dovegreyreader scribbles

and the winner is...

It seems like I'm late to the party but I've just noticed that my post from late last night congratulating Aravind Adiga on his Booker prize win with The White Tiger seems to have dissipated into the ether. However though I was surprised at the decision (and have lost my £10 thus keeping my 100% record of never choosing the winner intact) I'm in no way disappointed now I've thought about it and re-read my earlier thoughts here.
Potted extract -

'There is much more going on beneath the so-called sardonic surface here, in fact a stark message about just how deeply ingrained poverty can blight the spirit, disempower and subdue any form of insurgence and lead to desperate measures in order to escape its clutches. Aravind Adiga places the 'new morality at the heart of the new India' under the starkest of glaring spotlights and finds it seriously wanting.This is an eye-opening read and start to finish I couldn't fault it, making it most worthy of inclusion on my shortlist.'

Congratulations also to publisher Atlantic Books who seem to be in the ascendency with some superlative reads on my shelves at the moment, currently Blood Kin by Ceridwen Dovey but also recently The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway and The Impostor by Damon Galgut.
That's that over with for another year.

Happy Birthday to Cliff...oh yes and it's the Booker

I expect they're polishing the glasses, flapping out the tableclothes and folding the napkins in readiness for the Booker Prize dinner this evening but I think we should be adding some kitsch to the proceedings and singing Happy 68th Birthday to Cliff Richard as well.
OK I'll do that on my own then and with the help of this musical card sent to me by the Tinker.
So with my 100% record of never choosing the winner just where are my Booker hopes resting, in other words who have I blessed with the kiss of death,  which book won't win?
I am torn between several contenders, first up The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher. It's a huge book and generalising even more hugely I think it's reasonably accurate to say that the girls have loved it and the boys have hated it, and hated it with a passion. But I adored it, start to finish and I certainly think it helps to have lived through that era. I'm not even going to begin to analyse that one but it begs the question, will that sway the judges who might be wanting a universally attractive winner?
In that case look no further than The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant.This one has deservedly had widespread positive reviews and it really does seem only fair that Linda's search for the perfect outfit to wear to the ceremony having been so diligent warrants an outing up to the dais. It's a brilliant read and Linda would deserve every ounce of the ensuing fame and fortune.
Much as I loved Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh I'm not sure the first of a trilogy which requires enough loose ends for the next in the series to pick up and run with can count as a complete novel in its own right.But there have been other trilogists, Edward St Aubyn didn't pull it off but then Pat Barker and Paul Scott did, so who knows. I loved the book and I've got my sleeping bag right next to the press waiting for the next one.
I still haven't managed to read A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz in the same way that I didn't manage to read The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai the year that won which all makes this one a very strong contender indeed. Possibly a sure-fire winner?
I'd cheer big time if Sebastian Barry won with The Secret Scripture even though I've expressed my disappointment about the ending but I have since read a few interviews with Sebastian and I think I've arrived at a better understanding about all that. Anyway I can forgive him anything because he seems like a very nice chap and writes like an angel, none of which may matter to the judges.
Finally I'm not sure White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is really up to the competition of the other shortlisted books even though I loved it, this therefore makes it another very strong contender.
So believe this if you will, for the first time EVER I have placed an online Booker bet, £10 and I got good-ish odds because it was ages ago, before the shortlist was announced. Bearing in mind that I have that 100% record to uphold it would have seemed more prudent to hang onto my money than throw it down the drain so wantonly.
I'm not going to tell you where the fate of my £10 rests and thus whose hopes of winning are dashed and doomed but I will tell you if I win.

So that's it.

I'm never quite sure whether I love this picture of the Kayaker plummeting over the Victoria Falls or not, but I too have taken the plunge too and shared my Booker prize shortlist with you all now and many thanks to all the publishers who have shared the bounty with the prize-draw copies. Of course it's not over until Michael Portillo sings pronounces the winner on Cliff Richard's birthday October 14th and we all sing...well that's just too obvious, I couldn't possibly, go and have a singalong for yourself. (Remember how he had laryngitis and we were all worried sick for him? Well I was.)

In case you've forgotten, the six seven books on my shortlist

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry (late arriving, not in the picture)

From A To X - John Berger

The Lost Dog - Michelle de Kretser

Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh

The Clothes on Their Backs - Linda Grant

The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher

I've tried to avoid other reviews of the longlist novels whilst I've been reading, though it's often difficult to avoid the general feeling out there about a particular book, but I wanted to read with no pre-conceptions, wanted to know little or nothing about the authors and just see which books headed straight into my consciousness and thence my heart. I am nothing if not an involved and emotional reader and this always plays an important part in how I then choose Booker hopefuls and doubtless why I have never yet chosen the winner. My head would choose a different list entirely.

Now that I've finished and chosen I've read the reviews and this list has attracted a real mixture, from superlative to plain vitriolic which seems par for the course, probably makes the whole book reading / litcrit / judging thing as subjective as it ever was and evermore shall be.

Over to you judges, and hang it all let's have some more Cliff and the Shadows while we're waiting.

And now I'm hopefully en route to France and the Memoir Writing course so the scribbles will be as and when over the next week.

STOP PRESS : Barry gatecrashes dgr Booker shortlist party and insists on prize draw

Actually that's a daft headline, Sebastian Barry wouldn't gatecrash anything. I imagine he has a soft Irish lilt to his voice and would just whisper his way in past the bouncers on the door, perhaps add in a little Michael Flatley jump and a squiggle.
I have anguished so extensively over The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry I think I need a holiday, so it's a good thing I've got one coming up. I thought I couldn't forgive the ending now that the book was in Booker territory but I've decided I just have to. I mean I wrote this about it after all,

'Some books are just a blessing.
To read them is to be elevated to some higher literary plain and it would seem that any topic happening to stray into Sebastian Barry's poetic writing firmament can expect to get the treatment.  It's difficult not to sink into descriptive cliche but the book is hauntingly elegiac and here it is the life of Roseanne McNulty which is so beautifully crafted in such exquisitely carved prose. Quite breathtaking to read line after line of it to be honest and this is most certainly not a book to rush. I just savoured every single word and couldn't bear to turn the final page.'

Yes, I know I got completely carried away but you know me, and then this about the worrisome ending,

'If I have the vaguest hint of a shadow of the merest sliver of a doubt it concerns the ending.
Far be it from me to unplait Sebastian's carefully woven and intricately wrought, nay masterly, storytelling, but in my very humble opinion the book could have easily coped with uncertainty in its final pages, in fact much within suggested that would be the case. Had Sebastian gently left me wandering in that melancholy but deeply poetic place to which he seems to transport a reader I would have thrived. But let nothing mar the accolades, the writing is far far too memorable for anything so minor to stand in its way.'

Forgiveness is mine to bestow so I'm cutting a deal, because if Sebastian Barry were to get past the second hurdle, and with the prize in his sights, it might mean more people would check out his backlist and read A Long Long Way the best book that never won the Booker and that would be a result. I just love Sebastian Barry's writing too much to leave him off my shortlist and if he wins the Booker with The Secret Scripture, well that's a result too.This should all tell you that I've allowed seven books onto my shortlist, for the hell of it because it's my party and I can cheat if I want to.

So that means seven lucky winners for this year's Bookerthon because there is a prize-draw copy of The Secret Scripture too and my thanks to Faber for that. Names in comments and Rocky and Mrs Glosser will finish up all the prize draws this evening.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga and a prize draw

