An excellent book about awful people.

Publisher: Little Brown
Pages: 501
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-316-22853-4
First Published: 1st January 2012
Date Reviewed: 24th February 2015
Rating: 5/5

On his wedding anniversary (which his wife would tell you he spent writing about the life of a girl on the council estate) Barry Fairbrother dies. The semi-rural town of Pagford is struck by it, tossed into chaos. The death means there’s a vacant seat on the parish council and it seems everyone wants a look in or has an opinion. Howard and Shirley Mollison who are secretly glad their rival is dead; Miles and Samantha Mollison, one running to take the free spot, the other trying to run clear away from it; Colin Wall and Parminder Jaswant who were friends of Barry and want to keep his dreams alive; Simon Price who will beat up anyone who might ruin his quest to be the next councillor; the teenage children who are affected by their parents’ narrow-mindedness; Krystal Weedon who lives on the council estate so many want divided from Pagford; everyone has something to win or lose.

The Casual Vacancy is a long in-depth novel that looks at the way classes are divided, at social and political problems at a local level, and about how prejudice can obstruct communication, understanding, and empathy. Likely to offend or shock (in fact I’d say it’s likely to shock most readers at some time or other) Rowling leaves nothing to ambiguity – she has things to say and come hell or high Pagford river water, she’s going to say them.

It will come as no surprise, then, when I say that the book is character-driven. The potential bestowal of Barry’s place forms the nucleus around which everything else spins.

It is worth mentioning that there are no good characters in this book apart from the innocent – one cannot call the toddler bad, for example, and likewise young Paul Price, eternally frightened by his abusive father, cannot be seen in a bad light either. Everyone else has a degree of hatred in them. You will be satisfied at some point, yes, by certain downfalls, but it must be noted that Rowling’s message, her reason for writing, requires her to expose this hatred.

At the same time, there are positive traits shown. Of course many characters have very little good in them, at least in the context of this novel, but others have a fair amount of goodness going for them. What Rowling does is look at stereotypes – this is where we initially acknowledge the offensive content; Rowling takes the stereotypes and runs with them. The stuffy, backwards-thinking white-majority middle class country residents? Check. The council-house-and-violence definition known by an acronym? Check. It can be quite difficult to read this book – more at the beginning when you’re not sure what Rowling’s point is, of course, especially as Rowling is so honest. She writes the accents, the ones we all know, the stereotypical speech patterns. She discusses the exclusive meetings and fake niceties, the drugs and the poor home environment. Abuse, self-harm, infidelity, health. The communication problems between children and their parents, parents not thinking of the affect their choices have on their children.

But then you’ll find the author is far from finished. Rowling shows the good side to both sides. She shows what can happen when the closeted look beyond themselves. She looks at the way poverty and hardship isn’t clear-cut – at how it’s often any endless cycle, at how people try to better themselves to no avail when the ‘other half’ won’t let them in. Certainly there is more ‘good’ time spent on The Fields, Pagford’s detested council estate, but then that becomes what you expect. It becomes what you expect even if you acknowledge what the residents of Pagford are saying (acknowledge but not quite accept). Yes, there is the sense that Rowling has a clear side she wants to win, and she’s not afraid to state her piece in the face of potential backlash (backlash that seems to have happened if articles are anything to go by) but there is never a metaphorical stride in. Rowling doesn’t break the fourth wall so much as remain beside the journalist who sits on the sidelines of the council meeting. Rowling’s primary goal is to make you think, and think hard. What’s really worth arguing over? What’s the worth of one person compared to another? And, of course, where much of the situation is so similar to arguments in real life, it is all the more important.

As for the characters themselves then, they are very believable. As well as the accents and realism it’s easy, at least if you’re familiar with the varying cultures (this is where I acknowledge that my Britishness may have aided my reading), to create the image in your head and supply any details that Rowling may have left out. You inevitably create a stereotype but, as you’ve probably guessed by now, again that’s the point and another way to make you uncomfortable. This creation will work no matter who you are; the diversity is yet another purposefully included element.

