#5 The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twan Eng

   For both my MA and BA I studied China and some South/East Asia so I naturally approach any book set in the region with a sort of proprietorial manner.  I expect to either like it very much as it has captured something I feel to be very true about 'The Orient, or to dislike it because they've got facts wrong and worked off lazy stereotypes.  It was in this frame of mind that I read Tan Twan Eng's 'The Gift of Rain' about a year ago, and I absolutely loved it.  Malaysia was new to me and his descriptions so evocative, of the rain forests and markets and temples which just hovered at the edge of my Chinese familiarity, just close enough to be recognizable.  Equally a new history of which I'd had very little knowledge of before was laid out and picked apart - fairly unflatteringly for most involved, another reminder that World War II was just that.

   So coming to 'The Garden of Evening Mists' I had high hopes it would be like 'The Gift of Rain, and it was! Very alike, very very alike, almost too alike, almost like the same book...

  In terms of basic structure both have as their protagonist an outcast, one mixed race, one straits (English speaking) Chinese.  Both are post-war coming to terms with their actions and experiences during and since the war.  Both are by this point fairly old and are retelling their stories to a previously unknown (Japanese) visitor - although in 'Mists' Teoh is writing her story down her decision to is prompted by and coincides with the scholars arrival.  Both are remembering a older Japanese sensei figure who taught them the ancient and honorable Japanese arts - before being revealed to have (probably) played sinister role in the war.  All is set against a backdrop of beautiful blooming but damaged Malay.

   There are a lot of similarities and had I not enjoyed 'Gift of Rain' I would have been a bit pissed off to find myself reading the same book again.  As it is I loved The Garden of Evening Mists' for how skillfully it drags you into the world of Teoh Yun Ling and how fully immersed you become in the mists and the humidity and the cool air of the mountains of the far east.  Also how unsparingly it lays bare the history of the region and the atrocities enacted upon the local population by the Japanese - and then the native Communists.  Overall its rich and absorbing and just a bit too much like 'Gift of Rain' to be considered even a wholly separate
book.

Immersiveness: 9/10
History teaching: 8/10
Self-plagiarism: 8/10
Bonus points for plenty of Japanese words to practice saying: 5
Overall: 8/10

#4 The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds

   I supposed it had to come to this - although I'd hoped I could put it off a bit longer, I've finished a book I have all but no interest in reviewing or writing about or even particularly remembering.  I could just pretend it never happened and skip straight to the next (which is already far more enjoyable), but that wouldn't really be the point would it?

  I'm sure there's nothing wrong with 'The Quickening Maze' I just didn't really feel that we gelled, I wasn't ever gagging to read it, I never had to stop reading it because I really didn't want what was about to happen to happen (when Joey has to freeze books in 'Friends' I can only nod sagely) and I was mildly surprised when it finished as nothing really had happened.

   It's bit like if Pride and Prejudice got as far as the ball at Meryton, so that dances were had and not had, prejudices were made and pride was offended and the beginnings of characters and stories were being teased out and then Jane decided that was enough and lay down her pen to go for a jolly picnic instead.  The whole novel felt like a long introduction which was just getting interested when it was curtailed.  I'm sure if I mention this to my mum she'll sagely say 'Ah but you know what happens to her, and you know what happens to him..' as if 'knowing' where the story will go - because we can know these things from having read Austen, is equal to having someone else write and craft it for you.  I *know* all sorts of stories, I still read books.

  All in all an inconsequential 5/10 for hinting but never extrapolating to the point where you don't care - if Mr Foulds couldn't be bothered to expand on his tale, why should I?

Over and out my little bookamabees

#3 Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

   I wasn't expecting to like 'Gone Girl', as read from the description the basic premise didn't really appeal:

 'What are you thinking, Amy?' The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: 'What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?' Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears..

I'm not really a fan of that sort of thriller-esque beautiful woman goes missing why did she do it thing.  The orange on black cover sort of confirmed the impression of a  'dramatic' novel for the mass market.  Not to mention the title - 'Gone Girl', why 'girl' why not woman except that girl a) alliterates - making it easier to remember and rhetorically more appealing, and b) what, it sounds more mysterious/flighty? A 'girl' applied to a grown woman already makes her sound more dramatic, someone whose eyes probably 'sparkle mischievously' every now and then, it implies lack of responsibility.  All in all a total turn off.  But for a project I had to read 'Gone Girl' and I'm thoroughly glad I did.

   Flynn has managed to create a relationship between Nick and Amy that is unmistakably grim, human and true.  I'll hope other people read it quietly nodding along to the way two people who love each other can still just not understand one another, and how things unsaid build up and become huge silent elephants.  The grim but inevitable realization that the other person isn't perfect and will never understand you as much as you'd want, not even close.  Whilst these things are easy to lay out clinically the treatment Flynn gives them brings the issues to shocking life in front of your eyes.  Genuine human relationships are rarely found anywhere in literature - or much art, but this is brutally insightful.  The twisted conclusion it comes to is more worrying - and the point when (luckily) I felt the head nodding come to a stop.

   Whilst this is a thriller in the truest sense there are no jumps, no killers in the back seat, yet it isn't totally a psychological kicker either.  The thrill lies in the pitch perfect depiction of what could just happen when someone crosses a line.  It touches on one of my favorite motifs of literature - the unreliable narrator, the blunt realization that we, the reader, are being lied to.

   All in all a brilliant bit of fiction, perhaps the ending maybe felt a little too stretched, the conclusions a little too contrived but never to the point of anything less than total fascination.

Characters: 9/10 full and complete and mental
Police procedure: 8/10 we get to watch them swing back and forth with genuine interest
Narrator Reliability: 2/10 Brilliant!
Totally: 8/10
  

#2 The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz

  In great contrast to review #1 I absolutely loved 'The House of Silk' - to the point where I was totally gutted when I finished and immediately set about cataloging which of the original Sherlock Holmes I have read (sadly most of them) and excitingly those I missed first time - the read/not read list corresponds almost identically to what's free/not free for kindles...

   The time was certainly ripe last year for a revival of the great Holmes and increasingly important Watson  after the huge success of the BBC adaptation with Benedict 'Otterface' Cumberbatch and the surprisingly attractive and not-hobbit like Martin Freeman. Getting Anthony Horowitz on board was too a stroke of genius - as the author notes at the end attest he may be the most prolific literary murderer of our times.  Plus he himself has reckoned 'The House of Silk' is suitable for anyone 13+ and it just so happens he's vastly well known to the younger demographic - who might have liked the modern BBC adaptation but would worry about not liking a 'period' Holmes, except for the author already being known to them.

  In tone and language and setting the novel feels like vintage Conan Doyle.  Brief, sharp, almost sparse writing interspersed with detailed yet still highly functional descriptions of people and places.  The strange and wide ranging locations visited in their quest are as bizarre and barren as would be expected.  Watson is a reliable narrator as usual - and gets quite a few compliments on his chronicles.

   The actual storyline of the book is initially brilliant, one seemingly minor criminal case swiftly blurs into something more potent and deadly.  As far as the central 'crime' goes the build up is magnificent as the extent of the elusive House of Silk becomes known, and yet the final denouement feels lacking somewhat.  The central crime seems both too attuned to modern sensibilities and somewhat lacking in scale and scope after the billing it was given.  This is not to say the final resolution isn't satisfying - the eventual return to the original 'minor' crime and it's solving is brilliant, simply that the major crime feels a tad inauthentic.

  It's easy to pick holes however and for the vast majority of the book I was completely hooked, in the way where a ride up an escalator becomes a brief 45 seconds of reading time.  It's also quite fair to say if I re-read much of the Holmes so far it's fairly likely I would be able to pick out criticisms too.

  All in all I hope Horowitz attempts another Sherlock Holmes and perhaps follows his own 'rules' more closely so delivering a more authentic story line.

Minor plot: 8/10
Major plot: 6/10
Period sensibilities: 4/10
Effort: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

#1 The Misremembered Man - Christina McKenna

   'The Misremembered Man' as a title comes from a throwaway line given by one of the few characters in the novel.  As with much of the book its a line apparently designed to appear flippant whilst actually endowing the reader with a sudden glimpse of the truth of the sentiment.  Except it doesn't really.  As a line it makes little sense and it's choosing as a title sort of encapsulates the try hard nature of Christina McKenna's novel.

   'The Misremembered Man' is a brief intrusion into the life of James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone, farmer and ex-resident of Ireland's infamous 'Magdalene laundries'.The story follows his attempts (and the parallel attempts of 'Lydia Divine' - 'Lydia Divine'...pah) to find love and/or a female companion.  From the shaky beginning of a lonely hearts ad. the story just sort of happens.  An incident in a bar hints at dangerous consequences - which never materialize, a briefly mentioned armed robbery serves...very little purpose except to showcase another two 'kooky' characters - who then fail to impact on the narrative in the slightest, even the death of a main character just sort of happens...It's no great failing for nothing to happen in a book, or for characters to drift in and out with no discernible purpose, but here it feels like the style has been misappropriated.  

  The novel is essentially a fairly light 'cast of quirky Irish characters' chick-lit story.  Yet rather than be content with this McKenna has shoehorned in some sob-lit in the shape of a stereotypically realized vision of the awful life in the laundries into the narrative.  It's totally unnecessary.  As a character Jamie McCloone is a grubby bachelor farmer who is, unsurprisingly single.  In the context of his drinking and life on the farm his lack of female companionship is unremarkable, yet McKenna attempts to give it greater depth by blaming it on his mistreatment as a child.  Rather than accepting the lower-brow reaches of the story there's been a real attempt to make it deeper, give it more emotional resonance  but it's been done in such a way it feels tacked on, like lines meant for another book - probably not a particularly good one either.  

Readability - 8/10 Taxing this ain't

Strength of narrative - 5/10 inconsequential story line with a profoundly dissatisfying and cliche 'twist' at the end

Care for characters - 3/10 I can barely remember their names
Possibility of incest - 7/10 

Arbitrary overall score - 4/10 Tries too hard and remains inconsequential