To read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga straight after Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies was unplanning that couldn't have been better planned if I'd tried.
From 1850's India to present day India and shaping an understanding of a country, which if I'm truthful, I don't know that much about beyond the usual colonial history.
I wasn't too sure how I was going to fare here. Michael Portillo's comment that he was delighted with the even spread of nations amongst the writing on this year's longlist (which made me feel it had somehow been contrived) and my poor form with The Case of the Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif, which just didn't work for me at all, had all made me slightly nervous about another Indian sub-continent read. I was also in the process of struggling and failing badly with A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz and wondering if I might have to submit a shortlist of five. This would mean I'd add in The Spare Room by Helen Garner because I still haven't recovered from that absence, especially now I've read, or tried to read all this year's longlisters.
It's a sin of omission that may never be redeemed.
So I was a bit down in the reading dumps heading into The White Tiger, this would have to be something very good to impress me.
Balram Halwai is 'the white tiger' of the title,that rarest and most unique of the felines. In actual fact he's a 'short, pot-bellied teashop worker turned chauffeur' and in his spare time a' philosopher, comedian, confidence trickster, entrepreneur and murderer' with a tale to tell. Over the course of seven nights Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller, tells his story (ostensibly and in his imagination to the Premier of China who is due to visit India on a state visit) with a narrative voice and a story I doubt I will ever forget. Balram, his ex-employer, the late Mr Ashok with ex-wife Pinky Madam and the Honda City car all still firmly fixed in my mind.
I have absolutely no idea what anyone living in India will make of this one and as Andrew Holgate remarks on the cover ' the Indian tourist board won't be pleased, but you'll read it in a trice and be gripped.'
I did and I was, and all credit to The White Tiger because my Booker batteries were almost flat but they soon sparked into life as Balram's voice lifted right off the page and engaged this reader who felt honour-bound to listen.
The corruption just slimes off the page in all its grimy detail as Balram discovers there may be another way he could live his life, a different set of rules entitled 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' and one that may involve disobeying the innate sense of honesty ingrained in the Indian servant class. So he proceeds to plan his entrepreneurial elevation and along the way he spares no details of the rigours and constraints of life as a servant.From the cockroaches to the cooking it is demeaning, frequently squalid and amoral and my goodness did I want Balram to succeed.
Reviews elsewhere I now discover, find the 'relentlessly sardonic voice...monotonous and strident' and have wearied after the first hundred pages.Well that came as a complete surprise to me. Though the book may seem long at 300 pages, its double-spacing and comfortably readable page layout make it a much quicker read than that and monotony just didn't feature. I was an engaged and willing participant in Balram's quest for freedom and entirely forgiving of his methods by the final page. There is much more going on beneath the so-called sardonic surface here, in fact a stark message about just how deeply ingrained poverty can blight the spirit, disempower and subdue any form of insurgence and lead to desperate measures in order to escape its clutches. Aravind Adiga places the 'new morality at the heart of the new India' under the starkest of glaring spotlights and finds it seriously wanting.This is an eye-opening read and start to finish I couldn't fault it, making it most worthy of inclusion on my shortlist, so there's an unexpected surprise and it's one that leaves me with a bit of a dilemma.

It doesn't take Mrs Glosser, our resident random number generator, to spot that I have already 'shortlisted' six books but I have another one that must be included, so I plan to resolve it all tomorrow...by cheating. Seven is the new six.
Rocky on pot-bellied stand by and much happier about helping a fellow feline find a good home than that lost dog. He is much taken with this book and is talking of trading in Mrs Glosser for Pinky Madam who has let it be known she may want to adopt him as a playmate for her pampered pooches Cuddles and Puddles.

Many thanks to publishers Atlantic Books and names in comments for the chance of a copy of The White Tiger to roar its way through your letterbox any day now. Draw for this one on Friday evening ...nearly there.

So, is this book b******s? From A to X by John Berger and a prize draw.

It's been nothing short of a revelation to read all the other Booker longlist reviews in the light of my own findings as I consider the books for my shortlist, and none more so than From A to X by John Berger.
I have no history whatsoever to fall back on here, I knew next to zilch about John Berger and have never read him before so I brought nothing with me to this book, not a single pre-conceived idea, no assumptions, no comparisons waiting in the wings, no knowledge of previous Booker ceremony behaviour.
Blank canvas me, I just opened the book and read and let the words paint whatever impression they chose.Several other longlist books have fallen between those identical goalposts, been read likewise and failed to score.
However, once I turned the final page of From A to X I had that rare readerly feeling that happens now and again. This was hardly emperor's new clothes from an 82 year old writer, this was a book with a depth that I had barely skimmed, but I knew it was there. I knew for certain that I was swimming in reading waters where my feet would be a long time touching the bottom. This book was going to be on my shortlist that was for sure.

'More fictional letters in From A to X and they seem to be featuring in my reading lately and are certainly a great way of telling a story in intimate and uncluttered detail and there is no clutter here as A'ida's love for Xavier is pronounced in the most heartfelt and emotionally expressive form. It's the highly favoured gaps and silences that work so forcefully and the slightly elusive comments from Xavier on the reverse of each letter, thought association and a silent one-way conversation with A'ida (and one that she never sees which adds to the effect) and the reader in the process. Like Penelope Fitzgerald, John Berger doesn't patronise his reader, endless work left to be done and I did it, there's an afterburn to this book which glows warm long after the final page.'

However I needed to be absolutely sure of my ground once I'd read this piece by Sam Leith in The Daily Telegraph because his opinion of the book stunned me into silence (unusual) and I quote,

'The problem is in the deep phoniness of the whole conception: its gross sentimentality (all faceless oppressors and noble peasants); its intoxication with its own portentousness...there's a name for this sort of thing, and it's "b******s".'

Sam clearly didn't like this book then, perhaps knows far more about John Berger's writing than I do, but the depth of his dislike meant I needed to have a rethink. Had I been duped by a load of sentimental old rubbish?

So I pondered again at length and some, and I knew I disagreed with Sam Leith from the depths of my heart but how to put my finger on why? I can't even begin to say except that I think it's the old different drum scenario and if you pick up the beat and your heart pulses in time with a book something inexplicable happens. Amongst other things this might be why I'm a bog-standard Health Visitor and not the Literary Editor of The Daily Telegraph, because how helpful to all of you is 'inexplicable'?
There's some classy debate on the Booker site about From A to X and I can only commend to you the interpretation of the book advanced by someone called Kevin who I'm assuming lives in Canada.

Kevin is a self-confessed lover of Berger's writing and he has gently lifted the veil on this book for me with his suggestion that it is well worth the effort to read John Berger at least three times and hold a different set of rules in your head each time. Like Penelope Fitzgerald and as Kevin agrees, John Berger writes the 600 page book in 200 and leaves much work for his reader to do and Kevin helpfully offers a different set of reading rules. So just to be certain about the book's dovegreyreader shortlist status I even opted to read From A to X again taking in those suggestions.I am midway through my second read which I hardly have time for this week, but I actually have all the time in the world for this book as it gathers a power between its covers that is reading dynamite.

Now I read back over my earlier thoughts and merge them with my latest ones and I see that I could have been tantalisingly close but not quite as I tried to pin down that slippery idea of the ' silent one-way conversation'. This is a book, like my first Penelope Fitzgerald The Bookshop, that leaves me breathless and hyperventilating on the edge of discovering a writer who I think I may like for what they don't write as much as for what they do. I will now read as much of John Berger as I can find.

It stays firmly on my shortlist of course and names in comments for the chance of a prize-draw copy of From A to X thanks to publishers Verso. Decide for yourself whether it's b******s or brilliant.

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser and a prize draw

What a week of gifts this promises to be with a Booker book on offer worldwide every day. Still time to enter yesterday's prize draw for a copy of The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant which will be drawn this evening, whilst today's draw will be drawn tomorrow evening.Tomorrow's draw will be drawn on Thursday evening and Thursday's and Friday's draws will be drawn on Friday evening...you are keeping up aren't you and there's me saving lives at work and got to pack for France too, oh good grief.

Can it only be a couple of weeks since I read and posted about The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser?
The Booker longlist becomes all-consuming and I'm starting to loose track of the weeks but this one still jangling and chiming around in my mind and I know, if I had the time, I would be really looking forward to a second read because I think this is another book with a great deal to miss first time round.
That's a good test, I only need to look at a book to know whether that task becomes most enticing,  sort of do-able, highly undesirable or just plain madness and this is one is definitely the former.
Reading my earlier thoughts has been interesting, I've worked my own persuasiveness on myself in a strange way, reminded myself just what a good read this was for me,

'Layers of significance build and build and I was constantly in awe of Michelle de Kretser's style and skill, the very right words in exactly the right order. Even that point when you might expect a book to take a bit of a yawn as it rests and gathers itself to regroup for that push to the final page, well Michelle de Kretser just pulls out even more stops and stuns all over again, the book dazzled and sparkled for me from start to finish.

'Reality is an effect produced by the accrual of detail. a trickery...'

and Michelle de Kretser utilises her own observation well. A sense of time mediated through historical reference, glancing shots at an event, the Japanese invasion, the Coronation, all cleverly kept me in step with the timing in the early chapters until I was able to settle in.'

Then this,

'The ongoing search for the dog becomes the pivotal point from which all else seems to radiate as the story slowly but cleverly takes shape. There are moments of stunningly precise and incisive insight into life that had never quite occurred to me before, an exceptional passage as Tom analyses his reaction to his mother's reversion to childhood in her old age.
More themes about life and love, memory and nostalgia , images and pictures, ageing and loss than it's possible to define here and a book that would certainly reward an even closer second reading.
Years ago, some say in the olden days, a Booker judge was heard to remark that reading one author's book had made him/her want to go out and read all the others, and I certainly now feel this about Michelle de Kretser.
A way to go yet but thus far The Lost Dog is a short list certainty here.'

Well a lot of reading water under the bridge since then and this book has sustained its shortlisting slot with distinction.
So yes roll up roll up, much as Rocky would prefer any dog of his acquaintance to remain lost for ever he has agreed to assist with the draw for a prize copy of The Lost Dog for one of you lucky readers because he loves you all dearly, and on the condition that Mrs Glosser stops calling him a pretty boy after that Frocky day, which he is regretting.
Names in comments.

