Book Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never has the cliché that your school days are the best days of your life, been less tired than when applied to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, a novel which charts the relationships of three friends from childhood through to adulthood.

Their paths crossing at the seemingly idyllic English boarding school Hailsham, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth grow close to one another, with romance sometimes muddying the waters of friendship, but as they grow older they learn that all of them are set for a dark future which will eventually drive the three of them apart for good.

To elaborate on what that future is and how the trio react to it, would be to deprive anyone unfamiliar with the novel of its unique exploration of both the beauty and the pain of human relationships, as it is one we can all relate to.

Though we probably do not stand before futures as ominous as those which face the three main characters face, there is no doubt that all of us at some time or other in our lives have looked back at a time in our past and wished we could somehow dive back there even if only for a day. Through the particularly bleak fate that awaits its main characters Never Let Me Go casts a spotlight over the moments in life where a person’s circumstances change irrevocably, uprooting old relationships once believed unbreakable for good. Seldom do these decisions come without sacrifice and the sad realisation that as wonderful as it would be to return back to a time when life was one elongated frolic, such an opportunity has long since passed.

In capturing the beauty of friendships in their infancy and the often harsh realities of growing up, Ishiguro has written a novel that (barring the sudden invention of time travel) will be relatable for generations to come.

Rating: 4/5 Cruel yet beautiful, a wonderful standalone novel.

Book Review: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Winner of a scholarship that has catapulted away from her small town home and into the heart of New York City, Esther Greenwood appears to have the world at her feet in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, the only trouble is, everything she has spent her young life working towards no longer seems to matter.

As Esther’s existential crisis sees her fortunes plummet to astonishing depths, one fears for her future and the fact that this suddenly bleak outlook is caused by nothing more than indecision is all the more alarming. Esther’s plight highlights the precarious situations those guilty of perhaps the most understandable of crimes: not knowing what they want to do with their life by the end of their teenage years; can find themselves in and how quickly their prospects can diminish following a simple bout of indecision.

The sudden horror Esther is plunged into when she has a change of heart about her future is perhaps more relevant today, over half a century on from publication than ever before, as with University tuition fees at an all-time high, the price of indecision among young people has never been more costly.

Esther’s story underlines the caution that should be exercised when setting expectations for young people, most of whom are still some distance off finding their way in the world. And an acknowledgment among teachers, employers and parents alike that it is far more common for young adults to be undecided about their futures than it is for them to have their entire life mapped out by nineteen, would go a long way towards ensuring that society does not become riddled with contemporary Esther Greenwoods.

Rating: 4/5 Thought-provoking, chilling and masterfully written. Thoroughly deserving of its status as a post-war classic.

Book Review: Women by Charles Bukowski

In Women, former postal clerk and previous incumbent of hundred and one dead-end jobs Henry “Hank” Chinaksi has made it… not quite big, but he has at least augmented his status above that of the general population. A professional writer whose life has become something of a continuous roadshow of poetry readings, Chinaski’s upturn in fortunes sees him no longer hobnobbing with the dregs of society but with a raft of women most of whom are young enough to be his daughter.

With the raging libido chronicled in prequels Post Office and Factotum still firmly intact, and with his list of suitors now considerably longer, Chinaski appears initially to be lapping his new lifestyle having trodden an extremely calamitous path to success. But as the relentless merry-go-round of women in his life continues to revolve, Chinaski begins to question whether he has in fact won after all.

As a reader, one is inclined to feel something similar as the novelty of the scoundrel from Post Office and Factotum’s success wears pretty thin, pretty quickly. Chinaski’s now nonchalant manner of conducting himself is a far cry the desperate, self-deprecating demeanour he exhibited in his two previous literary outings.

Chinaksi himself states on numerous occasions that he is far from a household name as writers go and it is tempting to contemplate – as he continues to go about life with a newfound assuredness that was previously alien to his followers – how insufferable he might become if he ever reached anything close to Hemingway status.

