My Weekly Book

Two down, two to go, and hopefully we’re back onto an upswing. The abovementioned novel is the second of the four Douglas Coupland novels I have been unable to bring myself to read for years. Having forced my way through Girlfriend in a Coma and having found it no better than I remembered or expected, Miss Wyoming was in some senses light relief, in that at least we were spared the Apocalypse.

While there were definite transcendent moments that brought to mind his earlier work, I had to put it down the first time I read it because the emotional ravages one of the two major characters were put through were so extreme, and seemed so heartbreaking. This didn’t strike me so much this time - it turned out I had, as predicted, packed up reading at more or less the nadir. But the plot was, in its way, as far-fetched and unsatisfying as its predecessor, despite being, in my view, generally a better book.

It seems to me to be the same old theme of redemption through love and through shedding the redundant that was done to perfection in Microserfs and which seems to be getting a more or less extreme rerun in each subsequent book. Moreover, the ending of this one is every bit as unsatisfactory as Girlfriend in a Coma. In both, the narrative just stops dead after the life-changing experience and there is no hint of whether the characters can make a go of their new lives. I must look at Microserfs actually, and see how that compares.

But maybe, reading this back, I am being rather negative. This was a book I am glad to have read, although I can’t see myself returning to it with the anticipation of much of the early stuff. The experiments with time and with narrative are fascinating, and I think Coupland carries this difficult trick off. It read very much like ‘classic Coupland’ in a way that GiaC didn’t - that dragged instead of soaring. This at least took off.

Now I plunge into one of those copies of All Families are Psychotic with the rocket-ship cover which the author is reputed to hate. More soon.

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Well, now I have read it again. And I’m afraid that I still don’t think it’s very good at all. And I’m a big Smiths fan, and I was there trying to find the 38 references. After all, no-one ever wrote the phrase “Let’s go to a place where it’s quiet and dry, and talk about precious things” by accident.

There are glimmers in there, certainly. But, by God, it’s silly. What happens is silly. Jared the angel - ridiculously silly. The apocalypse scenario - you know what I’m going to say, now, don’t you. The ending… wait for it…

And it doesn’t speak to me in the way the others do. And I think he’s already achieved what he set out to achieve in this book in Microserfs, which is a bit of a pinnacle of literary achievement. I tell you, I waited eagerly for this book to come out in paperback, and then I read it, and I was heartbroken by how bad it was.

But at least I’ve read it now, so hopefully that particular demon is exorcised and I’ll be able to progress through the next three.

I have found, on the wonder that is the modern Internet, an essay which sums up a lot of what I think about this book. I heartily recommend reading this:

http://www.jasonpettus.com/essays/coma.htm

One of its main lines of argument is that Mr Coupland got rather sick of his own success, and his own writing style, and so set out to tear it down.

A bit unfortunate for those of us who were fans, huh?

Here’s what Mr Pettus has to say, which had me nodding vigorously in agreement:

At the very least, bad Coupland is infinitely better than most of the dreck we find in our bookstores right now. But I’m morally torn by the idea of speaking any bad thoughts of the man who is my icon, my hero, who explained so many things about my life to me without even knowing me.

This is very true and now I must fold this thought into a mental pocket and pop off to read Miss Wyoming again. I got halfway through that too, and had to stop because it got so painful. But I think I recall a bit of a return to form, a feeling that the old transcendent Coupland was shining through, if somewhat through a glass darkly.

So time to go off and see, I suppose.

Just a quick update, having read Daphne du Maurier’s The House on the Strand. I must say, it’s excellent, if a little different from some of the earlier work - I think it was one of the last full-length novels she wrote.

It’s set at Kilmarth - the house she was living in at the time, between Fowey and Par in Cornwall and it’s passionately rooted in the landscape surrounding it - I actually read it with an OS map of the area to hand and could trace most of the action and locations on it. ‘House on the strand’ is the literal meaning of ‘Tywardreath’, one of the settlements in the area.

This intense engagement with the actual landscape that du Maurier was looking out on while writing was not the only striking feature, however. Like ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ in particular, I felt it had a plot that, if you read it on the back of the dust jacket, sounded so incredible as to make the novel barely worth reading. But, as in ‘Frenchman’s Creek’, it is du Maurier’s great skill that she can render these plots into deeply satisfying and complex narratives.

