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Thomas Keneally–VICTIM OF THE AURORA

Jan 15th, 2011 by

Note: Thomas Keneally was WINNER of the Booker Prize for Schindler’s List (1982).  He is a two-time WINNER of Australia’s highest award, the Miles Franklin Award in 1967 and 1968, and has been WINNER of the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award in 2007.

A change of pace for people with “Shackleton-mania.”

If you’ve read everything you can find on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trips to Antarctica, seen the traveling exhibit with Frank Hurley’s extraordinary photographs and memorabilia from the Endurance, and still crave more about Antarctic expeditions, this book by Thomas Keneally will keep you interested and dreaming of such exploration for a few more hours.

Written in 1978, this is a murder mystery set near the South Pole in 1909, the same year as Shackleton’s first expedition and five years before the Endurance epic. A similar crew of explorer-scientists and sailors, with the same attitudes and prejudices that one finds in the literary record of the Endurance, perform similar tasks under similar conditions, with one big exception. Captain Eugene Stewart (sharing initials with Ernest Shackleton) must also investigate his own crew as he attempts to unmask the murderer of Victor Henneker, the expedition’s representative of the press, who intends to record the voyage for posterity.

With the same care for historic details and period attitudes which one sees in some of Keneally’s later, prize-winning books, such as Confederates and Schindler’s List, Keneally reveals Henneker to be a blackmailer who holds damaging information about almost everyone in the crew, their reputations vulnerable because they have violated the inflexible moral strictures of Edwardian England.

A cuckolded husband, the secret lover of a married aristocrat, a mountain guide who may be responsible for a fatal excursion, a man tried for theft, and others “guilty” of homosexuality, Zionism, illegitimacy, and heresy reflect the pettiness and rigidity of “civilized” life in England and offer motivation both for the murder of Victor and for participating in the expedition. The book’s conclusion is also consistent with the mores of the day. While this may not be the greatest mystery of all time, it is certainly one in which the author has done all his homework, well worth reading for the context it provides for other (real) South Pole expeditions of the day.

Also reviewed here, Keneally’s   SCHINDLER’S LIST,     THE  TYRANT’S NOVEL,     CONFEDERATES,     DAUGHTERS OF MARS    NAPOLEON’S LAST ISLAND

Notes: The author’s photo and a biography appear here:  http://www.middlemiss.org

The real ship Aurora, which had six trips to the Antarctic before she went missing in 1918, may have been the model for this novel:  http://www.maritime-connector.com

 

 

 

Posted in Antarctica, Exploration, Historical, Mystery, Thriller, Noir | No Comments »

Alistair MacLeod–NO GREAT MISCHIEF

Jan 15th, 2011 by

Note: This novel was WINNER of the IMPAC Dublin Award, the biggest literary award in the world, in 2001.

Extraordinary.

Alexander MacDonald, the narrator of this warm and ennobling family saga, comments to his brother that “Talking about history is not like living it…Some people have more choice than others.” And there, in a nutshell, is the essence of this tender generational novel. The MacDonalds are, in many ways, an “ordinary” family on Cape Breton in northeast Canada, but MacLeod creates a history for them so alive that the reader experiences it, too, feeling their sorrow and joy, admiring their pluck and independence, and celebrating their loyalty and bravery as they make the hard choices their lives require. They become heroes to us not because they have performed unusual feats but because they have achieved nobility within the collective memory of their own family.

Alexander MacDonald, the speaker, no longer lives on Cape Breton. An orthodontist, he travels weekly to Toronto to visit his alcoholic brother Calum, named for the family patriarch who came to the island in 1779 from Scotland. As he travels back and forth and reminisces, sometimes in Gaelic, with his much less fortunate brother, many generations of MacDonalds come to life, and we see how these forbears have shaped the two brothers and influenced their different, but shared, destinies.

MacLeod is very lyrical, and like a musician, he repeats certain themes. Gaelic phrases echo throughout, almost like a refrain. First names continue in different generations to remind the reader of historical resemblances and differences. And always, in every generation, MacLeod celebrates the dominance of the original Calum MacDonald and of Cape Breton in shaping their lives.

MacLeod never stoops to sentimentality, however. His main characters are all macho males living macho lives, and he includes no romantic love story to soften the harshness of life. Still, he has created one of the warmest, most loving, and enduring family stories anyone will ever find. The book pulses with heart, an unforgettable novel by a writer who is so precise in his structure and word choice that in his entire career he has produced only this one novel and fourteen perfect short stories published in two extraordinary collections. Reading MacLeod is a great, rewarding pleasure for anyone interested in beautiful prose and careful execution. (At the top of my All-Time Favorites List.)

Notes: The author’s photo is from http://weblog.johnwmacdonald.com

The photo of Meat Cove is from http://www.advrider.com Meat Cove is the farthest point north on Cape Breton, a dramatic, stunning coastline which ends with a tiny café where visitors can have a bite to eat and enjoy the company and the views – a very special place and, for me, a treasured memory shared with friends.

Posted in Cape Breton, Literary, Scotland | No Comments »

Antonio Munoz-Molina–A MANUSCRIPT OF ASHES

Jan 15th, 2011 by

“Don’t have any illusions…You and I will never see the Third Republic. We’re condemned to Franco in the same way we’re condemned to grow old and die.”

The Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) and the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco form the underpinning of this hypnotic novel by Spanish author Antonio Munoz Molina, simultaneously a love story, a story about political and personal aspirations, and a story about writing and the creative process. In a narrative that swirls through time and place, often turning in upon itself and revisiting earlier events from different points of view, life during the tumultuous Civil War unfolds and is carried forward for more than thirty years of Franco’s harsh dictatorship.

When the book opens, it is 1969, and Minaya, a university student has just been released from detention for his part in a student demonstration. He has been treated more leniently than some other protestors because of his family connections. Leaving Madrid for Magina, where his elderly uncle lives, Minaya intends to search for the missing masterwork of a little known poet named Jacinto Solana and to write his doctoral thesis on Solana in the seclusion of the countryside. His uncle Manuel and Solana were childhood friends, and both had been in love with the same woman, Mariana Rios, an artist’s model.

As the story flashes back to 1936 – 37, the complex relationship of Manuel, Solana, and Mariana unfolds. Mariana, who chose to marry Manuel, was shot to death, supposedly by a stray bullet fired from a rooftop through the window of their house on her wedding night, during the earliest days of the Spanish Civil War. Manuel never recovered, closing their nuptial bedroom and living forever after as a recluse. Solana, a Communist, went off to war and then disappeared, reappearing in Magina years later upon his release from ten years of political detention and torture. Manuel provided him with a place to live and work on his book. When Minaya arrives to stay with his uncle, Solana is already dead, according to those who knew him, shot by government troops, his papers burned, and his masterpiece, Beatus Ille, missing. With the help of Inez, who works for his uncle, Minaya searches for the manuscript, determined to restore this poet to the place he deserves as a revolutionary Spanish writer.

The intense, kaleidoscopic narrative, filled with lyrical and sensual descriptions, gradually reveals the circumstances surrounding the marriage of Manuel and Mariana and her death, at the same time that it also reveals the much later death of Solana on the “Island of Cuba,” the farm belonging to Manuel in the countryside of Magina. Details of the civil war, its tumult, and its aftermath broaden as the communists, anarchists, members of the popular front, and supporters of the status quo, all willing to die for their beliefs, engage in battles for the future of Spain. As the narrative swirls, the multiple points of view add depth and intensity to the narrative. Though the broad outlines of the story are not in doubt, revealing details surrounding the facts accumulate as Minaya, Solana, and Manuel provide information from their own points of view, and add their personal interpretations.

The style is hypnotic, catching up the reader in the mood and weaving a spell, despite the fact that this unusual novel never moves in a straightforward chronological sequence and so lacks the usual beginning, middle, and end, except as the reader constructs it for him/herself. It is not unusual for some sentences to be one hundred fifty words long and for paragraphs to go on for pages, yet the narrative speeds along on the strength of the spell it weaves and the intensity of the mood it creates.

Though there are surprises at the end of this impressionistic novel, the revelations are the least important aspect of the novel. By then, the reader understands not just the circumstances of Mariana’s death and the relationships of the characters, but also the depth of Jacinto Solana’s commitment to his art and to the future of Spain. A novel that will appeal to readers willing to succumb to its mood and not worry about the long sentences, lack of direct action, and swirling chronology, A Manuscript of Ashes is an intriguing early novel by an author who is one of Spain’s most honored contemporary authors. (On my Favorites List for 2008.)

Also by Munoz Molina:  IN HER ABSENCE     and     LIKE A FADING SHADOW

Notes: The author’s photo accompanies an interview (in Spanish) on http://www.letralia.com

Spanish Civil War photo from John Podpadec:  http://www.podpadec.co.uk

The photo of Generalissimo Francisco Franco appears on http://fysm-149.wp.trincoll.edu

Posted in Experimental, Historical, Literary, Spain | No Comments »

Christopher Nolan–THE BANYAN TREE

Jan 15th, 2011 by

Maybe it is Joyce who should be compared to Nolan!

Although Nolan’s prose has often been compared to that of other, more famous Irish writers – James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, W. B. Yeats, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, for example–his style is more accessible, making his story more readable, more emotionally powerful, and more personally involving than anything I’ve read by these other great writers. Main character Minnie O’Brien lives, loves, ages, aches, and ultimately haunts. She’s an extraordinary character presented in an extraordinary way by an equally extraordinary author.

The basic story line is simple: Minnie O’Brien, an Irish countrywoman with a love for the land and her family, watches her three children grow up and leave the farm. As she ages into her eighties, she tries to keep the farm going, waiting for her youngest son, from whom she has never heard a word since his departure at age 17, to return to claim the land. But to describe the book in these terms is like describing Ulysses as a story about a man walking around Dublin.

Nolan brings her to life by following the first rule of fiction: “Don’t tell about something; recreate it.” He does this, in part, by using vivid, emotionally charged words in new ways, sometimes using adjectives and nouns as verbs, conveying not only the emotional sense but also an action: In describing Minnie’s actions at the death of her husband, we find that her cries were “cartwheeling around the room,” before “she sacked her voice of screams” and dried her eyes, going downstairs to “perform the miraculous loaves and fishes reenactment,” for the neighborhood wake.

Minnie’s connection to the land, her love for Peter, her devotion to her children, her commitment to what is good, and her ability to keep dreaming of the future, even as she is dying, are all part of the banyan tree of her life, one which will continue to bloom long after one finishes this marvelous book.  (On my list of All-Time Favorites)

Notes: The author’s photo appears on http://www.dash30dash.com. Born with cerebral palsy, Nolan could move only his head and eyes.  His mother arranged to have a “unicorn stick” made so that he could learn to write and communicate through a stick attached to his head, which he used to type out his thoughts.  Obviously, this was a long process, and Nolan was not able to revise as most other authors revise.  As a result, he thought out all his words well in advance so that his first draft was his final draft.  He died in February, 2009, at the age of forty-three.  His obituary is enlightening:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/books/24nolan.html

According to the Times, Nolan attended school with some of the members of the U2 band.  Bono wrote the lyrics to “Miracle Drug” in Nolan’s honor, two stanzas of which are given here: “I want to trip inside your head/Spend the day there…/To hear the things you haven’t said/And see what you might see/…/The songs are in your eyes/I see them when you smile/I’ve had enough of romantic love/I’d give it up, yeah, I’d give it up/For a miracle, a miracle drug, a miracle drug./”  The entire song (extremely moving) is presented here:  http://www.macphisto.net/The Bono photo is from http://redcarpetroxy.com

A video of this song, Bono’s homage to Nolan, may be seen here. It begins about 2 minutes in:

Posted in Experimental, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Literary | No Comments »

Gene Kerrigan–LITTLE CRIMINALS

Jan 15th, 2011 by

“There were people who took shortcuts through other people’s lives, didn’t give a damn what harm they did. Sometimes, what mattered wasn’t just the damage they left after them, it was the reckless contempt of it.  It’s like some lives matter and other people exist just to populate the landscape.”

Frankie Crowe is one of those men who takes shortcuts.  A “little” criminal, in the sense that he has a small mind and grand ideas of his own self-importance, he is among the most dangerous of criminals, a young man for whom no one else counts.  Recently released from a two-year prison sentence, Frankie has missed half of his four-year-old daughter’s growing up years, but “The way Frankie added it up, even doing all the hard time that comes with the life, you spend a lot less dead time in jail than John Citizen spends shoveling shit for shit wages.”

Life in Dublin—at least the kind of life Frankie wants—is expensive, and his current scheme is to kidnap one of Ireland’s wealthiest men and hold him for ransom.  Justin Kennedy, the man selected, has been involved in the purchase of a small private bank, and Frankie figures that he will have an easier time obtaining a large sum of money than some of the other men on the “Rich List.”  Collecting a group of petty criminals around him, Frankie and his three associates conspire to make the snatch.

Filling the novel with the local color of life in and around Dublin, author Gene Kerrigan plots an involving mystery, showing the dark side of Irish life and creating characters the reader comes to know and understand.  Not typically noir, this novel is far more concerned with showing why characters like Frankie are so unapologetically anti-social, if not sociopathic.  As Frankie himself tries to explain to one of the gardai, “If you want to do the best for yourself, sometimes you have to do something you know is just plain wrong…because it’s the only way to get where you want to be…People [who] do what they have to do, they own the people who don’t…Maybe you feel bad about doing it, but it’s that or be a loser.”

When the kidnap takes place, Frankie and his crew change gears, deciding to kidnap Angela Kennedy, Justin’s young wife, instead.  Throwing her into the boot of their stolen car, they drive to the remote countryside to hold her, keeping her isolated and in fear for her life while they sadistically play with her husband’s emotions by failing to contact him as promised, then changing the ransom demands.  Justin Kennedy, who seems to be an honorable businessman, shows that he shares some of Frankie Crowe’s drive for success, and as he negotiates the delivery of the ransom, his own business connections come under the microscope.

Gardai investigate at St. Stephen's Green

As the novel and its characters become more complex, Kerrigan uses the garda officers who are investigating a variety of crimes to comment on life in present day Ireland.  “It’s the new Ireland,” one of them says.  “Since we got prosperous, everyone’s more tense and no one feels the day’s complete until they get marinated…Used to be the Church set limits to things.  That’s all gone.  All the old landmarks are gone.  Even the IRA are wearing suits and discussing gross national product.  It’s all about money now, and grabbing your share and a bit of the other fella’s.”

For Detective Inspector John Grace, investigating the case, “the crime just kept on coming, and would keep on coming, and what he or anyone else on the force did wouldn’t make a difference worth noticing.”  Everyone now seemed to believe that he was entitled to acquire whatever his vision of life required, and “apart from the odd radical priest or social worker on the way to early burn-out, no one gave a shit…No one said it out loud, but there was an acceptable level of crime, maybe even a desirable level of crime.”

Gardai Insignia

Debunking the myth of a jolly Ireland in which life revolves around storytelling, singing, and companionable drinking at the pub, Kerrigan shows the growing pains of economic “progress” and how that has changed the fabric of the country for its young people, a number of whom have put their entrepreneurial skills to use in unsavory ways.  The older generation, as represented here by the gardai and by two elderly men, provide a counterpoint to the Frankie Crowe and his crew.  These men have lived through shared hardship and the domination of the Church in community life, and they now find themselves facing a new society which, if they understand it, they may not accept.

The sociological underpinnings of this novel add depth and complexity to what might otherwise have been a shoot-’em-up in a Dublin setting.  Smooth at the same time that it is gritty, and darkly ironic at the same time that it is brutally realistic, Kerrigan’s novel often conveys real sentiment, seen even in the lives of criminals like Frankie Crowe.  Frankie’s callous, asocial behavior, in turn, often enhances the emotion through its shock effect on the reader, and the poignant sadness of the desperate resolution lingers long after the book is closed.  Beautifully plotted, sometimes violent, and very involving, Kerrigan has developed a novel which goes beyond thrills and into the realm of literature. (On my Favorites List for 2008)

Notes:  Also reviewed here:  Kerrigan’s  MIDNIGHT CHOIR , THE RAGE,

and      DARK TIMES IN THE CITY

The author’s photo appears on http://www.waterstones.com

The photo of the Gardai in St Stephen’s Green is by Julian Behal/PA:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Posted in Ireland and Northern Ireland, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir | No Comments »

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