Kate's Reading Challenge 2011: Books 12-14

No.12 "How I Lost the War" by Filippo Bologna (Pushkin Press, 2011)

In a rare B team read-off Nic and I decided to pick a novel and read it simultaneously. We both loved Pietro Grossi’s “Fists” (so much so we’ve invited him to be a special guest at one of our Book Lovers Unite! Events in July) and so when we spotted Pushkin had recently published another book by a young Italian author, “How I Lost the War” seemed like an obvious choice.

This is a novel spanning multiple generations of an established Italian family; from Terenzio Cremona, a community man who famously “whipped the peasants” to his great-grandson Federico who must protect his family’s history from the plans of greedy businessman Ottone Gattai. Gattai comes to the Cremona family’s small Tuscan village on a mission to take advantage of the local waters and build a ruthlessly modern spa resort. Shackled to the duty of guarding his family’s empire by his belief that his own destiny is linked to that of his grandfather’s rebellious brother (also named Federico) the young Federico enlists his friends and launches an ever-losing battle against the wealthy magnate. But Federico’s war proves a fruitless one, as Gattai steadily wins over the town and eventually the Cremona family, building a massive resort and even erecting a ridiculous sculpture in the town square as a tribute to the commercial epicentre he has created.

The span of characters and time encompassed in “How I Lost the War” demands a complex and rich style of prose, which at times I found challenging. This is a political novel about the resolute nature of change and Bologna isn’t afraid of the odd direct address to the reader to really drill this home. But amongst the bigger message of the book are some gorgeous descriptions of the beautiful location in which the novel is set and some genuinely funny passages about family life. The portrayal of Federico’s grandmother’s version of Monopoly tailored to include all of the family businesses and amended in accordance with the Cremona affairs struck me as particularly funny!

This isn’t a novel that you could recommend to everyone but I did enjoy it – I’ll leave it to Nic to let you know what he thought.

No. 13 “A Visit From the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan (Constable and Robinson, 2011)

You know when a novel has had so much hype that you just can’t wait to read it – the reviews are great, your friends and customers agree that they loved it, and then it wins a Pulitzer prize, you think to yourself “I’m onto a winner here” – well that’s why I had to read “The Goon Squad”.

This is a novel set around the music industry that addresses a new character in every chapter, with some characters reappearing later on the book and others disappearing completely after their starring role. Chapters demonstrate different styles and moods appropriate to the focal character, and prove that Jennifer Egan is an impressively versatile writer. This format seems to me to be such an appropriate and effective format for a book about such a cut-throat industry where often, five minutes of fame often does boil down to just five minutes.

The other interesting point about this book from a stylistic perspective is there is one chapter written entirely as a PowerPoint presentation. When I discovered this I was both thrilled and fearful – it’s exciting to come across a book that plays with style, but what if it’s a gimmick? I must say the PowerPoint chapter was FANTASTIC – moving, funny and with a surprising amount of depth.

It’s no doubt that this experimental feel to “The Goon Squad” is what has earned it it’s Pulitzer and it’s many fans and I really appreciated Egan’s ambition and her execution of it. However, I do have one gripe and it’s quite particular, I didn’t like any of the characters. Normally a dislike for a book’s cast isn’t enough to turn me off, “The Rehearsal”, “A Fraction of the Whole” and “Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto” are all amongst my favourite books and there’s little to like about any of the characters in these books, but in “The Goon Squad” it seemed to matter much more. For me, the problem was that because of the length of time spent with each character (usually fairly brief) and because the novel centres around musicians and the like (who can be compared to an array of real life examples constantly written about in our press) a lot of the characters seemed a bit like caricatures, and because of this they became difficult to believe in.

Saying that, I think this novel has a fantastic appeal and I can think of a lot of people who would really love it. I certainly do not doubt that it is a really exciting contender for some big UK prizes this year… I’ll be really interested to see how it does.

No. 14 “A Riot of Goldfish” by Kanoko Okamoto (Hesperus 2010)

Call me shallow but I decided to read this pair of novellas simply because I loved the beautiful cover! Ashamedly this is my first venture into the world of Japanese fiction (despite having a boyfriend who reads almost exclusively Japanese authors) and I was really impressed by the intricate style, the honesty with which the characters are drawn and how very contemporary these 1930’s stories of class and romance seem.

“A Riot of Goldfish” centres around Mataichi, a young man who inherits his lower-class family’s goldfish business, whose adoration for Masako, the unattainable daughter of a wealthy man, borders on obsession. Masako is such a brilliantly original character – an irresistible concoction of smouldering beauty, and icy cynicism. She is the catalyst that drives Mataichi to succeed in his career in goldfish, despite his own initial lack of enthusiasm for the trade and his knowing that his success at work will not lead to success with Masako. With some financial help from Masako’s father, Mataichi applies himself to the task of breeding a rare and beautiful goldfish, but his concentration is constantly tested by thoughts of his muse.

