Theresa Smith's Blog, page 70

Book Review: Gaijin by Sarah Z. Sleeper

Gaijin…
About the Book:

Lucy is a budding journalist at Northwestern University and she’s obsessed with an exotic new student, Owen Ota, who becomes her lover and her sensei. When he disappears without explanation, she’s devastated and sets out to find him.

On her three-month quest across Japan, she finds only snippets of the elegant culture Owen had described. Instead she faces anti-U.S. protests, menacing street thugs and sexist treatment, and she winds up at the base of Mt. Fuji, in the terrifying Suicide Forest. Will she ever find Owen? Will she be driven back to the U.S.? Gaijin is a coming-of-age story about a woman who solves a heartbreaking mystery that alters the trajectory of her life.

My Thoughts:

The prologue of this novel opens with a promising lure which is backed up by the first few chapters. The writing is crisp and fast paced and the initial setting up of the story grabbed my interest. Unfortunately, this wasn’t sustained and a small portion of the blame can be attributed to the blurb not matching the story, to the point of leaving me wondering what book I was actually reading.

I’ll address the location first, where the blurb states that the character embarks on a three-month quest across Japan. In actuality, she moves to Okinawa, which is a Japanese prefecture comprising more than 150 islands in the East China Sea between Taiwan and Japan’s mainland. This distinction matters because Okinawa is not just another part of Japan and the cultural experience is vastly different. Indeed, upon her arrival in Okinawa, tensions are at boiling point between local Okinawans and the Americans who live there on the military bases. A teenager from Tokyo has accused an American serviceman of rape and this has in turn activated protests about the ongoing American military presence on the island. Lucy, the main character, as a journalist working at an Okinawa newspaper (not trekking about Japan as inferred, nor is she a budding journalist straight from university, but rather she was a graduate who had been working as a journalist in Chicago) becomes privy to the case. Lucy’s experiences in Okinawa from the outset are not positive, and she is constantly reminded by those around her that Okinawa offers the most un-Japanese Japanese experience. We, as readers, are then given reason after reason to find this place abhorrent. The anti-Japanese sentiment that seeps through these parts of the story is uncomfortable and almost gave me cause to abandon the novel. As the story continues, it swings from being anti-Japanese to anti-American without ever settling on a stance. In a novel set in a place that is seething with racial discord, I felt like it never really revealed its position, which is to its detriment as there was a lot of potential for digging into these relations and the history of the island, which in all honesty, would have done much to raise my interest levels in the story.

The blurb also states that Lucy’s Japanese ‘lover’ Owen disappears, and this provides the motivation for her relocation to Okinawa. Far from her lover, Owen is a young man Lucy developed an obsessive crush on, with the exchange of an awkward kiss, a Japanese tea ceremony, and a penned Haiku all that actually lay between them. Hardly the basis for an international move. Frankly, I thought it a rather baseless springboard for a plot. The more we learn about Owen, via Lucy insensitively ingratiating herself with his brother, the more bizarre Lucy’s obsession is revealed to be. Her realising that for herself later on offered no real redemption for the plot and the ‘twist’ about Owen fell flat. A plot driven by love is never my favourite, but it’s a whole lot more credible than a plot driven by a made-up one-sided relationship.

But wait, there’s more. Moving on from the misrepresentations in the blurb, it’s in these next two points that my real issues with the book lie. I wasn’t aware that the US had a present-day military presence in Okinawa, but they do and there is a myriad of problems that come from it. In particular, the high rate of sexual assaults perpetrated by American servicemen against local women. Take a quick read of this:

‘She went on to say that eighteen percent of Okinawa’s land was in use by military bases, cordoned off by fences, where U.S. soldiers lived and worked. Anyone associated with U.S. forces can go in and out of the gates freely.

“Okinawans must stay outside the gates. If you look at it this way, you can see that all of Okinawa has essentially been handed to the U.S. military.”

“Handed to them?” I wanted clarification.

She took her time in responding. “Okinawa is an open target for those with evil intent. We are off the radar of many Japanese, who prefer to forget about us. We are off the world radar because we are so small and powerless.”

To my surprise, Hisashi spoke up. “She’s right, Lucy. Okinawa is exploited and ignored.”’

With an issue such as this, which is based on facts (you don’t have to dig deep into the research to uncover a lot on this topic), there was so much potential for this novel to be a real platform for raising awareness and valid discussion, yet this section quoted is at the 88% mark of the book. Everything to do with this issue is mentioned and glossed over in favour of concentrating on Lucy’s, quite frankly, very boring and delayed coming of age. The rape allegation at the beginning of the novel and the ramifications extending through to the court case just seemed to take a sidebar. Instead of being a political and social narrative, the novel seemed determined to drive itself into a very different and much less substantial pigeon hole. Clearly, the author had some interest in this issue as it provides the seeds of the story. I just can’t understand why those seeds weren’t given the chance to fully flourish.

And now we are at my final point of contention, although this last one is honestly the real reason behind my low rating. So, Lucy finds out that Owen, her imaginary lover, after leaving Chicago and returning to Tokyo, took himself to a place called ‘Suicide Forest’, an actual place located on the north-western flank of Japan’s Mount Fuji, and attempted suicide.

‘The rumour, he said, is that the forest is infected with sorrow down to the tree roots and the dirt. Some say the forest itself has taken on the pain of the people left there to die and that it holds their misery captive somehow, so a depressed person finds it easier to kill himself there.’

Similar to her obsession with Owen, she becomes obsessed with visiting the place, so much so, she pushes his brother to take her there. I will freely admit that this is a case of my own personal life experiences shadowing my opinions of a book, but the insensitivity of a person being pressed into a journey to the place where their sibling attempted suicide, like some pilgrimage, is so abhorrent, it beggars belief that anyone would even think of such thing, much less work it into the plot of a book. This entire section of the novel, where they actually hike into Suicide Forest, only to make a grisly discovery within, was nothing more than gratuitous macabre sensationalism. That this place exists is utterly tragic; it should not be used as a backdrop for entertainment.

I am so disappointed in this book which had the potential to be so much, yet delivered so little.

Thanks is extended to Running Wild Press for providing me with a copy of Gaijin for review.

About the Author:

Sarah Z. Sleeper is an ex-journalist with an MFA in creative writing. Gaijin is her first novel. Her short story, “A Few Innocuous Lines,” won an award from Writer’s Digest. Her non-fiction essay, “On Getting Vivian,” was published in The Shanghai Literary Review. Her poetry was published in A Year in Ink, San Diego Poetry Annual and Painters & Poets, and exhibited at the Bellarmine Museum. In the recent past she was an editor at New Rivers Press, and editor-in-chief of the literary journal Mason’s Road. She completed her MFA at Fairfield University in 2012. Prior to that she had a twenty-five-year career as a business writer and technology reporter and won three journalism awards and a fellowship at the National Press Foundation. For more information, please visit https://sarahzsleeper.com and follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahZSleeper

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Gaijin

Published by Running Wild Press

Released 6th August 2020

Book Review: One Split Second by Caroline Bond

One Split Second…
About the Book:

The final goodbye is the hardest…

When a car carrying five teenagers home from a party crashes into a brick wall, the consequences are devastating – not just for the young people directly involved, but also for their families, their friends and the wider community.

No one escapes unscathed, but some are more deeply scarred than others and one of the group will not survive. In their grief and confusion, those left behind question who was to blame for the accident, and what price they will pay.

A haunting and emotionally affecting novel of love and loyalty, grief and forgiveness.

My Thoughts:

One Split Second is the kind of novel that pulls you in and offers an opportunity to view a tragedy from multiple perspectives. It’s not an easy novel to read, and as a parent of three teenagers, two of which are in the age range of the characters within this book, it was at times quite harrowing. And yet, I was utterly captivated by the story, the characters, and the range of issues and emotions that were examined throughout.

Ultimately, this is a novel about the consequences of dangerous driving: driving drunk, speeding, driving with distraction. Where it differs to other novels I’ve read that deal with this, is in the way it unfolds. The accident is at the beginning, and it’s everything that comes after that forms the story, and the widespread effects on the survivors and their families are all looked at in turn. Grief is examined, guilt, anger, restorative justice; this is on the personal level. Then there is the actual investigation and the way in which this impacts all involved.

One thing that really stood out for me in terms of getting my thoughts churning was related directly to the age that these children were. They were all eighteen years old, so on the one hand, they’re the children of their parents, but in actuality, they are adults in society. It was so difficult for the parents of the adults/children involved in the accident, and I felt such a kinship with each of them. They were compelled to step in and protect their children, but there were many things they didn’t know, resulting in this growing awareness that their children were no longer children but adults with separate lives, secrets even, and some of these secrets were things they really didn’t want their parents to know. They also had wishes of their own, and feelings of responsibility that needed to be dealt with and acknowledged, rather than ‘fixed’ by their parents.

Then there was another aspect, where the one person who died in the accident was thereafter considered a teenager, tragically killed too young, right on the cusp of beginning university and her adult life. And yet, the person who was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident and facing charges was a fully grown man, who should have known better, and was old enough to face his consequences. But both of these young adults were the same age, eighteen, and both on the cusp of beginning university, their adult lives, with so much ahead of them. I found the distinction interesting, her victim status lowering her perceived age, his perpetrator status inflating his, like a scale that was weighted differently without any of us ever being conscious of making it so. This was just one of many threads that had me thinking long and hard whilst reading this novel.

This is a novel that doesn’t hold back, it’s honest, graphic at times, so be prepared for some harrowing scenes that may affect you quite a bit, particularly if you’re a parent of teenagers. But it’s so good, and the structure, the way in which so many perspectives were offered, was just brilliant for this type of story. There is real meaning and depth of feeling within this novel, it’s very much a journey through the stages of loss, grief, retribution, and reconciliation. It’s not all grim, and it ends with an uplifting promise.

Thanks is extended to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a copy of One Split Second for review.

About the Author:

Caroline Bond was born in Scarborough and studied English at Oxford University before working as a market researcher for 25 years. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University, and lives in Leeds with her husband and three children.

@Bond2Caroline

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One Split Second

Published by Atlantic – Corvus

Released 2nd July 2020

A Month of Reading: July

#BookBingo2020: 1

#2020ReadNonFic: 1 – I’ve finished this challenge but still found myself adding this title to my spreadsheet. I think I’ll unofficially keep counting my non-fiction titles just for interest.

#aww2020: 2

#TheClassicsEight: 0

The Isolation Lucky Dip Reading List: 1

My TV watching, specifically Reign, has seriously cut into my reading time this month. Conquering Wolf Hall probably took a fair chunk as well. Better luck next month!

Total books read for July: 9

#6degrees of separation: from How to Do Nothing to Gulliver’s Wife

It’s the first Saturday of the month so that means it’s #6degrees of separation time! This month’s starting book is How to Do Nothing – Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.

You can find the details and rules of the #6degrees meme at booksaremyfavouriteandbest, but in a nutshell, on the first Saturday of every month, everyone has the same starting book and from there, you connect in a variety of ways to other books. Some of the connections made are so impressive, it’s a lot of fun to follow.

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This month’s book is one that I would never read. I don’t read a whole lot of non-fiction anyway, but is this a self-help style book? It sounds a bit like it from the title and blurb. The cover is pretty though, so I’m going to create a chain based on books with floral dominated covers such as this one.

First degree: Paris Savages by Katherine Johnson

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Second degree: In the Garden of Fugitives by Ceridwen Dovey

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Third degree: Her Last Words by Kim Kelly

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Fourth degree: Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

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Fifth degree: The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

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Sixth degree: Gulliver’s Wife by Lauren Chater

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All the beautiful floral covers! Pretty basic chain, I know. I didn’t read the starting book but I have read all of the links in my chain – that should count for something, I hope!

Until next month!

The Week That Was…

Joke of the week:

I have two this week, a literary one and a parenting one!

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It just feels like a week where we all need an extra joke to chuckle at!

~~~

A much talked about topic within our household is Zeus’s weight. He’s our 7 year old husky who got very fat at one stage. He is the definition of a food addict. For the last year, he’s been on a carefully portioned diet, we also have to supervise meal times because he eats superfast and Diva, our german shepherd, eats superslow, she also has three times the amount of food as him. When we weren’t supervising the eating, he was wolfing down his and then muscling her away from her bowl to also eat hers. He became a fatty boombah and she got very skinny. So, supervised meals, small portions, daily exercise, and he’s slowly slimming down but he’s getting there. Huskies have a very different metabolism, quick to gain weight, slow to lose it. Despite his trim figure and increased energy levels, he’s still obsessed with food. This pic is classic him: Adrian is eating a left over chicken parmi and if you check the door, you’ll see Zeus, sitting to attention, as though he’s willing a piece of parmi to come his way. Keep dreaming big boy!

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Book of the week:

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It has to be this, for no other reason than I finally conquered it – and also enjoyed it!

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What I’ve been watching:

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Still going! Last season…

Mary’s stepped it up a notch and I’m enjoying it quite a bit.

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What I’m reading right now:

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Until next week…

Book Review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall…
About the Book:

Winner of the Man Booker Prize

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award

England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey’s clerk, and later his successor.

Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.

From one of our finest living writers, Wolf Hall is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage.

My Thoughts:

I was daunted by this novel from the outset and this never really receded even whilst reading; it’s taken me three weeks to get through it, in fits and bursts, so that in itself is indicative of my experience. It’s not only on the long side of long, but it’s dense with history, politics, details upon details about people who all seemed to be only ever called one of six names. I’m certain that I’d have had no idea what was going on at all if I weren’t familiar with Tudor, and even Plantagenet, English history. And yet, I never once considered abandoning it. What is it about this novel, that was all at once both compelling and daunting in equal measure? The further into it I got, the more it gripped me, even though I was still manically checking and double checking the table of contents just in case I was mistaken that there were still eighty pages of tiny print left in the chapter! This novel is a beast, of both burden and glory, and even after reaching the end – at last! – I was compelled to pick up Bring Up the Bodies immediately, so that I could keep reading about these historical figures whose fate I am already familiar with. I guess this is why Hilary Mantel has won the Man Booker twice now, with a third listing just announced for The Mirror and the Light. Before we go on though, I resisted starting the next one; I need a break from this level of absorbed reading, but it is on hand for when I’m ready to tackle the next instalment.

‘You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.’

My feelings about Cromwell prior to reading Wolf Hall were not positive. I had him pegged as a parasitic, greedy, power hungry, manipulator. Mantel’s Cromwell is much more dimensional than that. He is clever, cunning and brutal, a survivor who has raised himself up in ways that not many could have. His talents are many, his foresight and ability to make himself indispensable second to none. What caught me by surprise was his loyalty and decency, traits that I expected him to be devoid of. Particularly with regards to his family and household, and indeed, it was during his interactions with these people whom he lived and worked closest with that the novel was at its finest. There was humour, warmth, affection, and respect shown throughout Cromwell’s household that was progressive for the times. Mantel has certainly given us all a complex man to become invested in. A villain that has had his villainy reshaped and presented in a much more appealing, and human, way. He would have to be, wouldn’t he, to sustain reader investment over three very long books.

‘What he senses is a great net is spreading about him, a web of favours done and favours received. Those who want access to the king expect to pay for it, and no one has better access than he. And at the same time, the word is out: help Cromwell and he will help you. Be loyal, be diligent, be intelligent on his behalf; you will come into a reward. Those who commit their service to him will be promoted and protected. He is a good friend and master; this is said of him everywhere.’

Mantel has created an entire world within this novel, one that is atmospheric in the most finite of detail. There is both big history and small history woven through the narrative. Less a story about King Henry VIII and more a story about England during his reign. The separation from Catholicism and the Vatican, the quest to assert dominance over its own wealth, the volatility of Scotland and Ireland; and yes, the whims of a king determined to fight fate by making his own rules. It’s all very gripping and compelling, written with a style that is engaging and intelligent, as well as clearly informed. You’ll probably get no better, or more entertaining, history lesson on this era than from the pages of this novel, and the following two, no doubt. The challenge this novel posed was worth overcoming in the end. It may be some time before I’ve finished the trilogy entirely, but it will happen. I’d like to see where Mantel takes us, despite knowing the end point in advance.

About the Author:

Hilary Mantel is the author of fourteen books, including A Place Of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, the memoir Giving Up The Ghost, and the short-story collection The Assassination Of Margaret Thatcher. Her two most recent novels, Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up The Bodies, have both been awarded the Man Booker Prize – an unprecedented achievement.

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Wolf Hall

Published by 4th Estate – GB

Book 2 of The Isolation Lucky Dip Reading List

Book Review: The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

The Pull of the Stars…
About the Book:

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

My Thoughts:

I never thought I’d read a novel about an historical pandemic whilst living within a contemporary one. But, never say never, and if you’re inclined to shy away from this one because it’s just all too much at present, I don’t blame you, but you will be missing out. This is a magnificent novel in its own right, but reading it now, whilst our world is in the grips of pandemic, was an offering of context like no other. The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more people than WWI, an estimated three to six percent of the human race (Author note). The Pull of the Stars is set in Dublin, at the beginnings of the pandemic. It unfolds over three days within the maternity fever ward of a Dublin hospital and is narrated by a nursing midwife who has been put in charge of the ward and is expected to run it solo, after all, resources and people are stretched thin; a pandemic is raging. However, when you combine the later stages of pregnancy with a deadly flu, managing a ward of three patients is not as easy as it may seem.

‘Always on their feet, these Dublin mothers, scrimping and dishing up for their misters and chisellers, living off the scraps left on plates and gallons of weak black tea. The slums in which they somehow contrived to live were as pertinent as pulse or respiration rate, it seemed to me, but only medical observations were permitted on a chart. So instead of poverty I wrote malnourishment or debility. As code for too many pregnancies I might put anaemia, heart strain, bad back, brittle bones, varicose veins, low spirits, incontinence, fistula, torn cervix, or uterine prolapse. There was a saying I’d heard from several patients that struck a chill into my bones: She doesn’t love him unless she gives him twelve. In other countries, I’d heard women might take discreet measures, but in Ireland such things were not only illegal but unmentionable.’

This a novel about nursing, midwifery, the dangers of childbearing, a deadly influenza pandemic, WWI, the state of Ireland in the early twentieth century – both politically and socially, and, above all, humanity and our will to survive even the darkest of times. As is the way with Emma Donoghue, the devil is in the detail. So much is explored within this novel, and as detailed in the author note, all is based on historical fact. It’s not a cheery read, and at times it’s confronting and devastating, but it’s just so beautifully written, a sorrowful symphony of truth and history that is incredibly insightful and so very relevant today; possibly even more so than the author intended, given that she could not have foreseen that this novel would be released in the midst of a global pandemic of the likes she had written about.

‘All these autopsies being industriously performed all over the world, and just about the sum of what we know about this wretched influenza is that it takes about two days to incubate.

Aren’t we any closer to a vaccine, then?

She shook her head and her loose braid leapt. Until one of us manages to spot the bacterium itself on a slide… If one doesn’t know the enemy, how can one beat him? All rather humbling, she added bitterly. Here we are in the golden age of medicine– making such great strides against malaria, anthrax, rabies, diphtheria, tetanus– and a common-or-garden grip is beating us hollow.’

~~~

‘We could always blame the stars.

I beg your pardon, Doctor?

That’s what influenza means: influenza delle stelle–the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved the sky must be governing their fates, that they were quite literally star-crossed.

I pictured that: the heavenly bodies trying to fly us like upside-down kites. Or perhaps just yanking on us for their obscure amusement.’

No historical novel about Ireland can ignore the political state of the day, and this is woven quite meticulously into the narrative. Doctor Lynn was an interesting character, a protestant member of Sinn Féin (Sinn Féin is a democratic socialist and left-wing party, not a Catholic one, despite misconceptions that have been fuelled over time), and she is based on an incredible real woman of the same name. I enjoyed the conversations she had with Julia (the main character) and the way in which Julia then began to unpick her notions about ‘the rebels’ and who they were and what they were trying to achieve. This relationship offers so much insight into the dangers of assumption, particularly when it is based on an outside, media driven, government propagandist view. As Doctor Lynn expressed more of her views as they got to know each other, Julia couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that she shared them.

‘Tears prickled behind my eyes. I said, I just don’t understand how a physician could have turned to the gun. Nearly five hundred people died.

She didn’t sound offended. Here’s the thing, my dear: they die anyway, from poverty rather than bullets. The way this poor island’s misgoverned, it’s mass murder by degrees. If we stand by, none of us will have clean hands.

My head was spinning. I said, faltering: I really have no time for politics.

Oh, but everything’s politics.’

Throughout the novel, health notices from the day are reproduced, ones that were distributed by the government with instructions on how to stay safe from the deadly flu. I’ve included these two for you as an example (pictured) – the first one has some echoes of familiarity, apart from the kissing through handkerchiefs and sprinkling sulphur in your shoes! – but others were quite outlandish, ranging from eating an onion a day to carrying crushed garlic in your pockets. As a health professional, Julia was somewhat scathing towards them, resenting the misinformation and feeling that they were in many ways contributing to the spread of the virus by ignoring the impact of poverty on hygiene and distancing and focusing instead on making individuals responsible without offering them a means of being able to take the reins of that responsibility.

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‘On the landing, yesterday’s poster hooked my attention: Would they be dead if they’d stayed in bed? I had an impulse to rip it down, but that probably constituted conduct unbecoming to a nurse, as well as treason. Yes, they’d be bloody dead, I ranted inside my head. Dead in their beds or at their kitchen tables eating their onion a day. Dead on the tram, falling down in the street, whenever the bone man happened to catch up with them. Blame the germs, the Germans, the Lord God Almighty, the unburied corpses, the dust of war, the random circulation of wind and weather. Blame the stars. Just don’t blame the dead, because none of them had wished this on themselves.’

I haven’t even come near to covering everything this novel offers, but hopefully I’ve given you enough to want to find out all the rest for yourself. It really is a brilliant read, one that will stay with me for a long time.

Thanks is extended to Pan Macmillan for providing me with a copy of The Pull of the Stars for review.

About the Author:

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge, England, before moving to Canada’s London, Ontario. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (The Wonder, Slammerkin, Life Mask, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Akin, Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes; her screen adaptation, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, was nominated for four Academy Awards.

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The Pull of the Stars

Published by Pan Macmillan

Released 28th July 2020

Sunday Splendour – Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser

Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser…

About the Book:

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a cultural phenomenon. First published in 1865, it has never been out of print and has been translated into 170 languages. But why does it have such enduring and universal appeal for both adults and children?

This book explores the global impact of Alice in Wonderland across art, design and performance from the nineteenth century to today. It shows how Alice has been re-imagined and reinterpreted by each new generation: from the original illustrations by John Tenniel to artwork by Peter Blake and Salvador Dali, and from the 1951 Disney movie to Tim Burton’s latest interpretation.

This beautiful, playful publication also includes specially commissioned interactive illustrations by award-winning artist Kristjana S. Williams, as well as quotes from an array of cultural creators from Stephen Fry to Tim Walker, Ralph Steadman to Little Simz about the profound influence of Alice on their work.

My Thoughts:

This stunning book, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, is an utter delight for dedicated adult Alice in Wonderland fans. This publication has been produced to accompany the exhibition, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, running from 27th June 2020 to 10th January 2021. In a Covid ravaged world, this beautiful book provides a satisfying substitute to seeing the exhibition itself. The book opens with a reproduced collection of the most sublime illustrations by Icelandic artist, Kristjana S. Williams, telling the key parts of Alice in Wonderland through interactive art. These were just stunning and I can only imagine how incredible they would look enlarged and on display.

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Kristjana S. Williams, from The Pool of Tears sequence of Wonderland.

‘A parable for the modern age, Alice offers an escape from reality and the opportunity for imagination. With potential for spectacle, silliness, satire and social commentary, the books’ powers have been harnessed by writers, directors and producers for stage and screen to both entertain and inform wide cross-sections of society. Alice’s playful binary of ordinary and extraordinary presents limitless opportunities for adaptation, with many translations harnessing the latest technology for the greatest creative impact. From being influenced by performance to inspiring performance itself, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ continues to evolve, embracing, utilising and reflecting performance genres, fashion, technology and culture, while inspiring the next generation of interpreters and Alice’s alike.’

While there have been so many outstanding visionary interpretations of Alice in Wonderland, artistically, I couldn’t go past Salvador Dali’s Mad Tea Party (pictured here). Dali was commissioned by an editor at Random House to illustrate a new edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1969. This is one edition I would absolutely love to get a copy of. It’s unlikely I have enough money though!

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Picture details: Salvador Dali, Mad Tea Party, heliogravure on paper, 1969.

‘Dali’s vibrant response shows how the themes, ideas and metaphors in the text are the perfect vehicle for experimentation…

Dali’s Alice is always present but often difficult to find. His tiny ‘shadow’ Alice, depicted in black ink, appears on every page and undergoes a subtle transformation as she moves through the episodes, growing in self-confidence and maturity.’

If you are a little Alice obsessed, as I am, then it’s worth investing in this book. It’s not a children’s book, but rather, it is a book to be appreciated by adults who love literature, art, theatre and film. There is so much to read and look at within. If you are the type of person who might have attended this exhibition at the V&A given the right circumstances, then this book is for you. It would also make a very special gift to any Alice in Wonderland fans in your life. To be honest, it’s the book about Alice in Wonderland that I’ve been waiting all my adult life for.

‘No story in English literature has intrigued me more than Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland… Carroll was revolutionary in the field of literature. He violated the serious Victorian tradition by writing Alice in a vein of fantasy and nonsense. In fact, he was a pace-setter for the motion picture cartoon and the comic strip of today… (Walt Disney, film producer)

Thanks is extended to Bloomsbury for providing me with a copy of Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser for review.

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Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser

Published by Bloomsbury – V&A Publications

Released 2nd July 2020

The Week That Was…

Something that has me jumping for joy this week is finding out that Melbourne Writers Festival is digital for 2020, meaning that at long last, I can go! And there are quite a few sessions I’ve marked to attend, it’s looking quite fabulous in terms of variety and topics of interest. The program is now available, you can find it here.

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Joke of the week:

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I have refrained from Covid jokes, but I couldn’t resist this one. If only he were real and life was a forty-five minute episode of an American drama…

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Book of the week:

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This one isn’t out until September so it will be a wait until my review is posted but heads up, it’s going to be a one!

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What I’ve been watching:

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I’m now into season three of this series and bear in mind, the seasons are twenty-two episodes each. Honestly, it’s nothing more than a soap opera for historical fiction tragics (that would me) but I CAN’T STOP WATCHING IT! I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I am in it until the end, which is, as we all know from history, probably the point at which Mary loses her head. Despite knowing the ending, here I am, still watching every minute of it. That’s television for you!

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Feel good photo of the week:

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I’ve fallen a little bit in love with this latest Royal wedding but the part I love the most is the bride wearing ‘vintage granny’. Can you imagine that wardrobe? Here they are, both wearing the dress, one when it was new and the other now that it’s vintage.

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What I’m reading right now:

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I’m actually undecided at present but all of these books have arrived in the mail this week. The pile on the left are from publishers, the pile on the right are my own purchases. I’m wavering between Ordinary Matters and Vinegar Girl. I’m feeling in need of some Anne Tyler at present.

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Until next week…

Book Review: The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes

The Wild Laughter…
About the Book:

It’s 2008, and the Celtic Tiger has left devastation in its wake. For Hart and Cormac life continues as normal – at least at first. But when their father falls ill, the boys face a devastating choice. Their family, and their community, are in crisis, and there’s nothing more dangerous than two men with nothing to lose.

This bold, razor-sharp take on the consequences of one life-changing decision fizzes with the voice of rural Ireland. By turns outrageous, hilarious and dark, this is an unmissable snapshot of a family, and a nation, that finds itself suddenly unmoored. The Wild Laughter cements Caoilinn Hughes’s position as one of Ireland’s most audacious and talented young writers.

My Thoughts:

All the perks and perils of being a part of a family are unearthed within this darkly humorous and heartbreakingly poignant novel, played out against a back drop of a rural Ireland held fast within the grips of a massive recession. Hart might have been blessed with the looks in his family but he’s always lived in the shadow of his older brother Cormac – bigger, tougher, and cunningly smarter. For Cormac, college and beyond; for Hart, unemployment disguised as helping out on the farm, a life he neither asked for nor desires. But Cormac is a bully and a thug, and it suits him to be the big man out and about while his younger brother takes care of the home front.

‘Beneath the surface of my brother’s glassy expression was a smirk like a large trout that might surface fleetingly for a hatch of mayflies. Even if it didn’t, you could tell it was there all along: a dark, slithering scorn, full of small bones that somebody, someday, would swallow.’

Hard hit by the recession and swindled in a property development wrought, the family is barely holding it together financially when Chief (the father of the story) is cut down with what is presumed to be cancer – he doesn’t go for tests or treatments, partly because he can’t afford it (the money or the time away from the farm) and partly because there is little point: he’s dying anyway, why pay someone to tell him and prolong it. Here we see the true measure of Hart versus Cormac; Cormac stays away, turning up just enough to bask under his mother’s beam of adoration but not enough to actually contribute. Hart is there for everything; the work his father can’t do, the cleaning up his mother won’t do, and to witness the death of not just his father’s body, but his dignity. Over and over we see the many ways in which this man was brought low by an illness he was never going to survive. Hart’s love for his father was a beautiful but painful thing to regard.

‘The measure of love I had for him was not unlike the riz biscuits, in the awkward uncontainable way that made it wise to push the batch of it aside and start over for fear of being poisoned by too much swelling.’

I kept thinking that there was more to Nora, their mother, than what we were initially let in on. Depths that she perhaps was keeping contained, a painful past that had her stitched up. But in the end, I realised she was nothing more than who she was: a woman who would comfortably throw one son under the bus for the other if it meant for assurances of her own comfort and protection. If Hart was his father’s son then Cormac was his mother’s and this was evident over and above everything else. Nora’s strangeness wasn’t a front for hidden depths, she was just a strange woman full stop. Just as Cormac was a tosser through and through.

‘Right from the outset, from his first interview he’d been building his case … and it wasn’t against the People. Maybe he took it for granted I’d do the same: set myself against him. How far back had he contrived my incrimination?’

Perhaps this withholding of motherly affection and lack of normal mother-son interactions could account for the way in which Hart related to women. He seemed to always be straddling a violent line. It wasn’t explored too deeply, but the hint of it was enough to ground Hart as a character, take him down a peg or two lest we all become too enamoured with him. Likewise, the whole dog thing; the author was again reinforcing the flawed part of Hart’s character, giving us a reason to be repelled by him. And yet, in a way that only the best authors can achieve, these flaws only make you care for Hart more deeply by the end: the betrayed brother, the son cast out; the one to take the fall and bear the burden of his father’s choice because he was the only one pure enough, good enough, to do so.

‘Father Shaughnessy agreed that honesty was my biggest strength and my weakness. Too much honesty is incompatible with this world. It is water poured onto droughted soil. It can only spill off. The earth is too rigid in its poverty to absorb what wealth is given.’

For me, reading this novel was akin to watching waves breaking on the shore, the momentum building as you wade deeper, knowing that you will be in for a drenching but the shock of that final wave, once it at last hits, still managing to leave you shredded to pieces, despite all the warning signs guiding you to the finish.

Thanks is extended to Bloomsbury for providing me with a copy of The Wild Laughter for review.

About the Author:

Caoilinn Hughes is the author of Orchid & the Wasp (Oneworld 2018), which won the Collyer Bristow Prize, was shortlisted for the Hearst Big Book Awards and the Butler Literary Award, and longlisted for the Authors’Club Best First Novel Award and the International DUBLIN Literary Award 2020. For her short fiction, she won The Moth International Short Story Prize 2018 and an O. Henry Prize in 2019. Her poetry collection, Gathering Evidence (Carcanet 2014), won the Shine/ Strong Award. Her work has appeared in Granta, POETRY, Tin House, Best British Poetry, BBC Radio 3 and elsewhere. She has a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and she was recently Visiting Writer at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

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The Wild Laughter

Published by Oneworld Publications

Released 23rd July 2020