Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese

Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese, is written in sparse, straight-forward prose. It is the story of Saul Indian Horse, a thirty-something  Ojibway man; Saul is in a treatment center — in his case, for alcohol abuse — and he is writing the story of his life as therapy.
His story is brutally sad; he was separated from his family, put in a residential school, and as a child could only find solace while playing hockey, a game that he seems born to play. Saul has a memory buried in the dark recesses of his psyche and it takes him decades to unlock the source of his inner anger: it is more than the prejudice he encounters from the Zhaunagush, the white man, and it is even more than the losses of family members that he has suffered.
The novel includes some mystic sections, some brutal acts (particularly during Saul’s time in the residential school) and several examples of the typical prejudicial behaviour that First Nations peoples are/were exposed to in Canada, a country that assumes a false pride for its acceptance of all cultures and races.
I liked the novel, and I particularly enjoyed the sections that explore the spirituality and atmosphere of the First Nations’ connection to the natural environment. The author writes with a sincere clarity, and I found the sections that were set in the wilderness to be filled with a simple, poignant quality:

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“One day the clouds hung low and light rain freckled the slate-grey water that peeled across our bow. The pellets of rain were warm and Benjamin and I caught them on our tongues as our grandmother laughed behind us. Our canoes skimmed along and as I watched the shoreline it seemed the land itself was in motion. The rocks lay lodged like hymns in the breast of it, and the trees bent upward in praise like crooked fingers. It was glorious. Ben felt it too. He looked at me with tears in his eyes, and I held his look for a long time, drinking in the face of my brother.” [p. 18]

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I wish there were more sections set in the wilderness, but this novel delivers a message that takes the reader in a different direction; it is a melancholy reminder that we have a long way to go before our society can be termed enlightened, and we all require spiritual guidance and the helping hand of friends and family.

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Boxer Beetle, by Ned Beauman

The story in Boxer Beetle is split into two parts; one set in present-day London, the other in the 1930s.

The 1930s sections, which inhabit the bulk of the novel, introduce the reader to Seth Roach and Philip Erskine. Seth ‘Sinner’ Roach is a gay, brutish, alcoholic, Jewish boxer with nine toes and a diminutive stature. Philip Erskine is a pompous entomologist who is obsessed with eugenics and is a repressed homosexual; he thinks that Seth Roach is a perfect specimen. While on an expedition with a fellow entomologist, Erskine serendipitously discovers a ‘superior’ beetle with wings that, when unfolded, mimic the shape of a swastika; he captures several specimens and begins to selectively breed them.

Kevin Bloom is the protagonist in the present-day sections; he is sometimes called Fishy because he suffers from a rare disease (trimethylaminuria) that causes him to exude the scent of rotting fish. Kevin collects Nazi memorabilia, a hobby that drags him into a deadly intrigue that involves Seth Roach and a letter from Hitler to Dr. (Philip) Erskine. Kevin is kidnapped by a Welsh hit-man who is hunting for information on Seth Roach.

The plots from the two differing time-frames slowly converge; in the meantime, the reader encounters an intriguing collection of characters and subjects.

This is the second novel I’ve read by Ned Beauman (the other being The Teleportation Accident), and he appears to have a predilection for disagreeable protagonists who fail as truly sympathetic characters, but are capable of providing ample enjoyment. The author also sprinkles his prose with oddly revelatory sentences (page numbers refer to the North American trade paperback edition):

“He had a mole on his neck with six long wiry hairs sticking out of it, as if a spider had been shot from a catapult and embedded itself in his flesh.”
(Ch. 6, p. 67)

“The morning light peeked in through the windows of the mortuary, pasty and trembling like the sort of ghoulish little boy who would rather see a dead girl than a naked one.”
(Ch. 8, p. 86)

“She had so many freckles that Erskine wondered if she might have stolen some from other children.”
(Ch. 13, p. 159)

There are many subjects introduced in the novel (eugenics, atonal music, Darwinism, upper-class snobbishness, Fascism, invented languages, and more) and there are several set pieces, some of which work better than others. In addition to unlikeable protagonists, the story generally exposes negative situations, and none of the characters radiate happiness; it is not an uplifting novel by any stretch of the imagination. There is humour, but it is invariably at someone’s expense. I suppose Mr. Beauman is making a point, but I appreciate a lungful of fresh air once in a while.

Boxer Beetle is nicely constructed and the different plot elements dovetail fairly smoothly, but I preferred The Teleportation Accident, which seems like a lesser novel at first, but is more rewarding as a whole. Both books, however, are enjoyable, especially if you appreciate absurd, dark humour and misfits.

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Yellow Blue Tibia, a book review

Yellow Blue Tibia is the first novel by Adam Roberts I’ve read and I chose the novel because of Kim Stanley Robinson’s claim, reproduced on the novel’s cover, that it “Should have won the 2009 Booker Prize.” Robinson feels that science fiction novels are marginalized, and he may have a point, but to make a claim that a certain novel should win a prize is rather fatuous:  it would have been enough to state that he thinks it should have been considered for a Booker Prize (it wasn’t even long-listed), but to state that it should have won is provocative and invites undue criticism.

Although I began the novel with a certain prejudice, I was won-over by Robert’s writing, but I don’t think the book should have been considered for a major literary prize. The main character, Konstantin Andreiovich Skvorecky, is an enjoyable invention (sarcastic, and teeming with wry wit), and the story is quite engaging, but there wasn’t enough depth to fully immerse me as a reader, and Roberts has an annoying tendency to overdo some sections, as if readers are obtuse.

I enjoyed the novel, but it didn’t strike me as a particularly brilliant work of literature. As I mentioned, Kim Stanley Robinson believes (stated, in an article for the New Scientist) that Yellow Blue Tibia should have won the Booker Prize in 2009 (won by Hilary Mantel, for Wolf Hall). In the article, he complained that the novels that win tend to be ‘historical’ novels, which “…are not about now in the way science fiction is.” I disagree with his statement, but we all have our personal opinions.  Robinson lists a few other science fiction novels that he believes should have won the Booker Prize in previous years; again, I think to be taken seriously he should propose the novels as worthy choices for the prize, rather than stating that they should have won. I have only read one of the other books he mentioned (Air, by Geoff Ryman in 2005), and it is a novel that I think should have received more attention as a work of literature, but that is only my opinion, and — not surprisingly — I’ve never been asked to participate on the Booker Prize advisory committee, or as a judge. I don’t always agree with the winning book in prize selections; oftentimes, I think the Booker short-listed novels are superior to the winner; however, it is a subjective opinion, and the Booker Prize is not awarded by an individual.

I’m glad I read Yellow Blue Tibia; for the most part it was well written and I’ll probably try another of Adam Robert’s books. I was ill-disposed toward him ever since I read his review of Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper, in which he refers to her novel as “….an unusually literate piece of SF.” I think Grass is a decent book, but not particularly ‘literate.’ After reading the review I decided to steer clear of Adam Roberts’ novels; well, I have now read one, and I think he is a much better writer than Ms. Tepper, but that is only my opinion.

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The Einstein Intersection, a book review

Will our stories outlive us; and, if so, how will we be perceived when they are found?

Below is a short review of Samuel R. Delany’s The Einstein Intersection (1967); I’ve posted a more thorough review at Retrospeculative.

I think in this short novel, Delany is showing off (or he was a heck of a lot smarter than I was at the tender age of twenty-three), but if the reader can struggle through the confusing patches, there are delights to be had. Delany is definitely not for everyone, but there is some wonderfully lyrical writing, and the novel is quite satisfying if you’re able to immerse yourself in his world-vision. It amazes me that Delany was published in a pulp fiction market. His working title for the book was A Fabulous, Formless Darkness (from a William Butler Yeats work he’d quoted), but it was ‘re-worked’ by the publisher, Ace Books (of  garish covers and low-priced packaging fame). Ace‘s main audience was teenage boys who wanted formulaic plots with the usual science fiction stereotypes. Delany employed the stereotypes, but twisted them into unusual perspectives. Even though he set his stories far in the future, they were designed to describe the world as it was.

The novel takes place on Earth; however, it is set tens-of-thousands of years into the future: myths run rampant and are only partially explained at the crossroads of logic and irrationality (with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I’d suggest searching at the corner of Einstein Street and Gödel Avenue). Two of the major themes are travel, through space,  time, and thought, as echoed in Delany’s travels through the Mediterranean, Spain, and Greece (which he relates in between-chapter notes), and difference from the ‘norm’, as demonstrated by the mutating aliens, who are attempting to maintain a sense of conformity while sifting through the gossamer memories of a sentient species — humanity — that has vanished.

The reader is immersed in the alien’s milieu, just as the aliens are immersed in the quagmire of humanity’s psychic memories. Within the body of the novel, Delany has included some travel-notes, which he wrote while wandering through foreign lands, creating the novel. At one point [p.119], he writes: “…perhaps on rewriting I shall change Kid Death’s hair from black to red.”  But the reader has already encountered the character, and his hair is red, which demonstrates Delany’s interest in time, events in time, and awareness; what has been, what might have been, and what is. And he has also set up a conscious association between the author, the reader, and the words on the page (something he does to a dizzying degree in Dhalgren). At another point [p. 65], Delany implicitly states that “…the central subject of the book is myth.”

It is a book full of myth and peppered with confusion; nevertheless, if you enjoy a story that requires some cobbling together and leaves you thinking after you finish, I highly recommend it; along with Dhalgren, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, and the Return to Nevèrÿon series, it displays Delany at his mythical best.

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Special Topics in Calamity Physics

The first two-thirds of Special Topics in Calamity Physics appears to be nothing more than the set-up for a coming of age novel, but the novel’s final third unravels a murder (well, two murders, to be precise), with an undercurrent of conspiracy theory.

There are many clues dispersed within the first two-thirds of the book, which a careful reader can pick up on to make the denouement more interesting, but I found the writing a bit overwrought and clumsy; although, in retrospect, this may have been a device the author uses to remind us that the narrator is an unusual young lady (in her final year of high school). The narrator, Blue van Meer, is learned beyond her years, thanks to her father’s lessons  during their peripatetic life, moving  from city to city across America; unfortunately, Blue is awkward in social situations with her peer groups.

Blue’s father, Gareth van Meer, is a Political Science professor, but may be hiding secrets from Blue.

The novel is set up like a literature course syllabus, with chapters named after famous (for the most part) works of fiction; and the last chapter is a Final Exam, complete with true/false and multiple-choice questions about the solution to plot-points in the story. The chapter names have a slight (though by no means in-depth) connection to what takes place in the chapter (e.g.: Moby-Dick: a man drowns — is possibly murdered — in a swimming pool).

Ms. Pessl has also included several ‘visual aids’ (drawings) within the novel, and she has set up an entertaining website (but don’t expect to find any answers there).

There are no clean, clear cut answers provided for the solution to mysteries in the book (the answers are left to the reader), but I found it satisfying nonetheless.

The final two-hundred pages were excellent; I only wish the first three-hundred pages had been tighter and had received some pared-down editing, which might have made this book something truly special.

Recommended.

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Howards End, a book review

Howards End — written by a man in the Edwardian  era — has a surprisingly feminine touch (an interesting aside: Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty is loosely based on, and is an homage to, Howards End).

Howards End can be roughly divided into four basic character-groups:

The Blasts — Leonard and Jacky — who are socially marginalized due to their financial position in the lower strata of middle class. Leonard makes an attempt to raise his status with knowledge.

The Wilcox family, who epitomize the Capitalist industrialization of England, particularly the loutish Charles, and his father Henry, who has the great fortune to become acquainted with two remarkable women; something within Henry recognizes the depth of their souls, but he is unable to delve deeply enough to fully comprehend them. Henry is cast as the novel’s hero, but I found this characterization difficult to accept. The Wilcox women — with the notable exception of the spiritual mother-figure, Ruth Wilcox — are inconsequential, minor characters, floating through the novel as counter-examples to the Schlegel sisters.

The Schlegel sisters, who are the central characters (their younger brother, Theobald (‘ Tibby’), is an intellectual; emotionally detached from society): they are ‘modern’ Edwardian women, within the vanguard of emancipation. Helen is vivacious and impetuous, and Margaret — the novel’s heroine — is intelligent, imaginative and practical.

And then there is Howards End, which is a country home, but also a character. For the most part it rests gently along the border of the story, but it is the spiritual heart of the novel. The description of Howards End is based on E.M. Forster’s beloved childhood home, Rooks Nest.

Howards End is a humanistic novel, filled with sparkling writing and keen insights regarding the beauty, humor and tragedy of life.

Recommended.

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