Avid Reader's Previous Ramblings

 (These pages are contributed by Glenis Hesk, a resident of Cold Ashby, who was, for several years, a part time tutor for Leicester University at their centre in Northampton where she taught courses on the novel.

Glenis designed author-based and thematic courses involving not only classic works by nineteenth, early and mid-twentieth century novelists but also fiction by contemporary writers, including Ian McEwan, Graham Swift, Kuzuo Ishiguro, Susan Hill and Kate Atkinson.

She remains an ‘avid reader’ and many friends and former students often ask her to recommend and comment upon new and recently published novels - this has prompted your editor to persuade her to contribute her ‘ramblings’ to this site.)

Reviews below were written over recent months.

 

Comments on The Finkler Question,  The Breaking of Eggs

and The Glass Room

 

Have read three novels during recent weeks: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson which won last year’s Man Booker Prize, The Breaking of Eggs, a debut novel by Jim Powell and Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room, shortlisted for the Man Booker award in 2009.

Central to The Finkler Question is the relationship between three men, longstanding friends who, despite differences of lifestyles and opinions, have remained in touch throughout many years.

Libor Sevic, a Czech Jew, now 90 years old, is a former journalist / biographer of famous Hollywood filmstars and one time History teacher of Sam Finkler and Julian Treslove.

Finkler, a Jewish academic who writes popular philosophy books with ‘catchy/sexy’ titles, is a regular T.V. pundit. Like Libor, Finkler is a widower.

Treslove, a former B.B.C. radio presenter who, because of his physical appearance, works as a film-celebrity ‘look-alike’, is not Jewish. After an odd late-night incident following a meal shared with his two friends, however, Treslove is drawn, not to convert but to explore and gradually to embrace Jewish customs and culture. Treslove, it seems to me, is deliberately realised as an ‘empty vessel’ of a character - apparently sensitive yet superficial, impressionable but not impressive - does his surname indicate very nothing ie. très l’oeuf?

Much is revealed about the past lives and present preoccupations of these three characters during the course of the novel and, in the process, much territory, relating to Judaism, Zionism and historical/ political perspectives is covered.

Certainly, The Finkler Question is cleverly constructed, interesting in its exploration and portrayal of notions of ‘Jewishness’ and often witty. Unfortunately, contrary to my expectations (raised by several reviews which gave it high praise), I found this novel somewhat disappointing and struggled to remain engaged. Treslove’s self-indulgent, self-interrogation became rather tedious and I grew increasingly irritated by Jacobson’s ‘jokes’ and seemingly contrived cynicism. Perhaps my taste and sense of humour are insufficiently sophisticated, however, since I grew up in Wolverhampton - a place for which the author has expressed little affection and even less respect.

　

Rather more engaging and enjoyable than The Finkler Question were Jim Powell’s The Breaking of Eggs and Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room.

These two novels, though very different in style and structure, have certain similarities in that the absorbing personal ‘histories’ of central characters track back from a late-twentieth-century ‘present’ to revisit turbulent and traumatic political events which beset Europe before, during and after World War II, events which shape their later lives. In each novel notions of family, friendship, ‘home’ and loyalty are explored, together with impressions of living and lifestyles in the U.S.A.

In The Breaking of Eggs the ‘present’ is 1991, a year during which the narrator, 61 year old Feliks Zhukovski, a Pole who has lived in France for several decades, acquires information relating to his past, facts which lead him, gradually, not only to reassess his political beliefs but also to embark upon a slow journey of self-discovery.

That the ways in which an individual’s responses to events and people may be based upon and nurtured by misreadings and misperceptions is, I think, a major theme of this novel and, in this respect, as well as on one or two other points, I was reminded of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Whereas Ishiguro’s ‘unreliable narrator’, (the butler, Stevens) always remains rather unknown to himself, in Powell’s novel, Feliks steadily makes better progress and, by the end of 1991, becomes a more sensitive and emotionally responsive person than he was twelve months earlier.

Another theme, the interrogation of political absolutes, is also pursued as the narrator encounters people from his past whose ‘readings‘ of events differ from his own.

During the course of The Breaking of Eggs much territory, in terms of time, place and history, is covered - several decades of the twentieth century, involving war, political movements and changes in Europe (East and West) are referred to and Feliks’s visit to the United States adds a further dimension to the novel’s scope.

This book is, at various times, serious, sad and funny. It is also, occasionally, a little tedious and over-explanatory regarding the nuances and finer points of Communism, Stalinism and other political ‘creeds’ but this is just a small criticism when set against the plus-points in what was, for me, a thoroughly interesting and thought-provoking novel.

* Jim Powell, who is around the same age as the narrator of The Breaking of Eggs, was one of the ‘12 Best New British Novelists’ chosen by a panel the for B.B.C. 2 programme ‘The Culture Show’ earlier this year. He lives in Northants.

I found The Glass Room by Simon Mawer utterly enthralling. Not to be rushed, this is a novel to savour. Its deceptively simple prose is eloquent and the harsh historical facts which inform its plot are conveyed in ways which combine subtlety and strength.

Creating an impressive cast of well-realised characters and covering several decades of the twentieth century, Mawer charts the various ‘histories’ of a house (and specifically a particular room within it), of the Landauer family for whom it was built and who are forced to flee from it, of those who maintain and those who visit it and of the purposes for which it was used by a succession of later occupants. In so doing, Mawer also maps the history of a country, Czechoslovakia.

Several thematic elements are woven into the novel: architecture, art, music, wealth, love, marriage, adultery, bi-sexuality, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, politics, Nazi anti-semitic policies, practices and repercussions, war, Communism, austerity, affluence and influence. So many strands are incorporated that, listed thus, one might well assume that such a fiction would be too wide-ranging to be coherent but this is not the case. Mawer successfully melds all together to tell a fascinating, complex tale which is, I suggest, both moving and memorable.
 

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A fiction woven within a framework of fact, Every Man for Himself  by Beryl Bainbridge, concerns a famous disaster - the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic.

There is a short Prologue set during the final moments before the great liner goes down, moments to which the novel returns a few pages before its conclusion. Following the Prologue, starting at a point two days before boarding the Titanic at Southampton on April 10^th 1912, the narrator, Morgan, a wealthy and well-connected young American, begins his personal account of events preceeding, during and immediately after the voyage - a maiden voyage, tragically terminated when the ship, having struck an iceberg, sank in the early hours of April 15^th.

A number of real passengers figure in the novel, alongside the fictional ‘cast’, and an imagined scenario is constructed whereby, via the narrator’s perspective, the reader discovers much about the typical behaviour of the rich and famous during this period, social and class-related distinctons observed on board ship and attitudes of the crew. The inclusion of known factual information within the narrative also gives one a clear idea of the layout of the vast vessel, the luxurious décor and facilities provided for First Class travellers, as well as a sense of the less lavish conditions experienced by lower class and steerage passengers.

Morgan, though leading a financially secure and privileged existence, is aware of social unfairnesses and is disturbed by vague recollections of an impoverished and troubled infancy. Knowing only a few bare facts about his early life, during the course of the ill-fated voyage, he learns more about his mother and his past from Scurra, an urbane and enigmatic fellow passenger.

That the end of the Titanic story is common knowledge did not trouble me. The interest of this tale is in its telling.

I had forgotten the skilful, stylish economy of Beryl Bainbridge’s prose, her seemingly effortless ability to engage. My enjoyment of Every Man for Himself has encouraged me to revisit her earlier books and I eagerly anticipate The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress, a novel finished just before her death, to be published next June.

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Have recently finished reading The Pattern in the Carpet - A Personal History with Jigsaws by Margaret Drabble - a pleasurable ‘puzzle’ of a book. Part a personal memoir in which the author not only describes past family ‘history’ but also reflects upon her present circumstances and pre-occupations, and part History, this book is intentionally digressive. I found it enjoyable and engaging. As with assembling a complicated jigsaw, however, the process of reading was sometimes frustrating but, ultimately, proved to be both rewarding and satisfying.

Drabble’s detailed account of the history of the jigsaw is informative, ranging rather wider than the puzzles, encompassing board and card games, mosaics, paintings, poetry, writers, commonplace artefacts and much more. The historical references and critical comments are fascinating. Unfortunately, the profusion of facts and dates is just a little overwhelming in places.

Most interesting, to me, are the sections and passages in which Drabble writes about personal experiences, past and present, and about people. The account of her long-lasting relationship with her Auntie Phyl and her portrait of this spinster schoolteacher are both affectionate and shrewd. Engaging, too, are her descriptions of holidays spent at ‘Bryn’, a Georgian farmhouse run by her grandparents as a ‘B.& B.’ and tea-room on the Great North Road, of the primary school and surroundings of her childhood, as well as of various objects, locations and events to which she attaches particular significance. Passages relating to Drabble’s parents, especially her ‘difficult’mother, and occasional comments referring to her sister, Susan ( A.S. Byatt), are revealing, suggesting a sense of discontent which she no longer feels compelled to shroud in fiction.

During this book Drabble refers to The Peppered Moth (2001) in which she drew upon autobiographical material relating to her mother and aunt to tell the fictional tale of three generations of women, considering themes associated with inherited genes and ’adaptability’. I enjoyed this novel very much when I first read it and, after reading The Pattern in the Carpet, am inclined to take a look at it again.

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