An unusually strong war novel which ranks with the very best, To Hell with Cronje by Ingrid Winterbach shows characters whose lives have been permanently changed by the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902), and raises the question of whether any of them—men, women, and children–will ever be able return to a peaceful life after the brutality which has created a new “normal” within their nation. How, she asks, can one cope with the horrors of war on any level? What resources can men develop that might allow them to survive personally? Four Boer soldiers who have served in a variety of fortified camps (laagers), with an assortment of career officers–mostly incompetent, in their opinion–have set out on a mission to return young Abraham Fourche to his mother in Ladybrand. Not quite twenty, Abraham has witnessed the horrifying death of his brother during the devastating Battle of Droogleegte, and he is now shell-shocked, mute, and unresponsive. (On my Favorites List for 2010)
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Described as a “prodigy,” thirty-five-year-old Daniel Kehlmann, with German and Austrian citizenship, has already published four novels and a short story collection, winning the 2005 Candide Award, the 2006 Kleist Award, and the 2008 Thomas Mann Award. Kehlmann’s nine stories all deal with the ironies of people caught between reality and fiction. In “Voices” Kehlman tells the story of Ebling, who is mistakenly assigned the private number of famous actor Ralf Tanner when he buys a new cellphone. When he begins to answer as the actor, “It was as if he had a doppelganger, his representative in a parallel universe.” In “The Way Out,” Ralf Tanner the actor illustrates what has happened to his life since Ebling started answering his phone calls, his professional career and personal life in ruins. He participates in a disco contest which awards prizes to the person who most resembles someone famous, but is criticized because his body language is “not correct” for the actor Ralf Tanner. His use of a false name ironically gives him a chance at a real life.
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Posted in 9b-2010 Reviews, Book Club Suggestions, England, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Psychological study on Jan 22nd, 2011
Author Jenn Ashworth takes the concept of irony to new heights in this psychological novel which rivals Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy in its intensity, and it is in her irony that this novel achieves something that McCabe’s novel does not—it is pathetically funny at the same time that it is terrifyingly slow in its revelations of Annie’s past life. In the first six pages, Neil, Annie’s new next door neighbor, asks her if “the family,” especially her little girl, have arrived yet. Annie asserts that he must be confused–that it is only her and her cat, no husband, no daughter. Every remark and every action from this point on capitalizes on the reader’s understanding of real life as the author shows it being played out in conversations among the neighbors and other residents of the community, while Annie twists and manipulates what she sees and hears so that her reality will be what she wants it to be. Ashworth manages to depict a main character with a perverted sense of self and gross ignorance of the conventions of social intercourse while, at the same time satirizing the very suburban society which Annie wishes to be part of—a major achievement pulled off with panache and darkly humorous flair.
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Filled with dry, ironic humor, Quartet in Autumn is a poignant depiction of the lives of four elderly people, who have worked together for several years. All of them live alone, and none of them have much of a life outside of their repetitive and intellectually deadening jobs. They treat each other only as colleagues and not as friends, both in and out of the office. The two women consider the two men to be merely “part of the furniture,” and the men have no interest in the women beyond their function in the office. As a result, they have never socialized, visited each other’s houses or apartments, shared a lunch hour together, or come to know each other as human beings. When the two women retire, life for all of them changes dramatically. When the men decide to take the “old dears” to lunch several weeks after they retire, the four of them have their first social occasion, with mixed results. Pym is very funny, her images and description of events incomparable. She calls a spade a spade, and her ironic depiction of old age is one that no one nearing that age will ever forget.
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Within the two hundred fifteen pages of this short, allegorical novel, Evelio Rosero creates a microcosm of Colombian rural life in the fictional community of San Jose, where no one knows who will attack them next—the army, the paramilitaries, the guerrillas, or the drug lords. Though the residents are peaceful small farmers and businessmen with few, if any, ties to the “outside” world and virtually no interest in the country’s politics, every militant faction vying for power in Colombia somehow believes that these residents constitute an imminent threat. Every character in the novel becomes a sort of Everyman, an ordinary person living his own life, just like the ordinary people in any other country, with similar kinds of goals, a similar desire for love and family, and a similar belief (or non-belief) in a higher spiritual power. Because Rosero also creates intriguing, quirky personalities for his characters, they are livelier than most other generic, “Everyman” characters, and they therefore generate sympathy and understanding of their individual problems while they also represent broader, more elevated themes.
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