Review: Lionel Asbo

It's been a long time since I posted anything here - I don't have the energy during term time and often end up in remote parts of Scotland for my holidays. But now Summer is here I'll try to be good! I record what I read on Twitter - @dave_windsor -  but again, I find it difficult to read much during term time.

Anyway! This most recent novel by Martin Amis has been slated by many critics - unfairly in my humble view. It's a comedy around the usual Amis theme of the criminal underclass, with an accurate depiction of British celebrity culture and the impoverished, culture-free life led by so many today. Critics seem to suggest that Amis has lost his youthful edge and will never be able to create works as great as "Money" and "Success". I would say that, this work, rather than inferior, is different. The author, although still dwelling on dark and often depraved subject matter, has mellowed. Or perhaps, as a narrator, he no longer stands back from this subject matter, assuming that we will pass judgment ourselves; instead he shows, just a little, that he has a heart! This previous narrative standpoint has perhaps led to some of the venom aimed at him by the press: he writes about crime and misogyny without any narrative condemnation, therefore he is a misogynist.

Here's an example of this caring side:

Des, what happens when I don't know what I'm saying?
It'll pass, Gran.
... I won't be able to open my eyes. I won't be able to close my mouth.
No, Gran. The other way round.
And he felt he was preparing for a long voyage on a dark sea where, one by one, all the stars would be going out.

No one writes like Amis, and there are the usual phrases that you just want to write down; from the swearing dogs to London's "white van sky" to "Des assumed that this feeling would one day subside, this riven feeling, with its equal parts of panic and rapture. Not soon, though. The thing was that he considered it a perfectly logical response to being alive."

Right that's enough. I have "Generosity" by Richard Powers to finish

Review: State of Emergency by Dominic Sandbrook

I'm intending to spend the next year reading history books and this was an enthralling start. I imagine there is a set pattern to popular history books - references to popular culture, wit, amusing anecdotes. Whatever the format, it works here. It's an utterly absorbing account of Ted Heath's hapless government, with a superbly entertaining and illuminating range of references. The structure is topic-based, rather than strictly chronological and I would take issue with the author's views on Rising Damp and Prog rock but really, this is wonderful stuff. The current Cabinet seems to contain barely a fraction of the same talent and compassion, while facing problems that seem all too familiar.

On the way up to Gairich



The summit












Peaks of Knoydart and Kintail













Loch Quoich




All muscle
Both

Scotland July 2011

A 3 day raid to try and nab our 100th Munro. We managed to leave home at 6am, stopped at Johnstonebridge and Spean Bridge for quick drinks, arriving at the start of the walk for Gairich at about 1.30.
We parked just before the dam at Loch Quoich. The path is easy to follow all the way up. Some scrambling near the top but nothing to worry about. Great views drawing you into Knoydart. The easiest place to eat on our way to Lochcarron seemed to be the Cluanie Inn - good food, friendly service and we've never been turned away, whatever time we appeared. It didn't disappoint but the midges on the car park were ferocious. On to the Lochcarron Hotel - £40 a night B and B. Good bar, good breakfast, rooms a little past their best with quite a bit of hair in the bath! The next day we tried Maol Chinn-dearg, as it was the only hill out of the clouds. A great path starts from Coulags, crosses the river, passes a great bothy. After this and the legendary finger-shape rock we forked left and then right at the top of the col. Easy up to this point, from then on there was a bit of wading through a boulder field, nothing too bad though. Should have been a great view but we couldn't see much!
Quite a bit of rain on the way back, plenty of midges by the car park too. We drove over the Bealach Na Ba for tea - the best fish and chips in the world at the glorious Applecross Inn. Those two hills were our 99th and 100th Munros. On the way back home we stopped at Perth - a quick walk up Kinnouill Hill before eating where Cafe Roma once was - new owners just as friendly but the food isn't as good. Need to find a new place to eat in Perth soon!

Review: Solar by Ian McEwan

I'm not sure how I was supposed to read this book: the rise and fall of a man with an environmental science background? A tour of global warming issues with the central character's flaws and selfishness pervading both his professional and personal lives? Anyway, I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has the usual McEwan ability to draw you along - somewhere between making you want to keep reading, drawing you in and turning the screw. Some sort of combination of writing style and plot structure which means I always want to read the next McEwan novel. The scientific subject matter isn't too intrusive and, to someone who knows little about such things, seems convincing. However, the musical content of Amsterdam seemed much less convincing so maybe it's just because I don't know much science! Parts of the book are very funny, with even a farcical trying to have a wee in the Arctic moment. It didn't move me like Saturday or Atonement but I still greatly enjoyed reading it.

Gairich from Loch Quoich dam

Review: The Room by Emma Donoghue

People wondering about whether to read this seem to be concerned by two things: should fiction be created around such awful crimes? And is reading about such issues a suitable thing to do? Reading the blurb, and many reviews, seemed to be even more off-putting.
There are plenty of works which shamelessly milk the real life suffering of others, so these are genuine concerns. However, this novel makes a superb case for answering yes to the above questions.
Not everyone who has been through awful circumstances has the skill necessary to communicate what they need to say. We are lucky to have such writers as Primo Levi, but, on the whole, a lack of ability to write lucidly and produce a coherent structure tends to obscure, rather than illuminate experiences and lessons to be learned. The author in this case seems to have combined elements of the Kampusch and Fritzl cases. A thorough detailing of the crimes would be unbearable and voyeuristic - the device of the narrator being a 5 year old child means that we can imagine the horrors without having to read about them in some sort of sadistic crime genre setting. This device also throws up some interesting ideas - in a limited environment a table becomes Table: the only table in the non-tv world. The child's voice seems entirely authentic - in non-fiction we would never get the chance to see how such events affect one so young.
The most horrific part of the novel for me was the television interview, where a smug interviewer tries to impose her own values on experiences she cannot begin to imagine, reflecting so many attempts of the media to judge, impose dubious value judgments and package things into convenient labels and boxes, rather than genuinely discover the complexities and shades of grey that real people experience.
My final impressions, and this answers my second question about the value of writing about such crimes, were of a wonderful mother doing the utmost to bring up and protect her child - she succeeds and, in this sense at least, almost makes the crimes insignificant, compared to her triumphant imagination, invention and love.