And if you can get through the hatred there is a lot to like about The Casual Vacancy. Rowling’s writing is fair. The attention to detail is meticulous. The amount of time each character gets is equal to the others. The issues are written without apology, in a way your Victorian melodramatic matriarch would find intolerable. There is reward for persevering, and whilst the ending may not be quite what you expected (it certainly surprised me), you’ll close the book with enough to work out the final message Rowling wants to leave you with. Ambiguity takes its place, but Rowling often withdraws its invitation at the last moment, the writer making use of her character’s personalities for a gain they would despise. Whether you agree with Rowling’s thoughts or not is of no consequence – the important thing is that she makes you think.

Political and very damning, The Casual Vacancy is one you’ll want to set a time for rather than sit down with on a relaxing Sunday afternoon. And whilst you’ll be sticking your finger up at the most basic etiquette by choosing such a time, it’d be hard to say it isn’t worth it.

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One of us is wrong, but is it her or me?

Publisher: William Heinemann
Pages: 207
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-434-02232-8
First Published: 16th July 2013
Date Reviewed: 19th February 2015
Rating: 5/5

Nathaniel Piven (Nate) is doing fairly well. He writes book reviews, freelances for various newspapers and magazines, and his book proposal has been accepted. Women-wise, he’s also doing well, at least as far as number is concerned. He doesn’t stay with any one person too long; it starts out well and they’re intelligent, attractive, fun, and so forth but after a few months he’s had enough. But that’s okay, isn’t it?

The Love Affairs Of Nathaniel P is an extremely pleasurable literary experience. Whilst the official line is that it’s about the literary scene in New York – particularly Brooklyn – there are many interpretations and readings to be had.

“It’s hard not to feel irrelevant in a world where a book that does really well sells maybe a hundred thousand copies. Even the lamest television show about time travel or killer pets would be cancelled instantly if it did that badly.”

The book’s appeal is two-fold. It is half a character study, in which Waldman adeptly takes the reader back and forth between believing the women are at fault and believing Nate is at fault. Whilst Waldman doesn’t exactly hide her thoughts and main points, whether or not the conclusion will have you feeling more for, say, Elisa and Hannah, than Nate, is never quite certain. The other half of the appeal is that this is a book about books – about books, about writing, about the writing and publishing industries, about the people who write articles for a living. Reading the book you may well have that euphoric feeling that I think it’s safe to say everyone reading this review is versed in, simply because you like reading. That feeling that accompanies discussing books that is perhaps stronger and more wonderful for the very fact that, let’s face it, it can be a rare occurrence – be it the discussion of books in general terms (“I liked such and such”) or the more involved debate or conversation of themes and styles. Yet, this said, at the same time the literary conversation between a group almost completely composed of privileged middle-class white people can be difficult to read – and it’s difficult because of the privilege and importance, the smugness they don’t realise they own. As far as reading the book is concerned, it’s often a heavy mix of delight in the subjects discussed, and unease because you know about the rest of the world ‘outside’ (Nate loves to ponder upon the less-privileged, which he does in a quasi-intellectual, distant and affectedly caring way).

Waldman’s writing itself is an interesting beast. It becomes evident early on that Waldman just ‘gets it’: the way you meet someone whom you instantly click with, a person who seems to understand that certain aspect of your personality or interests that no one else ever has, this is the way it feels to read Waldman’s words. It’s not that her subject will resonate with you, rather it’s the way she addresses you as the reader, is intimate and devoid of secrets. It’s the way she delves into detail, the way she narrates. In literal terms, the book is one long exercise in ‘telling’ – in what writers are told to stay away from and readers appreciate not having to read; however Waldman has written what is essentially an account, a third-person past tense story of what happened, and she’s successfully managed to get around the issues of over-detailing and info-dump. The style has allowed her to get right into Nate’s head and give the reader an exact idea of what he’s like; she gives you his inner life. In sum, Waldman has stimulated the effect of first-person narrative despite the limited amount of dialogue and Nate never addressing the reader himself.

The writing style is a bit of a mash-up. It’s not completely literary but it’s not casual or easy either. Waldman favours lesser-used words, long descriptions that you may have to read twice simply because she’s packed her sentences with so-called highbrow terms – this even though it’s likely you’ll know the meaning of the words without looking them up (at least in most cases). Following such highbrow sentences will be a sentence which uses very modern slang. Literary fiction meets ‘at her place where they had chips and guac’.

What’s interesting is that whilst on the surface this writing is incredibly pretentious, that’s both not quite the case and quite the idea. Due to the overall feel of the book it’s hard to say the language is flowery, really. Waldman is highbrow without being highbrow – she makes intellectual and affected language assessable, whilst remaining consciously, pointedly, pretentious.

There is very little plot in this book; it’s all about character – a study of relationships, a what-we-do-and-how-and-why-it-affects-us study. All the characters could easily be exchanged with others and it wouldn’t alter the book because the point is the overriding factor, rather than the people. (Although, this said, you will undoubtedly find yourself feeling sympathy for someone in the bunch and whilst Waldman may spend more time on a particular character you’re ‘able’ to focus on another.) Nate himself could be switched and it wouldn’t matter.

The title is both alluring and mundane. That Nathaniel isn’t afforded a surname is both off-putting in a ‘who cares, he could be anyone’ way, and intriguing for that very reason. One could speculate that Waldman has used the censoring method of Victorian writers and opted for something that could be swapped for something, someone else (it’s interesting to note that Waldman lives in the factual version of her fictional world).

Given the literary, bookish, content of the book, it’s not going to surprise you when I say that references abound. Be wary of the last fifth if you’ve not read Middlemarch as there are minor spoilers. Bask in the paragraph about Nabokov and enjoy the points about less literary works being good reads, too. However, the point I wish to make in this literary regard is something that is more subtle yet, as far as I am concerned, there for the taking. The nod to Gone With The Wind:

He was too tired to think about this right now. He’d think about it when his head was clear. Tomorrow. Later.

The idea of leaving thoughts until tomorrow occurs twice, and this second mention is accompanied by the Scarlett-esque thought that perhaps Nate’s book is the most important thing to him.

Somewhat related to comparisons is the following:

He told her about his book, the way it had evolved in the years he’d spent working on it. He’d first intended to write a scathing critique of the suburbs, featuring an immigrant family with one child. A Son. This son was intended to be the book’s central character, from whose lips precocious wit and wisdom would flow and whose struggles – girls and popularity – would arouse readers’ sympathy. He told her how the novel had started to come together only when his “insufferable” character had been shunted to the sidelines.

If you like the sound of that, even just a little, it’s fair to say bets could be placed on this book-proposal-within-a-book being Waldman’s novel itself.

The Love Affairs Of Nathaniel P is first-rate. It has everything to make the avid reader swoon with reader love, it has a writing style to get excited about for various reasons, and it never meanders from the points it is trying to make, points that are worth reading.

If you’ve been wondering about it, you shouldn’t wait any longer, and if you’ve not encountered it previously, you should look into it now that you have. Just don’t expect it to last long, because like Nate’s relationships, it’s fairly short.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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An a-typical Victorian life.

Publisher: N/A
Pages: N/A
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: N/A
First Published: 1838
Date Reviewed: 16th February 2015
Rating: 2.5/5

Following the death of the patriarch, the Nickleby family finds itself fairly impoverished and Nicholas goes out to look for work. Thus begins a journey that will take him through three jobs, across England, for richer and poorer and caring and hate, whilst his mother and sister make the best of their own bad situations.

Nicholas Nickleby is an epic book that sees Dickens cut and paste together what could have easily been several separate stories. It contains the stuff of the greater works, and therefore may be considered worth the read just for that, but it pales in comparison to Dickens’ other tales and is to all intents and purposes a Victorian Neighbours or Eastenders, carrying on and on instead of finishing where it should, much like this sentence.

