owns and runs a haberdashery store in a town in France, considers herself very ordinary, ordinary husband, ordinary marriage, ordinary life. Sometimes she thinks, dreams about what could be or could have been, how things could be different, but of course there will never be a chance really to make big changes in her life. And so she just keeps on reflecting and wondering what if. Until one day, she wins the 18 million in the EuroLotteries. Then everything changes. For good and for bad. Can and will Jocelyne realise her dreams, and change her life, or will she lose the courage to do so?
Aside from this being such a great fable of modern living, the first person voice of Jocelyne is written by a man. He captures the essence of an ordinary woman, in her ordinary life extraordinarily well. I loved the woman I was reading about, and it raises so many questions as to what one would do if so much money was won. Loved it.
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante
It's a marvellous story - two small girls who meet and become best friends in a poor rundown neighbourhood in Naples in the 1950s. Book one focuses on the ten years from roughly six years of age to sixteen years. Life is tough for these families, eking out existences as shoemakers, carpenters, porters, bakers, shop owners. Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo are the stars of the story, both intelligent and clever girls, Lila being particularly gifted. There is a lot to navigate in their small communities - desire for an education beyond primary school, other children, rivalries, family problems, young love. All the usual stuff children and young people have to deal with, but in this case set against the hard life of the poor streets of post war Naples. Not easy.
It is a good story, and I am looking forward to reading book two, but I did not find it an easy book to read. It took considerably longer than I would have thought to finish it, and it is a bit of slow burner with the second half considerably more riveting than the first. I wasn't expecting it to be chick lit, but I did think it would be easier to read than I found it. Still, roll on book two! Now that the girls are sixteen what does life have laid out for them?
THE PEARL THAT BROKE ITS SHELL by Nadia Hashimi
I can't even begin to think how intolerable and terrifying a life such as this could be. It is dreadful to think that millions of women in these countries are still living such restrictive violent lives. Although this is fiction, it is a serious read and doesn't shy away from the tough issues. It doesn't have quite the same punch and impact as 'The Kite Runner", but is every bit as good a story.
GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
A good story, based on Hemingway's own ambulance driving experiences during WWI in Italy. The lead character is an American, Fredric Henry, serving as a lieutenant in the medical corps of the Italian army. Amongst all the horror of war he meets an English nurse, Catherine, with whom he falls madly in love. Their love affair amidst the chaos going on around them is the backbone to the story.
The problem is that it is just not terribly well told or very well written. The plot meanders quite a bit, the dialogues between all the characters are dreadful, often amounting to no more than two or three word exchanges - for a couple in love they can't really seem to find anything to talk about, but having said that, probably not a lot of talking was going on! With his fellow soldiers, all Italian, the conversations are just as boring, naturally there is a lot drinking and ribbing and sitting around being bored going on, which is probably what happened anyway. The best writing is the descriptions of what is going on around them all - the fear, the tension, the horror, the dirt, the day to day life. And quite a bit on the futility of war, the pointlessness of it all, and of course the inevitable deaths.
This was probably very much a book of its time - published in 1929 the war had ended only ten years earlier, and it was very well received when first published. So, I can now say I have read a Hemingway, yay, moving on.
KING RICH by Joe Bennett
It's a simple story of love and hope, the kindness of others, the simple pleasures in life, set against a background of such devastation, loss and despair. Could it only be written by someone who has lived through all this themselves? Well, in this case, I think yes. Because the book absolutely sparkles with what Christchurch is all about. The writer captures the essence of the landscape, the garden city, the old wooden architecture, the solidness of the place, the spirit, resilience and stoicism of the residents that was apparent to the rest of the country and the world in the days, weeks and now years after. Joe Bennett is a marvellous writer, so visual - 'The starlings are gangsters in flashy suits, strutting like hit men on the far edge of the sill, their sword-beaks jabbing at each other in perpetual squabble.' This is just one of many, many sentences that I loved. It's such an entertainment to read, even though the subject matter is not.
Both Richard and Annie, as the main characters, are very real people. Despite their flaws, as the reader you can't help but relate to them, empathy oozing over the page. Noted NZ writer Dame Fiona Kidman reviewed this book for The Spinoff, and her main criticism is how Annie's mother/Richard's ex wife is portrayed, and I agree with her. It is a very simplistic and one dimensional view of a woman who was betrayed early on in her marriage, left with a young child to raise, and consequently not a very nice portrayal. The reader is not supposed to like her, she does not behave well. However, taking into consideration the circumstances of her marriage breakdown, I do think she deserves some compassion and sympathy. Dare I say it, if the book had been written by a woman the wife may have come across as a nicer person, with at least one redeeming quality.
But a small criticism. Annie's search for her father, the history she unearths, the people she meets who knew her father in his younger and better days is really quite heart warming. Disasters like this always produce small but beautiful real life stories, and what is probably the best thing about the story of King Rich and his daughter Annie, is that it could so easily be true. I hope Joe Bennett keeps writing fiction!
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by JD Salinger
This book has over 36,000 reviews on GoodReads, so not much more to say really. Read some of the reviews, they are great, works of art themselves! Glad I am not a teenager, and never to be one again, horrible time in one's life.
THE SECRET LIFE OF VIOLET GRANT by Beatriz Williams
Two stories are running parallel - in 1964 New York, young graduate Vivian is bored in her new job as a fact checker for a magazine. Despite her wealthy and privileged background, she is starting at the bottom, and very keen to work herself up the ladder as fast as she can. She is ballsy, awesomely articulate, loads of personality and ambition. Her life changes completely on a Saturday when her roommate tells her there is a parcel waiting at the local post shop for her collect - a suitcase as it happens, and an encounter with a young man in the queue.
In alternate chapters is the story of Violet. Her story begins in 1912. She also is not typical of young women of her time, having escaped her own suffocating privileged background to further study physics at Oxford university. She quickly falls under the spell of her famous professor and so begins her story. Much of Violet's story is set with the beginnings of WWI as a backdrop, moving from Oxford to Berlin, Switzerland and finally Paris. Vivian's receipt of the suitcase and its mysterious contents and origins leads her inevitably to Violet's story.
Both stories are really good, both young women rebelling against their expected roles, both trying to survive in tough surroundings, and both shining through. The two women are quite different, and I was really impressed with how the author created two entirely different personalities in Vivian and Violet, and how both women changed and grew during the course of the story. Plus you are on your seat right to the very end, to a most satisfying conclusion for all involved.
THE GUEST CAT by Takashi Hiraide
Cats mesmerise us humans, and in the country that gave the world Maru, cats are adored, obsessed over. The couple in this story don't own a cat, but as so many of us can testify to, a cat sort of adopts them - the guest cat. This book is the story of the relationship between cat and humans that evolves, and the profound change it brings to the husband and wife. Not a lot happens, in fact for much of the book, nothing at all happens. It is just a gentle meditation on life, what we are doing, how we relate to each other. It didn't leave an enormous impression on me - I have my own nutty relationship with cats - but it is very beautiful, and certainly touches a spot in the heart.
THE PORCELAIN THIEF by Huan Hsu
How intriguing growing up knowing that somewhere far across the seas in a foreign land there may be a priceless heirloom collection of the world's finest porcelain, buried in a huge hole by your great great grandfather, as he escapes with his family from the advancing Japanese army! Author Huan Hsu is an ABC - American Born Chinese, having grown up straddling the three worlds of the US, China and Taiwan. As a journalist he has a desperate curiosity to find out if the porcelain collection is still buried, or even if it exists at all. He pulls on his big 'find my inner Chinese' boots and travels to China to dig out the story.
What unfolds is an enormous amount of discovery, not only about his ancestry and his family, but also about himself. He finds he has to leave his American self very far behind as he learns the language, learns how to get on with those he works with and mixes with, and tries to get answers to the multitude of questions he has. He travels widely too, locating many family members, some of whom live in China, some who live in Taiwan, getting their stories, sifting through the wildly diverse accounts of what happened firstly in 1938 when the family was scattered throughout China and Taiwan, and then what happened after the war with the Nationalists and Communists at loggerheads, the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward, and latterly China as a power house of manufacturing and economic growth. Through all this the myth of the porcelain continues to bubble.
There is so much in this book - part memoir, part travelogue, art history lesson, China's story over last 130 years. Huan Hsu is a very engaging and talented writer, with an inquiring and open mind to all that is going on around him - a true traveller. I enjoyed it very much and learnt a lot about what modern day China is like, the opening up to the West, the still many, many untold stories of dislocation, 're-education', oppression, starvation, torture. And is there reconciliation for the family in unearthing the family treasure? Well, that would be telling, and would take away from the journey of discovery that this whole book is.
THE ANTIPODEANS by Greg McGee
And what a rich tale this is, set against such a background, telling the story of three generations, over three different time periods, in both New Zealand and in Italy. Clare is one of the narrators, in the present day, who is accompanying her father on a trip to Venice for a reunion of a rugby team he played and coached for in the 1970s. Clare has had a pretty rough time of it lately herself and the trip is supposed to give her some space from what has been going on in her life. Her father, Bruce, is also on a personal mission which Clare does not appreciate until it is too late, and on reading her father's diary she begins to unscramble the father she never really knew. Parallel to the Clare/Bruce thread is that of Joe Lamont and Harry Spence - two NZ POWs, on the run in the mountainous regions of the border between Yugoslavia and Italy. Goes without saying terrible things happen. Most of the book is taken up with Joe's story - from his early life in rural Oamaru to his big war adventure, time as a POW and subsequent escape, then the dark days after the war and its horror ended. War does terrible things to people, some thrive and survive, others almost die and still survive, and others just die. Both Harry and Joe are haunted for the rest of their days by what went on in the mountains. Things have not improved much for Bruce when he is in Italy in the 1970s. Fascism never really went away after the war, and the Red Brigade is running its own terror campaign.
Through this many layered web, the story swirls and travels, coming together at the end in a most satisfactory fashion, and not without a twist or two in the tale. I really liked this book, I was hooked from the very beginning, and snatched chances to read a few more pages any chance I could. Fortunately the chapters were fairly short so I could do this! The only two jarring notes for me were the constant shifts in time and location, I found it distracted from the flow of the story. And the second thing, the quantum physics stuff: I know the author is trying to tell us something here, but it just seemed to be out of place with the story telling that is 99% of the book, and for me, meant I had to put my brain into another gear, and I just could not quite make that leap into connecting it all. But this is just a small criticism as the philosophical physics stuff does not distract from the story in any way.
THE PEOPLE ON PRIVILEGE HILL by Jane Gardam
THE TERRORIST'S SON: A STORY OF CHOICE by Zak Ebrahim
MY SALINGER YEAR by Joanna Rokoff
Still, for those that don't know, JD Salinger is the author of the famous coming of age tale 'The Catcher in the Rye'. Unlike America, this novel is unlikely to ever make compulsory reading in New Zealand high schools, but having said that, I do remember reading it for English at school way back in the 1970s and being sort of impressed by it - teenager Holden Caulfield giving the finger to everything and running away to New York.
This book is a memoir. Joanna Rakoff is now a successful writer in the US, but once upon a time she was a starry eyed university graduate looking to become a writer or at least get a foot in the door somewhere in the New York writing business. She lands a job as the assistant to the boss of a very successful and well established writers' agency in New York. One of the many, many writers the agency represents is JD Salinger, famously reclusive, who wanted all his correspondence from fans from all over the world to go through the agency, as he simply was unable to deal with it all. Amongst Joanna's numerous tasks was to reply to these letters - a fascinating task as the letters are really quite wonderful. She immerses herself into Salinger and his books, she talks to him on the phone, she finally meets him when he comes into the agency one day. He becomes her guiding light, and his magic keeps her sane during her first 12 months in New York.
But the Salinger year is not just about JD Salinger. It is really about Joanna's year making it on her own in the Big Apple - earning money, finding somewhere habitable, her writer boyfriend, finding herself. And it is good, very readable. But, I am not sure if it is really enough to have made the top read list. However, I do want to read 'The Catcher in the Rye' again and remind myself why it is still such a great book.
THE ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Baker Kline
This novel tells the story of Vivian, a young Irish migrant girl, orphaned when her parents and siblings died in a fire in New York in 1929. At the age of nine she is put on the orphan train and travels to an uncertain and unknown future in Minnesota. Some ninety years later she is in Maine, now very elderly but still very sharp, living in a house full of memories. Into her life comes Molly, a teenage girl of native Indian descent. Molly has had a pretty rough road so far too, and as part of a community sentence she finds herself helping Vivian clean out her attic. Vivian's story slowly unfolds, and as the relationship between the old lady and the troubled Molly grows, Molly herself changes and grows, finding her own internal strengths and resilience.
