Tag: fiction

Book review: The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe is primarily a cosy crime mystery. There is also an element of political auto-fiction. Part of the story is set as Queen Elizabeth II dies. It also incorporates Liz Truss’s 45-day reign as British Prime Minister and explores why things fell apart. 

Any act of writing must also, by definition, be an act of selection; therefore distortion; and therefore invention.

After university Phyl finds herself back living with her parents and working in a Japanese food cafe at Heathrow, Terminal 5. Her ambitions to become a writer are not taking shape. That is until Chris, a political blogger and old university friend of her mother’s, comes to stay. Chris sparks an interest in cosy mysteries and auto-fiction for Phyl. 

How is someone like me supposed to survive in a world like this? Everything that defines me is unsuited for it. My passivity. My idealism. My innocence. I just don’t have what it takes

Chris is planning to attend a far-right conference as he is looking into a think tank hellbent on privatising the National Health Service. He is concerned about his personal safety. And has reason to be.

See it. Say it. Sorted

The conference is being held in a country house in the Cotswolds. It is complete with secret passages and a cast of extreme and eccentric characters who become murder suspects. Chris is murdered, leaving behind a cryptic note.

The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies

Detective Inspector Pru Freeborne, on the cusp of retirement, investigates. Meanwhile Phyl is convinced that Chris’s death is linked to dead author Peter Cockerill. Phyl and Chris’s adopted daughter, Rashida, start their own investigation into his death.

You murdered a man to get what you wanted. You murdered another man in order to keep your secret safe. And yet the good fortune that it’s brought you still isn’t enough. You remind me of the people at that conference. Remaking the world in their own image and still not liking what they see.

The Proof of My Innocence is a complex story. Political plotting, a complicated whodunnit, gender and intergenerational issues. Even the title is constructed from homonyms.  Proof as in an early copy of a publication and evidence. And innocence as both naivety and a lack of guilt. 

Book review: Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami is a story about friendship, unrequited love and loneliness. The story revolves around three characters.

Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

The narrator, K, is in love with his best friend Sumire. The protagonist, Sumire is in love with Mia, a woman 17 years her senior who is also her boss.

We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.

K and Sumire spend hours on the phones in deep conversation about life, desire, sexuality and writing. Sumire is an unconventional aspiring novelist. K is a solitary intelligent primary school teacher. K’s unrequited love roots a deep longing and loneliness in him.

Don’t pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world?

The exotic Mui employs Sumire in her wine company despite her limited skills or qualifications.  Mui has no idea Sumire is infatuated with her. 

In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life.

Sumire and Mui go on a business trip. They end up on a Greek Island for a holiday after a house is offered to them over the summer by a couple of gay men they meet.

A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.

One night K receives a distressing call from Mui imploring him to get on a plane immediately and go to the island. It is something to do with Sumire so he goes without question.

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what’s reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?

This is where the novel turns into a mystery. Sumire has disappeared without a trace from the island. It seems impossible without anyone noticing anything. Enter magical realism.

Understanding is but the sum of misunderstandings.

Sputnik Sweetheart is a short, cleanly crafted, story about existence, identity, what is real and what is hidden. As is common in Japanese literature Sputnik Sweetheart is a simple story with plenty of depth.

Book review: Hard boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

On By rlsmithwritingIn Random rants, ReviewsLeave a comment

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami has two narratives. The hard-boiled narrative involves an unnamed Tokyo data processor who works for an entity called the System. He becomes involved with a scientist and his granddaughter after the scientist hires the narrator to launder and shuffle his research data. 

I never trust people with no appetite. It’s like they’re always holding something back on you.

The parallel end of the world narrative is set in a walled city where people are separated from their shadows and lose their minds. In this world the narrator is hired as a Dreamreader. The two narrators are linked by the Tokyo protagonists mind being shuffled into the end of the world.

I wasn’t particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don’t have to die the next.

