Fictionalised Biography or Biographical Fiction?

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash

As most of you know by now, I love and adore historical fiction. It's my preferred genre, although I will have a go at most things if it's well-written, has an interesting premise or I'm in the mood. However my go-to, when I need a guaranteed read, a read I can simply fall into with comfort and ease, it will always be historical fiction.

In and around this are books that might be classified as alternate histories (think 1984 or Stephen King's 11/22/63) where the author plays with what might have happened if just one event changed. We can also have books that are historical now by default. I guess you might call them period piece fiction as they are now historical to us, but they were once contemporary (think Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott). The historical time and setting of these novels now plays an important part in understanding what's happening to our beloved characters.

Historical fiction, for me then, pretty much covers everything else. That is, an author sets their book in a period of time before their own and populates it with fictional characters (think Thomas Keneally, Geraldine Brooks, James A. Michener). To refine this even further, you could include authors who write about the immediate past. A time they may have lived through themselves or perhaps their grandparents lived through, providing a personal perspective to the historical context (think Tolstoy, Zola, Harper Lee).

Included within this group, is the fictionalised biography.

Or is that, biographical fiction?

Whichever way you look it, it's where an author takes real events and real people and makes up stuff about what they said and did to make a story. I love this sub-genre. When done well, it can provide insights into a time and place or a much-loved person that would be impossible to know otherwise, due to the sparsity of primary sources (think Hilary Mantel, Robert Graves, Philippa Gregory).

One of the things I love about this particular genre is it's ability to view history through a different lens. A lot of authors are exploring history through a feminist lens or an Indigenous lens (think The Secret River or Alias Grace). Given that the historical record favours the winners who also usually happen to be men, being reminded that other people were involved and impacted is a good thing.

Historical facts are not static; they have always been open to manipulation. Revisionism and re-interpretation is a natural human process. We all adjust our personal stories as new evidence comes to light and as experience and maturity enhance our ability to see beyond our own biases and prejudices.

The history of the world is no different. The stories around the facts, change with time. New information, fresh perspectives and the advantage of hindsight can all have an impact. It opens the doors to exciting possibilities and original ideas.

Which brings me to the massive disappointment I feel, when this story telling process fails to work it's magic over me.

It may be that the weird times under which we now live, are adversely affecting my reading habits. I do seem to be leaning more towards narrative non-fiction lately. But let me tell you about two of the disappointments.

Firstly, Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell.

Shortlisted for this years Women's Prize and claiming to tell the story of Shakespeare young son who died at age 11 in 1596, this is a lifelong fascination for O'Farrell come to fruition. It sounded so promising.

I loved the first chapter that shows us a young Hamnet playing with his twin sister Judith who suddenly falls ill. She puts herself to bed and Hamnet goes searching for a family member to help, but everyone is out. This is unusual. Hamnet's search becomes more desperate and tense when he suspects that Judith may have caught the Plague.

But then we switch to back story. The wild, untamed daughter attracts the attention of the dissatisfied tutor to her brothers. Yuck! Her witchy habits means she is an outsider and considered dangerous to know. He knows he shouldn't, but he does, anyway. Blah, blah, blah.

I picked it up and put it down three times, hoping it was just my bad mood or tiredness. But no. This is just trite and awful. Not even the stuff about the Plague was enough to keep me interested (if only a few more world leaders had been like Queen Elizabeth I though "The playhouses are all shut, by order of the Queen, and no one is allowed to gather in public.")

My next fictionalised biography disappointment was a bit closer to home.

I've been looking forward to the new Kate Grenville for some time now. It's an embargoed title until the 2nd July, but some pre-publicity stuff tells me that the premise of this story about Elizabeth Macarthur hinges on the sudden discovery of some "shockingly frank secret memoirs." 

Uh-oh!

I many give A Room made of Leaves closer attention in July, just to make sure, but the blurbs unnecessary use of the words 'notorious', 'miraculously' and 'playful' have turned me off, as has this particular paragraph.

Marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her heart, the search for power in a society that gave women none- this Elizabeth Macarthur manages her complicated life with spirit and passion, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir lets us hear-at last!-what one of those seemingly demure women from history might really have thought.

Yuck!

That has to be one of the worst written blurbs ever. It's made the story sound like some kind of bodice-ripping, pot-boiler.

I am now feeling rather nervous about starting the final book in Hilary Mantel's (so far) magnificent trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, The Mirror and the Light. The reports coming in from customers and other bloggers are encouraging, so all I have to do I is make the time to reread the first two!

A copy of Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is also lurking on my TBR pile. I love the idea of an alternate history story line with a feminist lens, but what if the writing is dull and awful? I've never read any Sittenfeld before, so I don't know what to expect.

Despite the above, I do in fact, love this genre. Remember how much I enjoyed In Love With George Eliot by Kathy O'Shaughnessy earlier this year. And my most recent Zola (surely the master of fictionalised history), and my current chapter-a-day read of War and Peace plus a whole stack of other classic and period piece books devoured this year alone (ranging from Katherine Mansfield to Angela Thirkell to Mena Calthorpe and just this week Martin Boyd).

I'm certainly not done with fictionalised biographies, but I am a little more wary of late. As always, I'm happy to consider your favourites, in this genre, for future reference.

Letting Go

Photo by Gena Okami on Unsplash

Sometimes a book or an author is just not meant to be.

We all make decisions about which books to read. When we browse through a book shop or a library, we make choices based on all sorts of personal reasons about whether we even pick up a book or not in the first place. Is it a book or an author we've heard of before or had recommended to us by a friend? Does the cover attract us? Even the section of the book shop or library that we gravitate towards dictates which books might find their way into our hands.

We pick up books, get a feel for them in our hands. We check out the quotes on the cover and read the back cover blurb. That is often enough to return a book to the shelf.

A few lucky books make it to the let's-read-the-first-page stage.

Not that many go any further though.

After 50 plus years of this reading life, I make all sorts of quick judgements and choices based on that first page. If the writing style isn't flowing for me, back on the shelf it goes. If the content isn't my cup of tea after all, back it goes.

Obviously, my mood on the day of browsing plays a huge roll in this process, which is why I highly recommend multiple browsing days! A book that doesn't appeal one week when I'm tired and grumpy, might be just the right thing a month later after I've had a restful weekend.

Then there are the books that after the first page, I'm still not completely sure about. I know from experience that some of my favourite books take a little while to get going. So a few more books, get the first chapter chance.

Working in an independent bookshop means that I can also give a wide variety of books the lunch time treatment, whereby a book has a whole half hour to hook me, or not, as I eat my sushi.

This is a little post about those books that got this far, but no further.

No matter how hard I try, Catch-22 is a book I simply cannot finish. I can usually get to about half way, laughing out loud and enjoying the odd-ball humour and irony, but then suddenly, I hit the wall and I've had enough.

Last night I tried to read The Year Without Summer by Guinevere Glasford. Given the awful summer we've had in NSW, I thought I would really connect to another year that was without summer thanks to the largest modern volcanic eruption. I gave it two whole chapters since she was writing a book from several perspectives, but I couldn't get going with it at all.

Isabel Allende and I do not go together. I've tried several times, mostly because her books fall under the historical fiction umbrella, my favourite genre. Most recently, I tried to start A Long Petal of the Sea, but I just couldn't. Her writing style keeps me at a distance and in this particular case, I could see the research showing in every single line.

Helen Garner's Yellow Notebook was another recent pass.

Like Garner, I wrote a journal for most of my twenties and thirties. It was a pretty angst filled journey as I worked out how to become an adult and live in the adult world. In amongst the emotional dross, were some interesting (most likely only to me) observations, commentary and personal milestones.
During a major upheaval in my life in my late thirties, I decided it was time to jettison the numerous journals clogging up my life office. They were not only clogging up my physical space, but they also felt like an emotional burden I didn't want to have with me any longer. But before I tossed them, I decided to read them one last time, looking out for any interesting, important, significant sections. I then typed these snippets up over a period of about a year. I'm in no way suggesting that I am a writer of Garner's calibre or experience, but my snippets look and sound just like hers in the Yellow Notebook.

I completely understand how it's an interesting exercise for the individual to go through this process, but I'm not so convinced that it's such an interesting exercise for the reader.
I ho-hummed my way to the 10% mark before passing it on.

One book that I did read all the way through, hoping to find some joy, was Graham Swift's upcoming book Here We Are. I adored his previous book Mothering Sunday so much that I would forgive him a multitude of sins, so I kept hoping that Here We Are would suddenly hit that mark. A couple of times when we went into the backstory of one of the main characters, I thought, ah-ha we're onto something here, but I never really got the purpose of the story or really engaged with any of the three protagonists. Sad, but true.

I'm currently trying out Blueberries by Ellena Savage as my lunch time read. It's not really grabbing me so far, but I'm prepared to give it one or two more lunch times before I decide for sure.

That feels better!

I can now let all these stories go.

I'm not saying you should join me in letting go these books. You might LOVE these books and authors or connect to these stories in a way completely different to me. And that's okay.

And that's why I love books and stories so much. 

There is something for everyone, to suit every mood or occasion. 

Have you had to let go a book recently?

How do you decide which books to continue with and which ones to leave on the shelf?

Musings of a Very Idle Reader

One of the reasons I love readalongs is how they help me to get through a challenging book. They keep me focused and give my reading a purpose. The support of my fellow readalongers is an integral part of the process. But sadly, none of this is helping me get through Don Quixote.

It reminds me of my attempts to read Catch-22. The humour is amusing and clever to start with, but by the the half way mark (if not before), it just becomes tedious in it's repetitiveness. So many of my good friends LOVE Catch-22 and so many of my blogger friends LOVE Don Quixote along with a large number of authors that I respect and admire. What have I missed with both of these books?

I like to think that I'm an intelligent person, who is reasonably well-read and not afraid to tackle some of the heftier books when the mood strikes. So I saw the satire and the cleverness in both books, I appreciated the intentions of the authors, I enjoyed some of the set pieces and the themes but, ultimately, they didn't move me, engage me or entertain me. They left me scratching my head in bemusement.

With Don Quixote, I kept waiting for something different to happen, for some growth or insight. It never happened - well it certainly didn't happen in Part One.

I had heard that Part Two was a better read, with all sorts of exciting 'pre-post-modern metafiction', so imagine my disappointment when I quickly discovered that it was more of the same, but with parody...and more even poems!

The whole time I was reading DQ, I kept seeing and hearing The Cisco Kid and Pancho - the characters from a 1950's TV show that I watched in reruns during my 70's childhood. Every time Quixote said Sancho's name I heard Cisco's famous "ohhhh Paaaaaancho" in my head instead!

Just like the TV western, Don Quixote is episodic and full of copious amounts of frame stories...not my favourite form of literature. Perhaps I should have read one chapter a week, spinning each episode out with an anticipatory break in between?

I enjoyed the brief glimpses into life in rural Spain and watching the very first odd-couple literary pairing in action. But I failed to find much humour - there was ridiculousness and absurdity and some slap-stick, but nothing to laugh out loud about. Don Quixote was sad and mad, and Sancho ignorant and trusting, not figures I could poke fun at, or find it amusing to see others do so.

