I’d heard such strong opinions about the Time Travellers Wife before I read it. It seemed to divide people into two camps, the lovers and the haters. Normally when this happens to book or a film or whatever, I’ll read or watch or whatever it and decide that everyone is wrong and the subject matter is pretty average. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and the Time Travellers Wife is one of them. In other words, it’s shit.
But how did it go wrong? I think most people will agree it has a wonderfully trashy sci-fi premise (although again I know people who would object to that…). There’s a girl who falls in love with a guy, but the guy cant stop travelling through time and hi-jinks ensue. With a concept like that, I think most author’s would struggle to fail. Somehow, having done the hard work, Audrey Niffenegger fails spectacularly, and she does so for 2 reasons.
The first is that she misses out all the dark and interesting stuff in the novel. Early on it’s revealed that Mr Time Traveller is haunted by the death of his mother, who died in a car crash when he was four. As a result of his time travelling medical condition, he ends up watching this happen over and over, from a different viewpoint each time. This is a dark, brooding and really interesting idea, and is ripe for some emotional exploitation. However, having been told about all of these visits you know what happens? It never gets mentioned again. Any writer worth half their salt would have brought you back to this scene half a dozen times, and the more Hellerian amongst them would have even made him accidentally cause the accident. Missed opportunites such as this frequent the novel.
The second issue is that there is no purpose or point to the book. I learned after reading that the original idea for this book was for Niffenegger to write a metaphor for her perfect guy. As a result of this, the book is heavy on sentimentality and light on any actual moral or point. The only theme I could discern was the loneliness associated with being alone, but this is negated by one small thing: The guy fucking time travels. How am I expected to feel the loss of any character if the guys keeps jumping through time and visiting everyone?!? Regular book clubbers will remember from last week that One Day won me over with it’s charming characters and concept. Part of it tackled a very similar theme, but you know what? It didn’t have someone jumping out of time to console people!
I should probably bring this review to a close before my brain explodes. As far as I can tell people who want to read this book fall into two camps. People who want time travel and people who want a love story. My recommendation to the time team is to find some proper science fiction. For the love train, how about you read One Day?
Monday 31 January 2011
Monday 24 January 2011
One Day
Emma and Dexter have a night together after their graduation. This is the 15th July 1988, and they are in Edinburgh. They decide as they are heading in different directions they should be friends. Life goes on. One day shows you what happens on the 15th July the next year, and the year after that, and that day for the next 20 years of their lives. It sounds like a pathetic love story, it is in fact a wonderful book.
Quite why this book got so under my skin I’m finding hard to pinpoint. Having moved from Edinburgh to London, like Em and Dex, perhaps I found it a bit easier to identify with them. I think it’s more to do with the excellent characterisation. You’re seeing their lives, you understand where they are, how they feel and why they feel it. It’s like having two best friends who you get to catch up with once a year.
The book covers many other aspects of modern life, and I think the book is as much about being alone as being in love. The author, David Nicholls, seems to have a fantastic insight into what makes people tick. Why they make mistakes and what brings them together (or keeps them apart). It’s little moments, like Emma realising that she cant speak to someone she’s known for 15 years, not because they’ve fallen out, but because their partner’s have, and the battle lines have been drawn. Or when Dexter calls girls in the night to try and see them. You know it’s not because of his rampant libido, it’s because he’s lonely, and doesn’t know how to deal with that.
There’s one particularly brilliant section on how weddings happen in your life. The first wave is when you’re at university, and marriage is basically a rebellion against your parents. The second wave is your mid twenties. There’s still a sense of how silly having a wedding is, but people are starting to take it more seriously. The third wave comes in your thirties. By this time, all pretensions have been lost. The wedding becomes this huge planned formal affair, to be taken very seriously. The fourth wave, of course, is the second marriage…
Having wasted an entire paragraph talking about marriage (not to mention last weeks review of Pride and Prejudice), I should probably go ahead and try to salvage some shred of manliness from this review. I shouldn’t admit how much the book affected me. I know too many people who will read this, laugh and think that by never letting me live it down they’ve scored a victory for men everywhere. They would tell me to man up. Well, I probably should man up, but I feel that issue has nothing to do with the horrific mess I was through the closing scenes of One Day. Many people felt that Toy Story 3 was so overpowering because the end of Andy’s childhood was reflected in the viewer. I think One Day has a similar effect on its reader, not because it relates to the end of your childhood, but what happens next.
