Book Review: Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter HØeg

Title: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Author: Peter HØeg
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 9781250002556
Genre: Literary Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 512
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Smilla’s Sense of Snow is a treat to read. There is everything in it which a book can offer – some great writing, mystery, literary fiction, and a sense of dry humour in certain parts. Peter HØeg proves that literature can be both entertaining and artful. Though on the surface, Smilla’s Sense of Snow is genre fiction, it is beyond just being a thriller.

Smilla’s Sense of Snow is based in Denmark and then takes the reader to the Arctic in order to solve a mystery. The book first released in 1993. I read it then and I have read it now and I must say that I enjoyed it more the second time round. Smilla Jaspersen – half Greenlander, half Dane, an unconventional loner and brilliant scientist, is struggling with her emotions (which she doesn’t display enough of) and is devastated when a young boy she had befriended mysteriously falls to his death from the roof of their apartment building. She doesn’t think it is an accident. From there on begins Smilla’s journey and the trail she follows to solve his murder.

The writing is good. The story is wonderfully told. (I do not read books that do not interest me; hence the books that I read are brilliant) The setting could not have been better. However, what stands out the most in this book is the characterization of Smilla. Smilla is an ordinary woman (do not mistake her to be that anyway). She is bold, clever, smart, instinctive and reckless at the same time. She is a rule-breaker (doing it all subtly) and is not afraid to say things the way they are. Peter HØeg has created a woman who will not opt for the role society expects her to play.

Smilla cannot connect with others and she knows that. She feels bad about it but she knows her limitations and that’s what I love about the character. May be that is why she wants to bring justice to the one friend she had made.

The descriptions are dense and required while writing a book that merges the setting and the mystery. One needs to mention the details and Peter HØeg has done a wonderful job of that. Smilla’s sense of Snow is not your regular mystery. It is surprising that at times it takes so much effort to read it, because of the intensity and how it is weaved through Smilla’s perspective and her way through the maze of questions and emotions.

Smilla’s musings are another dimension to the book. I loved reading them (as and when they came along). They added spice and character to the book.

Here’s one of them:

“Deep inside I know that trying to figure things out leads to blindness, that the desire to understand has a built-in brutality that erases what you seek to comprehend. Only experience is sensitive.”

In this world of Lisbeth Salander, I urge you to read Smilla’s Sense of Snow. It is as fresh and compelling as when it was first written. A brilliant feat.

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Book Review: Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Title: Half-Blood Blues
Author: Esi Edugyan
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1250012708
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

It is not easy to write a book with Jazz as the main character that is always lurking as the “backdrop”. In fact it isn’t easy writing about music at all; no matter how tuned you are to it and what your sensibilities are made of. Esi Edugyan manages it wonderfully through his book, “Half-Blood Blues”.

“Half-Blood Blues” alternates between 1992 and 1939/1940, whose major characters are three African-American men who met in Weimar, Germany playing together in a jazz group. The book brings out the world inhabited by these three men and their longings, passion, betrayal over the years, while the music silently plays on.

The tale is narrated by Sid, and he moves in time, back and forth to unfold the story of a talented trumpet player, Hieronymus Falk. The musicians struggle against the growing danger of Nazism and each experience varying degrees of safety (or lack of it) in Europe based on their background and citizenship. One of the most endangered is Hiero, a German of mixed race who is taken by the Nazis one night and never returns. Sid witnesses this and the major focus of this novel is Sid’s guilt as he grapples with what he did and what he did not to save his friend’s life.

The book in itself reads like poetry at times. Esi has a knack of writing and presenting the story in a manner that is graceful, lyrical and sometimes heart-breaking. The novel explores the other side of World War II, the persecution of Blacks and German “Mischlings” in Germany. What I loved was that the book is set against the backdrop of Jazz, which was then banned in Germany because of it being seen as, “degenerate”. So there are two biases – one against a set of people and second against a genre of music, both of which are wonderfully brought to surface by Esi Edugyan.

Esi allows the reader to explore the world through Sid’s eyes, where everything is not wrapped up tidy and neat. She creates the historic context, allowing readers to live there for a while with her flawed characters. She makes you think about what it would be like to live in a world where everything seems and has gone wrong, where may be music is the only thing left that one can rely on completely and unconditionally. Music is the only thing that seems to make sense at times.

Esi has a powerful voice though at times I felt disconnected from the book however came back to it to be enthralled for a while. Read it if music and identity interest you together. It is a great combination though.

Book Review: Everything You Know by Zoe Heller

Title: Everything You Know
Author: Zoe Heller
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1-250-00374-4
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 203
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

There is always a good time to take you out of the reader’s block situation and for me that book in the recent past was “Everything you Know” by Zoe Heller. I remember the one and only book I had read by her earlier – Notes on a Scandal, which I was enthralled by. The writing style, the setting and the plot of the book was beyond great.

Zoe Heller’s book, “Everything you Know” is actually the first one written by her and I was not surprised by the beauty of the language at all. It just gave me an idea of the lucidity that came through in Notes on a Scandal. Everything you Know is about Willy Muller and his life. Willy Muller is an unusual character, someone who you might meet and stop and think about. He could be distasteful and yet he is just like you and I in most ways.

Willy Muller is recuperating from a heart attack in Mexico, and trying very hard to write a script of a celebrity’s memoirs – the writer’s block emerges and he cannot write. His girlfriend Penny, one of the plastically enhanced women and not too bright, is with him. One fine day he receives a call from his sister in England, informing him that their mother is dead. He rushes to England and the ghosts of the past haunt him all over again. Willy had to leave England with a bad reputation of being indicted for killing his wife in a domestic fight. He appeals and is set free. His daughters think he was responsible for their mother’s death. The second daughter commits suicide and leaves a diary. But of course Willy reads it and his life begins to unravel – one piece at a time. His answers and his questions merge and he wonders more, seeking answers, finding a way to live.

It is not easy to write a novel of this kind and accommodate everything in less than 300 pages. The writing is in your face and doesn’t let up for a single bit. Knowing the plot, it is depressive at times, but a fantastic read. Zoe Heller uses her craft very intelligently – without giving away too much and making readers think for themselves.

This is just one example of her superlative writing: “If I am a shit, I used to tell myself defiantly in those days, so be it.”

Zoe Heller has a linear style of writing. The jumping of past to present and back is sometimes overwhelming but works for the plot in most ways. The dialogues are perfectly tuned to the plot, the supporting characters play their part when needed fantastically and the plot is something else – from madness to crime to getting a grip on reality. Everything You Know is a great read that tells a lot about the human condition and the answers we seek, when sometimes they are right there in front of us.

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Book Review: The Submission by Amy Waldman

Title: The Submisssion
Author: Amy Waldman
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1-250-00757-5
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 337
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

It isn’t easy sometimes to write a book review about a book that has had a huge impact on the way you think and what you believe in. Very few books manage to achieve that and The Submission by Amy Waldman did just that for me.

The premise of the book is simple on the surface: It has been two years after the 9/11 attacks. There is a contest for a 9/11 memorial where the World Trade Center once stood tall, bringing with it all the thoughts, fears and anger of NY citizens to surface. The contest submissions are made. The winner is “Mo”, a regular American architect, born and raised in Virginia. There is one slight setback. Mo is short for Mohammed Khan – son of immigrant parents and that is where the problems start to arise, but of course.

The contest jury consists of Claire – the wealthy widow whose husband died in the attacks, and a key juror at that. She is pro for Mohammed and at the same time doesn’t understand why she cannot be more assertive when the media and general public makes too much of Mo’s selection. On the other hand there is Asma, the Bangladeshi widow whose husband, an illegal immigrant, worked as a janitor in the building and was killed.

There is the side of the press hounding on the story and wanting to take advantage of the “scoop”. There is the side of the general public in the form of the Gallagher family who lost their son in the attacks.

Amy Waldman writes with a sort of detachment that is needed for a topic as sensitive as this. For me, there was a point when I choked on certain passages, but that was because of the intensity of the subject matter and the writing.

The novel is extremely strong in its depiction of no solution to this matter in the real world. The title does not just refer to the submission of the design and the contest. It goes deep. For instance, Mo’s submission or not to the decisions made, Claire’s submission to some members of the jury and most of all, the submission of public to fear or not. The book is not always about religion and culture, it also veers to art. What is the importance of art in our society? Even if it represents memory. What place does it deserve?

The Submission is written with reality that will not allow you to forget it that easily. There is no ploy or gimmick here. The reader succumbs to the book because it strikes a chord somewhere. Amy Waldman takes no sides while writing the book. She is as neutral as neutral can be. The Submission made me see different points of view. The emotion of course is that of an outsider if you have not faced the situation, however one can connect to it because of the strong writing and dialogue that comes across and makes readers think way after the book has ended.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

“Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up.”

“Jealousy clings to love’s underside like bats to a bridge.”

“Sorrow can be a bully”

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Book Review: The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan

Title: The Lover’s Dictionary
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1250002358
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 211
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5

The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan is an ode to love – a subtle love letter to love and its nature. That is what the book means to me. Needless to say that the novel is written in the form of a dictionary – a dictionary of love and a relationship surrounding that love.

The idea is simple: How does one talk about love? Is there a way to talk about it? There are so many ways to talk about it. Love, which pulls us out of the ordinary and the mundane life and promises something so much more than what it can give. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. “The Lover’s Dictionary” is a song to those moments of love, almost every shade and colour, every emotion explored through a relationship and its definitions.

Love doesn’t unfold in bullet points. It needs definitions and conversations. It needs sharing and may be some looking back to see where it can go ahead, and if it should. David Levithan’s book is meant to be shared with people so they can be enthralled by its beauty.

The setting of the book is New York City – a relationship unravels through definitions (as mentioned earlier). The definitions in this dictionary are exhilarating and sometimes leave you breathless. Everyone who has ever been in a relationship or may be not also can connect with it. It speaks to all of us – straight, gay, men and women. The language is evocative. The words chosen to try to define love and its complexities are carefully chosen and unique. There is unapologetic romance on every page and that’s the sort of writer that David Levithan is. You can read the book from any page and may be try and make sense of your life in that instant with reference to that definition given. The writing is that powerful.

Sometimes the “dictionary” entries are only as much as a single sentence and yet so fulfilling. There are genuine insights to love and the possibility of it or not. Here are some gems from it: For example, “balk, v. I was the one who said we should live together. And even as I was doing it, I knew this would mean that I would be the one to blame if it all went wrong. Then I consoled myself with this: if it all went wrong, the last thing I’d care about was who was to blame for moving in together.” Or this: “reservation, n. There are times when I worry that I’ve already lost myself. That is, that myself is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else.” Or this: love, n. I’m not even going to try.

The book talks of everything love is – first dates, the flirting, the wooing, the living-In, the break-ups and the coming back together to make it work. David Levithan’s writing is beyond superb. He has the capacity to string sentences like no other writer – that is his unique way to do so and that worked for me on all levels. For me, I could read and re-read this book – again and again and cherish it till I do not give enough of it. It is subtle, surreal, magical and takes you to a love – real, funny, heart-breaking and spectacular. You are missing out on something if you haven’t read it yet and I envy you if you would be reading it for the first time because it is so good.

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Book Review: Alice in Bed by Cathleen Schine

Title: Alice in Bed
Author: Cathleen Schine
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 9781250002402
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 240
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

Alice in Bed by Cathleen Schine is the debut novel of the writer, and for that reason alone it shines, without getting too sentimental. I normally am petrified of reading a debut novel, for two reasons alone: I might end up loving it, which means that if the second novel disappoints, I would not read the author again or I might end up not liking it and then that is the end of it anyway. In both the cases, it is a loss-loss situation. Having said that, I am looking forward to reading all of Schine’s books (Alice in Bed was first published in 1983) – To the Birdhouse, The Love letter, The Evolution of Jane and The Three Weissmanns of Westport.

Alice in Bed, as the title suggests is about Alice in Bed. Her legs are stiff and she cannot walk, nor can she move them. Pain is a part and parcel of her life and she has somehow gotten used to it. She is prodded and poked in the hospital by doctors – engulfed by her ailments with no hope in sight. She is at the hospital and that is her life. The doctors do not know what is wrong with her and Alice is pissed. The transformation occurs when Alice gets around the hospital (in its hallways and outside) and gets to know more people and their lives and analyses her own with that funny wit and sardonic humour. She also falls in love (temporarily though) with a blond surfer before she returns home.

Hospitals are not the happiest places to be at. Schine knows how to portray “hospital life” with such clarity that the reader is sometimes taken aback. The book is morbid and funny at the same time. There was something odd and crazy at the same time about the characters in the hospital and yet there were times that I caught myself warming up to them.

The most interesting part about the book is that it is not narrated in the whiny tone which could have been possible. Instead it is refreshing (given the hospital in question) and hilarious. It takes a look at life with a “tongue-in-cheek” approach and “in-your-face” writing style. Cathleen Schine is such a good writer that even if there are parts you do not agree with (which was the case when I was reading it) or not like, it doesn’t really matter. My favourite characters were Alice’s distracted mother to Dr. Davis and Simchas Fresser. There is wit, pathos, and sometimes sex as well in the book. Alice in Bed sparkles on almost every level.

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Book Review: Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor

Title: Ghost Light
Author: Joseph O’Connor
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1-250-00231-0
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages:246
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

There is always a set of readers who appreciate a stream of consciousness narrative and those who do not. For me personally, I love it. It is a great form of writing and I have always enjoyed it a little more than the other forms. It is with this spark I started reading, “Ghost Light” and was surprised to know that the SOC narrative was used in this one.

Ghost Light is a brilliantly written small book of many wonders on every page. When I say wonders, I am referring to the literary strokes by Joseph O’Connor and I love how he has melded fact with fiction in this captivating love story, the story of Irish playwright J.M. Synge and his lover Molly Allgood, the Irish actress with the stage name of Maire O’Neill.

The novel opens in a dodgy London boarding house in a shady neighbourhood of 1952, where an older Molly is reviewing and revisiting her past with Synge. She lives alone expect for the ghostly presence of her dead-lover and so begins her story. The stream of consciousness voice of Molly (you are sixty-five now) keeps changing from second to third person narrative (as the years in which the novel is set changes from 1905 to 1952 and back and forth) which adds the much needed flexibility to the novel and also at the same time distances the reader from the characters and read the novel in a more objective manner.

The book is full of Irish references – poems, plays, songs and the landscape. As a reader you can almost imagine what is taking place and how. Young Molly has a brilliant narrative and it is interesting to note how it emerges to be what it is in her old age, from the robust and lively girl who falls for an older man. The plot further moves to letting the readers know that how Molly and John had to keep their affair a secret and the measures taken to ensure that their love was not found out by anyone.

What O’Connor also does is brings to forth the fact that in the good old days of 1905, it was very risqué of women to act in a play and Molly but of course was an actor, which is another interesting angle to the book. The book has several parts which are real and the rest are fiction according to the writer. Mr. O’Connor grew up next to the Synge house and the novel is a result of this fascination.

The novel like I said is not for everyone. Only if you think you have the patience for this kind of narrative and structure then you should pick it up, mainly because of the writing. Having said that, the novel has great structure and a grand scope that any reader will immediately take to. The love story is poignant and touches the right chords of the heart. The sense of place is vivid, which is what is expected in a book like this one. Last but not the least the book is truly mesmerizing. A must read.

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Book Review: The Druggist of Auschwitz by Dieter Schlesak

Title: The Druggist of Auschwitz: A Documentary Novel
Author: Dieter Schlesak
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1250002372
Genre: Non-Fiction, Literary Fiction
Pages: 384
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

The Druggist of Auschwitz is the title of this book, and for most the title is enough to either want you to read this book or stay away from it. For me it was the former. I had to read it. I have been interested in the Holocaust since forever now and that is only to understand how human nature works. The violence it is capable of and sometimes what lengths it can go to.

The author Dieter Schlesak was only 10 years old when the Russians invaded his town of Sighisoara in German Transylvania (now Rumania) in August 1944, and since then he has been trying to understand the Holocaust and how it happened ever since. The Druggist of Auschwitz is an attempt at that – to create something monumental about the possible paralyzing horror that occurred – and in this book Schlesak does a brilliant job by providing both sides of the story, that of the victim and that of the perpetrator.

On one hand in the book, you have the Jew who is safe from the horrors, a collective narrator, called, “Adam Salmen” – who is the Sondercommando of the Jewish “Special Action Squad” under the German Rule. His job is to report on the deaths in the gas chambers and tally them against the list and the cremation ovens. In his spare time, he maintains a diary describing the horrors and his state of mind and emotions.

The other side of the story is of Viktor Capesius, formerly a pharmacist in Sighisoara, whom the author knew personally. He was in charge of the SS dispensary and had control over Zyklon B that was used in the gas chambers. He also participated in the selection process of spring of 1944 of choosing who was fit to work and who wasn’t, and would ultimately meet their death. Capesius did a lot in his role – from stealing money from the Jews and stripping them to their very last valuable to converting their gold teeth to gold for his personal benefit, this book says it all. It also tells the reader of how the pharmacist met his end.

The author uses the druggist as the central voice in the book for exploring the horrors of Auschwitz. There is only a thin fictional gloss to the entire book. Otherwise all of it is true and real and maybe that is what makes it what it is. The Druggist of Auschwitz uses a new way of chronicling the lives of individuals who participated in the world’s greatest horror. The victim’s nature and role and the torturer’s aspect are clearly laid out. The writing is not easy. There will be times when the reader will be tempted to shut the book and not read further. At the same time, the writing style is hypnotic and totally worth a read. The amazing combination of fact and fiction makes it up for everything that you have read earlier about the Holocaust. I would highly recommend this one.

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Book Review: Smut: Stories by Alan Bennett

Title: Smut: Stories
Author: Alan Bennett
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 978-1250003164
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 152
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

I must admit that while I had known of Alan Bennett (and owned a copy of, “The Uncommon Reader); I hadn’t read anything by him prior to reading, “Smut”, a collection of two short stories. The stories are definitely a tease, but not smutty at all, as the title claims them to be, at least not in this time and age.

Smut consists of two stories, “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson” and, “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes”. Both are centered on one theme: Being smutty and being candid, or the lack of it sometimes. Smut, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes tries too hard to scandalize but it cannot, not the modern reader, who I would assume has read about these themes earlier.

The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson centers on a 55-year old widow, trying to make a living of being a “part-time demonstrator” for the medical school – in essence, playing the part of a person with an illness, so the students can correctly diagnose. At the same time she is taken in by a couple from the medical school, who are her lodgers and watches them have sex in exchange of rent. Initially I did take some time to get used to the twist the story took, however it wasn’t that embarrassing. The story however does end on a very surprising note and makes the reader think, just that little bit.

The second story, “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes” is about an over-possessive mother, her recently married son and her henpecked husband. The story unfolds when a well-kept secret of the son, Graham is about to be exposed. Again, being gay in the story is hardly smutty. It is the way of life. Having said that, it is still Bennett’s writing that takes you by the horns and makes you read what he has written.

Alan Bennett has the verve in his writing. The candour and the beauty of words hit straight through without any intensity or depth. The simplicity of his words, take the reader to the edge and then he reveals the twist in the tale quite nonchalantly. Bennett’s writing has to be experienced. The writing is sharp and makes no bones about the fact that the British like to have sex and indulge. The decadence is at the highest level and does not beat around the bush as well. I will read more by him for sure.

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Book Review: The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano

Title: The Third Reich
Author: Roberto Bolano
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 978-0330535793
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 288
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Roberto Bolaño has always fascinated me with his works – absurd, odd, strange, surreal and brutal at times, he ensured that he left a legacy that his fans will never forget and from this emerges his new book, ‘The Third Reich’.
The Third Reich in bits and pieces did remind me of Ian McEwan’s, ‘The Comfort of Strangers’, but barring the basic plot was where the similarity ended. This book was discovered after his death and apparently quite complete, it is his early work. This work has been beautifully translated by Natasha Wimmer. There are traces of immense surrealism in this one, which Bolaño would later use and implement in The Savage Detectives and 2666.

The Third Reich centers on Udo Berger, a German in his mid-twenties, who is taking a vacation with his girlfriend in a beach hotel on the Costa Brava, where he has spent many a vacation with his family as a child. Together with another German couple, they engage in the usual activities – swimming, eating, drinking, sunbathing and making love. However, this vacation is not what either of the couple thought it would turn out to be. All is not well in paradise. They are involved with a local sinister group, called, The Wolf, The Lamb and El Quemado (the burnt one), a South-American immigrant who hires pedal boats on the beach. The four individuals are further taken in by acts of off-stage violence which results in a death and that changes the complete course of events.

The title of the book surprisingly (or not) comes from a game called, “The Third Reich” that Udo plays in a hotel room which becomes something more. I think Roberto Bolaño was obsessed with Germany in many ways. Many of his books deal with German Literature and he also deals with German History in a very peculiar manner.

The novel is delightful. It depicts the war-game scenario to the open, signaling its peculiarities in a poetic, stylistic manner. The book is strange and at the same time it does what it has to – entraps the reader into it. I would highly recommend this book to Roberto’s fans and also to the ones who have never read him.

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