Romanno Bridge

Sometimes I am up for a bit of heavy-duty non-fiction, experimental novels or multi-layered literary fiction with fractured timelines. Sometimes though, all I am looking for is a cracking yarn.

Andrew Greig's Romanno Bridge certainly doesn't disappoint on that front. Reprising his characters from The Return of John MacNab a few years on he entangles them in a far more dangerous and brutal adventure. John MacNab had a very genteel sense of British fair-play compared with Romanno Bridge ...

Starting out with a suicide deep in Rothiemurchus Forest the plot plunges headlong into ancient secret societies and the search for the real(?) Stone of Destiny, racing all over Scotland with diversions to London, Canada and Norway.

Often with this type of story the reader has to allow the author a bit of leeway to get beyond some of the more far-fetched elements, but even so there can't be any holes in the plot or characters with defects or who aren't believable. Some of the characters do seem to turn-up in exactly the right place at the right time and I had heard comments from some who felt that Kirsty could only ever exist in a male novelist's head. There are elements of her that are almost too good to be true, but it was never a problem for me. I wanted to believe, so it all felt real.

Of course everything works out all right by the end and the good guys prevail. Even so he keeps you on your toes right up to the last pages and the ending avoids any whiff of sentimentality. It just feels right, and sometimes that is exactly what you need from a book.

Child 44

A serial killer is on the loose in the 1950s Soviet Union, but the authorities don't want to know. Individual police forces pin the crimes on marginalised outsiders – the mentally ill, homosexuals – or cover them up as accidents and there is no coordination between different jurisdictions. By-the-book cop falls out of favour with his superiors and gets exiled from his privileged position in Moscow to the wastelands of a factory town hundreds of kilometres to the east. Unsurprisingly he is the only person to connect the murders and, fighting against the system, he manages to unravel the crimes and find the killer.

I am being a bit unfair: there are lots of interesting aspects to the story. For example, the way the police's function is to protect the interests of the state apparatus without any pretense of protecting its citizens and the problem of reconciling the existence of crime within in a theoretically just and equitable society.

Unfortunately, too much time has been spent thinking through the twists and turns of the story, and not enough time spent on the writing. The suffering and hardship (of which there is plenty ...) doesn't feel real and the awful events don't connect emotionally. It reads like he wrote it as the screenplay for a movie. The plot and the action is all there, but the characters are lacking in depth and personality, as if waiting for the actors to add this dimension to the story.

I play the drums in a band called okay

There aren't many good novels about rock bands: plenty of good true stories, but not many made up ones. In fact, even after consulting my shelves I can only think of one other which I would put in that category. And that isn't even really about a rock band. It is all about the band's frontman – allegedly based on Fish the ex-lead singer of Marillion (who didn't get his nickname because of his drinking habits but because he used to spend so long in the bath when working as a forester in Fochabers) – and how his life has dissolved post-band.

Published twenty-one years apart the covers are spookily similar, but they don't have much else in common. (You can see how far cover printing technology has come in that time – the embossed vinyl effect on the more recent title is a lot more convincing.)

Toby Litt's okay are a moderately successful Canadian indie band and this is their story from school-days formation up to and beyond the death of guitarist crab twenty years later. The story is narrated by the drummer – clap (the other members are singer syph and bassist mono) – who is, handily for Litt, the most sober and self-aware of the group.

Although the book manages to stay entertaining through all the overdoses, break-ups and excesses, what really makes it a great read are the two or three key moments related, which bring a depth and humanity to the story. Plenty is borrowed and modified from well-known rock myths – the fishing obsessed band member and the giving away of a suitcase of money to name two I noticed – and half the fun is spotting the ones you know, but it only really works because of the skilful way he has created a bunch of people that seem real, not like rock stars.

Also smart is the way Litt neatly side-steps the key point of what they actually sound like, letting you hear your own soundtrack. For what its worth, I thought they would sound a bit like a cross between Coldplay and Snow Patrol. (Coldpatrol or Snow Play maybe?) Horrific I know, but don't let that put you off reading the book.

Turbulence

Giles Foden has a knack for unearthing fascinating side stories from real events and using them to construct novels and non-fiction. He's best known for his first novel, The Last King of Scotland, where a young Scottish doctor on a medical program in Africa ends up as the personal physician to Ugandan President Idi Amin.

Turbulence intrigued me for the most part, but was ultimately a bit of let-down. It is a literary thriller, based around solving one the most intractable scientific (or more specifically geophysical) problems of the Second World War: predicting the weather over six consecutive days to allow the D-day landings to be planned and executed.

Henry Meadows is a technical officer in the Met Office who is dispatched to Argyll in an attempt to retrieve crucial information from the reclusive Wallace Ryman. Ryman is an authority on turbulence whose work is viewed as crucial to aid the forecasters in providing accurate and reliable advice to the military top brass. Unfortunately Ryman is a rationalist and a conscientious objector who is indifferent to the project and whatever information he does share doesn't seem to be particularly relevant.

The first two-thirds, set in Argyll, when Henry is trying to befriend and get the information from Ryman works well. Then the story turns on a dramatic event which seems less traumatic than it should be. Henry's breakdown after isn't convincing and the book drifts off. Although events become more dramatic, they also seem less convincing and by the end very little seems to be real.

There is also the added distraction of a tacked-on, modern-day coda running throughout which doesn't shed any light on the historical events or add anything to our understanding of Henry or his actions. The final chapter is billed as an address to a conference about the forecasting for the landings and marking the fortieth anniversary. Again it seems unecessary and contrived, as if he didn't have the confidence in the core narrative and felt that it needed something extra. It is a great story and if Foden had concentrated on getting this right, ditching all the padding and authorial tricks then it would be a far more engaging book.

The Steep Approach to Garbadale

I've read all of Iain Banks' books, pretty much in the order he wrote them, starting with The Wasp Factory in 1988. The Bridge is one of my favourite books ever, one that I re-read on a regular basis, and his run of non-SF novels from The Wasp Factory to Complicity is arguably unmatched in British literature. I agree with him on most of his political views, am interested in all the same things and recognise much of what he writes about from my own background and experiences. Listening to him talk it is clear that he is erudite and fantastically entertaining (just listen to him discuss Transition with Ramona Koval on Radio National's The Book Show to see what I mean).

In short, he is a bit of genius and someone I admire greatly.

Unfortunately, and you knew there was a qualifier coming, his last four (non-SF) novels haven't been very good. So over the last 14 years I have gone from keenly awaiting each new release to mild interest whenever the latest title appears. After Dead Air I even sort-of-assumed that I might be finished with his regular fiction and considered starting into his SF works. I read some mildly positive reviews of The Steep Approach to Garbadale, but even then had no inclination to pick up a copy and probably wouldn't have been tempted apart from the fact that the excellent Fullers Bookshop in Hobart was selling the hardback for five dollars.

The characters are almost all caricatures (the poncey business exec with his Mercedes S-class and Zero Halliburton aluminium briefcase anyone?), mouthpieces for Banks' views on society and politics, so unconvincing they would have trouble standing up in a Jackie Collins novel.

Even more annoyingly there are enough flashes of his best writing to remind you what you're missing. The passages recounting the hero's teenage years are beautifully written, with a real feel for the miseries and joy of that age. Sadly, these sections only remind me of similar ones in his earlier and better books.

One of the better characters seems to be speaking directly to the author rather than the protagonist when she asks: 'What are you trying to achieve? What is it you really want?' In Banks' case unfortunately it looks like he has lost track of the former and found the answer to the latter so long ago that he can't really be arsed anymore.

The Slap

Melbourne needs more writers like Christos Tsiolkas.

It has taken me a few weeks to work out what I really think about The Slap. While I was reading it I felt mainly disgust and exasperation, but this had nothing to do with the writing.

I found the novel discomfiting and relentless in its depiction of people leading unhappy, trapped lives and for me the characters are without exception unattractive and awful. There are small episodes of joy and a few examples of people being nice to each other, but for the most part the tone is irredeemably depressing.

Much of my reaction may be due to the way he raises uncomfortable truths about Australian society in the context of a compelling and hugely readable narrative. Maybe I just recognise too much of what he is talking about. Maybe I should remember it is just a story ...

What is clear to me is that Tsiolkas is a great writer. The way he gets inside eight disparate characters, from teenage schoolgirl to immigrant Greek pensioner, creating wonderfully vivid and complete inner lives for them is brilliant. The other aspect of the narrative I loved is the way that Melbourne and it's sprawling suburbs are present as a vital and key element in the story, the perfectly observed details of location and inhabitants. He is also spot on with the cultural references and minutiae that suffuse most peoples lives, but which are usually bizarrely absent from novels.

The Slap is bound to provoke strong reactions (many stronger than mine), and it is only a matter of time before the self-appointed guardians of our morals are up in arms about all the shagging, but the more writers of this ability who are willing to raise and deal with difficult questions of race, identity and society the better. It might be an uncomfortable read, but it is great to have some intelligence and depth brought to the debate for once.

For more about The Slap, there is an interesting interview in Meanjin, discussion on Lateline and a great review by Literary Minded.

Strangers

Japanese ghost stories. Not a genre that I have much knowledge of.

The quote by Brett Easton Ellis on the cover almost made me put it back on the shelf, but the review on the back cover promising a cross between 'Paul Auster at his best' and 'a very Japanese ghost story' swung it.

Yamada's fictional Tokyo has many similarities with Paul Auster's New York – the eery surreality of the setting and the self-contained absorption and focus of the central character could have come straight out of one of his early novels.

The ghostly elements of the story aren't particularly scary or shocking or surprising, but the grief and longing of the characters is beautifully rendered and there is a psychological depth to them that is surprisingly moving.

The American translation can be a bit annoying in places, but for the most part it is unobtrusive and the spooky detachment of the writing is allowed to take hold. I found myself swept along by the story, enjoying the weirdness and content to follow wherever it took me.

It reminded me of The Sixth Sense in some ways, and anyone looking for a bit of left-field fiction that keeps challenging you all the way through should find plenty to enjoy here.

My Revolutions

Born in the early fifties Chris Carver escapes his Ruislip roots to a place at the LSE where he progresses from student politics to full-blown radical.

Weaving back and forth between London in the late sixties/seventies and small town southern-England early in the twenty-first century we gradually discover why Chris has taken on the identity of Mike Frame (using the classic method outlined in Frederick Forysth's Day of the Jackal) and settled into a comfortable but tenuous middle-class existence.

The further back in time events and characters are, the more vivid and engrossing they are. The present day proceedings seem very flat and less engaging. This may be deliberate – the narrative is presented as the recollections of a man whose 50th birthday has arrived, and often sections begin in the present and travel backwards as memories are sparked.

These recollections are brilliantly constructed and the writing is wonderful, but there are too many holes in the plot and the core incident, on which so much of the action rests, turns out to be a complete anti-climax. Also the central character Miles doesn't ring true and the sub-plot about smearing a New Labour MP with ambitions for the position of Home Secretary seems plausible, but the details don't add up.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this a lot, in fact an awful lot, but it is a pretty flawed novel. And just look at the cover. The mass-market paperback is very different – always a sure sign that the original design didn't hit the mark.

Mobius Dick

Andrew Crumey's Sputnik Caledonia was one of my favourite books from 2008, so I was looking forward to this one. Billed as 'the only novel about quantum mechanics you could imagine reading while lying on the beach' and a 'blend of techno-thriller, historical fantasy, philosophy and farce' it seemed to have potential.

It was an interesting read and much of the narrative (the techno-thriller parts) is great, but the parallel universes and the tricksy connections across time and space put me off. Its not that the quantum mechanics gets in the way of the story, but it also doesn't actually add much. In the end you find yourself yearning for a bit of clarity and a character who keeps their own name and sticks around in his own universe for more than five minutes. I also found all the mental derangement and 'am I mad or is it everyone else?' schtick a bit hard to take.

The most interesting aspect for me was how some of this novel is like a precursor to Sputnik Caledonia and how Crumey's ideas and writing have developed from this book to the latest one. Not sure I need to go back any further into his backlist, but Mr Mee does look like it might be worth a go ...

Ascent

For a book written in a fairly flat, emotionless voice the story in Ascent is incredibly moving and intensely rendered. The character's motives and feelings are rarely mentioned, but it is remarkable how vivid the narrative is and how immersed the reader becomes.

A fictional account of a Soviet fighter pilot who forges a legendary reputation in the Korean War only to lose it all in the dying days of the war. His previous prestige saves him from the Siberian labour camps, but he is exiled to a remote base in the Arctic circle for ten years. One more legendary exploit rescues him from this obscurity and secures his ultimate ambition – a spot on the team for the Soviet space program.

Since finishing the book a few weeks ago I keep finding myself returning to its themes and images; the ending still haunts me and will stay lodged in my brain for a long long time.

the Boat

the Boat is an interesting book and there's no doubt that Nam Le is a talented writer, who may well go on to great things. Unfortunately, the stories in this collection don't live up to all the hype and, for me, although there are some small precious gems within the book there are just too many gaps and holes for the writing to work.

He sets out his background and dilemma early on in the first story, Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice:

'It's hot,' a writing instructor told me at a bar. 'Ethnic literature's hot. And important too.'

And then on the next page his fictional friend tells him:

'You could totally exploit the Vietnamese thing. But instead you choose to write about lesbian vampires and Colombian assassins, and Hiroshima orphans – and New York painters with haemorrhoids.'

Sadly I didn't find the lesbian vampires, but all the other characters are present and correct. And that for me is the main problem. While the writing is virtuoso the stories aren't up to snuff. They all read like experiments for his creative writing course (that also crops up in the first story), and I am sure they got good marks, but most left me with a feeling that I only had tiny fragments of what was really happening in these imaginary worlds and these specks weren't enough to bring them into focus.

Even the heartbreaking final story about Vietnamese refugees trying to escape on a fishing boat that breaks down suffers from this problem. The description is superb and the situation is all too vivid, but the characters are obscured and they seem to richochet off each other rather than connecting as they should.

Doors Open

Mike Mackenzie feels like a minor character in a Rebus mystery. He's an intriguing creation, but his Edinburgh is much flatter, more two-dimensional and much less interesting than the one Rebus inhabits.

The other characters are all recognisable representations of their real-life counterparts, but for me none of them came to life the way that Rebus and Shiv did.

The plot is fine and the action hammers along at a cracking pace, but there is something missing. Maybe it's me. Maybe I don't want to accept that Rankin's moved on, left Rebus behind, gone for good. It is an enjoyable read, but (another caveat) I just couldn't find the heart of these characters and I suspect it was a struggle for the author too. The perfect little details that rounded out Rebus and made those stories palpable just aren't there and the impression I am left with is of too much time spent making sure that the plot worked and not enough time spent making sure that the characters did.

Cosmonaut Robbie

You can tell that the author studied Theoretical Physics to doctorate level. But don't let that put you off.

The first section is a beautifully rendered depiction of Scotland in the 1970s, where young Robbie Coyle is just beginning to get to grips with socialism, Top of the Pops, Dr Who, girls and The Meaning of Relativity by Einstein. Terrifically funny and achingly sad by turns, the first section ends with Robbie's first snog in the church hall storeroom.

Part two takes off into a parallel universe; recognisably still Scotland but bizarrely different, an alternative reality in which Robbie is suddenly ten years older and on the short list for a space mission planned to explore an approaching black hole.

The dislocation and night-marish qualities of this section echoed Alasdair Gray's Unthank, and the world Andrew Crumey creates is just as completely realised, deeply detailed and surprisingly tangible as that which Duncan Thaw inhabits.

Then we are back in the present-day and what seems to be normal life. Robbie has vanished from the narrative and it is not until near the end of the book that we discover what has happened to him. There are hints about the middle section and more puzzles to come, leaving the reader to tease out their own interpretation of events. I suspect this may frustrate some readers, but I have a feeling that Sputnik Caledonia will come to be regarded as one of the essentials of Scottish literature.

In Another Light

Bollocks. I think I am going to end up buying a book about golf.


I finished In Another Light a couple of weeks ago and for a few days after I was loath to start reading anything new. I wanted to savour the characters and the world that Andrew Greig created, and for them to stay fresh in my mind for as long as possible.

Greig alternates between two story lines – one set in Orkney a few years ago about a middle-aged engineer who is recovering from some sort of brain seizure, while the other delves into his family history and the time his father spent as an obstetrician seventy years earlier in Penang.

I had read that Andrew also survived a serious brain disorder at around the same age, but until today couldn't find much information about what happened. In my lunchbreak, catching-up on a back issue of the Scottish Review of Books I found a review of Andrew's latest novel Romanno Bridge, by Douglas Gifford. It's the sort of review I love because it not only covers the title that is being reviewed, but it also discusses virtually all his other books and unearths clues about how they all came into being. Anyway, well into the review, long after we have finished the discussion of Romanno Bridge, I discovered that:

Around the turn of the century things went terribly wrong. He tells the story in his moving account of recovery, a unique spiritual autobiography-cum-golfing adventure, Preferred Lies (2006) ... He tells how he was saved from death by the guess of a clever neurosurgeon, who realised that a colloid cyst was crushing Greig's brain. A drain which he implanted to take off the fluid killing the writer saved him; nonetheless, throughout Preferred Lies Greig feels the slight bulge in his head as reminder of time and death.

'Autobiography-cum-golfing adventure'! In anyone else's hands it would be too ghastly to contemplate, but now it has gone straight onto my list of essential purchases.

Needless to say In Another Light is a beautiful, fascinating read. The depiction of Penang in 1930 is wonderful, the Scottish sections have glorious descriptions of the human and natural landscapes and above all his characters, the subtleties of their relationships and the ebbs and flows of love and friendship.

Many of the same themes run through his novels Where they Lay Bare and Electric Brae (one of the all-time great Scottish novels and as Douglas Gifford notes '... takes its place in the line of novels that includes Docherty, Lanark, The Bridge, The Crow Road, Looking for the Possible Dance and The Trick is to Keep Breathing, the defining Scottish novels of the last quarter century').

I reckon Greig is one of the finest Scottish novelists ever and it has always puzzled me that his books don't seem to get the recognition they deserve. The reviews are pretty much always excellent, but you would be hard pushed to find his name on the bestseller lists or a major literary award shortlist (although In Another Light did win the 2004 Saltire Book of the Year Award) and most people look blank when I mention his name. Maybe I just need to hang out with golfers a bit more ...

De Niro's Game

Living in the Christian half of Beirut during the civil war, Bassam is a young man who has grown-up with random violence, adjusting to the loss of family and friends and developing a cynical, hard-boiled outlook on life.

Unlike his friend George, Bassam avoids the militias and as he gradually becomes more alone, losing the last of his family and girlfriend, he makes plans to get of the country. Eventually a combination of small-time crimes and smuggling gives him enough funds to get himself onto a cargo ship heading for Marseille.

Just before his departure Bassam comes dangerously close to losing everything when he is picked up by the militia and accused of killing an old man. Inexplicably he is released and on the day that he is due to leave George picks him up and drives him to a deserted construction site. George seems to understand that Bassam is leaving and their waning friendship is over. He has orders to arrest him again, but first he wants a confessor for the terrible things he has seen and done. Initially it is unclear what transpires at his final meeting with George, but by the end of the book we understand.

Some of the descriptions of Beirut and the surrounding Lebanese countryside are oddly delicate amongst the brutal violence and the writing strikes a satisfying balance between the thriller elements and something more literary and intelligent. When Bassam reaches Paris and needs a book to read in his cheap hotel it is no surprise that the concierge digs out a copy of The Outsider for him.

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living

I wasn't sure about this novel when I started reading, but it had been on my to-read pile for over a year and I needed something that would contrast the bleakness of Riddley Walker. Not that this was the gentle rural tale I was half-expecting.

The sense of place and atmosphere is beautifully conjured, the story is compelling and the period detail is superbly woven in ... But for me it still seemed too slight, the characters not fully rounded and their actions too opaque for me to believe in them. There are moments when it all jelled perfectly (like the passages about Jean's dad), but for the most part there just seemed to be too much of the story missing, just out of reach; as if some crucial parts had been scattered by the torrid winds blasting across the Mallee.

Riddley Walker

'Intensely ponderable.' So says one of the review quotes on the back cover. That's for sure.

Narrated by Riddley in an imagined dialect, set in a post-nuclear holocaust distant future, it demands full concentration and rewards it with a stunning evocation of a world returned to the dark ages. The language is amazing and I constantly found myself re-reading paragraphs, puzzling out the meanings and turning over the implications. It isn't like Trainspotting where your brain suddenly clicks into the dialect and you suddenly know exactly what Renton is talking about, but Riddley's voice still works its way into your head and you begin to piece together the meanings and build up a picture of the myths and history.

I have always been fascinated by books set in post-apocalyptic futures (something to do with growing up at the height of the Cold War) and this is one the best. Other favourites would include The Road, The Drowned World and In the Country of Last Things.

Addition

I have fallen a bit behind on the book reviews lately – there is a large teetering pile of books near the computer, but high up out of range of small hands ...

So, in an effort to catch-up I will try to write brief comments about some of the more notable recent titles. First up Addition by Toni Jordan. Very enjoyable, even if not totally believable depiction of mental illness (Grace is a compulsive counter, hence the title), which reads like it was written as a film script (not necessarily a bad thing in this case).

It is compulsively readable, a bit like a Melburnian Kate Atkinson, but has plenty of wit and intelligence and is hilariously funny in places. It is a first novel and it will be interesting to see what direction she takes in future novels.

Surveillance

And at number 2 was Jonathan Raban's Surveillance. I resisted reading it until March (after buying it for myself as an early Christmas present) and could tell from the first page that it was going to be a real treat.

Like in his travel writing, Raban manages to say a lot about contemporary society, the little details of fact and place are always perfectly observed, reflecting back to the reader our current preoccupations and concerns.

The story concerns a journalist, reclusive writer, gay actor/activist, the journalist's 11-year-old daughter and whether the writer's bestselling war-time memoir is real or not. The story races along and is always fascinating. The ending, however, leaves everything unresolved, not reaching any conclusions about what has gone before. I can't decide if he is trying to make a larger point about the world and mankind's place in it or if he just felt that was how the story should end.

Maybe I need to read it again and see if I can work it out...

What was Lost

So, Catherine O'Flynn's What was Lost was my favourite book of last year. I first read about it on the redoubtable Crockatt and Powell's blog (why did they wait for me to move from Battersea to Melbourne before opening up shop?) and managed to get a copy brought out from the UK.

For me it is just about perfect - moving, funny (hilariously so in places), mysterious and wonderfully well written. I am not going to say any more because basically everyone should read it and I don't want to give anything away.

The Readings' catalogue this month had a special feature (i.e. short interview) with Catherine and Scribe are publishing it in Australia, so well done to them and whoever was smart enough to invite Catherine to the Perth Festival...

(Scribe also published the excellent Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy and the very enjoyable Border Street by Susanne Leal, both of which I read last year and would recommend.)