Quite why this book got so under my skin I’m finding hard to pinpoint. Having moved from Edinburgh to London, like Em and Dex, perhaps I found it a bit easier to identify with them. I think it’s more to do with the excellent characterisation. You’re seeing their lives, you understand where they are, how they feel and why they feel it. It’s like having two best friends who you get to catch up with once a year.
The book covers many other aspects of modern life, and I think the book is as much about being alone as being in love. The author, David Nicholls, seems to have a fantastic insight into what makes people tick. Why they make mistakes and what brings them together (or keeps them apart). It’s little moments, like Emma realising that she cant speak to someone she’s known for 15 years, not because they’ve fallen out, but because their partner’s have, and the battle lines have been drawn. Or when Dexter calls girls in the night to try and see them. You know it’s not because of his rampant libido, it’s because he’s lonely, and doesn’t know how to deal with that.
There’s one particularly brilliant section on how weddings happen in your life. The first wave is when you’re at university, and marriage is basically a rebellion against your parents. The second wave is your mid twenties. There’s still a sense of how silly having a wedding is, but people are starting to take it more seriously. The third wave comes in your thirties. By this time, all pretensions have been lost. The wedding becomes this huge planned formal affair, to be taken very seriously. The fourth wave, of course, is the second marriage…
Having wasted an entire paragraph talking about marriage (not to mention last weeks review of Pride and Prejudice), I should probably go ahead and try to salvage some shred of manliness from this review. I shouldn’t admit how much the book affected me. I know too many people who will read this, laugh and think that by never letting me live it down they’ve scored a victory for men everywhere. They would tell me to man up. Well, I probably should man up, but I feel that issue has nothing to do with the horrific mess I was through the closing scenes of One Day. Many people felt that Toy Story 3 was so overpowering because the end of Andy’s childhood was reflected in the viewer. I think One Day has a similar effect on its reader, not because it relates to the end of your childhood, but what happens next.
Monday 17 January 2011
Pride and Prejudice
Being male, its very difficult to read Pride and Prejudice in public. People stare at you. They snigger, they sneer, they look down their noses. Why would I, a man, read a book by Jane Austin? I wasn’t sure why myself, but I paid money for it so it seemed like the decent thing to do. I set about reading the book with as much secrecy as possible on public transport. I hid the cover into the back of the person in front of me on the tube, with the pages folded sharply upwards to stop anyone sneaking a preview of what so many people seemed to find so horrifically confusing.
A lot of female people that I know discovered I was undertaking this most shocking of endeavours, and were horrified that I would refer to Pride and Prejudice as chick-lit. Of course, all of these ladies had actually read the book. Now I have too, I can see their point. The book is a satire on society - the romance story is there as relief from the idiocy of many of the characters surrounding Bennet and Darcy. Your growing suspicions are indeed correct - I really enjoyed this book.
Elizabeth’s mother is fricking hilarious. She storms through every scene, tearing up the pages with her wild inconsistencies, governed only by her emotions and ill defined opinions. Her father is equally amusing. He takes great pride in caring for his daughters, usually at the expense of his wife.
The main characters are fantastic because they are flawed. Elizabeth Bennet is refreshing (even 200 years on) because she holds on to her principles throughout the novel. When she falls in love, it’s for much deeper reasons than a happy ending. She grows in character as the story progresses, learning the importance of holding back from assumptions and speculation until in full possession of facts. Darcy is well suited as the romantic interest, but is held back from her interest for most of the book by a distinct lack of tact.
So why did I think of it as chick-lit? Well, as with many classics, it’s influence has led to many shockingly poor novelists attempting to re-create its magic (I’m looking at you Celia Ahern). It’s a bit like Nirvana drowning in a Puddle of Mudd, or the Libertines wearing the same jeans for 4 days. It’s guilt by association. As a result, I think I’m the first man I know to actually read this book (please correct me if I’m wrong?). I’m very glad to have read some Jane Austin, I suspect many men never will.
A lot of female people that I know discovered I was undertaking this most shocking of endeavours, and were horrified that I would refer to Pride and Prejudice as chick-lit. Of course, all of these ladies had actually read the book. Now I have too, I can see their point. The book is a satire on society - the romance story is there as relief from the idiocy of many of the characters surrounding Bennet and Darcy. Your growing suspicions are indeed correct - I really enjoyed this book.
Elizabeth’s mother is fricking hilarious. She storms through every scene, tearing up the pages with her wild inconsistencies, governed only by her emotions and ill defined opinions. Her father is equally amusing. He takes great pride in caring for his daughters, usually at the expense of his wife.
The main characters are fantastic because they are flawed. Elizabeth Bennet is refreshing (even 200 years on) because she holds on to her principles throughout the novel. When she falls in love, it’s for much deeper reasons than a happy ending. She grows in character as the story progresses, learning the importance of holding back from assumptions and speculation until in full possession of facts. Darcy is well suited as the romantic interest, but is held back from her interest for most of the book by a distinct lack of tact.
So why did I think of it as chick-lit? Well, as with many classics, it’s influence has led to many shockingly poor novelists attempting to re-create its magic (I’m looking at you Celia Ahern). It’s a bit like Nirvana drowning in a Puddle of Mudd, or the Libertines wearing the same jeans for 4 days. It’s guilt by association. As a result, I think I’m the first man I know to actually read this book (please correct me if I’m wrong?). I’m very glad to have read some Jane Austin, I suspect many men never will.
Tuesday 4 January 2011
Sabbath's Theatre
I think most people really enjoyed The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman sequel. I certainly did. One of the things that made it so great was the mystery surrounding the Joker - you never knew what he had planned, or what he was going to do next. The reason for this is that his origins were not explained. If you knew what motivated him, then the mystery, and so the fear, was gone. Of course, for someone who spent so long talking about how he let chaos rule and never planned anything, he had quite a lot of elaborate set-ups that I suspect actually required quite a lot of meticulous planning, but I digress. I’m here to talk about Sabbath’s Theatre.
This was my first novel by Philip Roth. He’s got a reputation for being one of the best authors around (although that is being challenged by a lot of critics at the moment). The story concerns Micky Sabbath - a former puppeteer. He used to be wildly inventive, using finger puppets for his show’s in New York. Now he’s just an old man, and when his mistress dies he goes a bit crazy. He is also supposed to be purposefully bad. He likes trying to sleep with women, and isn’t too choosy on that front…
In case you haven’t guessed, the title is not as clever as it thinks it is. He’s a puppeteer, who manipulates puppets in his theatre. He’s a pervert, who manipulates people in the theatre of life. It’s signposted like a smack in the face with a kipper. But that’s ok, you can have an obvious set up, provided the book is worth reading. I’m, not sure this is. It’s so dull! Whenever Sabbath meets someone missing a Y chromosome you know what’s coming. What’s worse, you know why he is doing it.
You see, in this book Roth doesn’t understand what makes a good villain. You know he chases after woman so inappropriately because it’s explained to you where he got into this habit. You have recounted conversations with his mentor, who proudly boasts of his sexual prowess. You have accounts of his family life, of his despair at losing his older brother. Once you have this, the rest of the book is inevitable. Micky Sabbath isn’t evil, he’s a pathetic old man. As a result, he fails to live up to his own billing, just like the book.
This was my first novel by Philip Roth. He’s got a reputation for being one of the best authors around (although that is being challenged by a lot of critics at the moment). The story concerns Micky Sabbath - a former puppeteer. He used to be wildly inventive, using finger puppets for his show’s in New York. Now he’s just an old man, and when his mistress dies he goes a bit crazy. He is also supposed to be purposefully bad. He likes trying to sleep with women, and isn’t too choosy on that front…
In case you haven’t guessed, the title is not as clever as it thinks it is. He’s a puppeteer, who manipulates puppets in his theatre. He’s a pervert, who manipulates people in the theatre of life. It’s signposted like a smack in the face with a kipper. But that’s ok, you can have an obvious set up, provided the book is worth reading. I’m, not sure this is. It’s so dull! Whenever Sabbath meets someone missing a Y chromosome you know what’s coming. What’s worse, you know why he is doing it.
You see, in this book Roth doesn’t understand what makes a good villain. You know he chases after woman so inappropriately because it’s explained to you where he got into this habit. You have recounted conversations with his mentor, who proudly boasts of his sexual prowess. You have accounts of his family life, of his despair at losing his older brother. Once you have this, the rest of the book is inevitable. Micky Sabbath isn’t evil, he’s a pathetic old man. As a result, he fails to live up to his own billing, just like the book.
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