Love by Toni Morrison

Posted on | July 26, 2010 | 12 Comments

If you are a regular reader of my blog then you may well know that Toni Morrison is one of my favourite writers. I own all of her books (in matching white editions): I cherish her books; I ration them out. To date I have read six of Morrison’s nine novels and now Love may very well be my new favourite (Beloved is a masterpiece but I was very pleasantly left in awe by Love). You may also know that my edition of Love is one of my all-time beloved possessions; my boyfriend gave me the newly published hardback on our first Christmas together and wrote a touching inscription inside. What you may not know is that I LOVED Love.

I read along with three favourite bloggers, Claire of Kiss a Cloud, Steph of Steph and Tony Investigate and Nymeth of Things Mean a Lot; you can read their eloquent views by clicking on their blog links. One of the things I love most about co-reading is when each individual focuses on different aspects of the novel and their personal connection to it. Conclusively, we all embraced this novel; personally, I loved it with every fibre of my being.

Am I alone in gaining great satisfaction -and butterflies in my tummy- when different strands of narrative come together so perfectly in the last third of quarter or fifth of a novel? So completely and utterly perfect do things slot into place at the end of Love that I sighed with contentment and joy; the resolution, the unveiling of secrets, the realisation that the title is more apt than first believed… all cemented how much I adored this novel.

I savoured Morrison’s lush prose, her beautiful imagery and succinct expressions; I have always known that Morrison was an exceptionally talented writer but her writing is exquisite in Love, often making me gasp. The storyline and themes are every bit as powerful as I have come to expect; the plot itself is simplistic but there are so many threads woven in and out of the text to make it an impressive tapestry of characterisation and universal thematic appeal. Even though Love is, to date, Morrison’s penultimate novel, I think it is a very good one to start with, especially for those readers intimidated by Morrison; not quite as devastating as her other novels, Love does have one scene of exceptionally uncomfortable violence (a gang rape) and a couple of disconcerting relationships, but I cannot stress enough how much Toni Morrison’s writing is worth the -at times- dark subject matter.

Love has a sometimes confusing non-linear narrative with multiple narrators but it is so expertly crafted. The Cosey women were and are all obsessed with Bill Cosey; their love is obsessive, all-consuming and the root of a lifetime of jealousies, resentments and hurt. Cosey is dead and only appears in the novel through reminiscences, all showing him in a different -and sometimes unfavourable- light. Heed (the Night) and Christine are the surviving Cosey women, living together in acrimony, each feeling betrayed by the other from childhood; their relationship is the crux of the novel. Hurt, betrayal and the power of memory -and its unreliability and subjectivity- are what makes Love so emotionally-charged and moving. Evocative and emotional, Love has me reaching for the three unread Morrison novels on my shelf; I want to gorge myself on them instead of ration and then reread them over and over again.

Many thanks to my lovely co-reviewers.

Claire’s Corner

Posted on | July 15, 2010 | 33 Comments

So, I’ve been blogging rather sporadically of late; all I can offer as a reason is that I’ve been busy and London was in the sweaty grips of a heatwave (the operative word being “was”). Pedicures and Pimm’s have been more appealing than posting, to be honest, but I do miss conversing about all things bookish. Anyway, I’ve been remiss in replying to comments and reciprocating but I shall try to catch up. First of all, though, I am off home to Glasgow for an extended visit. I’ll be mainly spending quality time with my boyfriend, family and friends but I do plan on some essential reading time (hopefully in the garden with a little bit of sun … a girl can dream, right?) Above are the books that I’ll be taking home with me this weekend.

Couples by John Updike is my choice for the next meeting of the Riverside Readers. It’s a book I’ve had and been wanting to read since last summer and there’s something about a New England settingthat seems summery to me; I can easily see myself reading this with a cocktail in hand waiting for the BBQ to heat up. I suspect that it’s also going to complementary the choice I made for my other book group, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious.

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood is a book I have been wanting to read for around thirteen years (seriously, I remember wanting to borrow it from my school library and the librarian refusing; apparently the book wasn’t “appropriate” for me even though my English teachers were giving me copies of Sons of Lovers and Lolita to read at the time. Hmph). Anyway, I should really have read it by now and have been requiring more Atwood in my life recently so the long overdue opportunity presents itself.

The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle is another one I’ve been meaning to read for some time, especially after I enjoyed Drop City so much. Kim of Reading Matters reminded me of my desire to read it and describing it as a meaty summer read with lots to chew over sealed the deal!

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson was a gift from my sister-in-law who always chooses and recommends the best books to me. Living in Canada she has introduced me to several Canadian authors (Ann-Marie MacDonald, Camilla Gibb) that may have passed me by otherwise and Mary Lawson will be another. I’ve had this on my TBR since last year saving it for the perfect reading opportunity.

Looking for Alaska by John Green is a very recent acquisition and one I couldn’t resist adding to my holiday pile; after enjoying Paper Towns so much I relished the idea of immediately acquainting myself with more of Green’s work.

Mariana by Monica Dickens made it into my final selection because what summer is complete without a Persephone book, preferably of the lighter persuasion? It was between this and Miss Buncle’s Book but the cover alone of my Classic edition evokes summer to me.

A library book or two will also make it into my case but these are the books that I am itching to read whilst I relax at home. Although there a couple of lighter, absorbing reads, the bulk are books I’ll be able to sink my teeth into. Recently I’ve been reading quickly (and somewhat obsessively but more about that in another post) and I am craving longer books that I can lose myself in and some of the books I have selected should provide exactly that.

I have a major backlog of reviews so some are scheduled for when I am away and I will endeavour to be on top of things once I return at the end of July.

In the meantime, have you read any of these and what holiday reading do you have planned, if any?

Category: Claire's Corner
Tags: Grace Metalious > John Green > John Updike > Margaret Atwood > Mary Lawson > Monica Dickens > Persephone Books > TC Boyle > Themed Reading

A Russian Affair

Posted on | July 14, 2010 | 13 Comments

One of my very first reviews on Paperback Reader was of First Love by Ivan Turgenev and soon after I was gifted the complete Penguin Great Loves boxset. When the Classics Circuit announced a tour of Imperial Russian literature, I was given the opportunity to read further about Russian love from the collection by opting for A Russian Affair by Anton Chekhov.

I have read Chekhov’s plays in the past and some of his short stories here and there; one of the stories, “The House with the Mezzanine” I read last year in the anthology, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off: Love Quarrels from Anton Chekhov to ZZ Packer also appears in this brief collection. Consisting of only five short stories -all about love- A Russian Affair is a bite-size taster of Chekhov’s mastery of the short story form. As a classic Russian writer, Chekhov can intimidate but he is surprisingly accessible and I am a great fan of his style; in the fashion of my favourite short story writer, Katherine Mansfield, Chekhov’s short stories are perfect little pieces of art.

Reading “The House With the Mezzanine” a second time in this volume was enriching; the first time it didn’t make a strong impression on me but rereading it I realised how powerful an evocation of first love it was. An artist’s story, narrated in the first-person with hindsight, he recalls visits with two sisters seven years previously; he quarrelled continually with outspoken Lida whilst shy Zhenya was compliant and admiring of both her older sister and the artist. Like the first story “About Love”, it is not about unrequited love but about love that is not acted upon, that haunts in its intensity and regret. These first two stories struck me as being reminiscent of Turgenev’s First Love and wondered how much Chekhov was influenced by his successor; I also checked to see whether they perhaps had the same translator, but they did not share similarities in that technical way but more fundamentally in tone.

Also in included in this collection is one of Chekhov’s more famous short stories, “The Lady with the Dog”, which is the adulterous Russian affair to which the title alludes; this story moves from young love explored in the earlier stories to the more difficult, all-consuming love.

A Russian Affair provides an insight into Chekhov’s writing style, is easy to read and makes for romantic reading with emotional depth. With only five stories, it is a mere sample of what Chekhov has to offer, but it is enjoyable glimpse of his work that draws you in with its exploration of the emotional complexities of love.

Category: Book Reviews, Books in Translation
Tags: Anton Chekhov > Classics Circuit > Katherine Mansfield > Penguin Books > Russian literature > Short Stories

Paper Towns by John Green

Posted on | July 13, 2010 | 20 Comments

John Green’s writing has been described as being privy to “a secret you can’t wait to divulge” and “like a John Hughes film… quirky and funny [mixed with] Sofia Coppola” (both in relation to his first novel, Looking for Alaska); Nymeth -recommendation reliant- is of the belief that “John Green can do no wrong”; my ready-made blurb is that Paper Towns is like Dawson’s Creek minus the incongruous dialogue and the narcissistic, whiny Dawson.

The reason I have opted for a television comparison (much like the film directors point of reference) is that Paper Towns will translate to screen extremely well (it already has a film option); the prose is very cinematic and also vividly realistic. I could envisage myself being there overhearing the pithy exchanges and observing the sugar-fueled road trip. Too infrequently can novelists create a world that you can readily step into as voyeur but John Green is one who can; I experienced events along with Q, as a willing participant caught up in his coming-of-age story.

Quentin Jacobsen (known as “Q” to his friends) has always loved the enigmatic Margo Roth Spiegelman, his next door neighbour and -once-upon-a-time- playmate. One night Margo appears at Q’s window (ahem, are you flash-backing to Joey Potter climbing in Dawson Leery’s window?) and enlists his help in an all-night revenge attack, promising him the best night of his life in return. What ensues is a life-changing night of adventure and ingenuity, Margo style; beyond that night is a mystery that Q embroils himself in -with the help of his friends- when Margo disappears.

Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.

For those of you who shy away from the young adult genre, please set aside your preconceptions; Paper Towns is witty, intelligent, illuminating and emotionally captivating. John Green writes truths in all their brutality. Perhaps I have the emotional maturity of a highschool senior but I emotionally connected with this novel and what its characters -at times harshly- learned. I actually had an epiphany with this novel, thanks to Green; we cannot make people into who we want them to be and we cannot expect people to behave the same way we would, which is hardly life-shattering but it took Paper Towns to bring it home to me. At times philosophical, the novel captures the difficulty of growing up; Q and his best friends, Ben and Radar, are on the cusp of adulthood, graduating from highschool and embarking on their futures. Q, Ben and Radar are misfits and Green evokes school in all its harshness and petty injustices; the threesome are exceptionally funny, entertaining to be around, exceedingly loyal, and I would happily extend an offer of friendship to them beyond the confines of the novel. Green creates real characters and the third part of Paper Towns is a hilarious bond-building road trip that I would have gone on in a heartbeat.

Not only does he create real people but makes us realise that we can’t create people into images of who we want them to be, Green also shows us that we dehumanise people that don’t like; whether they are the objects of our love, our esteem or our dislike, we make fictions of people and turn them into characters in our own life stories. The novel’s title refers to towns that only exists on paper: “fictitious towns which are added to a map either for fun or for copyright reasons” (Wikipedia definition); people can lose their sense of self in other people’s imagined version of them and become as fictitious and as unreal as paper towns on a map.

The strength of Paper Towns is difficult to do justice to but suffice to say that I highly recommend it. Incredibly funny and also bittersweet, Paper Towns took me on a journey that I would oft repeat; I’ve been to central Florida with Green and next will be going with him to Alaska.

A favourite passage which showcases Green’s prose-style:

Stranding before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn that it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington’s house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.

Category: Book Reviews
Tags: Bloomsbury > John Green > Young Adult

Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa

Posted on | July 8, 2010 | 18 Comments

When I asked in my recent acquisitions post which book you suspected I had already read, nobody guessed Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa. One of the shortest books on the stack and also by the same writer of one of my favourite reads of the year so far, it was a natural choice for me; I was struck by subtle beauty of The Housekeeper and the Professor and was eager to read more by the author and her translator, Stephen Snyder. Interestingly, Hotel Iris was published in Japan in 1996, seven years before The Housekeeper and the Professor; it is tellingly the earlier novel. Hotel Iris lacks the emotional resonance of its successor (in Japanese) but it is a hauntingly evocative study of a unconventional relationship.

As in The Housekeeper and the Professor, all of the characters are nameless excluding the seventeen-year-old narrator, Mari; Mari’s mother, the translator, his nephew and the maid at Hotel Iris make up the remainder of the small cast of characters and are identified by their professions and relationships. Mari is quiet and impressionable; she works the front desk of the family hotel and is at the whim of her mother’s dominant personality. On the opening page, a prostitute and a middle-aged man are ejected from the Hotel Iris following a heated and public altercation (mostly on the side of the prostitute who is shocked at her customer’s sexual proclivities). Mari is instantly attracted to the commanding voice of the man, before she sees him, and so begins her obsession with him; she then meets the much-older man in the coastal Japanese resort, he introduces himself as a translator, and they enter into a disturbing relationship. The translator is rumoured to have murdered his wife and has a reputation of depravity; Mari and he quickly adopt adopt role play of dominant and submissive. Mari enjoys the pain and ecstasy of her subjugation and her illicit meetings with the translator are often violent and intense.

It was the first order he gave me, and I trembled at the thought that his voice was now speaking only to me. I shook my head, not to refuse but to hide the trembling. “Take everything off,” he said. Desire and impatience stirred under his calm expression. He had been as timid as usual all day – until we reached the island, where his rule over me began.

Ogawa’s writing is spare but she successfully sets up a tense narrative that looks ahead with foreboding. The translator’s mute nephew comes to visit his uncle and he and Mari share a sensual attraction towards each other and the novella heightens in intensity to its abrupt climax.

The subject matter is dark and makes uneasy reading but Ogawa takes the disturbing and writes it into something subtle and yet also tragic. Hotel Iris is an interesting and eerily compelling examination of a BDSM relationship that also looks at the power dynamics in everyday relationships; Mari’s mother bullies her and Mari in turn holds power over the maid whilst the nephew holds the power of guilt over his uncle; all possess different levels of moral ambiguity.

Category: Book Reviews, Challenges
Tags: Japanese Literature > Yoko Ogawa

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