A View of the Empire at Sunset by Caryl Phillips

Title: A View of the Empire at Sunset
Author: Caryl Phillips
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 978-0374283612
Genre: Literary Fiction, Biographical
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

First, read this book. Then read all works by Jean Rhys, besides Wide Sargasso Sea. Or read all works by Jean Rhys and then read this book. Anyway, please do read Jean Rhys. She was a wonderful writer and I am only too glad that we have more of her to read, or even more about her, which Caryl Phillips does a brilliant job of in his book, “A View of the Empire at Sunset”.

And might I also say that this book will not be a happy read. It is dark, sullen and unforgettable (at least to me it was and still is). The book is a fictionalised telling of the life and times of Jean Rhys. Caryl Phillips does a brilliant job of fictionalising the life of Gwen Williams (Jean Rhys’s real name), the Welsh doctor’s daughter, who always wanted to be an insider to an English world, but was never one. The constant theme of home and missing what is home and then the back and forth to find home will keep you hooked and yet there were places where I thought: Wish he had written more about her writing life.

“A View of the Empire at Sunset” is about Gwen’s loves, her failed marriages and what she kept searching in men – and the translation of that in her novels and short stories (that is if you have read works, you can for sure see glimpses of those men and her in them). Her constant disappointments in love, miserable assessment of self and alcoholism loom large through her characters in Voyage in the Dark, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie and Good Morning, Midnight.

The place and setting of A View of the Empire at Sunset is for sure atmospheric – set in the waning years of the British Empire – Gwen thus is always an outsider from her West Indies birthplace, to her return now and then. The novel begins and ends in 1936, thirty years after she was sent to school and thirty years before she published Wide Sargasso Sea, which gave her career a boost like no other.

Having said that, Rhys’s travails are painful. At times, I just couldn’t bear to read about them. In all of this though, there are snatches of pure beauty and grace in the book, that Phillips manages to give us quite elegantly. Please do read this book if you want to know more about Gwen Williams the person and lesser about Jean Rhys, the writer.

 

Miss Subways by David Duchovny

Title: Miss Subways
Author: David Duchovny
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
ISBN: 978-0374210403
Genre: Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Humour
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4 stars

Miss Subways is all about New York. Even if you haven’t been there, reading this book will just make you want to. And if you have been there, then you would want to visit it again and again after reading this love story with an edge, and loads of humour. I absolutely loved Duchovny’s Holy Cow and this one a little more.

Emer is a simple woman living in New York City who takes the subway, buys ice cream from the shop around the corner, aspires to become a writer, and lives with her boyfriend Con. That’s essentially her life, on almost a daily basis. And then it changes completely as one fine day something extraordinary occurs and Emer findself in a world full of mythical figures from around the world – in a New York she cannot seem to recognize.

The book is part fairy tale, part love story, part fantasy, and what does it take really to want to have it all. David Duchnovny, the writer is so imaginative and part of it of course comes from the acting – and it shows in the sub-plots – the inspiration from Irish and global mythical figures and the linking of them to Emer and Con’s lives.

You think the story is going one way, till it goes the other and you are left stunned as a reader, not knowing what is going on, till you do. There is this sense of magic realism, and an irreverent tone to the novel which I enjoyed a lot. There are like I said a lot of fables – from almost every part of the world which makes it even more exciting. Miss Subways is a read that will keep you guessing almost every chapter.

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

Title: The Water Cure
Author: Sophie Mackintosh
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
ISBN: 978-0241334744
Genre: Women, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic
Pages: 256
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4 stars

I finished reading The Water Cure at neck-break speed. There was no other way to read this book. Yes, it started off a little slow. Yes, it took its time to grow on me but when it did, there was no turning back. There is a lot happening in the book – it is dystopian, it is feministic (well, you will struggle to see it but its there) and in most parts, it is also very fantastical. It may seem that there is no story really but there is, and the writing is on point – every word and every sentence where it should be.

At various points in the book, you might even think that the book is loosely based on King Lear and maybe it is, but it is so much more than that because the King soon disappears in the book. House on the island, alone by the sea. Three girls, Grace, Lia, and Sky live with their parents’ Mother and King (see the use of a patriarchy term right here – while the parents have no names, the father is always known as King).

