Bernard MacLaverty's Cal - 150 pages that are as densely packed with passion and tension as any I've read in Dostoyevsky or Hardy. The 19-year-old title character lives in Northern Ireland. A Roman Catholic, he is hounded and physically attacked by the Protestant Orangemen. His friends have joined the IRA in response to the violence with which they are threatened. Cal finds the violence too much for him. The struggles of nations would not be important if they didn't effect the lives of individual people. This book is about the converging of conflicts political and personal - the political and religious struggles of an oppressed people, a first great passionate love, and the dilemmas of a sensitive and thoughtful teenager as he makes the moral choices that are going to shape his whole life. I felt deeply the greatness of these struggles as I read. Read my full rave here.
This book has everything - love, suspense, moral conflict, social criticism, psychological acuity, and crack writing. It is pitch-perfect on the a fast-paced, ostentatious, brutal beauty of Rome. Lambert's writing is rich with observations both interior and exterior that imbue character and place with clarity and instantaneous complexity. This novel, though entertaining to read, is an unambiguous critique of the moral hypocrisy that infects the powerful and the nature of crime which combines an abuse of power with the dehumanization of innocent people. Read my full rave here.
Molly Fox is a celebrated actress - a woman who delves deep into what makes up a 'self.' It is her profession to create characters from that knowledge through the medium of her self. Yet, when it comes to letting others truly know her, she does not. 'Can we ever know another?', this novel asks. The Irish novelist Deirdre Madden fashions a deep and beautiful book on this potentially abstract musing that is redolent with the pain of the distance we have from all others - even those we love most - and simultaneously rich with the rewards of the communion we can make through long acquaintance. She is particularly good at using the processes of the actor and writer to reflect on the ways we can inhabit the inherent contradiction of knowing another, but the mechanisms are so integrated with the events of this narrative that it is difficult to reveal them without ruining your reading of this book. This book is a powerful work of art with an undisturbable sense of wholeness. Read my full rave here.
The struggle to keep the champagne bubbling when it's gone flat is the action filling Evelyn Waugh's 1930 satire Vile Bodies. Stephen Fry's brilliant film adaptation, Bright Young Things released in 2003 captures the feel of a breathless, manic party. Jim Broadbent, Stockard Channing, Peter O'Toole, Simon Callow, Stephen Campbell Moore, Emily Mortimer, James Mcavoy, Imelda Stuanton, and Fenella Woolgar are some of the beautifully cast actors who maintain an understated hysteria, if you can imagine understated hysteria. The love that director and cast have for these characters is what impresses me the most. It would be so easy to show us how vile these people are - how silly, how louche, how fey - but instead they love them to death. Raveworthy. Read my full rave here.
Tell Me Everything by Sarah Salway . I opened this book last night and didn't stop reading it until I had finished it. The nearest voice I can think to compare Sarah Salway's to is Lorrie Moore's, and coming from me that is a big compliment. In it Molly experiences a few breaches of trust as a young woman that leave her seriously wounded. She closes down and protects herself by eating. When we meet her she has become one of life's castaways, seriously overweight without a job, a home, or any sense of herself. She meets five people - Mr. Roberts who gives her a job, Mrs. Roberts, Tim - a man of mystery, Liz - a librarian who recommends French authors, and Miranda, a hairdresser. With these relationships she begins to reclaim herself. The story is full of perfectly wrought descriptions, complex observations of human pain and fantasy, and cogent storytelling. Read my full rave here.
7 comments:
I read Veronica, and although the language was absolutely gorgeous, I found myself unable to really care about the characters. I'll be interested in hearing what you have to say when you're done!
Interesting reaction, Dewey, I'll let you know!
For me - it was the ending of Veronica that packed the real punch.
I'm a huge Gaitskill fan - but I do think I prefer her short stories (I think we talked about this, Ted??)
Finished Harry Potter last night. And that is all I will say.
My copy of HP hasn't even arrived yet - due tomorrow. So Veronica is bridging the gap (they're so similar).
hahahaha Yes, very similar.
And you know, I realized - reading Veronica - that I never care about Gaitskill's characters. For the most part, she writes about nasty self-involved people - I would never want to spend much time with a Gaitskill character.
But it's just the WRITING that hooks me ... and perhaps if the writing is as good as hers is, then I do not require LIKING of them to continue on.
I think, though, that that is why I prefer her short stories (or one of the reasons). I am not really into spending TOO much time with any of those people. So the shorter form is perfect.
Other writers (Michael Chabon comes to mind) seem to create people I would want to meet - people recognizably human ... with an element of warmth, fellow human feeling -
Gaitskill writes from the underbelly, her "people" - no less real, no less three-dimensional - are pretty much universally abhorrent to me. Nasty little people.
I can't think of an exception.
Just thinking out loud here ...
Yes, they aren't very nice people but I noticed the other evening, I hadn't read the book for several hours and I was wondering what had happened to the characters (as though they're busy when I put the book down). I am compelled despite the fact that I wouldn't want to go out with them for a drink and, man, I sure wouldn't ask their advice about anything.
Yes, the writing just kept me awed all the way through. I read that book SO much more slowly than I usually read (and I already read slowly!) because I just kept wanting to savor the language.
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