Given the nature of the book and the general agreement nowadays that Dickens is wordy at best, this review will be focusing on the book purely in the context of the modern reader. It is fair to say that the Victorian reader would have found the format and longevity a lot less tedious.

What’s good about the book is that it is, as said, very Dickens. It can be funny, if not as much as other novels, and when Dickens isn’t trying to add words for count it can be easy to get lost in. Dickens is as welcoming as ever, as clever and as witty, and the funny stereotypical characters he likes to exploit are here by the dozens.

Nicholas’s sister, Kate, makes the book a much better read than it might have been had it focused just on him. Through Kate, Dickens is able to look at more concepts, ones that affected women, and this makes for a good balance. In addition to this, Kate is the opposite of Nicholas in most ways so if you find Nicholas less of a hero than you’d have presumed, you can rest assured Kate will be there to pick up the pieces, so to speak.

Mrs Nickleby is rather like an extreme Mrs Bennett. Dickens has ‘gone to town’ on her character – she is the comic relief and, whilst frustrating, worth the time.

The problem with this book is that there are just too many negatives and the length of it means that these negatives are further cemented than they may have been otherwise.

In the context of our present day, the book may have worked as a serial, but compiled into a book (albeit that this happened in the Victorian era, too) it doesn’t work so well nowadays. Wordiness apart, there are just too many superfluous plot threads that go on for too long (and then, ironically, are wrapped up far too soon), too many characters (many completely unnecessary) and there are too many comings and goings between these characters and plot threads.

It can be frustrating when you’re just getting into the particular plot thread at hand, to have it finished so quickly. The threads that stick out are the school and the theatre which could both have been very good stories in their own right. It’s easy to invest yourself and then feel cheated when Dickens sweeps Nicholas away suddenly without a true conclusion. The school gets a proper conclusion later, as you expect, but it’s not as satisfying as it could’ve been. It’s safe to say that Nicholas Nickleby is in some ways a less satisfying Oliver Twist, which presents a similar concept in the beginning but concludes with more strength.

On this subject is the ending during which Dickens ties everything a little too neatly and conveniently. It is that little too predicable and sweet.

Lastly, to this reviewer at least and, due to the reasoning, likely many other modern readers, Nicholas comes across as hot tempered to the point of worry. What will happen in the future if he and Kate have an almighty argument? His tendency to physically lash out does not recommend him, especially when he is seen as so kind and goodhearted throughout.

Nicholas Nickleby can take a long time to read and a lot of your courage to get through. It’s for the most part a slog and whilst it’s of course recommended if you want to read every novel Dickens wrote, otherwise your literary and classics needs would be best served by a better work.

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Perfection, utopia, would be our undoing.

Publisher: N/A
Pages: N/A
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: N/A
First Published: 1895
Date Reviewed: 21st January 2015
Rating: 4.5/5

Gathering together various types of people, the time traveller tells them of his plans for a time machine and later his experiences of the year 802701.

The Time Machine was the first science fiction book to feature a machine for time travel. It’s short without seeming so, brimming with messages, and, almost shockingly, impossible to read without taking the author into account. It’s also a very, very, good book.

Told in the same way as More’s Utopia, The Time Machine is the report of a person who was at both gatherings and who provides the details and dialogues from those evenings. This means that you get both a first-hand account and the benefit of various opinions (even if they may not actually be benefits in the literal sense). You do not witness the time traveller’s adventures for yourself, however the story is engrossing all the same as Wells spares no details.

The messages at the heart of the story are about the future of humanity (the moral, emotional, sympathetic kind) and humanity as a society. Also studied is the eradication of the world’s woes, intelligence, and any sort of work. Wells, a socialist, looks at an extreme version of communism and speaks of the shocking consequences, but later draws back a little. It is interesting to note how the time traveller’s perceptions change the longer he spends in the future and how easily he fears a secondary people perhaps, simply, because he just happened to meet the others first. It’s ironic to watch how a man so bent on moving into the future suddenly realises he should have stayed in his own time – it begs the question of whether time travel should remain a fantasy.

