Amanda Brookfield's Blog, page 3

Fighting the Darkness

The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My Grandfather's Secret Past and How Hitler Seduced a Generation by Martin Davidson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I first heard about Martin Davidson's book, 'The Perfect Nazi', when someone, knowing we had been English students in the same college 40 years ago, pointed it out to me. Since those days Martin and I have waved at each other across the Twitter oceans from time to time, but otherwise followed divergent paths, he in television, me in writing. Thinking back to our three years of university friendship, I could not recall Martin ever once mentioning having a grandfather who fought for ‘the other side’ in the Second World War, or even the fact of being half German. I was intrigued.

There is always an extra frisson in reading a book written by someone you know, or once knew. If that book is autobiographical as opposed to fictional, then that extra curiosity is all the more intense, sometimes to the point of blurring the ability to be objective. One paragraph into Davidson’s extraordinary quest to discover the truth about his German grandfather however, and any question of knowing the author or not became irrelevant. The prose – lucid, intelligent, candid – sweeps you along with its power; and the journey it pursues is riveting.

The background and starting point for the story is that Martin and his sister grew up in the shadows of not-knowing the full story of the German side of their family. Any questions about what their maternal grandfather, a dentist called Bruno Langbehn, did in the Second World War were always side-stepped and stone-walled, creating the sense of forbidden territory which children are so good at accepting. It was after university, entering fully into his own adulthood, that Davidson first began to want more answers about his still living, assertive, charismatic grandparent. It wasn’t until the death of Bruno however, by which time Davidson’s own television work had started to involve research into subjects related to the Third Reich, that his quest for the truth began in earnest. What had Bruno, a dentist, twice married, a robust survivor, really done in the war, and why?

It is not a comfortable journey. Davidson is brutally honest, both about his unsettling discoveries and his growing personal unease at what he is unearthing. My heart went out to him as I read, although Davidson himself is not out for compassion. His quest is to unearth the truth in all its ugliness. With the help of his sister, he digs tirelessly into the past, unravelling details about Bruno’s upbringing, plucking forgotten scraps from archives and placing it all in the geo-political context of the times. The picture he finally pieces together offers a difficult, and utterly credible, explanation both of his grandfather’s forceful personality and the choices he made.

I will let the book speak for itself in terms of Davidson’s ultimate findings. Suffice it to say, they are shocking. They also constitute the most cogent and compelling analysis of the forces at play in the build-up of the Nazi party and the outbreak of war that I have ever come across. For Davidson’s objective is not just to unearth the truth, but to make sense of it. And it seems to me that this is a deeply redeeming element both of the book and of any attempt to confront evil. For it is only by daring to understand our capacity for darkness, picking apart its origins and motives, that we can ever hope to win the fight to prevent its re-emergence.




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True or False?

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Someone in a bookshop put Sigrid Nunez's 'The Friend' into my hand. "You wrote that memoir about falling apart and getting your dog, didn't you," the person said, "so trust me, you will love this." I like trusting people, especially when it comes to unexpected book recommendations, and so I did as I was told.

It was because of that introduction that I assumed I was reading a memoir. And my goodness, what a stunning memoir too. The narrator has been felled by the suicide of a very close friend and writing mentor. In the aftermath she somehow finds herself having to take charge of the dead friend's dog; this is not just any old dog but a HUGE and very old one - a Great Dane, called Apollo. Quite apart from the inconvenience of the animal's size and the burden of commitment, the narrator lives in a New York appartment in which pets are forbidden, so there is also the strong possibility her charity towards the pet will lead to her being kicked out of her own home.

The tone of the narrator is deeply sad, but full of compelling insights as she tries to make sense of why her friend, a university lecturer, might have taken his own life. As a writer herself, she also infuses her meditations with wonderful quotes and observations from famous thinkers and other writers - all of them so fascinating and spot-on, that I kept having to pause to jot them all down, in the little notebook I reserve for such pearls. The dog, Apollo is also utterly compelling, not just for his beautiful vastness and the threat of eviction that his existence poses, but because he is, if anything, even more depressed than his new owner. He has lost the person he loved most in the world, and, with that beguiling innocence of animals, can make no secret of it. So there is no quick cheesy bonding between these two protagonists; no quick anything. Nunez is masterful as she takes us through all this, as dry and funny as she is moving; while every word resonates with truth...

It was only towards the end of the book, thanks to a scene in which the narrator 'speaks' to her dead friend telling him how she is going to play around with all the facts of his life, including the size of the dog(!), that it dawned on me I was actually reading a work of fiction. I could not have been more astonished, or more delighted to have been taken in. (Reading the blurb would have set me right much earlier, but I tend to avoid blurbs for fear of preconceptions and plot spoilers.) As a memoir this novel rang so true! Indeed, if my own 'real' memoir has made any reader feel an echo of what Nunez stirred in me, then I would be happy.

So please, trust me, as I trusted the stranger, when I tell you this is a wonderful book. It is beautifully written and contains exactly that punch of poignant reality one seeks from confessional writing. But it is also a work of fiction which cleverly and seamlessly addresses that most popular of reader-author questions: "Where do your ideas come from?" So. Did Sigrid Nunez once lose a friend to suicide? If so, was he an endearing philanderer as well as a prominent university lecturer? And did the man have a dog? Or has every detail of the novel been plucked from the rich seam of Sigrid Nunez's writerly imagination? I think it is good not know; good simply to let the story stand, as every story should, solid and rooted in its own merit.



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A Grumpy Hero

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There is a sneaky charm to Fredrik Backman's 'A Man Called Ove'. You begin by thinking, oh yeah, I know what you are doing here - you have created a grumpy old character called Ove who is supposedly going to win me round by turning out to have a heart of gold (or something) and I have no intention of playing ball. And then, gradually, word by word, line by line, page by page, you do indeed get won round.

Fredrik Backman is Swedish, but the setting for his story could be anywhere. Ove is an elderly man living on a new estate. We learn quickly that he has lived there nearly all his life and that the new estate has been built up round him, drawing him into its comings and goings against his will. Ove prides himself on being a man of routine, who lives alone; a man who does not like change, a man who despises everybody he comes across for not thinking the same way he does, or not being as good as he is at fixing things or keeping his life in order. If he does possess a heart of gold, it is very deeply hidden. Even when neighbours, like the delightful, heavily pregnant, Parvanah, her husband Patrick and their dotty little family, start calling on him for assistance, he accedes without good grace, never once being pleasant, but merely doing the minimum because they give him no choice.

Indeed, Ove's sole preoccupation in life - without any fanfare of self-pity or self-examination - is to kill himself. He approaches this task as he does all his daily domestic duties, pragmatically and methodically, growing increasingly angry as each attempt is somehow thwarted, due to inadvertent interruptions from the outside world. There is real darkness here, but Backman is such a clever writer that he manages to infuse great humour too, by allowing us to see the tragi-comedy of Ove's failed efforts as well as giving wonderful set-piece descriptions of the merry chaos of the hapless, much younger, lives going on around him. Gradually we start to see, long before Ove does, how much he is needed; that he may be miserable and alone but he has so much still to offer the world, particularly with regard to his practical skills and his fearlessness in standing up to bullies.

Interwoven with this contemporary story are accounts of Ove's life before suicide became his main ambition. Backman does not resort to easy answers here - Ove was clearly always a difficult character - almost certainly on the spectrum, I would suggest - but he clearly once had the most loving of wives and the closest of friends, even if falling out with them was a regular past-time. We start to realise that it is because these pillars of his life have gone (no spoilers), that Ove is as he is. He is, in fact, a man free-fall, driven not by grumpiness, but by despair. His neighbours, perceiving this too, re-double their efforts to pursue him for assistance and attention. This is their only way of saving him, and as readers and witnesses it is impossible not to cheer them on. Only Ove resists.

In many ways 'A Man Called Ove' reads like a fairy story. It has that deceptive simplicity in its tone, the one that subtly belies the gravity of its subject matter. We may laugh at Ove, and roll our eyes in frustration at his idiosyncrasies and obstinacy, but we can all relate to him too. I loved this book. It shines a light on the irreparable damage that loss can do to the human heart, showing how sometimes only the stubborn love of others can help us mend.





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A Grumpy Hero

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There is a sneaky charm to Fredrik Backman's 'A Man Called Ove'. You begin by thinking, oh yeah, I know what you are doing here - you have created a grumpy old character called Ove who is supposedly going to win me round by turning out to have a heart of gold (or something) and I have no intention of playing ball. And then, gradually, word by word, line by line, page by page, you do indeed get won round.