It is a marvellous story, beautifully told, with a number of twists and surprises in it. The beauty and strength of this story lies in what the true meaning of family is, the relationships we form, the kindness of those around us, and how these truly define and cement our place in the world. Wonderful reading. Warning - have tissues handy.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE NATIONAL COSTUME by Anne Kennedy
It starts off well. In an inner city suburb of Auckland, Megan Sligo runs a mending and alteration business from her home. She has married into money, and lives a pleasant sort of existence, her pleasure in her work coming from finding out the stories behind the people and the clothes they bring in for her to work on. On the day that Auckland suffers a catastrophic power cut that leaves the inner city area without power for five weeks, a young Irish woman comes to Megan with an Irish dancing costume to be repaired. Megan, being an astute judge of character by now, quickly realises that the young woman, like many of her clients, is having an affair with someone she shouldn't. Before long she meets the lover who also happens to be Irish, and then his wife, and so begins the next stage of this story. Despite herself, Megan is drawn to the guilty husband, attracted by what the Irish dress represents, and the stories the husband tells. Throughout this book however, there is a sense of unease about the husband that Megan does not want to see. And taking place against the surreal world of Auckland city basically turned into a ghost town, Megan finds herself disoriented, confused, unsettled. But then so does everyone else.
This surrealism - a large city completely incapacitated without power, residents, businesses and people leaving in droves, and yet some remaining, living without hot water, power, air con, shops, cooking facilities - is what I actually did enjoy reading about. A very weird sort of existence, and it is not surprising that those who remain, such as Megan and her husband, do find things get a little distorted and out of sorts. But really, it is just too long, too repetitive, and unfortunately was not able to hold my interest.
A TREACHEROUS PARADISE by Henning Mankell
When the story begins, Hanna Restrom is 18 years old. She lives a pretty bleak life in rural Sweden, until her recently widowed mother arranges work for her in the home of a family friend some distance away in a coastal town. For Hanna, life begins when she says farewell to her mother and makes the long journey to the new town. It isn't long before she gets the opportunity to work as a cook on a ship that transports timber to Australia - and yes, apparently this did happen and was not unusual. Within three short months, she is married and widowed, and unable to bear her predicament any longer, she basically jumps ship when it docks at Lourenco Marques, Mozambique. Here the events unfold that lead to her becoming a wealthy woman and brothel owner. But as suddenly as she appears in the old colonial ledger books, she also disappears. And this forms the rest of the novel.
Hanna recreates herself several times during the few years she lives in Lourenco Marques, and as a white woman in a largely black population under rigorously enforced Portuguese control, she is in a very privileged position. It does not take her long to see the injustices going on around her, with the way the local populace is treated, and the attitudes of disdain and prejudice that prevail. This conflict, and her increasing unwillingness to tow the line, become the key drivers in Hanna's life, and in her dealings with her employees, house servants, and others. As you have probably gathered it does not end happily.
The story itself is well worth reading, but the writing too is quite bewitching. We feel the overwhelming African heat, the loneliness and isolation Hanna feels in her highly unusual position in the local society, her constant feeling of alienation in this very foreign environment, the menacing undertone at the imbalance of power between native African and white interloper. It is very good, and lingers for quite some time after finishing. I really look forward to reading more of this author.
THE SILKWORM by Robert Galbraith
Cormoran Strike (she always has great names for her characters) is a private investigator, a man who has had an interesting career in the defence forces and the police, and now working for himself. Assisting him in his one-man band business is his wonderful assistant, Robin, dying to become a private investigator herself, following and observing every move Cormoran makes. To be honest, she has way more smarts than Cormoran, and is far more instrumental in solving the case.
With a name like Cormoran Strike you would have to be a bit of a maverick and he now walks a rather blurry line between the wrong and right side of the law as he attempts to help helpless citizens in their pursuit of justice. Most of his work is domestic related - spouses suspecting spouses of misbehaving and engaging Cormoran to tail, photograph and report back. In the midst of all this bread and butter stuff, he is approached by a woman who happens to be the long suffering wife of a famous author. The writer has gone missing, she suspects foul play, and Cormoran finds a routine missing person case becomes considerably bigger and more awful than he could have imagined.