The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant and a prize draw

It was obvious there had to be some gems somewhere on the Booker longlist this year and I'm finally confident that I've unearthed several singular books that will truly stand the test of time. Apparently forty of the forty-one previous winners remain in print, it's something I'm bearing in mind as I read.
I've only read one book by Linda Grant Remind Me Who I Am Again, so none of her fiction, and of course now I shall read more because The Clothes on Their Backs is such a fine expose of so many human flaws and failings, lies and secrets and so much more besides it's hard to know where to begin.
This is 1970s London, Benson Court off  Marylebone High Street and the Kovacs, Hungarian refugees and their London-born daughter Vivien.
There is a past to be unraveled and somehow Vivien must find the loose end and start pulling. It's clear it will not be offered willingly by her parents so it's down to the enigmatic Uncle Sandor to start the ball rolling and Vivien to make some sense of the bird's-nest-tangle of family history that is presented as her heritage.
That's the gist and underpinning it all is this wonderful allegory of clothes and the role of clothes, and once I started reading and thinking 'clothes'  it all became a doubly deeply satisfying read. The Hungarian refugees wearing the very last threads of their clothes, Vivien, constantly being dressed by others as she tries desperately to discover the real Vivien. As more and more of her history is revealed Vivien seems to know herself less and less.These are the shifting quicksands of memory and identity all wrapped in appearance and clothes and what they say about us.
George Szirtes gets the epigraph and is mentioned in both dedication and acknowledgements for his help with the Jewish-Hungarian elements of the book and I actually had to google my own blog to find where I'd mentioned him before because I knew that I had. I think I'll take that as a clear sign that I should read some of his books too.
The minute I met Linda Grant's brilliantly delineated character, the fascinatingly abrasive devil-may-care  Uncle Sandor, and discovered the vitriol he seemed to attract as 'the face of evil', I knew I would be on the lookout for redemption somewhere. Here's a man who by his own admission had been 'lonely in my soul'  and even if Linda Grant didn't provide that redemption I might have to create it for myself. Sandor became the character I wanted to understand as much as Vivien.
You'll have to read the book to discover whether Sandor is redeemed or not and quite who and what Vivien decides she is but there are plenty more competing themes and big issues milling around in The Clothes On Their Backs. My scribbles bear witness, this book really worked the pencil hard, war, uprising, persecution, diaspora, displacement, the loss of homeland, lies and secrets and ultimately just how does one generation shake off the fears, enmities and fashions of the previous one.Watch out for Vivien's early preference in clothes, it felt significant to me.
Plenty of priceless moments like this too.
Vivien is trying to decide on a career,

'I could be book reviewer, a literary critic for the newspapers and I would go to parties and meet interesting people and make friends....But didn't I need to work for The Times to be entrusted with a book to review?'

or this once the book arrives,

'I lay on my bed reading the book, which was very sappy in my opinion.I was summoning all the cruelty of the first time reviewer trying to make her mark. To be intimidated by the author's fame didn't occur to me, for in my arrogance I couldn't understand why someone who had, according to the author biography, a double frist from Somerville College, Oxford, should lower herself to write such tripe, when she had the example of Virginia Woolf and George Eliot. I certainly wouldn't, if ever I were to write a novel, which was bound to be of the highest literary order.'

If you read anyone who says that The Clothes On Their Backs is sappy, don't believe a word of it, trust me, it absolutely isn't. If you do read it, do as I did when you reach the end, turn back to the first page and start reading it again, because to reground yourself in the book's beginnings is to reap even more benefits and of course then you want to carry on to the end again.So much to miss first time around and lucky is the Booker judge who had better be may be reading this one twice or thrice before next Tuesday, making it well-deserving of its place on my Booker shortlist.
It's at least a day since we had a prize draw so here we go again, a copy of this could be winging its way to you very shortly, names in comments and you heard it here first, for one day only Rocky has agreed to be called Frocky and he and Mrs Glosser and her Random Number Generator will drag themselves away from rummaging in that wardrobe to oblige with a winner tomorrow evening.

and the winner is...

Uncertain what all this fuss is about stripping oakum in the chokey when it's a cat's idea of nirvana, Rocky's new friend Mrs Glosser has had to drag him out to help with the prize draw for the copy of Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, but 'tis done and the winner is...

Congratulations to Nancy and look out for four more Booker prize-draws coming up next week.
The clue for Monday's book is that Rocky has agreed to be called Frocky, but for one day only.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Oh Sea of Poppies I am smitten and my temporary fall out with Amitav Ghosh over The Glass Palace now a blurred and insignificant memory. I'm trying to recall where The Glass Palace went wrong for me, it was years ago and I know it was beyond 200 pages.It might have all been down to a mention of one vintage car too many. Suddenly, and doubtless misguidedly I felt the invasion of an authorial passion into a work of fiction, the whole book rocked on its foundations and went churlishly back onto the shelf.
So I hadn't paid too much attention to Sea of Poppies except to drool over the cover of course, but not enough to persuade me to read.
Booker longlisting changed all that and am I so delighted it has.
Just occasionally a book comes along that swells your heart indescribably as you read, you can't bear to put it down and you can't wait to pick it up again, carry it everywhere in case some reading time crops up unexpectedly, it doesn't even matter if the sun don't shine you get that feel-good sensation no matter what. When that happens you want to bottle it.
This is a book that made me groggy with pure storytelling, a tale told good and proper and entirely different in nature to The Northern Clemency which I had to put down every so often to ponder.
This is big saga stuff and Amitav Ghosh is in it for the long haul with this the first of a trilogy, so the luxury of expansive acres of space at the tip of his pen to set out his stall and he does it magnificently. Nor does he waste or lose control of the boundaries of that space, warping up the loom with a tightly woven cast list of solid characters all heading along the various threads that you know will lead them aboard the ex-slave ship, the  'blackbirder' Ibis and sailing to a new and uncertain life in Mauritius as indentured labourers. It's clear who will be the main players but plenty of interesting extras with the potential to blossom.
The historical backdrop is a fascinating one,1850s India, the poppy fields of the Ganges, the opium trade, the supremacy and folly of white colonial rule clashing head on with the culture of caste and the impending Opium Wars with China, all pouring into a seamless blend of fact and fiction as Amitav Ghosh launches this trilogy.
The richness and innate mystery of language prevails with silky smooth writing, and early perseverance paid dividends, because once I'd grown accustomed to the 'pijjin' dialect I was up and away with the book. Plenty of words I didn't understand but amazing how quickly you start to 'translate', because English derivatives are there if you look hard enough and I was soon making sense of meaning though I'm not sure if I was supposed to extend that to the names.

Does Amitav Ghosh mean me to smile over...well...er... Nob Kissin Baboo? I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to but I just couldn't help it and of course the name suits the character entirely.

Thankfully no glossary which always annoys, let the words mean what they mean and let me figure out the rest.The skill of the writer is making sure that I can within the context of the narrative and in my view Amitav Ghosh succeeded, I was rarely confused though often working hard at my guesses.
Sadly this one may be missed by anyone who says they don't read Booker listed books and there's a tragedy, because I for one will be standing right by the press waiting for the ink to dry on the second in the trilogy. If Amitav Ghosh can keep up this standard throughout there's a classic in the making here.
Oh yes, and lest I've left you in any doubt, Sea of Poppies is on my Booker shortlist which can only mean one thing, publishers John Murray have a copy ready and waiting for a lucky winner in the next prize draw. Names in comments and Raja Rocky, who is busy stripping oakum in the chokey and loving it, and his new best friend Mrs Glosser will oblige with a name tomorrow evening.

The Northern Clemency...at last and a prize draw.

Oh hip hooray, at last, let there be rejoicement and resounding alleluliarisation.
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher, and never in the history of Bookerthon-ing has a single book taken me so long to read. But, and this is the very clever thing, no matter when or how long the reading gap, each time I picked it up I was right back into it in a flash and loving every word...sorry have I told you that already?
I think I've strung this one out a bit for fear of the bereavement of the final turning of the page but also because I think this was the best way for me to read it.
Most people live ordinary lives which are often, well just ordinary, and there's no point in suggesting otherwise, so the trick is to make them interesting and readable whilst ignoring the temptation to tart things up, throw in a few murders, a bit of rape and pillage and perhaps a bullion robbery or something for a bit of local attention-seeking page-turning colour.
The Northern Clemency offers the most dazzling insight into social behaviour I've read in a long time, a sweeping yet microscopic glimpse of life behind the front doors of British suburbia. This is Darkmans minus those Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell odd bits and I would hope that realism steals the book a bit of an advantage with its Booker chances.
I have already mentioned the period detail but it's too good not to remind everyone about the way we used to wallpaper one wall and paint three, drive orange Marinas ( we had one in the 1980's), take four months to read The Far Pavilions and still not really follow it, look at old colour photos ten years on and remark on the green tinge, use Snoopy pencil cases at school...I could go on and on but it's all nailed and spot on for accuracy.
More assets, the characterisation, the subtle but believable ageing of characters, not an easy one to pull off with that essential requirement to maintain personality traits established in childhood whilst allowing them to mature into adulthood, or from adulthood into old age and yet remain familiar. Some intriguing off the beaten track psychological explorations with several characters which I won't spoil but you will definitely spot.
The plot twists and turns but never strays too far from the ordinary as to be risible and with a perceptive eye for detail that kept me constantly in thrall to Philip Hensher's control of his huge novel. One or two characters puzzlingly made an entrance and then seemed to fade, leaving only a slight trace, but then I realised that is so true to life. Not everyone becomes a best friend about whom you know every detail, great writing restraint there.
Accusations of descent into soap opera in one review remain unfounded in my mind. Soap opera equals life and Philip Hensher's only problem must have been knowing when and how to stop writing The Northern Clemency because I'd read another volume like a shot.
Disappointingly no mention of the Blue Nun Liebfraumilch so that's my tenner bet down the drain, but yes, the jolly old Hillman Imp gets a run out and I had to smile at that fairy-sized boot. No 1970's chap stood a chance with us peripatetic student nurses if he drove one of those.
How on earth would you fit a trunk and a stereo in there to move us on to our next flat?

And yes, just to prove we really did drink it, here's that famous 1970's Blue Nun picture.
I've said it already, The Northern Clemency, well you're my favourite and on my shortlist. I am busy trying to organise a prize draw copy of some of my Booker shortlisted books and so far so very good, here's the first.
Names in comments and a copy of The Northern Clemency could be thumping down on your doormat very soon, and be quick because each of these is going to be drawn within 48 hours of posting or we'll be doing this forever.

 

Booker ruminations

I'm still dipping into The Assassin's Cloak, the anthology of the world's greatest diarists, as the year progresses and always there seems to be a pertinent entry from say 1854 which seems as relevant today. I am however delighted that despite the onslaught of the Booker longlist, which but for a few notable exceptions seems to have been an energy-sapping event this year (and may become the short list only next year,) at least I don't feel quite as bad as Bertolt Brecht did on 24th August 1920,

'The rain rinses the last thoughts from one's head. Thoughts are impurities. That's why they start up in winter. Paper has lost its power to stimulate me. I hang like a bat in a turret of idleness: mouth downwards.'

Poor Bertolt, but oh for the luxury of a 'turret of idleness' except of course I'd want a pile of books in there too.
I could well have found myself hanging like a bat in the reading doldrums after just finishing the magnificent Sea of Poppies, becalmed in Booker waters and not an ounce of energy left to pick up another book. That voyage has taken my breath away, completely highjacked my imagination, so it was fortunate that I was already halfway through and loving Linda Grant's The Clothes on Their Backs.
As I opened the book again a moment of Ghosh-Grant synchronicity arced across the pages,

'I experienced the strange exhilaration of the sailor who has no home port, only the next landfall, wherever that may be, with all its dangers and possibilities. But the sea itself is home, the unsteady, unstable surface, always moving, drawn back and forth under a gravitational moon.'

I heard Linda Grant talk at Fowey earlier this year and now wish I'd paid more attention to the clothes,shoes and handbag elements because she's something of a fashion guru, as you can see for yourself at her blog The Thoughtful Dresser, and with Blog Beliefs as follows well, Linda and I have congruence,

'A good handbag makes the outfit.'

'Only the rich can afford cheap shoes'

'The only thing worse than being skint is looking as if you're skint.'

'A new dress is a great help in all circumstances.' (Noel Streatfeild)

'The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and his right to these peculiarities.' ( Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate)

Linda has also discovered our lovely cuddly Imran Ahmad which will surely be to Imran's advantage after his meeting-the-Prime-Minister-in-shorts episode.
The comment has been made elsewhere that the order of reading this Booker longlist may well affect the impact of a book, and I can see the truth in that. My policy of overlapping reading seems to bypass the problem but I'm also wondering how the judges are faring with their supposed third reading of the books in order to choose the shortlist?
If they really actually do a third read that is.
Because truth be told, and it's the Booker so sadly I feel honour-bound to tell it as I see it, I'd willingly hang like a bat forever (in the piked position with a tariff of 3.8 even) before picking up a few of these books a second time, let alone a third.
Fortunately Sea of Poppies isn't one of them, nor is The Clothes on Their Backs and my thoughts on those once I have ironed them out.(sorry)
Coming tomorrow, at last, my final thoughts on The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher and yes, you haven't seen it for a while, that 1970's classic the 'dgr and bookhound clutching a bottle of Blue Nun' picture.

Bookolympicserthon

First up congratulations to Heather Fell for that superb Silver Medal yesterday, and I don't know how 14 year-old Tom Daley has done in the 10m platform diving yet but well done that lad for throwing yourself upside-down off that board. I expect you have worried your mother from a very early age.
What a strange reading week it has been.
In fact what a strange week full-stop.
Think of all those years they had to dig down to the bottom of the box to find the Union Jack and all the moths would flutter out of that pristine, unfurled flag.
We'd worry if when it did come out they'd get the flag the right way up, and then moan about everyone else's National Anthem, and now it's ours droning out time after time and yes, broad side of the white stripe uppermost next to the flagpole every time (at least that's what I was usefully taught in the Brownies)
Final weekend, the closing ceremony and that London 2012 slot and the news is out, David Beckham's flown in, there's rumour of a double decker bus, probably three, and a typhoon is forecast.
All spot on.
Distractions aplenty and I have watched quite a few sports that in the general scheme of things might be classed as boring, but in true Olympic spirit they are compelling.
The 10K marathon open water swim.
I mean just who would do this willingly?
Grown men pushed, shoved, punched and pummelled their way to victory, our man may have been delirious by the end but it was the pluckiest Silver Medal I've seen. It was evil but legitimate apparently to hold your opponent underwater, grab hold of their legs and next time I want underwater cameras too, that's were the action was.
I can't believe that I'd be quite so swept up by Taekwando but I was, we was robbed, and as for the Table Tennis, well things have certainly moved on since we used to rig up a net across the fully-extended dining room table. Action so fast that really we should be watching it in slow motion and when did a bat become a racquet?
I don't know about your TV set but ours is on the brink of spontaneously combusting, you could boil a kettle on it I'm sure.
Evening reading time at a premium on a daily basis for obvious reasons after a day of watching feats of physical endurance that push a Bookerthon longlist read into insignificance. However trust me, endurance of a different calibre required this year with a list that is throwing up a few strong candidates for my shortlist but even more that have sadly plummeted off my radar. So different to 2006/7 where every book had its merits. Eventually, as I slog on through, I realise I am not enjoying the read, my form is poor for this particular book and best to pull out. Nothing will persuade me to read a book under those circumstances, I just get miserable. Then add in the news that I'm taking the blog on a very exciting trip in a couple of weeks, with a superlative pre-reading list that I can't wait to start, and you can see the dilemma.
It's unfair to pontificate on books I've failed to complete but several have had 150 pages of solid reading and I've given a few more than a generous benefit of the doubt 200 in an attempt to find the greatness that the judges must have spotted, all to no avail.
No worries it's the taking part that counts.
So the book I have most been looking forward to now that I've recovered from The Northern Clemency marathon and come down from the high left in its wake, it's time for The Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. I am in complete agreement with Mrs Self over at Asylum and would go a step further, rooms could well be furnished to match this one, the cover is stunningly beautiful.
Stephen Johnston please will you come and decorate my house?

