“In the last years of his life, the fantasist, Lewis Carroll, wrote a third Alice book. This mysterious work was never published or even shown to anybody. It has only recently been discovered. Now, at last, the world can read of Automated Alice and her fabulous adventures in the future. That's not quite true. "Automated Alice" was in reality written by Zenith O'Clock, the writer of wrongs. In the book, he sends Alice through a clock's workings. She travels through time, tumbling from the Victorian age to land in 1998, in Manchester, a small town in the North of England. Oh dear, that's not at all right. This trequel to "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" was actually written by Jeff Noon. Zenith O'Clock is only a character invented by Jeff Noon and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely accidental. What Alice encounters in the automated future is mostly accidental too...a series of misadventures, even weirder than your dreams."
It’s sounds bizarre… and it is. Alice Liddle of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass is back. Whether you choose to believe Lewis Carroll was a reputedly paedophilic pervert or not, you can’t deny that his literature for children is original, vivid, some may say unsurpassed. Or is it? Jeff Noon’s giving him a run for his money, that much I know. Only this time Alice finds herself in a world of automated horses and whacky technology.
It’s the future, 1996 to be precise*, and Alice finds herself trapped in a termite mound after chasing a parrot into a grandfather clock. Sounding familiar? She soon finds herself in a psychedelic Manchester that isn’t quite like the one she left behind. She has until two o’clock to get back to 18— for her writing lesson; but first she must catch Aunt Ermintrude’s pesky parrot and find all of her missing jigsaw pieces, which isn’t easy when she’s the prime suspect in a string of grizzly murders that seem to crop up wherever she goes. On top of which there are speeding horseless carriages stampeding along every road, she hasn’t done her homework and she has no idea which direction Dewsbury is in. Luckily her doll, Celia, is on hand to give her a leg up.
Noon effortlessly captures Carroll’s style in this quirky trequal to the original classics. Unlike Carroll, however, Noon takes a slightly more menacing approach to recreating Alice’s tale of adventure: the encounter with a doped-up snail can easily be associated with the caterpillar in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; however unlike the hookah smoking caterpillar this snail invites Alice to pop a “wurm”, which takes her on a trip she’ll certainly never forget. It is a tongue-in-cheek, absurdist romp, sometimes slipping from wry wit to sheer silliness in the form of completely pointless and juvenile toilet humour, which knocked it right down in my estimations. These lapses diminished the poignancy of the more satirical moments, of which there are plenty, and devalue the sheer aptitude of the puns, riddles and rhymes.
That said, it’s an easy, fun read, intelligently devised and with authentic pictures in true Alice in Wonderland stylee, often with discreet references to Noon’s other books tucked away in the milieu. A worth while venture for Carroll and Noon fans alike.
* OK, it’s the future for a Victorian character
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Kiter Runner, Khaled Hosseini
Having watched the film, I was reluctant to read The Kite Runner when it was nominated in my last reading group. It was an average film, in my humble opinion; far too much crammed into the allotted time and yet still too long. Nontheless, the book had been bought for me as a present and I am never one to turn up my nose simply because “I just didn’t fancy it”. After all, you can miss some real gems this way.
Amir and Hassan are a young pair of scallywags in Afghanistan in the early 1970s. They have a seemingly unbreakable bond until one day Amir is faced with the opportunity to show his loyalty to Hassan in one bold, brave swoop. He fails miserably and as such the friendship breaks down. What follows is the break down of the country as the Russians invade and the power is passed into the trigger-happy hands of the Taliban. What also follows is the break down of the storyline, which suddenly goes from a beautiful in-depth study of friendship, parental love and romance to a plot-driven action thriller, complete with cunning disguises and unlikely coincidence.
With the invasion of the Russians, Amir and his father are granted asylum in America and so they flee. It is here that Amir meets his wife. They have a happy marriage, but one thing is missing: a child. One day, after years of not conceiving, Amir receives a phonecall and is offered the chance to atone for his cowardice of years ago. It seems Amir can still help Hassan, even if it involves plunging back into the lion’s den that Afghanistan has become; even if it plunges the remainder of the book into a pit of bizarre twists of fate that all eventually curve back round and tie off neatly at the end of the book, in a way life just doesn’t.
This is a lovely book of friendship; simple to read and gripping in equal measures. The first half of the book is full of atmospheric imagery: mouthwatering descriptions of lamb kebab, days spent treating kite string with powdered glass, bitterly cold winters, reading under the pomegranate tree. The characters are complex and beautifully written. It is the second half of the book that lets it down, when Hosseini appears to have had enough of the soppy stuff and decides to go down the action route to liven things up a bit. Except that it really doesn’t. The delicacy of the bonds he creates in the first half are pushed aside to make way for twists in the plot; some of which you can spot a mile off, others which wouldn’t even have crossed your mind, because no writer would make the rooky mistake of stooping to that level of total unrealism, would they?
Make no mistake, I enjoyed this book hugely. Especially the descriptions of Kabul in the 1970s; particularly fascinating as a subject I know next to nothing about. The characterisations are strong and the relationships between Amir and his “Baba” and Amir and Hassan are infinitely intricate. I would definitely recommend it for this alone, despite later setbacks. Definitely worth a trip to the library!
Amir and Hassan are a young pair of scallywags in Afghanistan in the early 1970s. They have a seemingly unbreakable bond until one day Amir is faced with the opportunity to show his loyalty to Hassan in one bold, brave swoop. He fails miserably and as such the friendship breaks down. What follows is the break down of the country as the Russians invade and the power is passed into the trigger-happy hands of the Taliban. What also follows is the break down of the storyline, which suddenly goes from a beautiful in-depth study of friendship, parental love and romance to a plot-driven action thriller, complete with cunning disguises and unlikely coincidence.
With the invasion of the Russians, Amir and his father are granted asylum in America and so they flee. It is here that Amir meets his wife. They have a happy marriage, but one thing is missing: a child. One day, after years of not conceiving, Amir receives a phonecall and is offered the chance to atone for his cowardice of years ago. It seems Amir can still help Hassan, even if it involves plunging back into the lion’s den that Afghanistan has become; even if it plunges the remainder of the book into a pit of bizarre twists of fate that all eventually curve back round and tie off neatly at the end of the book, in a way life just doesn’t.
This is a lovely book of friendship; simple to read and gripping in equal measures. The first half of the book is full of atmospheric imagery: mouthwatering descriptions of lamb kebab, days spent treating kite string with powdered glass, bitterly cold winters, reading under the pomegranate tree. The characters are complex and beautifully written. It is the second half of the book that lets it down, when Hosseini appears to have had enough of the soppy stuff and decides to go down the action route to liven things up a bit. Except that it really doesn’t. The delicacy of the bonds he creates in the first half are pushed aside to make way for twists in the plot; some of which you can spot a mile off, others which wouldn’t even have crossed your mind, because no writer would make the rooky mistake of stooping to that level of total unrealism, would they?
Make no mistake, I enjoyed this book hugely. Especially the descriptions of Kabul in the 1970s; particularly fascinating as a subject I know next to nothing about. The characterisations are strong and the relationships between Amir and his “Baba” and Amir and Hassan are infinitely intricate. I would definitely recommend it for this alone, despite later setbacks. Definitely worth a trip to the library!
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Wooden Overcoat, Pamela Branch
Who says girls aren't funny?
When I unwrapped Pamela Branch's The Wooden Overcoat on my birthday last year, I was more than a little confused; the format was odd, the blurb sounded naff, I'd never heard of it and there was a quote from the queen on the back - as if I have the same sense of humour as that old trout! Nevertheless, a few months later, curiosity got the better of me and I plunged into Chapter One. Imagine my surprise when the very first line made me laugh out loud. And I don't mean I gave a wry smile, I guffawed so loudly the wine I'd been about to swallow shot out of my nose.
It's obvious from the off that Branch's style is far from austere. She has an easy, P. G. Wodehouse-esque way of turning the serious into the comical; except that Wodehouse only ever went as far as the stealing of pearl necklaces and getting engaged to the wrong girl. The Wooden Overcoat, however, takes on a far more macabre tack; the body count could rival that of a horror film, and that's not including the "rets". Perhaps it's the unlikely contrast between the grim and the farcical, but for some reason the two work together with hilarious consequences.