The protagonist in “The Food Demon” is Besshiro, a poor man who attempts social climbing through his cookery, but to his extreme frustration he is unable to escape society’s sense of hierarchy. In his youth Besshiro finds himself unexpectedly mixing with the elite as he is enlisted to help out at various elegant occasions, he is well-liked at these parties as a shy but clever young man and he becomes ambitious to fit into this prestigious crowd as an equal rather than a helper. But fitting in proves more complex than Besshiro has anticipated, as his attempts to master the high arts leave him looking showy and foolish…

I liked both of these stories an enormous amount, they were clever and at times very funny, I think I will definitely be reading some more Japanese fiction very soon.

Ulysses Support Group Meeting: Lestrygonians & Scylla and Charybdis

An ambitious 'two section' session, which again highlights the range of styles that Joyce foists upon the reader in quick succession. Bloom's chatty, internal monologue as he decides where he will lunch, is full of digressions, unfinished thoughts and memories. By contrast, the section in the library with Stephen Dedalus holding court, is an academic 'showing off' session - which requires quite a lot of pre-reading around the subject of Shakespeare, his life and his plays in order to get all of the references. Whilst most of the group had studied Shakespeare at some level, this section was quite slow going because of the inscrutability of a lot of the discussion. Amazingly though, even this has failed to curb the enthusiasm of the group: 'if we don't understand everything, then isn't that just a really realistic experience of being in the library and eavesdropping...why should we presume to understand every detail of someone else's conversation?' Another aspect of Joyce's writing that is becoming apparent, is that far from being a 'rough draft', Ulysses is full of careful construction and craft - sometimes so clever that you don't realise it. We are all starting to love the emerging character of Bloom and there is even a tiny bit of tension created as Bloom and Dedalus skirt around each other without quite meeting.

Lots of back slapping and congratulations ensued when we realised we have reached the quarter stage and are STILL up for more.

We would also like to take the opportunity to thank Jim Williams for letting us have a copy of his fantastic collage-style Ulysses themed worksheets. The next section we will be reading is 'Wandering Rocks' and the details of the Dublin streets and the establishments that existed at the beginning of the 20th century are going to be invaluable. The next meeting will be in The Salamander, as usual, from 6:45 on the 14th June. Lucinda

And the Award for The Independent Bookseller of the Year goes to... Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights! Hooray!

Brimming with excitement and a little bleary-eyed, the Mr B's team have returned from the Book Industry Conference and Bookseller Industry Awards as the proud owners of the Independent Bookseller of the Year Award for 2011!

The very glitzy awards took place at the Park Lane Hilton in London and were hosted by Danny Wallace (of "Yes Man" fame). We, the B Team (minus Lucinda and Ed who were much missed but busy manning the fort) donned our finest black-tie gear in preparation for a night of eating, drinking, a wee bit of crazy dancing and of course lots of celebrating achievements across the industry.

In the embarrassingly short taxi ride from our hotel to the party we had all confessed we thought it was unlikely that we would win , owing to the fantastically high standard of the other Indie nominees in our category many of whom we'd been chatting with during the conference itself. In fact, we had our money resting on the gorgeous Gutter Bookshop in Dublin, Ireland, particularly with all their social media wizardry, so we were chuffed when they were given a Highly Commended certificate, along with our friends at The Mainstreet Trading Company. So imagine our uncontrollable glee when the lovely Joanna Trollope called out our names! A great big thanks goes out to Gardners Books, who sponsored the award and presented us with a very generous cheque, which we have mentally spent several times over already!

The judges generously pointed to our "compelling blend of modern and traditional bookselling" in their commendations as well as the "palpable passion of the staff". That's lovely of them to say but none of that stuff would be true if it wasn't for our wonderful customers - many of whom we know are every bit as book obsessed as us.

The "traditional bookselling" and "palpable passions" bits are a nod to our hopefully excellent customer service as well as to the way that we bombard you all with recommendations and wax on about our favourite books - if you didn't sometimes trust us with those recommendations and enjoy talking books with us then that certainly wouldn't be award-worthy. The "modern bookselling" is a reference to things like our reading spas and reading years and our themed literary evenings and again neither of those would warrant a gong if it weren't that our customers (a) bought or attended them and (b) told us how much they loved them. So thanks for almost 5 years of loyal book indulgence at Mr B's!

You can read a bit more about the awards on this blog - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13425666, thanks to which we'll be bigging up the grand work of indie booksellers everywhere on the BBC soon. Watch this space!

Ulysses Support Group: Aeolus

Books and food seem to be following me around...this evening's meeting at The Salamander was accompanied by some delicious bar food (thank you Rachel et al!) - and we probably needed the extra sustenance to tackle Joyce's unique presentation of the late morning exploits within the walls of the Freeman's Journal and Evening Telegraph offices. And if you think that was wordy, that's nothing to the language hoops that Joyce puts the reader through in this section. We have transcriptions of spell checks, reverse text as (partly) seen through the eyes of a typesetter, wordplay, limericks and allusions aplenty.

Firstly, we are beginning to realise that Joyce's schemata is only casually based on the form of the Odyssey - this is no simple retelling. Rather, he seems to be picking up on certain symbols or themes and then elaborating. So, our 'winds' in this section, refer to the hot air of the press: letters, adverts, quips, orders, banter and segments of copy fly around and occasionally make sense! Very logical and metaphorical...but then Telemachus (Dadelus) and Odysseus (Bloom) are both present at this early stage (unlike in Homer's original).

The sharp, brief, headline punctuated volleys of dialogue and movement was perceived very differently across the group. Some found it brought back memories of the myriad layers of conversation that flowed around a busy office, whilst others thought that the short and disjointed paragraphs were at times inscrutable, with the result that the reader was never allowed to become truly immersed in the scene. We struggled to identify the supposed 45 styles of rhetoric that Joyce explored during this section, although subconsciously we were probably aware of the different communication techniques employed by each of the staff members, when communicating with peers or superiors. Bloom's 'bit part' functional dialogue was in marked contrast to his extended internal thought processes that the reader was privvy to in the previous section (Hades).

There were several examples in the text where none of us could provide a definitive interpretation and at best we were guessing at whether words and phrases were colloquial stalwarts of early 20th century Dublin or linguistic puzzles. Occasionally, the lack of clarity provided by the notes on word meaning is frustrating, but some of us are happy to accept that they won't understand every reference in detail - and as long as they get some sense of place and atmosphere, don't really mind! This led on to a general discussion about eavesdropping and how you can get the gist of a conversation by continuing to listen, even if you aren't given background info. So, we shall continue to listen (and read) - and any anecdotal examples of the fantastic conversations of strangers can be swapped at the next meeting.

Joyce's treatment of women in this section is similar to that of the milkmaid in 'Telemachus' and we are beginning to see that the female characters are either worshipped at one end of the spectrum or are simply fodder for the men to sharpen their wits on. Are these the only two variations we shall encounter?

Now that we have been presented with three very different voices and styles in the sections that we have covered, the feeling is beginning to emerge that the novelty keeps our interest going - but at the same time, we are relieved that the sections are sufficiently short that we don't tire of the stylistic trickery. Again, the curious mix of non-explanation and myriad tiny details meant we tussled with the question 'Is Joyce is presenting us with a hurriedly written first draft, or a laboured and carefully constructed piece of writing?' My money is on the prospect that we'll be kept guessing throughout the whole book.

So, onward (with enthusiasm). Next meeting is Tuesday 24th May from 6:45pm at The Salamander when we will hopefully have both 'Lestrygonians' and 'Scylla and Charybdis' under our belts - that's about 70 pages in layman's terms!

Marvellous Monday Book Group: 9th May

A remarkably sunny
Easter holiday period
accompanied by the
gorgeous prose of

J.L Carr...what could
possibly be better?
Not much, according
to the Marvellous
Monday group, who
were all beguiled by
A Month in the

Country. We completed our 'idyllic English summer' theme with some scones (made by me, courtesy of Oliver Peyton's utterly reliable British Baking) and an impressive Victoria Sponge (made by Chris, courtesy of his own genius). For such a short novella, everyone seemed able to recall very vivid and memorable scenes and the point was made that the succinctness and punch of a short story was successfully carried into a piece of novella length. Often Carr would throw in a piece of detail or character name which was referred to earlier but perhaps without any significance attached to it, resulting in the reader having to re-read sections in order to understand. In a huge tome this might become taxing, but when you are relishing every line, it is almost a relief that you have an excuse to linger over the text. This careful reading was coupled with an undeniable sense of being left wanting more: always a difficult line for an author to tread, but we were unanimous in thinking that the book was far more enjoyable because such a lot was left either unrequited, hanging, or unexplained. It all contributed to the sense of a retrospective, dream like reminiscence of a perfect time. In fact, it made everyone feel nostalgic for rose-tinted summers of our own past! The book provoked discussion about the catharsis of a simple, rural way of life; the way in which outsiders are perceived; morality in the early 20th Century and the difficulty of WWI veterans to share their feelings and experiences of the front line. Phew! The contrast between the upbeat, healing power of environment was of course in direct contrast to our previous read. Next up is Gemma's choice: Italo Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies - a group of travellers congregate and share stories. At 14o odd pages, it's another short one, but, being Calvino, I suspect that nothing will be straightforward! Next meeting is on 27th June.

Lucinda