The Lady in the Lake

There's authors that you're excited to find at a later date, and there's authors that you're excited to discover have written quite a few books. I just found three more Raymond Chandler books at a bookstall the other day; fantastic, because he's not easy to find in print.

This one had all the usual Chandler elements; Marlowe, the tough but good detective; a whole range of men and women without morals or decency; red-herrings and twists; and brilliant, beautiful writing.

The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips. Chandler is full of such perfect phrases. And every word of description creates a scene you can see for the rest of your life, just as you'd recognise his characters if they walked by you down the street. He makes clear that a certain couple had just had lamb chops and broccoli; from that, you know what kind of people they are. Doesn't matter to the plot whatsoever. Matters enormously to the story - because his books aren't about solving a mystery so much as discovering human beings. Marlowe, generally the only person with a conscience in the whole world, moving through a city filled with ordinary people who hate and steal and `dope' and kill.

Why is that so satisfying? I think because really you know people are like that, and it takes Chandler to say it. And if you never looked at a human being before, you look at them now because of the way Chandler writes about them.

This one had a twist I didn't see coming, and an amazing ending - it couldn't have ended any other way. It was set and written during WW2 with about as much reference to the war as there'd be in a book set and written today. The Lady in the Lake sounds such a romantic title, doesn't it? I suppose Chandler knows black comedy, all right.

Dr Zhivago

I tried to read this when I was 13 and didn't get very far. I'm so glad - it's wonderful to find another really great book out there in the world. What I don't understand is that there doesn't seem to be another English translation since the original, and it doesn't seem to be in print anywhere. Crazy, since both it and the movie are such classics!

All right, I admit it's a flawed book. The beginning and the end both ramble on; there's too many unexplained coincidences; and it ends - sadly - on a note of optimism, just before Stalin comes into the picture.

But you know what, that's what makes it such a real and human book. In real life what strange coincidences occur! (My sister and I talking about a cousin while travelling through Turkey; hours later we happen to bump into her there. We hadn't even realised she was out of Australia.) In real life nothing begins or ends dramatically, and in real life we say that things have to get better just before they get much, much worse! (The hopeful millenium celebrations spring to mind). I love the way Dr Zhivago spends the post-revolutionary years thinking about poetry. And how messy are his relationships! Too messy, really, for modern readers who prefer Anna Karenina and her ending.

But who couldn't love Lara. Who couldn't love Yuri and Lara in love! It's the best, best love writing in a novel written by a man.

And how couldn't you be struck by some of the truest lines in the world; "Every man is born a Faust, longing to examine, experience and embrace the world". I've thought that all my life! Hooray for Pasternak writing it down. He's really a poet, and his poetical mind created this gorgeous classic which is now in my top 100 books.

Unless

When I picked up this book by CAROL SHIELDS, I thought at first it was a piece of chicklit. Which as it happens is funny because it's a story about a woman intending to write a piece of chicklit about a woman who writes. As it turns out it isn't chicklit, but literary fiction, and that's what this book is too.

It's Canadian, and firmly set in the year 2000 - the Bush election mentioned, and a Muslim woman burning herself to death (if you recall, there was a fair bit of media attention about women in Afghanistan back then) - and it's about how women feel marginalised, sometimes. There's the main character, Reta, who keep writing letters to male writers about how sexist they are; there's her mentor, Danielle, who is a great writer being forgotten; there's Reta's daughter, who has moved onto the streets and sits there with a piece of cardboard with the word "Goodness" written on it. They all feel pretty frustrated at society's attitude twards women. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm too young, but I can't emotionally appreciate that; as in, I am so utterly aware of society's attitude towards women that it doesn't shock me enough of even slightly surprise me. I can't see it suddenly becoming anything different. Now, I can understand that if you were around in the sixties or seventies as Reta and Danielle were, you might have been led to expect a great feminist revolution, but if you were born after that time, then I can't see where that expectation would come from. So Reta's daughter's reaction doesn't ring true for me, and the device of the word "Goodness" is a bit too much. On the other hand, it is the kind of thing that I can imagine a person with a mental illness doing, though not out of some deep disappointment with teh way the feminist revolution has gone.

What I do like about this story, apart from the fact that it's a good flowing read with interesting characters, are the few good lines where you spontaneously respond with - yes, that's true! ("So is like the oboe, signalling the A pitch to the strings.") And then there are long discourses on things like the nature of goodness that you can imagine Carol Shields walking along thinking about, and then perhaps talking to someone about, and them replying - yes, that's so true! Structurally it is pretty interesting the way she manages to keep it all rolling along and yet have both these discourses and the feminist letters not disturbing the flow whatsoever.

It has a happy ending. Reta finishes writing her book and discoveres the mystery of her daughter and in that feels quite satisfied - both in that her daughter has come home and that her daughter feels as strongly about feminism as she does. Oh, I'm simplying it but I think that's true. It's comprehensible to her, that's the main thing. What else do I like? All the characters are attractive, including the wonderful husband, the monther-in-law, the kindly editor and the later curiously amusing one, the daughter's boyfriend. Even the sexist pigs she's written letters to to turn out to be pretty nice after all. I think Carol Shields must also be a nice person to be able to think so kindly about everyone. Even though she's so sad about feminism.

Pale Fire

This isn't a book about the Russian taiga - and I'm sure you didn't think it was, either. Everytime I read Nabokov though, part of me thinks it will be set in Russia, in the countryside. This book, like Lolita, is American.

The sun is a thief; she lures the sea
and robs it. The moon is a thief:
he steals his silvery light from the sun.
The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.

There's a reason this book is famous; it's very good. How beautiful is that quote! And it's a clue, as well, to the whole book. It's ostensibly a book of poetry with commentary - actually it's a mystery. Is any of it real? Who is really writing the book? The wonderful thing is that there's no orthodox view on it all. You can read it and decide for yourself if the writer is Nabokov, or one of the people in the story - John Shade, the poet; Kinbote, his commentator; Botkin, the crazy university professor; or someone else altogether.

It's a very funny book, and it's very brilliant and clever, with lots of literary allusions (the one above is a "translation" of Shakespeare's Timon of Athen, Act IV, Scene 3), and lots of games. Perhaps it's too clever and intellectual to love ardently - but as food for the mind, it is wonderful.