Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and The Sun

 

- I've read most of Nobel prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro's novels and was very enthusiastic about his last one, published in 2015, The Buried Giant. He has a very light and steady touch, his narratives sliding almost unnoticed into meaningful social critiques. 

- Initially I was captivated by Klara and The Sun, as it was clear the same dynamic was at play. The story progressed slowly, teasingly, seemingly gaining real power. But unfortunately it turned out to be both remarkable and unremarkable. It's both suggestive of insight, depth and meaning, yet disappointingly fails to deliver in the end. It lacks the king hit. 

- We're introduced to a society where robots (Artificial Friends or AFs) are purchased by parents for their children, much like pets. They are highly engineered and have intelligence, emotions and insight. The Sun (always with a capital S) is the source of their energy and 'life'. 

- Klara, the AF bought by the Mother for her daughter Josie, is very kind, generous, altruistic and loyal. She understands life giving and life extinguishing forces (the Sun, always with a capital S, and pollution). She gets these basics but not at all the minutiae. 

- Josie is ailing and we're never told why. Her Mother (always with a capital M), divorced from her father, is a ‘high-up’ in this stratified society and frequently cold and hard to read. In fact she's a quite unlikable and manipulative person. She works each day so reluctantly buys Klara to keep her daughter company. Josie's childhood friend Rick and his mother are neighbours but are not as ‘high-rank’ as Josie and her Mother. Parents in Rick's strata desire their children to be ‘lifted’. Those that haven’t benefited form this method of ‘generic editing’ (we are not told the process) are denied access to the best schools and universities. There are hints of fascism here. 

- The novel is full of all sorts of interesting details and cheeky observations. Melania Housekeeper for example is employed for domestic duties in Josie's house and has a foreign accent (just of course like Melania Trump!)

- An ‘oblong’ is presumably a computer, and is a learning device for Josie and Rick who are schooled at home.

- Lots of questions remain unanswered: What is the robot made of? What is Josie’s illness? What year is it? Why does she address people in the third person? We're told she can't smell but we have to presume she doesn’t drink or eat. All this makes the narrative intriguing but in the end frustrating.

- Klara learns as she goes. She registers for example that the individual and group dynamics of humans are complicated and unpredictable. 

- For some silly and unexplained reason she becomes determined to destroy the 'Cootings Machine' in the city, presumably a building site generator, because it pollutes, and she's convinced its destruction will save Josie from her life-threatening illness. She's naive in the extreme. She's also silly about the nourishment Josie would get from exposure to the Sun. The so-called adults in the room never stoop to help her, inform her, or teach her.  

- Ishiguro's point seems to be that the social dynamics of adult humans are complicated, difficult and mysterious, and not open to full understanding. He doesn't show much sympathy for them. His novels often pit the young against the old and this one is no exception.

- In so many ways the real adults in this story are the two teenagers, Josie and Rick. Closely followed by the robot.

Michael Winkler, Grimmish

- We read a lot about toxic masculinity these days, but this new, exciting and cold shower of a novel by Melbourne based author Michael Winkler focuses on a tradition of masculinity that is age old and can only be called raw, brutal and essentially inhumane.

- The whole book is an essay on pain. We are listeners to the young, unnamed narrator's Uncle Michael tell tales of Italo-American prize fighter Joe Grim. Grim spent a few years in Australia in the very early 1900's and his talent was to never be knocked out no matter the extreme beatings he faced from seasoned opponents in the ring. Often the referee's count would get to nine but up Joe would always spring. The sports columnists at the time, enthralled by this, as were the crowds, described the physical contests in graphic detail. They are ugly and almost unbearable to read. 

- But there is a lot more to this vividly written tale than boxing stories and vignettes. There are colourful characters who inhabit and fight in bars, and many authorial reflections on what possible meaning extreme pain could have. And Winkler fesses up about the real and constant pain of writing.

- Narrative voices are meshed which can be confusing, but the prose style is never not vibrant. It's such a pleasure to read, a real thump in the gut that makes you breathless. (Boxing, right?). The author labels his book ‘exploded non-fiction'. There's a core historical narrative but there's much more going on.

- For instance the most delicious and delightful character in this book is a talking goat! Yes, a goat. And he swears constantly. It's all fucken this and fucken that. But his weary commentary on his human companions is spot on.

- And then there’s Pig Thug, ‘a blubbery naked grotesque'! And vicious too. 

- The young narrator asks his uncle at one point - why no indigenous voices in your stories? There are serious reflections on that. And women? Well finally Joe meets the young, intelligent and beautiful Dora, and Dora writes a letter to her sister describing the interaction. It's brilliant.

- One critically important feature in the novel are the quotes from noted authors, academics and philosophers in the many footnotes dotted throughout the text. I particularly enjoyed philosopher and literary critic Terry Eagleton's meditations on pain and various other things. I've been a fan of Eagleton's for decades but, although always rich in insight, he can often be abstruse. 

- I guess that sums up this powerful and meaningful novel.

Rebecca Starford, The Imitator

 

- This is an absorbing story of a clever lower class girl from a small town in England who, after graduating from Oxford with a first in German, finds herself sucked into one of the great dramas of the 20th century - England's war against Nazi Germany. 

- Starford's portrayal of Evelyn during her school years and her life in London after graduation is masterful. Her friends Sally and Julie are also finely drawn, sympathetic characters. Their different family circumstances are critically important in forming and positioning them in a society riddled with class discrimination. The young woman and only child Evelyn as she settles in London has a stifling relationship with her rather ordinary parents. It's excruciating but central to her identity and self-belief. 

- And she has a problem with men. She finds it difficult to get emotionally involved. Despite being physically attractive she is 'so cold'. As Sally’s husband Jonty says, she's ‘too self-assured, too cool...Smug, that’s what you are...It’s not an attractive quality’.

- However, in her defence, the men are, with a few exceptions, arrogant, pompous, pretentious and prone to violence. And often weak and indecisive. Misogyny at that time was universally the mode.  

- After joining the War Office and subsequently MI5, Evelyn is tasked with infiltrating the anti-Jewish, pro-German conspirators whose numbers are swelling in England. They are passionately opposed to the oncoming war and believe appeasement the best way forward. Their enemy is Churchill, their friend Hitler. Evelyn needs to present herself to them as a fascist to gain their confidence and trust. 

- The narrative is engrossing and Starford has a real gift for building tension and suspense. Her prose is also beautiful, often poetic.

- The one real problem with the book is the way some threads resolve in the end. I found elements of it quite disappointing. 

- But that doesn't detract from what a thoroughly enjoyable read this novel is.

Richard Beasley, Dead In The Water

 

- In brilliantly funny and punchy prose Richard Beasley, former Senior Counsel Assisting at the Murray-Darling Royal Commission, absolutely castigates the bureaucrats and politicians who were supposed to manage and ensure sustainable water flows in the Basin. They screwed up big time because of incompetence and political corruption. 

- The book is a hugely enjoyable read, full of personality and cheekiness. It's bracing and utterly delightful and extremely well written. The subtitle is A Very Angry Book. And his views are those of an expert. 

- He demolishes the conventional banalities in government statements and those from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) with surgical precision. There are constant digs at Canberra, the Nationals and One Nation: When it comes to water, don't hold your breath for legality or bravery of political action in this country. There's nothing like Canberra, or the National Party. Too much illegality is never enough.

- As for climate change, the MDBA chose to totally ignore it: Point blank. Despite being told not to. More than once...In short, the CSIRO has stated that if we maintain our current allocations to agriculture in the basin then ecological thresholds may be crossed and the resulting changes may well be largely irreversible. Add climate predictions to this and it gets even starker: unless we allocate a lot less water to agriculture, then 'climate change would be likely to lead to irreversible ecological degradation'. 

- This book is a gem. It's electrifying. Easily one of the best political books I've read in a long time, and I've read a lot of them. I highly recommend it.


(As to be expected, in the current Australian publishing way, there's no index or author photo. The lack of an index in particular is unforgivable)

Steven Carroll, O.

 

- I’m a great fan of Melbourne author Steven Carroll. He writes of love and courage in difficult historical times, and explores the constraints on young women and their passions and challenges.

- This new novel is captivating from the start. We're in occupied France in 1943. 

- As in all his novels Carroll's characters navigate fraught social and political times. Integrity and strength are essential. While loyalty to all sorts of established norms is demanded, conventions are frequently confronted. And in occupied France challenges abound. We think we’re awake...’ she says, voice dreamy, wistful, removed...but are we just sleepwalking?

- Dominique Aury, the adopted name of Anne Desclos, was a real and inspiring historical figure. She was the first female board member of the major French literary publisher Gallimard who carried on a secret lifelong relationship with the well respected publishing director Jean Paulhan. It was a deep, forbidden love. Paulhan was married. She wrote the Story of O, meant just for him. The protagonist 'O' was degraded and humiliated, possessed and brutally defiled..but always with this proud, defiant air of being somehow beyond him and beyond them all.

- Albert Camus was for decades also on the Gallimard board. The directors were fiercely divided on whether the feted company should publish this novel by an unknown novelist 'Pauline Reage'. Camus votes to publish, as does Jean who of course knows the author's real identity, but chairman Gaston Gallimard doesn’t. He considers it ‘smut’? 

- After the book is published in 1954 by a small underground printer Carroll explores the ramifications, some very dangerous. The book becomes a sensation, opinions strong and divided. However there are no dramatic developments. Even the police, who suspect Dominique is the real author, decide not to pursue any charges. Calm comes after the storm. 

- We're taken forward to the 1968 student revolution in Paris, and disappointingly this profound social and political revolution passes Dominique by. A former resistance fighter herself, she's dismissive of it. She just doesn’t get it. That's ironic. 

- Carroll's fictional creation Pauline Reage, a courageous resistance member during the occupation, who was helped by Dominique to escape to London during the occupation, dramatically re-appears years later and meets with Dominique to discuss the book. It's a pivotal moment in the story. Pauline speaks of the book's deeper meaning, the central focus being France’s submission. O for occupation...France the whore who rolls over and surrenders, submits herself willingly to her masters.

- The unpolitical Dominique is shaken as she is persuaded of this truth. Her 'little novel' becomes far more powerful and significant. 

- An impressive and well written novel indeed, and an immensely enjoyable read.

(One question kept bugging me, as a former publisher: did Dominique sign a contract and get royalties? Carroll never mentions it.)

Iain Ryan, The Spiral.

 

- Erma is a young academic angry that her research assistant Jenny, now dead from suicide, had made a formal complaint against her. Erma is a fighter and she wants answers.

- The suburbs and streets of inner city Brisbane are brought vividly to life in this extraordinary new noir thriller from former Brisbane, now Melbourne based, writer Iain Ryan. I became a fan after reading his previous novel, The Student, which was just so damn good. This one, published this month, is even better. 

- Erma haunts the streets, strip clubs, music venues and seedy pubs of the hip but dark and tawdry precincts of Fortitude Valley and New Farm. There are too many missing young students. Too many questions. The atmosphere is electric and Ryan's prose is exquisite. He writes with such a deftness of touch. The action sequences, and there are many, are gripping. 

- Erma's heightened anxiety causes her to be 'thrashed around by nightmares and memory' - ghosts and demons on the one hand, and family trauma on the other. 

- There’s a charming earthiness to her: I...flop down on the couch and stare at the ceiling. I call the cat but the little prick doesn’t come.... Life is wasted on the stupid. 

- The novel ends with a very satisfying resolution. The threads are all brought together. 

- I hope Ryan pens a sequel to this absorbing read. Readers will yearn for more of Erma, and more of inner city Brisbane.

Laura Jean McKay, The Animals In That Country

 

- Talking animals for fuck's sake! I don’t like animals, never have. I couldn't finish this book and bailed at page 106. The fundamental premise is absurd. If it hadn’t won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award I would never have bought it. 

- It really is a silly proposition - a ‘zooflu’ pandemic that enables affected humans to talk to animals and vice versa. I’d rather read a First Nation voice on the land and its vitality. 

- The main character Jean would be at home in Nimbin. She's a lowlife and a drunk. Such a cliche.

- The writing is full of vivid similes: ...her whole voice changes - harder and sweeter at the same time, a boiled lolly; ...like a tourist who doesn't know his face from his bum; The stench of the forest, private as an armpit. Although the narrative circles and circles and circles...

- I was constantly asking where’s the depth?