May Book Haul

Book Review: Heft

‘Heft is a tale revolving around the two distant lives of Arthur Opp and Kel Keller, the two most influential men in Charlene’s life. 

The narration is skilfully divided between the two characters and overall flows effectively, however what was disappointing about this novel is that I enjoyed the narration of Arthur far more than I did the narration of Kel. I found the character development and personality of the teenager’s narration disappointingly unrealistic, which is a shame considering how enjoyable I found the loveable and well built life of Arthur Opp. Despite that, I was on many occasions drawn into Kel’s emotional turmoil: I felt frustration and sadness on his behalf and I was moved by what he went through. However, in my opinion, his narration was far too stable and well-thought out to realistically match the teenage habits and misdeeds he partook in, thus rendering his character inaptly contradictory. 

I did enjoy the relationship between Arthur, the overweight former teacher, and his new house maid: Yolanda (so much so that I could have happily read a novel about just these two characters). Their relationship is one between two lonely outcasts, however one has a positive outlook on life whilst the other negative. Moore blends comedy, fear, loneliness and satisfaction engagingly within Arthur’s narration, and I emphasise once again my despondency that this blend wasn’t sustained throughout the entire novel, as its strength was lost between the deviation between the two narrators.
However, I can’t claim this to be a bad novel. I would conclude it to be a mildly enjoyable read as it did move me and entertain me at times, but unfortunately my emotions were only engaged periodically and for far too brief a period of time. ★★★

Book Review: The Help

You’re welcomed to Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s by the humbling voice of Aibileen, the help of Elizabeth Leefolt. Her job? To clean and raise white children: currently she’s raising Mae Mobley. She’s raised more white children than most of the help in the town, most have all grown up, have help of their own. But they’re her only family around. Her son was killed a little while ago.
Her best friend, Minny, can’t hold her tongue to save her life. She keeps getting fired for her attitude, well, actually, she has no attitude. She speaks the truth. The white people don’t like hearing it. But there’s one person who doesn’t mind the truth. Skeeter, whose just returned home from graduating University. She wants to write, but the town stifles her, and she wants to rant, but the only set of ears who would listen to her have gone; her mother’s help, Constantine. Where has she gone? Well, that’s something her mother is too ashamed to confess.
These three voices leap between the chapters of the novel and guide you through the suppression faced. In a small town like Jackson no one’s safe from domestic violence, rejection, heartbreak, death, alcoholism, racism - but none of those construct the main concern for the town, oh no, the only main concern is the diseases black people can give white people, and the solution: separate toilets.
This was an unbelievably moving novel. It was funny, heartbreaking and rather scary at times. I haven’t seen the film but some of the incidents within here are so graphic I highly doubt they would have made the film, which is a shame, as they were what built the novel’s character.
The most powerful emotion I felt in this novel was pride of the movements: I wish so much I had been born as part of the generation which helped push the fight for equality, because my admiration for all those who did shoots through the roof every time I think about what they went through and how much they accomplished.
The severity of racism wasn’t as extreme as I was expecting, which actually worked in the novel’s favour of not being a dark read, thus rendering it, in my opinion, more powerful and effectively moving.
I adored the narration, and even more so by the fact it wasn’t dominated by the main white character but dominated by the help. That’s what I wanted to see. When I saw adverts for the film I obviously see Emma Stone taking centre stage as the body behind a movement, and I was praying the novel wouldn’t concentrate on her but on those being oppressed - and honestly, it didn’t disappoint.
It far exceeded my expectations. I cried several times and the ending was brilliantly realistic and powerfully unsettling that, despite it seeming almost borderline inconclusive, it completed the journey poetically with a really strong sense for the need of continuation of the baby steps which are required to break down what appears to be unbreakable barriers, and the need to highlight that nothing can wholly be accomplished in one movement: it requires more voices and more eyes. ★★★★★

