Just a quick catch up: Galle Literary Festival 2012

Hello there. How are you?

I seem to have missed chatting with you all as the end of 2011 gathered speed and bulldozed all my me-time in a swirl of get-togethers, cocktails and lots and lots of comestibles. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t say no.

I’ll soon be off on my yearly trip to Sri Lanka and will be checking out the Galle Literary Festival again. This time, I have done NO preparation for the festival and will be going with the flow. I think this may be how 2012 will be for me. More chillin’, less frettin’.

I am, however, looking forward to seeing Katie Kitamura talk about her novel The Longshot. I got a copy for my brother-in-law who has given it a big thumbs up as an avid fan and practitioner of MMA himself. I will, of course, be borrowing the book from him once he’s finished, hehe. Juliet Nicholson will also be there to talk about The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War – a favourite historical period of mine. Richard Dawkins, John Boyne and D.J. Taylor will also be there. And I’m excited to seek more new Sri Lankan authors such as Randy Boyagoda and Roshi Fernando who will be talking about Sri Lankan writing in the diaspora. And this time, I’ll hopefully find out more about Sri Lankans writing in Sri Lanka. As usual, there will be panel discussions on literature, politics and war (as Sri Lanka recovers from its 30 year internal conflict) and documentaries about life in the north and the history of Dutch burghers. Lots of interesting stuff to look forward to.

I’ve got myself a brand new spanking phone and hopefully will be able to twitter about the GLF if I can find free wi-fi.

And that’s not all. I’ll be taking a short trip to Bangkok where I’ll be stuffing my face with all sorts of Thai delights! That’s what my family do, you see. We travel to eat. Sticky rice and mango, here I come! And of course, pop into Kinokuniya to stock up on some Japanese books.

So I will leave you with a tentative list of books I’m planning to bung into my suitcase:

Dust of Dreams (Malazan 8) by Steven Erikson
Clash of Kings (Song of Ice and Fire 2) by George R.R. Martin
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – as I doubt I’ll finish it before I go
Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka – What? I still haven’t read this?
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami – if it doesn’t push my suitcase over the weight limit
And a couple of mysteries I haven’t decided upon yet.

So what are you all up to? Any plans for the new year? Or is there a book I absolutely must take with me on holiday? Come on, spill!

The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa

I have heard so much about this book ever since I started blogging and was eager to get my hands on it as it had my favourite combination of fiction with science, in this case mathematics. But as usual, I’m always about a year behind everyone else but someone has to keep the fire burning, right? I haven’t read anything else by Yoko Ogawa and wanted to start with this title because the subject matter seemed a little less extreme.

The Housekeeper and The Professor is a tale of two strangers who form a tenuous bond of friendship and love in what can only be described as difficult circumstances. The Professor who had trained at Cambridge and was once the shining beacon of the mathematical world now lives in a memory loop that lasts only 80 minutes after a devastating car crash. His glittering career in ruin, he is looked after by his sister-in-law who hires a housekeeper for his daily needs. And so the Housekeeper arrives. But something changes when the Professor meets her son, whom he names Root, and soon a bond forms between the three of them cemented by their love of baseball and numbers.

I know there’s a film adaptation in Japanese which I haven’t seen yet, but the book was just how I imagined it to be. Soft, gentle and poignant. It is reminiscent of a slower era, the frantic pace of life slowed right down so that you can focus on the minutiae of daily life. And these particular details themselves are like little droplets of life condensed. The food we eat, the daily rituals, the small celebrations. When it comes down to it, it is these things and the people we do them with that are important.

Although I was looking forward to the scientific bits in the novel, I surprisingly found it to be a little superfluous. I guess for a novel to work, the story needs to move forward without it being too bogged down by theory. Somehow I found myself skipping the mathematical bits to continue with the story. Ogawa is good at showing the importance of mathematics to the Professor who lives solely in his head until he meets the Housekeeper and her son, but the beauty of mathematics somehow surpassed me.

The Housekeeper and The Professor is a short, sweet snapshot of friendship and family that can be found in unexpected places and I enjoyed reading this tale.