Their worldly knowledge comes only from what the King dishes them. They have no contact with the outside world. They are in a world of their own. Till of course, like I said, King disappears, Mother takes over and their world crumbles as other men wash up on their beach, lay claim to their land and everything changes for them – in an instant.

Mackintosh’s writing isn’t easy but it is extremely engaging. There are times when you feel the book isn’t even dystopian as it claims to be, but there are only parts that are far and few in-between. The plot is for sure disturbing, but if it is to your taste, then I would recommend that you carry forth and finish the read, because it is extremely rewarding. The storytelling is unique and mesmerizing. Mackintosh is a new voice that has to be heralded, and this one most certainly read like a debut. It is that good.

The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton

Title: The Shepherd’s Hut
Author: Tim Winton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
ISBN: 978-0374262327
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 288
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

“The Shepherd’s Hut” by Tim Winton is unlike anything I have read this year. It is experimental, it is thrilling and takes the reader on a self-discovery along with the protagonist in so many ways. There are elements to the novel that the reader realizes only either half-way in the book or when the book is done with and you are ruminating over it. Because ruminate you will. It is that kind of book.

The story is about Jaxie Clackton, a brutalized rural youth who is on the run from the scene of his father’s violent death and heads to the wilds of Western Australia. All he wants is to be left alone and he thinks he will survive with a rifle and a water jug. He is so mistaken about that. He ends up meeting once a priest, Fintan MacGillis and there begins the story of an unlikely friendship, love and yearning.

I loved Cloudstreet. That’s the only other book I have read by Winton. In comparison, it was an easier read. The Shepherd’s Hut doesn’t make it easy at all when it comes to cultural references. I found myself reaching to Google after almost every chapter. Barring that, Winton has captured the essence of isolation and solitude beautifully, almost close to perfection. The dreadful landscape, the tension of the characters and the connecting storyline falls perfectly in place with the harsh truth – just like a jigsaw puzzle.

You find yourself empathizing with both characters, their intentions, their aspirations, but it is Jaxie who will eventually take your heart away. What I also found most surprising is that I never got bored in the entire book given that it had only two major characters and almost no one else. Winton does a marvelous job of keeping the reader engaged throughout the book. The characters are not only fascinating but also extremely engrossing. It is the language, landscape and Jaxie and Fintan that make this book what it is – a heady ride of self-discovery and friendship.

 

The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg

Title: The Third Hotel
Author: Laura van den Berg
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 978-0374168353
Genre: Literary Fiction, Fantastical fiction,
Pages: 224
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

“The Third Hotel” is a strange book. A strange and yet, a highly fulfilling, crackling read really. Clare is widowed and decides to go to Havana for a horror movie festival, which she had planned with her husband, a film critic. And when she does end up going to Cuba, strange apparitions and incidents occur that resemble what she is thinking or feeling – sort of the inner life we all carry within ourselves. She suddenly sees her husband alive and follows him into a world, where reality and fiction blur and that in essence is the plot of the story.

Laura van den Berg’s stories and novels have this quality of the fantastical. I think it is a constant as it has been repeated in “The Isle of Youth” (a collection of short stories) and even “Find Me” (a novel) which I have read. Her novel isn’t easy to get into but once you do, there is no stopping you as a reader.

The author takes the gruesome, the horror, the extraordinary and blends it with the everyday loneliness. There is this raw emotional power in the novel that is consistent and cohesive to the entire plot and the way characters behave. It almost reminded me of Murakami, Kafka and Cortazar a lot – the psychological revelation and the mystery surrounding everything – from the places to people.

Havana in itself is such a major character in the book that the book is nothing without it. Also, as you read along, the story takes over – it creeps on you unexpectedly – with multiverses and the undead presence of Clare’s husband that forms the crux of the novel. Berg’s writing is precise, blunt and told in effortless prose that is ambiguous and also thrilling at the same time. It is a challenging read but immensely rewarding. Stay with it.