Book Review: Jill

The story centres Kemp, a first year English Literature student at Oxford University during the Second World War. He’s a Northern lad, he hasn’t come wit much, but he was lucky enough to gain a scholarship to attend. Unfortunately, he has to share his dorm room with the other English Literature student at his college, a laddish Londoner named Charles. Shy Kemp doesn’t know how to take Charles’ drinking, gambling and smoking, but he starts seeing him as a role model, and despite Charles always using his tea-sets and copying his essays, he respects him.
But one day, Kemp lies to Charles. Just to see if he can get away with it, like a little revenge. He tells Charles he has a younger sister named Jill. He elaborates on her life, her looks, he even sends a letter to her. But then the idea becomes fixated in his head, Kemp becomes obsessed with his own creation, he wants her to have a story, have a life, so he starts writing her diary, but even that tires him out, it’s not the same, her image is fading in his own imagination. It’s only one day, when he’s wondering around a bookstore, that he sees someone. He sees Jill…Larkin doesn’t give himself enough credit for this book. It’s straightforward but wonderfully realistic. I enjoyed the plot-line and I loved how it was written (though I was a tad biased to Kemp’s personality being as he was ever so similar to myself (:)  The only thing which let this novel down was, sadly, the ending, but when I take it into consideration, I can’t honestly think of how else it would have ended. The only impression I got was that it was, unfortunately, rushed. Besides that, the overall novel was excellently paced and not too focused on the timeline (so if one isn’t into WWII novels, this may be something you’re happy to hear, however if you’re like me, don’t worry, it’s not completely ignored, but it certainly isn’t a main feature). I would recommend it to any Larkin fans, or beginners. It has that lovely english charm you find in many English novels, so if you are fond of British literature for that reason, this is certainly a nice novel to add to your collection. ★★★★

Book Review: The English Patient

This story is set around the second world war, a setting which I personally adore when reading novels, but the two locations are pretty unorthodox, as the novel is split between Northern Africa and Italy. Within an abandoned villa in Italy lives Hana, a Canadian nurse, whom is treating a man referred to as ‘the English patient’- his identity is completely blackened out from the surrounding characters, physically and verbally, as the man is unrecognisably burnt after enduring a plane crash and refuses to reveal his identity, the only possession he has is an annotated copy of Herodotus’ ‘Histories’ containing details of his time spent in the desert. The other characters are Caravaggio, a friend of Hana’s father, who served for the British Intelligence during the war and the sapper, Kip, a Sikh soldier whom is working to dispose the unexploded bombs surrounding the area. The novel has one of the most powerful narrative frameworks I’ve  met in a long time, it glides between past and present, conversation and description like water, it feels like it was written so effortlessly (when you know it most certainly was not!) The skill of narration is by far Ondaatje’s finest quality, however the story itself certainly doesn’t fall short of the heights established my his authoritative talent. This type of novel is one which I like to categorise as a soul novel, one which is read as easily as one breathes. You live these types of novels, you’re there in these novels, it sinks in as easily as a calming film would. There is no vicious fighting, but it doesn’t lack action, and there is no inner turmoil of fetish fantasies and rampant sex, there is natural romance. Everything abut this novel is so realistic you don’t feel like you’re being told a tale, you see it instead. This is certainly up there in my favourite novels, it’s a fantastic read and I am thoroughly looking forward to reading it again soon.  ★★★★★

