Joshua Ferris - To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

 

 

How strange: this is the second book I've read this year purporting to warn against the evils of social media (the first, of course, being The Circle). I chose this title for our bookclub at the beginning of the year after having read a blurb promising it was about a dentist who discovers that someone is impersonating him online, and who soon realizes the impersonator may be living his own life better than he is.

 

An intriguing premise, but unfortunately the blurb was written well before publication of the book and it is not an accurate description of the content.

 

Yes, Paul C O'Rourke, dentist, depressive, serial lover of women and their religious families, does discover soon into the novel that he is being impersonated online by someone who is au fait with social media in a way that O'Rourke himself is not and does not wish to be. But the story from there does not revolve around this identity theft in the comical way the publisher promised. Instead, the impersonator creates an identity for O'Rourke that is alternative from his actual identity in one important respect: whilst O'Rourke's defining drive throughout his life has been striving to find a place, belief system or a family in which he will find a sense of true belonging, the faux-O'Rourke has already discovered where he belongs and is not afraid to proclaim it loudly. 

 

Don't get me wrong: Ferris does deal with the problem of identity theft in the new world. There is a period in the novel during which O'Rourke is so troubled by what is happening that he calls a lawyer, the police, internet experts and so on, seeking redress against the impersonator. What is fascinating is the cold hard truth that there's not much he can do - and not much anyone could do in similar circumstances. The impersonator does not defame him. On the contrary, he builds up his reputation as a dentist, he creates a webpage for O'Rourke's practice where before there was none. The impersonator does not rob him (except of his online identity) or damage him. So what recourse does O'Rourke have against this act? It is a question worth pondering. 

 

But Ferris quickly moves on from this modern dilemma. Whilst O'Rourke is initially shocked by the falsity of what is being broadcast in his name, he soon becomes intrigued by it. The impersonator claims (as O'Rourke) to be a descendant of a long lost tribe of oppressed people, called the Ulms. This is a group, claims the faux O'Rourke, that has been more oppressed than even the Jews. It is the group that suffered the first genocide, recorded in the Bible. Fragments of documents are gradually parceled out, enticing O'Rourke into believing that he does in fact have a meaningful history, a past, a place in society. Having always felt lost, it is captivating to O'Rourke, this fairytale of oppression and meaning. He quickly becomes obsessed with the notion that there is a way for him to go 'home' without needing to adopt the religion of a girlfriend or her family.

 

This obsession results in comical lapses of concentration at work, and Ferris is a brilliantly funny writer. Surprising hilarity ensues from horrific moments like O'Rourke coming out of a daze to find himself about to drill into a patient's mouth with no idea why. Or O'Rourke sitting in his own waiting room observing his receptionist at work and spying on his own patients whilst his staff look around for him wondering where he's got to. Or the moment when he absent-mindedly asks a patient for a stool sample instead of asking him to spit.

 

The comedy is balanced by pathos, and Ferris portrays O'Rourke beautifully as a poor lost soul. The core of O'Rourke's character is perhaps best described by the fact that, when he was a little boy abandoned by his father, he couldn't bear the thought of being awake when everyone else was sleeping. He was eventually able to sleep only once apprised of the knowledge, imparted to him by his exhausted mother, that the Chinese are still awake on the other side of the world even when everyone in New York is asleep.

 

Most of the women in my bookclub found O'Rourke to be an unlikable character. I did not. It is true that he sometimes says the most despicable things. But so often when this happens he is actually trying very, very hard to say the right thing. When he comes across as anti-semitic to his ex-girlfriend's uncle, for example, he is actually trying to ingratiate himself into the family and decry the appalling things that have happened to the Jews throughout history. Other times he is brutally honest in a way that does not work in polite society. He is a complex character and I found O'Rourke to be strangely endearing. 

 

Moreoever, O'Rourke is quite clearly an unreliable narrator. His own deep insecurity colours his telling of the story and the portrait he draws of himself. But it is clear from the way other characters relate to him - his long-suffering assistant Mrs Conway, for example, or Connie, his receptionist and ex-girlfriend - that they care deeply for him, in spite of the exasperation he causes them on a daily basis. And O'Rourke's relationship with Mrs Conway, an older, Catholic woman, is one of the highlights of the book. Ferris is so clever with dialogue. As readers, we are only ever exposed to one side of the conversations O'Rourke has with Mrs Conway, and so we are left to guess at what he might have said. It is an odd, highly original way of describing a conversation, and it works brilliantly well, giving rise to many of the funnier moments in the book.

 

O'Rourke's interest in his new religion is matched only by his lifelong attachment to the Boston Red Sox, and by the end of the book I had grown tired of both lengthy passages about baseball and heavy, pseudo-Biblical passages from the Ulm's religious text, the Cantaveticles (although I will concede that these read convincingly as the Uhr-text of a long-lost belief system). Neverthless, the depth of meaning Ferris conveys through a story that is funny and sad and wise all at the same time is comendable.

 

Overall assessment: 4 out of 5. This is a dense but enjoyable novel, but it is not for everyone. It is darkly satirical, in the vein of Shteyngart and O'Toole, and it therefore perhaps an acquired taste.

 

Pros: This book made me start flossing again. And it made me feel awfully relieved I am not a dentist!

Cons: Lengthy excerpts of faux-religious drivel.

Stephen Colbert - I am America and So Can You!

This was one of my early Audible books, and at first I thought it was the ideal book to listen to rather than read. Like watching his show, it was fun having Colbert's voice (because yes, he narrates) wash over me as I walked to work, or stood crowded next to others in the subway. It meant lots of laughs out-loud at inopportune moments.

Unfortunately as the latter half of the book approached I found that the absence of a plot meant that it was also quite easy to tune out, so that sometimes I would suddenly realize I had missed a large chunk of a chapter. At least I am now more adept at 'rewinding' on Audible.

This is a difficult book to review because one's enjoyment of it is so subjective - somehow with humour I find this to be more obviously the case than with other books. Bibliohubby and I are huge fans of Colbert's, recording his show every night to watch the next evening. I find his brand of parody hilarious and self-affirming, as the real Colbert shares my political views and pokes fun at the people I like to see taken down a peg (such as gun-toting Tea-Party Republicans). It goes without saying, then, that I would enjoy his book, which is really an extension of what he gives us in his show. People who are not fans of Colbert's to begin with will not enjoy the book, and what really gives me pause is that - more than with his show, where his over-the-top antics should clearly indicate to most sensible people that Colbert is acting, that he is playing a character, and that what he says is satirical - I worry that this is not necessarily the case with the book. I'm sure there are people who could feasibly pick this book up in isolation and take Colbert at his word - a rather shocking prospect when his pronouncements include the following tongue-in-cheek sentiments: "The biggest threat facing America today - next to socialized medicine, the Dyson vacuum cleaner, and the recumbent bicycle - is gay marriage." Or - "Ever have a nagging suspicion you're poor? I know my staff does."

Each chapter of the book deals with a 'big subject' of life, providing Colbert's take on it, and his advice in relation to it. So, for example, he deals with family, religion, race, sex and dating. Because I 'read' this on Audible and don't have a hard copy to refer back to, I can't cite any of the more amusing moments here. But take my word for it: much of the book is very funny.

My guess is that this book falls a little flat on the page, without Colbert's energetic, deliberately over-enthusiastic delivery, so I was pleased that I opted to listen to it - although Colbert's natural delivery is so quick that it is quite easy to miss things.

There's not much more to say than this: I am a fan, I enjoyed much of the book, and I didn't worry about losing bits here and there when I got caught up in the mechanics of my commute. It was nice to have Colbert as my regular companion for a while there, and I didn't really need this book to be anything more than that.

Overall assessment: 3 out of 5.

Pros: Laugh out-loud moments.

Cons: Lacking in substance, and this book alone does not really do justice to Colbert's persona - you have to watch him. This is really more of a companion text to the show. My advice? If you don't watch The Colbert Show, don't pick up the book.

Author Reading: Tom Rachman and Emma Healey

One evening last week I battled gailforce winds and apocalyptic rain to get down to the Harbourfront Centre and hear three authors read from their new books. The event fell under the rubric of the International Festival of Authors which, though it ocurrs in the fall, hosts literary soirees of various kinds throughout the year in Toronto. I love author readings and would have wanted to attend in any case, but the real draw for me here was Tom Rachman, author of The Imperfectionists, which I read and loved and reviewed here last year. I knew he was reading in Toronto in late June, but my determination to attend was increased when I entered into a brief correspondence with him recently. I discovered that he had released a short story two years ago as an Amazon Single. Entitled The Bathtub Spy, it has received excellent reviews and I was keen to read it - but it is no longer available on Amazon. After a fruitless Google search, I emailed him directly, not particularly expecting a response. To my surprise, he wrote a very friendly email in reply, apologizing for the difficulty in locating a copy of his story, and suggesting that I should attend this IFOA event in June where he would be reading.

