A Visit from the Goon Squad

Author: Jennifer Egan

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This wonderful but hard-to-categorise novel won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. After reading one of the most peculiar chapters I have come across in the last five years, I had tears streaming down my face… but where to begin?

This is certainly not a single linear story. Some reviewers have suggested it is much closer to a suite of related short stories. Each chapter forms its own beautifully crafted microcosm, but there is a bigger scheme in place. We initially meet two characters. One is an innovative music producer who is commendable for his musical insight and defiant attitude to the music “money men”, but who in his personal life has failed marriages and a self-centred “user” attitude to women (even teens) he meets. The other is Sasha, his executive assistant who has clearly come through great difficulties as a young person, and is now fighting kleptomania.

Rather than a story about two characters, this becomes a story about the larger context of history (and future). Egan does this by jumping ship rapidly and in all directions. We move back in time to look at the teen years of the producer… but from the point of view (in the first person) of one of his friends. Rather than explore Sasha's inner life directly, we are transported into the life of her angst ridden uncle who has reluctantly agreed to look for her in Europe after she runs away from home. In some ways this reminded me of a fractal structure... at one point we are learning about a particular charcter, but then get a paragraph about the future life in summary of an incidental character, and a line or two about the life in summary of one of his childern. The “Goon Squad” in the title is actually a reference to time, so at least one declared theme is the corrosive effects of time on personality, aspiration and relationships.

The final chapter is essentially near future science fiction (a bit like the most recent William Gibson works), so Egan has not restricted her story telling to the normal “then till now” framework. However the chapter that reduced me tears was the penultimate. It is written as the creation of a twelve year old daughter (part of Sasha’s future). She creates her journals using only Power Point slides and what looks like the “Smart Art” graphics from Microsoft. This has no right to work… but does (at least for me) spectacularly. It is a wonderful example of how to create a message from conscious manipulation of a limited medium, and a reminder that often many of the words in our story telling serve little useful purpose.

If you are sensitive about vulgar words in the mouths of teens (and some of the other characters are realistically vulgar as well) then you may think twice. I was not comfortable with the sexual relationship of the producer when he was at his sleaziest.. yet none of this is commended. This is a broad ranging look at humanity, and despite the title offers hope of healing, love and fulfilment. It is certainly a thrill to read highly effective experimentation with form and structure.

Recommended for adults, though I imagine older teens might find it interesting as well. Sexually explicit scenes and language mean it is unsuited for younger readers.

Andrew Lack

Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Snowman

Author: Jo Nesbo

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I can't remember why I bought this book... perhaps the cover patch that proclaimed "The Next Stieg Larsson". In the long run it is a book that will not disappoint those who want an over-the-top crime drama with lots of sex, but I found it wanting on a number of levels.

The detective Harry Hole (pronounced Heu-leh) appears in several of Nesbo's books. In this lengthy yarn Harry Hole is now considered a maverick by his superiors... someone who had gained considerable media attention when he successfully nailed a serial killer. Years have passed, and Hole now has a reputation for being an alcoholic and for an obsession with seeing serial killers where none exist.

Inevitably events start to point towards the existence of an intelligent, calculating serial killer who has been killing for years undetected. Nesbo creates a perfect flurry of misdirection... in fact a great deal of the book consists of deliberately setting up possible conclusions to the hunt (at least one is announced to the media) only to have Hole realise at the last moment that it cannot be the solution. The reader is fairly confident about this as well as a third of the book or more is still to be read. The misdirection uses several devices. One character is far more closely connected to the crimes than anyone realises, other parts of the story are told with deliberately missing information or context to encourage the reader to presume they are reading about a crime when in fact the events are harmless or unconnected. The story is told with several lurches into the past, and when this is combined with the difficulty I experienced keeping track of unfamiliar Nordic names, I found myself literally loosing the plot at times.

The characters do have their interesting moments. I thought some of the dialogue between Hole and his new assistant Katrine was intelligently handled, but this was rather spoiled by later developments affecting Katrine. I can't decide whether it was a bonus or a problem that several elements of the main plot and misdirection were based on psychiatric issues, in particular issues connected with rare diseases. The connection between a particular disease and the serial killer's modus operandi was actually intriguing, but is not revealed until the end of the book.

The sexual interaction of various characters is a strong secondary focus of the book. The sub-theme is set early as one character quotes a statistic that only 80% of children are actually fathered by the mother's married partner... so there are a number of secondary stories of unfaithfulness. I was relieved that the sexual variations encompassed were not especially shocking.... one of the reasons I have decided not to read the third of Larsson's books is the particularly vile sex crimes he describes in detail. Still, I had a sense that the author placed too much trust in sexual encounters and crime drama to hold his audience, when more attention to character and character growth might have allowed me to tolerate the heavy handed misdirections.

This is great read for someone who demands sex and sensation from a crime story... and the story is ultimately simply about the pursuit of a criminal by a detective. If you long for genuinely unexpected twists (as opposed to blatant cross trails) and for characters with a rich and intriguing life of their own, then other sources will need to be perused.

Andrew Lack

Room

Author: Emma Donoghue

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How can you write about the most horrific of situations without triggering instant reactions from your readers? I'm not saying our personal reactions of horror at the situation presented are not right and proper, I'm just saying for an author it means you cannot get your reader to focus on the part of the story you may want them to.

Emma Donoghue has made a really interesting decision... to tell the story of a terrible crime from the point of view of an innocent child. This is not a decision to magnify the terror by involving a child. In fact, the story is narrated by a five-year-old from start to finish... who at times is scared but who largely is not the one directly victimised, is remains relatively unclear about what is actually going on.

In the long run what makes this a fascinating book is that the child himself has been bought up entirely inside a single small room. His mother has done everything she can to create a loving environment, and despite her own terrible circumstance, surrounds him with games, exercise and learning (mostly from the television). Consequently the boy has come to believe the world consists only of the room, his mother, and the stranger who sometimes comes in at night. Things on TV he believes are not real, and the "Outside" is something like outer space.

So this is simultaneously a book about altered states, about seeing reality from an unusual perspective, and about a gripping story of escape. The author has avoided the temptation to make the youngster a superhero. He is a normal five year old with fears, vacillations and a limited capacity for understanding. His bravery extends only up to the moment when he imagines he will hurt a finger. I thought the scenes where his mother was trying to hide her adult understanding of their danger while persuading the boy to help in an escape were powerful indeed.

Just as the story is set up so the reader focuses on the people, not the crime, so the compass of the book is about much more than a crime or adventure story. Rather than a simple "happy ending" the book spends a good deal of time looking at the internal and external consequences of rescue. It is hard to explain more without giving away too much!

This is a delightful book about a dark subject, but the message is about healing and recovery, and the power of a parent's sacrificial love to create safety for a child. The book is populated by believable and fallible adults, and a very believable young boy caught up in a whirlpool of adult events. Even as I write this review, I am thinking about dipping back in to re-read sections, so appealing and vivid is the creation of the young narrator.

Oh, and the title? The boy does not know "beds" and "rooms" so he personifies each object in his tiny world... "Bed", "Rug", "Table" and "Wardrobe" and of course "Room".

Andrew Lack

Lessons in Letting Go

Author: Corinne Grant

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I borrowed this book as my very first digital loan from a library (but that is another story). I chose it only because I had heard Corinne interviewed and knew it was a personal account of coming to grips with a hoarding problem.

I was very engaged with this book. Some recent books I have read and reviewed are by American (Tinkers) or English authors, and this book is about someone who grew up in Corryong (120km east of Albury). There is something delightful about stories imbued with the light, customs and language that are part of your own life.

Corinne is not trying for an autobiography in the full sense. This is an account of her own growing realisation of a potentially disabling hoarding problem, her attempts to understand its source, and her journey out of the malaise. The result is certainly that she tells stories about her family, about growing up and university years, and certainly about her lover, her friends and special people she meets. The focus however remains on the issue that affected her, to the extent that she finishes the book with a list of twenty two "lessons in getting on" as hints and guides for others with similar problems. I actually thought this was the only part of the book I would do differently, perhaps having this available as a section on a web page. It made the book seem a tad less like a personal story and more like a self help book, though I can understand her motivation.

The book is certainly frank: she does not hesitate to present and analyse her own failings and foibles, and does not seek to blame anyone else for the situation she found herself in. There is a bit of bad language (though that can hardly be a surprise to anyone who has seen her on TV as a comedian). Still, unlike a book I read recently that seemed to scatter vulgarities for the sake of sales, this is an account of a real life, warts and all.