So reluctantly, and with some regret, I abandon the readalong and leave Don Quixote and Sancho to continue riding around the Spanish countryside in search of adventures and injustices to right. According to Goodreads, I made it to the 52% mark, which I think is giving it a fair go, in anyone's books!

Over the years, a number of authors have adapted elements of Don Quixote into their own work. These include Madame Bovary, The Idiot, The New York Trilogy and The Moor's Last Sigh. I attempted but did not like or finish Madame Bovary but I was sucked into Auster's mad, sad world in The New York Trilogy. I even read somewhere that Che Guevera modelled himself on the bumbling, grandiose idealistic knight as well!

Rushdie obviously loves it so much, he's having a second go at a Quixotic story. His new novel, due to published in September, is an even more obvious nod to his favourite novel, than the previous.

 The Jonathan Cape blurb says:

 Quichotte, an ageing travelling salesman obsessed with TV, is on a quest for love. Unfortunately, his daily diet of reality TV, sitcoms, films, soaps, comedies and dramas has distorted his ability to separate fantasy from reality. He wishes an imaginary son into existence, while obsessively writing love letters to a celebrity he knows only through his screen. Quuihotte's story is narrated by Brother, a mediocre spy novelist in the midst of a mid-life crisis, triggered in part by a fall-out with his Sister. As the stories of Brother and Quichotte ingeniously intertwine, Salmon Rushdie takes us ona wild, picaresque journey through a world on the edge of moral and spiritual collapse.

While The Bookseller, 8th March 2019, reveals that,

Quichotte tells the story of an ageing travelling salesman who falls in love with a TV star and sets off to drive across America on a quest to prove himself worthy of her hand. “Quichotte’stragicomic tale is one of a deranged time, and deals, along the way, with father–son relationships, sibling quarrels, racism, the opioid crisis, cyber-spies, and the end of the world.”

Rushdie has previously spoken of his enthusiasm for Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which was published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. 

In January 2018 he told the Guardian of his re-reading of the text: “On the one hand, the characters of Quixote and Sancho Panza are as beautifully realised as I remember them, and the idea of a man determinedly seeing the world according to his own vision, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, feels strikingly contemporary. 

“On the other hand, how many more times are the Knight of the Dolorous Countenance and Sancho going to get beaten up and left in pain in various roadside ditches? The ‘greatest novel ever written’ – I voted for it myself once – turns out to be just a little bit repetitive. To make the reading easier, I’m breaking it up and reading other books by other authors after every couple of hundred pages of Cervantes.”

I was rather thrilled to read, that even though Rushdie voted this the best book of all time, he still considers it repetitive and difficult to read. Sadly, even though I unknowingly used Rushdie's approach of reading Quixote by reading other books in between, it only served to make me feel more and more reluctant to pick it up this monotonous tome each time.

Honoré Daumier

It's not to late for you though.

If my miserable failure should inspire you or goad you into trying for yourself, please visit Nick's blog for details around the chapter-a-day readalong or Silvia's blog to enjoy the company of someone who could read Don Quixote every year and never get tired of it.

My earlier, more hopeful, Quixote posts.
Musings of an Idle Reader
Marcela

I'll leave Don Quixote and Cervantes now, with little regret. My curiosity to experience the first modern novel remains unmet, or at least, unsatisfied.

Catching clouds would have been more amusing.

Shell by Kristina Olsson

I wanted to love Shell so much. I thought it would be easy.

I adored the beautiful pearlescent cover on the hardback edition. It's dreamy quality felt nostalgic and apocalyptic at the same time (rather like Sydney last week during the dust storm)!
I love historical fiction. The building of the Opera House combined with Vietnam War issues should have been fascinating for me.
But most importantly, I was utterly mesmerised by Olsson's earlier memoir, Boy, Lost. I still think about how graciously and generously she explored her own family story within the context of 1950's Australia politics and culture. It was moving and powerful stuff.

I had heard from other bloggers, who raved about Shell, that the story was a slow burn, so after picking it up, then putting it down after about a dozen pages last year, I decided to try again recently, now that I have a bit more slow time up my sleeve.

But the same problem confronted me.

The start is not only a slow burn, but I also found it clunky with truncated sentences and phrases. This choppy sentence structure doesn't stop. I never felt a sense of rhythm or flow. It felt like Olsson was trying to hard to be poetic and clever. The effect didn't grab my attention or suit my mood. As she herself said about the Australian language (through the voice of Axel, the Swedish glass maker),

Its sentences were without rhythm, flat, featureless....He wondered if it was a matter of sophistication or history or even weather, this difference. This leaning into or away from another's sentences, or into or away from landscape, or surroundings. The things you were willing to reveal, what you were willing to hear.

Sometimes he would stand on the quay and let the streams of people part around him like water, and he would listen. Words, phrases, perhaps a whole sentence....what was in the words that made these people. Did their language make them feel a different way? 

But my biggest disappointment was my lack of affection or connection to the two main characters - Pearl and Axel. I never really felt like I was inside their heads or their hearts. I struggled to care for their issues or dilemmas.

I persisted past my usual stopping point of the 50 page mark, thanks to the number of comments about the slow burn, but by page 122 I realised that Shell simply wasn't working for me. I had given enough time to a book that wasn't getting under my skin, into my head or heart.

It's disappointing to anticipate a book so much only to find that you've fail to find a way in. Normally not finishing a book doesn't worry me too much - life is too short and there are too many other books I could be reading, but this one has left me with a sense of failure. What have I missed that so many others got? Why was I not able to appreciate the writing style or connect to the characters when so many other bloggers have?

Because I loved Boy, Lost so much, I feel the need to be fair to Shell and Olsson and share some of the reviews that rave about it so that you can make up your own mind.