There are no aliens in the book, no wars or fights for survival. The book is rather unique except for the very end of the journey. It’s the case that you may have read a lot of futuristic science fiction, but you won’t have come across anything quite like this.

Of special note is the conversation leading up to the time travel discussion during which Wells looks at philosophy, physics, mathematics. Questions are asked, interesting answers as well as supposedly true (I’m no scientist) answers provided, and even if your takeaway will be the future, the physics makes interesting reading.

There is fun to be had in the conversation. The Medical Man says ‘our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms’ which he might as well have extended to the present day. Someone points out that investments could be made in the past and the rewards reaped in the present. And there is the fine point made that we already travel in time when we remember past events from our lives.

The Time Machine delves into the future only to long for the past. It portrays a possibility that is as relevant to consider today as it was in the year the book was written, and it looks at the way misunderstandings can occur, even between people who do not exist. It is an excellent work that provides much food for thought and much to study and all this for only a couple of hours of your time – you could visit and return from 802701 in less.

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Wanting to talk of the weather, wanting to queue, and wanting to take tea.

Publisher: Sceptre (Hachette)
Pages: 311
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 97-0-340-99566-2
First Published: 2010
Date Reviewed: 6th January 2015
Rating: 4/5

Jack and Sadie Rosenblum, Jews, left Germany for England as life became dangerous, and upon arrival, Jack was given a leaflet regarding the conduct expected of them. He takes it to heart. Above and beyond what is expected, Jack makes it his mission to become a proper Englishman in every way.

Mr Rosenblum’s List is a book that obviously looks at what it means to be traditionally English, but also at responsibility and general social history. It’s quiet and character-driven and isn’t likely to blow you away except if you get caught in the gale-force wind, but it will make you chuckle and consider the experience of immigrants.

Whilst mostly, aptly, focused on Jack, there is a lot of time spent on Sadie. In many ways she’s the long-suffering wife, the one wanting to keep the traditions of home whilst her husband wants to forget them. You see the contrast in the way they go about their individual lives – how Sadie starts to enjoy her new life, to blend the old and new, and, inevitably you witness how she begins to fit in without trying to. Solomons doesn’t make this idea a focus, far from it, but it’s there – that thought that sometimes letting things happen as they will works better than being forthright. Sadie has ample space for mistakes; Jack in his boldness has little.

The study of different cultures is a natural by-product of the subject. You have the differences between the Jewish Germans and the English, and of course racism, anti-Semitism, but as the story moves from London to Dorset Solomon provides a mini introduction to the fact of diversity within a single country. Accents are well included throughout and the scenes wonderfully set. If you want quintessential rural England, this book is for you. That the book is set in the mid-1900s means the descriptions flourish, being just as realistic as they are rose-tinted.

Solomon looks at how immigration affects generations. Jack and Sadie’s daughter is very British and you see the happiness and longing of parents both proud of their child’s place and sad at the loss of connection with her due to the difference in culture. And because it is by and large told from Jack and Sadie’s points of view, if offers a lot of food for thought.

Given the two locations – London and Dorset – there are observations of how technology and change affect life as we know (knew) it and of course, again, how it has an impact on culture. Solomon places emphasis on working with nature as part of Jack’s progress, allowing folklore to play its rightful part.

There is little focus on the war. It is spoken of but not the point of the novel. This is a story of the people, how life carried on.

Mr Rosenblum’s List loiters much as some of the characters do. It shows you a swath of greenery and rarely takes you away from it, and it lets you potter among Sadie’s roses as you consider the reasons people change their names. Read it on a sunny afternoon with a pot of tea and a plate of scones and you’ll surely have Jack’s approval.

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