The story is as weird and layered as the title, but also totally engaging (despite a little sexism and cringe worthy fatphobic language at times, though it was first published in 1985). Speculative fiction and magical realism meets hard-boiled detective story. There’s even unicorns.

Huge organizations and me don’t get along. They’re too inflexible, waste too much time, and have too many stupid people.

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World explores subconsciousness and consciousness, how identity and memory are formed by the stories we tell ourselves, and fate and free will. There’s a whiff of Kafkaesque and Orwellian existential meditations…

Book review: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

On By rlsmithwritingIn Writing LifeLeave a comment

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is a dystopian novel set on a remote island off the coast of Japan where objects – hats, roses, birds, boats – disappear at the hand of an unknown power. The disappearances are reinforced by the Memory Police, and the island population’s memories of the objects fade until they can’t remember their existence at all. Disappearances escalate, and one morning people wake up and their left legs have disappeared – their very essence is thinning. Even nature submits and seasons disappears. The world of the island inhabitants gradually shrinks and loses meaning, but there are a small number of people who retain memories. The Memory Police seek them out, round them up, and take them away. 

People—and I’m no exception—seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.

The characters are unnamed. The narrator is an author, and she and an old man who is a family friend decide to hide the author’s friend and editor, R, beneath her floorboards in a hidden room when they realise he has memories and is at risk. The room also accumulates what can be salvaged of the things that are disappearing.

I suppose memories live here and there in the body. But they’re invisible, aren’t they? And no matter how wonderful the memory, it vanishes if you leave it alone. If no one pays attention to it. They leave no trace, no evidence that they ever existed.

There is also a story with the story – excerpts from a manuscript that the narrator has been writing about a typist who can only communicate through typing as she has lost her voice. She’s held hostage by her typing teacher and lover in a tower. When novels disappear, R encourages the author to keep writing as a means of preservation. 

Men who start by burning books end by burning other men

Beautifully written in quiet poetic prose with the slow creep of tension, the novel explores memory and its role in identity, connection, loss and isolation, as well as the perils of authoritarianism and the power of art and storytelling as a vehicle for resistance. The story asks us to consider our identity and our relationship to the world around us. It also made me consider mortality as the novel reminded me a little of what happens when we start to die and parts of our bodies succumb to illness or old age, memories fade and friends disappear.

Book review: China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

China Rich Girlfriend is Kevin Kwan’s sequel to Crazy Rich Asians where old money meets new in the jet setting, excessive consumerist wild lives of Hong Kong and Shanghai’s elite.

People are messy. Life gets messy. Things are not always going to work out perfectly just because you want them to.

Just when you start to tire of the tantrums and shopping trips to buy clothing worth more than the average persons house, there’s a plot twist and a mystery, intrigue, drama and romance.

I’m so glad I can always count on you to have some sort of ulterior motive that involves money.

Nick Young and Rachel Chu are on the cusp of getting married when Rachel discovers her unknown father is Bao Shaoyen, a wealthy and influential politician from mainland China. The couple fly to Shanghai to meet her family including her half brother Carlton and his socialite girlfriend Colette Bing and find themselves caught up in the highlife.

I don’t understand. How can a credit card ever be rejected? It’s not like it’s a kidney!

Other characters include Kitty Pony, former sex-tape star trying to break into A list, tech entrepreneur and social climbing, mean spirited Michael Teo, his wife, Astrid, and Charlie who is keen on Astrid, all of whom crave a spot in the social pages while being careful to appear as if they don’t care.

Beauty fades, but wit will keep you on the invitation lists to all the most exclusive parties.

China Rich Girlfriend is like an over the top Chinese soap opera. A silly fun quick read.

Note: I am off on holidays to Japan tomorrow for five weeks – yeah! I will do my best to continue my weekly posts, but it may turn into a travel blog for a few weeks.

Book review: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein was a totally random pick for me. I did not expect reading it to leave me in tears! The story is written from the view point a dog called Enzo. 

I’ve always felt almost human. I’ve always known that there’s something about me that’s different than other dogs.

Enzo is sensitive, introspective and funny and takes his role of looking after his humans very seriously. He learns a lot by watching the television when his humans are at work, but his lack of thumbs is frustrating and he plans to come back in his next life as a human.

People are always worried about what’s happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are generally not satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.

Enzo was picked out from a litter of puppies by his human, Denny. Denny is a race car driver who works in a Seattle car-repair shop to fund his racing. Enzo soon discovers he loves car racing as well. The tale takes us Enzo and Denny’s single life together through to the adjustment to a human woman called Eve who comes into Denny’s life. Enzo isn’t sure about Eve to begin with but they do bond. Then the humans have a baby called Zoe and Enzo is smitten.

Somewhere, the zebra is dancing.

Things take a turn when Eve becomes unwell and Denny’s life spirals through a sequence of bad luck, well meaning but misplaced intentions, and nastiness. Enzo sticks by his man as his life unravels, but has to contend with a demon zebra. 

He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.

The Art of Racing in the Rain is a tale about family, love, loyalty and hope. It’s a bit cheesy at times, but I’m a total sucker for a dog story.

Book review: Ghost Cities by Siang Lu

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Ghost Cities by Siang Lu is a unique and wacky novel inspired by China’s uninhabited megacities. The story spans dual timelines – Imperial China and Modern day China and Sydney.

where no matter what I try I can’t remember the details – only it was important and now I have lost it maybe forever – then I am dismembered. I have lost a part of myself. Violently so. That is actually how I feel. A dismemberment. Is that strange?

Xiang Lu, a Chinese Australian is fired from his job at the Chinese consulate in Sydney when it’s discovered he’s been using Google Translate for his work as he doesn’t speak Chinese. #BadChinese goes viral on social media and Chinese film director Baby Boa engages Xiang Lu to attract attention for his latest film. Boa has turned one of China’s ghost cities into a 24/7 film set, where all the population are actors. 

In the ancient timeline an Imperial Emperor who rules with an iron fist at a time of concubines, Royal decrees and official tasters, has 1000 doubles because he is afraid of being assassinated. They all start making Royal decisions.

Word travelled fast. By the time of His coronation, rumour was already circulating the courts that young Lu Huang Du had conspired to usurp His father’s throne. Well, he certainly had not planned it that way, but He was nothing if not an opportunist. When whispers of patricide and regicide spread through the Imperial Court, He uttered not denials.

Ghost Cities is a wild ride – part historical and part contemporary fiction, urban fantasy and satire all rolled into one. An imaginative tale about power, superstition, corruption, and how illusion and reality intersect. There is even a love story in there amongst all the chaos. 

Book review: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

I met an old friend from high school once who had experienced a traumatic head injury – we rode horses at the same place. She had almost photographic recall of long term memories from high school, but almost no short memory. Every time we encountered each other it was as if we were meeting for the first time after many years, and we would often cover the same territory in discussion – remembering our highs school days. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa reminded me of that time. The story is a sweet domestic drama set in Japan.

A problem isn’t finished just because you’ve found the right answer.

A housekeeper who is single mother to a young boy is placed by an employment agency with a new client. He is an old man who lives in a two room apartment at the back of his sister-in-laws house. The professor is a brilliant mathematician who’s short term memory only lasts 80 minutes after a traumatic head injury in a car accident. Pinned all over his suit are reminder notes he has written to himself to try and remember things that matter. The disability has not interfered with his ability to solve complex mathematical problems. 

Solving a problem for which you know there’s an answer is like climbing a mountain with a guide, along a trail someone else has laid. In mathematics, the truth is somewhere out there in a place no one knows, beyond all the beaten paths. And it’s not always at the top of the mountain. It might be in a crack on the smoothest cliff or somewhere deep in the valley.

The professor asks the housekeeper for her phone number and shoe size and explains the significant of those numbers, then draws a picture of her and pins it to his jacket.

Soon after I began working for the Professor, I realized that he talked about numbers whenever he was unsure of what to say or do. Numbers were also his way of reaching out to the world. They were safe, a source of comfort.

One day the housekeeper has to take her son to work with her and he and the professor become friends. He calls the boy Root, after the square root sign, because the top of his head is flat. They bond over baseball and maths homework.

He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world

The Housekeeper and the Professor is an study of number theory – prime numbers, triangular numbers, amicable numbers – and a gentle exploration of relationships without memory.

Book review: All Fours by Miranda July

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

All Fours by Miranda July is a novel about what happens when creativity, peri-menopause, lingering trauma from a premature birth, and an emotionally and sexually distant marriage collide in an existential crisis. 

All of the hormones that made me want to seem approachable so I could breed are gone and replaced by hormones that are fiercely protective of my autonomy and freedom

The 45 year old narrator (unnamed) is an artist who became mildly famous at a young age and works in several mediums. She lives in California with her husband Harris and their non-binary child Sam. After getting an unexpected windfall from a piece of work she completed, and dealing with a creative block, she decides to take a solo road trip across the country to New York. Her best friend Jordi encourages her to spent the windfall on beauty. The trip will give her time to think and reevaluate life and a stay in the Carlye will be luxurious. Much of the story is relayed via phone calls between our narrator and Jordi with whom she shares everything.

Each person does the amount of lying that is right for them. You have to know yourself and fulfill the amount of untruth that your constitution requires.

Twenty minutes from home she has an encounter with a young man, Davey, who cleans her windscreen and they meet again at the place she stops to eat. She books overnight in a motel in the town. Then she decides to stay there rather than drive to New York and spends twenty thousand dollars commissioning Davey’s wife Claire to redesign the motel room. Over the next three weeks she has an intense emotional liaison with Davey.

A lot of women destroy their lives in their forties and then one day they wake up with no periods and no partner and only themselves to blame

When she returns home she cannot shake her obsession with Davey, dissatisfaction with her marriage, and her changing hormones. 

The women I dated were often my age, that was fine. But the men always had to be older than me because if they were my same age then it became too obvious how much more powerful I was and this was a turnoff for both of us. Men needed a head start for it to be even.

I loved the strange idiosyncratic subversion of this novel and the naked examination of the narrators interiority and fantasies. Skilfully crafted and brimming with funny one liners All Fours is a novel about women questioning in mid-life. A must read for women of a certain age.

Book review: The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

At only 186 pages, The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş is a short intimate narrative about daily life. Asya and her husband Manu have lived abroad in an unnamed foreign country for a few years. Asya is a documentary filmmaker and Manu works for a not-for-profit. 

Asya, my grandmother said, don’t complicate the point. We named you after a whole continent and you’re filming a park.

They worry that they are not living a normal life trajectory, they are playing at being adults rather than committing. They made two decisions to in response to that anxiety. Asya decides to make a film about a local park, and the two decide to look into buying a house.

In a moment of panic, we decided to look for a home.

The story follows Asya as she makes her film and interviews people in the park, and we go with the couple as they look at properties to buy. While these two activities comprise the spine of the plot we also gain insights into Asya and Manus’s lives – their friends dynamics, their parents, and their elderly neighbour with declining health who they visit for tea and to read poetry to.

All the months that I had been filming, I’d thought that there were so many ways of living, of inhabiting the park. I wanted to know as many configurations as possible, all the strange and unique ways. But lately, as I went over the scenes again and again, smoothing their edges, positioning them into a fluid conversation, I’d begun to understand that there was, also, only one way to live beneath the multitude of forms, one way forward through the fleeting hours of the day.

The story is told from Asya’s point of view and reveals her reflections on her days, and ponderings on what she wants her life to be. The ordinariness and subtlety of The Anthropologists, along with the beautiful prose are what make it a delight to read. The ordinary moments of life can also be the most significant.

Where do I feel most like myself? I don’t know how to answer that question. I guess I’m still looking.

The style and feel of The Anthropologists was reminiscent to me of other tender novels like Cold Enough for Snow and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop.