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.