Killing Commendatore

I have been a fan of Haruki Murakami’s books for more than a decade now, and I have read almost all of them. I was excited by the promise of this one, and indeed it seemed to contain all the things that make his writing so great, namely the blurring of realism and fantasy. Yet this was in fact a terrible book and I regret having wasted so much time reading it.

Killing Commendatore is the story of a painter whose wife suddenly leaves him. He drives around Japan for a while before settling on a mountain in the home of a famous painter who is now in an old folks’ home. The young painter, whose name we never learn, befriends a mysterious man who lives across the mountain, and finds a mysterious hole out back of his new house. In fact, as with most Murakami books, there is a whole lot of mystery. Even the somewhat normal things that happen are imbued with a certain mystery because the narrator views them that way.

Throughout the book, the narrator brings up the same ideas and events over and over, making you – as reader – wonder what they really mean. There is the whole outside his house, his odd neighbour, a girl he once slept with, a dream, a guy he saw in a café, and much more… All of these appear to be filled with magic and meaning because the narrator presented them that way.

I shan’t given any specific spoilers, but I will say this: nothing actually happens. Nothing is explained and no significance is given to any of the things that the narrator observes. This is a very long, winding book that goes nowhere. All the things that he makes you have interest in are in fact ignored by the end of the book. It seems to me that Murakami was just writing weird stuff and hoping that the book would come together by the end, but it didn’t.

If I was being kind, I might say it was a deliberate choice. In the book, the painter has a painting he doesn’t finish. The elder painter has one whose meaning is lost. Perhaps Murakami was echoing one or both of those in his own book that seems very much unfinished and lacking in conclusive meaning.

Or maybe it was just a rare terrible book by an otherwise talented author. I am more inclined towards this position as there are some genuinely terrible passages. The sex, for one thing, is poorly written (although Murakami was always hilariously bad at writing sex). But sometimes the grammar is just awful. I don’t mean that he is using a particular style that allows sentence fragments, but rather it is sometimes just plain wrong:

·         It seems as if, year after year, the world becomes a more difficult place to live. 

Don’t you mean “live in”? Or “a more difficult place in which to live”?

I suffered through this book because the story was at times quite engaging, but I feel tricked. It went nowhere and it was poorly written. I am sorely disappointed in one of my favourite living writers.

Adventures of a Young Naturalist, by Sir David Attenborough

David Attenborough has long been an important figure in my life. I have greatly admired him as a pioneering TV presenter who has created some of the best documentary programmes in history. He helped shape television and has been one of the most influential figures in the – sadly futile, it seems – resistance to our human war on nature. His recent work, such as Planet Earth I and II and Blue Planet, is astonishing. It seems that every show he makes brings something utterly new to a cynical audience that thinks it has seen everything.

I didn’t know that I could be any more impressed by David Attenborough, but then I found out that he is an incredible writer. Adventures of a Young Naturalist is a collection of three journals he kept whilst making very early programmes for the BBC. Two of them see him visit South America and one recounts his travels through Indonesia in search of the Komodo Dragon. All of them see him attempting to capture animals for London Zoo and at the same time film them in their natural habitat for the BBC.

I was expecting interesting, occasionally witty descriptions of animals and plants, but while they do indeed appear in this book, most of it is made up of wonderful observations about the landscape and culture of these places, and his often hilarious interactions with the local people. Attenborough was travelling in the era of the adventurer, long before the tourist trod across these lands and ruined them. His journeys were difficult, often fraught with hardship. Yet unlike writers such as Paul Theroux (whom I’ve read often these past few years), Attenborough takes every set back with good humour. Indeed, this book is often laugh-out-loud funny. It is very much an adventure tale, filled with dangerous people and wild locations.

It is also a sad reminder of what we have lost. Attenborough wrote these stories only sixty years ago, yet they may as well have come from another planet. The jungles have been cut down, the animals brought to extinction, and the cultures all blended into nothingness as Facebook and Instagram make everyone look and act and think more and more like each other. This book is a beautiful paean to all we’ve lost.

David Attenborough really is a stunningly good writer, and this book at times made me jealous for my inability to describe places and people the way he does (although of course I always assumed he could do better at describing animals). He is a national treasure, a world treasure, and this book is one of the best things I have read in many years. I highly recommend it.

The Quiet American

The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by Graham Greene. It was something I had long intended to read, and in Venice a few months ago I found the novel in a hostel. However, I was reading another book and didn’t finish in time to swap it. Later, travelling through Eastern Europe I was reading books by Paul Theroux, and he often makes reference to Greene, so my interested grew further. Last week, I saw the book was on Kindle and downloaded it. I was not disappointed.

The book is set in Vietnam during the final years of French colonialism. The events in the book could be described as allegorical, I suppose, although they are partially prophetic. They concern three main characters: Thomas Fowler, a British journalist; Alden Pyle, the “quiet American” who appears to be working for the US government, and perhaps the OSS; and Phuong, a Vietnamese woman whom both men love.

The book is told in the first person perspective by Fowler, who is a cynical old man – although I don’t recall his age ever being given. He is separated from his English wife and living with his Vietnamese girlfriend, but his wife won’t divorce him. When Pyle arrives, Fowler takes a strong dislike to him, and that dislike grows as Pyle announces he is in love with Phuong.

Pyle is pleasant, education, and naïve. He has read a great deal about Indo-China (mostly by an author called York Harding), but he has no real experience. Despite this, he assumes he knows what’s best for the region, and is engaged in attempting to find a “third force” to run Vietnam once they have kicked out the French. He represents the American attitude towards the post-colonial world: that between colonialism and communism there must be some third option. While this is logical, the ill-formed American causes death and pain, just like his country would do in the decades following this book.

The book is based upon Greene’s own experiences in Indo-China during that period, and apparently based upon a conversation with an American much like Pyle. The insights into colonial era governances and post-colonial American attitudes are fascinating, but I was particularly taken by his perspective on war. Fowler is against the war, yet trapped in it. There are countless poignant lines about death in the book, and some excellent, vivid scenes portraying the horrors of war. One that stuck with me was:

·         …we didn’t want to be reminded of how little we counted, how quickly, simply and anonymously death came.

He also describes the normality of life against the backdrop of war with beautiful little details:

·         … it seemed impossible to me that I could ever have a life again, away from the rue Gambetta and the rue Catinat, the flat taste of vermouth cassis, the homely click of dice, and the gunfire travelling like a clock-hand around the horizon.

Finally, although one gets the feeling that the characters exist more as allegorical constructs than anything else, at least Fowler’s feelings come across as real. When Phuong leaves him for Pyle, he says:

·         I began to plan the life I had still somehow to live and to remember the memories in order somehow to eliminate them. Happy memories are the worst, and I tried to remember the unhappy. I was practiced. I had lived all this before. I knew I could do what was necessary, but I was so much older – I felt I had little energy left to reconstruct.

I will look out more books by Graham Greene…

The Fight Belonged to Her

The Fight Belonged to Her is a Kindle-edition short story about a young woman who grows up feeling powerless because of the men in her life. From her grandfather voting on her behalf to her father, whose authority is unquestioned in the family home, she has little say in her own world. Even her mother, who once upon a time was young and hopeful, encourages her to pipe down and do what's she's told by the men around her.

Robin's life appears filled with bullying and abuse at the hands of the men around her. Hardly a paragraph goes by in this slim volume without our protagonist being victimized. She is sexually harassed at work, sexually abused elsewhere, and constantly reminded that, as a woman, she is more or less at the mercy of the men around her, even in the modern era where equality supposedly exists.

The book largely leads up to the election of Donald Trump, yet despite that awful moment in American history marking the end of the book, it sparks a hopeful tone, as Robin finds women who have the will-power to fight back. Thus, the book stands as a comment on gender inequality in our society, but also as a call-to-arms.

I enjoyed the book, which was very well-written, but I do prefer more subtly if I am entirely honest. I felt that this book virtually bludgeoned its reader with a message that essentially says: "all men are pigs". Yes, it carries an important message and yes, it is a short book which gets quickly to the point. However, no man is painted in a positive light, and indeed every word and every action seems very simply contrived to deliver the message: "it's a tough world, and it's men who make it that way." Life isn't so simple, and the best books deal with complexities rather than attempting to deliver such a plain message. 

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Looking at my last blog post, I see that it has been more than a year since I posted to this blog. For that, I am sorry. I've not stopped reading. No, on the contrary, I've been reading quite a lot. In fact, I posted some rather good - if I do say so myself - reviews to the Beatdom website. However, this blog sort of lost interest to me. I felt pressured to write reviews and I wasn't enjoying it very much. However, now I'm back in that frame of mind and ready to review once again. 

So here goes. 

A few weeks ago I was in Edinburgh and I found a book called Ikigai. It sounded interesting, and I could see from the reviews that it was highly regarded. The book professes to hold the secret to happiness and longevity, and though that it is a bold enough claim to assume impossible, I was quite attracted by the book's design and the fact that it was based upon Japanese philosophy. I've long been attracted to the Land of the Rising Sun. 

