Post 16 – Most thought-provoking book

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge.

Goodness I’m sleepy but can’t bring myself to get into bed yet as I feel as though I’ve not achieved anything today. A sad state of affairs that I hope to rectify by blogging. As you’d expect, a post about A Clockwork Orange comes with a trigger warning.

Well, my little droogie friends, this takes me back to my teen years and one of the most disturbing but brilliant books I’ve ever read: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The post-’86 version with a 22nd chapter, that is. Even now I have more thoughts and questions about the issues raised in the novel than answers.

Incidentally, “Ultraviolence” is the working title of Lana del Rey’s new album…

So what about this dark, gratuitously violent dystopian world is thought-provoking? Well the horror of the droogs’ violence (and later the government’s as they ‘treat’ Alex) made me wonder about which type of violence is ultimately more terrifying: that of gangs or of a state’s. I felt that A Clockwork Orange explored the necessity of free will and freedom of choice humans need in order to feel human. What methods should a government be allowed to use in order to ‘control’ criminals?

Does choosing to persistently be violent mean that one forfeits one’s right to non-violent and fair treatment later? My initial instinct is to say that the law and those who endeavour to abide by it, should be above violence. That we should avoid to continue that cycle of it and aim to eliminate it.

Yet after the violence of the first 7 chapters, in which among other things, the droogs beat up a man, rape a woman and two 10-year olds (in the former case, she died of injuries caused by the gang-rape, in the latter cases they were injected with drugs beforehand), it’s impossible not to have a gut response to those actions, and not want to wish them pain, however brief, in the hope that they’ll stop hurting others.

But then hurting people sounds like a horrible thing to do and would surely mean that their violence would only beget more violence.

It made me wonder about redemption- is it possible to change one’s character and to live a ‘full life’ with the shadow of one’s earlier actions looming behind a curtain somewhere?

One final (slightly happier and slightly less thought-provoking) aspect of the novel was the droogs’ slang, Nadsat. Language can date pretty darn quickly and can put me off an otherwise awesome novel when I’m reading for pleasure. Burgess felt that slang was pretty important in languages and so it’s interesting to work out how he created slang that I felt worked really well within the novel- Russian, the main language it was based on added extra associations with a certain totalitarian state that was kicking around at the time of the book’s publication- and that still feels alive enough when read.

 

Post 15 – A character who you can relate to the most

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge.

Golly gosh, this is another difficult question to answer. The only character I can think of who I can relate to is Pippi Longstocking.

Is that wrong?

I mean, I’m not saying that I have “the strength of 10 policemen”, am unable to read and write or that I’m a princess of a tropical island (especially not the last one- I’m not a fan of the Colonialist perspective, even when it appears in a nonsensical story). However there are a couple of similarities.

Firstly, I am intensely loyal to my friends. In the past, I’ve left places I’ve really wanted to be in order to spend time with a friend who’s texted or called to say they’re feeling sad or lonely. Also, whilst I do ridiculous and sometimes slightly dangerous things, such as spinning fire, hitch-hiking and accepting sweets from strangers (even now, in my twenties, strangers still offer me chocolate and sweets in the street and, like the 5 year-old I am, I accept and talk to them about their lives for a little) I would never let my friends get into any threatening or dangerous situations.

Secondly, whilst I don’t embellish tales about my travels, I will happily craft an exciting adventure story out of the closest words to hand (think goths in love cutting down trees in order to show their feelings for each other, “My love for you is beautiful, natural and decomposing little by little every day, Enyamina”. Or, “did you know that a spider created the first harp? Let me tell you about it. Well, one day in the cloud forest in Montezuma, I came across an angry crab spider…”).

There’s also a chest of drawers back at home that contains an assortment of interesting objects that I’ve collected, magpie style over years of adventures that I seem to get sucked into, even when I’m not looking for them. Sometimes they even come in useful. 🙂

So yes, that’s today’s post.

 

Post 14 – A book that made you cry

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge. 🙂

Here’s a little secret that only people like my closest friends; Tavi, Ellie… and a couple of cinemas-worth of people know: I cry really easily over books, films (although to a lesser extent now), poetry and songs.

Each book’s a new friend to me and so the characters’ concerns and endings can haunt me for days, weeks or even years- on a day walk last Sunday I started to well up simply because I saw a green light at the harbour and was reminded of a quote from the Great Gatsby:

“I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.”

It’s not only the sad moments that make reduce me to tears. Happy endings and the promise of forever – na zawsze, kochanie – can also do the same, although those are happy tears and come far less frequently.

So yes, I’m ridiculously sentimental, to quote Fitzgerald again (I’m in a Fitzgerald mood today, apologies to all), “a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.”

It is that quote that’s guided me in my choice of book today.