His shenanigans remain entertaining and the grim, blunt, nauseating details of some of his many less than dignified encounters endure as they did in Factotum and Post Office. But in Women, Henry Chinaski is no longer a guy trying to make it in the world, consumed by vice and trapped in a thankless system; he is instead a professional writer with nothing better to do than indulge the same vices he did prior to his success, and for that reason, he loses more than a semblance of his charm.

Book Review: Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Having loved every Stephen King novel I’d ever read up until this point, it was with high expectations that I opened Salem’s Lot.

For a number of reasons, reading this book took me longer than it should have done. But when it was over, I nonetheless found myself feeling somewhat disappointed.

The plot was straight forward enough: small town plus creepy old house plus vampires equals scary story.

And as one would expect from a writer of King’s calibre, once the story reached its all-out man versus monster stage, I couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough. But my main issue with Salem’s Lot is that it took me far too long to get to that point.

The novel was near-500 pages long so it would’ve been foolish not to suspect a certain amount of build-up, but I found the setup dragged in a way I hadn’t felt with other King novels. Perhaps it was the number of characters involved, most of whom I felt little affinity towards, maybe this was down more to my disrupted reading of the novel more than the characters themselves, but by the time things got sordid I found myself caring probably less than I should have done whether most of these characters lived or died.

The honourable exception to this was protagonist Ben Mears, the wandering writer who charms local girl Susan Norton and her parents with his quick wits, who had a kind of nonchalance to him that won me over fairly early on.

Once Ben and his less interesting fellow characters started getting into trouble the novel became the usual King-powered white-knuckle ride until the last page, however my overriding thought as I closed Salem’s lot was that it took a little too long to get a seat on the roller coaster.

Rating: 3/5 – Slow start, but once in full flow exactly what you’d expect from Stephen King.

Book review: The Great Gatsby

Knowing my recent holiday would be a busy one I decided to take The Great Gatsby as my book. I had already read it but that had been eight years ago, so I felt reacquaintance with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic was acceptable.

For readers who have somehow managed to avoid Fitzgerald’s magnum opus thus far, it focuses on title character Jay Gatsby through the eyes of finance yuppie Nick Carraway, whose friendship with Gatsby grows throughout the novel.

Gatsby is the sort of man most of us wish we were. He is rich and successful, he lives in a mansion by a lake and has developed a reputation among the Long island glitterati for throwing flamboyant parties.

He is a man who on the surface has everything he wants, but once we scratch beneath that we realise he has nothing. For the only thing he truly desires is already-married Daisy Buchanan.

Gatsby’s dilemma causes us to challenge the notion of what it means to be wealthy and also the concept of the ‘American Dream’ that was at large in the 1920s – the time of publication.

The novel teaches us that there are certain personal voids that no amount of wealth can fill and demonstrates how people will often busy themselves in other endeavours either because they believe the thing they truly want to be inaccessible or because they believe the pursuit of greatness in a particular field to be the best means of indirectly attracting the thing they truly desire.

Though this book will be one hundred years old in six years, there has been very little change in the narrative of western culture with regard to wealth since it was first published. Becoming rich is still the answer to everything in western culture and Jay Gatsby by that logic should be one of the happiest men alive.

His story is as welcome a reminder now as it was ninety-four years ago that happiness is not something that cannot be achieved by simply amassing a suitably abundant figure in one’s bank account.

Rating: 4.5/5

Probably the best short read in history. So… yeah, if you’ve somehow avoided until now, go and get it ticked off the list!

Book Review: Factotum by Charles Bukowski

Henry Chinaski the shameless yet strangely lovable aspiring writer and semi-autobiographical creation of Charles Bukowski returns in Factotum, where he continues to eke out a boozy, promiscuous existence only this time he does so via a series of menial jobs.

It is a lifestyle that Bukowski, as he did in Post Office succeeds in glamourising (up to a point) as Chinaski although a common bum in the eyes of society, has a series of entertaining adventures and meets memorable characters along his road as a journeyman. The falling off point preventing anyone from abandoning the structures of one’s own life coming via the perpetual danger of permanent homelessness that Chinaski flirts with. As he flits from town to town, resigning from one job and being sacked from next, Chinaski walks a novel-long tightrope over a pit of hopelessness that it is unlikely he will ever climb out of if he falls for good.

For a man in such bleak circumstances, he has fun with it. No sexual encounter is too dirty and there are no depths to which he will not sink for his own survival or gratification.

Though his fight for survival and brief bouts of pleasure are entertaining, they highlight just as Post Office did, the seemingly inescapable cycle of soul-destroying jobs and desperation people with failed career plans live in.

Chinaski’s admirable strength is that however grim things seem to get and however many jobs he loses, he dusts himself down, hits the road and turns up somewhere else in search of easy money and loose women.

Though most of the world see Henry Chinaski as a loser, he is in many ways a hero who never says die. His second outing only serves to solidify his legacy as the rogue who whatever the circumstances, refuses to let life beat him into submission.

Rating: 4/5 – Brave, honest and hilarious. Bukowski once again manages to make life on the brink of ruin look like a whole lot of fun.

Book Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

As book titles go, The Tattooist of Auschwitz leaves little room for ambiguity, but beneath the obvious crux of the plot is a love story that gives hope to those in the bleakest of predicaments.

The story gets its title from the Slovakian Jew Lale Solokov whose ability to speak several languages lands him a job tattooing new arrivals at Auschwitz and Birkenau with the numbers that will serve as their new identity.

It is a job that gives Lale a better life than he otherwise would have in a concentration camp although like most work it is not without its drawbacks, in this case having to appear amiable towards SS officers.

But when he falls in love with prisoner number 34902 (otherwise known as Gita) while tatooing her, Lale’s time at Auschwitz becomes about much more than making his hellish existence that little bit more comfortable, turning instead into battle for survival, escape and eventual marriage.

Throughout his struggle, Lale encounters several men in similar situations to himself. Men willing to call their oppressors their colleagues in exchange for preferential treatment who can do nothing but stand back and watch as their fellow prisoners are slaughtered.

With decades of hindsight, it is easy to condemn such actions as those of spineless, cowardly people, but when one stops to consider the plight of such men, their actions are less of a slight on the individuals involved and more of an illustration of the evil of the camps themselves.

The Nazi’s created an environment stripped of everything except fear and the natural human instinct to do whatever possible to survive. In such places, desperation not principles lead one’s actions.

Like any story set in a concentration camp, the Tattooist of Auschwitz can be a bludgeoning read at times, but the overall message of this real-life story is one of optimism: that however horrendous one’s surroundings are, it is always possible to find love.

Rating: 3/5 Classic love-in-hopeless-surroundings story, the only difference is that this one actually happened! Flits from horrific to charming page by page.

Book Review: Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

As a rule I like to keep my reading as varied as possible, but having read Sally Rooney’s second novel Normal People barely a month ago I felt compelled to read her debut, Conversations With Friends.

Normal People grabbed me because of its complex main characters whose experiences at university spoke to me as a millennial graduate.

And having now read Conversations With Friends I can see that Normal People built upon the foundations Rooney had already laid with her first novel.

Conservations with Friends like Normal People is all about relationships. Namely four people two couples, one marriage and one affair that threatens to blow the entire dynamic between student lovers Frances and Bobbi, and married actor Nick and his writer wife Melissa to smithereens.

It is Frances and Nick’s affair that disrupt the four friends lives as they find an intimacy and comfort in one another that their actual partners fail to provide, and Rooney’s portrayal of their relationship is the undoubted strength of the novel.

The dynamic between the pair left me fascinated. Nick is in his thirties, has good looks, fame and money yet when he is alone with Frances it is she, the penniless student dreaming of becoming a writer, who has a hold over him.