Book Review: The Hobbit

And so we meet Bilbo, whom many (like myself), are guilty of only knowing for being the owner of the ring, for we were a select few members of the generation who delved into the film series of Lord of The Rings before even attempting the novels.
The Hobbit tells the tale of Bilbo’s main adventure, his adventure with thirteen dwarves in order to help them reclaim the Lonely Mountain with it’s treasure, but there’s a problem: there’s a dragon in the way.
This was such a wonderfully delightful story to read! There were so many charming quirks, Bilbo’s love of tea and cakes (of which the poor dear is continuously derpived of), his little buttons, his little handkerchiefs and hat, the Dwarves poetic singing, but then you have the most fantastical scenes of battles and goblins and spiders - Tolkien establishes, in my view, the most perfect balance of adventure with charm.
There was one main thought I had from the beginning of this novel: the ring. I came in knowing what it was capable of, yet I was so surprised at how differently it is treated in this novel. I was also expecting so much from Golem, but no, he has a chapter and is gone, never again. Now that was amazing. The secrets of the ring and Golem are touched on so lightly that it made me respect Tolkien even more than I did before, for now I realise how fantastically he developed these plot lines in the next three novels!
What I was always concerned about was the notion that this would be a very heavy ‘fantasy novel’. I’m not someone who’s into very severe and in-depth fantasy stories, stories which are borderline WOW. That never appealed to me and still doesn’t today. What’s strange with this novel is I kept forgetting it was a fantasy book, the details weren’t too heavy but that isn’t a bad thing, on the contrary, it made it such a beautifully pleasant read!
My years of worries about this novel were all so unnecessary, nothing was complicated, nothing was dark and heavy like I expected. They are rather unusual adjectives to use when describing fiction so allow me to elaborate - I read some fantasy novels when I was younger and they were fictional version of steel and iron; masculine, brash, forceful, not really my cup of tea. Thus I expected Tolkien’s novels to be so too, as they were labelled to me when I was younger as ‘boys’ books’. Whoever described them as such should be punished for depriving me of such a tale for so long! ★★★★★

Book Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Well, technically this isn’t the correct name for the novel. It’s official title is ‘These Foolish Things’ but I didn’t know that when I saw it on the bookshelf at Watestones. I for one am not a fan of books with movie covers, so I approached the sales assistant to ask if they had another copy and they said no. I thought that was rather odd, but I really wanted to read the book so I took it home anyway, telling myself that I sincerely doubted it would be a life classic which I’d like to have an aesthetic value equal to its content, therefore the cover didn’t much matter. 
Well, technically I was right but that doesn’t distract from the fact that it is a very enjoyable read! Again, like the Descendants, I was pleasantly surprised with how it was written and how easily it made me laugh. This is a chuckle novel especially at the beginning. So what is it about?
Well, we first meet Ravi, a British Indian doctor and his wife, Pauline, whom have been landed, to Ravi’s displeasure, with Pauline’s father, Norman. Norman is what one would call ‘a dirty old man’, but he’s utterly hilarious for being whom he is, however, due to his character, he has been kicked out of so many retirement homes that now his daughter and son in law have to carry the burden. One evening, whilst complaining about his father in law to his cousin Sonny, Ravi inspires an entrepreneurial idea: a retirement home in India.
Thus the story is established. The novel skips back and forth between all the different lives of the pensioners in Britain who eventually all unite at ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ for differing reasons. A couple of the stories are rather heartbreaking, especially that of Muriel (I would be rather surprised if you did not, after reading the events that happen to her in Britain, hold a small silence of respect and reflection). We can’t escape the nagging in our heads about old age; either we know someone who is going through this, the worries knowing our parents will go through this, the tension knowing that we shall go through this, and let’s be honest, it’s not a time of life we associate with pleasure and happiness. Moggach doesn’t deflect from that concept, but it’s realistically challenged; why should it be viewed so badly? We don’t we just make the most of it closer to the end? the inevitable can’t be changed, so why should we carry on confining to the norm, living the same life we did day in and out we have until this moment? Spontaneity isn’t limited to the youth, to the childless, and once we pick one path in life we aren’t chained to it, and Moggach shows us that. It was a an extremely entertaining novel, though I was left feeling I’d been left behind at the end of the novel, like everyone had started a life without me and I was stuck here; an irony emphasised even more-so by the huge age difference between myself and the characters, but that was what made the novel successful - I was left feeling like I was missing out on what the elderly had attained. Now that is an accomplishment when writing about old age, so Moggach, I salute you. ★★★★