'The Complete Maus'

‘The Complete Maus’ (a winner of the Pulitzer Prize,) is an extraordinary graphic novel written by Art Spiegelman. It depicts the horrors of the holocaust in an imaginative story which also explores the difficulties that can occur in family relationships. The sub-plot of Art’s relationship with his father gives the story a strong grip on the human dimension of this horrific tale. The story starts in Poland and follows the history of a family of wealthy Jews from the early 1930’s until the end of the second world war. The harsh reality of life for Jews under the Nazi’s is illustrated and all the horror of  concentration camps is unveiled for us to see. Such an awful story may not seem to be a good fit for a comic book format, but the depiction of Jews as mice, Germans as cats and Poles as pigs works very well.  It is a story of one man’s tenacity in clinging on to life in the midst of death and it is clear that this experience shaped the rest of his life.

The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Lisbeth Salander continues her battle against the world in the second story of the trilogy. The story contains the powerful themes used in the first book. There are several realistic characters for the reader to identify with. Lisbeth is the main character. She is clever, violent to people who deserve it and has a strong set of rules for life. In this story we learn more about her background and wonder at how she has managed to survive. The story contains elements of the cold war, sex trafficking and hacking. There are intriguing relationships and Lisbeth is left in a life threatening situation. All in all a very good read, which I found difficult to put down

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This book answers the question of what it takes to put together a good read. I have to admit that I like strong characters and in Lisbeth Salander and Carl Mikael Blomkvist the author Stieg Larsson has come up with two unlikely heroes. Lisbeth is every parents nightmare. Uncommunicative with a collection of tattoos and piercings she looks like a looser, but under the surface there is a strong woman with her own set of rules for how to deal with the world. Blomkvist has principles as well. He chases down errant financial institutions. He also gets on well with the ladies. The plot has a healthy number of twists and turns and delivers the required blood and gore you would expect when dealing with a serial killer. The reader is onside from the start, hoping against hope that the main characters will win through, even though the odds are stacked against them. And guess what… they come out on top. In describing the book, I can’t do any better than Philip Pullman of the Guardian, ‘ Several cuts above most thrillers… intelligent, complex, with a gripping plot and deeply intriguing characters.’

I may have tackled this book the wrong way around, because I watched the film first, but on reflection, seeing the film first didn’t spoil reading the book. I felt that the book gave the film more depth. Next time, I am going to read the book first even though ‘The Girl who played with Fire’ is already out as a film.

BLAM... KERPOW!

My Secondary School  years were spent attending Bishop Ullathorne School in Coventry. One of the favourite subjects for myself and my mates, were comics and in particular American Marvel Comics. I loved Superman, Spiderman and Batman and spent many boring classes reading them below the level of the desk where the teacher couldn’t see me. There was a healthy trade in ‘swops’ so the supply of comics was good.

When I was even younger I was a regular reader of ‘The Victor,’ which I recall had a lot of stories about heroes of the Second World War. A regular theme was a Lancaster bomber being hit while on active duty and limping back to Britain with a crew of brave men. Towards the end of my school career and for several years after that, I was a regular subscriber to the NME. I even had it delivered to the house. When I look back on these early literary influences, I suspect that .the art work in them were at least as appealing as the story itself. More recently I have rediscovered the fact that I am still a sucker for a bit of BLAM and KERPOW! I made this startling discovery when I read an article about a graphic novel based on the recent film ‘Inception’ and I thought… ‘I like writing and I like drawing and painting, maybe I should look into this a bit more.’ Naturally, there are bucket loads of stuff on the web about graphic novels, so I got into that, then I went down to the local library. To my astonishment, they were doing a graphic novel theme. So, I came away with a boot load of books on the subject. One such book was a graphic novel, based on a story by Oscar Wilde ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ adapted and drawn by Edington and Culbard. This was the only book written by the famous playwright. It is a classic gothic-horror story about a young man who sells his soul to keep his youth… only the picture gets older… CRIPES BATEMAN THAT’S EVIL.

Looks like comics and graphic novels are back in my life again

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His illegal self by Peter Carey

Continuing my occassional reviews of the books I am reading here is 'His illegal self by Peter Carey.'

Peter Carey is an Australian living in New York and a two time Booker prize winner. I have read two other books written by him (Jack Maggs and Theft – A love story,) they both have an Australian flavour to them.
His illegal self, although starting in New York is mostly based in Queensland. It’s about a boy whose parents are hippies and revolutionaries. The courts decide to put him in the care of his eccentric granny. The story is about a trip he takes to find his father, with someone he thinks is his mother.
Written in the third person, past tense, Carey captures the intense feelings and relationships between the boy Che (Jay) and his supposed mother (Dial) in the humid conditions of Queensland bush. The hippie community include a few eccentric characters who come over well in the story. This is particularly true of Trevor, who is a sort of feral human, living off the land.
Carey uses rich description and evocative metaphor to build his story. An example on the first page – ‘You were some kind of lovely insect, expected to know things through you feelers, by kaleidoscope patterns in the others eyes, or the last page, - ‘What happened to the boy in that moment felt as if it could be measured with a twelve inch ruler, a sharp searing pain that somehow did not hurt.’

A good read and recommended.

Two excellent authors living nearby!

It’s unusual to have spoken to the authors of the books I read, but two recent reads have turned the unusual around. Mercedes Claraso, is from Catalan and has lived in Scotland for many years. I know her as a member of my writing group in Dalkieth. She writes wonderful poetry and it adept at writing short stories which get right into the psychology of the characters. She has written and published several books and I had the good fortune to read The Hawthorne Hedge. It’s a story of two men’s lives - Alan and Peter, both losers in their own ways. They, their families, wives and lovers are richly revealed and help the protagonists understand themselves and they reach some kind of redemption. Very well written with a certain ‘old fashioned feel about it.
I’ll be back for more of her work.

The Art of Friendship is written by Erin Kaye who comes from Northern Ireland and now lives in North Berwick. We have a mutual friend and shared some emails recently. She has written several novels – all published in Ireland. This is the first book published in the UK. It is set in N. Ireland (Ballyfergus – Larne) and is about a year in the life of four girl friends. At the start of the book, I thought I was in for another ‘bad mother’ story in the vein of ‘We must talk to Kevin’ (which I had read recently.) However, this was only one thread in the plot.
The story gives a rich portrayal of each friend’s character, their secrets and the problems they face. Erin sets up a series of difficulties and the friendships are threatened. By courageously facing up to the problems, they are overcome and the friends make up. This book is a real page turner, Erin pulls you in and keeps hold of you till the end.

A couple of books I have read recently

Here is an update on a couple of books I have been reading lately.

‘We need to talk about Kevin,’ by Lionel Shriver

Lionel is a woman and quite often writes in the ‘Guardian’ and other up-market papers. This book won the Orange prize in 2005 (I think) and is one that I have been trying to read for some time. I didn’t find it easy, particularly at the start. Her device of using letters to her husband to describe the events in her story took me a bit of getting into. But is wasn’t just that, there was something about the style of writing that kept grating on me. That being said, I wouldn’t have missed reading this book. In many parts it is captivating and impossible to put down. It describes some awful events that had me sitting on the edge of my seat and it also raises some big questions. Relationship between adults and between adults and children are in sharp focus. What is it to be a good parent? Why do some children slaughter their classmates? Lionel does not try to offer easy answers and her bewilderment at her son’s behaviour comes over strongly.

'A Necessary Evil' by Alex Kava, who is also a woman. This book is one of a series that follows the adventures of Maggie O'Dell, an FBI profiler. It is a fast moving novel on a topical theme - sexual abuse by RC priests. A victim takes revenge by chopping some heads off. Alex uses a computer game as a central device in the plot of the story, so this again attracts a modern audience.
The writing (in my opinion,) left a lot to be desired. There was over elaboration and the author didn't give the reader enough credit for intelligence. There were too many characters in the plot. Having said that, I read it to the end because it was a good page turner.

'The Promise of Happiness'

Do you keep a note of the books you’ve read and what you thought of them? No! Well I do. I have just finished reading ’The Promise of Happiness’ by Justin Cartwright. Ann from my creative writing group gave it to me because she thought it was along similar lines to my novel. They both feature families, which are going through problems.

I really enjoyed the story, but I was a bit irritated at times by the way, the author switched tenses and used the omniscient voice. He knew what was going on in everyone’s head. The story is about a grown up family. Ju-Ju is the clever one… the one that makes everything tick, but she ends up in prison. The other members of the family, her mother (Daphne) and father (Charles) and sister (Soph) and brother (Charlie) all have problems dealing with the consequences. Each person evokes a lot of sympathy in the reader. Individual characterisation is strong and in Ju Ju we have someone who acts out of character for once in her life. The cause is of course Love, but her actions put her in a tough US prison for two years.

Soph has a sex and drugs life style, Daphne takes comfort in arranging flowers at the church and Charles is haunted by past events. Charlie is everyone’s nice guy. At the centre is Ju-Ju. Her story is well paced and her time in prison is revealing, for one thing we find out what a keista bunny is.

The story is about the strength of a family who reunite in the face of adversity. However, I would be interested to hear from anyone who reads this story about their view of the twist in Ju-Ju’s tale.



A good read and three stars ***