Skip to main content

Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words; but opportunity will prevail.


Cold. Queen Street, Sandy Bay. September 2011.

Two decent reads this week. First up, Saturday by Ian McEwan is a novel set across a single Saturday (and night) in inner-city London in early-2003 as the city geared itself for large demonstration against the invasion of Iraq. The central character is a 48-year-old neurosurgeon that goes about his day as normal (albeit pondering the meaning of the protest and the geopolitical realities that inspired it). As might be expected, something else happens as well as a violent and troubled stranger penetrates his usually-tranquil world.

This book seemed to divide the critics, and I guess that I can see why. The protagonist lives a blissful, upper middle class existence that appears to chaff with many reviewers. Nonetheless, and despite my decidedly anti-bourgeois tendencies, it didn’t worry me.

Utilising a neurosurgeon as the centrepiece of the story affords McEwan the opportunity to explore core human concepts – happiness, ideology, rationality, love and so on – from a clinical perspective. Moreover, despite the relative harmony of life evident in the narrator; reminders of the fragility of that harmony are ever present. The fact that Perowne (the surgeon) is a rationalist set amongst artists (a famous poet father-in-law; a burgeoning poet daughter; a musician son) also provides plenty of opportunity to explore the foundations of our beliefs and actions.

After some delay in reading him, I am rapidly becoming a McEwan fan. The novel is very nicely constructed, and features some lovely writing. There is a profound attention to detail in Saturday which really does allow him to build the growing sense of disquiet as the novel heads towards its climax and dénouement.

I liked it a lot. Despite a reasonable slow opening third, this really is a gripping read. Highly recommended.

Second up is the latest from another of my favourite contemporary British novelists, Magnus Mills’ A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in.

Set in the Empire of Greater Fallowfields, once a mighty seafaring power, the novel finds the reader encountering a court that nurses memories of imperial glory and sustains only the vaguest awareness of the lands that surround it. A feudal system remains in place and our central character is the unnamed ‘Principal Composer to the Imperial Court’ – who cannot read or play a note – which affords us a privileged insight into the inner workings of the cabinet, which is preoccupied by the prolonged absence of ‘His Exalted Highness, the Majestic Emperor of the Realms, Dominions, Colonies and Commonwealth of Greater Fallowfields’.

As with all of the Mills oeuvre, this is an odd little book. Greater Fallowfields is a whimsical little place populated by simpleminded folk out of tune with the rest of the world. Think Kafka blended with Andrey Kurkov. I am sure that the peculiar tone of the piece will annoy many readers; I don’t mind it but will confess that at times I struggles to concentrate on the narrative as the story slowly drifted on.

It is not the greatest thing ever written, and the ending was a little hasty for my liking; but ultimately this is a book with an odd sort of charm. If you’re looking for a very ‘British’ kind of writer, Mills is not your man. More Central European in tone, I find his eccentricities endearing rather than maddening. I suspect that many could go either way. Recommended.

Comments

Roddy said…
I'm back in the land of cyber communication.
It looks a little icy on the windscreens.
They have had hail or snow in Queensland.
The weather is a strange creature.
aisha said…
Great, great post! It’s something I have never thought about, really, but it makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks for sharing
Volvo XC90 Turbo

Popular posts from this blog

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

Henry admires the view.

Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

Here I have tried my hand at the homemade sepia-toned photo. I wasn’t happy with the way that the sun had washed out some of the colours in the original, so had a bit of a fiddle because I like the look on Henry’s face, and didn’t want to pass on posting it. I have a tip for those of you burdened with the great, unceasing weight of parenthood. I have a new recipe, in the vein of the quick microwaved chocolate cake . Get this, microwaved potato chips . I gave them a run on Sunday, Henry liked the so much I did it again last night. Tonight, I shall be experimenting with sweet potato. I think that the ground is open for me to exploit opportunities in the swede, turnip, carrot and maybe even explore in the area of pumpkins. Radical, I know. I’m a boundary-pusher by nature. It's pretty simple, take the potato. Slice it thinly (it doesn't have to be too thin, but thin enough). Lay the slices on the microwave plate, whack a bit of salt over the top and nuke the buggers for five minut

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral