BR: The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

Amazon Link: The Road

The Road is a literary masterpiece, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. The back cover (inside and out) is littered with praise from reviewers the world over. More adulation is printed on the inside face, and on the first three leaves of the novel.

But... evidently, I am an uncouth illiterate who just doesn’t appreciate quality literature.

It’s a good read, but I don’t agree with all the hype. The writing is masterful, yes. The imagery challenging and hurtful, yes; and the story maudlin – but it didn’t eat at my heart; it didn’t corrode my senses; it didn’t make me weep as I thought it would.

Technically, the author’s exclusion of quotation marks for dialogue took some getting used to. In several places I had to re-read to judge who was speaking, boy or man. That annoyed me. I don’t like being annoyed when I read. I expect grammatical conformation, so that I may lose myself within the words, not be forced to fuss about the edges trying to figure out what the author meant.

The story seems… starved, somehow, bereft of meaning, of progression. From the first page to the last, the characters stayed the same: the man dying, the boy grieving. Then, at the end, when the father dies, another man comes along to miraculously save the child. Through the novel, every person they had met had meant, or caused them harm, yet here appears a saviour on the horizon before the father is even truly cold. Maybe I’m thick and this had some spiritual significance, but to me it seemed contrived.

I can appreciate that the author broke away from convention to craft this novel, and he is to be applauded for that, but as a moving piece of literature, a testament to the peril of our times, a measure of humanity… it didn’t work for me.

Rating: *** (out of *****)

BR: Smoking Poppy (Graeme Joyce)

Amazon Link: Smoking Poppy

Dan Innes is a father, his two children, Phil and Charlie are young adults, independent, wilful, detached. Somewhere along the way he lost the connection with his kids, more recently he lost a connection with their mother. Now, with books as his only friend, he plays weekly trivia with a group of people he doesn’t like, and pool with a man he hardly knows. That’s just how he likes it.

When he receives word that his daughter, Charlie, is in Chang Mai prison, Thailand, for opium smuggling, he sets about going to save her. He intends to go alone, but Mick, his trivia and pool partner (and self-proclaimed best friend) buys himself an air ticket and a seat next to Dan. Phil, a fundamentalist Christian, once told of his sister’s situation wrings his hands and prays to God. He declines the invitation to join his father, claiming responsibilities to his ministry, his congregation, his faith. Dan is unimpressed and tells him so.

Several days later, all three men board the plane, Mick and Dan seated together, Phil at the back with his bible and devil talk. Phil gives no indication of what changed his mind, in fact, he says very little. Mick, on the other hand, is loud and obnoxious, making fart jokes and flirting with the air-hostesses. Dan seeks distance from both men with a selection of library books by authors with opium addictions. He tries to understand his daughter’s descent, how she turned from a sweet child into a nose-pierced, Oxford-educated, societal vagrant… and now a drug mule. He finds no answers in the books, and soon enough he and his maligned companions are in Chang Mai, a seething bustle of glitter and debauchery, sex-workers so desperate that they cling like the sweat on Dan’s skin. Phil, convinced he has entered Hell on earth, near comes undone, Mick revels and Dan struggles with nausea and fear.

The prison visit with his daughter is a welcome relief to the agony of waiting, but it brings an unpredicted twist that throws Dan off-balance. Mick takes charge, revealing the depth of his friendship, while Phil teeters on the brink of spiritual meltdown.

This marks the beginning of Dan’s journey to reconnect with his children. In the jungles of Thailand, amongst poppy fields, ancient tribes corrupted by western ways, a culture he can barely understand, and companions who love him more than he knows, Dan learns about family, about love, friendship, sacrifice and fatherhood. There are glimpses of the supernatural, a study into the relationship between adult men, humour so dry that I laughed out loud, and uncertainty so real that my nerves scraped against the brittleness of it.

Graeme Joyce writes beautiful prose that brings the senses alive. Reading this novel in late-winter, Australia, I felt the suffocating closeness of high humidity, the jangled fear and perilous danger these men are put in. The novel is unpredictable, the pace not too fast to lose the depth of the story, but fast enough to keep the reader buoyant and turning pages.

Dan is such a rich character that it’s impossible not to empathise with him. He’s flawed, harsh and misguided, intelligent in mind, rich in soul, stunted in heart. Mick and Phil are frustratingly lovable, so flamboyantly unique that their hearts beat upon the page. Charlie is misguided but inspirational. Saving her life is the focus of this book, but it’s not the journey -- it's far richer than that.

Rating: ****1/2 (out of *****)

BR: Nobody True (James Herbert)

Amazon Link: Nobody True

Written in first person, the narrator, James True, is dead. During life he was capable of undertaking out of body experiences, all beyond his control. It first happened when he was seriously injured in an accident, then it happened when he slept, then it was if he day-dreamed. At age thirty-two, he left his body one night after a particularly stressful work-day and when he returned he had no body to go back to. It had been mutilated beyond recognition. So why wasn’t he dead?

Turns out poor James not only has to deal with his untimely demise, but the apprehension of a serial killer and the protection of his family (wife and daughter) from similar fate. It's a good premise, but it falls short.

I was introduced to James Herbert (JH) through ’48, a fast-paced novel that I particularly enjoyed because it didn’t claim to take itself seriously. I suspended belief and was hooked into the imagery and the fast pace. The story was predictable, but I didn’t manage to lose interest between figuring it out and having it spelt out. I can’t say the same about this book. But, when trapped on a plane on a flight across the Pacific Ocean, it’s funny just how interesting a book can be… even a book such as this.

I do enjoy JH’s writing style, though it's less polished than I remembered it being. At times he resorts to blatant word recycling which made me cringe. I chose to believe that it was deliberate and that later in the book the repetition would have significance, but that wasn’t the case.

Repetition also arose in the form of the (now dead and in spirit form) protagonist’s experiences of moving through time and space. He lost time, had black-outs, experienced a kind of particle dematerialisation when he passed through solid objects, and gained an unsettling empathy when he passed through living beings. Throughout the novel the reader is repeatedly reminded of this. Very little distinction is given to each experience, and the protagonist doesn’t learn anything new each time, he just re-hashes what he (and we) already know. By 2/3rd’s of the way through the novel, I was skimming.

The conclusion was predictable, the action readable but not exciting. I found it difficult to form empathy for James, a spirit who could experience emotional pain but otherwise could not be harmed. And his family, who I should have cared about, were not particularly likeable.

In all, this was a passive read, but it wiled away time.

I have JH book on my bookshelf, Once, but I shall let some time pass before giving it a try.

Rating: ** (out of *****) stars.

BR: Reservation Road (John Burnham Schwartz)

Amazon Link: Reservation Road

Three characters, their lives intertwined by tragedy, seek to heal. All three are parents, two of a boy who is killed in a hit and run, the third of a boy of the same age as the victim but whose life has been filled with violence and despair. There are no heroes in this book, and the tone is dark and melancholy. I dare anyone to read without shedding a tear, or at the very least feeling a constriction in their chest as the pain these people go through.

The novel is told through three differing viewpoints, with a chapter devoted to each point of view. I found this approach to be confusing at the start, but only for the first chapter or two. The reference to another death of a family member that preceded the hit and run served to muddle the initial scenes, but all soon became clear and I settled into the (at times) morose story that was to unfold.

This is a realistic and heart-breaking narrative of grief, of the ramifications of tragedy on a family unit. It is also a journey of growth for the character that is responsible for taking the boy’s life. The only perspective on all of this that we don’t personally gain is that of the eight year old daughter, the sibling of the boy who died. Her parents never stop loving her however their ability to give her the emotional support she needs is challenged by their own grief.

I finished this story with a lump in my throat. It is raw, it is painful, it is challenging to experience the depth of suffering that these characters endure. And it’s all set around a small community where lives are intertwined, secrets are kept and putting on a brave face is exceptionally difficult.

I highly recommend this book. The writing is stunning: beautifully chosen words that cut straight to the heart. It’s not flowery, or wordy, or trying to be anything other than honest – painfully honest. And it’s breathtaking to read.

The only complaint I had was about the ending. The book finishes abruptly. It seems incomplete, as though there should be another couple of pages. I’m not saying that it isn’t complete as a story, it is… in fact I learned all I needed to know about what happens to the characters. What happens next is up to me to decide as a reader, and I really like that. But, the writing up until that point had suggested that there might be a little more of a conclusion.

Having said that, the story still rates very highly for its ordinariness, its tragedy, its emotion. It’s a gut-wrenching read, and as I said before, there are no heroes, just ordinary people in exceptionally difficult circumstances. It’s a reflection on humanity, and for that it’s a powerful novel. And the writing style itself is outstanding!