The Asterisk Club is an exclusive and clandestine boarding house for wrongly aquitted murderers, as Benji Cann has just discovered. A dangerous combination of people under usual circumstances, but the club has very strict rules that prohibit the bumbing off of fellow guests. So when the seemingly unsuspecting neighbours in the adjacent house begin carting around dead bodies in an amateurish fashion, the members of the Asterisk club are most confused; except of course the most recent addition, Benji, who is the first to fall victim. They vow to keep a close eye on these clumsy part-timers who are wavering dangerously close to their turf. Meanwhile, the inhabitants next door, each in a bid to protect their respective other halves (while secretly suspecting them) are finding their first shot at disposing of dead bodies less successful than they might have hoped. This combined with the fact that a large family of rats has taken the opportunity to infest the skirting boards is stretching tempers somewhat and the rat-man will insist on going into minute detail about his very own hush-hush methods for disposing of "rets".
The improbability of this premise does absolutely nothing to deter; once I started reading, I just couldn't stop. I found myself absolutely crying with laughter while in the most inopportune of places: on the bus, at work, at the train station, in the waiting room at the doctors' surgery, anywhere other people are generally found, actually. And it carried on long after I'd put the book down. On more than one occasion I caught myself chortling as a few lines popped into my head whilst walking down the road or waiting in the queue for a cashpoint. And I think my work colleagues will clearly remember the day I shook and snorted with repressed laughter for, at the very least, an hour after my lunch break, muttering "...tide's out". I shall leave that one with you to find out for yourself.
The one thing that displeases me is that every single one of P. G. Wodehouse's books has been reprinted over and over, and rightly so, but when it comes to something as good as Pamela Branch's masterpiece, why so long? True, it was written in the early fifties and clearly relates to that era; but as such I find the almost naïve narrative rather refreshing. With believable characters, each sporting their own eccentricities, and an effortlessly deft writing style, Pamela Branch has written the unforgettable and I firmly believe that this book should never have gone out of print.
The Wooden Overcoat was reprinted by the Rue Morgue Press in 2006, on luxuriously thick, shiny paper, and since then the other three Pamela Branch novels have followed suit. They sit on my shelves, patiently waiting to brighten a gloomy Sunday.
When I unwrapped Pamela Branch's The Wooden Overcoat on my birthday last year, I was more than a little confused; the format was odd, the blurb sounded naff, I'd never heard of it and there was a quote from the queen on the back - as if I have the same sense of humour as that old trout! Nevertheless, a few months later, curiosity got the better of me and I plunged into Chapter One. Imagine my surprise when the very first line made me laugh out loud. And I don't mean I gave a wry smile, I guffawed so loudly the wine I'd been about to swallow shot out of my nose.
It's obvious from the off that Branch's style is far from austere. She has an easy, P. G. Wodehouse-esque way of turning the serious into the comical; except that Wodehouse only ever went as far as the stealing of pearl necklaces and getting engaged to the wrong girl. The Wooden Overcoat, however, takes on a far more macabre tack; the body count could rival that of a horror film, and that's not including the "rets". Perhaps it's the unlikely contrast between the grim and the farcical, but for some reason the two work together with hilarious consequences.
The Asterisk Club is an exclusive and clandestine boarding house for wrongly aquitted murderers, as Benji Cann has just discovered. A dangerous combination of people under usual circumstances, but the club has very strict rules that prohibit the bumbing off of fellow guests. So when the seemingly unsuspecting neighbours in the adjacent house begin carting around dead bodies in an amateurish fashion, the members of the Asterisk club are most confused; except of course the most recent addition, Benji, who is the first to fall victim. They vow to keep a close eye on these clumsy part-timers who are wavering dangerously close to their turf. Meanwhile, the inhabitants next door, each in a bid to protect their respective other halves (while secretly suspecting them) are finding their first shot at disposing of dead bodies less successful than they might have hoped. This combined with the fact that a large family of rats has taken the opportunity to infest the skirting boards is stretching tempers somewhat and the rat-man will insist on going into minute detail about his very own hush-hush methods for disposing of "rets".
The improbability of this premise does absolutely nothing to deter; once I started reading, I just couldn't stop. I found myself absolutely crying with laughter while in the most inopportune of places: on the bus, at work, at the train station, in the waiting room at the doctors' surgery, anywhere other people are generally found, actually. And it carried on long after I'd put the book down. On more than one occasion I caught myself chortling as a few lines popped into my head whilst walking down the road or waiting in the queue for a cashpoint. And I think my work colleagues will clearly remember the day I shook and snorted with repressed laughter for, at the very least, an hour after my lunch break, muttering "...tide's out". I shall leave that one with you to find out for yourself.
