REVIEW OF I AM PILGRIM

REVIEW BY TOM

I Am Pilgrim: If HBW&tEotW is all about duality, I Am Pilgrim is positively quadrophenic, because that’s at least how many mysteries are packed into its 800+ pages.  A murder in New York, a bullet-riddled assassination in Greece, the ultimate terror act across most of Southwest Asia, and a murder in Bodrum all collide in the ruins of an ancient Roman gladiator arena.  The plot devices are far-fetched, the coincidences would make Dickens blush, and the characters are barely individualised versions of cinema archetypes, but it’s the best pot-boiler I’ve read in a long time.  I like that it’s ambitious in its scope.  I like even more that it’s written in a straight-ahead style that keeps all the attention on the action and characters. And I like best of all that 800 pages felt like 300.  No, it is not great literature, but I think it’s a near-classic of its genre.  

**** Stars

REVIEW OF HARD BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD

REVIEW BY TOM

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A double-barrelled title for a book about duality, the first novel in what has become the distinguished oeuvre of Haruki Murakami. The odd-numbered chapters, each titled with three descriptions of subjects the subject chapter contains, take place in the narrative past set in an egg-shaped, walled enclave not unlike the “The Village” in the TV show The Prisoner. The even-numbered chapters take place in the narrative present not so much in a place as in a state of mind (the eponymous End of the World).  Both settings are skewed versions of our own spaceship Earth, like the milieus of Kafka's The Trial and The Castle. Indeed, from this book Murakami would go on to forge a career as the contemporary Kafka (after all, he wrote a novel called Kafka on the Shore) that certainly reaches an apex in the one other Murakami book I’ve read, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. That book manages to create a world only slightly divergent from our own in a way that is truly unnerving.  Here, Murakami is just beginning to learn his craft, and the result is two worlds too abstract for that combination of frustration and foreboding that is the essence of nightmares.  Still, HBW&tEotW is an admirable flight of fancy with promise that has been certainly fulfilled.  

***½

JFDI BOOK NO. 27 DEAR LUPIN Roger and Charles Mortimer

DEAR LUPIN 

Letters to a Wayward Son

Roger and Charles Mortimer

 

 

A compendium of letters to the prodigal son who never returned.

JFDI BOOK NO. 26 I AM PILGRIM by Terry Hayes

A thriller by Terry Hayes

 

Chosen by Tom

JFDI BOOK NO. 25 - HARD BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD Haruki Marukami

Sci-fi. 

REVIEWS OF H IS FOR HAWK

James's review of H is for Hawk

J IS FOR JFDI

Praise is lavished on H is for Hawk across literary journals and newspaper reviews, the story of the author’s journey through grief even claiming Costa Coffee’s book of the year award. It wasn’t clear to me for some time why.

The book charts the progression of Helen Macdonald’s bereavement partnered by a goshawk that she buys shortly after the death of her father. The decision to buy a bird of prey which we learn is notoriously hard to train seems kneejerk. It coincides with a failed relationship and impending loss of job and home. But the evolution of the relationship between the hawk and the subject, interspersed with reference to a parallel relationship between T. H. White and his goshawk, helps us understand her journey and ultimately her reconciliation with the world.

There are several aspects of the book that are however unsatisfying. At the core of this is her father. We never get to know her father which means we never understand her relationship with him and why she is grieving to such a degree. This for me removed the much needed heart and warmth the book needs. Her life is caught up in academia so throughout the book I’m wondering how come she has so much spare time and money? I must also confess that, after reading Shantaram, 900-odd pages of first person narrative, another first person perspective left me exhausted. Finally, the geek in me wanted to know much more about falconry, though any further such detail would have dramatically changed the book and reduced it.

So why the praise? Two reasons come to mind; firstly, that it is beautifully written. The prose is concise and graceful, with strong visual language and an aural acuity. Whether we’re at St Brides Church or in the Cambridgeshire countryside or in her home or in her head, there is a clarity and crispness to the writing that fills the pages with meaning.

And this brings me to the second reason – the weight of the writing and the introspection makes it a book for professional book reviewers.

2 ½ from me, average score from all is around 3.

JOE'S REVIEW

P is for potpourri, which is how I felt about this book.  As many authors change character perspectives to maintain interest and dramatic tension, Helen MacDonald changes from her perspective as a suffering, depressed woman to that of T.H. White (can we characerize him as a suffering, depressed man ?) to that of a nature writer. 

Of all of these perspectives I most liked the nature writing: factual, beautifully descriptive and capable of transporting one to the place and feeling of the scene.  You can imagine how it is to hold a hawk, watch a hawk, feel both the emotions of the hawk as it is drawn to and obiedient to you as well as the emotions of rejection and simply having the animal be oblivious to you.  She is also superb at transmitting and describing how the hawk must/probably sees the world and reacts to it.  This part of the book really broadened my (somewhat limited !) horizons- after all, I don’t think of hawks all too often.

The counterpoint to the excellent nature writing was the description of her depression and grief about the death of her father.  From what I read I couldn’t follow the depth of her attachment- there were brief descriptions of him alone, her interaction with him and his with others, but somehow I didn’t get to a feeling or understanding of why she was so grieved.  In a way, quite the opposite- I wanted almost to say “get on with it”, you’re young (I think), intelligent, have a Oxbridge degree, etc.  So….with the one side; i.e. the descriptive, emotive side of the cause of grieving not adequately described, I tended to think more of her as weak.

The elements of T.H. White and the hawk were transferrence – she was White, struggling to deal with a “hostile” world, she was the bird seeing the world that humans inhabit, but in a sense superior and oblivious to it.  The descriptions and content were interesting and partially compelling. 

It is pleasing that at the end, she did overcome both the notion that she was somehow both T.H. White and the hawk and realized that life goes on- within you and without you. 

The Hawk[1] don’t care.

---

[1] Does she secretly wish that she were Kenny Harrelson ?

-------

Tom's review 

I initially gave "H is for Hawk" 3.5 stars on the strength of the writing style.  There is no doubt Helen MacDonald can wrap evocative imagery in a lyrical passage.  But I'm downgrading my rating to 2.5 stars because, after our JFDI discussion, I came away thinking she had written a book way too calculated to be a critical darling.  

If that was her goal, she nailed her landing, as critics can't seem to find enough ways to praise this book. For me, though, her self-image as an angst-ridden emo interwoven with a specialist subject (hawking) and a biography of an even more angst-ridden writer (T H White) feels like literary tick-boxing.  The loss she feels over her father's death comes off more overwrought than heartfelt, while her struggles with human love and financial ease seem manufactured to the point of indulgence.  In the end, the only despair I felt was for the awards the book world feels this memoir deserves.

JFDI BOOK NO. 24 H IS FOR HAWK- HELEN MCDONALD

 

 

 

As a child, Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer, learning the arcane terminology and reading all the classic books. Years later, when her father died and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She bought Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and took her home to Cambridge, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.

H is for Hawk is an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald's struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk's taming and her own untaming. This is a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love.

 

Chosen by Joe

JFDI MEMBERS AT THE BAMBOO FLUTE

From left: Joe,James,Alistair,Tom,Eric,Philip

REVIEW OF SHANTARAM. Gregory David Roberts

ERIC'S REVIEW

Conflicted. That is the word. The 900+ page cinema reel which is Shantaram, a perhaps real or perhaps imagined voyage by an escaped convict through the underbelly of Mumbai, tells a story of a man on the lam with more identities than hot dinners. Lin, short for Lindsey, is a warrior, an enlightened thug, a lover, a poet-philosopher, a jihadist (briefly), an amateur doctor, a smuggler, a false identity purveyor, and a black-marketeer. He lurches from being Mother Teresa to a Mafia foot soldier, from the friendly gora amidst the slums to a side character in the Mumbai bar scene demi-monde. We find out early on that the name Shantaram means Man of Peace, a name given to him in a Marathi village by the mother of one of the truly likeable characters in the book, an amiable taxi driver who alas does not stay the course. This moniker is hard to reconcile with his actions, which include shanking a man in prison and ripping a guy's eye out before replacing it (is this possible?...I doubt it). Less peace and more you want a piece of me? He is a survivor this guy, although he takes liberties with the resilience of the human body and spirit in others. Some die easily. Others come back and reappear later (somebody has to inhabit nine hundred pages). Lin loves people, or rather tries to love them, and mostly gets betrayal in return. Women are invariably good looking but flawed. Most characters are just a skosh away from heroin or a violent and untimely end. People who want trust and a happy ending should look elsewhere. 

Gregory David Roberts, the author, is an escaped convict who went to Mumbai, and apparently the book is his third rewrite, the first two being confiscated by prison officials, who do not come off too well in this one either. Sound familiar? This means that most likely he wrote more than 2700 pages, and proves that one thing people have in prison (between shankings) is time. Perhaps too much time and not enough editors. There is a lot of good writing in the book. Mostly great one liners and pithy sayings. Such as: There are two kinds of money, Lin. Yours, and mine. Another decent line is: The worst thing about corruption as a system of governance is that it works so well. Or: A dream is the place where a wish and a fear meet. Unfortunately there is a lot of over-egging the pudding, overarching descriptions of eyes for instance that had me reaching for the shank to gouge them out. 

It is a rollicking tale and a page-turner in spite of itself. There are cameos by a dancing bear, by monks who spend their life standing (the aptly named Standing Babas) and by a proper Afghan nutter who likes to disembowel Russians (the book takes place in the 1980s). There are Muslims, and Hindus, exiles from every country, the rich and the poor and crooks of every description. Lots of them.  But the constantly changing landscape and the quicksand of emotions mean that nothing in this book really lasts. When mercifully it ends and the constantly morphing Lin surveys the wreckage of the Mumbai which is now a part of him and he of it, we are left to wonder who he is and what has happened and why it took so long to tell the story and was it worth it and we feel...conflicted. Or at least I did. Yes, that's the word. 

3.5 stars

JOE'S REVIEW

Had you asked me about this book 4 years ago I would have praised it as a rollicking saga offering insight into Mumbai/Bombay and India in general with a great story and a cast of engaging characters.

Well, I must have changed quite a bit since then because I could barely get through 10% of this book.  Hyperbolic is a good description of the writing style, perhaps with a bit of bullshit thrown in.  The more I thought about the supposed turn of events and the actions of our protagonist, the more I realized I was reading what my German friends would call “Wunschdenken”; i.e. wishful thinking.  Not much attached to reality and with a large dose of embellishment about his own motives and actions.  And I believe that this approach to his own actions also resulted in rather flat portraits of many of the other actors in the book.

I also, in reflection, thought about an ex-heroin addict drinking, etc.  Not really the most realistic scenario- as I know from real life (not me!).

However, there were engaging and interesting vignettes of life in Mumbai and I learned a few Hindi and Marathi swear words.  It whetted my appetite to find out more about India-having only read the God of Small Things in terms of Indian literature.

So, GDR thanks for that and good luck, wherever and whoever you are.  I’m on the search for the great Indian novel.

Two stars

TOM'S REVIEW

One long, rectal-cranial-inverted lie? Or a series of unfortunate but amazing events adding up to the jaw-dropping story of an antipodean on the lam in 1980s Bombay?  Shantaram is a whole lotta both.  Clocking in at 940 pages (+/- 2% depending on your version), it chronicles the progress of the man they call "Linbaba" from Aussie prison to Bombay bar, Bombay slum, Bombay prison, Bombay den of iniquity, Bombay mafia stronghold, Goa beach, Bombay criminal network, Bombay opium den, Pakistan hotel, Afghanistan battlefield and luxury Bombay flat. Along the way he encounters the good (Prabaker), the bad (Abdul Ghani), the ugly (Madame Zhou), the beautiful (every woman he meets but one), the strong (Abdel Khader Khan, Abdullah Taheri, Nazeer), the weak (Didier--weak but funny) and all character types in between.  He also spends a lot of his time, and wastes all of ours, recalling his failures as a son, husband, father, friend, lover and citizen while philosophizing about life choices that invariably end in physical mayhem occasionally delivered but usually received.

The question, then, is whether the 600 pages of story outweigh the 300 pages (+/- 5%) of navel deep-dive.  The book's ultimate failure lies in Gregory David Roberts's inability to decide if he's writing a novel or a memoir.  As a novel, Shantaram is a solid four stars; as a memoir, it's a big fat zero.  But in the paper-rock-scissors of literature, novel wraps memoir, and so I give it...

Four stars. 

REVIEW:FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

By James Pollock

 

HE DIES AT THE END.

I’d love to say it is rare for a novel to stimulate an emotional response in me, but it ‘s not true. I’ll regularly weep on the train, laugh out loud on the beach, growl and shake my fist in business class. Most recently this occurred with “All the light you cannot see”, previously “The Road” left me with shuddering shoulders and claims to have something in my eye. Flowers for Algernon left me angry at the author, frustrated at the story, grumbling whilst making coffee on a Sunday morning.

The title of my review harks back to the inevitability of the novel, strongly hinted at by the title. The inescapable journey of the protagonist, Charlie Gordon, with his fellow genius, Algernon the mouse, is the source of the frustration and the marvellous journey he undertakes throughout the novel. Thanks to the title and the back cover, we know the outcome and spend most of the reading seeking hope that there is redemption for Charlie, perhaps his genius, intellect, memory and knowledge will find a cure for his predestined decline. We are frustrated.

The reader is easily entranced by the writing style, and the evolution of the grammar, spelling and vocabulary in the first few chapters rather surprisingly fails to annoy, largely because of the speed with which it develops and the ease with which we can empathise with the subject. This is countered by the speed with which the language decays at the end of the novel, perhaps largely because by then the reader knows what is destined for Charlie.There is no need to protract the conclusion.

Charlie is an emotional child at the start of the novel and we watch his intellectual development far outstrip his emotional development during the course of the novel. As I watch my own children develop both emotionally and intellectually, I see the time it takes to learn from their mistakes, develop wisdom and establish emotional intelligence. The latest software developers wonder why artificial intelligence is so elusive, and Charlie demonstrates here that data and memory do not translate into wisdom and empathy.

One of the key frustrations as a reader results from Charlie squandering his intellect on sex and drugs (though sadly pitifully little rock ’n’ roll), and his failure to cure his own destiny. His primary erudite output is the diagnosis of his and Algernon’s retrograde condition, the Algernon-Gordon effect. This is the pinnacle of the cynicism of this story, which ultimately does nothing more than reflect the human condition and describe this mortal coil. 

Eric’s analogy of life as a journey along a seesaw works very well. To some degree, all members of the JFDI are surfing the seesaw, at an age where we work ourselves hard to prevent the inevitable decline into old age. We all battle the future in our own way, all of us on one side of the fulcrum or the other, all at a point where we have furthest to fall and the most work to do to maintain equilibrium. The young and old enjoy a stable grounding of the seesaw, not far to fall, no rocking or balancing – all good but not much fun. This is perhaps why this novel received such a mixed response from the group, as we each responded in our own way according to our position relative to the fulcrum.

Towards the end of the novel, Charlie has embraced his outcome, has reviewed the home in which he’ll spend his last days and said goodbye in his own way to the people he knows he will forget. His journey is a metaphor for life. His peak output is a commentary on his own condition. We all squander our lives on alcohol, sex and pastimes that would be considered wasteful by otherworldly onlookers. Charlie forces the reader to consider doing more, but shows us that ultimately our lives are pretentious, fruitless and arrogant.

5 stars from me and 4.2 average score from the JFDI for an elegant and imaginative writing style, an unstoppable inevitability and an encapsulation of the human condition, where happiness is ultimately derived from simple friendships.

JFDI BOOK NO.23 SHANTARAM Gregory David Roberts

 

A novel of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of eight years in the Bombay underworld.

 

Chosen by Philip