Sam @Sam Still Reading

Lisa @ANZ Lit Lovers

Theresa @Theresa Smith Writes

Becky @My Becky Blog

Cass @Cass Moriarty Author

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

I suspect I'm going to be the lone dissenting voice when it comes to Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton.

This is a debut Australian novel garnering a HUGE amount of attention and rave reviews. In the lead up to our Christmas rush at work last year, this is the book many, many locals were asking for. Customers were returning to tell us how much they ADORED the book and every second book club, including mine, seemed to pick it for their summer holiday read.

I was thrilled that I was going to have a good excuse to make time for this book and I couldn't wait to get stuck into it.

To start with what I loved:

• The cover - just gorgeous, vibrant and psychedelic. The blue wren makes sense once you start reading. For an in depth look into how cover designers settle on the finished design read this fascinating piece from the Australian Book Design Association. They interviewed Darren Holt and Claire Ward, the Australian and UK designers for Boy Swallows Universe (as well as other designers for other books).
• The writing - Dalton took my breath away. I was completely and utterly WOWED.
• The protagonist, Eli Bell is a wonderful narrator. His voice is believable, charming and unique.
• The introduction of ex-con Slim Halliday as Eli's babysitter added a quirky touch.
• I loved the themes - a young boy looking for a 'good man' to love and model his life on, brotherly love, redemption and protection, a young boys fierce need for mother love.
• Early on I also began to suspect that this book was also heavily embedded in real life events.
• Slim Halliday was a real criminal who did his time in Boggo Road Gaol.
• How much else was real?

However around the 50 page mark, the underbelly criminal stuff started to take centre stage. Drugs, drug running and drug lords took over the story. Because I now suspected that this was based on a true story (I hadn't googled at this point) I made myself keep reading even though, every single extra sordid drug reference and act turned me off more and more and more. 

I've always believed that if someone actually had to LIVE through something ghastly, the very least I can do from my safe, white, middle class home, is read about it with understanding and compassion and a huge dose of gratefulness for my very ordinary upbringing.

True crime is not my usual genre, but I have been known to be fascinated by the occasional story. We watched the second season of Underbelly that starred Matthew Newton which was centred around the murder of Donald Mackay in Griffith in 1977, but I haven't been able to watch any of the other seasons. I also haven't got into Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Orange is the New Black.

However, with Boy Swallows Universe, I got to a point, about 100 pages in, where the amazing writing and the affection I felt for the two brothers, wasn't enough to sustain me through the relentless criminal activity. 

I admire Dalton for finding such an incredible way to process the trauma from his childhood. There is so much love for this story 'out there', that I'm sure it will pop up in most of the Australian book awards this year. It deserves it too. The praise being heaped on it, is valid, but the content is just not my thing. There are so many books, about topics that I have way more interest in, waiting for me to read them, that I don't want to give too much time to one of those that just fails to fit the bill...for me.

Boy Swallows Universe has just been shortlisted for the Indie Debut Fiction Book Awards.

I've labelled this with the Did Not Finish tag, but it was more a case of skim reading the last three quarters of the book before slowing down to read the last chapter properly.

March update: I gave this to Mr Books to read because I suspected that he would love it. He did.
He felt the criminal activity was within context and didn't dominate the story. For him, the story of the boys, the search for goodness and what makes a person 'good' and the power of redemption were powerful, moving themes.
He was surprised I couldn't finish it, even though he has had years of watching me hide behind pillows and my hands in violent movies! (We're rewatching Game of Thrones in preparation for the final season. Because I know what's coming, I'm spending even more time behind the pillows than I did with the first viewing, when many of the violent/cruel scenes caught me by surprise. I also know to leave the room whenever Bolton walks on screen).

Facts:

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
• Winner 2019 ABIA Book of the Year Award | Literary Fiction Book of the Year
• Winner 2019 Indie Book Award
• Winner 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing | NSW Premier's Literary Awards
• Winner 2019 People's Choice Award | NSW Premier's Literary Awards
• Winner 2019 ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year
• Longlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Colin Roderick Award

The ones that got away...

At this time of year, more than any other time, I abandon books at a rate of knots.

So many books don't make it past the first cull (cover design and back cover blurb). The second cull occurs at the end of the first page when a huge number of books simply get put back on the shelf for someone else to be tempted by.

A number of books come my way thanks to word of mouth and interesting reviews - these books still have to pass the first page test. Sometimes I know that the writing is just fine and the story intriguing enough that it might work for me, if I was in the right mood for it, but that mood is not right now.

Then there are the ones that take me along for the ride...until about the 50-100 pg mark.

These are the books I want to like for various reasons, but it gradually dawns on me that they're just not working. I continue a little further to see if it's a temporary glitch or not. And then I abandon ship.

Life is too short, and there are too many books I really want to read, to waste my time on one that's not getting me there.

Books that didn't make it past the first cull

• Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks (I always think that I should like Faulks' work because of my love of historical fiction, but the back cover blurbs never tempt me and my one foray into Faulks' territory, Charlotte Gray, left me cold).
• A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne (another author I feel that I should like, but I prefer his junior fiction for kids).
• two old men dying by Tom Keneally (great cover, except for the uncapitalised title, but the back blurb - meh).

Books that didn't make the second cull

• The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (sounded intriguing, but the first few paragraphs failed to capture my attention or mood).
• The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser (maybe, one day).
• Milkman by Anna Burns (will need to be in the right mood for this one).
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer (the first few pages left me sighing and not in a good way).
• The Overstory by Richard Powers (too wordy for my mood on the day I tried).
• So Much Life Leftover by Louis de Bernieres (I loved an adored Captain Corelli's Mandolin so much way back when that I keep hoping one of his other books will do the same. They never have, although I've heard promising things about Birds Without Wings).

The 50 pg cull

• An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim (I wanted to like this book & it started off fine, but I eventually realised that I was on the side of the mega-time travelling corporation rather than the annoying, whining protagonist!)

Should I give any of these books a second go in the new year, if the right circumstances or mood comes my way?

Just Saying - ARC's and DNF's

I've been thinking about what, if any, difference it has made to my reading habits working in an Indie bookshop.

Before I was a bookseller, I knew nothing about ARC's (advanced reading copies). Each and every book that I purchased was a precious thing, new or used. I would spend hours browsing, to-ing and fro-ing about which book/s to read next. The local library was my testing ground for new authors and recommendations and book borrows from friends supplemented my own growing library of favourites. Word of mouth and synchronicity was my was usual approach to finding new books.

If I bought a book, I read it through, regardless. DNF (did not finish) was not an option. I finished every book I started (eventually).

However since working in a bookshop the whole wide wonderful world of ARC's and gratis reads has opened up to me. Suddenly my shelves (cupboards, under the bed and bedside chair) were overflowing with options that I hadn't had to pay for.

Many times, this process revealed amazing new authors and stories that I might never have picked up otherwise. And that is, of course why publishing companies release ARC's. Word of mouth and personal recommendations are still one of the biggest ways to get a book 'out there'.

But I've also had lots of duds. And for the first time ever, I've failed to finish books that I started. Personally this has been a struggle. So much time, money, energy and effort has gone into putting this particular book in front of me, I feel obliged to finish it. Perhaps it's just a slow start, maybe I'm not in the right mood to appreciate it, perhaps the amazing, insightful ending is worth the hard slog to get there?

For years, I ploughed through books that weren't working for me. Until a colleague, who had been in the book industry a lot longer than me, told me to stop. Her view was that no book was ever going to suit every reader. And that is was actually my bookseller's duty to only read books that interested me so that I could happily, faithfully and genuinely recommend them to our customers. My sense of relief was immense!

However, I've finessed this idea somewhat over time.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to not finish a book. The DNF's may not be my cup of tea, but by reading a few early chapters, I get the gist of the book and get a feel for which kind of reader I could recommend the book to. Also, by working out why I didn't like a book, I can honestly let readers know what my concerns were and they can chose whether or not it is something that is a problem for them too.

I'm definitely reading more widely since being a bookseller, especially contemporary, debut authors across all genres and age groups. These are the authors who the publishers are usually keen to get 'out there' via ARC's. Creating a buzz around a new book before it hits the shops, is good for everyone concerned...as long as it's genuine.

I've broadened the range and type of book that I would normally have read, but my basic criteria has remained the same. The book has to grab my attention, I have to feel impatient to pick it up again each day and it has to create a world for me to fall into or give me characters to love and hate and live with through their trials and tribulations.

The glut of ARC's that can swamp the back office of a bookshop sometimes feels like a cheapening of the reading process though. All those books that I'm only half-interested in, waiting to be opened, read and loved, can feel like clutter rather than something worthy of my attention.

Abandoning books at the 50 page mark has also become my thing. If it hasn't grabbed me or convinced me by page 50, then hasta la vista baby! Life's too short to read a boring book. It's not as if I don't have something else to fall back onto.

Does reading a book you haven't paid for and don't have to return change your reading experience? Does it enhance and expand your reading? Or does it lower your expectations?
#justsaying

Abandon All Hope

Unfortunately this is my second post this year detailing books that I did not finish for one reason or another. I still have several half-read books languishing by my bed, but I really do plan to finish them one day, it's just that other stuff has got in the way!

When I'm deciding which book to read next, I search for something that I think might appeal to my current mood or frame of mind. I then try the first page.

I cannot begin to tell you how many books never get to go any further. I really do judge an entire book by it's ability to hook me on page one.

However, once I get past this little hurdle, I'm usually prepared to commit to reading the whole book.

I'm not sure if I'm getting fussier as I get older, but I seem to be more willing to abandon books at various stages of being read. Once a book or an author has lost my interest or my care factor, it can be very difficult for me to continue.

Believe it or not, goodreads has helped me decide which ones to abandon and which ones to persevere with. I normally save review reading until I've finished the book (& written my own response), but with those books that I'm feeling unsure about, I now check what others have thought.

I abandoned The Goldfinch a few years ago and still don't regret it. More recently, I was reading The Vanishing Futurist and began to struggle a little with some elements of the story. I checked goodreads and enough of the reviews there convinced me to continue. And I'm glad I did. It was a fascinating story, with a few reservations.

However three books are now officially relegated to the DNF pile.

The Patriots by Sana Krasikov failed to excite me at all, despite sounding so very promising. Many of my goodreads friends expressed their concerns about exactly what I was struggling with...so I felt comfortable about letting it go.

My goodreads review looked like this -

Did not finish after 53 pgs and reading several reviews on here that had the same problems I did - it was boring, it told rather than showed, an annoying unconvincing protagonist, some lovely phrases & sentences at times but uneven.

Good intentions, interesting premise that simply couldn't maintain my interest.

The Easy Way Out by Steven Amsterdam was a special case. I had planned to finish it. There was enough there to keep me going, but bookclub got in the way. I was about three quarters of the way through when I went along to my first bookclub meeting with a new group. The discussion was lively and interesting and quite personal as you would expect with a book about euthanasia.

It was a book that was well written and topical but not particularly riveting reading. I didn't particularly like the main character, Evan, but it was interesting seeing the issue from a nurses point of view.

My family as well as everyone at bookclub were very clearly on the side of voluntary euthanasia. It seems like a black and white issue when you talk to most people. The book, however, was very good at highlighting the complexities and nuances of the debate. Yes, the person dying a painful, drawn-out death may wish to exit that pain and misery, but there are medical staff who have to actually do it and clean up afterwards. There are family members who may be on board with the idea early on, but when it actually comes time to let go, they find that it's so much harder than they thought. And there are medical, religious and legal ideas that muddy the waters even further.

We also discussed why it didn't make the shortlist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Most of were confused about the books setting - was it Australia or America? It felt like it was happening a few years in the future, but in a city that could be anywhere. Which helped to make the story more universal, but also meant that it was only just eligible to be considered for the Miles Franklin as it didn't really present 'Australian life in any of its phases'. I guess you could say the topical nature of the euthanasia debate is a phase of Australian life that is currently en trend, but it was disconcerting to have no idea where I was the whole time I was reading the book.

Now that I know how the book ends (thanks to the bookclub discussion) I'm ready to move on from this topic.

My final DNF for now was The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover.

I was really looking forward to it. I love fictionalised biography and I had seen a recent production of 1984, so it felt fresh in my mind and felt like good timing.

But I struggled with the writing right from the start. It was dull and felt like Glover was trying too hard. Goodreads revealed a whole stack of other reviewers who felt the same.

Yes, some also raved about how much they loved the book, so I tried one more time. However, the scene in the mine was my point of no return. After reading, a number of years ago, Zola's amazing description of entering a mine for the first time in Germinal, it will be very hard for any writer to deliver anything more evocative or descriptive. But it can be done (Meg McKinley did so recently in A Single Stone), unfortunately, Glover did not, or could not.

It felt like there were one too many authors in this book.

Mon evening, 2 days later:

I've just added another book to my DBF pile and one of the reasons I've decided to abandon is above, it seemed logical to add it on.

I have been eagerly looking forward to Alex Miller's newest novel all year. I've adored some of his earlier work, so I had high expectations. The Passage of Love (Allen & Unwin, Nov 2017 ) is also being billed as a fictionalised account of his own story - a genre I usually enjoy.

On the back of my ARC it says,

filled with wry humour, incisive observation and rare wisdom, Miller brilliantly solves the challenge of merging memoir and the novel.... The novel is a monumental achievement by one of our greatest writers.

I confess that all those exuberant adjectives had me a little worried (and I've only shown you one small section of the blurb)!

I was doing okay with the early first person section of the story, where Miller revealed his writers block and existential angst. But then he switched to third person and I began to struggle. The writing was very simple and unemotional - disengaging, dare I say. Every time he wrote the name Robert, I felt annoyed beyond all reason and logic.

I turned to goodreads for help, but the two reviews on offer left me wondering if I was reading the same book. So I turned to my work options.

Books + Publishing is a subscription based industry site for booksellers and other interested parties. I cannot legally copy the reviews posted by my fellow booksellers, but the review for The Passage of the Love, convinced me it was time to abandon ship. The issues I was having with the writing obviously continued the whole way through (the reviewer compared it to the minimalist writing style of Albert Camus in The Strangers) and the final straw for me was the 'if you liked....., then you will like this.'

This being Dennis Glover's The Last Man in Europe.

Have you read any of these books all the way through?
Have you abandoned any books recently or are you like Mr Books, who doggedly slogs his way through every book he starts, just in case it has a good ending?

Spring Cleaning (a season early)!

My current mood and recent events have led me to tidy up my TBR pile.

Mr Books is cheering me on from the sidelines and I feel better for the mini decluttering.

I returned a whole stack of books to work for someone else to have a go at and, perhaps more controversially, I have now decided to abandon several half finished books.

They have been lying around, under my bed, half finished for a reason.

I've been trying to get into them. 

I've been determined to find them worthy & engaging but life really is too short to read a book I'm not enjoying.

So farewell thee well Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang.

I made it to pg 195.

 As much as I love Chinese history, I've struggled with the lens though which Chang is gazing.

She is challenging many of the prevailing views on Cixi's leadership, but there were no footnotes or clear references saying why she believes this.

At the beginning, she said that she had access to never before seen by Westerners, imperial decrees, court records, official communications, personal correspondence, diaries and eye-witness accounts.

Great!

I don't have any problems with new information and applying a feminist lens to history, but I need proof and a properly documented flow of ideas.

Be gone!

The Salzburg Tales by Christina Stead - so long, see you honey!

I made it all the way to pg 284, but I put it down in the build up to Christmas last year and have felt no desire to pick it up again.

It was an intellectual exercise that failed to excite any passion or feeling in me.

I wanted to get into it, and for a while I was happy to go along with the clever concept, but ultimately, I read for pleasure. 

I read for connection and belonging.

I enjoy fine literature and require good writing, but I also need heart.

And soul.

The brain on its own is not enough for me.

Toodle-oo!

Goodbye also Michael Rosen and The Disappearance of Emile Zola.

Pg 168 was my end game for Zola.

It turns out that you can love someone's books, but not admire them as a person very much.

Zola lived a double life between his wife and his mistress who bore him two children.

It seemed like he spent his life disappointing all of them.

Rosen's book focused on the time that Zola was in England hiding out from the fallout of the Dreyfus Affair and J'Accuse!

It should have been fascinating, but instead I found it deadly dull.

It's time for you to disappear for good!

Bye bye to The Best Australian Essays 2016.

I only read one essay.

It was interesting and I may still be tempted by the rest later, but for now, be gone!

That feels so much better!

A weight has been lifted from my shoulders and my Goodreads page.

Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy my comfort reading phase.

I've just started an amazing children's book called The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius. 

It was published in 2014 but only recently translated into English from Swedish.

'I don't know when I last read a book with such pure and unalloyed pleasure. It's ingenious, it's moving, it's charming, it's beautiful, it's exciting, and most importantly the characters are people I feel I know like old friends. I thank Jakob Wegelius wholeheartedly for giving me several hours of joy'  Philip Pullman

Sally Jones is not only a loyal friend, she's an extraordinary individual. In overalls or in a maharaja's turban, this unique gorilla moves among humans without speaking but understanding everything. She and the Chief are devoted comrades who operate a cargo boat. A job they are offered pays big bucks, but the deal ends badly, and the Chief is falsely convicted of murder. 

For Sally Jones this is the start of a harrowing quest for survival and to clear the Chief's name. Powerful forces are working against her, and they will do anything to protect their secrets.

So far I agree wholeheartedly with Philip Pullman. 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

Last week Mr Books and I went to the movies for the first time this year!

I know! How did that happen? How can our life be so busy that we don't make time to go the movies anymore? Surely having adult children living at home means less work and running round? And more to time to ourselves?

We will have to find a way to get better at this sharing a house with other (young) adults stuff.
And, of course, I shouldn't complain. One day they will leave home; one day rents and house prices in Sydney will become reasonable and do-able for the average person again and on that day we will miss them terribly.

But for now, let me get back to being excited about the movie we saw last week.

Viceroy's House stars the wonderful Hugh Bonneville as Lord Mountbatten and Gillian Anderson doing an amazing version of Lady Mountbatten. The story follows their time in India in 1947 in the transition of British India to independence and the eventual Partition of India and Pakistan.

It was a very thought provoking and timely story about the catastrophic and on-going problems that occur when one country meddles in the internal politics of another. Self-interest, the divisive nature of religion, the British policy of divide and conquer and the need for secure oil reserves all played a part in the unravelling of Colonial India. Britain (and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) are still dealing with the after effects of this time to this day.

Last month I received an advance copy of Arundhati Roy's latest novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. It was 'highly confidential' and strictly embargoed. I resisted the urge to read it straight away, to avoid any temptation to tattle on social media!

After coming home from watching Viceroy's House seemed like the perfect time to begin. That would give me one week to read the book before the embargo lifted on Monday 29th May 9am (EST).

The first thing that struck me was the use of local lingo. I enjoy learning new words and phrases. Sometimes Roy gave us a context for these words and sometimes she didn't. For example:

'You mean I've made a khichdi of their story?' she asked.

I looked up khichdi to discover it is a rice and lentil dish common to South Asian countries. In India it is one of the first solid foods fed to babies.

'I'm a mehfil, I'm a gathering. Of everybody and nobody, of everything and nothing.'

Mehfil is a place where music and dance performances occur.

'Sach Khuda hai. Khuda hi Sach hai.' Truth is God. God is Truth.

After examining Aftab he said he was not, medically speaking , a Hijra - a female trapped in a male body - although for practical purposes that word could be used. 

There were also some lovely turns of phrase early on:

No matter how elaborate its charade, she recognised loneliness when she saw it....And she had learned from experience that Need was a warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty.

However, at page 29 I started to struggle. My initial enthusiasm waned. I began to feel manipulated, the situation felt contrived, then Salmon Rushdie's Midnight's Children jumped into my mind.

I loved and adored Midnight's Children with such intensity that any other simply pales in comparison.

So I put The Ministry of Utmost Happiness aside and quietly dubbed it instead #ministryofutmostdisappointment. The ABC TV Bookclub had announced they were reading it for their 6th of June show. I thought I would wait to see what they all had to say, before deciding to continue or not.

Most of them had something positive to say about the language, one of the characters and the structure, but when asked at the end, if they would recommend the book to anyone, most said not really. They enjoyed reading it, and were glad that they had read it, but found it uneven and as Marieke Hardy said 'I like other books better and I'd recommend them instead'.

To summarise - if you didn't like The God of Small Things then you may or may not like this book too. But if you loved The God of Small Things then you most likely will find this disappointing.

I for one have decided to abandon this book at pg 49.

I have too many other books I really want to read.

But I'm very keen to read your reviews.
Feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments below. You can hyperlink it by using the code <a href="URL">word</a>

Stella Considerations

I really enjoy the idea of the Stella Prize and love the announcement of each year's longlist. I know I will never have the time to read all the books on the list, but I do love how the list helps to push me towards books I may not have tried otherwise.

I have found some real gems thanks to the longlist nominations (Heat and Light by Ellen van Neervan being a case in point).

But there are still some books that are just not for me, no matter how many prizes or awards they get.

I thought it might be interesting to go through a few of the Stella's - longlists past and present - that haven't worked for me for one reason or another.

On this year's longlist, is Emily Maguire's An Isolated Incident.

Having the phrase 'brutal murder' on the back cover blurb is not designed to attract my interest. Normally I wouldn't have gone any further, but now that An Isolated Incident has been longlisted, I took the time to look inside.

The first few chapters track through the sister's bewilderment and grief as her missing sister, moves from being missing, to being a body in the morgue that she has to identify.
The blurb promises that this will be more about the sister's journey through the aftermath of the murder, than about the gory, brutal details, but I quickly realised that I simply couldn't go there.

Tragically our family did go through a brutal murder case about twenty years ago. It still haunts us all in different ways. Books like this don't help at all.

I knew very quickly that no matter how well written An Isolated Incident might be, it's simply wasn't going to get any of my bookish time.

I also read the first couple of stories in The High Places by Fiona McFarlane but found them too languid and slow to build for my taste. Earlier I had started McFarlane's The Night Guest when it was shortlisted for the 2014 Stella. I was enjoying it well enough, but put it down for some reason and never went back to it.

Last year, I got about a quarter of the way through Hope Farm by Peggy Frew but my enthusiasm waned and I couldn't finish it.

Aspects of it appealed to me but I found it to be very inconsistent. Some of the writing was quite lyrical but much of it was just plain flat and formulaic.

There was something about the mother-daughter relationships that bugged me too, but I didn't stick with it long enough to work out what my problem was.

It was a shame, though, because I loved the idea of it and I loved the cover!

I think I may be the only reader left in Australia that hasn't read Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.

I tried a couple of times, but it didn't draw me in at all. I found Kent's language kept me at a distance and I didn't care enough to push through.

But I did care about my friends who raved about it so much - which is why I tried to read it again a year later.

Sadly I had the same reaction.

Recently I attempted to read Kent's latest novel, The Good People, but I failed to engage with the writing in that one too.

Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser featured in the very first Stella longlist. It won other awards and accolades but it failed to win me over.

There was nothing in the opening page that urged me to 'read on' or 'read more'.

Perhaps this 'some books I love; some books I don't' thing is what we're actually celebrating in all the Stella longlists to date.
The amazing diversity of women writers in Australia also reflects the diversity of readers out there. Not everyone will like or love all the books, but there will be something on each list to appeal to everyone who cares to look.

It's the joy (and woe) of being an avid reader. The occasional dud only helps you to appreciate the books you love even more.

On a completely different tack, I have noticed a pattern developing with the Stella Prize. There is one word that features at least twice in the titles for each year.

In 2013 the word was Grace
2014 - Night
2015 - Golden
2016 - World
2017 - Memoir

Does it mean anything? Probably not, but birds also seem to feature strongly in Stella book titles.

What have been your favourite and least favourite Stella reads so far?

Abandoned

Over the past few weeks I've moved a couple of books onto the DNF pile.

I thought I'd give them one last chance by talking about them here, to see if anyone can convince me to keep on with them.

First up is an Aussie book called Snow Kimono by Mark Henshaw.

I've actually abandoned this book twice.

I decided to give it a second chance about a week ago, but after a few more chapters, I put it down again, I suspect for good this time.

I really enjoyed the writing and the atmosphere created by Henshaw. But I kept thinking, "what's the point?" And once you start thinking that, it's hard to move forward...unless some kind of point quickly presents itself.

It didn't.

A customer at work then told me that she also didn't think it had any point and she felt quite disappointed at the end.

My second DNF was The Dust that Falls from Dreams.

I really wanted to love this book as I adored Captain Corelli's Mandolin from the very first word. But sadly, by about page 60, my enthusiasm flagged. And by pg 72 I had put it down with very grave doubts.

The multiple first person narrative was fine (although a little unnecessary). But once we moved into the war phase which included diary entries and letters, my frustration levels rose rapidly.

After reading Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man and Testament of Youth earlier on this year, I felt I had already covered this same ground in a far more authentic way via the experiences of people who had actually lived through WWI.

I wasn't learning anything new about WWI and the annoying diary entries made me lose interest in the main characters.

Can anyone convince me otherwise?
Have you abandoned a book recently?

A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman

I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to A Year of Marvellous Ways.

I read When God Was A Rabbit four years ago and adored it from start to finish. When an ARC of Winman's much anticipated second novel turned up at work two days before my holidays - I knew it was meant to be. AYOMW was going to be my holiday read par excellence.

Everything started off so hopefully. The quirkiness I remembered; the lovely writing. I was in the zone to savour every word and nuance.
But slowly something happened...or failed to happen.

I failed to engage with the characters. I failed to feel emotional involved, & by page 163 (when the main characters finally came together), I failed to see the point.

I don't often write reviews about the books I did not finish or did not enjoy, but occasionally I find it instructive to work out what went wrong.

Was it me? the book? the author? the timing?

In this particular case I started off with extremely high expectations.

The cover treatment for the ARC was superb - inviting and inticing. The little peephole onto the wooden stilt house put me in mind of Vietnam. Even though I knew it was set in the UK, it was just another detail that made this book feel like we were fated to love each other.

I also normally enjoy a story that deals with memory.
The opening quote from T.S. Eliot's, Little Gidding had me ready to dive headlong into its world of living and dying and the marvellous inbetween...

We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them.

I tried very hard to rediscover the magic of WGWAR but instead I kept bumping into disjointed time jumps and convenient crises. And in the end my sad conclusion was that it simply tried too hard...and the effort showed.

Normally, on a Monday, I would post my It's Monday! What Am I Reading schedule with Sheila @Book Journey.

But a couple of weeks ago I promised myself not to start any new books until I had finished all the half started ones by my bed (or in my suitcase)! 

Tragically, during this time, Sheila has suffered some heartbreaking family news which means that she will not be continuing her meme for the moment. 

I have found it heartening to witness the love & concern from the book blogging community pouring onto Sheila's various social media sites and blog. 

I sincerely hope that Sheila finds herself able to blog again one day soon. As we all know, the writing process can be such a creative, healing act & the act of reading can be such a comfort & release from our daily affairs. 

However, in the meantime (when I have finished the unread masses), I will continue my weekly reading updates on Monday's as I find them a truly useful way to keep track of my reading life as well as the many book events in the blogging world.

For now, I will finish with my own Monday Shout-out! feature where I highlight interesting reviews that I have read during the week.

Due to my recent holiday in Vietnam, I haven't read many reviews this past week or so, but I did make a point of catching up with Mangoes and Cherry Blossoms new Classics Salon meme.

The idea is to discuss or blog about the classic you are currently reading using the weekly question as a starting point.

I hope to use the meme to kick start my discussion of Germinal for Zoladdiction month along with Fanda et al.