My last thought was to do with time travel, which is the explicit theme of this book - re-read the above comment before wincing at that. I’ve decided that time-travel might be suggested as the dominant theme in all du Maurier’s work. In ‘Rebecca’ the characters are haunted by the past, in some senses stuck in it, and must find a way to break through into the present. In ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ it’s a case of the author’s ability to transport readers seamlessly back 400 years or so into another world, and yet make it utterly credible and believable. This applies too to Jamaica Inn, but there among her other problems Mary Yelland must seize her future, break the claims that the past makes on her, and escape. Just a thought, anyway.

• Daphne du Maurier at Virago
• Daphne du Maurier Society

A few moments’ indiscretion in Ottakars of Truro and I’m stuck with yet another Douglas Coupland novel I’ll probably never read.

I wrote an entry about this in my journal round about the time that Hey! Nostradamus was published. The problem is that I used to find his work absolutely inspirational.

Then Girlfriend in a Coma came out.

I couldn’t even read the thing. I found Miss Wyoming so soul-destroying that I couldn’t finish it, even though it may be true that I gave up just before the redemptive stuff was due to happen.

With these two on my conscience, I don’t even feel able to start All Families are Psychotic.

Now I’ve gone and bought Hey! Nostradamus in a moment when my mind was elsewhere, it was part of a three for two offer, and I wasn’t really concentrating. The whole problem just gets bigger and bigger.

But a problem shared is a problem reduced slightly. Apparently I am far from being the only person that feels like this. Perhaps its us compulsive-and-in-hope buyers that are keeping him in business as a novelist.

Perhaps if we all stopped, he’d be forced to write decent novels again.

- - - - - - - - -

Here’s a summary of the position for quick and easy reference.

Inspirational Coupland:
Generation X (1991)
Shampoo Planet (1992)
Life After God (1994)
Microserfs (1994)
Polaroids from the Dead (1996)

Douglas, why did you do this, Coupland:
Girlfriend in a Coma (1997)
Miss Wyoming (1999)
All Families Are Psychotic (2001)

At least this one got good reviews Coupland:
Hey! Nostradamus (2003)

Will someone please give me permission not to buy this book and so help me break this dreadful cycle Coupland:
Eleanor Rigby (2004)

- - - - - - - - - -

Actually, I have come to a decision. I’m going to make a concerted attempt to have another stab at these later works, starting with Girlfriend in a Coma.

I thought about starting at the beginning, but Mr Random pointed out that this, as well as doubling the length of time the thing will take, is only going to throw the deficiencies of the later books into sharper focus.

If this last-ditch bid fails, then I shall Bookcross everything after Polaroids from the Dead and never buy another Coupland novel as long as I live. I shall deal with my compulsion by (possibly literally) leaving it on a park bench.

That’s just bound to provoke the author to a return to form, isn’t it?

• Visit Douglas Coupland’s website

Another lovely instalment in the tale of Mma Precious Ramotswe and her increasingly large extended family. But I have become aware that, for some reason, these later books seem to have lost their edginess.

The first (No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency) was a great story too, but with much darker undertones hovering just beneath the narrative - relations between men and women, ritual magic, AIDS and the plight of Africa. Now these undertones seem much more muted.

It’s a function of Alexander McCall Smith’s skill as a writer that we fervently hope for the success in life of Mma Ramotswe and her brood, we live their struggles with them. But is this now at the expense of a certain depth in the books?

For instance, in this volume the detective agency has a rival which is disposed of with virtually no trouble at all. Still a great series, which you will sit down to read, then look up, discover it is eight or so hours later and that you have finished the book, and still recommended.

The task of summing up my reaction to the whole of the ‘His Dark Materials‘ trilogy is somewhat daunting, and I am coming to the conclusion that one read is simply not enough. Certainly in The Amber Spyglass, that very slight loss of momentum observed in The Subtle Knife is overcome. Certainly the big set-piece dramas, such as the descent of certain parties into the abyss, winning the war at the cost of the battle, are superbly effective. The ending puts the reader through the emotional mill and, narratively speaking, is exactly the right one, just as the ending of Frenchman’s Creek is the only one possible. I like the way that Pullman doesn’t shy away from the big things - such as going down a totally different branch of evolution to create a civilisation, or demoting God to ‘just another angel, only more successful’, or having him appear in person in the narrative, or having the baddie living inside a flying mountain.

The theme of the Harry Potter novels is that the true source of evil is in the hearts of humanity and therefore must be actively resisted - where would Voldemort be without his followers? Is this in fact the reason why he is often dismissed as a pretty poor villain? Because he is just the figurehead and the true source of evil lies with his supporters and the people who refuse to actively oppose him? And so, what is the underlying morality of the Pullman books? He is certainly not denying the existence of the supernatural since we meet angels, and even God at one point, face to face. Is he positioning them as ‘just another race’ alongside the humans, witches and bears? Certainly most of the evil we see - the actions of Mrs Coulter, various awful scientists and practitioners of different branches of the church, the small-minded police officers and manipulative security operatives, in ‘our world’, the portrayal of Will’s mum with a mental illness and unable to get any understanding, treatment or sympathetic help, are the actions of humans. But there’s a figurehead in this narrative too, Metatron, whose power is portrayed as genuinely terrifying. How does all this fit together and is there a conflict?

I have come to the conclusion that I have read the trilogy through fast for the adventure, to find out what happened. I think that if I want to understand the theology - the nature of Dust, Lyra’s role in things, the relationship between the human and the supernatural, I am going to have to go through and read it again much more carefully. And also to read this Guardian piece by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to see if he can shed any light on it. In the fantasy crossover department, I should say I was powerfully struck with some of the similarities between this and events in Ursula le Guin’s latest Earthsea novel, The Other Wind. In both books, humankind seems to have got itself down a spiritual dead end, in both novels people die only to go to a horrible, dark, lifeless place like some kind of dreadful transit camp, holding out their hands to the living, begging them for release. In both, when the spiritual conflict is resolved, the dead are released by ceasing to be. The le Guin was written at the end of the 90s, The Amber Spyglass I think in 2000. This is a terribly interesting glimpse into the issues that may have been preoccupying us towards the end of the millennium.

• Visit Philip Pullman’s website

This was a great read, funny, shocking and anger-inducing in about equal parts. Especially the section about how it nearly didn’t get published at all.

It raised some very good points, not least about how Clinton’s record entitles him to be described as the latest in a long line of great Republican presidents, and also how problems with the Democrats’ ability to effectively distinguish themselves from the Republicans are strangling the US political system.

I would definitely seek out other examples of his work based on this. And yet, and yet.

I don’t feel I can fully trust the objectivity of the welter of opinions and statistics that are thrust at me. It’s back to that old adage - just because you might happen to agree with a lot of what he says doesn’t necessarily make him right, and you need to keep this in mind all the way through the book.

Visit Michael Moore’s website

I came away asking the following question: to what extent is this book actually a thriller?

It is marketed as a thriller, which might be doing it a bit of a disservice. It makes very good use of an unusual central character - a publisher as opposed to your run-of-the-mill investigator, journalist or lawyer.

At first I thought that it wasn’t really a thriller at all - that the eponymous book contract was a maguffin and that the story was really about the central character and his struggle to get control of his life again.

But then I decided that this is the case in most thrillers. The characters have an entry point which takes the story so far along its arc. Then it generally goes completely out of control and they are left fighting for survival. This is, in fact, your standard thriller plot, and The Rizzoli Contract does really follow this pattern.

I did feel that, as many readers have said, it did somehow lack the killer punch. This is true, but perhaps does not fully allow for the emotional impact of the final plot twist, a betrayal that is pretty big by anyone’s standards.

It is a good book, and worth reading, especially if you go into it expecting a hybrid of thriller and straight novel rather than your usual doorstopping blockbuster - it’s not even all that thick.

Having finished Ursula le Guin’s The Other Wind I would say that my overwhelming impression is interest in the insight it gives into the creative process. Picture the scene: In the 1970s Ursula le Guin writes a trilogy about Earthsea and thinks that she has gleaned from that world all there is to glean. Nearly 20 later she revisits it and writes a novel which is entirely different and in many ways more powerful, Tehanu. That provokes Tales from Earthsea, a book of short stories which plays a role in driving forward the narrative, then The Other Wind, the fifth Earthsea novel and sixth Earthsea book.

I believe that, in the introduction to Tales from Earthsea, she says that on revisiting her island world she found certain things had happened, as it were, in her absence. Suddenly things were clear in the plot that she hadn’t seen before, and which led to the continuation of the narrative. Suddenly she and we have a much clearer view of Earthsea, which has almost gained its own creation myth in this process. And the clues were in the books all along.

While we can admire the terrific creativity and organisation that allows JK Rowling to know what happens seven novels in advance, and to plan it all out minutely, I don’t think this is a common way of working among authors. I love the idea that Le Guin was able to go back and see what had been there all along - and presumably get that lovely feeling for a writer of everything falling into place.

As an aside, I think The Lathe of Heaven and Orsinian Tales will be my next stops. For a complete Le Guin bibliography, visit her website.

I have always suspected the Archbishop of Canterbury of being a reasonably intelligent man, and here is some proof from The Guardian:

Archbishop praises author accused of blasphemy

Philip Pullman, the best-selling author with a widely-advertised contempt for organised religion, has found an unlikely champion in the Archbishop of Canterbury who has risked the wrath of fundamentalists by praising the National Theatre’s adaptation of the author’s His Dark Materials as a “near-miraculous triumph”.

Rowan Williams, already regarded with some suspicion by conservative evangelicals for his liberal social views, writes in today’s Guardian: “This extraordinary theatrical adventure sets a creative religious agenda in a way hard to parallel in recent literature and performance.”

In a private address to religious leaders and academics at Downing Street on Monday night, Dr Williams even went so far as to suggest that study of the Pullman trilogy could form part of schools’ religious education syllabuses.

Such praise is a far cry from the Association of Christian Teachers, who have condemned it as shameless blasphemy. What Dr Williams appears to have spotted, which Pullman’s critics have not, is that the author’s ire is directed less at religious values than at institutions, particularly Catholicism. Read on here…

What I do find annoying, however, is the idea that religious groups could be ignorant enough to accuse Pullman of blasphemy in the first place - Rowan William’s remarks in the fourth paragraph of this seem so obvious as to hardly need stating.

Here’s what Williams thought of it in the first person - but watch out, as it is littered with spoilers.

Now, if he could just come out and publicly say that GP Taylor’s Shadowmancer is rubbish with its heavy-handed moral message, and instruct him, as his boss, to pack it in on the grounds of total lack of literary merit, my day would be complete.

I’ve just finished this travel book picked up from the Official Bookcrossing Zone at Julian Graves in Norwich and I would say that it was definitely a successful experiment.

Neither this, nor the other book we picked up there - Waterland by Graham Swift - are books that it would have occurred to me to have read of my own accord. The Swift, as earlier entries state, was a raging success. This too, I enjoyed, and I found myself absorbed in the travel narrative and engaged by the writer’s encounters with people in Vietnam.

Mr Random has already said most of what needs saying on the Bookcrossing journal, and I won’t repeat it. I was shocked by the couple’s actions at the end of the book - I won’t reveal what they are and spoil the narrative - and by the way that this turns out to be the bit of the trip that has life-changing implications for them.

I found myself shaking my head over the folly of what was happening, although that was easy for me to do, sitting on the London Underground on a sunny Saturday rather than facing the situation on the ground in Vietnam.

But the questions raised by all this could keep you thinking for hours. On the whole, a recommended read, I think - even if it has never occurred you to read a travel book or to go to Vietnam.

I have just finished the third volume of the chronicles of Alexander McCall Smith’s No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and, like the others, it was a joy. And like the others, I read it from cover to cover in less than 24 hours.

The series is as follows:

• No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
• Tears of the Giraffe
• Morality for Beautiful Girls
• The Kalahari Typing School for Men
• The Full Cupboard of Life
• In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

They tell the story of Mma Precious Ramotswe, a traditionally-built Botswana lady with a passion for bush tea who also happens to be that country’s first (and most successful) lady detective. And the chronicles of Mma Ramotswe are as layered as an onion - amusing and lighthearted on the surface but with great penetration and insight both into the human condition and into the challenges facing Africa.

However, this doesn’t mean they are hard going. Not at all. Having picked one up, your biggest problem will simply be putting it down again.

Some helpful links:

• Alexander McCall Smith’s official website
• Alexander McCall Smith on Bookcrossing.com
• The author’s top 10 humorous books (for The Guardian)
• BBC Four author profile

I’m glad I read this, but I came away feeling that Alexei Sayle needs nothing so much as a good editor. Why do I say this? Because roughly a third of the stories in this book are excellent. The eponymous opener is worth 10 minutes of anyone’s time. Roughly another third are what estate agents refer to as ‘a great opportunity’. And the remainder range from ‘not very good’ to ‘GCSE writing project’.

I’ll list which I think are which at the bottom of this entry, where you don’t have to look at it if you want to make your own mind up.

If Mr Sayle had had a good editor, maybe the bad ones would never have made it in, and the middling ones would have been kicked into touch until they resembled the very good ones, and he would have been hailed as a fantastic writer of short stories by someone more meaningful than Loaded.

Don’t come to this book with too many preconceptions, however. I was expecting a lot of it to be so silly that my eye would just skim straight over it in self-defence. That didn’t happen once. Definitely worth a read, especially if you are interested in the short story form.

My likes and dislikes as follows (IMHO, of course):

Very good indeed: Barcelona Plates, The Minister for Death (my favourite, I think), You’re Only Middle-Aged Once, Locked Out, Bad Samaritan, Good Samaritan (two independent stories).

Showing a spark of something good, but not quite making the grade: Back in Ten Minutes, A Shrinking Circle of Friends, Lose Weight, Ask Me How, The Last Woman Killed in the War.

Not really very good at all: My Life’s Work, Nic and Tob, Big-Headed Cartoon Animal, This Stupid Smile.

• Bookcrossing journal entry

Spoiler alert: you might not want to read this too closely if you wish the plot of His Dark Materials to remain a mystery to you. There are no deliberate spoilers, but even so…

- - - - -

I think I’ve put my finger on what it is about Philip Pullman’s The Subtle Knife that left me feeling a just a little bit underwhelmed.

All the reviews I’ve dug up say it either suffers from or succeeds in spite of something they call ‘middle book syndrome’ and I think that is spot on.

The argument is that, as the second book in the trilogy, it has neither the initial impact of the first one nor the thrilling climax of the last to give it a boost.

It is noticeably thinner than either of its colleagues, and I can’t shake the feeling that most of the characters in it are dashing at top speed between one book and the other, as if along a six-lane highway. Take, for example, either Lee Scoresby or Serafina Pekkala, who hardly stand still for a moment in their bid to be where they need to be for the finale (or not - but that really would be a spoiler, wouldn’t it?).

What does this book have which is distinctively its own? Well, the character of Will is a pretty big answer to that question, and I particularly like the way he is introduced. But it is very interesting to ask exactly how late in a trilogy you can get away with introducing such a major character. I would say probably no more than halfway through the middle volume. And then you’d be pushed for character/relationship development, so he’s very nearly on borrowed time already.

Also the world of Cittagaze. But, as that is a crossroads between worlds, a necessary bit of plotting, this book feels like it fulfils exactly the same function - as a link between the worlds of the other two.

Apart from this, we are in the world of the familiar, the witches, the aeronaut and the evil machinations of Mrs Coulter, doing what needs to be done to propel the plot forward. The link between souls and daemons is a bit more obvious, and so is the Miltonian plot about paradise lost and regained. More pieces dropping neatly into their preordained places.

(Come on, give the guy a break, the plotting is insanely complicated, with a dozen threads for him to hold onto. But still, but still…)

I think it’s a smashing book that achieves great heights of writing and which, as I already said, succeeded both in shocking me rigid (the events in the tower) and nearly reducing me to sobs on the London Underground (the spoiler alluded to obliquely above). It’s got a thrilling cliffhanger ending that works on several levels. And I shall definitely be reading The Amber Spyglass very soon.

But I was enthralled by Northern Lights and perhaps I was hoping for a bit much to achieve the same effect from this one too.

And how much do either The Tombs of Atuan or The Two Towers suffer from ‘middle book syndrome’? I would say that the Le Guin book is so distinct from either its predecessor or its successor that you couldn’t say it does. And, to be honest, I can never remember exactly where each volume of the Lord of the Rings begins and ends, especially since the films came along and muddied the waters.

It’s just that I don’t remember noticing it as strongly before.

Found in the Official Bookcrossing Zone at Julian Graves, Royal Arcade, Norwich, on January 28 2004

This was a truly inspirational find. I’d not really come across Graham Swift before, but will certainly seek out more of his work. It’s an odd mixture of fictional autobiography, murder mystery, local history and natural history in a part of the world that we are tangentially familiar with. It raises questions about the nature of history and of the authorial voice - the whole story is an attempt by one man to explain and perhaps justify pivotal events from his own past. We have only his account, which he presents as meticulously-researched history. But, like Nelly Dean in Wuthering Heights, to what extent can we believe his account both of events and of his own motivations?

It is a gripping story enclosed within an impressive examination of what it means to tell a story and the various elements of various stories, including that of the narrator, the European eel, a fenland family and the twentieth century itself, are taken apart and rewoven as more of the sum of their parts.

There are elements that are not for the squeamish, but they are not so pronounced that they spoil the book. The crucial fact about it is that, for all its delving into byways, and pedagogical examinations of various subjects, and narrative experimentation, it has a cracking good story at its heart and the action continues unresolved until the last sentence of the last page.

I discovered after I’d finished it that it had been nominated for the Booker Prize.

• More about Graham Swift
• Bookcrossing journal entry for this copy
• OBCZ - Julian Graves
• Hunt for books in Norfolk