March to May 2021 Books

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So okay, towards the end of March I brought forth a whole new person which predictably created a bit of a Life Schism. This means that those books I read before are mostly lost to pre-baby existence when my world didn't revolve around a soft, snuffling little cherub and the ones I read after were mostly read by the glowing light of my Kindle during night feeds... Needless to say the reviews for these couple of months are probably not going to be my most astute work, but I will do my best because there were some interesting and thought-provoking novels in here. However, I also had a hard time categorising them this month; some were enjoyable but flawed, some were worthy literature but not that enjoyable, and some that are widely renowned to be great left me disappointed. In general, it seemed that almost every book I read this month was mixed, and so here I am trying to work out the levels of mixed-ness, the ratios of good to bad, if you will. Here are my attempts.

The Decisively Great

Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer

This is one of the strangest, and yet most moving novels I’ve read, and it’s difficult to know where to start with it. It is set in the same world as VanderMeer’s Borne, but the style of it is completely different. Whilst Borne is a first-person narrative, Dead Astronauts reads like a post-apocalyptic parable. It pushes the boundaries of narrative fiction, and experiments with everything from genre to form to typeface. Broadly speaking, it follows three main characters as they try to battle the Company across many worlds. Those who have read Borne will be familiar with the Company, a shady conglomerate that echoes the tech giants that dominate our own lives. The Company allows VanderMeer to critique late capitalism, but also more specifically the dangers of bio-engineering and our collective inability to see the Life in lives other than our own. This is definitely a Thesis Novel, as I have begun to term them, because there is simply so much in here to unpack that it deserves much more space and brainpower than I am able to give it here. Something I love about VanderMeer is that every book or series is quite different from the last but they all feel distinctly his own. I love seeing his ideas expanded on here to the limits of fiction, and the result is a novel unlike any other that I’ve ever read, and one that I will return to time and again I’m sure, though it will always remind me of the strange, liminal days before the birth of my baby. I’ve hardly done it justice here, but this one is for those who like weird, speculative fiction that is also challenging; it’s not for the faint-hearted and will require concentration and analysis, but it is immensely rewarding and moving by the end.

The Mostly Good

The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey

This was a solid post-apocalyptic novel with an interesting premise, though it didn’t quite live up to my expectations in the end. It follows Koli, a boy living in 'Ingland' in the distant future where because of some questionable bioengineering, trees have become aggressive and dangerous. Humans are corralled in small villages with tall walls and live in perpetual fear of the plants and animals outside of them. In short, it sounded right up my street. Carey is clearly a good storyteller and Koli's voice is a compelling one, writing as he does in a sort of pidgin English, and I appreciated lots of his ideas. However, the story began to drag around 150 pages, and Koli's character and choices will certainly frustrate some readers. In the end it didn't go quite as far as I wanted it to, but I have purchased the next book as I am curious to see what happens next. So far this book seems to be one of those first instalments in a trilogy that sets up the whole thing but doesn't push the story as far as a standalone novel would (The Name of the Wind I'm looking at you, only The Wise Man's Fear also didn't go anywhere; here's hoping The Trials of Koli is more of a success).

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins

I found this thriller to be mostly very enjoyable, one of the better ones I've read in recent years. It follows Dee, a nanny living in Oxford and looking after a rather troubled and eccentric eight-year-old girl in the dysfunctional household of a College Master. One evening the girl goes missing, and so the drama begins, as Dee seems to become the police's prime suspect. I was gripped throughout, and although I found it to be ultimately a little predictable (and the ending landed a bit flat for me), I enjoyed the characters and the winding way of the plot. It had a very modern gothic feel to it which will appeal to lots of readers, and in general I would recommend it. I think I might just keep Lucy Atkins on my radar.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

I went through a bit of a rollercoaster with this one. I read the introduction by Liu and thought wow, I am going to love these stories. Then I felt disappointed by most of the first half, wondering what all the fuss was about, and when I had finally slogged through those and hit the second half (where most of the award-winning stories are buried) I felt a little more at home. At first the stories felt trite and somehow juvenile, taking a pretty standard sci-fi or fantasy idea and stuffing it into a few pages. For me, the best short stories are those that really suit the form. The second lot of stories were much more inventive, complex and interesting. I still sometimes found it hard to connect to them (was it the characters? The tone?), and often found the balance of the writing felt a bit off; they would be overly violent in a way that didn't serve the narrative, or would hammer a point home just a little too much. At other moments I found the stories deeply moving, and I also enjoyed the attention paid to Chinese and Japanese history throughout. History and sci-fi is a match made in heaven for me. In case you can't tell, I was pretty conflicted on this collection and just couldn't come to any real conclusions about it, but there were some really fantastic, unique ideas in here that it is definitely deserving of 'Good' status. Just be warned that it is uneven, at least it was for me.

Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley

Horse Heaven is one of those books that, though in some ways unremarkable, stands out to me simply because I read it at such a formative moment in my life. It's a long book and so I read it over the course of many night feeds and came to immerse myself during that time in the world of horse racing, amongst the trainers and breeders and owners and other horse-obsessed folk. Now, of course, horse racing is a cruel sport that I don't condone in reality, and to some degree this book does romanticise the whole thing so be aware of that going in. Smiley has written about horses often over her career and it’s clear that she finds them and the industry that surrounds them fascinating, but she is also using the track here as a microcosm of life in general. We encounter a large cast of characters in its 550 pages and follow the ins and outs of their lives, their ups, and their downs.

This is a classic piece of Smiley writing; her prose is assured and readable with moments of poignancy; it is warm and often funny and her depth of knowledge is clear. As with farming in some of her other novels, there are detailed sections about life with horses that I found fascinating (though these may bore other readers). She is one of the best contemporary American realist authors in my opinion, and this novel shows that as well as any other. Nonetheless, it is a lengthy novel and it won't appeal to everyone. It has the classic Smiley calm and understatement to it, and though there is actually quite a lot going on, it might not seem like that to readers that prefer high drama. I file this one in the same Smiley category as Moo and her The Last Hundred Years Trilogy, so if you liked either of those then this one is worth considering.

The Enjoyable but Flawed

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton

This is one that I enjoyed but after thinking about it more after the fact I think it has some pretty big flaws. It's about a school held hostage by two gunmen and the three excruciating hours in the lives of the students, teachers, parents, police and perpetrators. I found it to be a gripping read throughout; it switches between perspectives and often snakes off on tangents and reminiscences, which I know can frustrate some readers but I found that Lupton built her world in an engaging way. The writing is elegant and the characters are well fleshed out. However, by the end it felt overly sentimental and seemed to rely on the simplification of social and political issues. There were also some predictable elements and parts of the ending were questionable logically. Nonetheless, it did keep me engaged through the long night feeds, and I'd be interested in Lupton's other work should I need a good pageturner.

The Disappointing - not bad but I expected more

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss [audio]

As you can see I listened to this one, and it made for a good audiobook, though the narrator’s northern accent sometimes left a little to be desired. It’s a short little book that documents a few hot summer days in the life of Silvie. She is on a camping trip with her parents and a group of university students and their professor, re-enacting life as ancient Britons (kind of). Her father is along on the trip as an amateur enthusiast for ancient history, but there is much made of the class conflict between Silvie and her family and the students who are just there to complete their module. The fulcrum of the drama hinges on Silvie’s relationship with her father, who is abusive and controlling. The gender and familial dynamics at play are supposedly also mirroring the Iron Age experience of women and girls. The novel works up to a disturbing climax, though I think this might work a little better in actual book form rather than audiobook, as it’s a bit blink-and-you’ll-miss-it (or whatever the aural equivalent of blinking is…) Overall I found this novel to be fine, but - and I’m a little reluctant to say this as I know there are lots of Sarah Moss fans out there - not particularly memorable or meaningful. I felt like she touched on the issues outlined above, but because the novel is so short it felt a little perfunctory and generally did not bring anything particularly poignant to the problems discussed.

The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey

As a big fan of Caribbean fiction, I so wanted to love Roffey's The Mermaid of Black Conch, but after a promising start I was left rather disappointed. As the title would suggest, this book is about an ancient mermaid captured off the coast of the imaginary Caribbean island of Black Conch. For me, this was one of those all-style-no-substance books, and although Roffey touched on some interesting ideas regarding gender, race and colonialism, I think the book actually struggled to find the depth it really needed, especially as the plot was slow and repetitive, and the characters sometimes quite two-dimensional. There was something odd going on with desire and ownership here, too, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Some reviewers have also pointed out a number of logical flaws in the novel where it seems to contradict itself, and the transitions between narrators felt clumsy and underdeveloped. No doubt there was some beauty to the language, but ultimately it rang hollow for me, and for such a slim novel it felt much, much longer and perhaps it would have worked better as a short story.

The Bad

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This is a much-beloved book that I am somewhat loathe to criticise it but something about it just really rubbed me the wrong way. I finished it in a fit of irritation but I can't say I'd recommend this one to anyone. It's about Charlie, a man with a learning disability who undergoes an experimental operation that increases his IQ exponentially, calling into question everything he knows. I think part of my irritation stems from the fact that I'm not one for psychoanalysis or Freud or novels that bang on endlessly about dreams, and there was a lot of that in this book; published as it was in 1959 I'm sure it seemed very fashionable at the time. There were lots of problems with the depiction of Charlie before his operation, both logically and I suspect, from an ableist standpoint too. I know the book is getting on in age now, but it did make me uncomfortable at multiple points, though I didn't track the specifics. The depiction of women is… bad. And I didn't feel the writing style had anything going for it either. I should have given up on this one really, but I felt some sort of strange need to finish it. Ted Chiang's short story 'Understand' is a much better version of this concept, and with a lot less Freudianism to boot.

So there we have it, I hope you found this helpful despite me writing it through baby fog, and I'll see you next month!