School Book: Nights at the Circus

Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus is the last book I have to read for Identity in British Fiction! And for the last book of the course (well, there are two more but I've already read them) it was sufficiently strange.

Sophie Fevvers is an aerialiste who is half woman and half swan. She is the star of Colonel Kearney's circus. Jack Walser is a reporter who is on a quest to find out whether or not Fevvers is a fake or not. He joins the circus in an effort to find out.

The book was a little dry at first. Fevvers and her foster mother Liz tell the bizarre tale of Fevvers' childhood. It's a bit hard to get into at first, but it's really entertaining. Part 2 is made up of Walser's adventures as a clown in the circus. And Part 3 is where everything gets really weird: they are derailed, kidnapped, and Walser loses his memory. There is also a weird progression throughout the book with the narrative point of view where part 1 is third person, and parts 2 and 3 have more and more first person perspectives worked in.

I'm still not sure what exactly to make of Nights at the Circus. It was hilarious but strange, entertaining yet bewildering all at the same time.

School Book: The Passion

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson is a crazy book set during the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Henri is a peasant boy who believes in Napoleon and follows him all the way to Russia. He enlisted to be a soldier in the Grand Army, but ends up in the kitchen tent preparing and serving Napoleon chicken. Villanelle is the Venetian daughter of a boatman who sold her heart and was later sold to the French by her estranged husband. Both of their paths meet and their lives become forever entertwined.

When I first started reading The Passion, I wasn't sure what to make of it. But I was quickly caught up in first Henri's and later Villanelle's story. While it was strange at times, The Passion was a quick and enjoyable read. If you're looking for something a bit different then this one's for you!

School Book: Moon Tiger

I finished reading Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger yesterday and loved every minute of it! Hands down, Moon Tiger is the best book I have read for school this year!

Moon Tiger reminded me of a Margaret Laurence book I read back in high school called Stone Angel. But Moon Tiger was what Stone Angel should have been: Moon Tiger has wonderfully deep characters whom you care about.

Moon Tiger is the story of Claudia, who is dying of cancer. She is planning on writing the history of the world, and is going over her life while she contemplates writing. Claudia shares with us all the major events and people that have coloured her unconventional life.

While Claudia might not be the best mother in the world, she is very interesting and very full of life. She reminded me a bit of Harriet Scrope from Chatterton, but I liked Claudia more. I also liked how her version of events was never priviledged over other people's; whenever Moon Tiger narrated how Claudia saw something, it would immediately give how the other people in her life saw that same event. Moon Tiger is a fantastic glimpse into the different worlds that are people.

Unfortunately, I find myself unable to really describe Moon Tiger in any other words at the moment. So I will just say that it is a fantastic book and I heartily recommend it to everyone! And as far as I am concerned, it definitely deserved to win the Booker Prize of 1987 (it beat out Chatterton!)

School Book: Chatterton

This is the first book all week that I've actually enjoyed. Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton is not something that I would normally decide to read on my own. But after both By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept and Mrs. Dalloway, I was just really happy that it actually had a plot.

Chatterton is an odd tale. It starts off when Charles Wychwood finds an old painting of a middle aged man whose face looks familiar. Charles and his friend Philip recognize the face as Thomas Chatterton, but much older than he should have been. Suddenly, Charles finds himself confronted with the intriguing possibility: what if Chatterton didn't die when he was supposed to, at age 17, but faked his death and kept forging the work of other famous people?

I really liked the many interesting and unique characters, from Charles, the poet who knows he is good but hasn't been discovered yet, to Harriet Scrope, the eccentric author who is failing to write her memoirs. All of them helped to make Chatterton a relatively quick, enjoyable read.

School Book: The White Hotel

A friend of mine assured me that D. M. Thomas' The White Hotel was a good read. So after my struggle with The Golden Notebook last week, I was looking forward to something better. Unfortunately, I wasn't really impressed with The White Hotel. It was short, which was a major plus. But it definitely wasn't my kind of book.

The White Hotel is the story about an extremely strange dream that one of Freud's patients has. The book starts out with the lyric form in which the dream was originally written (after a few letters from and to Freud). Then it gives a more elaborate narrative account of the dream. The third part is from Freud's perspective, in which he psychoanalyzes the dream and cures the patient's hysteria. Then the final parts of the book deal with her life after being cured by Freud.

Unfortunately, I found the book to be rather dull for the most part. There were a few pages when the dream turned wacky which were interesting. And the end definitely got my sympathy. But overall I did not enjoy reading this. I'm not going to lie though, I wasn't looking forward to it when I realized it dealt with psychoanalysis. While it was interesting in novel form, I am not a fan of Freud and his theories, which may have given me a biased outlook right from the beginning.

I did, however, like it more than The Golden Notebook; the plots and characters weren't nearly as confusing in The White Hotel!

School Book: The Golden Notebook

I am ridiculous happy to be finished Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. It's about 550 pages long, very choppy and tough reading, and I managed to read it in four days (yes, I'm very proud of myself. If I can pull that off, especially with two of the days being virtual write-offs because I was busy, I can get any book read for school!) :D

The Golden Notebook is the story of Anna, told mostly through her five notebooks. There's the black notebook, which contains her writing life (mostly made up of her adventures in Africa), the red notebook, which contains her political life (she's a member of the British Communist Party), the yellow notebook, which contains her emotional life (told through fictitious characters she invented), the blue notebook, which contains the events of her daily life, and the golden notebook, which she buys near the end of the book to tie the other notebooks all together. The notebooks are split up, so you do not get their full stories at once, by each other and by the narrative of her life after the notebooks.

When I originally read the back of the book, I was intrigued. I planned on reading it over Christmas. It sounded pretty interesting. But after talking to some people in my class who said it was terrible, I had a hard time starting it (hence starting it four days before we would discuss it in class). And unfortunately, they were right; I didn't really enjoy reading it. The Golden Notebook is just too choppy - I started liking a section (say the yellow notebook) but then it ends and I'd have to read several pages of boring blue notebook. A friend of mine said that it is dated, which is also true, making it harder to relate to. And I didn't really like the characters. Anna and Molly kept jumping into the same sorts of relationships with the same sorts of guys over and over again. And the men in the book were terrible people. Everyone was miserable, parts of the book didn't seem well-written, and I found about 4/5th (I'm being generous. It was probably more) boring. Definitely not a recommended read.

But I will say, if you do read it, remember what the first line of the book is. It comes up again later, and I didn't realize it until after we discussed it in class.

The Tempest

For my Identity in Contemporary British Fiction class, my seminar is going to be on John Fowles' The Collector. A lot of the criticism on the book mentions how it is similar to Shakespeare's The Tempest, so I decided to read the play so I knew exactly how The Collector is like it. Right off the bat, with the dramatis persona, I found that some of the characters from The Collector are named after characters from The Tempest. The overall plot was rather different, but I enjoyed reading it.
The Tempest opens with a storm shipwrecking the King of Naples’ ship. Everyone is scattered across an island, believing that everyone else has died in the storm. The storm was summoned by Prospero, the ex-duke of Milan; he has brought them here to teach them all a lesson and win back his dukedom.
While I wasn’t too fond of the scenes dealing with the King and his lords, I did enjoy the play as a whole. It was a magical, fun story that reminded me of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in some ways. I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys Shakespeare and wants a quick, easy read.

School Book: Never Let Me Go

I thought Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go sounded intriguing, so I decided to read it next (plus Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus wasn't here yet, so I needed something else to read). Unfortunately, Never Let Me Go just never lived up to my expectations. Also, spoiler alert - I talk a bit about the plot here.

The back of the book says that Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are special. They grow up as students at Hailsham. And it is only after they are grown up and near the end of their lives that they realize just how special they are. Like I said, it's intriguing. But in practice, Never Let Me Go read like bad sci-fi. It didn't take me long to realize that these kids weren't normal, with the talk of being a carer for those who are giving donations. And there was never any talk of seeing their parents, or of going home for the holidays.

It turns out that these kids are clones, created so they can donate their organs when they get older. This is a strange and ineffective system going on: the kids grow up, have to care for older clones who are donating, then start donating their own organs once they're finished. It doesn't matter that a lot of people are un-suited to being a carer, this is the way the system works. The book never explains why they needed clones, either; wouldn't it be more efficient just to grow new organs in a lab?

Anyway, Never Let Me Go is the story, told from Kathy's viewpoint, of her and her friends growing up, and how their friendship is first shattered, and then brought back together later in life. Unfortunately, through almost all of the book, I kept wondering why I should care. None of the characters really seemed to come to life for me, and I had a hard time caring about them until the end. I thought the end was pretty good, when it explained everything and gave me a bit of a reason to care about the characters. But it was too little too late. And right after the climax, when all the mysteries are revealed (including what makes the Hailsham students so special), the book seems to meander to a close, and again I found myself losing interest in the main characters. Overall, I was unimpressed with this book. And don't be fooled by the quote on the cover from Time; this book wasn't a page-turner.

School Book: The Collector

When I started reading John Fowles' The Collector, I didn't want to put it down. It is the story about a Butterfly Collector who comes into a lot of money and uses it to kidnap a young woman. The first third of the book is told from his perspective and it was really creepy; the way things were worded, you just knew that something was going to happen. The second part of the book was told from the girl's perspective, as written in a diary. It detailed most of the events from part 1, everything from her getting kidnapped to the same point where part 1 ends. The final two short parts are again told from his perspective.

Unfortunately, the last parts fall flat. The book seems to build and build to nothing. It was anticlimatic and sort of predictable, if you weren't looking for something more fantastic. I sort of felt cheated reading it.

The Collector reminded me of Tin Man (which I reviewed way back when on Shauna's World) - the beginning was fanatastic, but then it all fell apart as it kept going. Unfortunately, being a book, most people would not be happy with only reading part 1. So my advice is to not bother with this one; find something better.

School Book: The Black Album

Now that school is over for the holidays, I've decided to read some books for next term. The first one I decided to read was Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album. I got it, along with two other books for my Identity in Contemporary British Fiction class. I thought The Black Album sounded interesting, so I decided to try reading it first.

The Black Album tells the story of Shahid, a young man from a Pakistani family who is just starting college. Shahid quickly ends up caught in the middle between radically different people. First, he makes friends with his radical Muslim neighbour, Riaz, who introduces him to several other radically Muslim people, namely Hat and Chad. This group follow Riaz, but Chad, who is the second-in-command, often limits access to the leader. Shahid also ends up involved with his liberal teacher, Deedee Osgood, who enjoys partying hard with sex, drugs and booze. The Black Album is the story of Shahid trying to negotiate his identity, amidst the escalating activities of his Muslim friends. Is he Muslim? Is he liberal like Deedee? Or is he something else altogether?

While it was sometimes hard to keep reading it for long periods of time, I enjoyed The Black Album. This is not something I would typically grab for myself, but it was an interesting read. I did not read "My Son the Fanatic" yet, which was included with my copy of The Black Album, but I hope to read it in the future.