I read this as part of the Japanese Literature Challenge 5.

Best of 2011

It’s been an extremely busy year and I didn’t realise how much so until now. I’m shattered, I tell you. Shattered. However, I do like end of year lists (or any kind of list, really) so I’ll foist my best of 2011 on y’all. I tend to read books that aren’t too current as I’m always a little behind, so there’ll be a mixture of new and old books.

So my top ten book I really enjoyed reading this year and have reviewed are (in alphabetical order):

Dark Matter by Juli Zeh – because she manages to segue science with philosophy into a thrilling mystery without dumbing down. I’ve been recommending this book left, right and centre.
Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson – resparked my interest in the amazing world of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Will be taking the remaining two on holiday with me in Jan.
Great House by Nicole Krauss – SO beautifully written.
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco – audacious and ambitious. This guy knows how to write.
Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig – vividly creepy yet sparse.
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway – makes you fall in love with Paris all over again.
The Suicide Shop by Jean Teulé – clever, light and yet very, very dark.
Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James – very bad for your TBR.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson – nostalgically creepy.
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns – deliciously dark and eccentric.

I’m currently in the midst of The Hunger Games obsession. They are SO good. And then I’m planning to read Snuff by Terry Pratchett because I so deserve it and I’m worth it.

What about you?

Heartstone by C. J. Sansom

It’s been several years since I read the last of C.J. Sansom’s wonderful historical mysteries featuring Matthew Shardlake, the hunchback lawyer, but as soon as I opened the first page of Heartstone, I was transported once again to the dark and dangerous times of Henry VIII’s England.

In Shardlake’s fourth outing, he is entreated by Queen Catherine Parr, Henry’s 6th wife, to look into a case at the King’s Court of Wards on behalf of one of her servants. Her son, a tutor to orphaned Hugh Curteys and his sister, had been trying to fight for justice against a man who had bought their wardship and who he suspects of maltreating and stealing from them. The Court of Wards is a corrupt beast formed specifically to bring in revenue for Henry VIII, and as the danger from France increases, things become dangerous for Shardlake as Barak, his trusted servant has caught the ire of a soldier and is conscripted into the army. As his wife is about to give birth to their first child, Matthew takes up Queen Catherine’s case and proceeds to go to Portsmouth to investigate, taking Barak with him and out of the clutches of the army.

But Shardlake isn’t going to Portsmouth just to look into the case of the wards. He also wants to delve into the past of his friend, who has been locked up in Bedlam for nineteen years following a rape and the loss of her father in a town near Portsmouth. He is hoping his discoveries will reveal exactly what happened all those years ago and ultimately set her free.

All this is happening as the British army and navy are preparing for a French invasion in retaliation to Henry VIII’s disastrous siege of Boulogne. Shardlake must not only solve the two mysteries but also try and avoid any further entanglements with his King and his advisors, the snake-like Sir Richard Rich and Sir Thomas Seymour, who are out to humiliate him.

Now this is how you write a historical mystery. There’s detail, there’s danger, the plot is thrilling and there is a brilliant twist in the tale. I’ve been a huge fan of Sansom’s since his first Shardlake novel, Dissolution, was published and also loved Winter in Madrid, about the Spanish Civil War.

At the heart of this mystery is a family hiding a terrible secret that has crushed everyone from within yet keeps them tragically bound together. Sansom explores the nature of greed, love and freedom without simplifying things and there is an underlying gravitas to the tragedy alleviated only by the absurdity of history.

The Frightened Man by Kenneth Cameron

I was really excited about reading this after spying the second volume in this series by Kenneth Cameron, The Bohemian Girl. How could I possibly resist a title like that and especially since it is a historical mystery?

The Frightened Man is the start of the historical mystery series by Kenneth Cameron featuring Denton, a famous American writer living in turn of the century London. Set in 1900, London is still reeling from the gruesome murders by Jack the Ripper and the police have a reputation to re-establish. One dark evening, Denton receives a visit from a frightened man, a Mr. R. Mulcahey, who spills a story about witnessing a murder in flagrante long ago . He disappears before revealing anything else except that he’s looked into the eyes of Jack the Ripper. Denton, intrigued but in dire need of money and experiencing writer’s block, is soon drawn into this unlikely story when he himself is attacked by a half-crazed man in his own house. Suspicious about the intruder’s connection to Mulcahey’s unlikely story, Denton goes in search of the frightened man and the real identity of the prostitute who had been murdered, Stella Minter. In the process, he gets to know several policemen including one who loathes him, and a feisty woman, Mrs. Janet Striker, who is working tirelessly to better the plight of fallen women. Will Denton succeed before the murderer strikes again?

The premise of the novel sounded exactly like my cup of tea and I lapped it up. But unfortunately, the writing style and prose was dire. I think I was upset more because it could have been so much better. There was a lot of interesting ideas floating around but they were jostling with a lot of superfluous material which should have really been edited out. And not to mention the Americanisms that just grated. I know Denton is a displaced American living in London, but when a London bobby starts spouting American jargon, it gets a bit much. I really struggled through to the end, and it’s not a really thick book either with 300 pages of largish print. It did get slightly better towards the end, and I did find Cameron’s ideas regarding the role of women and the difficult relationships between men and women and the tragic consequences that occur quite interesting. However, the characters were larger than life and reminded me too much of a pantomime and just didn’t ring true. I’m not really a stickler to detail when it comes to historical fiction and mysteries, and yet every page threw out something that made me want to throw the book across the room.

But it seems I’m a masochist and so I finished the book. And I will probably read the second one as I admit I’m in love with the title. And I bought the third in the series at a library sale. Gah.

But the worst thing about reading The Frightened Man was the writing. It reminded me of my Nanowrimo novel with its padding and extra words that I already know I will have to edit out. I’m just surprised that Cameron’s novel hadn’t been revised more. I mean, there was four pages of description about Denton trying to climb a roof with vertigo. Four! That’s just indulgent, isn’t it? If it was tighter and more streamlined, it would have been a pretty good novel.

And it probably didn’t help that I’m reading C.J. Sansom’s Heartstone at the same time. Now that’s one atmospheric and cracking novel.

River of Darkness by Rennie Airth

You all know I’m crazy about historical mysteries, right? OK, maybe I haven’t been reading as much as I used to, but that’s only your fault for putting too many other books in my path. My favourite genre is historical mysteries, especially those set in the medieval and interwar periods. And I have been meaning to read Rennie Airth’s Inspector Madden books for many years. And finally, I found the first in his trilogy, River of Darkness in my local library. Huzzah!

The river of darkness is the darkness that snakes through the human psyche which is often hidden away by genteel trappings but is nonetheless there and every so often cannot be suppressed and raises its ugly head, often resulting in violence and death. In the novel, this is what Inspector Madden and his team at Scotland Yard comes up against when they are sent to investigate a blood bath at Melling Lodge, in the sleepy village of Highfield. The whole household lies butchered and the beautiful wife is found naked with her throat slashed. But otherwise, she hasn’t been touched. As Madden delves into the mystery, he encounters similar tragedy elsewhere and is soon on the hunt for a serial killer unlike no other. The only clue he has is that the killer had fought in the Great War. As the killer prepares for his next putsch, will the police find him in time? And will Madden be able to overcome his own trauma as he makes friends with the village doctor who has also suffered loss in the war?

I don’t know why, but I was expecting something very, very dark. But in fact, River of Darkness is pretty easy to read. Although it does touch on some dark subjects such as post-war trauma and sexual deviance, there was something that lacked the gravitas I was expecting. I’m not sure exactly what. Maybe it was the writing style which was smooth and perhaps a tad too simple. Nothing wrong with that as I prefer it to unintelligeable prose.

The plot was pretty strong, although it bordered on the melodramatic, but then we are talking about murder and the darkest of human emotions. Airth also brings in the fledgling sciences of psychology and psychoanalysis which was interesting, especially the suspicion with which they were viewed by the police and media.

