Neverwhere

While this fantasy/horror by Neil Gaiman is set in an alternate London underground, it’s somehow so similar to Stardust that it’s practically the same book. There’s the goblin market, the quest, the dangers, the unusual girl who turns out to be more special than the girl at home, the references to myths and fairy-tales, and the clumsy boy who becomes a hero. I really don’t like in most fantasy novels, and didn’t like here, the horror elements – how writers can spend so much time on such disgusting things I have no idea – but I liked the idea of the Underground reflecting historical and imaginative aspects of the real world. The language was reminiscent of Terry Pratchett but with a slightly more American flavour. Clever, interesting – but like the previous book, not particularly deep or moving, and so I doubt I’ll be seeking out other books by this author.

Stardust

This fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman is something like The Princess Bride without the mocking flavour of that particular book (although like TPB, the film of Stardust is more tightly structured and therefore slightly better). Tristan Thorne is asked by a girl he’s keen on to go catch a falling star – and so he crosses the Wall into fairy-land and discovers that over there, stars are girls and magic is real. It’s a fun, clever, and well-written fairy tale, albeit with a rather modern American tone to it all. There’s the usual twists on the usual fairy stories, and some of the darkness of modern fantasy novels – an altogether good, if not deep or moving, read.

Where the Road Leads

From the ridiculous to the sublime – this is the story of Jean Calder, an Australian physical education teacher specialising in children with disabilities, who has worked with the Palestinian people in Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine, and will probably die there – she’s in her seventies. She adopted three children with disabilities, and has supported the care of thousands of others. At the same time, she’s promoted understanding of disability through inclusive education, training of workers, and training of parents. The story covers her life, as well as what has happened in Palestine, especially in the last few years – it finishes in 2006. It’s a straightforward read, and a fascinating one, about someone living in extraordinary circumstances and simply focusing on the plight of others, rather than worrying about herself – there’s little mention of any personal discomfort in the face of the everyday inconveniences of living in developing countries – no, it’s all about the children. An amazing story, and definitely highlighting some of the more ridiculous non-fiction I’ve read below.

Absolutely Faking It

This travel story by Tiana Templeman was one of the fluffiest things I’ve read – the story of how she won a trip round the world’s top hotels, but didn’t have the cash to live the lifestyle, so had to essentially backpack from one posh resort to the next. And that’s it. There’s no twist, no other story. She describes the hotels and the countries she visits, but as she spends about three days in each, it’s not even as deep as a lonely planet guide. The difficulties she finds are summed up in what she learned: “I can cope with any struggle now, such as smuggling a pizza into the Ritz hotel”. I suppose it’s interesting as a portrait of the average world knowledge of a regular backpacker – but it’s not much as a piece of literature.

What I Was

This was another disappointment by Meg Rosoff; I don’t know why I’m always so hopeful that the next book will be any better than the previous. This is a coming-of-age YA novel (with the word “bugger/buggery” in every second page, to try to keep it either hip or British) about a boy in a boarding school in the sixties who runs off and meets a boy called Finn who lives on a riverbank by himself. He’s increasingly attracted to Finn and his lifestyle and goes to live there during the holidays. Disaster strikes and (with no great surprise to the discerning reader) Finn turns out to be a girl, and some other boy drowns. I can see the vision Rosoff had, but it really isn’t realised in this book; neither the school, nor the characters, nor the landscape comes across in any genuine way, and at the end of the day it’s because she really isn’t a very good writer.

Those Faraday Girls

I’ve always enjoyed Monica McInerney’s books, and this one is no exception. It’s the story of five motherless girls who get a shock when the youngest falls pregnant at 16. They raise the child together, but separate when one of the sisters, Sadie, has a breakdown and leaves – taking the child away. While Maggie is soon returned, Sadie disappears, and never comes back, though the other sisters meet regularly. Years later, when Maggie grows up, she begins to discover all the lies that her life has been based upon, and she ends up finding Sadie too.

This is a plot-driven novel, plainly written – it’s not literature – but it’s a good, thought-provoking read about families. It doesn’t revel in pain, but it doesn’t give out bland happy endings, either. Some people are just horrible, and don’t turn out nice – that’s reality, even if they’re members of your family. I raced through this book as I race through all of McInerney’s books, because the characters are enticing and the story is well-told and it does what it sets out to do – entertain.

A Watery Grave

This was a fairly dull read by Joan Druett, although that’s probably just because I don’t find all things nautical particularly interesting, especially when the entire book from beginning to end lacks a single female character (except the dead woman from the first page). The hero, a half-Maori half-American sailor during the nineteenth century stumbles on the mystery and while he’s sailing south with the navy endeavours to solve it. He does, because there really isn’t very much mystery to it at all. While the tidbits of information about being a pacific islander in an increasingly white world during the nineteenth century are interesting, they were too infrequent to hold my attention in this particularly pedestrian novel.

Shantaram

This book by Gregory David Roberts is like a wild dream, where things just get crazier and more unbelievable – and it’s also one of the best books I’ve read all year. In fact, after finishing part one, I was tempted to agree with the front cover and call it a masterpiece, but unfortunately the rest of it wasn’t as brilliant – it was still good though.

The story is based on the author’s life, although the narrative has obviously been tweaked (he calls it a novel). Roberts was an armed robber who escaped from prison and fled to Bombay. He met up with a variety of interesting characters, including the woman, Karla, who shapes much of the story. He ends up living in the slums and starting a clinic there, but after a tragedy, leaves and joins the Bombay mafia, and his hero-father figure, “Kaderbhai”. After getting involved in Bollywood, spending months in an Indian prison, and travelling all around the world smuggling, he follows Kaderbhai to Afghanistan, where he discovers to his horror that both his life, Karla’s life, and the lives of thousands of others, have been manipulated by Kaderbhai to support the war in Afghanistan. He returns alive – although Kaderbhai doesn’t – and sees the downfall of the mafia group. When the story ends, he’s planning to go join the war in Sri Lanka.

It’s not just the crazy action, the philosophy, and the lyrical language (sometimes a little too purple) that makes this story – there’s people returning from the dead, twins attacking the hero in a Queen’s darkened tower-room, incredible riches and incredible poverty – but the characters, fascinating, unique, real, and human. The women – including Karla – are neither ciphers nor princesses, the men aren’t angels either, and best of all the hero isn’t heroic. He runs away from the fire in the slum, from the pain of the people, from the worst of everything – it is the Indians who cope and survive and make plans and explain to him how to live. It’s a reverse City of God. He learns, because he’s humble, and that’s why it’s real, because anyone who has travelled knows that’s the real truth of travelling. It’s shocking, disturbing (there’s violence, sex, drug use, death), and tragic, but it’s uplifting because it’s about real people living a real life. Comparing this book to the stories below of sedate wealthy lives enlivened by canteen duty is almost impossible. This is an amazing book because the writer lived an amazing life.

Dreaming Water

This is a typical American novel, but it’s not too bad - Gail Tsukiyama being an adequate writer. I say typical because it has that forced simplicity, that focus on some issue or other (this time it’s both Werner syndrome and the Japanese interned during WW2), and the exploration of relationships. It’s a snapshot, in that the action takes place over two days, although the narrators (another sign of the typical American novel - using several narrators to carry the story) dip into the past, reminiscing. Basically Cate, in her sixties, is caring for her thirty-something daughter Hana who, having Werner syndrome, is like she’s in her eighties. She hasn’t long to live. A close friend, Laura, from the past comes to visit, with her daughters, showing that the end of one life can still make a difference – the mother has time to ponder her growing attraction to the family doctor, and Laura’s teenage daughter sees that difference can mean uniqueness and something beautiful. It’s a quiet read, a thoughtful read, but nothing particularly new or original.

Something Rich and Strange

This is a small sea-story by Patricia A McKillip, who writes fantasy. Megan and Jonah live near the beach somewhere in modern-day USA, running a shop full of sea-treasures like drawings (done by Megan) and fossils (found by Jonah). One day a stranger appears, offering them jewellery to sell in the store; luring them into the sea, so that Jonah is seduced by a siren and disappears, and Megan’s drawings begin to contain worlds she never knew existed. That part is good, but when they get down into the sea, it turns into an environmental message (pollution of the ocean/they’re sent back to bear witness) which really feels at odds with the rest of the book, and brings it down to a children’s morality tale. However, the writing is very beautiful, and the first part so mesmerising that you feel desperate to drop everything and go directly to the beach.

The Towers of Trebizond

The title of this book by Rose Macaulay is incredibly familiar to me as one of those classics that everyone should read; and yet it turned out to be nothing like I expected, and the sort of book that I can’t see lasting into the future. It’s ostensibly a comedy about a woman who accompanies her elderly aunt Dot into Turkey, is separated when Dot goes to visit (communist) Russia, and returns to England with Dot’s camel and her own ape to await her return. What it’s actually about is religion; the narrator, like the author, is in a long-standing affair and cannot see a way out of it, is an agnostic and can’t see a way into the Anglicanism of her ancestors, and struggles with both things constantly. The end is both tragic and unexpected, and in a way unresolved. It’s a very interesting – and well written, in a very Cold Comfort Farm voice – story, especially for lovers of Turkey, comedy, and travel stories in general, but it’s a story of its time, and I can’t see it lasting as a classic into this century.

Faust

I was attracted to this novella by Turgenev because I love the Faust story, and indeed this is a sort of variation on the myth. A young man meets a girl who has been brought up in isolation, never having read anything fictional, never hearing any stories. He’s attracted to her, but her strong mother suggests that they’re not a good match; humbled, he agrees. Years later, when the girl is married, they meet again; this time her mother is dead. He introduces her to Goethe’s Faust, and she’s altered irrevocably.

It’s a great idea, but while Turgenev is supposed to be one of the great Russian writers, I wasn’t touched by it – it lacked that spark that the other authors have, that real passion – it felt more like a writing exercise than anything that the author really felt, even though apparently he was a great fan of Goethe. Great writing of course, but it didn’t grab me.

The Secret of Lost Things

This novel by Sheridan Hayes is not very good. It’s a coming-of-age story about a Tasmanian girl who goes to work in a bookstore in New York. It’s set in the eighties, though it took me three-quarters of the book to work that out, because it doesn’t sound like the eighties at all, and the girl is not anything at all like a modern teenager; I’d guessed it was the twenties. The characters don’t sound American (e.g. asking for black coffee!) and are caricatures (someone likes Dickens, evidently). None of the lost things are eventually found – the secret is obviously that lost things are lost – and while the girl somehow gains some kind of understanding, it was lost on me. Derivative, and not very interesting – it really didn’t feel as though the author put too much of herself into this one.