Well. As if I wasn't going to attend after that personal invitation!

It was a bit of a revelation to walk into the venue and discover that it had been set up like an intimate comedy club, with individual tables lit with votive candles, and a pop-up bar serving wine. So very civilized.

 

Our host for the evening was the charming Becky Toyne, a publishing industry personage who regularly appears on CBC Radio One to speak about books and writes a column about Toronto's literary scene for Openbooktoronto.com. 

 

Reading before Tom Rachman were Linda Holeman, a writer of historical fiction, and Emma Healey, whose debut novel, Elizabeth is Missing, has just shot her into literary super-stardom. The manuscript for Elizabeth is Missing was fought over at the London Book Fair last year by NINE different publishers, and so a real furor surrounds the book. It is so rare and therefore so exciting to hear stories about publishers fighting over a new author's work, and it was delicious to hear Healey speak about the lengths some of them went to in order to impress her. The book is about an elderly women who suffers from dementia, and who is fond of tinned peaches, so several of the publishers gifted Healey with boxes of tinned peaches (unfortunately, Healey said, her boyfriend is not fond of peaches, so these remain piled up at home), and one filled a boardroom with Forget-me-Nots.

 

As I sat there, by myself, listening to people speak about books and surrounded by others soaking up the atmosphere with the same intent pleasure as me, I felt filled with something akin to love. When Rachman got up to read, he noted how unusual it was for people in this day and age to gather for something that has nothing whatsoever to do with technology. As for me, being there reminded me how rarely these days I get to immerse myself in the literary scene. Books are what I am most passionate about in my life (other than family, of course), so it seems rather a pity that I am not able more often to engage with people who share my interest. But then, reading is by its very nature a solitary pursuit, as is writing. Any chance to turn these pursuits into something more social should, in my view, be seized upon with glee.

 



Rachman was as personable and energetic as I had hoped, and I can't wait to read his new book, which is receiving rave reviews. But the surprise of the evening was Emma Healey. She looks and sounds like Sophie Dahl (Roald Dahl's model daughter), with a sweet upper-crust English accent. She read from her book, a novel that shows great maturity and a deep understanding of the human condition, yet she looked just like a schoolgirl. She wore a long skirt and a modest full-sleeved blouse, and she made a habit as she stood at the lecturn of lifting her left heel so that only her toe remained fixed to the ground beside her right foot, an endearing trait that made her look about 12. I believe the hype around this book will prove to be justified, and I believe she may well go on to become one of the great writers of our time. I purchased her book at the event and asked her to sign it (I had pre-purchased Rachman's, of course, and very much enjoyed meeting him on the night).

 

Two more signed books to add to my collection, and a fond memory or two as well. 

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction - Winner Announced!

It was a tough shortlist of brilliant writers, but Eimear McBride has taken them all out, winning the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction with her debut book, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. I haven't read it, though it's on my TBR list, but from what I understand this was the most experimental book on the shortlist, and perhaps a surprising winner.

The website for the award cites Helen Fraser, chair of judges, saying of McBride’s startling debut:

“An amazing and ambitious first novel that impressed the judges with its inventiveness and energy. This is an extraordinary new voice – this novel will move and astonish the reader.”

I can't wait to read it, but I am still all aglow from the experience of reading Donna Tart's The Goldfinch and I can't help wishing she had won.

I spoke some time ago of trying to read every one of the shortlisted books this year. Embarassingly, The Goldfinch is the only one I have thus far managed to get to reading! I haven't given up though.

Did not Finish: Charlotte Grey's The Massey Murder

I started reading The Massey Murder: a Murder, a Maid and the Trial that Shocked a Country by Charlotte Grey at the beginning of May, thinking piously that I would finish it well before my bookclub meeting, which falls on the last Thursday of each month. But in the week before our meeting, not only had I not finished the book, I had made a conscious decision not to.

I've spoken before about books one does not finish, for whatever reason, but it has been so long since this happened to me I thought it was worth remarking on again. Grey's book should have been a perfectly good non-fiction history lesson. It is set in Toronto in 1915, and purports (as suggested by the title) to follow and elucidate upon the events of a murder, whereby Carrie Davies, a maid, shot and killed her master, Charles Massey, a member of one of Toronto's most esteemed families.

I like history. I even studied it at University. I really enjoy learning. But if I am reading a book, fiction or non-fiction, I require it to have a story or a thesis or something that ties together the bits of information I am being fed. This book is notable for the absence of any such thing.

Ms Grey seems to have done an awful lot of research into the social history of Toronto in the early 20th century, but she appears to be so wed to all of this research that she was loathe to leave a single fact out of the book - whether or not it was relevant. I'm not sure why her editor did not encourage her to exercise greater stringency, but it seems Ms Grey was free to throw in whatever trivia she damn well pleased. And I. Was. SO. BORED.

Example: "Bert's twenty-seven-year-old first cousin Vincent Massey, then a member of the University of Toronto's History Department, attended the service. (He noted in his diary, "Went to Bert Massey's funeral from Arthur Massey's house.)"

Why was it necessary here to mention Bert at all, let alone state in the text where the note of his attendance of the funeral was recorded? If Grey was going to write a history text, she should have left that kind of thing to footnotes.

It should have been interesting to read about the history of the city I'm currently living in. And it should have been interesting to learn about the practice of law, my given profession, two hundred years ago. Admittedly I never got to the trial, and various reviews have said things improve in the second half of the book, but I was so put off by this book that I really couldn't imagine things improving enough that I would actually enjoy finishing it. After slogging through a third of it, literally forcing myself to choose this book over others I had going at the same time, I finally admitted to myself that there was no point in continuing, and I stopped reading. I decided that my precious reading time, restrained as it is by work and kids and everything else life throws at one, was not worth squandering on a book I really detested.

Let me try to explain why I disliked this so very much. The book opens on the murder. Of course the interesting aspects of this immediately spring to mind - motive, personality - who is the maid who shot Charles Massey and why did she do it? Did he deserve to be killed? What fate will befall his poor son who was in the house when this happened and who was both close to his father and  attached to Carrie, the murderer?

Unfortunately very few of these questions are explored except in the driest possible language and in the briefest possible manner. It is almost as though Grey wished to convey the history of Toronto in a given age and seized upon this event as a vehicle to do so, knowing she would need a selling point (and re-read the title, above - go on. See? It's shamelessly sensational, in direct opposition to the actual contents of the book. Even the publisher knew they would need to really push to make this sound exciting). In fact, the first quarter of the book is largely taken up by facts about the buildings and people of Toronto in 1915. But instead of choosing to talk about one building or one person at a time, and divulge all of the interesting facts about that topic and make that description and historical detail relevant to the tale at hand, Grey goes on a meandering marathon of fact dropping, as though she is a senile great-aunt trying unsuccessfully to tell a story at a family gathering. She never gets to the point. It was like listening to Bibliohubby's stoner friend who we dined with recently, and who dominated the conversation with a story that never ended and had no discernible point. Only that was quite funny. Ms Grey is not funny at all.

Here, this is what it feels like to read this book:

"Charles Massey is shot and killed. Oh, who else was in the Massey family? Let me tell you. There is this Massey, he was a farmer, this is what he farmed. This is where his farm was. This is what happened to the farm. There were a lot of tractors, let me tell you a bit about the tractor industry in early twentieth century Toronto. Oh, there were immigrants! Let me tell you a bit about them - but not too much. Because also, what about this Massey? He lived here. Oh, you know Massey Hall? This is the history of that building in one uninteresting sentence. You would like to know more about the architecture or how it came to be built or what it was originally designed to be? Too bad - there is this other Massey here I want to talk about now, he was really rich and this is what he did and this is where his wife came from. Oh, now we're at the court house. There is a magistrate who runs almost all the cases - let me tell you all about him and his entire life history and - oh! There are lots of ladies who come to the courthouse for all of these reasons, let me tell you about them, but also they are engaged in a lot of reformative early feminist activities, let me very briefly tell you about those without going into detail or explaining how this was relevant to the development of feminism in Toronto or Canada broadly - oh. Wait? Why are we at the court house? That's right! Cassie Davies has been accused of murder! I almost forgot! Never mind, nothing really happened that day, she was refused bail."

And so on. Reading it was like listening to nails on a blackboard.

As I said, I do understand that it improves towards the latter half. However, even if the trial was riveting, my understanding is that Grey had very little to go on by way of court transcript. So, ironically, what forms the very centre of the book is actually fictional - or biased, taken from the newspapers of the day. If only she had then treated this as a fictionalized account of a true story, like Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace or a book I am just starting to read, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. She might have succeeded in creating a story at the same time as she presented an interesting, realistic, historic portrait of life in Toronto at the time. Which, frankly, is what I was hoping for when our bookclub voted for this at the beginning of the year.

Overall assessment: Look, she did her work, there is no doubt about that. And I will say that it was interesting to learn about the women-only courthouse and to get a glimpse of life for women at that time in Canada. But generally speaking, as if you couldn't tell, I really did not like this. Giving it a 2 seems a stretch. I am going to give it 1.5 out of 5.

Addendum: I held off on posting this mean review for some time, because I felt badly after attending book club, where most people had better experiences with the book than I did. I should have kept reading, they told me. The trial at the end is more interesting. So I borrowed a hard copy from someone else and thought I might squeeze in a few more chapters, maybe reassess.

Sadly: no. I just can't bring myself to do it. Sorry all! Life is too short, there are too many other books in the world, and I just recently finished Donna Tart's The Goldfinch, which was so very brilliant, on so many levels, that even good books I have picked up since then pale in comparison... I really just can't bear to open this one up again. So I won't.

Dave Eggers - The Circle

Wow, this was a hard review to write. So many things are contained in this book. There were times when I became so frustrated with the protagonist that I felt like hurling the book across the room, but in the end it is a novel of significance. There is more to say about it than I can properly summarise here, and if you are interested in a deeper analysis I will refer you to Margaret Atwood's fantastic review in The New York Review of Books.

This is Eggers' Orwellian tale, foretelling apocalypsis through technological subsumation. Eggers has received censure from some of the IT crowd, who dispute the accuracy of his portrayal of their world. But for me, and indeed for those members of our bookclub who work in IT, this had the ring of truth about it. Frighteningly, Eggers' warning feels timely and realistic.

Mae Holland is in her early 20s and in a dead-end career until she leans on her best friend Annie to get her a job at The Circle, which is basically what you would get if Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft joined forces: a monster tech company, a total monopoly, the offices of which constitute a massive 'campus', not dissimilar to the grounds of various tech companies that already exist (though much bigger). The Circle is run by the 'three wise men', each of whom resembles a tech figure we know in real life (Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, perhaps?), and the 'gang of forty', a group of the 40 highest ranking officers in the company.

Mae and Annie are very close, sharing a believable friendship and dialogue that frequently sparkles with comedic wit. For the first weeks after Mae joins The Circle she continues to leave campus for visits home to her family, to sleep at her own apartment, and to commune with nature through her solitary hobby of kayaking. Mae's father suffers from MS and needs increasing care, and Eggers writes a couple of scenes early on of father-daughter bonding which reveal that Mae is close to her parents. Her ex-boyfriend Mercer is also still friendly with Mae's parents and is often present when she visits home, an annoyance she has learned to live with. Mercer voices concern about Mae's new job from the beginning, raising the moral counterbalance to Mae's unquestioning enthusiasm for The Circle - a necessary warning because it's not long before Mae becomes totally absorbed in her work to the detriment of everything else in her life.

Indeed, she becomes so engulfed in the philosophy of her workplace that leaving the campus for any reason becomes actually uncomfortable - life outside is comparably so messy (both literally and figuratively). And the corollary to her voluntary submission to The Circle is her rise within it. In no time at all, it seems, Mae has moved into the upper echelons of The Circle, away from the customer service team in which she started into something that is far creepier.

In some ways it seems unrealistic that Mae, a person who initially derives genuine pleasure from solitary pursuits, from being surrounded by nature, from close relationships with family and friends, so quickly becomes absorbed into a world in which none of these things are considered to have value. One scene in particular, a seminal scene for Mae, shows her kayaking by herself in darkness to an island she knows she should not visit, and her excitement and enjoyment stem from the thrill of doing something illicit and unknown. Ironically it is this experience that lies at the centre of her eventual mutation into a Circle hero, the centrepiece of The Circle's increasingly pronounced ethos - "Secrets are Lies; Privacy is Theft".

As Mae eschews contact with Mercer, her parents and eventually Annie in favour of the all-knowing, all-seeing Circle, the tale becomes eerily familiar and worryingly prophetic.

Eggers writes with a fluid, clear style that immediately captured my attention and drew me in. He sets the scene perfectly. As a reader you can understand why Mae would be excited to work at The Circle. But as soon as I read that it was 'like Paradise' I knew it would be the very opposite. What is frustrating is that Mae never has this realization. Alarm bells started to ring for me during her first few days at work, when she was asked to transfer all of her personal information from her phone and her own laptop onto Circle devices. As Mae was informed that all of that information now existed in The Circle's cloud, accessible to anyone, I began to feel deeply uncomfortable - but she didn't blink. When Mae was told about the exciting work Francis was doing to ensure child safety, by installing chips into their BONES (!), neither she nor anyone else at The Circle paused to consider the consequences, or enunciate any concern - but as readers we are supremely aware that those children will grow to be adults whose every move can be monitored.

What is incredibly clever about Eggers' writing is that although we are able through our outsiders' lense to comprehend the problematic nature of The Circle's practices, each new privacy-killing scheme is introduced in the book by socratic conversation in which convincing, rational, utilitarian arguments are put forward in favour of The Circle's methods. It's unnerving, because we understand how multitudes of people might be persuaded by the same arguments.

For example: Don't you want your neighbourhood to be safe? Wouldn't you rather sacrifice some of your own privacy for the privilege of knowing without a doubt that your family and your home were always safe? 

Or: Oh, you're concerned about your information being made public? Why? What have you got to hide?

It is the same ploy that has been used over the past ten years to persuade us to give up all kinds of civil liberties. Isn't the sacrifice of a stranger viewing your nude body worthwhile if it means safety in the skies? Isn't the safety of our civilians worth the annoyance of the government listening in on our phone calls?

If we have already given up these freedoms, what's to say we might not be amenable to giving up more, as Eggers predicts?

About three quarters of the way through the book I became frustrated. Various metaphors are drawn that are awkward and condescending. A few major events felt unrealistic to me - or rather, Mae's unquestioning response to them felt unrealistic. I also found Mae as a character to be thoroughly unlikeable. The speed with which she turns her back on her family and her friends, her narcissism and selfishness were not endearing. And I found the ending of the book less satisfying than I had hoped (but this may be because I wanted to feel some optimism, and really - an apocalyptic book such as this should not end on an optimistic note or what's the point?).

But in the grand scheme of things, all of these are minor faults.

The truth is that since putting the book down I have been more aware of the way technology is infiltrating every part of our lives. It is difficult to keep the book from crossing my mind when I 'check in' on Facebook or see advertisements heralding new social media developments. I keep wanting to talk to people about it. Eggers' style is disarmingly breezy, so that it is not until one sets the book down that one suddenly realises how profound he has been. Some critics have suggested that Eggers is undeserving of praise because none of this is new - we all realise that we are fighting a losing battle against new technology. To those critics I say: Sure. But that doesn't mean it's something we should not be urged to consider, it doesn't mean it's unnecessary to shake the greater population out of its complacency or ask ourselves what we intend to do about it. As the great Ferris Bueller famously said, life moves pretty fast. If we don't do something about this now, it may soon be too late.

Overall assessment: 4.5 out of 5. This is a book that is worth more than the story within it. I am certain it will become a classic of our age. A real conversation-starter, you will be desperate for people around you to read it so you can discuss it - perfect for bookclubs.

Notes and noteable passages:

- Eggers is occasionally very funny. I had to clamp my lips shut to stop myself from waking everyone in the household with laughter when I first read the passage between Mae and Francis upon their first meeting:
'"This is my first day," Mae noted.
"No way."
And then Mae, who intended to say, "I shit you not," instead decided to innovate, but something got garbled during her verbal innovation, and she uttered the words "I fuck you not," knowing almost instantly that she would remember these words, and hate herself for them, for decades to come.'
- I like Annie, who expresses herself in surprisingly original ways - to Mae, for example: '"You're like part human, part rainbow."'
- This is a very accessible book, which I think is a good thing for a text which Eggers obviously wants as many people as possible to read. Nevertheless, his skill as a writer is clear. Some of his descriptions are delightfully original.
- I coudn't decide whether it was because Eggers was a man that he believed Mae would accept such unsatisfactory sex on a regular basis or whether it was just another indicator of the level to which she had descended - that it was preferable to her to be with a man she actually finds detestable and have company, than to be free of him but alone. Sadly I think many women make this kind of sacrifice even without the daily pressure of complete transparency.
- Mercer's outcries occasionally felt forced, but what he says is so crucial and so relevant even for today's society:

"Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication... No one needs the level of contact you're purveying. It improves nothing. It's not nourishing. It's like snack food."

Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden

I have mentioned before that I'm a huge McEwan fan. At the start of this year I had three of his novels left to read, of which The Cement Garden was one. It's a funny thing, reading through a favourite author's entire works. On the one hand, the goal is obviously to finish - to read them all. On the other hand, there is a reluctance to finish because then there will be no more of something one loves. Luckily, McEwan has a new book out later this year, so reading one of his earlier novels and ticking it off my TBR (to be read) list seemed appropriate.

The Cement Garden was McEwan's first novel. The publication of this and his second novel, The Comfort of Strangers, caused him to be nicknamed 'Ian Macabre', and rightly so. Like many of his works, this is a seriously disturbing book. It is narrated by Jack, one of four children whose parents both die early in the novel. Various critics have suggested there is a strong Oedipal subtext running through the story, which is referenced in the first line ("I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way") and realised in the final scene, which I will not describe for fear of revealing spoilers. It is indeed plausible that McEwan drew on Freud to create the dark undercurrent that runs throughout, because the book is deeply unsettling in a way that is difficult to precisely define.

Jack is the second eldest of four siblings who decide after their mother has died that they don't want to publicise what has happened and risk being put in care, which would almost certainly result in their separation from one another. The pact they make to ensure things stay as they are, and the way this pact is physically manifested, haunts the rest of the book and taints it with a clammy sense of unease.

McEwan is at his best here; no word is out of place. His writing is visceral, nuanced, the heat of the summer palpable, the sloth of the children in their humid, festering surrounds somehow gripping.

As a mother, I found many of the passages worrying. Is this how all children feel or are these very unusual children? Tom, the youngest of the four, reacts to his mother's death with obvious grief, but this is soon overwhelmed by his concerns about being bullied at school. He goes through a phase of wanting to be a girl, and another of wanting to be a baby, which Julie, the eldest child, gladly entertains. The other children do not appear to react to the death of their parents with any grief or sorrow - instead, for example, Jack describes feelings of elation and hysterical joy at his newfound freedom. But we glimpse through Jack's narrative lense various activities that might hint at deeper feelings underneath: Sue, the younger girl, keeps a diary in which she records imaginary conversations with her mum. Julie occasionally lets Tom into their dead mother's room, which she has preserved behind a locked door, where he lies in her bed and tries on her clothes.

Jack himself allows his personal hygiene to fall entirely by the wayside, and we are treated to lengthy passages about his multiplying spots, sweaty clothes, dirty bedlinen and his greasy hair. This is in direct contrast to his sister Julie, whose beauty grows throughout the book, alongside Jack's illicit but pronounced attraction to her. From early on the children are shown playing 'doctor', a game which as adults we tend to regard as learning stripped of sexuality. McEwan, of course, does not let us off so easily. Sexuality is rife in the childhood he describes, and this too is discomfiting.

Although this is not a scary book, I found it difficult to read after lights out. McEwan's genius lies in unnerving us at some profound, subconsious level so that we are left on edge without quite knowing why: there are no monsters here. Instead it is the monsters within all of us that he depicts so well. His use of language is perfection, the characters vibrantly alive and the plot winds inexorably towards the inevitable finale.

Overall assessment: 4 out of 5. I know I should probably give it 5, as this really is McEwan at the top of his game. But I find it difficult to award 5 stars to a book that leaves me feeling so disturbed, and where I find the characters so nasty. I also tend to prefer the work McEwan does when he is exploring philosophical questions of art versus science, belief versus rationality (see Saturday, Amsterdam, Enduring Love). But if you are looking for a short read that will have you biting your nails and squirming in your seat, there's no doubt this is it.