From A to X - A Story in Letters by John Berger

I had heard of but never read anything by John Berger and sometimes this becomes one of the plus points of a Bookerthon read, finding an author you've always meant to read and now 'have' to.
From A to X a Story in Letters has been the quietly powerful book on the list for me this year. It should be a book utterly savage with anger and revenge as A'ida writes to Xavier as he languishes in prison serving a lengthy sentence for insurgency, but it is one infused with something quite different and thereby special.
There are ways around anger and John Berger finds them.
Our very own Mark Thwaite (as in he that sort of belongs to the blogworld but is making his way in the world of print review now, good on yer Mark) is quoted on the cover of the book asserting that John Berger is one of our finest writers, and one to cherish, and it would be hard to disagree with that on the strength of this book. John Berger art critic, novelist and painter and an analyst of the visual image in his seminal art theory book, Ways of Seeing. Perhaps equally renowned for winning the Booker in 1972 and donating a chunk of the cash to the Black Panther Party, if he wins this year, well who knows?
More fictional letters in From A to X and they seem to be featuring in my reading lately and are certainly a great way of telling a story in intimate and uncluttered detail and there is no clutter here as A'ida's love for Xavier is pronounced in the most heartfelt and emotionally expressive form. It's the highly favoured gaps and silences that work so forcefully and the slightly elusive comments from Xavier on the reverse of each letter, thought association and a silent one-way conversation with A'ida (and one that she never sees which adds to the effect) and the reader in the process. Like Penelope Fitzgerald, John Berger doesn't patronise his reader, endless work left to be done and I did it, there's an afterburn to this book which glows warm long after the final page.
There's a danger that fictional letters can tip over the sentimental edge and that happened slightly for me with the recent read of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a sprinkling of saccharine and the credibility dissipates. John Berger as you might expect doesn't go there, and for that reason these letters touch the heart with a greater depth and sincerity, a degree of skill that must be the envy of many a writer.
It's a fine balance and perhaps writing at the age of eighty-two gives you something of an edge there, a lifetime lived and with it the experience; all that hindsight, insight and clear sight put to supremely good use in this book.
I assume you'd expect an artist who also writes about art to have a head start in the ability to set up the visual imagery via words and do it just as well as they can can with paints, and this knowledge of John Berger gained after the read somehow explained the skill I knew had stood out for me in From A to X.
Determined and subversive, A'ida continues the struggle on the outside, her love for Xavier unwavering, fierce yet tender and the imagery with which it is defined is constant and remarkable. I can't quote from the proof but nothing but nothing is going to diminish A'ida's abiding love and loyalty to both her man and their shared cause or her ability to convey this too him via her letters.
I was unprepared for the fact that I would find this book quite so exquisite and it all left me desperate to read Xavier's non-existent letters in response, occasionally hinted at but never shared.
From A to X probably the surprise good read on this year's longlist for me, well-deserving of its place and at the rate I'm going with the rest this is another absolute certainty for my shortlist.

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

" a post-9/11 masterpiece" states The Observer and how I wish they hadn't because during my rather start-stop-start reading of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland I have been deeply exercised over exactly how you define a "post 9/11" novel.
What are the criteria?
Have they now been established somewhere?
Fracture and displacement, dispossession, loss of freedom, vulnerability, a sense of unbelonging, a reappraisal of life, reappraisal of a place we thought we knew. Those are the obvious themes which spring to mind to an English reader living in rural Devon UK , but to be honest I'm not really sure and had this not been blazoned across the front cover I might have been able to read this book free of all baggage and assumptions and perhaps enjoy it more.
In the end I realised it had tarnished the read completely, pigeon-holed a book and told me which themes I should notice long before I felt ready to address them, if at all.
The book gets off to a flying start and I was swept up in the lives of Rachel (English) and Hans (Dutch) and son Jake, New York high flyers who are busy coping with the stresses in their marriage seemingly exposed by the events of 9/11 and life camping out in a hotel.
Rachel and Jake return to the UK leaving Hans alone as they seek to work out a way forward in their marriage and Hans falls in with the unlikely enterpreneurial big guy prone to shady dealings, West Indian Chuck Ramkissoon and his dream of bringing the game of cricket to New Yorkers. There are cricket clubs in New York apparently but Chuck dreams of the world game coming to the Big Apple.
Suddenly and somehow, and this is sadly happening with a quite a few of my longlist reads this year, the book plummeted into ennui.
I don't know New York and perhaps those who do would find themselves buying into the essence of the city so clearly mapped out as Hans drives Chuck around, an essence which I'm sure rests in these pages somewhere, but for some reason I felt quite remote from it all. Perhaps the alienation was intentional but this wasn't about sharing this great city with me and that was sad because I thought I was going to love this one. U.S. reviewers are making Gatsby-like comparisons and elevating Netherland into the realms of a classic which all makes me feel something has just passed me by and I hate that feeling.
Chuck for example just seemed to flob around on the page and never really came to life for me, Hans eventually irritated with his existential meanderings, Rachel likewise as she potters about in another relationship, whilst Hans brings new meaning to part-time fathering with his fortnightly trans-Atlantic contact sessions with Jake.
Even the search for Gatsby-esque moments eluded me and there's a book I love.
So then I'm in a really dangerous nit-picky place because as my mind wanders I turn to the minutiae of the book in my hand and notice silly things like the fluctuating size of the typeface.
Is it my glasses or does everyone else's copy do likewise?
So that's how easily distracted I was as I read, though I did eventually persuade myself to pick up the book at a low enjoyment point and to its credit it kept me going to the end albeit flatly, but shouldn't a really good book avoid that dip?
Shouldn't a Booker book absolutely avoid that dip?
Can someone explain what I have missed?
Is it important?
In Netherland's favour,some stunningly good 'words-in-the-right-order' moments, here's just one,

'Like an old door, every man past a certain age comes with historical warps and creaks of one kind or another, and a woman who wishes to put him to serious further use must expect to do a certain amount of sanding and planing.'

But sadly not enough to bring it all together here or get this one onto my Booker shortlist at this stage, which all probably makes it an odds-on favourite to win and William Hill seem to agree.

Florentine Fog

And to think it was all going so well last Monday.
I can only liken it to something I'm doing quite frequently at the moment.
Driving up onto high Dartmoor.
It can be bright sunshine in town and all's well with the world. You set off humming and singing on the road up to Princetown admiring the scenery, drinking in the vast expanses of moorland, feeling at one with it all and telling yourself how lucky you are. Even slowing up behind the 25mph ooh-aah mare and foal-spotting convoy doesn't phase you because the world's spinning on the right axis today.
The steep hill out of Tavistock is fondly known as Pork Hill and this is where the trouble can start.
A gentle mist may start to swirl and the sun dulls down, as you climb higher the mist begins to swaddle you and the sun has now disappeared. The pony-spotting convoy is now on red alert at 10mph and it's a veritable pea-souper, a real cloud of unknowing and even for those familiar with the road it becomes almost impossible to know exactly where you are.
And it had all been going so well with The Enchantress of Florence until about page 133 or so. In fact here I was revelling in my first Salman Rushdie read, getting a bit too sure of myself obviously and shrugged off that little swirling mist that suddenly caused me to lose my way.
Plod on, it'll sort out.
By p168 the great cloud of unknowing had descended and suddenly everthing blurred, a cast of thousands of new and unknown names looming out of the murk, more and more of them in an endless stream, and writing in italics which seemed to be going back to the original story, and he was the relative of her and she was the only woman for him and they might be elected Pope and who on earth is Queen Alessandra?
Where did she come from?
Arcalia, the Turk...Wielder of the Enchanted Lance?
Since when?
Now they are all speaking in French, dear god there's no hope.
I'm now in a terrible unholy mess of Medici chaos and confusion with a bit of Fiorentina thrown in, this seems to beat even the most complex of rural Devon families, I must have missed a crucial sentence.
Perhaps one of those 12,103 people who have bought the book could help me through?
There's really only one thing for it, go back to the foot of Pork Hill and drive up again.
I'm feeling really stupid, fancy not bringing a compass and a flask of soup.

Half of The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher is going to have to be a book of two half-posts, much as I did for Nicola Barker's Darkmans last year and let's get this bit out of the way, to say I'm loving it would be an understatement.
It's causing much consternation chez dovegreyreader where they are accustomed to seeing me walk around with a pile of Books in Progress but perhaps not the same book in the pile for so long, and looking in need of someone to invent a wheelie book trolley to assist. I lug The Northern Clemency upstairs at night, downstairs in the morning, cart it out onto the back seat of my car for lunchtime, back indoors again, back onto the kitchen table and still I've only reached halfway. It's requiring me to read slowly and deliberately, perhaps as if I was listening in on these lives.
We've all admired the cover, become very well-acquainted with it and think that's our roof they've photographed. If the book spends much more time on the kitchen table we may have to decorate the room to match, which may not be such a good decision.
I visited a house many years ago where the sitting room had been decorated to match the parrot, that wasn't a good decision either.
But there are interesting thoughts developing around The Northern Clemency in my mind and Bookhound's too because he may not be reading it but he's constantly being asked to recall the 1970's, in the midst of which we met and married of course
'Do you remember Simca cars?'
'Remember we started making Chili Con Carne as a way of making mince more interesting?'
'Chelsea Girl...goodness, used to spend all my Saturday job wages in there, those Oxford Bags were something else.'
'I bet you £10 he mentions Blue Nun Liebfraumilch any minute now.'...that one is pending and may just be a memory too far for Philip Hensher.
Commenting at Dartington recently on the dangerous pitfalls of writing the recent past, often the most remote period of history, Philip Hensher flagged up the language as one of the most difficult aspects to get right, but I would add product placement equally tricky. Overegg the pudding and it's all far too obvious, a dash here and there and it works to perfection.
Interestingly I grew up in the London environs recalled in The Northern Clemency and so I'm loving the occasional mention of the River Wandle because our house was right on the river bank, and mention of Tiffin Girl's school had me recalling those mighty battles with them on the hockey pitch. Nonsuch always emerged supreme I'm sure.
There is a congruence to life in this novel, so much so that when I pick it up I know exactly where I am and am back into the story within a sentence or two. A similar thing happens at work, when there may be a gap of a month between seeing a family but after a sentence or two, our last contact comes back to mind, the details are recalled and we carry on where we left off...how are the sleepless nights going...has the toddler recovered from that episode with the fire brigade...did you murder your mother-in-law or cope for the rest of her visit...did you find the chinchilla...all those intricate details of people's live, details that matter immensely to them and recalling them an unspoken indication that you've heard what they have to say.
Perhaps it's Philip Hensher's careful attention to detail that is impressing me so much. Thought processes are taken that one step further, to the level that requires close attention on the part of the writer to make it interesting enough for the reader. Loving the minutiae of real life as I do, and finding them captured here on the page is making this book such a pleasure to read and not for one minute is it boring or repetitive or tedious.
More literary impressions for the second half-post perhaps, but hang it all, half-way thoughts or not, this is on my Booker short list for sure.

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser

Like many I'll admit to initial disappointment at Booker longlist omissions, it's only natural and happens every year, we were all rooting for our favourites and few of mine made the cut, but once I'd got over that it was onwards and upwards to unearth the gems.
After all, surely five people can't be wrong about all thirteen books?
Don't answer that.
Hilary Mantel declares of an earlier novel by Michelle de Kretser,

'The Hamilton Case - a mesmeric study of family, a scandal and a murder, Booker judges where were you?'

Clearly they've take note this time.The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser yet another book that made several of the speculative longlists and it's not difficult to see why when you read it. The language is rich and intense, concentrated writing distilled down to its purest form and a book that repays an odd form of slow, languid reading to fully appreciate writing that whilst not drawing attention to itself, often requires a second read to be sure that what you read really was as good as it first seemed.
It is.
Thinking about a reference as succinct as the

'dull child lightly spotted with malice'

and I knew that child instantly. Or

'A date over which so many Novembers had flowed without interruption had become an anniversary. Time was thickening around it. He thought of it waiting for him each year.'

and I sensed that feeling, clearly defined.
Layers of significance build and build and I was constantly in awe of Michelle de Kretser's style and skill, the very right words in exactly the right order. Even that point when you might expect a book to take a bit of a yawn as it rests and gathers itself to regroup for that push to the final page, well Michelle de Kretser just pulls out even more stops and stuns all over again, the book dazzled and sparkled for me from start to finish.

'Reality is an effect produced by the accrual of detail. a trickery...'

and Michelle de Kretser utilises her own observation well. A sense of time mediated through historical reference, glancing shots at an event, the Japanese invasion, the Coronation, all cleverly kept me in step with the timing in the early chapters until I was able to settle in.
The lost dog would seem to be the least of Tom Loxley's worries, except the search for the dog provides a lifeline, a central focal point for all the other losses going on in Tom's life as they surface.
Tom is writing a book on Henry James and credit is given at the end to Henry James, both overtly and obliquely so I suspect there may be much I have missed, but who exactly is the enigmatic artist Nelly Zhang previously Nelly Atwood (how to draw this reader's attention into a book, clever use of surname that ) with whom he finds himself inextricably infatuated. What did happen to her husband, how will all the other traumas in Tom's life pan out, the wife, the mother, the dog ?
The poor dog wandering around in the bush with a length of rope knotted firmly to its neck.
With a narrative that flows seamlessly back and forth between present and a past both recent and distant, Australia now and India then,

'the present makes use of what has gone before, feeding on it and transforming it, and rejecting what remains.'

The ongoing search for the dog becomes the pivotal point from which all else seems to radiate as the story slowly but cleverly takes shape. There are moments of stunningly precise and incisive insight into life that had never quite occurred to me before, an exceptional passage as Tom analyses his reaction to his mother's reversion to childhood in her old age.
More themes about life and love, memory and nostalgia , images and pictures, ageing and loss than it's possible to define here and a book that would certainly reward an even closer second reading.
Years ago, some say in the olden days, a Booker judge was heard to remark that reading one author's book had made him/her want to go out and read all the others, and I certainly now feel this about Michelle de Kretser.
A way to go yet but thus far The Lost Dog is a short list certainty here.

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

Bookerthon posts as much about the process of gorging on thirteen contemporary novels in a matter of weeks as the actual books, and with several very lengthy books in there we'd better chat along the way or there'll be a blank screen here.
So finally the moment arrives, I must open the book and start to read my first Salman Rushdie. The Enchantress of Florence has been winking at me seductively but somehow, I've now convinced myself I won't understand a word.
How has this happened? I really have no idea
Have I blotted out previous bad Rushdie experiences? Did I pick up one and start hyperventilating with confusion?
I honestly can't remember.
I spend quite a lot of time procrastinating unnecessarily over the endpapers which are, like the cover, quite lavish and intricate and there's plenty of visual material to waste your time over. A hive of industry, building a palace with a couple of interlocking pachyderms at one end, and a complex aerial Florentine illustration with a zillion individual houses,and bridges over a river at the other.Talking of the cover there's an interesting little picture there too, took me a while but I sorted out the limbs and, er...etc in the end.
Sir Salman smiles at me neath hooded lids, benignly and encouragingly (or is is smugly?) from the endflap and I feel brave enough to take the plunge.
Surprisingly, though not that surprisingly as it's written in English, I start to read and I do understand. It's not unintelligible goobledygook after all and soon, to the amazement of all around me (because I've made such a fuss about this...oooohhhhh nooooooo I've got to read that Rushdie book yet) before I know it, I'm up to page 50 76  120. I'm even getting a grip on the story, and that stinker of a review by Christopher Bray in The Literary Review is starting to fade from memory, but the essence lingers in the air as I read, brace yourself,

'witless whimsy'
'enfolded incontinent sentences'
'infelicities of expression'
'Rushdie has never once written a book whose pages demand turning'
'gaudy, congested, globe-trotting extravaganza'
'gobbet after gobbet of ill-digested research salted with self-consciousness about the construction of fiction'

And if you thought it couldn't get any worse, here's Peter Kemp in The Times

'None of this saves the novel from being, by a long chalk, the worst thing he has ever written.'
'The prose often looks as if it has been scissored out of some antiquated historical novelette:'
'Sadly, by the time you reach the end of this novel with its garish banalities and depthless sensationalisms, what you're most aware of are the 1,001 ways in which it would have been more profitable and enjoyable to pass the time.'

But who are we to believe? Here's salon.com

'This is the most assured Rushdie novel in many years, largely because it transpires entirely within the never-land of endlessly multiplying stories that he rightly regards as his imaginative home.'

Phew, you have to hope Sir Salman has thick skin, the average person would be through and done with several layers of irreplaceable epidermis after reading that.
The yellow-haired traveller arrives from afar bearing messages and secrets he must deliver in person to the Emperor. He's sporting a coat which attracts my attention in an instant, a patchwork of multi-coloured leather lozenges. I haven't heard that word in ages,
Lozenge - a four-sided planar figure with a diamondlike shape; a rhombus that is not a square.
Suddenly one simple visual reference ignites my imagination and I'm there, catapulted into Rushdie-Land.
Now I'm basking in the whole story and disagreeing with Christopher and Peter.
True, I've come across a few episodes of cliche-ridden imagery and I've taken those on the chin and all right the research is sort of jumping out and biting me, and I'm a bit suspect about this great long list of reference books at the end. Especially suspect given the thanks to the person who did all the research, because I naively would expect the author to have read ALL those books himself or isn't the information lazily acquired and applied and third party to boot, but what do I know?
Perhaps Sir Salman is a very busy man.
I'm barely halfway and still enjoying the book for what it is, but something else seems to have happened to plenty of people reading The Enchantress of Florence. Initial enthusiasm dissipates into an acute disappointment verging on a sense of loss with the second half of this book, perhaps they feel cheated?
Christopher Bray again, recycling a quote from Auberon Waugh,

'Anyone fool enough to want to read it is, of course, free to do so.'

It could go either way here, I'll keep you posted.

It's raining horses.

Yesterday went a bit like this
Rain
More rain
Beijing Swimming heats, our local girl (we are Plymouthian at the moment) Shazza Davies doing her usual informed and entertaining poolside commentary, grabbing flushed swimmers who've been knocked out of their event and saying "see you in 4 years time."
Turn sound down - The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie - fifty pages.
Men's Gymnastics, still sound turned down, commentator a bit over-excited and veering along the lines of kiss of death stuff,
'he can't afford a single mistake'
'oh dear let's hope no bones broken.'
The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser - fifty or so pages, our chap looks to do well on the pommel horse. Flairs and spindles prevail with a jolly good upsidedown dismount which ends the right way up eventually.
More horses follow except here there must be no dismounting.
Am warm and comfortable on the sofa so decide to stick with Beijing and 3 Day Event Dressage (whaaaat???) sound turned up as know nothing about dressage, but now know all there is to know, sock knitted as far as heel. Lucinda Someone who was ours but is now Australia's executes her extended trots perfectly and her tempi changes are also very nice. She's in first place and can you believe it, I almost think I should sit up at 2am to see if  local Devon rider Mary King can pull of better piaffes.
Rain.
More rain.
TV off to cool down, The Northern Clemency - fifty or so pages.
All life now arranged to be within easy reach of the sofa, food appears (thank you Bookhound) so stay put for Last Choir Standing, Nick Knowles, Mylene Klass and a lot of singing and start to execute a perfect heel turn on the Olympic sock. Score 30.5 with very few faults which easily puts me in with a chance of a sock knitting medal if I can just keep a tight rein on the Kitchener Toe.
Rain.
Another fifty or so pages of The Lost Dog which I'm now praying will be found.
Today it's Women's Gymnastics and Beth Tweddle, some more swimming including some relays where we are bound to be disqualified for the aquatic equivalent of dropping the baton, a bit of rowing, a bit more of The Enchantress of Florence and a lot more of The Northern Clemency because if I don't finish it any day soon the Booker will have been and gone.
Also good advice from my Guardian Olympic vade mecum, must look out for the weightlifter who was advised by a nun to change her name for greater success, Junpim Kantatian is now called Prapawadee Charoenrattanatahrakul, which sounds very lucky to me.
Probably more rain too and if I get bored I'll head here and do something useful, last year rice, this year water.

Booker Bulletin and some Fair Isle jumper reading.

Are we sick of it yet?
Well we're pacing ourselves here in Devon.
First up The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher, this year's prem-baby sized book, is proving to be a vast and hugely enjoyable read even if it does compromise the blood supply to my lower limbs and there will be no final thoughts any time soon because I'm loving it too much to rush.
At first glance the canvas doesn't seem that huge but Philip Hensher cleverly lets the paint spread and run in all sorts of interesting directions and all in a disciplined fashion. It's the same analogy I used with Nicola Barker's Darkmans, suddenly you realise you are watching one of those great big William P. Frith paintings in the making with a solid cast of more people than you first thought, and you are getting to know them all well.
It tends to be the easy way out these days, to criticise the 700+ pager with allegations of poor editing, but I'm not sure Philip Hensher has wasted that many words. When you stop short and examine closely you realise everything has its own well thought-out place in the big scheme of things, take it out and things are definitely not the same. The Northern Clemency is impressing me with the sheer stylish brilliance of the well-concealed structure, all mediated beautifully through the lives of the characters.
It's the old Fair Isle jumper at work again, lots going on round the back but it's the front that grabs our attention.
It proved to be a very interesting exercise over on the Picador blog, asking everyone for their longlist suggestions because forty lists appeared and with them came a kaleidoscope of contemporary fiction titles. In amongst, can you believe it, someone called Michael Portillo who guessed all thirteen titles.
But from those lists plenty of titles cropping up time and again, it was a real Reader's Booker and so whilst I wait for Sir Salman Rushdie to make his grand entrance, and that is requiring some readerly preparation here aka gathering the nerve to open the book, I'm slotting in an occasional Reader's Booker.
The Truth Commisioner by David Park  collected quite a few recommendations so I've slipped that in alongside Netherland by Joseph O'Neill and The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser.
Haven't hit the wall yet.

Longlist Lamentations

Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold - Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture
John Berger - From A to X
Michelle de Kretser - The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher - The Northern Clemency
Joseph O'Neill - Netherland
Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Wow, that might be a record, a real famine of prediction, two out of thirteen and one other read, but at least the bloggers and their visitors have been brave enough to have a go, couldn't find much in the literary review pages.
So here we go, it's that time of the year I love best, say-what-ya-think-time, blog about them all whether I love them or loath them. Last year I couldn't fault a single book, this year I finally have to read a Salman Rushdie...I'm terrified.
You never usually hear what gets cast aside after fifty pages Chez dovegreyreader scribbles, but this is the Booker prize, gloves off and nor am I going to do my usual typical-me thing and blame myself if I find a book unreadable.
I might as well start as I mean to go on.
Here's a copy of my thoughts posted on the Booker Prize forum a few moments ago.

Having set the scene nicely with my 2/13 longlist predictions I seem likely to maintain my 100% record of never choosing a Booker winner.
I can't really say what I think yet because I've only read three two of them but I will endorse Jamie Byng's comments because I too am stunned at the presence of Child 44.
It was a brilliant read, a thriller a real page turner, but what you read is what you get, it's not literary fiction, no hidden depths to plumb and fathom that I could discern.I loved it and said so,BUT that has never been what the Booker has stood for imho. It has always been about something much deeper in my mind and Helen Garner's The Spare Room embraces that depth with real dignity.
If I'd been a judge I'd have argued and pleaded that book's cause until I was flat on my face for what it tells us about illness, human nature, friendship, guilt and all those wonderful grist to the mill things that life is all about.Then you read it again and again and discover even more.
Doubtless I'll find all those qualities in the other books as I read them, but I just can't quite hide my disappointment about The Spare Room.

 

Booker 2008 predictions

Oh hang it all, it's foolish and folly I know but on Booker Longlist day and as Bookerthon 2008 looms, time to gaze into the crystal ball, go out on that limb and make a few wild predictions.
We've all been offering our long list suggestions over on the Picador blog in an effort to win £50 worth of books.If I win those are going to be offered as a prize on here but don't hold your breath, I've done my best on your behalf but it's all a bit subjective and you know me and the Booker, never chosen the winner yet. Quite a few books are cropping up again and again, some of them I've read, some I've meant to and some I hope I don't have to.
CONFESSION : I have never reached the far end of a Salman Rushdie novel, ever, the 2008 Bookerthon could be floundering from the off if other predictions are right.
It's heart ruling head time so here goes with my Booker Thirteen and there have been some very last-minute amendments after a weekend of reading.

His Illegal Self - Peter Carey
A shoo-in surely? I'm not a huge fan of Peter Carey but I truly loved this book and have vowed to try harder with the rest.

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
I have a soft spot for Sebastian since he was robbed, the year A Long Long Way didn't win. I have a minor misgiving about the ending but it's very minor in the grand scheme of Sebastian's mesmerising writing.

The Rowing Lesson - Anne Landsman
It would be nice to know someone else had read and loved this other than just me,I feel a bit lonely waving its flag but love it I did.

The Spare Room - Helen Garner
Because Susan Hill says so and last year she predicted Winnie & Wolfe as a winner and just look what happened? We had a great disagreement over that one but this year I'm with her all the way, this is one of those special books, they come along so rarely, but when they do you know it.

Carpentaria - Alexis Wright
If this makes it I'll be kicking myself for not having tucked it under my belt already.Started it twice and got distracted but I knew as I read it was a very important book in the scheme of things but one that requires total concentration.

The Behaviour of Moths - Poppy Adams
I loved this and love it even more having heard Poppy Adams speaking about it at Ways With Words last week. It's a book of far greater depth than I first realised and you hear those dusty moth wings fluttering long after the final page.

Resistance - Owen Sheers
I realise this probably puts Faber over the limit for entries but it's far too good to leave off the list.

Crusaders - Richard Kelly
Another Faber but a parable of our times and another book I relished, real people, living real lives...well as real as fiction can get. It's an outsider but I'll risk it.

The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher
Well Sam Leith predicts this one to be there so who am I to dissent? Huge doorstop of a book, more real people living real lives. I have it ready and waiting and will read it regardless.

Deaf Sentence - David Lodge
Another I've loved this year, a book that says many things and covers much ground.

Remember Me - Melvyn Bragg
I've barely scraped the surface of this one but even so I think it's shaping up into a masterpiece.

Feather Man - Rhyll McMaster
Marion Boyars have been urging me to read this and I kept saying 'but the first chapter is too upsetting'...'carry on, persevere' they said and assured me it would be worth the effort. I've read it this weekend and how right they were, I would love to see this book on the longlist. 

Sputnik Caledonia - Andrew Crumey
This is a very last-minute addition because it's another I've been reading this weekend and only because John Self has been saying all year it will be a Booker longlister and he's always right about this sort of thing. But I'm in agreement, it's been a revelation of a book, one I thought I wouldn't like but have loved.

So you see if it was all down to me I'd only have to read a couple of books for Bookerthon 2008 and that would free up my August reading time nicely.
Most unlikely because I have no Indian subcontinent writers in there and they always deserve a place or two, so may the best book win.
Except it never does.