Letter From an Unknown Woman – Stefan Zweig

‘To you who never knew me… my child died yesterday’.

The story:
on his birthday, a famous writer receives a letter from a woman he does not know but who has loved him since she was a girl. As her life ebbs away at each stroke of her pen, he learns about a love he never believed could exist.

I read and reviewed this novella back in March 2012 and goodness, it was heart-breaking to read. Imagine loving someone for the whole of your life and knowing that they’ll never really notice you, even when you’re conversing with them. Even if you spend the night together, for them it’ll be meaningless. Even if you send them a bunch of their favourite flowers on their birthday every year, they won’t ever care to find out who they’re from.

OK, I’m welling up just thinking about this story. Time to get on with less unhappy things. 🙂

 

Post 13- A book that disappointed you

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge. 😀

There are those books that have been on my TBR pile since the first moment I heard the title whispered reverentially by a fan of said book. Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov was one of them.

It is also, sadly the subject of today’s post.

This was through no fault of the book or its author and I know exactly why I was disappointed by this one and am taking slow baby steps towards improving myself so as to thoroughly enjoy it the 2^nd time around.

How many times have you seen a penguin at a funeral?

Blurb (from goodreads as it’s unbiased)

Viktor is an aspiring writer with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company. Although he would prefer to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see his work published, yet the subjects of his obituaries continue to cling to life. But when he opens the newspaper to see his work in print for the first time, his pride swiftly turns to terror. He and Misha have been drawn into a trap from which there appears to be no escape.

So how on earth could a book like that disappoint me? It’s about a journalist who has a pet penguin. A penguin that runs around in a happy, splashy way, eats fish and ends up working as a professional mourner for goodness’ sake! Place a penguin in front of me and you could brain-wash me into doing almost anything.

Well firstly, it’s because of the title and yes, that sounds fatuous but really, it is the case: that title is a hard act to follow.

In the words of Alice from the Vicar of Dibley: “The title says it all”

Secondly- and most importantly- I was disappointed because I didn’t understand what was going on sub-textually (is that even a word?). I’m English, so subtext is basically as important as the actual text, if not more so. As y’all know, satire’s all about the subtext and due to my paucity of knowledge about Ukraine’s political system, lots of bits that I’m pretty certain are dead funny and spot-on just soared over my head like a pair of large helium-filled balloons or some other large, soaring creature that sounds more majestic than a humble balloon.

The current political situation in Ukraine’s given me the push I needed to get started on reading up about their political and bureaucratic systems and I aim to be able to understand a little more (OK, a lot more actually) of what’s going on in the next few months.

Expect a euphoric review in the next year or so. 🙂

 

Post 12 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t

Goodness, this is a tough one as my TBR pile is, let us say, extensive. And that list’s made up solely of books I could think of off the top of my head. Every book I read seems to serve as a letter of introduction to at least a dozen more and—oh, you know how it goes!

At this precise moment in time, the book I’ve wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t is the remainder of the Barchester Chronicles by Anthony Trollope. I powered through the first three after watching the BBC adaptation (with Alan Rickman playing the odious Rvd. Obadiah Slope) but never got around to finishing the series for some reason.

Alan Rickman as Rvd. Obadiah Slope. Is it wrong to fancy his eyebrows just a little bit?

So why do I want to read the rest of the series? Well, Trollope wrote rather satirically about the abuses of power within Cathedral and Hospital Trusts in the fictional cathedral city of Barchester (which he purportedly based on Salisbury). A dry subject, you may think, but when approached with Trollope’s wit and brilliant characters the subject becomes as intensely exciting as… well… as an Anthony Trollope novel can make it, which is to say; very exciting indeed!

In addition to the afore-mentioned ecclesiastical power struggles, there are also love stories that tug the heart strings, various financial problems and class struggles. It’s all so quintessentially English as the majority of the ‘drama’ does not unfold through peoples’ words but instead through the softly said understatements and the unspoken.

Darn, I want to finish that series now.

 

Post 11 – Favourite classic book

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge.

OK, first things first; I cannot do this question the same level of justice as the creator of this challenge. Click that. I’ve even included the link a 2^nd time, just in case you don’t fancy scrolling up a few millimetres to click the 1^st link.

Read it. Fall in love with Wuthering Heights either for the first time or all over again.

And now, for my favourite classic. As I mentioned before, I have two favourite classics, one book of poetry, In Memoriam A.H.H. by Tennyson and one novel. As I’ve already blogged about the former, this post is going to be about the latter. So, without further ado, allow me to present the book that I fall in love with again every time I read it: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

So what makes this classic so awesome-sauce? I think it’s because (and forgive the analogy) at the end of the day, I like my books like I like my men– no naughty jokes please!- not just interesting and entertaining but also with some substance; something that will make me aware of the world around me and appreciate my own situation.