I didn't buy the book, but I did download it on Kindle later. The reason I didn't buy it there and then in the shop was because, although it did look beautiful and did sound interesting, whenever I opened it, the text was a bit... well... a bit wanky. That's a British way of saying it sounded like bullshit. 

Unfortunately, when I got into reading the book some days later, I found that my initial ideas about the book were correct. It was terrible. The book is a mix of the most awful pop science, some bullshit spiritualism, and advice that is so patently obvious that it is not worth saying unless you are teaching small children. It seems that half the sentences in the book start with "According to expert scientists..." and end with "... can improve your mind-body-chakra connection." 

Ok, I don't think that they ever actually said "chakra". This is, after all, based upon Japanese ideas. However, there is a liberal dose of hippie bollocks smeared through the pages. The text jumps from idea to idea like a badly organized meditation retreat, and backs up idiotic claims with things that no one could deny: eat healthily, get some exercise, avoid stress. In these, they of course hide elements of nonsense, adding that eating healthily should include superfoods and that exercise should definitely include yoga! (I have nothing against blueberries and yoga, but don't pretend these are some fucking magical elixir.)

The book definitely contains good advice, and I assume it's so popular because it targets the average idiot pretty well. I can think of a good hundred people I've met in my life who would read this and find it absolutely wonderful. But for me, it was genuinely difficult to finish, even though it's a very short book. It's like sitting through a kindergarten class as an adult. "No, I wasn't planning to eat that glue... and give me back my fucking scissors." 

If you have any self-respect, avoid Ikigai. I don't mean the concept (which, by the way, I forgot to mention means something like "finding your passion and sticking to it"). No, avoid this book. Go to Japan or read Murakami or something instead. This book will do nothing good for you. 

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World

How did a small group of islands off the western coast of Europe, of almost no interest or importance on the world scene, suddenly become the most powerful nation on earth, whose empire stretched so far that the sun never set on it? This is the premise of Niall Ferguson’s book, Empire: HowBritain Made the Modern World.

That Britain became incredibly powerful is common knowledge, but in this huge work, Ferguson’s aims to tell us just how that happened, because it seemed so very unlikely. Just a few hundred years ago, Britain had no power and was essentially a nation of pirates. Yet this piracy turned into a series of conquests that brought a full quarter of the world’s landmass and population under the Queen’s control. It is a fascinating story told in a fascinating book.

There has been a lot of criticism over the author’s apart right-leaning historical perspective. I honestly found the book fair and reasonable, despite my own strong left-leaning political views. Sure, empire is an ugly thing… and Ferguson does not deny that. He gets into the horrors of British imperialism as well as any leftist historian. However, he does argue that the British Empire was, in some ways, a force for good in the world – and he’s correct in that assessment. 

The Taste of Conquest

Michael Krondl's book, The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice does exactly what the name suggests - it tells the stories of three cities (Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam) and their roles in the spice trade.

He takes us on a tour of the world in the present time, meeting people and talking about spice. But interwoven with this narrative of his own journey is the vast history of spice trading between Asia and Europe. He looks at how the three cities got involved in spice trading and how it changed them and the world, before finally each of them fell from power.

The book is utterly engrossing, although by the third section is does tend to get a bit repetitive. Of course, the story of these three cities is intertwined but I felt the author could have avoided so much repetition. His description of flavors and smells, too, is great but at times a little over the top.

All in all, a fantastic cuisine-focused history text.

Kim, by Rudyard Kipling

I haven't been reviewing much here lately. Since getting back from holiday last month the main reading that I've done has been for my own next book. I've been reading Allen Ginsberg's letters and journals, as well as other related Beat Generation books. My own book will be about Ginsberg's travels, and one of his most famous journeys was to India. On his way there, he read Rudyard Kipling's classic, Kim. I decided to get myself a cheap Kindle version and give it a read.

Kim is the story of a young boy whose parents - Irish immigrants to India - died when he was young, leaving him to be raised on the streets of Lahore. He is a street-smart kid who is neither wholly Irish nor Indian, and can pass for either when he needs.

In the course of the novel, Kim searches for his identity while becoming the chela (helper) of a Tibetan monk on a long quest. Kim finds himself mixed up in the Great Game, which was the struggle for influence over Central Asia by Britain and Russia, while crossing India with his monk in search of a mystical river. Kim attends a British school whilst also maintaining his friendships with locals, and studying Buddhism under his monk.

Most interesting is that the book is a vivid portrayal of life in India during the nineteenth century. The vast and diverse land is explored in extraordinary detail along with its disparate cultures. 

Gulliver's Travels

On my recent journeys through Europe, I have been re-reading Gulliver's Travels, a classic from the 1700s. I found it on Amazon for free and added it to my Kindle.

