George Saunders, Vigil

 

- I've long been a fan of the celebrated American author George Saunders so this new novel was a must read. 

- Much like his previous novel Lincoln In The Bardo which won the Man Booker Prize, it's a fantasy, with ghosts at the centre. We're asked to see such ghosts as real. They've been sent, presumably by God, to assist selected individuals who are dying with their transition to the afterlife.  

- There are two ghosts in this tale, Jill 'Doll' Blaine and a Frenchman. They are invisible and 'whisk' their way into any place, object or person without being noticed. 

- Their job currently is to help a very wealthy man who is dying make a peaceful transition. The man is a powerful oil tycoon K.J.Boone. The ghosts are aware of his enormous impact on climate change, and his consistent denial and cynicism about global warming 'belief'. To this day, on his deathbed, he is still refusing to recognise the reality of it. 

- The ghosts, however, put him under severe pressure, bombarding him with all sorts of evidence as to how humanity in every county is suffering - rising sea levels, fires, destroyed economies, millions of deaths through starvation, etc. 

- Plenty of other visitors come to say goodbye too, many angry at his denial, including former corporate colleagues. They are clamouring for a reckoning. The interactions between the characters are very engaging, despite some family dramas being ugly. 

- What is absolutely entrancing about the novel as it proceeds is not so much the ghosts and the characters but the brilliant, thrilling and electric prose. It bristles with humour and sparkling descriptions, and we're absorbed in the witty conversations.  

- Australian novelist James Bradley in today's The Saturday Paper gives the book a negative review, accusing it of not offering any depth to its analysis of contemporary crises and horrors. 'The novel's fixation on the drama of individual morality obscures the structural nature of the violence that lurks behind it...Instead it gives us soft, exculpatory blandishments that are better suited to the kind of inspirational posters found in workplace bathrooms...In a world on fire, we need art that meets our moment with love and fury, that is capacious and transformative - art that understands why kindness is a radical act and summons joy in the face of grief and loss. Vigil does none of these things.'

- But there is a place for both personal and structural critiques. Saunders manages to enliven the personal while also painting a wider vision of a destroyed world. Culpability is clearly his focus. 

- It's a short book of only 172 pages and a challenging, thrilling read. 

Kate Mildenhall, The Hiding Place

 

- This novel is loaded with annoying characters who mean little. City dwelling adults and their kids on a weekend break in the bush. They’ve bought a property, imposing themselves on locals who have memories. 

- City types with no respect don't belong. The bush is not meant for them. It's owned by people bonded to their land and its harshness. Integral are guns, wild animals, memories and resentments.

- An old man Jacob is their neighbour. He’s unhappy with the new fence they’ve erected. They’ve taken two or so metres of his property. He’s also unhappy they’re trying to involve lawyers to fix the problem. So, late at night, he rams the fence with his tractor but falls off it after one of the new arrivals, Ness, jumps on the tractor and tries to stop him. It tips and he’s impaled. Tom and Ness debate whether to call the ambulance and police. They decide to hide the body instead and drive the tractor back to the old man's dilapidated house. It's a stupid decision. 

- Various things happen that illustrate the naivety of the new arrivals in their new and trendy locale. Phil thinks, for example, that killing a lamb by cutting its throat and skinning it would make a good meal. He stuffs the whole thing up. 

- There are Death Cap mushrooms on the property. The kids have been warned to stay away from them. But they can come in handy when needed. 

- There's a caravan with a tent too. One of the newbies asks the occupants to move but, tragically, their young daughter had disappeared near the river fifteen years ago, and she's never been found. They refuse to move. 

- There are all sorts of other things that happen, mostly vulgar, like getting high and indulging in sexual infidelity. And one of the young kids goes missing for a while too. She was left alone.  

- The ultimate resolution to all this confounding stuff is satisfying. Sometimes rebellious teens know how to handle things. 

Randa Abdel-Fattah, Discipline

 

- This brilliant and profound novel dives deep into what it means to be a Muslim in Australia in our current traumatic times. Randa Abdel-Fattah brings nuance, clarity, and a high level of emotion to the political and social drama in which we are all currently enmeshed. She brings considerable depth to the story by creating characters that inspire but also challenge us. 

- Hannah is a Muslim journalist at a mainstream newspaper The Chronicle (maybe The Sydney Morning Herald). Her husband Jamal is a PhD student and part time lecturer at Joseph Banks University. His family live in Gaza. Hannah's boss is Peter who believes, or more accurately, is intellectually trapped in, conservative establishment thinking. (I was reminded of the barely readable journalist Peter Hartcher).

- Ashraf (Ash), also Muslim, is a senior academic at the university, and Jamal's PhD supervisor. Jamal wants to email colleagues to support sanctions against Israel, but Ash is hesitant and cautious as usual, and advises him against it. 

- Nabil is a Muslim-Palestinian year 12 student at a Muslim private school who protested on the University grounds wielding a Hamas flag. He was arrested by the police for an act of 'terrorism'. Jamal gives a speech at a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney, defends Nabil, and is accused of antisemitism by the Israeli lobby. 

- There are tensions within the academic community and also the media. The ‘objectivity, balance and neutrality’ position of a frightened media is in the spotlight. According to Hannah’s media bosses her LinkedIn sharing of pro-Palestinian posts is not ‘impartial’. (Hints of the Antionette Lattouf/ABC issue here). Tensions within the academic community as well are increasing and university administrations are hopelessly confounded.  

- Hannah and Jamal are also the parents of a young child, which adds to their stress. They’re both trapped in the cage of the media and the cage of the university system. But their passion, commitment and courage run deep. Hannah had an ‘irrepressible… insufferable, passion for fairness, for justice’. Being 'vigilant' about what they say and do is not acceptable. 

 - Ash gets funding from the Department of Home Affairs to support creative projects in the immigrant community. He approaches his sister-in-law Fayza, the principal of the Muslim school, to bring students into the program, but she adamantly refuses. 'It’s counter-radicalisation work by another name’ she claims, and accuses him of not ‘standing for anything’. He’s too accommodating. A placid fence-sitter, afraid he’ll upset his University superiors. Yet ‘he felt like he was stuck in a tiny corner in a large structure… they were, and this was so crucial, all victims here’. He knew there was a contrast between activism and abstract analysis. When interviewed by a pro-Israeli ABC journalist about Nabil he was even accused of antisemitism. 

- Jamal is eventually called to a meeting with a senior university administrator regarding formal complaints received in relation to two of his social media posts. He had called for an end to the Zionist State. He was forced to retract and delete his posts and academic identity. Ashraf was happy with that outcome. 

- But Jamal will not cave to insipidity. He'll continue to post on other sites. And Hannah finally determines she'll remain strong and defiant in support of Palestine, despite putting her job at risk. She won't cave.  

- Abdel-Fattah has presented the issues and captured the mood perfectly in all its power and complexity. Her book is a must read. 

Helle Helle, They

 

- Danish academic Helle Helle is one of Scandinavia's most original writers. She's been awarded many literary prizes over her thirty year career. This English translation is published in Australia by the Giramondo Publishing company from the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. I've long been a great fan of their publishing output. Their focus is on quality international literature, with a modernist bent. 

- This new book was first published in Danish in 2018, and translated into English recently by noted translator Martin Aitken. It is written in the present tense, and run-on commas instead of full stops dominate. The accent is the pulse, not the story. 

- The book is a short 147 pages. It focuses on the very ordinary lives of young teenagers and the small town they live in. The principal character is sixteen years old. Her mother has an unfortunate illness and is taken to hospital occasionally for short periods. Their relationship is certainly not what you'd expect. Their love for each other is heartwarming. They laugh a lot, talk a lot, and cook all sorts of foods together despite not having much money. 

- As you'd expect the teens constantly swig beer, indulge in unhealthy food, and smoke. And there's lots and lots of snow most days. Getting to and from school on bikes can be difficult. There are sexual attractions but nothing serious or unwanted. Basically they are all restrained, with minimal physical contact. The daughter feels a loneliness however. She often walks away from her school friends. The possible loss of her mother affects her. 

- The local shopkeepers are a key part of the flavour of the town: a deli, a clothing store, a hairdresser, a bakery. They all know and respect each other, and help out when necessary. It's the shadow over all this that's affecting.  

- It's a story of innocence and optimism, yet sadness. And it will stay with you.  

Julian Barnes, Departure(s)

 

- Another great book from celebrated English novelist Julian Barnes. It's not a novel but a biography with some minor fictional elements. Mostly it's fascinating and wise. He's ageing, now on the verge of turning eighty, and he's saying goodbye. So it's part story of the people in his life and part reflections on the richness of it. 

- It's thoroughly enjoyable and well worth reading. I've loved his novels over the years so his honesty and wisdom in this bio are stimulating. Especially if you’re an old man like me! (We're the same age).  

- Each chapter addresses a different perspective. The first on involuntary autobiographical memory (IAM) is unfortunately somewhat boring. He indulges in his love of Marcel Proust and other classic French writers. It's literary name dropping and there's heaps of that throughout the book. 

- The second chapter introduces two central characters, Stephen and Jean (with names changed to protect them). They met at Oxford as students in the mid-sixties, had a relationship but split. As Barnes did with his girlfriend at the time, Priscilla. 

- In Chapter 3 he focuses on his blood cancer, manageable by daily medication, his numerous times in hospital, his relationships with his doctors, his treatments, and his reflections in his diaries. 

- In Chapter 4, after four decades he meets up with Stephen again who wants him to find and tell Jean he’d like to see her. They do meet up, and rather surprisingly, they marry. 

- They separately confide in him and are honest about how the relationship is going. And the sex. His reflections and literary references here are glorious. 

- But really, Stephen and Jean’s love life is rather problematic. She thinks he’s ‘too much’ in love with her: 'would you kindly love me a little less and it’ll all be fine'. 'Love, in reality, Mr Novelist, isn’t how you and your breed depict it’. Julian disagrees. 'But I think the great novelists understand love, and most aspects of human behaviour, better than, say, psychiatrists, or scientists, or philosophers or priests or lonely-hearts columnists'. 

- Unfortunately, Stephen and Jean separate for a second time. 

- In Chapter 5 Barnes indulges in total name-dropping once again. The French poets Mallarme, Baudelaire, Proust, Rimbaud, Flaubert, George Sand. And Philip Larkin: ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing China if I could come back the same day’. Updike, Kerouac, Gautier, T.S.Eliot. It's all enriching and stimulating though. And there are plenty of quotes about ageing: 'From my wife Pat, who was six years my senior: 'As you get older, you get hardened in your least acceptable characteristics...From my partner R, who is eighteen years younger than me: 'You're allowed to be old, but you're not allowed to behave like an old person'. 

- He often thinks about Stephen and Jean now, the ‘rekindlers’. Jean got cancer and died. ‘I’m only interested in living, not in merely existing’ she'd said. His reflections on death are rich and meaningful. He tells the stories of friends and writers like Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens. 

- And of cause he is now forgetting things, mainly names. 'It's just the body wearing out...And you can hardly blame it, given that humanity's increasing longevity is now forcing it to work overtime - and for no extra pay'. 

- So it's a delightful book, full of richness and wisdom. But there is one dimension missing: he has no kids or grandkids. Therefore no reflections on these blessings. 

Andrew Hussey, Fractured France

 

- Andrew Hussey is a native of Liverpool who now lives in Paris. He is a historian of French culture and society who appears regularly on TV and radio, and is the author of Paris: The Secret History and The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs. 

- In his new book he portrays what he calls 'new France', and he digs deep into its current social, political, cultural and economic fragmentation. France is in a moment of crisis. Working class resentment fuelled mainly by immigration over the last few decades is causing violent riots and clashes with the police and counter-demonstrators in all the major cities, particularly Paris and Marseille. President Macron is also hated for his economic reforms including higher taxes and his attempt to raise the age of retirement in 2017. The 'yellow jackets' caused havoc and violence on the streets, and still do today. 

- Hussey interviews a range of writers and commentators to get their take on what on earth is happening. Will France soon emerge from this chaos or will things get worse? Will Marine Le Pen's populist right wing party finally succeed in ousting Emmanuel Macron's liberals in the next election? Have France's democratic processes failed? 

- Let me quote the blurb: 'The French have always loved to protest, to take to the streets in rebellion against the state or the status quo. But in recent years, the nature and level of anger have changed. The voices of hostility are not only from political radicals, but from ordinary French people who feel excluded from the closed circles of wealth and privilege within the prospering cities, and disenfranchised by politics. This is an era in which the old ideals that formed the French Republic identity have crumbled; in their place is a battleground of competing ideologies and cultures.'

- We're taken from north to south, to the cities and towns of Roubaix, Paris, Reims, Dijon, Lyon, Manosque and Marseille. And what I particularly loved was his warmth and affection for the cafes, restaurants and bars where he meets his guests. 'One of the aspects of French life that I have always cherished is the high quality of everyday life - and here it is in the city with cafes, bakers, a butcher's, greengrocers, a bookshop, and arthouse cinema, a jazz club, pharmacies, restaurants, all within a few minutes stroll of each other'. 

- Reading this absorbing book made we desperately want to travel to France again for three months as I did in 2011. Sigh! 

Iain Ryan, The Casino

 

- This new novel from Iain Ryan is the third in his series on the crime-riddled Gold Coast in the 1980's. 

- The first one in the series, The Strip, was magnificent. The second one, The Dream, was ordinary.

- This one, The Casino, is even worse unfortunately. Ryan's habit of littering his stories with so many characters, most incidental, means readers cannot help but be totally confused, and ultimately bored. 

- Of course he can write. His short clipped sentences move things along quickly. We're immersed in police corruption and criminal ugliness, but there are too many standard cliches. And there is minimal immersion in the main players and their lives. I was crying out for enrichment but it never came. 

- I was tempted to bail a number of times but persisted, just to see how things would come together and resolve. Clarity does eventually come in the final 50 pages or so, but the resolution is unsatisfactory, unrealistic and rather silly.

- Read The Strip though. It's well worth it.