All for one and one for… sort of.

Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 402
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-782-27123-9
First Published: 1977
Date Reviewed: 21st September 2015
Rating: 3.5/5

Original language: French
Original title: Fortune de France (Fortune Of France)
Translated by: T Jefferson Kline

Pierre was born in a time of war. Some time before his birth, his father, Jean de Siorac, made a pact with Jean de Sauveterre; whilst the Siorac family grew in number, de Sauveterre stayed with them, sharing leadership duties. The war is as much about land and rulings as it is about religion: as Calvin states his ideas reform begins to sweep across France and the people of Mespech begin to join them.

The Brethren is historical fiction, the start of a series that suggests the rest will be epic. A fairly long story, it focuses on Pierre’s childhood and the background of the family. Heralded a modern Dumas, though not quite the same, Merle looks at those who were both at odds with and in favour of the crown.

This book requires a fair amount of attention, composed as it is of battles both factual and not so, other pieces of information, and a number of characters. You’re forgiven for confusing people on occasion – Merle tends to include descriptions with his references and dialogues (for example Colondre’s lack of speech, Coligny’s battle experience). Though technically repetitive it never seems so as it’s helpful. The story is very well set in its era with the benefits of hindsight the author can include. The women are occasionally allowed to be involved in battle (to an extent) and Jean de Siorac’s understanding of health and hygiene is ahead of its time. (As far as the latter is concerned, it’s interesting to note the way what we would now consider common sense is discussed as an unhealthy obsession. Needless to say, however, the good hygiene pays off!)

This book sports action but it’s mostly related third-hand as I’ll be discussing shortly. The story therefore deals more with the domestic side of the sixteenth century – Pierre’s upbringing, the effect of reform on a divided household, childbirth and wet-nursing, and relations between masters and their servants. The family at Mespech have a good relationship with their tenants – they don’t offer in the way of money but there is a relative equality and no one goes hungry. This element, the relationship between the well-off and not so, is perhaps the strongest element of the book.

And there is humour. Some of it must be seen in its historical context to work, for example the woman who always talks of being ‘forced’ into having intercourse, who is always the brunt of laughter because everyone knows she went willingly, enjoyed herself over the course of fifteen times, and uses the notion of being forced to mitigate the problems that would accompany infidelity. Such comedy wouldn’t work nowadays, would be awful. Whether or not Merle’s humour here is comfortable enough for the reader is something else, of course.

The characters are okay – the men developed, a pun that’s intended because the women, as much as they can talk and banter with the men and as much as they don’t have to stay in the kitchen, are somewhat reduced to body parts – again, explained in a moment. Due to the way the story is narrated by a child rather than any of the adults there is not quite enough development for you to feel particularly strongly but then this is the start of a series.

Amongst all the goodness, then, are a fair few problems. The first is the way so much of the book is non-fictional. Historical fiction often deals with fact but Merle has included information as though he were writing a text book, whole swaths of historical information which is often background context rather than anything that affects the characters directly. This means the book is semi-non-fictional and begs the question of how smaller the page count could have been without it.

Merle is absolutely obsessed with breasts. Almost every time a woman is mentioned, so too are her breasts as well as, often, her size. (Most older women are very large, most young very thin.) The female characters are mostly servants of the household but one would not be remiss in believing they’re also there to serve lusts. There are two scenes wherein all heads turn, all gazes fix, upon the firm buxom wet-nurse who takes out her beautiful white breasts during dinner to suckle the lucky little babe the men wish they could replace. Talk of heads enveloped by chests almost forms a theme. Doubtless the male characters would not gawk so much if Merle wasn’t forcing them to do so.

There’s distance between narrator and reader. Where Pierre narrates what happens to his father, third-hand, there is distance and the story is perhaps not as interesting as it could’ve been if, say, these adventures had happened to Pierre himself. This looks set to change in book two, but for this, book one, it’s very much the case.

Finally, exclusive to the English translation, is the language. Merle wrote his story in a sort of sixteenth century French which may sound hard going and potentially off-putting but that’s the way it is. The translator has written the English version in modern English, a little on the Victorian side; what you’re getting is one person’s interpretation more so than you would usually. The lack of comparable sixteenth century English may entice some readers but those wanting to read Merle may find the English drier and less thrilling than the French.

The Brethren has a lot going for it but also a fair amount that’s not in its favour. It is quite fascinating, the modernity of the characters is capable of winning you over, and most importantly it will make you want to continue to book two; but it is best noted that it’s far from flawless and has the ability to disappoint in places.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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War comes with a price.

Publisher: Phoenix (Orion)
Pages: 216
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-753-80470-4
First Published: 1995
Date Reviewed: 23rd August 2015
Rating: 5/5

Original language: German
Original title: Der Vorleser (The Reader)
Translated by: Carol Brown Janeway

At the age of fifteen, Michael has an affair with an older woman. Hanna entices him but he notes the distance she keeps between them, the way she avoids discussing her past. A few years later, whilst studying law, Michael sits in on the trial of several women who were guards in the SS. Amongst them is Hanna.

The Reader is a fantastic book. It’s compelling, informative, and quite moving, too.

Let’s start with the history the novel is based on: Schlink introduces the reader to the way war crimes of Germans were dealt with by the German courts. You get to see the views of the everyday people of their history and the characters run the gambit – people want justice, children dislike their parents even if the parents didn’t play a role (they dislike them for not fighting against the Nazis), and then you’ve Michael who doesn’t defend the war in any sense but looks at those who participated (via Hanna) in an objective light.

Of course whether or not it’s truly objective, so to speak, is down to the reader. Because the personality and personal history of Hanna is so intrinsic to who she is at the trial, and because of the affair, it could be inferred that Michael is biased towards her somewhat. He doesn’t believe she’s innocent – she’s not – but he looks at her in light of her choices, the reasons for them. (‘No, Hanna had not decided in favour of crime. She had decided against a promotion at Siemens, and had fallen into a job as a guard.’) Schlink, through Michael, then, doesn’t just question Hanna’s involvement in the war, he questions her choices away from it. He questions her as a person, questions the decisions she makes. Hanna is all about honesty when it comes to the trial – whilst the other women lie, she simply affirms or denies. Michael sees in her behaviour someone who knows this is what should happen. Where personality is involved we see the affect illiteracy has on Hanna’s answers. Beyond all else, it seems to Michael, is Hanna’s worry of being exposed as illiterate. Keeping hidden her lack of education, in a place where being able to read and write was is, is more important than avoiding jail.

This is where the idea of ‘the reader’ takes to the stage; this book is about far more, literary-wise, than Michael’s reading aloud in the bedroom. Michael realises that far from making the noted weak women of the concentration camps become her slaves, Hanna’s assigning them to read to her is an attempt to make comfortable what little time they have left. Although she later learns to read and write, Hanna is very much a reader.

In the subtext there is a question: is Hanna selfish? She provides money for a survivor to give to charities – in her, Hanna’s, name. She takes Michael to bed though he is underage and she affectively on the run. She gets those bound for the gas chambers to read to her. Are these displays of selfish or unselfish behaviour?

Both Hanna and Michael take control. Hanna controls Michael in the bedroom – not literally, but in experience – and Michael later controls their contact when she’s in jail. Michael uses Hanna’s imprisonment to atone for his guilt but only so much – he records himself narrating fiction but never goes to visit her. He exploits the literal and emotional distance between them.

Precisely because she was both close and removed in such an easy way, I didn’t want to visit her. I had the feeling she could only be what she was to me at an actual distance… How could we meet face to face without everything that had happened between us coming to the surface?

Michael liked the idea of Hanna and the teenage view of perfect love he had, he doesn’t want to spoil it; he doesn’t want to grow up, in fact – every woman he is with in his life is compared to Hanna. And he doesn’t want to face what’s happened. When Hanna leaves Michael, the reader will note she’s (finally) doing the right thing by him, taking her past with her, letting him be a child again and not rolled up in the affects of war, but of course he doesn’t see that himself.

This book isn’t atoning for involvement; it is the case that it shows how people could be pulled in – by the promise of more pay, for example – because as we know that’s a lot of what it was. We can compare Schlink’s writing of the events of WWII with Irene Némirovsky’s Suite Française: Némirovsky wrote of the war whilst she was living it as a person of Jewish heritage hiding from the Nazis. Both Schlink and Némirovsky show the human side of the Nazi party, or, rather, the human side to those who were at the bottom, the low-ranking soldiers who did what they were told to do, or at the very least did what they felt they had to do. Of course in Némirovsky’s case this is more profound, she’s giving a voice to fictional versions of the people who were hunting her down as she wrote, but both Némirovsky and Schlink write in such a way that asks for thought, does not suggest forgiveness nor ask for it.

It’s almost too obvious to state, but there is a lot of information about Auschwitz in The Reader, and about the role of women in the SS. The books ends in a way you may feel it ‘ought’ whilst showing there are far more reasons behind it than the ones on the surface.

A brief word on the writing – beautiful. Simple, to the point, and full of sub-textual imagery. The words may technically be Janeway’s but Schlink’s prose seeps through.

The Reader is a book of great magnitude. The potential for impact is high, the content hard to read but invaluable, the journey sad but necessary. It is a book for everyone.

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Faith, love, and misunderstanding.

Publisher: Salt
Pages: 144
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-784-63029-4
First Published: 10th August 2015
Date Reviewed: 17th August 2015
Rating: 5/5

Kauthar, a white Brit, found herself in Islam. A lack of something in her life from childhood led to a conversion that she felt was always her destiny. And so she changes her name, wear hijab, learns to pray. She finds a husband, too, and sticks to her beliefs when questioned by her parents, who continue to call her Lydia. But as the world changes and thus affects Kauthar, she begins to change, too.

Kauthar is Ziervogel’s spectacular third novella, a book about identity and self-worth as much as it is about faith and religion.

Islam, and to a minor extent, Christianity, features in this book, but religion is not a point Ziervogel is making with her character (it is made, so to speak, but in general). What begins as a story about conversion with Islam at its centre (and a great one at that, details later) becomes a story about the English convert who doesn’t really understand the faith she has felt called to, and so ultimately you see religion both from those who truly believe and the convert who misunderstands. Suffice to say Ziervogel’s book is one of great tolerance, of teaching, and of comparisons that seek to show how people of different backgrounds can get along regardless of faith; Ziervogel shows how location is more important, how the place a person calls home, on the earth, defines who they are as much as their faith.

Conversion and religion isn’t the ‘issue’ with Kauthar, not really. It’s her lack of identity, the feelings of displacement she’s felt throughout her life that defines her adulthood. She views situations strongly – falling off the monkey bars at a park in childhood onto her knees she sees as her first step towards Islam, humble and profound. Kauthar, Lydia, has a lot of love in her life, but not quite enough nor of the type she ‘required’; a fine example is the way her mother continues to call her Lydia and wonders when her ‘Muslim phase’ will be over – you, the reader, whether or not you share her faith or even believe in religion at all, feel the brunt of such a brushing off of the faith as much as Kauthar does herself. You see first-hand, if you will, the reason why Kauthar feels the need to pen a long letter about scripture, which is similarly brushed off.

The book is set around 11th September and so Kauthar’s somewhat fragile state breaks apart completely when she feels the need to defend herself, to hide herself, and often out of her own fears rather than others’ opinions, though there is a scene that starts it off. Kauthar feels discomfort, the hatred that Muslims felt at the time, but takes it differently. It makes her defensive in a certain way because Islam has become so intrinsic to her self-worth and identity, something she has to prove as an outsider – Kauthar is Islam and you would certainly say towards the end that Kauthar regards Islam as her. No one is as faithful as her or correct in their faithful ways. In wearing a chador and later bhurka, she is hiding herself away from view, vocally to abide by Allah’s wishes but also, sub-textually, in ways the reader notices but perhaps not the character, to hide from herself and her past. From the husband she loved and who was one with her – now considered not good enough, not Islamic enough. In a way she also hides herself from her own faith which, as suggested by my paragraph on religions, she considers not godly enough.

Lastly, this is a book about love. Love for Allah – seen from many points of view – love for one’s spouse, and love for one’s home. It is in part Rafiq’s feeling that he ought to return to London, that that’s where he should be, that causes the gulf between him and Kauthar. And the love between the couple is true; you see the utter devotion Rafiq has for this woman he felt called to.

In all Ziervogel’s novellas, the prose is lovely but in many ways, most especially here, it’s not the point. The book is all about what isn’t said, what you can see in your imagination as a result of the words. And what’s so special about Kauthar is that you know without a doubt that you have the picture, the scene, correct, even though you know it’s not there on the surface, so to speak. There is nothing else like it. The word ‘unique’ is tossed about, given to everything so that it looses its meaning; in Kauthar it has a worthy cause.

This isn’t to say that this style runs throughout the book – reading between the lines for a whole 144 pages would be a daunting prospect – but it comes at the defining moment. The moment when you realise the section you thought might be info-dump really wasn’t and that it was the first obvious step towards what was going to happen. The moment where a book that you thought you had figured out fairly well takes a new turn, in a written version of what is happening in the character’s reality.

This is a book that takes conversion, the white convert in particular, and looks at the reasons people choose to make the change. It shows how profound, amazing, true conversion and finding one’s religious and faithful self can be, and the joy of that. And none of that is tainted because Ziervogel doesn’t make Kauthar and Islam part and parcel. A lot of research and knowledge accompanies this book.

Kauthar is a very different book about identity that outclasses many others. Highly recommended to those who enjoy the theme as well as those who like diversity and high tolerance in their reading when it comes to western fiction.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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To pass with flying colours…

Publisher: Firefly Press
Pages: 202
Type: Fiction
Age: Young Adult
ISBN: 978-1-910-08018-4
First Published: 2015
Date Reviewed: 24th July 2015
Rating: 3.5/5

It’s 2059. The world has largely flooded and there is very little land left. In Britain the Ministry deals with the population problem by making 15-year-olds sit exams – those who achieve high marks get to stay, those who don’t are sent to the Wetlands where there are few resources and disease is rife. It’s a death sentence. Wealthy and/or influential parents can pay to upgrade their children, set them up with the technology that streams information straight into the brain, and many do. But Noa’s parents didn’t. A ‘norm’, she spends her time revising and hanging out with her friends whilst she still can; Jack is good at art but may fail science, and Daisy is an average student with little support. But then there’s Raf, the ‘freakoid’ surgically-enhanced new kid who isn’t like the others.

The Territory is an ambitious and very ‘current’ young adult novel that looks at the way exams impact students in the context of a dystopian society. Comparable to The Hunger Games on certain levels, the book marks the start of a trilogy, the beginning of a bold journey for Govett. The book sports appeal for both teenagers and adults – teenagers are more likely to accept the language, adults more likely to enjoy the political elements.

Let’s get the characters and language out of the way first. Noa isn’t at all likeable. She’s irritating; she judges people based on their appearance (this can be argued to be fair considering exams and social standing are everything – it’s the sheer number of times she does it that is the issue); she uses offensive language on every other page (“mental”, “psycho”, “denser” – again understandable where intellect is of utmost importance, it’s just the repetitiveness of it that’s uncomfortable and off-putting). Her use of language is seemingly at odds with her education, at least in the context of our day.

But, and this is a big but – this is Govett’s point. Noa is average, an average teenager, as likely to cause offence as any other, as likely to be nice or nasty as any other (and Noa isn’t heartless, she’s far from it). She’s cited as clever but there’s the ongoing question of whether or not she’s clever enough to be saved. Govett’s point is thus – why shouldn’t Noa, who stands for the average school-aged child, be free to live happily? Why shouldn’t she be saved, why should she be placed behind a person who has had every advantage? In this way Govett questions our present, real, society, and the importance we put on status, on exams; she questions elitism and the barriers placed in front of disadvantaged children that effectively hinder their progress. And so Govett has taken her questions and woven a dystopian tale around them.

Going back to the language and Noa, the language is something your typical adult reader, and likely many younger readers, too, are going to have to work around, to get past if they can. Noa’s language is almost too colloquial – there are words here I know I’ve never heard of that may or may not be made up (this is the future and language is always evolving) – and there are many capitalised words and exclamation points. The book is written in the first person in what seems to be a diary – at least it reads like a diary.

The second thing that needs to be worked around, by the reader for them to enjoy the book, is Noa’s attitude, specifically the way she expresses herself and her emotions. Noa is sarcastic and favours humour, which is obviously at odds with the situation but makes sense when you consider she probably needs to let off steam. What doesn’t work so well is the distance between her and the reader. You can draw parallels with the way Katniss can come across as uncaring until you peel back the layers and realise she is suffering from PTSD, but unlike Collins’s trilogy, The Territory‘s lack of stated emotion has a negative impact on the world building.

Govett has obviously spent a good while on the world-building; most questions are answered and the only big mystery that remains by the end refers to the Wetlands. This itself is quite fine because it’s evident that you’re going to be visiting the Wetlands at some point and any amount of experience with dystopian fiction is enough to alert you to the fact it’s likely the Wetlands aren’t cut and dried (excuse the pun) much in the same way you don’t hear about District 13 or any other dystopian underworld right at the beginning. The problem is that there is too much focus on language – an obvious focus on getting the language right to the detriment of the world-building. You are told much, and see a little, but more could have been made of what is said. Being in Noa’s head limits your knowledge and her seeming lack of care, her distance, means it’s difficult to care yourself.

As you can see it’s a trade in and trade off – The Territory is undeniably excellent for what it does, says, presents and asks. It includes most everything it needed to to attract the reader and it does keep you wanting to read. But it could have used more outward emotion, detailing, and immersion in the world.

The promise at the end is that the second book will be full of action and there’s no reason to think otherwise. The Territory is very much the set-up book and where the political elements are put into place. It’s a book that’s worth the read so long as you keep in mind that there are two levels to it and you remember which one is yours. (This itself is not something that limits or detracts from the novel.)

I’ve met the author.

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Lions and tigers and bears… and war and legends.

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Orion)
Pages: 336
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-297-85901-7
First Published: 1st January 2010
Date Reviewed: 19th June 2015
Rating: 3.5/5

Natalia is off to vaccinate children at risk. In a country torn literally apart by war, help is needed. As she and her friend get to grips with their location, she muses on her grandfather, his life, and the tales he told her.

The Tiger’s Wife is a many-layered book. Good but with vague purpose, it is enjoyable but decidedly average.

The main problem where lack of success is concerned is the way Obreht chooses to write her story. The natural choice of main character was the grandfather but instead Obreht opts to tell the story through his granddaughter. It shows – Natalia is severely underdeveloped. There is no reason to care about her, nor anyone else. Everyone is forgettable.

This way of telling a story, through someone else, may work at times – Lockwood and Nelly in Wuthering Heights are fine, as is Wells’ time traveller speaking of the past – but in those cases there is a basic disconnect, a sub-textual acknowledgement that the narrator is just a device. In The Tiger’s Wife, whilst Obreht may see Natalia as a storyteller, she also includes enough about the woman herself to suggest she wants us to relate to her, to warrant detailing her life. Granted, Natalia is a device through which Obreht also teaches us about the Yugoslav wars and life at the time, likely chosen to bring about a similar affect as a memoir might have, but it doesn’t quite work.

The other problem is more opinion – some readers may find the book too vague. You are left to work out Obreht’s point by yourself; Obreht actually says near the end that she isn’t going to tell you what it was about. The problem is, it can feel like you’re grasping at straws. Suffice to say it could be argued the book was written to fill gaps, to provide a taste, to be beautiful.

And it is beautiful. Obreht’s writing is stunning. There are too many details but the style, structure, words, linger in your mind. It’s typical to describe a good début as not being like a début – this is an apt description of The Tiger’s Wife.

The social and political information is telling. Obreht leaves no stone unturned – she wants to inform readers about the division of Yugoslavia and that’s what she does. She weaves in diversity, showing the different cultures and how to some people the difference mattered, how to others it did not. She is incredibly candid about the way children can be, adults can be, when they are on the cusp of something big but not quite there – the way war can be appropriated to satisfy selfish and bad behaviour.

Those first sixteen months of wartime held almost no reality, and this made them incredible, irresistible, because the fact that something terrible was happening elsewhere, and at the same time to us, gave us room to get away with anarchy. Never mind that, three hundred miles away, girls sitting in bomb shelters were getting their periods at the age of seven. In the City, we weren’t just affected by the war, we were entitled to our affection. When your parents said get your ass to school, it was all right to say, there’s a war on, and go down to the riverbank instead. When they caught you sneaking into the house at three in the morning, your hair reeking of smoke, the fact that there was a war on prevented them from staving your head in. When they heard from neighbors that your friends had been spotted doing a hundred and twenty on the Boulevard with you hanging none too elegantly out the sunroof, they couldn’t argue with there’s a war on, we might all die anyway They felt responsible, and we all took advantage of their guilt because we didn’t know any better.

Obreht explains without trying to apologise, she explains to show what division, what war, can do, how it can change people.

The book is heavily influenced by folklore and The Jungle Book – Kipling’s original rather than Disney’s adaptation. Through these she explores social and cultural problems, domestic violence, the way people will see what they want to see, take from a situation only what aligns with their thoughts. This folklore is where the magical realism comes into play, the story of a man who cannot die and the titular story of a woman who befriends a tiger, scandalising a village that cannot understand it.

This is a book best read away from food. Natalia is a doctor and Obreht describes training in detail. She also has a fascination with the physical affects of sinus problems which are relayed without notice and may put you off your lunch.

The Tiger’s Wife is far from bad but there is an air of ‘written for acclaim’ about it, which was of course realised when it won the Orange Prize. It can teach you a lot but it’s not particularly well-paced and keeps its secrets beyond the last page.

Read it if you will but don’t put it above others on your list.

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