The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

World Book Night was a while ago now, but one of the programmes that night got me thinking about what I choose to read.  Sue Perkins was assessing the world of ‘popular’ reading versus what is viewed as ‘literary’ and why the majority of people read what they read, thereby making it popular.  I must admit that I tend to err on the side of Sue’s idea that reading should be a challenge and I mostly read ‘classics’ as I know they’re going to be good and worth reading.  I may not always ‘enjoy’ them but in the same way that watching ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, for example, is not a pleasant experience throughout, I feel it is rewarding and by choosing to spend some of my time in its company my life has been enhanced somewhat.  However, equally I’ve got to admit that sometimes I just feel like going to the cinema to see a romantic comedy purely to be entertained by a plot-driven escape from reality, the equivalent to a popular novel.

I’m not sure where the Booker prize winning books lie on the literary scale, however, in terms of pure enjoyment my last read was a real treat!  I read it much more quickly that the others I have read so far as it went beyond a dutiful digestion of the next book on the list – as I realised it was my type of book and relished every page.  It’s odd that I haven’t read it before, considering the number of times I have picked it up in secondhand bookshops and read the blurb but then replaced it back on the shelf.

Unfortunately, in my opinion the blurb presents the story as gaudy and sensational, basically a murder-mystery and I fell for the oldest of all traps – judging a book by its cover, when hidden inside was a treasure!  In reality the story is an intimate history of a family told with the advantage of hindsight by an old lady approaching her death reflecting on her life and the lives of those around her.  I guess none of it is ground-breaking stuff but it intertwines the threads of people’s lives as they respond to the circumstances of the time, mostly between the two world wars in Canada and try to marry the expectations of the times and society with the realities of their own human foibles. 

Atwood’s prose is a joy to read as she conveys the many facets of people living within a society and how they react to each other and to the circumstances presented to them.  She floats with ease from the contemporary of the elderly protagonist back to her youth, remembering the various characters that have impacted her existence.  This in particular, reminded me of something that I find absolutely fascinating, that each person has their own unique story to tell.  When I’m working in the hospital or the community, with a great many elderly patients or just generally, I am intrigued how the frustrating practicalities of ageing encase a lifetime of experiences.  Moreover, how, with advancing age comes a reluctant recognition of one’s own mortality and consequent contemplation of the legacy of one’s life.  For the main character the importance of the written word to convey her true self at the end of her life for future generations becomes the basis of the book – an insight that I found captivating.   So much so that despite a reluctance of mine to re-read books (I always think of how many other good books there are out there to be getting on and reading!) this is one book for which I will make an exception.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

This book is popular.  Not only did it manage to impress the judging panel in 1981, the year it won, but also a panel who chose the ‘Booker of Bookers’ to mark the 25^th anniversary of the Booker prize.  In addition to being voted for by the public via an online poll to mark the 40^th anniversary of the prize to win ‘The Best of the Booker’.  So no pressure then…!  Thankfully it lived up to expectations.  Although, as you may have grasped if you read what I thought of ‘The Famished Road’ I’m not sure that the ‘magic realism’ genre is really for me and there was a significant amount of the unreal in this particular story.  However, crucially there was enough grounding in reality and plenty else about the book which made it a thoroughly entertaining read. 

I really liked the self-conscious nature of the writing style; whetting the reader’s appetite with hints of what was to come or reminding the reader of key points mentioned previously and how the protagonist debated about how best to tell the story, crafting it into a masterpiece.  And it wasn’t just the writing style that so appealed; it was a cracking story with gasp-inducing twists, propelling the reader through the characters’ lives in page-turning fashion at times.

I was particularly drawn into the characters of the family, feeling as though I could picture them fully with a real grasp of the family dynamics.  So much so that once the story got outside the confines of the childhood homes it lacked something for me.  However, perhaps the most impressive aspect of the book was the way that the story was interwoven into the historical context of the struggles of an independent India.   This was informative, giving the reader a perspective of events from the characters’ points of view and also highlighted the interconnectedness of sequences of events.  Furthermore, how the pressure to achieve significant things given a fresh start or new life can overshadow the flame of optimism that is so strong initially, leading to a sense of helplessness and impotence.

In addition, this story stressed the interaction between luck or randomness with sequential cause and effect and how this shapes lives of individuals and thus the nations of the world.  I think that Rushdie achieved great things with this book as not only did he create an existence of characters in which the reader had a great interest but he masterfully grounded this in a significant context elevated by giving the reader a great deal to reflect on beyond the confines of the novel. 

The Famished Road by Ben Okri

The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize 2011 were announced last week.  The prize is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.  In contrast to the Man Booker Prize awarded every year for a particular book, it reflects the body of work by an author.  Which got me thinking about the prize-winning books I have read so far which have introduced me to new authors whose other books I would be keen to go on to read.

Unfortunately, Ben Okri is not one of these inspirational authors.  I just seem to have completely missed what it is that is so respected by other readers for this book to have won such a prestigious prize. To be honest when I finally got to the end I felt compelled to do some research about the book and the author to be able to say anything constructive.  And even this research left me at a bit of a loss, as other people’s effusive praise left me feeling as though I had a read a completely different book.

In my opinion ‘The Famished Road’ failed to deliver on story or characters and was not even redeemed by writing style or the message it was attempting to convey.  It was written as though by a child, a fantastical story in the vein of this happened and then this happened and then this happened…in tedious detail.  With no variation in pace it existed on one mundane level despite reasonably exciting events and a spirit world mixed in with reality.  I suppose that as the story is told from an abiku’s (a spirit child) perspective this could be being echoed in the writing style but I suspect this was not the required effect.  Moreover, despite the story being written in the first person, I got no real impression of what the protagonist was like, merely an observer of the world around him.

I wondered whether the repetitive nature of the story was used to reflect living in poverty in Africa, but it unfortunately rendered me ambivalent to the various characters’ fates.  In fact most of the themes that I thought the book may be trying to highlight such as political corruption, the interwoven nature of the spiritual realm with reality and the fight for survival in the tough environment of Africa, were overshadowed by the oddness of it all which detracted from the reader’s involvement in the characters’ world.

So in reference to each book being a possible springboard to reading other works by the author, this was possibly the complete opposite.  I barely cared enough to finish this book let alone the remaining two in the trilogy, in fact I felt that if I had skipped whole sections of the book it wouldn’t have made much difference as the same ridiculous things kept happening anyway…  It may have been trying to convey traditional African stories and myths and profound insights into life and our place in this world, however, it just didn’t do it in an engaging way and lacked the provenance of other spiritual texts I’ve battled my way through namely the Bible and the Qur’an.  In short, I just don’t get what all the fuss is about.