Fredrik Backman is Swedish, but the setting for his story could be anywhere. Ove is an elderly man living on a new estate. We learn quickly that he has lived there nearly all his life and that the new estate has been built up round him, drawing him into its comings and goings against his will. Ove prides himself on being a man of routine, who lives alone; a man who does not like change, a man who despises everybody he comes across for not thinking the same way he does, or not being as good as he is at fixing things or keeping his life in order. If he does possess a heart of gold, it is very deeply hidden. Even when neighbours, like the delightful, heavily pregnant, Parvanah, her husband Patrick and their dotty little family, start calling on him for assistance, he accedes without good grace, never once being pleasant, but merely doing the minimum because they give him no choice.

Indeed, Ove's sole preoccupation in life - without any fanfare of self-pity or self-examination - is to kill himself. He approaches this task as he does all his daily domestic duties, pragmatically and methodically, growing increasingly angry as each attempt is somehow thwarted, due to inadvertent interruptions from the outside world. There is real darkness here, but Backman is such a clever writer that he manages to infuse great humour too, by allowing us to see the tragi-comedy of Ove's failed efforts as well as giving wonderful set-piece descriptions of the merry chaos of the hapless, much younger, lives going on around him. Gradually we start to see, long before Ove does, how much he is needed; that he may be miserable and alone but he has so much still to offer the world, particularly with regard to his practical skills and his fearlessness in standing up to bullies.

Interwoven with this contemporary story are accounts of Ove's life before suicide became his main ambition. Backman does not resort to easy answers here - Ove was clearly always a difficult character - almost certainly on the spectrum, I would suggest - but he clearly once had the most loving of wives and the closest of friends, even if falling out with them was a regular past-time. We start to realise that it is because these pillars of his life have gone (no spoilers), that Ove is as he is. He is, in fact, a man free-fall, driven not by grumpiness, but by despair. His neighbours, perceiving this too, re-double their efforts to pursue him for assistance and attention. This is their only way of saving him, and as readers and witnesses it is impossible not to cheer them on. Only Ove resists.

In many ways 'A Man Called Ove' reads like a fairy story. It has that deceptive simplicity in its tone, the one that subtly belies the gravity of its subject matter. We may laugh at Ove, and roll our eyes in frustration at his idiosyncrasies and obstinacy, but we can all relate to him too. I loved this book. It shines a light on the irreparable damage that loss can do to the human heart, showing how sometimes only the stubborn love of others can help us mend.





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Breathtaking

Milkman by Anna Burns

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Someone told me that 'Milkman', the Man Booker winner by Anna Burns, was "difficult", so I thought I wouldn't bother, until curiosity got the better of me. And thank goodness it did, because 'Milkman' is an extraordinary book, like nothing else I have ever read. Written in a stream of consciousness style first person narrative it is 'difficult', but only in the sense that the reader has to concentrate. Very quickly however, the concentration becomes easy, because of the compelling nature of the story Anna Burns is trying to tell. I got swept along. I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end.

The novel is set during the height of the 'troubles', as they are known, in Northern Ireland, when entire districts were war zones, and nobody trusted anybody, and the wrong word said out loud could result in your death or the death of someone dear to you. Our narrator is an eighteen year old girl trapped in this gridlock, trying to hang on to her humanity and sense of self. She reads to escape the horrors of the reality around her, drawing dangerous attention and criticism for walking around with her nose in a book, and seeks release by going on long runs with one of her brothers-in-law. She also has a 'maybe' relationship with a boy whom she keeps from her family, and which is another refuge from the horrors in her world until one of the most dangerous men in the neighbourhood - the 'milkman' - starts targeting her with his attentions. Rumours that they are in a relationship begin to spread, endangering her as well as her family and as impossible to tackle as the prevailing atmosphere of jeopardy and fear that pervades every page of the novel.

The genius of 'Milkman' is that the actual plot is never narrated in any conventional sense, but instead emerges from the dense thought processes of this eighteen year old girl. Her mind leaps around in time, or dives into what is happening, or imagines what could yet occur, taking us with it. In this way we get to know her in all her endearing technicolour, a would-be woman, trying so hard to feel safe, to feel loved, to grow up. No one has actual names, but is simply referred to as 'middle sister', or 'maybe-boyfriend', or 'milkman', or 'Ma', or 'third brother-in-law', which might sound confusing, but which is in fact beautifully clear thanks to Burns' utter command of the narrative drive and the climax towards which it is heading.

When a person recently remarked to me that they thought the 'modern novel was dead', I told them to read 'Milkman'. This novel is utterly original; a breathtaking achievement, as gripping as any thriller, while at the same time a moving epic of the resilience of the human spirit in a war-torn world.



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Lost Innocence

Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I thought I knew Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited'. I thought that by choosing to re-read it I would be "revisiting" an old friend. An added inspiration was that I have had the good fortune to be working in an Oxford college this year, engaging with students on matters creative and being thoroughly invigorated by the experience. What apt surroundings, I thought - the ancient dreaming spires, the creamy light of early summer - in which to re-immerse myself in a novel famous for its stunning rendition of exactly such glories.

Instead, from the opening sentence, I felt as if I was entering the world of Waugh's masterpiece for the very first time, a masterpiece that tells a tale more subtle, moving, and profound than I had ever previously understood. I believe there are two reasons for this: firstly, like most people my age, my original memories of the novel have been somewhat overlaid by the BBC's splendid 1980s TV version with Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews in the leading roles. If I am honest, even on this reading, it was impossible entirely to erase these actors' images from my mind.

Secondly, and more significantly, forty years have passed since I first read ‘Brideshead’. Like the novel’s chief protagonist and narrator, Charles Ryder, at the beginning of the story, I am older, wiser, sadder. As a teenager, with limited experience of life, my take on the book was relatively straightforward and literal; I was smitten by things like the glamour of the Oxford and country house settings, the delicious quirkiness of Sebastian's relationship with Aloysius, his teddy bear, as well as all the shenanigans of two young men rebelling against their elders and generally having a good time. Yes, I had enough sense to recognise there were other big themes at play - the dangerous levels of drinking, the resistance against the constraints of Roman Catholicism, the sub-plots of thwarted love - but the poignancy of these subjects mostly passed me by. My residing impression instead, was of a great story, brilliantly told, bubbling over with artistic beauty and wit.

Four decades on and of course the beauty and wit are still there, in spades; but, with my older sadder eyes, the pain endured by the characters is much more in evidence too. Indeed, it dawned on me as I read that, through the fragmenting of the Catholic Flytes, the agonising descent of Sebastian into alcoholism and the slow souring of Charles Ryder’s relationship with a man and family he once adored, Waugh manages to lay bare nothing less than the failings and fragility of all human life. For the novel forces us to confront things we do not wish to see. Namely, that our flaws will find us out; that nothing about our upbringings can ever truly be ignored; and that our inner lives will be the making or breaking of us in the end.

As narrator Charles Ryder is both participant and observer. It is through him – his nostalgia and hindsight – that Waugh so skilfully makes us care about what happens. The Oxford student days of Charles and Sebastian remain a joy to read, the bonding between two young men in their prime; but the shadows that will destroy them both are there too, waiting to exert their stranglehold.

‘Brideshead Revisited’ tells a ripping yarn about a catholic clan who invite an outsider into their world. It also takes you to the heart of life’s transience. Beauty fades. Innocence must be lost. We all experience times of sublime joy, but the struggle to be our best selves never ends.




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Mildred Reigns Supreme

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The name Barbara Pym was one that I knew very well. I associated it, on no fair basis that I can summon to mind, with a type of tame 'women's literature' that I did not want to waste time on. Now however, thanks to several unconnected, simultaneous recommendations, I have put that right and romped through her marvellous novel 'Excellent Women', regretting all my preconceptions as I went.

Pym is such a sharp, comic and subtle writer, that even in a five star review it is hard to do justice to the exact nature of her genius. For on the face of it, the story of 'Excellent Women' could not be more 'tame'. Our protagonist and narrator, on-the-shelf-in-her-thirties daughter of a vicar, Mildred Lathbury, hardly seems likely to set the world on fire. Her best friend is also unmarried, and the world they inhabit revolves around church bazaars and whether a new brown hat is affordable and the potential embarrassment of buying toilet roll for the shared bathroom in Mildred's block of flats. The only injection of obvious drama into this drab scenario, is the arrival of new neighbours, the feisty and glamorous Napiers, who quickly start to draw Mildred and the reader into their comings and goings.

One of the many skills of Barbara Pym is that her examination of this seemingly unpromising scenario is both electrifying, hilarious and poignant. She uses the first person perspective of Mildred to tell the story, but through the ingenuity of the dialogue and the description of the reactions of the other characters, the reader gradually builds up an understanding of the great gap between Mildred's true inner life and how she is perceived by those with whom she engages. A spinster of meagre means she may be, highly principled and kind-hearted, but Mildred is also a woman of good looks and intellectual acuity to which she herself would be too modest to ever lay claim. How this is done is masterful, and if I could steal it off the page and inject it into my own writing I'd do it like a shot.