There is a detail to Frances and Nick’s intimacy that suggests Rooney is writing from a place of total authenticity and as I found with Normal People, there is a definite sense that Conversations With Friends has its ear to the ground.

Same-sex relationships, issues surrounding mental health and self-harm as well as student austerity are all dealt with in a story that is engrossing until its end.

If I was going to nit-pick with Rooney, I’d say that Normal People’s Connell and Marianne aren’t quite as white-hot as Frances and Nick are here.

But regardless of which couple I find more interesting, there is no doubt that Rooney is scratching beneath the surface of something that many a millennial university graduate can relate to and producing stories that are as unique as they are contemporary.

I cannot claim to have had my finger on the pulse to the same extent: I picked Rooney’s novels up because I saw them in the book charts and decided to see what all the fuss was about more than anything.

But however I came to read them, having now read both of Rooney’s titles, I can say with confidence that the fuss is more than justified.

Rating: 4/5 Interesting characters dealing with modern-day problems. Contemporary fiction nailed.

Book Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I read Wuthering Heights more because I felt I probably should have done by now than because it was crying out at me to be read, and this bore fruit as I trudged my way through it.

In the beginning, it had me. The early descriptions of Wuthering Heights and the moors cultivate a sense of isolation and build a contained world in which characters will later toil and it was easy to see why this aspect of the novel has received the plaudits it has over the years.

But then there was the story, which I found meandered around without grabbing me at any point and by the time I was halfway through, that early sense of excitement that I had picked up something that was outstanding from the first page, had petered out. A lot of the time, I was reading in fits and starts rather than an hour at a time which probably exacerbated my disharmony with the flow of the story. But when I look back on the best books I have ever read (even if I only managed a handful of pages in a particular sitting) I never felt the same distance to the storyline as I did here.

Everything is centred around the troubled, terrible Heathcliff and the main point I took away from Wuthering Heights was the idea that a damaged childhood often forges a damaging adult; although Heathcliff is by no means the first character to suffer from such afflictions.

It was not without its moments but overall, I was glad to see the back of Wuthering Heights. Maybe I’m a philistine, maybe there was something wonderful at work that I didn’t see, but for what it’s worth; I’d advise those considering a visit to Wuthering Heights to listen to four a half minutes of Kate Bush, rather than read 245 pages of Emily Bronte.

Rating: 2/5

Ever since its release this book has polarised opinion. I’d have to place myself alongside the cynics on this one.

Book Review: Post Office by Charles Bukowski

Anyone who has ever flirted with the idea of trimming some of the responsibility in their life can take a raw glimpse into a life of reckless abandon in Charles Bukowski’s debut novel Post Office.

Through scoundrel protagonist Henry ‘Hank’ Chinaski, Bukowski explores a world of exhaustive menial work that funds an inconsequential life of sex, alcoholism, and gambling.

Although it is clear Chinaski has taken more than a couple of wrong turns at some point and should probably know better than to live the way he does; it occasionally appears that he has bypassed conventional wisdom and hacked the system as he enjoys an eventful life of instant gratification and simple work. The work itself is never made out to be anything other than an unglamorous slog, but the carefree and at times triumphant manner in which Chinaski goes about his life, at times, has one teetering on the brink of giving up the career and signing up as a postman for a simple life filled with cheap thrills.

But amid the triumphs Chinaski enjoys during his time at the US Postal service, there is an undertone of caution as the strain the job and the subsequent lifestyle Chinaski partakes in to tolerate it, begins to take its toll on his health.

While the post office may not be the titan it was nearly fifty years ago when the novel was first published, menial jobs are still at large in western society and while a 21^st Century Henry Chinaski might no longer work for the post office, he might work in an Amazon warehouse or as a Deliveroo driver. Despite Chinaski’s best efforts, Post Office is a reminder that exhaustive menial jobs are seldom good for a person’s health. And in a society which despite advances in technology, is still full of such work, it is a message worth remembering.