Nutshell by Ian McEwan

This book is in SBR's
2016 Top Ten Reads

Published by: Nan A Talese
Publication date: 13 September 2016

Publisher's synopsis: 
Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse but John's not here. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month old resident of Trudy's womb.

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world's master storytellers

Sooz Book Reviews Gold Seal of Approval

A Hamlet ingnoramus' review
I was excited about this novel for 2 reasons:

1. Ian EcEwan's previous novel, The Children Act, was so brilliant.
2. The premise of Nutshell suggested promise.

So, when it came out I got hold of a copy tout de suite. 

On reading, I wasn't sure about it at the beginning.  The reason for this was because the narrator is a highly intelligent and sophisticated foetus, which felt unnatural and uncomfortable. To me this nameless character who I will refer to as 'Baby', came across as precocious - which was annoying.  I had to stop reading and have a conversation with myself - one that consisted of me explaining that I am going about this all wrong.  I need to suspend my disbelief and not think on this unborn child as ordinary, but extraordinary and completely self-aware.  With a new frame of mind I went back to the book and my annoyance disappeared.

Throughout her pregnancy, we learn that Trudy has spent a lot of her time listening to BBC radio 4 and informative podcasts about a multitude of topical subjects.  Baby has been able to hear and absorb all the information being broadcast and has learned much about the world in this way.  Baby spends it's time listening, contemplating and philosophising about the world it is yet to enter.  Baby also hears all the conversations going on in close proximity and discovers that its mother is having an affair.  Baby is more intelligent than your average adult (me, for instance, which may have been my initial problem), and notably more so than any of the adults in the book.  It forms its conclusions about them: unconditional love for its mother - despite her treacherous ways, and utter contempt for Claude, the man Trudy is cheating on Baby's father with, who Baby idolises, since father represents security and hope.

As this rather dark story unfolds, more revelations hit this infant, each an increasingly shocking blow.  The effects are quite traumatic and Baby becomes melancholy and (aided by secondary consumption of alcohol via the placenta) mawkish, as a result.  I found myself empathising with this infant, particularly with the desperate sense of helplessness to change what is going on and what is to come.

On the surface Nutshell may be a classic murder story but I saw something more, i.e., a reflection of current world events, as McEwan holds a mirror up to humanity*.  I feel as though Baby represents members of the population who are discovering the meaning (and reality) of political change in the western world and finding themselves, shocked, horrified and in a state of helplessness, melancholia and, yes, mawkishness.

Nutshell did not disappoint.  It is both brilliant and insightful and, therefore, a novel I cannot recommend highly enough.

*A (paraphrased) quote taken from Hamlet, of which this book is loosely based.

Northanger Abbey (The Austen Project no. 2) by Val McDermid

Publication date: 15th April 2014
Published by:  Grove press
Genre: Contemporary Romance (YA)

My Synopsis

Cat Morland is a 17-year-old home-schooled vicar's daughter from the Piddle Valley in Dorset on the South West Coast of England.  Cat has lived a sheltered life and spends much of her time reading vampire romance and other moderately scary books for teenagers.  She receives the chance to leave the confines of the Piddle Valley for the first time by her neighbours, the Allens, a childless couple who are friends of her parents, when they invite her to attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with them.

In Edinburgh, Cat becomes acquainted and makes friends with Bella Thorpe and Ellie Tilney, girls her own age.  She experiences romance for the first time when she develops strong feelings for Ellie's older brother, Henry, while being pursued by Bella's crass and annoying older brother, Johnny.

As the Fringe is about to draw to a close, she receives an unexpected invitation to join Ellie at her home in Northanger Abbey.  As well as seeing this as an opportunity to spend more time with her new friend - and more to the point her new friend's brother, Cat also likes the idea of visiting a real gothic abbey of the type she loves to read about in her novels.  She begins to draw parallels between the characters of her much loved books and the lifestyle of the Tilney family; but do the facts really resemble those in fiction?

My Review

Val McDemid has followed the plot of Jane Austen's original to the letter, even lifting certain passages and conversations from it throughout.  It has been brought into the 21st century, however, in that horses become cars, carriages become buses, hand-written letters become texts and emails, etc. The setting has changed as most of the story takes place in Edinburgh, rather than Bath.  Scenarios have also been adapted, e.g. Henry is a trainee barrister instead of a clergyman.

In my view, this modern version reads better than the original for two reasons.

1. Making it about a teenager's obsession with YA fantasy novels such as Twilight and having the main character's imagination run away with her as a result works better than the original, which is a parody of early gothic romance - one that did not work well for me.
2. The original Catherine Morland is very naive.  She comes across as an annoying simpleton and the original Henry Tilney sometimes comes across condescending towards her. (Presumably this was Austen having a pop at gothic romance novelists and how they portrayed their characters in her eyes.).  McDermid has revised the character of Cat to naive but not simple-minded, and when her version of Henry makes the condescending remarks, he does so ironically.

What the modern version has not achieved is a well-developed romance between the 'hero' (Henry) and the 'heroine' (Cat).  It is very clear from the start that the original character of Henry Tilney is attracted to Catherine, and that attraction soon develops into love.  He is cautious and subtle in his execution, but he is definitely wooing her throughout the story.  Despite coming across rather patriarchal, he manages to demonstrate charm, a good sense of humour and an ability to be flirtatious in his pursuit of her.  The modern character lacks all of these qualities and the exchanges between them come across as nothing more than a teenage girl 'crushing' on an older guy who is simply making time for his sister's friend.  This modern Henry, as a character, is also problematic because he is 26 going on 46. (Only an older British upper-class man would wear raspberry corduory trousers!)  Also, his aversion to teenage slang is granddad-like.  I felt there was a missed opportunity to play this out as a parody for comedy value (i.e. if this had been acknowledged and Cat had compared him to Twilight's Edward Cullen, who has the unaging body of a 17-year old with the experience and wisdom of being around for over a century).  If there had been romantic exchanges between them I suspect it would have come across borderline creepy.  There is just nothing alluring about Henry, so it's hard to see why the 17 year-old Cat would find him so.  When he finally does expresses his true feelings, it is not convincing. The conflict of the plot was (and had to be) revised to bring it into the 21st century, but it just did not work for me.

This book is an average read.  In fairness to McDermid, she was restricted by the original source material, which is, lets say, not Austen's best work; the plot is insipid and Catherine is irritating.  McDermid has done a good job of improving it.


More Austen Project reviews

Sense & Sensibility by Joanna Trollope (no. 1) 

Emma by Alexander McCall Smith (no. 3) 

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (no. 4)

Crime Fiction: Sophie Hannah's Little Face (Culver Valley series, Book 1)

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date: 26 August 2006

The Spilling CID, (Criminal Investigation Department of the British Police Force - I had to look it up!), is set in fictional Culver Valley North England.  It centres around 2 main characters, DS - Detective Sergeant - Charlie Zailer and DC - Detective Constable - Simon Waterhouse.

The first book in the series alternates between the first person perspective of the victim of a crime, Alice Fancourt, and the third person perspective, when it focuses on DC Simon Waterhouse.  Alice contacts the police and reports that, while she was away from home, her new born baby was kidnapped and swapped for another.  She was only away for a few hours and on her return, she finds the front door open, her husband asleep and another person's baby lying where her daughter, Florence, should be. This baby has the same blue eyes and milk spots on its nose as Florence.  Alice can't quite say how she knows it is not Florence - except to say this baby has 'a different face'.  Her husband thinks she is losing her mind, since he (says he) believes Florence and the baby known as 'Little Face' are the same person.  Simon is in the area when it is called in and agrees to go to the house to investigate...

The crime in this story reads like a classic detective mystery.  I am the kind of reader who is constantly trying to second guess a plot and unravel what is going on, so this book presented a challenge for me.  There were a few 'red herrings' and I was kept in the dark all the way through.  I found myself getting frustrated, as a result, and so, if I am honest, it was not a particularly enjoyable read.  It felt like the plot did not make sense.  There is a fair amount of complexity in this crime, which is part of the reason it is challenging to work out.  However, a lot did fall into place after the big reveal at the end - just as a crime mystery should.  Unfortunately, the red herrings made no sense at that point and the story felt contrived. 

The book also introduces the plain-clothes police officers and provides some backstory for the main characters, Simon and his boss Charlie (Charlotte Zailer).  We learn that the relationship between them is a complicated one (of the unrequited love kind - something that is revealed too early in the novel to be a spoiler), resulting in tension between the two of them and some awkward moments in the workplace.  Let's say there is blurring between the line of the personal and the professional.  Charlie can't seem to keep her feelings separate on the job and the end result is rather mortifying for her.  In some ways the dynamics between the characters are realistic, demonstrating perceptiveness on the part of the author.  For example, the way Simon's feelings of emasculation and self-doubt get in the way of his relationship with Charlie. He knows how she feels but he thinks she sees him as a 'work in progress.'

I would recommend this series to crime fiction lovers who enjoy classic mysteries in a modern setting.  Bear in mind that there is also a fair amount of focus on the personal relationships of the police officers - which some may find rather soap opera like (which may or may not be your kind of thing).

The Culver Valley series is addictive reading.  I've already picked up a copy and read book 2, Hurting Distance, and I find myself reaching for book 3.

Back Soon!

Sooz Book Reviews will be back next Friday

(4th November).

 

Yay!

Downtime

Sooz Book Reviews is on a break,

 but there will be more reviews later in the year.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

This book is in SBR's
2016 Top Ten Reads  

Publication date: 8th Januaary 2013
Published by: Dutton Books
Genre: YA Contemporary fiction

Publisher's synopsis
When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Sooz Book Reviews Gold Seal of Approval

My Review: 
This book was recommended as a good summer read by one of the contributors on the NY Times Book Review Podcast.  It is not a book I would have chosen to read myself, but the recommendation made me curious.

