This was not love at first sight. My immediate first thought: “Christ, it’s going to take me the rest of the year to read that!” First impression: “Seemingly ok story, charmingly kitsch, writing ok, but not as good as I was expecting from the exceptional pen of Doris Lessing…”
No, this was not love at first sight. But then true love rarely is. Having finished it I feel lost, abandoned, heartbroken. Like being in a love affair that’s reached its inevitable yet bitter end. I can’t even look at another book at the minute. Not in any serious light, anyway. I’m reading a Terry Pratchett, but it doesn't mean anything, it’s just for fun…
I don’t know when it happened. One moment it was just my latest read, the next I was cornering people at parties and spouting about politics and women and love and relationships and many more of the topics covered in this novel. No, Lessing was not aiming at too many elements when she refused to pick a definite theme, because people deal with all of these emotions all the time, over and over and all at once; they don’t separate one out and create the story of their lives with just that one. Although Lessing’s main character tries:
Writer of the bestselling novel, Frontiers of War, Anna swears she’ll never write again. A single mother from a failed marriage, she lives off the royalties from her book and volunteers at the CP office while life passes her by. This life she records in four different books: the black notebook, a report of her earlier years in Africa; the red notebook, an account of her communist views, her association with the reds and finally her doubts; in the yellow notebook she writes fiction: a short story about a character called Ella, who’s life is so similar to her own, it’s hard, at times, to differentiate between the two, and a list of short story ideas; and in the blue notebook she writes a diary of sorts, an account of her psychoanalysis sessions and of her musings on life. Finally, losing her grip on sanity, she attempts to bring the hub of each together in one golden notebook.
Each of the notebooks is essential to both reader and character. Each one adds depth to Anna, explains who she is and why. The red notebook gives a foundation for her opinions. The black notebook shows her history, the blue its effects on her present life. The yellow notebook shows what she thinks of herself: Ella is Anna, but weaker, less vital, more foolish, everything that Anna considers herself, fictionalised and emphasised. The story of Anna and the story of Ella are deeply entwined, but only in terms of reality versus the story, and not within her own diary and the story.
When the story of Ella “finishes”, Anna continues writing in the yellow notebook; noting story ideas, which give us, as readers, a stark insight into what is going through her mind and what is happening in her life. As a writer, this device fascinated me: I have a notebook for ideas and jottings myself and it never occurred to me that a stranger could find anything out about me through reading it and yet it is more revealing than any diary. And I found that the whole book had this way of making me review myself over and over, like holding up a mirror.
I could wax lyrical for pages and pages about how each thought I’ve ever had is right there in that book and how I didn’t just read it, I lived it, and am still living it; how Lessing seems to touch something. That’s all I can say, really; that above all else, this book touches the v.core of female semantic thought.
It is books like this that make me suspect that I’ve been a little too generous when giving out stars in the past so this to me remains as starless as it is priceless!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
Kostova seemed to be eminating a classic gothic novel...
This book started out full of promise. Due to my lifelong obsession with the undead of the fangy persuasion, brought about by none other than Mr Stoker himself, I was totally hooked from the very first page. I found myself passing on nights out in favour of going to bed early with my book, hot chocolate and the kind of excited feeling rarely felt by the over 13s. Delicious and unashamedly gothic in true ghost story stylee, it took me to a reality where vampires were a possibility. Dark, threatening shadows lurked in dank, dusty corners, insinuating, but never explicitly jumping out and saying "boo". Sadly, it was too good to last.
The unnamed narrator is a young, charmingly naive girl, growing up in Holland. While scouring her father's library for reading material, she happens across an old handwritten manuscript with the salutation: "My dear and unfortunate successor…" On discovering his daughter’s find, the narrator’s father begins suddenly to act quite strangely and confiscates the manuscript. Rather than desisting, however, our narrator’s curiosity is stirred. Drawn into an ever thickening plot of history and family ties, she finds herself learning the scandalous truth about her heritage and her missing mother (previously thought dead) and all the while following her father around the world on one v.dangerous and unlikely mission.
Disappointment set in when the initial excitement I felt inevitably wore thin and I started to notice the mediocrity of the writing. No-one one "was" or "did" everyone "seemed". Even when it was a direct statement eg: "she seemed to be looking straight at me," and once this had come to my attention, I couldn't help but pick up on it every single time*. To add salt to the wound, the writing was v.Americanised. I found spellings such as "ax," words like "gotten" and references to the "morgue" detracted from the gothic Olde English feel.
Because the writing lacked staying power, I soon became bogged down in the convoluted plot and was relieved when the story changed from being narrated through letters to the "present day" story it had started out as. In fact, the novel would have been very dry had Kostova not managed to dredge it back from the recesses time and again with this same writing device, meaning that at some point, each of the main characters takes the lead through letters. Still, there were points where one narrator banged on a little too long and I found myself skimming large chunks. In addition, the length of these sections rendered the letters-written-on-the-fly motif totally implausible. I also found that the characters left a lot to be desired: despite each having their turn at storytelling, they remain 2D plot carriers throughout, rather than well rounded people. That said, the way the stoylines interchange and weave together is quite magical, although their perfect collaboration only adds to the implausibility.
It's an unrealistic book, to say the least, and difficult to enjoy without suspending belief to accommodate wild coincidence wholeheartedly. Because of this, it reads v.much like a children's book and I would probably have found it far more enjoyable had I read it as a teenager. Nonetheless, it is a decidedly chilling tale written in an exciting, fast paced style, not dissimilar to The Da Vinci Code. In fact Kostova manages to bring in a conspiracy theory of her v.own creation. And much like The Da Vinci Code, it's an easy read with some interesting facts and talking points: I instantly started scouring Wikipaedia for more information about Vlad Ţepes (aka The Impaler) and there were problems to ponder, like how to enter Communist Hungary, even though the point in question was eventually discarded with a v.unimaginative someone-magic-and-unexplainable-sorted-it-out-somehow wave of the hand.
Despite its setbacks, I did enjoy this novel for what it was. Kostova has managed to recapture some of the thrill of a good ghost story, rarely seen in this day and age, and despite myself, even towards the bitter end, the book still managed to make the hairs stand up on the backs of my arms.
Not a thumping good read, but a bold attempt at rehashing Stoker's classic.
* Average seemed to be 5 a page
This book started out full of promise. Due to my lifelong obsession with the undead of the fangy persuasion, brought about by none other than Mr Stoker himself, I was totally hooked from the very first page. I found myself passing on nights out in favour of going to bed early with my book, hot chocolate and the kind of excited feeling rarely felt by the over 13s. Delicious and unashamedly gothic in true ghost story stylee, it took me to a reality where vampires were a possibility. Dark, threatening shadows lurked in dank, dusty corners, insinuating, but never explicitly jumping out and saying "boo". Sadly, it was too good to last.
The unnamed narrator is a young, charmingly naive girl, growing up in Holland. While scouring her father's library for reading material, she happens across an old handwritten manuscript with the salutation: "My dear and unfortunate successor…" On discovering his daughter’s find, the narrator’s father begins suddenly to act quite strangely and confiscates the manuscript. Rather than desisting, however, our narrator’s curiosity is stirred. Drawn into an ever thickening plot of history and family ties, she finds herself learning the scandalous truth about her heritage and her missing mother (previously thought dead) and all the while following her father around the world on one v.dangerous and unlikely mission.
Disappointment set in when the initial excitement I felt inevitably wore thin and I started to notice the mediocrity of the writing. No-one one "was" or "did" everyone "seemed". Even when it was a direct statement eg: "she seemed to be looking straight at me," and once this had come to my attention, I couldn't help but pick up on it every single time*. To add salt to the wound, the writing was v.Americanised. I found spellings such as "ax," words like "gotten" and references to the "morgue" detracted from the gothic Olde English feel.
Because the writing lacked staying power, I soon became bogged down in the convoluted plot and was relieved when the story changed from being narrated through letters to the "present day" story it had started out as. In fact, the novel would have been very dry had Kostova not managed to dredge it back from the recesses time and again with this same writing device, meaning that at some point, each of the main characters takes the lead through letters. Still, there were points where one narrator banged on a little too long and I found myself skimming large chunks. In addition, the length of these sections rendered the letters-written-on-the-fly motif totally implausible. I also found that the characters left a lot to be desired: despite each having their turn at storytelling, they remain 2D plot carriers throughout, rather than well rounded people. That said, the way the stoylines interchange and weave together is quite magical, although their perfect collaboration only adds to the implausibility.
It's an unrealistic book, to say the least, and difficult to enjoy without suspending belief to accommodate wild coincidence wholeheartedly. Because of this, it reads v.much like a children's book and I would probably have found it far more enjoyable had I read it as a teenager. Nonetheless, it is a decidedly chilling tale written in an exciting, fast paced style, not dissimilar to The Da Vinci Code. In fact Kostova manages to bring in a conspiracy theory of her v.own creation. And much like The Da Vinci Code, it's an easy read with some interesting facts and talking points: I instantly started scouring Wikipaedia for more information about Vlad Ţepes (aka The Impaler) and there were problems to ponder, like how to enter Communist Hungary, even though the point in question was eventually discarded with a v.unimaginative someone-magic-and-unexplainable-sorted-it-out-somehow wave of the hand.
Despite its setbacks, I did enjoy this novel for what it was. Kostova has managed to recapture some of the thrill of a good ghost story, rarely seen in this day and age, and despite myself, even towards the bitter end, the book still managed to make the hairs stand up on the backs of my arms.
Not a thumping good read, but a bold attempt at rehashing Stoker's classic.
* Average seemed to be 5 a page
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