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.

The Clothes on Their Backs

I absolutely loved this book, in large part because I was able to identify with the main character and see echoes of my family's history in the characters. I felt that I understood their emotional responses and motives for their actions.  However, even though I really connected with the story, I can see why it didn't ultimately win the Booker (being beat out by The White Tiger)

Vivien is the only child of Ervin and Berta Kovaks, Hungarian Jews who moved to London in the late 1930s as the extreme persecution was beginning.  Once in London, Ervin chooses to keep his head down and assimilate - never going out, never making friends, never traveling - and as a result, Vivien grows up with almost no understanding of the country her parents came from, their religion, culture, language, or history.  This set up resonated with me as a great-granddaughter of Eastern European immigrants to America, in a family that until very recently did not even know their former religion, language, or even the name of the village they came from.  Perhaps my great-grandparents' attitudes were similar to Ervin Kovaks'.

But Vivien has an uncle Sandor, who came to London years after her parents did, and lived through the horrors of the labor camps during World War Two.  Sandor and Ervin do not get along, and are in many ways opposite takes on life as an immigrant - one fading into a half-life to avoid detection and the other flamboyantly living life, and disregarding authority.  Following a personal tragedy, Vivien defies her father and forges a relationship with her uncle, and in the process learns about her family history and her father's past.  Throughout Vivien's story is a theme of the power of clothes:  the transforming power of a new dress, the memories a pair of shoes can elicit, the class status associated with various types of clothes.  And although this theme is pervasive throughout the novel, it never becomes overbearing or trite.

And as much as I connected with the story, I agree that it doesn't have the depth and fantastic language that the White Tiger had, and I'm sure not everyone connected with it as I did.  So I'll concede this one to the Booker committee.

Amsterdam

Right away, I have to admit that this Amsterdam my first Ian McEwan novel - and it certainly won't be the last! 

Clive and Vernon reconnect at the funeral of a former (mutual) flame, which starts a series of strange interactions, a mutual promise, a falling out, and finally, revenge.  The plot line reminded me of Roald Dahl's short stories - a little bizarre, plenty dark, but also humorous.  McEwan's style however brings this tidy little story to the next level.  Absolutely clear prose, and fully formed characters - how have I not discovered Ian McEwan before?

Clive is a musician, a composer working on his opus - a symphony commissioned to celebrate the Millennium.  He is a musical traditionalist who abhors modern dissonance. This also makes him a bit of a sell-out in the eyes of some music critics.  Clive is also a tender and loyal friend. Clive is also a tremendous coward who blames his selfishness on his art.  Vernon is in many ways Clive's perfect counterpoint.  Vernon is the editor of a failing newspaper, whose proposal to save the paper involves publishing stories about conjoined twins who bite each other and various political scandal. He's very busy, often engaged in two conversations simultaneously, while Clive seeks solitude.  Vernon is hardly cowardly, but neither is he loyal, warm or creative.  He is in fact a bit of a bully.

These two personalities are developed in a short number of pages, and then continue to reverberate off of each other for the duration of the novel.  McEwan writes beautiful but concise, tidy prose that so often seems to explain a characters motive or internal thoughts exactly right. And although the plot moves along as a fast pace the characters remained the driving force of the story, and I didn't find myself wondering at any point what McEwan was trying to say about this or that political topic - music, media or the ethics of what we here in Washington State "Death with Dignity."  I just enjoyed the telling.

The Line of Beauty

For the patient reader, The Line of Beauty is a richly rewarding story.  One does not devour The Line of Beauty - it is to be slowly savored.  This was an adjustment for me.  I'm used to knowing I like a book because I can't put it down, the plot is so engrossing that, for a while, I forget my entire life.  This book provided a different sort of pleasure, and at the end see why this is a Booker book.

Aptly named Nick Guest is a visitor who never seems to manage to leave his stay in the home of a rich schoolmate with powerful connections.  Set in 1980's London against the political backdrop of the Thatcher era, I was a bit lost on the deeper meaning of some of the context (what's the difference between a Conservative and a Tory?  What did Margaret Thatcher actually do?  I was 1 year old when this novel opens).  The novel is divided into three sections spanning 4.5 years.  The first section centers on Nick's poignant first love affair - as a gay man.  Nick's innocence, his sense of the entire world before him, and his tenderness of first love and and first  physical experience are so real I found it captivating.  However, it is fair to say that very little actually happens in this first third, and I have read review after review suggesting that many people put the book down for good at the end of this section, disappointed with the novel.  Read on.

In the second section, a much more experienced Nick exposes an underside of the power and money high of the 80's - cocaine, anonymous partners, and greed and frivolous expense.  It is not until the third section that all of the characters Hollinghurst has painstakingly crafted reach their apex in glory or defeat.  And only through getting to know these characters in the slow, drawn-out way this novel has can the end be felt so emotionally.

Nick's uniting theme throughout his experience as a guest in the family is an abiding interest in beauty - beautiful things and beautiful people.  Experiencing beauty with someone else is how Nick prefers to communicate his deepest feelings.  And while the digressions on the actual line of beauty seemed contrived to me, the theme of obsession with temporal beauty in the context of the AIDS epidemic was appropriate and insightful.