It is here that Gaskell really delivers the goods: she was an author whose writing addressed burning contemporary social issues and problems that appeared because of industrialisation. As the wife of a minister in Manchester, Gaskell would have been able to move amongst different social echelons and would undoubtedly have seen and heard the arguments and concerns of both the masters and hands about whom she wrote.

Many of the problems she mentions have yet to be solved, despite the hope expressed that ‘young industry’. If anything, I worry that in some instances, the situation has actually got worse. One example of this is the lack of power of many unions in the UK nowadays. Whereas the Union in North and South is a formidable opponent with the power to cause strikes that seriously affected industry but also won support for their cause (living wages that kept in line with inflation), when unions occasionally attempt the same action for exactly the same reason in this day and age, they are frequently mocked and denigrated, especially by the younger generation.

What I’m trying to say is what Gaskell wrote 159 years ago: ‘the union is a great power: it’s our only power’ and this power seems to be diminishing as people forget that, “It’s the only way working men can get their rights, by all joining together. More the members, more chance for each one separate man having justice done him.”

Well I got carried away there…

The icing on the cake is the romance between Mr Thornton and Margaret Hale. It’s approached so beautifully that some sections gave me goose-bumps and the sexual tension at some points made me go a little fluttery.

They start off as two good in people in their own rights, even though they have different outlooks on life, different experiences and somewhat different values and become- it is implied- the sort of couple that will bring out the best in each other.

 

Post 10 – A Book You Thought You Wouldn’t Like But Ended up Loving.

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge. 😀

Also, apologies if this is more of a ramble and less of a direct response. Last week was a nightmare and I just want to blather about nothing. 😛

The book: The Rake and the Rebel – Mary Brendan

As anyone who’s read this post knows, erotica and romance have never really been my thing. Indeed I was only introduced to Mills and Boon at the end of 2007. The other people in my French Literature class (all 3 of them, including the teacher) started taking the Mickey of the company when we were discussing Maupassant (no, I can’t remember how we made that jump either). Extensive references were made to different books and series.

It sounded amusing- and totally different from anything I’d read before- so I went to the local library, took out as many books as I could from the different Mills and Boon series, read them all in a week and came back to class on Monday with a better understanding of what the hell everyone was going on about.

Yes, I was that cool. Yes, I do still do that otherwise I really would be unable to talk to most of my peers about ‘what’s hip’. What can I say? It’s just how I roll when I don’t fancy sticking my arms out, my head between my legs and leaning forward.

I digress.

Most of the books didn’t appeal to me. Some made me wonder if love really was a many-splendoured thing. Others made me cringe and go ‘ewwww’. Yes, I really was that mature a 17 year-old.

By the time I got on to the last one, my mind had become slightly misted and fuddled by a combination of earnest writing and ideas that I wasn’t sure I agreed with, such as: ‘He’d been crazy to wait this long. He should have known sex was the fastest way to ensure a relationship settled.‘ Really, the Marriage Bargain?

The Rake and the Rebel either pushed me over the metaphorical edge (hehe!), or it was well-written for the genre. Or maybe it’s because it falls into the ‘historical fiction’ category and I have a major soft spot for that.
The story-line wasn’t radically different from other modern-day romance/ erotica novels out there: there was a feisty heroine, a rake-turned-romantic gentleman and moments of peril and misunderstanding before the pair settled down together.

Somehow it won me over and whilst I haven’t yet reread it, I did purchase a copy from my local library when they decided to sell it on to make room for more Mills and Boon with the intention of doing so at a later date.

 

Post 8: most underrated book

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge. 

Without a doubt, it is War With the Newts by Karel Čapek. An author who deserves at least as much attention as Paul Celan, although now I come to think of it, Celan doesn’t get as much attention as he deserves either… Anyway!

In the first week of my degree, when graphemes such as: č, ę and ţ had absolutely no meaning or sound equivalent in my mind, I stumbled across a book by a Czech author called ‘Karel Čapek’. I didn’t know how to pronounce his name and this automatically made his work interesting enough to start reading then and there.

An hour later midnight struck and so did the bell to tell all the nerds to clear out so that the staff could get some sleep. I did not want to leave. I had fallen in love with his writing style and wanted to stay ‘at his side’, beside the shelf with all his work. I read it, read up on Čapek (he’s the guy who introduced the word ‘robot’ to English-speakers back in the ‘20s!) and proceeded to wander around with fragments of the story in my mind for the next few years.

In a nut-shell: the book’s about the discovery of a breed of newts that are capable of speech and of being ‘civilised’. This discovery leads to them being enslaved by Man, exploited and treated in much the same way as the colonised peoples of previous centuries. Slowly the newts learn all they can about our society and eventually rebel against their oppressors.

It’s a book that deserves to be read and discussed by people of different disciplines, to be wept over and laughed with. It’s a book that, to my mind, challenges not only contemporary schools of thought such as colonialism, but also current questions, such as the sort of greedy consumerism that’s led to maquiladores and other factories that have a tendency to chew their workers up and spit them out when they can no longer operate at full speed. It satirises the racial segregation that led to lynch mobs; the misuse of ‘scientific evidence’ to ‘prove’ that some races are naturally superior to others; the arguments for Lebensraum.
Basically, it’s beautifully crafted Sci-Fi that anyone who’s enjoyed Orwell or Wyndham should try.

Please read it if you get a chance to. Please? I will read pretty much anything you suggest if you read this, even Sean O’Kane (the author, that is).

Although if you recommend Sean O’Kane, I will judge you a little bit. He is like a modern version of de Sade.

 

Post 7: A Guilty Pleasure Book

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge. 🙂

This is a tough post that I’ve been dragging my heels over! Thus far, all books I’ve ever read have fallen into two categories: those I’ve enjoyed and those I haven’t. All books that fall into the former category aren’t ones I feel guilty about reading or admitting to reading. There have however been some that I was surprised to find myself enjoying. So this post’ll be a ‘yay’ type one about a book (and genre) that blew my mind.

I feel duty-bound to point out to anyone who gets to the last paragraph that younger-me had lots of preconceived notions about the world, including chick-lit. I also feel duty-bound to point out that one of the joys of having these preconceived notions was- and still is- to have them challenged and re-evaluate them. I am a Humanities student, after all. 😉

The book in question’s called The Secret Shopper’s Revenge by Kate Harrison.

The story follows the lives of three women: single-mum-and-not-loving-it Emily, recently unemployed Sandie and Grazia, a glamorous widow who’s lived beyond her means so long that she’s almost out of cash. The three are thrown together when offered jobs as mystery shoppers for the same company.

I know it may sound a tad formulaic but this book challenged quite a few of the preconceptions I had about chick-lit. For starters its three main characters were all distinct characters with different life experiences and different outlooks on life. Each chapter’s written through the viewpoint of one of the three and Harrison really gets the different voices and perspectives on the world across. Each character has a distinct story line but the three band together and support each other over the story.

It wasn’t just the variety of supportive, intelligent female characters that won me over to the genre. Harrison also included a sub-plot that celebrated the family-oriented and creative approach of Central and Eastern Europeans which was pretty darn socially advanced at the time of publication (2008) when England as a whole was still pretty much against immigrants from that neck of the woods… not that Eastern Europeans get the best media portrayal in 2014 either, but it’s improved a little for non-Romanians and non-Bulgarians…

By espousing such modern and socially-minded views, Harrison made me realise that instead of being a superficial and capitalist genre that epitomised everything I disliked about literature aimed at women (such as ‘women’s’ magazines that always tell us that we can look better and lose more weight and that it is these things that should give us our sense of self and self-worth), chick-lit is something that can be read with pride and joy.

 

Post 6: Book you’ve read the most number of times

As ever, thanks to Blogs of a Bookaholic for creating this challenge. 🙂

My Mum has several books that she read whilst growing up and then passed on to me when I was little. The Wool-Pack by Cynthia Harnett is one of them. It’s also the most well-thumbed of the lot- it’s starting to fall apart!

The Wool-Pack is set in the Cotswolds (in England), 1493. It follows Nicholas Fetterlock, a wool-merchant’s son who’s recently been betrothed to a cloth merchant’s daughter, called Cecily. However trouble is brewing as Nicholas’ father has been set up by Lombards and some mysterious others who intend to put him out of business and buy up his lands.

In order to prove his father’s innocence, Nicholas and Cecily have to discover not only how the schemers intend to frame his father, but also have to work out a way to undermine their dastardly scheme.

It sounds dry bones for a children’s book, but there’s a je ne sais quoi about it that’s kept me coming back to it for over a decade.

The story is gentle and easy to follow, which is probably the thing that attracted me to it in the first place. It’s one of those ones that you know is never going to have truly nail-biting moments (rather like a Richard Curtis film) but you’re still going to be emotionally invested enough in the characters to care about what happens to them.

The details are historically accurate; Harnett gained a reputation for thoroughly researching the period she was writing about to ensure that every detail she included was accurate. Indeed, some of her other stories have been described as only having a plot so that she can hang all the cool details about the period on to it.

It’s this attention to detail (and the coolness of the details) that stirred my interest in historical fiction, especially the crime/ detective stuff… Actually, looking back on it, this book is single-handedly responsible for my subsequent devouring of Geoffery Trease and Ellis Peters’ work. That’s actually rather cool!

Anyone else traced back their interest in a genre to one book/series?