Michael Portillo usurps the Provincial Lady

Eventually it was Michael Portillo's blog that ended the reverie of middlebrow-land. I've a bit of a soft spot for Michael since he did that TV programme; When Michael Portillo Became a Single Mum, moving in to look after the family on benefits.
My new middlebrow reading treatment, currently in the trials stage, was that if I mixed in some non-fiction alongside the fiction I wouldn't get genre-weary quite so quickly and might be able to stay in middlebrow country for a while longer. It really is a very nice, happy, tranquil place to be but it's not a real enough place for me and eventually the call of the cutting-edge gritty contemporary will prevail I just know it.
Meanwhile it was The Life of a Provincial Lady, A Study of E.M.Delafield and Her Works by Violet Powell which had my attention. Contained therein not only a detailed appraisal of all Edmee Elizabeth Monica de la Pasture's fiction, but also her own account of an early foray into the world of the closed convent as a postulant for a year. Emerging after a period of acute spiritual crisis, Violet Powell points out that Edmee turned that potential disaster into an increased independence of character and from thence cometh the fiction. I didn't know any of that so all fascinating and had half thought the book might lead me into an EMD foray, she's quite local after all, but it didn't.
Further EMD reading will have to wait for another day because Michael Portillo has waltzed in.
He's chairing the Booker Prize this year and being an addict I must pay attention and not take my eye off the Bookerthon 2008 ball even with so many other exciting reading projects in progress. The howl of  contemporary literature is a powerful one for me and I have relented because I bet you I already have some longlist contenders on my shelves and suddenly, as in right that minute, I had to find them.
Nothing like going out on a limb and boldly declaring, it's time to start guessing and I have quite a few in the pile here already.
Wandering along the shelves I came across The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri and wondered whether this might fit the 'not child's voice-not UK' slot ? Manil's also made the longlist before so that's bound to help.
It seems to have all the right ingredients even down to a puff on the cover from Kiran Desai

' I read this marvellous book in one sitting.'

At 450 pages Kiran clearly has even more reading time available than me and is also probably less disposed to a deep vein thrombosis than I would be if I sat immobile for that long.
So far The Age of Shiva is ticking boxes. India post-colonial, post-partition, religious divisions and the plight of women thrown in for good measure and I am deeply engrossed in the life of Meera, married in haste to the singer Dev. It's well-written and as a canvas this feels as broad as Naseem Murr's The Perfect Man which made the 2006 longlist, but this is a big book, will it sag somewhere along the way?
I'm also intrigued by the author, Manil Suri, a Professor of Mathematics who feels sure we all have an innate wiring for maths, and those of us who doubt such a thing may have suffered an early short circuit.
Let's be honest, my maths fuse box blew to smithereens when I was about nine or ten and was placed in the headteacher's special maths group of eleven-plus candidates who might sail through on the English but fall flat on their faces with the Maths.
Manil's right, it was purgatory of the most terrifying kind and I don't think that particular mains circuit has ever been properly repaired.
Even if I've got it all wrong, and Manil's not a Booker contender, there has not been a single second wasted so far reading this book, much more about it soon.

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry

'...that strange glow, just a few fields east of happiness.'

As if I could ever speak in any language but the superlative about anything that Sebastian Barry writes?
I know I've only read one other, but A Long Long Way still for me the best book that never won the Booker prize, and all the evidence I would ever need that Sebastian is incapable of writing a duff line.
But I'm also mindful of something else I have read recently.
A very revealing piece by Robert McCrum here.
An overview of changes in the literary world of the last ten years. Blogs get a mention and with it the suggestion that as the home of the Common Reader they may generate more heat than light. It was all enough to set me thinking because in one respect he's very right. It's certainly hard to temper enthusiasm and not plunge overboard without a lifebelt when a book touches your heart.
That said it would seem I'll never learn.
Some books are just a blessing.
To read them is to be elevated to some higher literary plain and it would seem that any topic happening to stray into Sebastian Barry's poetic writing firmament can expect to get the treatment.  It's difficult not to sink into descriptive cliche but the book is hauntingly elegiac and here it is the life of Roseanne McNulty which is so beautifully crafted in such exquisitely carved prose. Quite breathtaking to read line after line of it to be honest and this is most certainly not a book to rush. I just savoured every single word and couldn't bear to turn the final page.
Roseanne may be almost a hundred years old, no one can be sure, but much of her life has been spent in the Roscommon Mental Hospital. Through Roseanne's own telling of her story alongside the Commonplace journal of her psychiatrist, Dr Grene, the sad story of her life slowly emerges.
It's sadder than sad, it's heartbreaking and beneath it all Ireland glistens pure emerald, its island history replete with flaws,

'a country of cupboards, every one with a skeleton in it, especially after the civil war, no one was exempt.'

Glinting through small chinks in Roseanne's story, history told at a slant, so here's a book that you emerge from both informed as well as strangely uplifted, if a little emotionally wrung out. Sebastian Barry constantly reminding his reader that all may not be as it seems, and the untrustworthiness of any historical account is placed under the microscopic lens as Roseanna recounts her memories alongside Dr Grene's account. Roseanne witnessing events as a child, saw only what a child could see and knew only what, as a child, she had been told, whilst knowing full and well that 'a child is never the author of his own history.'

'It makes me a little dizzy to contemplate the possibility that everything I remember may not be real, I suppose. There was so much turmoil at that time that - that what? I took refuge in other impossible histories, in dreams, in fantasies? I don't know.'

This is the world of 'grief as a wailing of the soul' so prepare for a compelling and deeply satisfying novel, and one that leaves a profound and lasting impression about a woman who describes herself thus,

'I am only a thing left over, a remnant woman, and I do not even look like a human being no more, but a scraggy stretch of skin and bone in a bleak skirt and blouse...I sit here in my niche like a songless robin, no like a mouse that died under the hearthstone where it was warm, and lies now like a mummy in the pyramids.'

And a doctor who must decide

'What is wrong about her account if she sincerely believes it? Is not most history written in a sort of wayward sincerity? I suspect so....the one thing that is fatal in the reading of an impromptu history is a wrongful desire for accuracy. There is no such thing.'

If I have the vaguest hint of a shadow of the merest sliver of a doubt it concerns the ending.
Far be it from me to unplait Sebastian's carefully woven and intricately wrought, nay masterly, storytelling, but in my very humble opinion the book could have easily coped with uncertainty in its final pages, in fact much within suggested that would be the case. Had Sebastian gently left me wandering in that melancholy but deeply poetic place to which he seems to transport a reader I would have thrived. But let nothing mar the accolades, the writing is far far too memorable for anything so minor to stand in its way.
So back to Robert. I do so agree with what he says but in this instance make no apology, sometimes a lot of heat encourages readers to discover their own light and that feels like no bad thing to me.

Booker 40th

When it comes around I won't be able to ignore it, the Booker Prize is sadly entrenched in my genes, I have to read the books and this year will be no different, so I was a cert to attend the Booker 40th event at the Oxford Litfest. Let's also hope we get an updated souvenir book to match the Booker 30th, because mine and Juliette's are always off the shelf. Things have certainly moved on in that time, Michael Portillo Chairman of the Judges now a blogger too.
Informatively chaired by Ion Trewin (who sat in my chair!) with Ruth Scurr and Peter Kemp to assist we were treated to a retrospective of the last forty years since the prize was established in 1969. That all happened on a golf course apparently and I'm sure Ion said Ian Fleming was involved. Booker had started to buy up book rights as an investment and it was gently suggested to them that they might like to put some of their profits back into the literary world.
Forty of the forty-one winners (there was a tie for the prize on two occasions, 1974 and 1992 ) remain in print which is seen as a test of the standard of the books and we, the book-buying reading public, will be able to vote on a shortlist of the Best of the Booker to be announced on May 14th.
There was some discussion about the impossibility of reconciling taste and fiction and the fact that the whole thing frequently generates rows and thereby its own valuable media oxygen.
Ruth Scurr and Peter Kemp then offered their own personal six favourites
Ruth chose
The True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Then controversially decided to subvert the judges decision and award the prize to
The Master by Colm Toibin instead of The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollingshurst
The Gathering - Anne Enright
Disgrace - J.M.Coetzee

Peter chose
The Bone People - Keri Hulme, a book that is "mad to page forty" and then comes to life and there were some fascinating anecdotes recounted both about the discovery of this book and the actual awards ceremony.
The Ghost Road - Patricia Barker
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Rites of Passage - William Golding
Last Orders - Graham Swift
Staying On - Paul Scott

They forgot to ask for my choices.
So two fascinating lists and will this be the year that I lose my 100% record of never choosing the winner?
My head often makes the right choice (last year The Gathering by Anne Enright) but I always choose my winner from the heart, Bookerthon 2007, Darkmans by Nicola Barker, Bookerthon 2006  Carry Me Down by M.J.Hyland, the year before that 2005 and pre-blog, A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry.
Whilst not wishing to preempt any final dovegreyreader decisions for Bookerthon 2008, I'm tempted to put £10 on His Illegal Self by Peter Carey, this early in the day, it's already strangely captured both my head and my heart.
There that was stupid, I've gone and said it now.