Gulliver's Travels is presented as a memoir in four parts, with each part telling an odd journey taken by Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and captain of a series of ships. He keeps getting stranded or wrecked at sea and ending up on mysterious islands.

The book is a satire both of human nature and of the genre of adventure fiction that was so popular in that era. In the societies Gulliver finds, the people share many traits with humans and Gulliver mocks them by showing how absurd we can be.

I read this book long ago and of course has seen many adaptations but had forgotten how rude it could be. In several scenes Gulliver's toilet habits are depicted in detail, including urinating on a queen. Elsewhere, he is stripped and used almost as a sex toy by lusting giants.

The book is tremendously funny and insightful, and I regret reading it in this era where all the world is known, as it would be more fun to have read it hundreds of years ago when people genuinely didn't know if there were giants or flying islands.

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

I'm currently back in the U.K. for a short visit and whilst here I've been reading a few books and enjoying the summer sun. One of those books was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which I always thought I'd read. I suppose it's one of those books that's so famous one assumes one has read it...

As it turned out, I hadn't read it at all. I was riveted almost from the start and proceeded to read the book in less than a day - which is surprising, given that I'm a slow reader. I spent a beautiful summer's afternoon enjoying the story unfold from the mouth of the riverboat captain, Marlow, who goes in search of Mr. Kurtz, a trader who's venture into the heart of Africa has seen him ascend to the level of a god among the natives.

I really enjoyed this book and what it says about European colonialism as well as the human condition.

Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley

I'm back after previously suggesting I might give up this blog... Well, as it turns out, I shall use my new blog for new books, and this blog for when I read older books. 

I'm currently on holiday and recently I stocked up for my travels by visiting Amazon and downloading a number of new Kindle books. As well as some more recent publications, I also picked up the classics for either free or a nominal price. One of these was Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow. 

Chrome Yellow is a satirical novel set in a big English country house, following the convention of the country house novel. It features a range of characters - each of them a type of person - who come to the country house in question, called Crome. The book is made up of dozens of short chapters in which the protagonist, Denis, meets with each of the other characters. 

The book was based upon a real house and many of the characters were likewise based upon people Huxley knew there. Last year I read his biography but I cannot recall exactly who these people were. In any case, I recall them being rather pissed off at Huxley's portrayal of them. Indeed, these are not flattering portrayals. The book is very funny partly because it is so mocking of these wealthy types. It is clear Huxley is mocking himself, too.

Reviewing Elsewhere

Hey folks.

Just a note to let you know that I'll be posting my book reviews somewhere new. You can keep on sending me books but I won't be posting reviews here. I'll be posting them at this book review website.

Best,
David

The Lost Island of Columbus, by Keith A. Pickering

Keith A. Pickering's book, The Lost Island of Columbus, is the story of how he solved the mystery of where Christopher Columbus first made landfall on October 12th, 1492. Given the importance of this date in world history, one would think the answer to the question would be easy, but evidently it took a hell of a lot of work to figure it out.

Pickering uses a wide range of scientific methods to uncover the truth, and in doing so he thoroughly covers the history of the Landfall Debate, which has gone on for well over a century. His arguments for Guanahaní as the site of Columbus' first encounter with the New World are highly convincing.

Unfortunately, although his work is impressive, the book is not hugely readable. It is certainly hard to argue with Pickering, but one can easily get lost in the tidal wave of figures thrown at one. At times there are so many references to maps and tables that appear later in the book that it really is hard to enjoy. Then again, his aim with this book seems to be to put any other landfall theory to the death, and so he is eager to use all the available information to put his own theory beyond doubt.

Also a bit off-putting is the extent to which the author seems determined to assert himself as the champion of a centuries-long game, and his competitors as pathetic losers. While Pickering's investigation is impressive, his attitude his hardly humble. 

Fargo Rock City, by Chuck Klosterman

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota is not what I was expecting it to be. I thought this was going to be more of a memoir, as the title misleadingly suggests. Certainly, each chapter title takes us year by year through the life of a young metalhead from the sticks, but beyond that there's not much memoir there. Sometimes we get a story from his own life, but more often this book is a series of essays on metal.

There are essays on music videos, essays on sexism, essays on why Appetite for Destruction is the best album of all time, and more. At times it all gets a bit tedious, even for a metal fan like myself. However, the author is hilarious and peppers every chapter/essay with numerous witty observations and brilliant one liners. I laughed so much while reading this book that even the less interesting parts were thoroughly enjoyable. 

My Secret History, by Paul Theroux

I found a paperback copy of this book recently and, after having read The Mosquito Coast a few years ago and greatly enjoyed it, I decided to delve into this mammoth work.

At first, I thought it was an autobiography of sorts. From what little I knew about Theroux's work, it all seemed to match up. However, right at the start of My Secret History he takes pains to state that although certain similarities might seem to exist, it's purely a work of fiction. As an author of work of fiction that most readers assumed was autobiographical, I know his pain and will thus take him at his word that this is all made up.

Yet it is deliberately autobiographical-seeming. The novel tells the life of Andre Parent - a writer, would you believe - as he goes through various stages of his life, from boyhood to manhood. Like an autobiography, it is not neat and convenient, with all ends tied up. It is messy and real. Everything about it is entirely believable.

The book is broken into six chapters over the protagonist's life. They jump about a lot in terms of place as Parent moves from America to Africa to England to India, bouncing back and forth in pursuit of something. It is usually women he is after. From an early age, he has an irrepressible appetite for sex. At times he seems morally virtuous like some sort of hero, and elsewhere he utterly reprehensible. He is at times an unreliable narrator, but always an enjoyable one. 

New Reviews Coming Soon

I haven't posted in reviews here in a while because since returning from holiday in Sri Lanka back in January, I've been busy with work. Most of the books I've read have been directly related to work instead of pleasure, and so I haven't reviewed them here. However, as I get more free time I have been reading a bit more and will post some reviews soon.

One Sip at a Time, by Keith Van Sickle

One Sip at a Time is the story of an American couple falling in love with France. It tells the story of their ups and downs as they live on and off in this unique and beautiful part of the world, and attempt - with the usual hiccups, of course - to learn the language.

It is told with a gentle humor, poking fun at the French as well as the American expats themselves. On every page, there is humor of the sort one is accustomed to from reading Bill Bryson or Stephen Clarke.

My criticism, however, would be that the book is told in a large number of vignettes in a chronological order, with some of them just being too short or seemingly just thrown into the mix. I would have preferred a more cohesive narrative, as the author's humor and the story of this couple trying to fit in is really engaging.

Islands in the Stream, by Ernest Hemingway

Islands in the Stream is classic Hemingway - you have your stoic male protagonist, your disarmingly simple prose, your adventure... and even some Nazi-hunting to boot.

The novel is divided into three parts, tackling three periods in the protagonist's life. It is jarring in how it throws tragedy suddenly into the mix, but that's a pretty good representation of life. Thomas Hudson seems very similar to Hemingway, and is probably heavily based upon him, with a bit of his friends thrown into the mix.

This is short, readable novel - probably Hemingway's best posthumously published work. Only in a few places does it feel less than complete. 

Sarah, by J.T. Leroy

This short novel is written in such an engaging, witty prose that it is a pleasure to read, in spite of its horrific subject matter.



Sarah follows a young boy  through several years of prostitution and substance abuse as he waits to hear from his mother, Sarah - an abusive, drug-addicted prostitute.

The boy, calling himself Sarah, flees their pimp, but soon finds himself working for another, posing as an angel-faced little girl for paedophile clients.

Obviously, the story is harrowing, but it is nonetheless gripping. J.T. Leroy writes with an unbelievable talent for viewing the world through the eyes of child, and is astute at capturing the language and landscape of the American South. 

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson

Seveneves begins on what will become Day Zero, or 0.0, as the Earth's moon is destroyed by an "Agent," which we don't learn much about. The moon breaks into pieces and popular scientist, Doc Dubois, (clearly based upon Neil Degrasse Tyson) predicts these parts will fall to Earth in an event two years later, known as "Hard Rain."

Thus, the premise of the first third of the novel is humanity's preparation for its own demise. We're told the Earth will be uninhabitable for ten thousand years, so man takes to space on an expanded version of the ISIS, called Izzy. Then we're taken through the early days of human life in space after seven billion people have been killed by the "Hard Rain." Various catastrophes occur, bringing the human population down to just seven women. Suddenly, for the final third of the book, we're catapulted five thousand years ahead to explore the future, as humans have proliferated once again, only broken into seven races based upon the traits of those surviving women - the titular seven eves. These races are tasked with terraforming Earth as it once again becomes habitable.

The book is densely descriptive and the initial concept is fascinating. It is clear that the author has a solid grasp of physics in space, as the ideas are plausible. Yet this detail can get extremely tedious and overwhelming. Still, most of the book is enjoyable. The final third, however, seems totally unnecessary. Through all the changes in the first two thirds, we have several consistent characters to follow, yet these are all lost as we move into this last section, and it is hard to care about anything that happens without a familiar character.