Coming back for more... Thoughts on three novels, each by an author to whom I was returning for a second taste. All are fast becoming favourites.
According to Mark – Penelope Lively
Eighteen months ago, I read Penelope Lively's masterful Moon Tiger, which I adored. Wanting more, I turned to this earlier book, in which married literary biographer Mark Lamming is researching writer Gilbert Strong, and soon becomes infatuated with Strong's granddaughter. Some of the most interesting aspects of According to Mark are its pre-echoes of Moon Tiger. A central chapter adopts a distinctive feature of that book's structure, retelling one vignette from separate viewpoints. The theme of historical perspective is also key, contemplating how one can consider from a distance the multiple stages of one person's life simultaneously. Mark reflects how "Strong he knew over a lifetime and all of him at once".
In Moon Tiger, this is developed even further, as the imperious Claudia Hampton writes a "history of the world as selected by Claudia". Mark struggles with his biography's subject, knowing information is missing ("lies and silences") and his perspective cannot always fit. The title provides a big clue. Penelope Lively's art is in framing all of these complex ideas within a modern, funny love story, the characters vividly etched. Perhaps According to Mark does not match Moon Tiger's perfect balance, its sensual world and elegiac romance. But it is another enjoyable, insightful novel from a completely undervalued author.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union – Michael Chabon
I next decided to revisit Michael Chabon, having read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay some time ago. This later novel inhabits the world of Chandler and Hammett, complete with spiky dialogue and epigrams. Hard-drinking detective Meyer Landsman attempts to solve a pleasingly complex murder plot, taking in his family's past, Jewish lore and chess. Chabon's wild spin is to place the story in an alternative reality, in which the setting is the Jewish homeland, but that homeland is Sitka, Alaska. The realization of this reality is mostly convincing, sometimes contrived; the wondrous writing is riveting.
What Chabon brings to the genre is a sympathetic and complete human story. The characters struggle as much against their past sorrows as against the present criminal underworld of Alaska. The series of conversations between Landsman and his boss/ex-wife Bina are electric and absorbing. Both bantering and mournful, the relationship forms the book's core. Meanwhile, familiar from Kavalier & Clay is Chabon's irresistible technique of separating key lines of dialogue with profound, aching prose. "Sweet God, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" asks Bina. Not until after a rumination on divine intention, chromosomes and faith do we get Landsman's reply: "Only every time I see your face." The writing may be pared down, hard-boiled, but the novel is rich.
Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
A companion novel to Mr Norris Changes Trains, Goodbye to Berlin is also based on Isherwood's real-life experiences in Berlin during the early 1930s. As before, the city backdrop is remarkable and vibrant, from underground clubs to squalid tenements. Hidden within this backdrop, deathly poverty, neighbourly suspicion and the rise of Nazism all hum, as Isherwood presents a sequence of indelible character sketches. As the hum grows louder, so the fractured world of Christopher's circle of misfits seems set to dangerously unravel. That we know what happens next makes this possibly the darkest light read that I have ever come across.
It seems light because Isherwood's smart style is infectious and a joy to read. The portraits are funny and the relationships warm. Squabbles abound in his cramped accommodation, which he shares with his wittering landlady, a prostitute and a barman, among others. The most wonderful character of all is struggling actress Sally Bowles (on whom Cabaret is based), gleaming with make-up but vulnerably waifish. She uses gentleman friends for money and necks a never-ending series of Prairie Oysters (a concoction of raw egg and Worcester sauce – "They're about all I can afford"). Smiling on top of her sadness, Sally is flippant and careless. Painfully, we know that Berlin's smile back is fading.
According to Mark – Penelope Lively
Eighteen months ago, I read Penelope Lively's masterful Moon Tiger, which I adored. Wanting more, I turned to this earlier book, in which married literary biographer Mark Lamming is researching writer Gilbert Strong, and soon becomes infatuated with Strong's granddaughter. Some of the most interesting aspects of According to Mark are its pre-echoes of Moon Tiger. A central chapter adopts a distinctive feature of that book's structure, retelling one vignette from separate viewpoints. The theme of historical perspective is also key, contemplating how one can consider from a distance the multiple stages of one person's life simultaneously. Mark reflects how "Strong he knew over a lifetime and all of him at once". In Moon Tiger, this is developed even further, as the imperious Claudia Hampton writes a "history of the world as selected by Claudia". Mark struggles with his biography's subject, knowing information is missing ("lies and silences") and his perspective cannot always fit. The title provides a big clue. Penelope Lively's art is in framing all of these complex ideas within a modern, funny love story, the characters vividly etched. Perhaps According to Mark does not match Moon Tiger's perfect balance, its sensual world and elegiac romance. But it is another enjoyable, insightful novel from a completely undervalued author.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union – Michael Chabon
What Chabon brings to the genre is a sympathetic and complete human story. The characters struggle as much against their past sorrows as against the present criminal underworld of Alaska. The series of conversations between Landsman and his boss/ex-wife Bina are electric and absorbing. Both bantering and mournful, the relationship forms the book's core. Meanwhile, familiar from Kavalier & Clay is Chabon's irresistible technique of separating key lines of dialogue with profound, aching prose. "Sweet God, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" asks Bina. Not until after a rumination on divine intention, chromosomes and faith do we get Landsman's reply: "Only every time I see your face." The writing may be pared down, hard-boiled, but the novel is rich.
Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
It seems light because Isherwood's smart style is infectious and a joy to read. The portraits are funny and the relationships warm. Squabbles abound in his cramped accommodation, which he shares with his wittering landlady, a prostitute and a barman, among others. The most wonderful character of all is struggling actress Sally Bowles (on whom Cabaret is based), gleaming with make-up but vulnerably waifish. She uses gentleman friends for money and necks a never-ending series of Prairie Oysters (a concoction of raw egg and Worcester sauce – "They're about all I can afford"). Smiling on top of her sadness, Sally is flippant and careless. Painfully, we know that Berlin's smile back is fading.
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