And this is actually the problem for me with the novel - the imagination. The author who is missing, Owen Quine, writes quite bizarre and disquieting books. Not a nice man, and neither are any of the seven people closely associated with Quine that Strikes finally identifies as suspects. The seven people have been redrawn as fictional characters in Quine's latest controversial manuscript, entitled Bombyx Mori -the scientific name for a variety of silkworm. In this manuscript, the protagonist, Bombyx, is a writer who is "repeatedly abused, tormented and ultimately eaten alive by the people in his life whilst going to extraordinary lengths to capture and preserve his talent for their own selfish gains." Does it sound weird? Well, it is, really weird. As I said way too much imagination. The whole thing becomes so convuluted and complicated and dare I say it ridiculous that I just could not take any of it seriously. And so it lost me. Apart from the very real Robin, I couldn't engage with any of the characters - all self absorbed back stabbing narcissists - makes it even harder to work out who is the villain, as they are all vile. And I just thought Strike was a bit of clown - the usual failed detective, with a sad lonely life, living in the tiny decepit flat above his offices, drinks too much, has a crap diet, rude and grumpy. Plus the whole thing is very, very long. The ending when it comes, is a massive relief, and not much of a surprise, as I said the baddy could have been any of the seven.
Having adored all the Harry Potter books, marveled at them, Cormoran Strike is just one great big massive disappointment. Which saddens me. Maybe I will try JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, written under her own name - apparently it is good, and I don't want to give up on her just yet!
SLEEPING ON JUPITER by Anuradha Roy
Exquisetly written and totally evocative of modern day India,
still caught it would seem between the demands of the consumerist 21st
century, and the deep rooted spiritulism at the core of what India is
all about. I loved the writing, the drawing of the characters, the small
and minute detail of each of them and the exchanges that take place
between them. Amidst the chaos of modern day India, it is the intimacy
of the relationships between people, the ties that bind, that stand out
so much in this story.
But it is not a nice story, and throughout there is an undertone of menace, of impending disaster, and as the Guardian reviewer put it, 'violence and misogyny abound'. Such a prevalent theme in novels of India.
Nomita, now a young woman, has returned to India, having left at about the age of 12, when she was fostered/adopted by a woman in Norway. When she was about 6 or 7, she lost her entire family during a time of violence, was rescued with a number of other young girls from a boat and they were all placed in the care of a highly respected and adored spiritual leader at his ashram. His good name is of course a cover for a range of abuse that takes place at the ashram and the girls are among the victims. Nom's whole childhood is pretty grim, including her time in Norway, and now as a young woman she wishes to find some closure by returning to the ashram, abandoned and derelict. The town itself is still a major pilgrimage destination and floods of tourists visit.
As a result Nom runs into other characters in the story including 3 elderly women travelling together to make a once in a lifetime pilgrimage, a photographer travelling with Nom who is also using the visit to make a documentary about the town and its sacred sites, a young man who is a tourist guide at the very famous temple everyone is visiting, a chai-wallah and his young assistant. All around is the dust, the noise, the crowds of people, the colour of saris, the smell of spices, as the interactions between all these people unfolds. There isn't a great deal of plot, and the whole thing is really pretty grim, but as I say, the writing is gorgeous.
But it is not a nice story, and throughout there is an undertone of menace, of impending disaster, and as the Guardian reviewer put it, 'violence and misogyny abound'. Such a prevalent theme in novels of India.
Nomita, now a young woman, has returned to India, having left at about the age of 12, when she was fostered/adopted by a woman in Norway. When she was about 6 or 7, she lost her entire family during a time of violence, was rescued with a number of other young girls from a boat and they were all placed in the care of a highly respected and adored spiritual leader at his ashram. His good name is of course a cover for a range of abuse that takes place at the ashram and the girls are among the victims. Nom's whole childhood is pretty grim, including her time in Norway, and now as a young woman she wishes to find some closure by returning to the ashram, abandoned and derelict. The town itself is still a major pilgrimage destination and floods of tourists visit.
As a result Nom runs into other characters in the story including 3 elderly women travelling together to make a once in a lifetime pilgrimage, a photographer travelling with Nom who is also using the visit to make a documentary about the town and its sacred sites, a young man who is a tourist guide at the very famous temple everyone is visiting, a chai-wallah and his young assistant. All around is the dust, the noise, the crowds of people, the colour of saris, the smell of spices, as the interactions between all these people unfolds. There isn't a great deal of plot, and the whole thing is really pretty grim, but as I say, the writing is gorgeous.
NEW FINNISH GRAMMAR by Diego Marani
It is WWII, a man wakes up in a hospital bed in the Italian port city of Trieste, with no idea of who he is or how he got there. He has no language, no identity, no idea about anything at all. His doctor, an exiled Finnish neurosurgeon, thinks that he is Finnish, based on a jacket the man is wearing with the label Sampo Karjalainen in it. So the doctor assumes, understandably that the name matches the man. As part of Sampo's therapy, the doctor starts to teach him Finnish, and eventually the patient is shipped out to Helsinki where it is assumed he is from. It is not hard to feel sorry for Sampo as he spends the rest of the book trying to figure out who or what he is, and he finds his solace in learning the Finnish language, believing this is the key to a future. All of this in 186 pages.
Unfortunately however for me, this excellent plot line never reached its full potential. Poor old Sampo never figures out what is going on around him, he never really understands the language, his life never gets underway again, and all that we read about are the ravings of a Finnish priest who takes it upon himself to teach Sampo the language through the telling of Finnish myths and legends which is all tied up somehow in a symbolic way with the war, the Russians invading, and the conflicts within Finland. With all this in mind, the ending when it comes is hardly a surprise - just more confusion on top of an already confusing landscape. Yes, the writing is exquisite, but it is just not enough for me.
THE AMERICAN LOVER by Rose Tremain
A GOD IN RUINS by Kate Atkinson
The author continues this theme in this latest novel, which is primarily about Teddy, Ursula's younger brother, who becomes a Lancaster bomber pilot during the war, and then after it seeks to escape the merest suggestion of excitement by trying to live the quiet life. He marries his childhood sweetheart, Nancy, they have one child, the truly awful Viola, and she in turn has two children, Sunny and Bertie. I mention their names because as characters they have just as much of a story to tell as Teddy, and as the novel is about Teddy and his family, including his parents and siblings, really they should all be mentioned.
The story moves effortlessly between the years of Teddy's long life, with a number of different narrators as Teddy's life unfolds. As with Ursula's story, it is very clever narrative technique, and never once feels like it is losing itself. But the true marvel of this book is the writing about the war of a bomber pilot - essentially that every time you go flying you probably won't come back. The bibliography at the back of the book gives you an indication of the depth of knowledge the author has brought to her writing and the tragic waste of all life that occurs in wartime. The peacetime though, for many is no easier, and the reverence and grace with which Teddy's post war life is told is almost overwhelming.
I loved this very much, I didn't want it to end. If you haven't already done so, read 'Life After Life' first, then this one. Together they are just wonderful.
THE YEAR OF FALLING by Janis Freegard
The lives in various stages of falling are those of two sisters, Selina and Smith. Their mother deserted them and their father when Selina was just a toddler and Smith was a teenager. Even though their father did the best job he could raising his daughters by himself, the absence of their mother has affected both girls in quite diverse ways over the years since.
Selina is now 29, a graphic designer working for an advertising company in Wellington city, single, living alone in a flat in Brooklyn on the property of her landlady, Quilla, a semi reclusive older woman with her own story to tell. Selina is, quite frankly, a bit of mess. She drinks too much, is unreliable in her work, recently broken up with her boyfriend, her much loved father and his wife are in the process of moving to Australia. At the same time as porcelain dolls begin turning up on her doorstep, she begins an affair with a celebrity chef who not long afterwards disappears.
Smith, being somewhat older that than her sister, has never been able to move away from the surrogate role of mothering Selina. She has sacrified many opportunities in her life to look after Selina through her various issues, and is now living in Takaka in a house bus, part of a cooperative community, finally having found some peace in her life. Ever the carer, she is also caring for a young woman who is terminally ill, and the woman's nine year old son. With all this going on, she has taken it upon herself to also try and find her and Selina's mother.