I was mindful of my own failings to get round to dealing with stacks of papers at work and home, and the complexity of the meanings we attribute to the "things" in our life. I would encourage others to read this simply as a delightful personal tale from an articulate young Australian.

Andrew Lack

Infidel

Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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“It was Friday, July 24, 1992…. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person…”

This moment occurs on page 188 of 350 pages, and forms the pivot around which this autobiography swings, and the reason why it even exists. Ayaan was born in Somalia to a princely clan. Despite this, her role was defined by Islam and tradition to always be an obedient servant and never to think or act as an independent agent. Worse, being born in Somalia meant that she was subjected to the horrific custom of genital mutilation in order to preserver her “purity”.

She survived this and a life made difficult by poverty, war and the absence of her political activist father. Her father reappeared declaring he had found her a husband, a wealthy Somali who lived in Canada but wanted a properly submissive wife from the homeland. She was sent a ticket, and the event that is her “birthday” was her decision en-route to Canada to flee her destiny and seek refugee status in Holland. She was accepted and discovered an astonishing world utterly different to the way the western world had been described to her by Islamic teachers in her schools. She was astounded to find a land where politicians and officials were not corrupt, where police need not be feared, where services worked and where individuals, while not all kind, often did choose to be welcoming and caring.

The account of her life to this point is dramatic, though perhaps told in a little too much detail. It is filled with stories of family struggles and customs, terrible fights and dangers, war and refugee camps. Her life in Holland perhaps should have been idyllic, but instead she choose to go to university, study Political Science, and eventually entered politics and won a seat in the Dutch Parliament! She spoke out boldly about the repression of women in Islamic cultures, and bought attention to practises such as genital mutilation and honour killing, things that Westerners could hardly believe existed.

This then created a situation where her own life was threatened and an associate with whom she made a compelling short film was actually murdered for his involvement.

This is a book that is deeply fascinating but I can’t see how it can be read without becoming deeply affected. Ayaan is not content to let her story speak for itself, though it speaks volumes. She reflects extensively on the repressive elements in Islam. It seems that in the long run she comes to a personal position where she abandons any religion, but declares that she is not hostile to Islam or Christianity. Rather she argues that immigrants and refugees should ultimately adopt the way of life and values of countries that they seek to live in.

One can read her story and embroiled in the astonishing events that befell her, almost fail to realise what her ultimate position came to be. She actually calls into question the tenants of multiculturalism and some aspects of cultural tolerance. She sees these ideas as being a position that will ultimately diminish the freedoms and functioning of civil society when what is tolerated is something that itself is not tolerant or peaceful. At this point, if the speaker was a wealthy but racially intolerant Westerner, I would probably simply stop bothering to  listen. It is harder to ignore her ideas given her deeply painful personal experiences.

A challenging and significant book in a complex area. Certainly for grown up readers, given the explicit details of genital mutilation and its consequences.

Andrew Lack

The Gargoyle

Author: Andrew Davidson

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Reading a good book can produce all sorts of wonderful sensations. Sometimes one becomes immersed and transported, at other times one can be elevated and excited. Then there are the books where at the point I close the last page, I just stare outward and wonder. The Gargoyle had that effect, and I’m still pondering this wonderful but challenging story.

The narrator is never named, and I am still wondering why. I didn’t even realise this until I started to write this review. As he describes his physical agony and despair following a horrific car accident, he also explains the formative events in his life, so the reader comes to know him very well, and perhaps without the name we walk even more closely with him. His story is not pretty, and therein lies the challenge for some readers. He has suffered a childhood involving neglect and enters adulthood an addicted drug addict who earns a living acting in, and later producing, porn movies.

All this changes inevitably with his self inflicted accident in which he is horribly burned. We are treated to detailed descriptions of the experience of being burned, and then confronting details about the long and painful treatment in hospital of burn victims. We meet his physio, psychologist and physician, each of whom tries to offer hope along with their therapies, and each of whom is rejected. He is determined to end his life as soon as he can arrange it. Then a woman walks into his ward. He waits for her gasp of horror at his appearance, but “she disappointed me by only smiling” and then says “You’ve been burned. Again”. And so he meets Marianne. The rest of the book explores the story of her decision to care for him on his release, narrates the story of her own obsession with gargoyles (she is a sculptor) and his own attempt to understand what seems like a serious mental instability in her.

And then there is her claim that she first met him in a Medieval monastery in the 13th Century. A little like Stories of 1001 Arabian Nights she tells him about their former history over a number of sessions. She also tells him several shorter tales about love and passion. Her story is enthralling and unlike many “parallel story” works I simply couldn’t decide which story I was more intrigued by.

As the book progresses we start to see that despite an enormous personal cost, she is working not only to liberate the gargoyles from their blocks of stone, but in a mystical way, is working to free the narrator from the things that have become his “block of stone”… his drug addiction, his inability to love or even care for any other human being, and his loathing of his burnt, disfigured body.

There are no final explanations offered. It is not a ghost story, though ghosts come into it a lot. In some ways it reminds me of The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, but The Gargoyle has a stunning intensity and a much larger intent. A good deal of the book cross references to Dante’s Inferno and does this on several levels. The narrator can be thought of has having suffered hell in a sense a medieval theologian would have understood, as the fire has attacked the very attributes of his body he had come to be proud of… and the burns result in ongoing torture and permanent separation from normal humanity. However we are not left pondering just this possible link, as we are immersed in both stories and history from Medieval times and meet Dante’s work in that context, and finally a critical point in the narrators story results in him experiencing the journey through Dante’s Hell with his own guide.

Like reading a Douglas Adams’ story, little details are introduced such as the coin necklace Marianne gives him. These details are left unexplained for chapters until suddenly their purpose appears with a sense of inevitability and completion.

Please don’t read this if the graphical details of the life of a pornographer and drug taker will destroy your enjoyment of the complex and increasingly redemptive tale. Don’t read this if gritty and intimate descriptions of medical procedures and physical pain will be too much. Do read this if you are prepared for something like a Pieter Bruegel painting, full of bizarre and confronting elements but with a strong moral theme.

Now back to pondering… I’m sure there are links and layers I have not even begun to comprehend or notice.

Andrew Lack

Cold Comfort Farm

Author: Stella Gibbons

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Cold Comfort Farm was featured recently on the ABC's Tuesday Book Club. I was intrigued and purchased an eBook copy from Amazon. It is an outrageous parody of a type of novel that draws on the vicissitude of English country life and class envy to create a type of depressing drama replete with rural accents and often with cliched characters. Gibbons assaults all this in writing which would easily fit in a Monty Python show... remarkable as the book was written in 1932, not 1969!

We meet a character who I initially did not warm to... Flora. Her parents have annoyingly passed away leaving her little income. She decides to write to each of her relatives and will then pick the one who she would most like to stay with, as she has no intention of working. She gets an intriguing reply from Judith of Cold Comfort Farm, and the rest of the book details her struggles to sort out the lives of the astounding individuals who live there. There is Amos, who insists on cleaning the porridge bowls with a thorn twig but whose passion is fire and brimstone preaching, Shey, who epitomises the hero of the "ripped bodice" type of trashy romance, Adam, who cares only for "the beasts" but is bewildered to find bits of them falling off all the time, and the manipulative great aunt Ada who will not let any of them leave the farm for fear of a relapse into madness, having "seen something nasty in the woodshed" as a child.

In the face of the rage and bizarre behaviour of the rest of the family, I quickly warmed up to Flora who at least has a comprehensible fault in being lazy and wanting to "fix" the lives of others. Gibbons enriches the story of Flora's good deeds with a remarkable scattering of dialect. I was busy looking up words I had never heard of... until I realised nobody else has either. Some of them (a snood used to cook porridge) are good words put to bizarre uses. Others (titty-wren, scranling) are complete inventions.

For readers unacquainted with this genre of English novel, or at least unfamiliar with the mannerisms that are being parodied, this might all seem rather bewildering. I didn't find it laugh-out-loud material when reading to myself, but I found I simply could not read sections out loud to my wife with a straight face. I particularly like the scene where the breakfast porridge heaves and burbles in sympathy with the coarse sexuality being expressed by Seth.

If you had ever wondered what part of the English sensibility could have produced "The ministry of funny walks" or "The Knights that say 'Ni'", then this book will at least provide a glimpse of an earlier and equally frolicsome writer.

Andrew Lack