Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Stuart Little by E.B. White

Watching my little baby girl grow up has inspired me to read children's books. One of the novels that I recently read was the classic Stuart Little, the ageless tale of a small mouse who is born to a human family in New York. Despite his diminutive stature, Stuart proves to have an explorer's heart, as shown by his adventures sailing a toy boat and his scuffles with the house cat.

His greatest adventure, however, arises when his best friend Margalo, a little brown hen-bird, escapes from his nest. Determined to find his trusted companion, Stuart starts off on a quest to find him.

This book is very well written and wonderfully told. Like Kafka's classic novel Metamorphosis, in which a travelling salesmen wakes up one day as a bug, the reader can easily suspend disbelief and accept the fact that a tiny mouse can be born into a human family. If I had one small critique, however, is that the book ending seems a bit rushed. The final scenes do not seem like the logical consequences of the story, but rather as the quick scribbles of a tale that needed to end suddenly.

Overall, however, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the day when I can read it to my daughter.

4 out of 5 stars

Toby Alone by Timothée de Fombelle (Translated from French by Sarah Ardizzone)

As a new parent, I recently decided to start reading children's literature. One of the first books that I borrowed from the library was Toby Alone, a harsh tale about a small boy named Toby who is only one-and-a-half millimetres tall and lives in a tree.

Although advertised for young people, this book tackles many adult-themes. For instance, the subject of dictatorship is raised through the character of Joe Mitch, a very coarse, brutal and disagreeable man who connives to take control of the tree, which serves as the world for Toby's tiny race. The depletion of natural resources and climate change are also discussed through the actions of Joe Mitch's men, who are mining, carving and building in the tree at an unsustainable rate.

The plot of the story is quite interesting, even if it is a bit violent. The novel centres around the family of Toby, whose father is a great scientist. One day, Toby's father makes an incredible discovery, but fearful of how it could be used in the wrong hands, refuses to divulge its secret. In retaliation, the family is banned to the lower branches of the tree, far away from their family. The story revolves around the consequences of this exile, while Joe Mitch's men are rapidly destroying the tree.

As pure story-telling this book is excellent. The imagination required to write this story is quite impressive, as is the skillful combination of hard themes into a tale that children can understand. Nevertheless, I must admit that the level of violence in the novel disturbed me. The scenes of beatings, fighting, death and mentions of executions were unsettling. While I would recommend this book to my adult friends, I am not sure if I would feel comfortable giving it to my daughter before she turns into a mature teenager.

4 out of 5 starts

Where's Spot by Eric Hill

My baby girl is now a toddler who loves to waddle around the house. Although she can can't form sentences yet, I want her to appreciate books, so I have been borrowing some from the library for her.

Where's Spot? is a cute pop-up book for little children that allows them to "search" for Spot the dog who is hiding somewhere in the house. The book is a lot of fun, even if some of the reviews are a bit over the top. (Parent magazine said: "Spot is one of the essential experiences of childhood," which is a bit much). That being said, this is a great story that will encourage your little ones to love books.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This masterful book is a wonderful work of art. Set in Paris in 1931, the story revolves around a 12-year-old orphan boy called Hugo Cabret, who lives in a busy railway station. After the death of his father, the boy is taken to the train station by his uncle where he works as a clock keeper. (Hugo’s mother, who is never mentioned, is assumed dead).

After his uncle disappears, little Hugo continues to live in the railway station where he maintains the station's clocks. What truly inspires him, however, is his almost obsessive work in fixing an automaton that his father, who was a fixer of clocks, discovered before his death. In order to repair the mechanical robot, Hugo steals mechanical pieces from a toy store inside the railway station, which is manned by a man named Georges.

The ensuing story is a masterpiece of children’s literature. With 158 pictures and 26,159 words, Brian Selznick reveals George’s cinematic secret, the magic inside the automaton, the incredible story of young Hugo, and the friendship that develops between the boy and Isabelle, the friendly girl who lives with her godfather Georges and his wife. The combination of illustrations and written text is an aesthetic delight, which is like nothing I have ever read before. If I had to use a metaphor, I would say that this book is a literary sculpture, in which the story is told through text and images.

In a publicity letter, Selznick writes that the book is a, “531 page novel in words and pictures. Unlike most novels though, the images inside don’t just illustrate the story, they help tell it. … [T]his is not exactly a novel, and it’s not quite a picture book, and it’s not really a graphic novel, or a flip book, or a movie, but a combination of all these things.”