The effect of this clever approach is that 'Excellent Women' has two narratives which emerge in parallel: On the one hand, we follow Mildred as a down-trodden woman of a certain age, a hapless pawn and skivvy in the messy lives of more fortunate acquaintances, such as the exotic Napiers, the eligible Father Mallory, the beautiful widow Allegra Gray and the inscrutable Everard Bone. While on the other hand, we get to know the 'real' Mildred, growing to love her as we go, for her fortitude, her sense of humour, not to mention her wisdom in the face of the ghastly social straightjacket to which the mores of her time have consigned her. She could be a victim, but she isn't. Through sheer strength of character she rises above it all.

By the end of the novel, despite respecting Mildred's single status, the romantic in me couldn't help hoping she would find the love she deserved. There were not many contenders, it has to be said, and Mildred runs rings round them all. Without giving away the ending, I would only add that whether Pym leaves Mildred on the brink of fulfilment or of compromise remains open to question. Debates with my fellow Pym fans have settled nothing. Having a taste of the author's mastery now, I would say that is exactly what Barbara Pym intended.



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No Love of Smoking Required

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


One of the reasons I distrust the algorithmic nature of our virtual world - "You enjoyed that book, so maybe you will enjoy this one?" - is that, if we are not careful, our tastes are funnelled down ever narrowing pathways instead of being opened up to the expansion and experience of new flavours. That luxury of serendipitous encounters, the potential pleasure of being jolted out of our comfort zones is far more likely to flourish if we keep the door open to more random recommendations. So no, it was not a screen pop-up that drew my attention to Steven Sherrill's extraordinary debut novel, 'The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break', but a recent acquaintance - a real, live, human being, with discerning, but completely different tastes to mine. On top of which there was the pull of the title. I mean, THE MINOTAUR TAKES A CIGARETTE BREAK...? How could one not give it a go?

I had expected metaphor, but I could not have been more wrong. The Minotaur in Sherrill's book is the real deal - classical half-beast half-man, alive on the planet for some five thousand years, and spending his days fixing up cars and working as a line chef at Grub's Rib in North Carolina. The incongruity is delicious. Best of all, the Minotaur, while trying to take care of the needs of his curious body - oiling his horns, scrubbing at his thick fur - is also trying to be a good worker, to do no inadvertent damage with his muscle and bulk; in fact the main quest of this once mighty, fear-inducing beast, is to pass through the world without causing ripples, to keep his past exploits deeply buried and his animal instincts safely tethered.

If this sounds crazy, then I can assure you it doesn't read that way. Instead, Sherrill skilfully draws us into every physical detail of the Minotaur's daily life and its practical challenges, opening up our sympathies as this fallen demi-god struggles to manage delicate tasks, to do no harm with his formidable inbuilt weaponry, and above all, to be accepted. The Minotaur may have 'beastly' instincts - lust and the desire to do violence lurk, ever-present; but he strains every sinew to curb such impulses rather than release them. He knows his glory days are over. The world is 'civilised' and he longs only to fit in.

The irony of course, threaded through the narrative with mounting menace and poignancy, is that the human world is not civil. Apart from a few stand-out souls - the Minotaur's boss and a couple of co-workers - who treat him decently, taking him for what he is, deploying his talents and his willingness to work hard, the majority of folk have crueller, more twisted hearts. Sherrill works this tension beautifully as his story builds, intensifying the strain on the Minotaur until it seems that loss of his hard-fought control and the release of his inner brute depravity are inevitable.

Chief among the surprises of this novel is the way our sympathies are stoked for so unlikely a protagonist. Sherrill is masterful in this regard. The more the Minotaur's world threatens to implode, the more we want him to remain safe, to excel, to be allowed to be his best self. We also, increasingly, want him to find companionship and love - some consolation for the loneliness of five thousand years of being an immortal among mortals. There are in fact no shortage of women who desire the Minotaur. Men too. He embodies brawn on an epic scale, a sense of locked power which the animal in every human wants to unleash. But will that unleashing be his undoing?

The answer to such questions shimmers out of reach until the final pages. Barring one late minor plot contrivance, the wait is rewarded with the most uncompromising and satisfying of endings. So take a cigarette break with the Minotaur. No love of smoking required. You may be astonished at how much you enjoy it. -



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Nothing is Equal

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lisa Halliday's 'Asymmetry' is a book of two halves, since there are two distinct story-lines, one following on from the other without any evident narrative connection between the two. If that has put you off, then don't let it. This is a novel that is aptly named, since it is full of surprises which defy easy definitions - indeed I would say Halliday's main purpose is to challenge easy definitions, about everything. But that does not stop her story-telling keeping the reader glued to every page. On top of which there is humour everywhere - often in the most unlikely places - underlying the tenderness behind one of the truths she wants us to see; namely that "there is no such thing as a matching pair."

The first story is about Alice, a young New York editor, who slips into an affair with a world-famous, much older writer called Ezra Blazer. I have to confess that when I realised the way the tale was going my first thought was, uh-oh, with such a massive age difference (we are talking forty odd years), this is either going to be a deeply cringing relationship, or one utterly devoid of credibility. I could not have been more wrong. The deepening and unlikely bond between the old writer and the young girl totally worked, both as something of an at times hilarious physical experiment for both parties and as an exploration of a strengthening emotional connection that takes on a terrible poignancy once Blazer's greater age starts to catch up with him and real decrepitude sets in. Somehow Halliday manages to make even this funny too, deploying a tender humour that tightens our attachment to her protagonists. We see that while Alice may be a directionless young dreamer and Blazer a hardened, successful old man, life's pitfalls trip them up in equal measure.

The second narrative could not be more of a contrast. It is set in a detention room at Heathrow airport, throwing the reader into the middle of an interrogation of someone called Amar, an economist en route to Kurdistan. The immigration authorities are suspicious and want answers, even the most innocent of which prompts yet more questioning. For a while we do not know what to believe either; and this is the point. We are like the interrogator; on the face of it there is nothing to warrant this detention, but our distrust of what we do not know or understand is deeply rooted. When communications break down we are all complicit.

For the final section of the novel Halliday takes us back to Ezra Blazer, making an appearance on the famous UK Radio programme, Desert Island Discs, in which guests are asked to choose music and talk about the ups and downs of their lives. Ezra duly does so, reflecting on his legacy, his life, and his loves. There are no concrete conclusions, only Ezra's memories, hopes and speculations; he is just one more person, who happens to be a writer, trying to make sense of things.

Halliday's writing is original, compelling and full of bruising truths. 'Asymmetry' casts important light on the way our world is riddled with random power-plays, imbalances, prejudices and preconceptions, forcing us not only to see these trip-wires for what they are, but to recognise the great weight they place on the quest we each to face, to live decently and be our best selves.





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An Extraordinary Novel

Normal People by Sally Rooney

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I am aware, along with many others I know, that my ability to concentrate on reading wavers sometimes these days, not just because of fatigue (yes, I read late at night like most working people), but because of the way mounting online activities are training our brains to flit between subjects rather than staying focused for long periods of time. To be totally absorbed by a book therefore, from the very first word to the very last, is even more of a unique experience than it used to be; and so to Sally Rooney I say, Oh my word, and Thank you, and Please do not stop, ever, putting sentences onto pages/screens.

On the face of it 'Ordinary People' does not contain much action, at least not in the conventional sense of myriad plot twists. It tracks the relationship of just two characters, Connell and Marianne, small town Irish kids, who first encounter each other from the vantage point of very different friendship groups at their school. Marianne is the weirdo, the loner, while Connell is outgoing and popular, the focal point of a boisterous group of adolescent boys. When the two come together for their first conversation, it is because Marianne's mother is the cleaner employed by Connell's family. For this and all the other attendant reasons, it is as awkward an encounter between teenagers as one could imagine, but also riveting, both for them and for the reader. Some sense of connection shimmers, out of reach; and so the stage is set for a relationship that is as haphazard as it is powerful.

Only gradually during the unfolding story, in which every scene is compelling, every conversation utterly believable, do the formative experiences of these two young people surface. Indeed, the reader's knowledge of the inner lives of the protagonists develops exactly in pace with their understanding of each other, and this is why the novel is so engrossing. Getting to know a person and be known by them in return is a process full of complexities and pitfalls; relationships are such delicate constructs, things can veer off course in an instant, often for all the wrong reasons. Thus, following Connell and Marianne's sometimes heartrending and sometimes very funny journey of mutual exploration, it is impossible not to root for them because it feels like we are rooting for ourselves.

'Ordinary People' is at heart a love story and I am a romantic. But it is precisely Sally Rooney's refusal to slither into easy 'romanticism' of any kind that had me spellbound. Here is a tale of two evolving youngsters that tells it like it is, with an insight that not only entertains, but which makes every sentence resonate with truth. Fiction may be 'made-up stories', but at its best it holds a mirror up to who we are, and to the reasons why navigating this world can be so beautiful and so hard.



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