The first line of the book goes like this: 'To be or not to be, that is the question.  That 's from Hamlet's - maybe Shakespeare's, most famous soliloquy.'  The protagonist, Allyson Healey, tells us how she knows this and why it matters to her.  And, having read that first paragraph, I just knew I was going to enjoy the book.  

Just One Day is what I would call a relationship novel.  What I mean by that is that, although not everyone will like it, those who will love it are likely to do so because they can relate to it.  Novels that readers can relate to tend to be profoundly affecting, sometimes triggering old memories, both joyful and melancholic alike.  They are also thought-provoking, possibly leading us to reflect on the human condition and life in general.

Warning - from this point on there are potential spoilers

The first part of the book reminded me of that movie Before Sunrise, in that, following an encounter with a complete stranger - Willem - on a train to London one morning, Allyson finds herself accepting an invitation to spend a day in Paris with him.  Going on that journey with them was a joyful reading experience.  They don't visit any of the obvious places, instead Willem shows Allyson a Paris that only the inhabitants are likely to experience.  Coming back to the relationship point, there is an added bonus for readers who know and love the city of Paris, as you are able to visualize  the various places referenced in you mind's eye (possibly with nostalgia - *smile*).

The second part of the book - when Allyson starts college in Boston -  reminded me of New Moon (the 2nd Twilight book).  Not so much the story but the tone; that sense of loss that, like Bella, Allyson experiences as she struggles to come to terms with her separation from Willem and her inability to overcome her desire to be with him.  She is also haunted by the uncertainty surrounding their separation - which was painful and confusing.  Did he abandon her?  Or did she abandon him?  She is plagued with negative thoughts - reinforced by those close to her that are in the know - and is mostly convinced that she 'got played' by a talented trickster.  And yet, she does not know this for certain and deigns to hope that perhaps she is wrong about that.  There will be readers who have been there and will relate.

So far, this sounds like a straight forward boy-meets-girl kind of story, which to some extent it is, but it is also much more.  Allyson has lived a sheltered life and has been controlled by her parents, particularly her mother, all her life. Despite her age, in their eyes, she is still a child and is treated as such.  She is a passive character who does what she is told and the idea of defying them is unthinkable to her.  This is often at her own expense, as she forfeits her own wishes to satisfy theirs.   That is, until she takes the adventurous decision to throw caution to the wind and spend a day in a foreign city with a complete stranger.  Would she have done so if she hadn't been motivated by an invitation from a handsome man that she was attracted to?  Probably not, but in her search for romance she discovers something else entirely.  On that day in Paris, she took on the persona of an alter ego, 'Lulu', and discovered that 'Allyson' is not her whole self; that there is more to her.  That brave step sets off a chain reaction within her and she is forever changed.  We the readers then get to see her blossom and grow into herself, becoming the person she wants to be.  In doing so, she gains new positive experiences and makes [loyal] friends in unlikely places.  They support and encourage her to face her demons; and to go in search of Willem in the hope of discovering the truth - whatever the truth may be.

In short, this book is less about falling in love with a handsome stranger and more about self-discovery.

I loved the writing style of this book.  It is the kind I aspire to myself - one can hope.

Thanks to the NY Times Book Podcast, I think I have discovered an all-time favourite.

Just One Day is a recommended
2016 Summer Read

Half Lost by Sally Green

This book is in
SBR's 2016 Top Ten Reads

Publication date: 31 March 2016
Published by: Penguin
Genre: YA Fantasy / Dystopia

Publication synopsis
Nathan Byrn is running again. The Alliance of Free Witches has been all but destroyed. Scattered and demoralized, constantly pursued by the Council's Hunters, only a bold new strategy can save the rebels from total defeat. They need the missing half of Gabriel's amulet - an ancient artifact with the power to render its bearer invincible in battle.

But the amulet's guardian - the reclusive and awesomely powerful witch Ledger - has her own agenda. To win her trust, Nathan must travel to America and persuade her to give him the amulet. Combined with his own Gifts, the amulet might just be enough to turn the tide for the Alliance and end the bloody civil war between Black and White witches once and for all...

Sooz Book Reviews Gold Seal of Approval

My Review
This is the final instalment of the Half Bad series by Sally Green.  The previous two books, Half Bad and Half Wild have also been reviewed on this blog.

In my review of Half Lost, I had observed that the book lacked the hard-hitting dystopian feel of the first one.  Well, not the case with Half Lost, which returns to the original style.  It pulls no punches, so be prepared for a heart-wrenching read that will more than likely reduce you to tears and have you thinking about it for days, if not weeks, after you have finished it.  Or at least, that was my experience.  Every now and then, I still think of Nathan and have to remind myself that he is not real - just a fictional character who exists in Sally Green's imagination.  

I will not delve into the plot for this review because I don't think I can do so without ruining it for would-be readers - and that would be a shame.

All I can say is that I loved this book so much, it is what I consider to be the best that it's genre has to offer.  As such, I cannot recommend it highly enough for lovers of true Dystopia.



 

Half lost has been selected as one of my recommended 

2016 Summer Reads