Selina is the central character in the story, and well over half is told in her voice, with Smith and Quilla in alternating chapters. The characterisations are terrific, well rounded, flawed, trying to live a life and hold themselves together. We also get to see each character viewed through the eyes of the others which gives quite a different dimension to each woman. All three women and the minor characters all felt like real people - the likes of Selina could easily be in your workplace, and Quilla is instantly recognisable as the elderly neighbour living alone, keeping an eye on things.
The locations of the story also feature highly. Wellington in particular I enjoyed very much reading about, hailing from that city myself. I can see the winding streets of Brooklyn, the houses perched on the slope down off the road, or up steep driveways, the bush of the town belt as an ominous and slightly threatening backdrop. By contrast, the author writes about Takaka in a completely different way - the natural beauty of the place comes shining through, symbolic of being far better for one's mental and emotional health than Wellington. And for a place of complete difference and contrast - Iceland!
This is a story of searching for one's self, trying to identify and then hold onto the important things, and finding a place to call home whether it be a physical place or simply in your own head and heart. There is hope, forgiveness, joy and love. It is a wonderful story, I very much enjoyed reading it. I really hope this book gets widely read and promoted, because it certainly deserves to.
BY BREAD ALONE by Sarah-Kate Lynch
I love Sarah-Kate Lynch's novels. They have at their core an item of food or drink - cheese, champagne, bread, baking, honey, or have a backdrop of food - and love. All so delicious, a tasty treat, with surprises and a bit of magic thrown in.
In this story, it is the sourdough starter which is the magic ingredient - 'the living, breathing, bubbling mixture of the past and the present that ... added to every batch of flour and water to turn it inot the future.' It is the starter that forms the link for Esme between the most beautiful summer of her life, in her late teens, when she falls madly in love with a young baker in a small village in France, and her life fifteen years later, when things aren't quite so rosy.
Now Esme is married to Pog, they have a young son, they live in the House in the Clouds in Suffolk, her father-in-law lives with them, as does her grandmother. It is fairly clear early on in the story that something awful has happened to this family, and it is just not talked about, which is why the reader never finds out till the end either. The constant through the last fifteen years has been Esme's daily sour dough breadmaking, still using that same starter she created that summer in France. Esme simply cannot help herself focussing on the happy times in her life, just to get her through her days. And of course the memory of her summer with Louis is at the forefront of that.
A chance meeting with Louis threatens to completely derail Esme, or does it offer her the unbelieveable opportunity to start her life again with the man she can never forget? And off we go on a breath holding will she or won't she? Yes do it, you say to yourself, surrender to love and Louis, then no, don't leave Pog, make more bread, someone save her!!!!
A lovely frothy treat of a read, with a very worthy message at the end - Man, or woman for that matter, cannot live by bread alone. Cryptic I know, but all will become clear. Now, off to make my own starter - the recipe at the end of the book is not the one used by Esme, but according to the author is the best she has tried, and it would seem she tried a few.
THE EXPATS by Chis Pavone
So, Kate is a wife and mother married to an IT financial security expert called Toby. They live in Washington DC, have two young sons, and life seems pretty rosy. But Kate has a secret, a secret so big her husband does not even know. Her job as a researcher is actually just a cover for being a CIA agent, now tied to a desk but in her past she was an active field agent with some dark secrets to protect. She resigns from the CIA when Toby gets the job of a lifetime as a top notch security analyst for a big bank in the European tax haven of Luxembourg. Hooked yet? So the family upsticks to the idyllic city of Luxembourg and Kate becomes the cliched expat wife. Overnight. Hardly surprising she struggles a little with her new role as non-working, financially dependent wife/mother. Is all her CIA training and instincts telling her that there are things in her new life that aren't quite right, or is she so bored and frustrated that she is looking for trouble, or is she simply paranoid? It would seem that the expat life is not all coffee mornings, play dates, cocktail parties and weekend breaks in exotic locations. Nothing or anyone is what they seem, and before long we are all dragged into the web.
It is however all a bit long and tedious. For someone who has spent her life being an action woman Kate is tiresomely indecisive, overly self analytical, and not as intuitive as the likes of the CIA agents we see on the tele. But if you can take the whole premise of this story with a very large grain of salt it is actually quite enjoyable, with twists and turns, red herrings galore and plenty to look forward to in the inevitable movie.
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