The Sisters Brothers

I am catching up on a bit of a blogging backlog that I allowed to accrue this winter during the first trimester of my pregnancy.  I read The Sisters Brothers in February, as was honestly astounded and had no idea how to respond at the time.  What a truly strange novel!

Charlie and Eli Sisters are brothers (duh) who make a living as hitmen for a powerful and wealthy man. Eli, a sensitive soul, narrates the story while Charlie supplies the commitment and ruthlessness necessary to continue in their trade.  In a fast-paced plot built on short choppy sententes, Eli takes us first through a string of mishaps that seem to target him, south through Oregon and deeper into the unpopulated wilds of Northern California.  The brothers are hunting for Hermann Kermit Warm, who has in the process of inventing a mighty tool for the Gold Rush era, alienated the Sisters brothers' employer.  The last parts of the novel devolve into something akin to magical realism, as the brothers encounter stranger and stranger circumstances along their way. 

Eli's personality, his self-doubt, his misfortunes, his love for women and compassion towards his one-eyed horse, and his ability to still perform his job in a detached and cold way were the reason to stay hooked. 

But was it "Booker material"?  I honestly do not know.  Yes, I enjoyed the read very much - the plot was quirky, the characters interesting and dynamic - but the plot was surprising and the tone was humorous!  Maybe it is because it was so funny that I have a hard time taking it seriously.  Must a Booker book be serious?  Well, no,  and I'm thinking here of How Late It Was How Late among others.  But a funny, Western, with magical elements?  I'm still not convinced.

Either way I'm glad I read it!



The Sense of an Ending

I usually review books with a copy in front of me - but this year's Booker Prize winner needed to be returned before I could finish my review.  Or re-read it.

The first thing I remember reading in this short snappy novel is its first Library of Congress Subject Heading. These types of headers are published in every novel catalogued by the U.S. Library of Congress (I'm assuming international readers aren't as familiar with them, but maybe I'm wrong - anyone?).  I like to check them out to get a sense of a novel's themes, locations, and characters -- and because I'm a big nerd.  The first subject heading tag read:  "Middle-Aged Men -- Fiction."  Not the most effective way to catch my attention.

Luckily, I read more.  In fact, I read the entire book in one sitting because I couldn't put it down.  The story itself was simple enough.  In fact, the entire plot can be (and is) reduced to a single line of equation about 2/3 of the way through the book.  But the way Barnes related the story, intermingling the main character's reflections, gave the story a powerful emotional charge. The bisecting of the story into two unequal parts was very effective, and I'm sure you can look to any number of other reviews for some truly fantastic snippets of quotes on memory, self-delusion, and storytelling.  Once through the first time, I realized that I had probably missed picking up on an enormous number of tiny clues, and literary moments that would make a re-read thoroughly enjoyable.  I will definitely read this book again.

Overall, I agree that this was perhaps not a "major" work - it was not an epic, it did not effect a major change on the way I read or see the world.  But it was a thoroughly enjoyable, intelligent, and compelling novella.  This win reminded me of the win of Ian McEwan's Amsterdam - another great little novel by a well-deserving author, and I'm not sad that it won.

Jamrach's Menagerie

This book should have been right up my alley.  Something about sailing ships and survival stories have always interested me - and this one had both!  Perhaps it is the distilling of the entire world into a small ship, a few people, to evoke the best and worst of human nature that I am interested in.  I also really enjoy ship-story symbolism ala the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Maybe that is why I feel slightly let down by Carol Birch's beautifully written story. 

Jaffy is an 1850's London street urchin with no prospects, who, as a young boy, survives an encounter with a tiger and enters the world of Jamrach's menagerie of exotic animals.  Jaffy befriends another young assistant, Tim, and together, a few years later, they set sail aboard a whaling ship bound for Indonesia in pursuit of what I understood to be a Komodo Dragon to add to the menagerie.  But the ship falls under a mysterious curse, and the sailors must endure horrible, awful hardships (and that's about all I can say about that without ruining the most gripping part of the book).

Even though in many ways the story echoed off one of my favorite Booker winners the Life of Pi, my complaint with the book is not plot-related.   It is that none of the characters, including and especially Jaffy, seemed well developed.  I had a hard time understanding what motivated most of their actions, the basis for their friendships, and their inner lives.  With more character development, the story could have been a coming-of-age story about Jaffy, an analysis of the various ways in which we are all caged and free, or (and I think I would be most interested in this) a bromance about the relationship between Jaffy and Tim.  But because the characters were always distant and misty, it fell short of these. And perhaps because it was unclear what the message or purpose of the plot was, the opportunity for the rich and deep foreshadowing and symbolism that I hoped for never materialized.  Upon reflection, I think the dragon was just a dragon, which disappoints me.

But all was not lost.  While Carol Birch seems to lack in character development she excels in scene-setting.  Her locales are punctuated with bright colors, pungent smells, and rich detail.  I agree with others that the London she describes is compelling, as are the Azores, the ship, and the sea during a storm.  Even though I ultimately wanted more character, the atmosphere and gripping story resulted in a pretty good read.