What I really liked about the book though, was the character of Inspector John Madden. A bruised individual who has lost everything and goes about his business because he has no other choice. There was something very tender about the cadaverous man, old before his time and carrying deep scars. His relationship with his boss, Chief Inspector Sinclair is companiable and built on respect. As well as the main mystery, Airth also delves into the hierarchy of Scotland Yard and life as a working detective.

All in all, River of Darkness was a well realised mystery and I’ll be looking forward to reading the next two books in the series, The Blood-Dimmed Tide and The Dead of Winter.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver came to my attention earlier this year with lots of very good reviews and a big dose of creepiness. As the year wanes and the darkness draws closer, I thought it was a suitable read for the season. I don’t normally read scary stories because I’m afraid of horror but I’ve realised I don’t actually scare easily. And as many of you have said this was a very creepy read and it’s subtitled A Ghost Story, I gave myself the challenge of reading this and not just during day time.

And it is a very creepy story. Paver sets her tale in the 30s, which I thought was a stroke of genius as it instantly removes you from the familiar but is close enough that you don’t feel you’re wading into historical fantasy. Jack is a middle class young man in his late twenties who dreams of being a physicist but is working in a job he hates due to the lack of funds. He answers an advertisement to join a scientific expedition to the Arctic and finds himself on a boat with three Oxbridge-educated, wealthy young men. The clash in class and personality is inevitable but a fragile friendship forms between the men as they venture into the stark and cold territory beyond Norway. As two of the expedition members have to withdraw, Jack, Gus and Archie, together with a pack of huskies, set up a routine to study and take readings of the arctic landscape. With miles of ice and sea around them, there is nothing in the bleak landscape as winter approaches and the sun disappears. But with the darkness comes something else. Something which the Norwegian sailors refuse to talk about, but something which Jack spies from the corner of his eye.

Setting the tale in the arctic is already a pretty terrifying prospect. Nothing but ice and the cold and the dreaded winter where it is always dark. Paver does an admirable job in racking up the tension as cabin fever and being alone with no other human being nearby in total darkness slowly gets to Jack.

Dark Matter is beautifully written, as stark as it’s setting and I found Jack’s voice to be authentic and in keeping with the period, a ghost story with a love story at its core. I would have liked to be scared a little more, but I think I’m in the minority here as many readers have found this tale terrifying.

Slightly Peckish Tuesday

It’s been a busy month what with Nanowrimo finally winding down. Oh, you want to know how I did? Well I passed 50K on Day 24 and have been partying ever since. So I’m totally knackered. But I’m only halfway through my story so I will continue putting pen to paper, as it were, but at a less hectic pace so that my tingling fingers and trapped nerve will right itself.

But I have been out and about eating and drinking, so check out what I’ve been slurping on Umamimart: Slightly Peckish. Go on.

And it was also my birthday last weekend so we celebrated in style with some slurping and then some downing of superbly sublime cocktails from The Whistling Shop on Worship Street in what turned out to be wonderfully raucous night but one which didn’t leave me with a hangover. Mixologists rule!

And I wish someone would make me this cake from Call Me Cupcake.. The woman is an artiste.

A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous

After I read Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson, I knew I had to read A Woman by Berlin which she discussed in a talk I attended. And by chance, I came across a copy in my local charity shop and snapped it up. I found reading about the rapes by Russian soldiers after the fall of Berlin very disturbing, partly because it was something I knew nothing about even though I’ve read my fair share of history books. It really hits home how things, usually that to do with violence against women, are systematically brushed under the carpet and not spoken of. It’s a disgusting and disappointing habit.

A Woman in Berlin chronicles life in Berlin from April 24th to June 22nd 1946 just as Berlin fell to the Red Army. The narrator is a female journalist, well read, well traveled, alone who tries, together with the remaining people in her block of flats, to get through the terrifying days as the war draws to a close and the encroaching dangers of the Russian army.

What really surprised me about this account was how matter of fact the narrator is in her rendition of these fraught days. Not only is she discussing her own experiences but she is a witness to the experiences of everyone around her. They are her neighbours, colleagues, not necessarily friends. Yet what they all experience is collective trauma, and this makes them strong. Because of this, they are able to talk about the terrible things that have happened to them. She notes down how conversation has broken down, how propriety is no longer observed, how the women greet each other with the questions, ‘How many times were you raped?‘ I cannot think of anything more shocking. And what is most disturbing is that she is aware how in times of peace, a rape would tear a community apart, bring down swift justice and scar the women. But in times of war, where every woman has experienced rape, there is no other choice but to get on with it. Of course, many did not get over it and some even committed suicide so as not to get raped, but the sad thing is that many women had to go through such trauma, get on with their lives and later have to deal with the inability of their men to deal with it. And this naturally leads to a change in how they viewed their men.

I think the thing that is so impressive about this book is that it is written so well, and deals with such a traumatic subject with a light and manageable touch that when you do take pause to think about all that she has discussed, it hits you doubly hard. I don’t think I’ve read an account of rapes quite like this one. It’s unsentimental, matter of fact, the narrator is someone you can’t help but admire, someone with verve, vitality and a will to carry on but one who doesn’t let herself feel sorry for herself.

Of course, I’m aware this has been edited to allow for flow, but it’s an admirable piece of written history that really needs to be read more widely. And by that, I do not mean just by women.

There is also a film adaptation of this book, The Downfall of Berlin – Anonyma, which I’m hoping to watch soon.

Although this isn’t strictly literature, I read this as part of Caroline and Lizzys German Literature Month.

Manga: Thermae Romae I-III

My lovely friend Y in Japan sent me the first three volumes of the Japanese manga Thermae Romae by Mari Yamazaki which has been making a huge splash in Japan and is currently being filmed. Knowing I’m partial to anything Roman, she thought it would be a good addition to my library. I was watching the HBO series Rome at the time and pining for Lyndsey Davis’ Falco mysteries which has sadly finished after 20 brilliant adventures so it was a timely savior.

As I’ve come to expect with manga, things are never what they initally appear to be. I was expecting a solid story about a Roman bath architect/engineer, but what’s this? Lucius Modestus falls into a bath, hits his head and when he emerges, finds himself in a modern Japanese sento. Yamazaki’s about-turn completely caught me unawares and I couldn’t stop laughing at the incredibly bonkers yet utterly brilliant twist in her story. Like with many manga which is published serially in weekly or monthly installments, Thermae Romae follows a loose story arc and is a succession of short episodes.

In each chapter, Lucius Modestus manages to take a fall in a public bath and emerges in different wet locations (such as public baths, hot springs, outdoor wooden baths, private baths, theme parks, etc.) in Japan. And with each journey across time and space, he comes upon an invention that astounds him and pulls him deeper into the study and aesthetic of the bath, comparing both the Roman and Japanese traditions. And he tries to implement these very Japanese features, such as the idea of an onsen town, illustrating bath etiquette, refreshments, etc. into the Roman bath culture with great success.

What I really enjoyed about this series is that not only do you learn about Roman culture during the reign of Hadrian, especially their bath culture, but you also learn about the Japanese bath, it’s social and cultural importance, and how it is the centre of the Japanese community. In modern Japan where community life has changed dramatically, the public baths are becoming scarce even as onsen towns are flourishing. Much like the local pub, the public bath or sento was often a place where people of all generations in the community got together to gossip and share information. To put the two cultures that have most elevated the art of bathing together is really a stroke of genius.

Vol. IV of Thermae Romae is coming out at the end of the year and hopefully I’ll get my mitts on it in the not too distant future. There are scanslations available online and hopefully printed translations would become available soon.

For people who are interested in the aesthetic of the Japanese bath, I’ve found the following titles which look very interesting: How to Take a Japanese Bath by Loenard Koren, The Way of the Japanese Bath by Mark Edward Harris, Sento: The Japanese Public Bath by Elizabeth Ishiyama.

I read this as part of the Japanese Literature Challenge 5!