The one thing that displeases me is that every single one of P. G. Wodehouse's books has been reprinted over and over, and rightly so, but when it comes to something as good as Pamela Branch's masterpiece, why so long? True, it was written in the early fifties and clearly relates to that era; but as such I find the almost naïve narrative rather refreshing. With believable characters, each sporting their own eccentricities, and an effortlessly deft writing style, Pamela Branch has written the unforgettable and I firmly believe that this book should never have gone out of print.
The Wooden Overcoat was reprinted by the Rue Morgue Press in 2006, on luxuriously thick, shiny paper, and since then the other three Pamela Branch novels have followed suit. They sit on my shelves, patiently waiting to brighten a gloomy Sunday.
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
“A Giant roller-coaster of a novel in 400 sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century with some hot gypsies thrown in” ~ Edmund Blackadder
So maybe it’s not 400 chapters long, but Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith is most certainly a roller-coaster ride; portraying a believable, well-researched account of eighteenth century Britain with some stormy lesbian action to boot.
From the moment I picked up this book I was captivated. It was by sheer accident that it came to be in my possession; being categorised as “Lesbian Fiction” I naturally assumed it would be some sort of Mills and Boon drivel with twice the boobs. I couldn’t have been more wrong:
Susan Tinder has been brought up a pickpocket (a fingersmith, if you will) in South London. Life seems an unchanging constant until one day a family friend, known only as Gentleman, shows up on the doorstep with a daring plan; a plan that, if successful, will make Susan a very rich woman. He whisks her off to the country where she is to serve as a maid to a rich lady named Maud Lilly. It all seems straight forward enough; her only task is to serve and observe and paint a picture of Maud that will render her insane. But as the plot thickens, it becomes clear that there is more to this scheme than meets the eye.
There are many unexpected twists and turns in every direction and, at times, it is difficult to tell who is conning who. Which contrary to being convoluted and off-putting actually compels the reader to read on and unfold the intricate plot. This is a novel cram-packed with action of Dickensian motif, with a far less arduous style: lunatic asylums, evil villains, grim prison cells, lost and stolen fortunes and, most importantly, murder most foul. As the story sinks deeper into the scam, so the tone becomes more cloying and claustrophobic until finally reaching a huge and almost exhilarating climax.
In plot and theme, this book reminds me very much of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, though the classic plot has been reworked to create something far more immediately accessible and carnal. This is a thumping good read, if ever a read I thumped; beautifully written with bodice ripping passion, con artists and a love story. This is melodrama at its very best.
So maybe it’s not 400 chapters long, but Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith is most certainly a roller-coaster ride; portraying a believable, well-researched account of eighteenth century Britain with some stormy lesbian action to boot.
From the moment I picked up this book I was captivated. It was by sheer accident that it came to be in my possession; being categorised as “Lesbian Fiction” I naturally assumed it would be some sort of Mills and Boon drivel with twice the boobs. I couldn’t have been more wrong:
Susan Tinder has been brought up a pickpocket (a fingersmith, if you will) in South London. Life seems an unchanging constant until one day a family friend, known only as Gentleman, shows up on the doorstep with a daring plan; a plan that, if successful, will make Susan a very rich woman. He whisks her off to the country where she is to serve as a maid to a rich lady named Maud Lilly. It all seems straight forward enough; her only task is to serve and observe and paint a picture of Maud that will render her insane. But as the plot thickens, it becomes clear that there is more to this scheme than meets the eye.
There are many unexpected twists and turns in every direction and, at times, it is difficult to tell who is conning who. Which contrary to being convoluted and off-putting actually compels the reader to read on and unfold the intricate plot. This is a novel cram-packed with action of Dickensian motif, with a far less arduous style: lunatic asylums, evil villains, grim prison cells, lost and stolen fortunes and, most importantly, murder most foul. As the story sinks deeper into the scam, so the tone becomes more cloying and claustrophobic until finally reaching a huge and almost exhilarating climax.
In plot and theme, this book reminds me very much of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, though the classic plot has been reworked to create something far more immediately accessible and carnal. This is a thumping good read, if ever a read I thumped; beautifully written with bodice ripping passion, con artists and a love story. This is melodrama at its very best.
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