This book was so captivating that I read it in a single sitting. The illustrations are beautiful, the story magical, the writing masterful and the combination of pictures-and-text a true work of art.

5 out of 5 stars

Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker

This is a brilliant novel. The book revolves around an unnamed 22-year-old Cambridge graduate student in French literature, who is writing a thesis on the work of Paul Michel, a fictitious homosexual French novelist. In the beginning, our narrator is not interested in Michel the man, but only in his written work, which first emerged in the 1960s. However, after his girlfriend tells him that Michel has been held for years in a mental institution after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he decides to go to France to meet the author of the books he is studying.

Once in France, the narrator meets Michel and falls in love with him. After pleading with the hospital to release the famous author, the two men embark on a road trip that changes both of their lives. Hiding in the background, meanwhile, is the ghost of French philosopher Michel Foucault, and his mysterious relationship with Paul Michel.

The central theme of this book is the relationship between author and reader. Some hold the view that this relationship should be limited to the printed page, and that the life of a writer outside the confines of their work is not important. In this excellent novel, however, Duncker turns this proposition on its head, by presenting a vivid portrait of the novelist Paul Michel, while keeping anonymous the name of the “reader”, presented in the form of the young Cambridge student.

In the hands of a less talented writer, this book could have been incredibly pretentious. In the skillful hands of Duncker, however, questions of love, human relations, the role of literature, and the symbiotic interaction between author and audience are presented in a captivating and thought provoking way.

A great book that should be read by anyone who loves literature.

5 out of 5 stars

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Mr Mee by Andrew Crumey

Andrew Crumey is a literary contradiction. On the positive side, he is capable of being a brilliant novelist who can weave literary magic. When he’s at his best (which is often the case) his words are a sheer delight to read and his narrative flow hypnotic. Unfortunately, he can also come across as an academic bore, and in the process affirm the worst stereotypes of university English departments. He is also not shy about getting weird, as is the case with the creepy sex scenes in this novel that are borderline porn. To use a metaphor, reading Crumey is like listening to a breathtaking symphony, but just as the orchestra is building to its climax, the music suddenly stops and a crazy person – with a whoopee cushion in hand – suddenly starts making fart noises while taking off his clothes. As I said, this book is part-genius, part-child-prank.

This is the third novel by Crumey that I have read. The first I thought was so-so, while the second I loved. This book falls somewhere in between. From a stylistic point of view Mr Mee is extraordinary. Crumey’s ability to construct a single, unified tale by combining three separate stories is masterful. While it’s true that he uses the same narrative structure as in Music, in a Foreign Language, his writing is so good one can easily overlook the fact that he’s recycling a previously used narrative structure.

But not everything is perfect with this novel. In certain parts, the narrative flow comes across as the dry musings of an old, boring literature professor, whose pedantic whine will put anyone to sleep. In his defence, Crumey could argue that the character in question is a middle-aged literature professor, and that my problem is that I don’t like this character, not that he is poorly written. There is some truth to this. Nevertheless, a boring personality is still a bore, and no amount of literary analysis can say otherwise.

On the opposite spectrum, some of the sex in this book is unnecessarily voyeuristic. This disturbed me a bit, as I got the feeling that the final sex scene was inserted not because it fit, but because Crumey simply wanted to write a creepy sex scene. If the central theme of your book deals with sexual taboos (e.g. Lolita) then it makes sense to include otherwise shocking sexual acts. If your book does not require it, however, then inserting gratuitous sexual behaviour in an otherwise excellent book is simple gratuitousness.

What about the plot? Well, this novel weaves together three separate tales. The first narrator is Mr Mee, a mind-boggling naïve Octogenarian who is searching for the mysterious Rosier Encyclopaedia, an 18th century work that reportedly proves the non-existence of the universe. The second narrator is a middle-aged professor in the same town as Mr Mee, who writes a book about two men called Ferrand and Minard, two minor characters who appear in the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The third story describes the adventures of Ferrand and Minard, which may or may not have been written by the middle-aged professor. In masterful strokes, this novel blends these three stories into a coherent whole. This otherwise fantastic work, however, is undermined by certain chapters that are mind-numbing, as well as some sex scenes whose only purpose it would appear is to allow Crumey to write them.

In short, this novel is half-Beethoven-genius, half-whoopee cushion clown.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars