Book reviews: 7 December
OUT NOW
DEAR LIFE by Alice Munro (Chatto & Windus, £18.99) From its wonderful, resonant title to its ‘Finale’ – four ‘not quite stories… autobiographical in feeling’, as they are introduced – this book is vintage Alice Munro, full of the strange twists and turns, pains and pleasures of life itself. The opening story, To Reach Japan, sets the standard: in it, a young wife and mother pens a brief note to the man with whom she has become obsessed, a note that she likens to a message in a bottle sent in the vain hope it will wash up in Japan. To reveal whether or not this dispatch does arrive at its destination would be unforgiveable – but, as always in Munro’s stories (and it is one of the many reasons that they bear repeated reading), the real drama is not the obvious one.
Throughout this book, sentence after sentence leaps off the page and arrows into the heart, such as this description of a bereaved husband: ‘What he carried with him, all he carried with him, was a lack, something like a lack of air, of proper behaviour in his lungs…’
Munro’s truth-telling genius is hard to anatomise, but to read this book is to be further convinced of her pre-eminence.
Stephanie Cross
THE KILLING HANDBOOK by Emma Kennedy (Orion, £12.99) You’ve knitted the jumper (or, more likely, bought it in a charity shop), become au fait with Danish politics and wrecked your social life staying in to watch new episodes – welcome to the world of The Killing fan. (And in case you are not one of the 3 million people watching – The Killing is a Danish television crime series, part of this year’s Nordic noir phenomenon.)
Emma Kennedy is one of those fans; indeed, she’s elevated herself to the status of ‘superfan’ and so keen is she that she went all the way to Denmark to meet the show’s star, Sofie Gråbøl. Kennedy’s book, culled from her experiences there, and weeks spent watching the show at home, is therefore the perfect Christmas present for a Killing fan near you. It’s designed to look like a Danish jumper and its contents will send shivers of happiness down the spines of those addicted to the series. ‘So you want to be Sarah Lund’ is its opening gambit, followed by a list of instructions to that end: ‘Only eat eggs while staring sadly out of the window’ is one of them. ‘You’re in a room with some walls. Lean against one of them and fold your arms’, is another.
Kennedy has also included chapters on Danish jumper knitting patterns and a guide to making a Killing doll, as well as notes on everything you’ll need to know about Denmark to keep up with the story. How To Become Fluent In Danish In Fifteen Minutes contains a handy chart on how to pronounce the Danish alphabet; a section on dating the Danish way won’t be much help if you’re attempting a liaison in the UK, but if you like the idea of pared-down Nordic decor to go with the walls you’re now leaning against, the chapter on Danish Interior Design will be a godsend.
The Killing Handbook makes the perfect present for someone who knows what Kennedy is talking about – give it to that person and you’ll get points. Loads of points…
Lola Sinclair
HALLUCINATIONS by Oliver Sacks (Picador, £18.99) Oliver Sacks is one of those people you marvel at. Trained as a medical neurologist, he nonetheless holds several Columbia University Professorships and is a graceful, lucid and elegant prose stylist. Though perhaps above all, he is the witty, warm, humble and deeply compassionate explorer of how our brains influence our world: the patients who inform his case studies are, as in his famous first book, Awakenings, never left bereft of their humanity.
In Hallucinations, he is concerned to chart the realm of non-psychotic hallucinations (auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory) and excludes the products of schizophrenic illnesses and dreams. He discusses, in illuminating fashion, such examples as: the hallucinations of the visually impaired (Charles Bonnet syndrome); the phantasms produced as side effects of drugs used to halt the ravages of Parkinson’s disease; the blissful visions and sometimes religiously ecstatic seizures of epileptics; and even his own youthful experiments with hallucinogenic drugs.
His prose brings material alive, whether it comes from literature or medical case study, or from the numerous letters that people have written to him. There is much here that is fascinating and Sacks’s frame of reference is both broad and generous; the book includes a discussion of the role of hallucinations in culture and art, suggesting how important these experiences remain for humanity’s cultural development.
This is not Sacks’s greatest book, but, by the end, I learned to respect – and gained a sense of wonder towards – the rich variety of hallucinations and what they mean to those who have them.
Steve Barfield
BOOK OF THE WEEK
It’s an outrage…Thomas Blaikie on the complex and dangerous subject of etiquette today
HOW RUDE!: MODERN MANNERS DEFINED by Lynne Truss (Waitrose, £8.99)‘Do you find yourself wondering “Isn’t this rude?” more frequently than you used to?’ So Lynne Truss enquires in her introduction to this collection of essays on modern manners by a dazzling array of household names: John Humphrys, Jenni Murray, Richard Hammond, Ruby Wax and so on.
Determined outrage-ists who see a catastrophic decline in manners these days will think that Truss is backing them up. But she isn’t. Her question is not, ‘Don’t you think people are getting ruder and ruder?’ It’s more subtle. She addresses the worried well, who aren’t sure what to make of it all. Is it rude to shave your legs on public transport (her case in point)? If so, what to do about it? Isn’t it also rude to tell people what to do? Her solution is intriguing: join in, get out your own shaving equipment, or borrow from the one who started it all. Maybe this is to shame the ‘offender’. Or is it a jolly vision of some kind of community beyond the barriers of decorum where everyone beautifies their legs on commuter trains? It’s fascinating how those pre-occupied with manners tend to think like this. There’s a yearning in one direction for order and rules and an equally powerful urge to blow the whole thing up.
Where do manners coincide with morality? Is a rude person bad? Are manners just customs, in which case who’s to judge? Quite a number of the essayists here aren’t interested in these niceties; they offer simple contempt and unexamined certainty that everything’s perfectly ghastly. There’s a venerable tradition of such satiric venting. The more extreme the better: Liz Jones on dress etiquette is absolute uproar, just a fabulous, baroque airing of random prejudices.
Giles Coren offers a refreshingly anti-nostalgic demolition of his parents’ fixation on table manners of the Edwardian school, followed by humane and sensible tips for the modern restaurant-goer.
Occasionally there are surprising insights. Richard Hammond (motoring etiquette): it’s bad manners to expect good manners in other people. Just be grateful for the tiniest hint of niceness. Fi Glover starts off rather terrifyingly by insisting that the small things lead to the big things; if she’d stayed with an early boyfriend whose wardrobe she discovered to contain sandals, there’s no question she’d have ended up on an Alpine walking holiday. Her solution to the ‘do I hold a door open for a lady?’ question couldn’t have been better put: ‘Yes, do it.’
Nicely produced. This is the perfect Christmas gift for your more huffy friends who appreciate good writing.
MUST READ
Telling stories GRIMM TALES: FOR YOUNG AND OLD by Philip Pullman (Penguin Classics, £20) The 200th anniversary of the Grimms’ spell-binding tales is celebrated by a retelling of 50 of them by the award-winning author Philip Pullman. Pullman’s take on these wonderful stories is intriguingly fresh and vivid, but the same old magic remains: crenellated castles and secret cottages set amidst dark and dangerous forests, princes and princesses, lost children and kind crones, animals with a lot to say and passing troops of quick-witted peasants. Pullman has also added some lit-crit, too; an overview of the genre, notes on sources and explanatory notes on the text. A great Christmas present.
PAPERBACKS
A WINTER FLAME by Milly Johnson (Simon & Schuster, £7.99) Grieving niece Eve, has been left a theme park by her aunt – an inconvenient legacy at the best of times, but one made especially tricky by the fact that this particular park has a Christmas theme – and ever since her fiancé was killed in Afghanistan on 25 December, Eve has loathed Christmas. And then there’s a bloke, of course: the mysterious Jacques Glace, also named in the will. A gently amusing tale of seasonal love and roller coasters. LS
A SIXPENNY CHRISTMAS by Katie Flynn (Arrow, £6.99)
Take two girls in Liverpool: Ellen and Molly, both pregnant in a maternity ward awaiting the birth of their babies. Naturally, despite their different backgrounds (one married to a violent docker; the other isolated on a sheep farm in Snowdonia), they become friends and then Ellen chucks out her husband and arrives on Molly’s doorstep. Cue wartime storms, danger and a hidden threat. Katie Flynn also writes as Judith Saxton. LS
ALSO PUBLISHED
‘HALLO SAUSAGES’: THE LYRICS OF IAN DURY by Jemima Dury (Bloomsbury, £25) A fine songwriter, Ian Dury was also a powerful, provocative and humorous lyricist. This book, edited by his daughter, Jemima, gives us a chance to admire the linguistic playfulness and the punky vivacity he brought to his observations on life. SB
TRAINS AND LOVERS: THE HEART’S JOURNEY by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon, £9.99)
Love – like measles, or the diseases of childhood, or a divine intoxication. It’s also the subject of this little book by bestselling McCall Smith about four strangers who meet on a train and how love infl uences their lives. LS
CRIME ROUNDUP
TRICKERY WITH INTEGRITY by Victoria Clark
Live By Night by Dennis Lehane (Little, Brown, £16.99) Set in Boston and Tampa, Florida, this lyrical paean to the gangster years of Prohibition continues the story of the Coughlin family introduced in The Given Day. We have moved from the tale of the Boston policeman Aiden, to his younger brother Joe, who has been off the rails since he was 13. Considering himself an ‘outlaw’ rather than a gangster, the novel charts his rise from hired hood to prince of thieves. Underlying the violence and thuggery is Joe’s love for two women. The fi rst, who defi nes his career, is Emma Gould, whom he meets while knocking over a speakeasy. She is frozen hard at her core, but Joe believes he has the power to melt her. Fate and prison intervene and, before long, he has left the rain and snow of Boston for humid, sun-seared Tampa. Here, as an outsider as well as an outlaw, he has the freedom to move within the Cuban, Spanish and Italian communities and set up his operation. It is here that he meets Graciela, a Cuban revolutionary and the second of his loves. Joe is every man’s fantasy, an honest gangster with integrity… Lush and evocative.
The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura (Corsair, £9.99) Nishimura is a pickpocket in Tokyo. In keeping with Japanese culture, he pursues his calling with precision and elegance. It is a compulsion rather than a career, he is uninterested in the proceeds of his crimes and is happy to give them away. He is very much a loner since the disappearance of his mentor, Ishikawa. Only once has he worked in a team, on a mysterious and meticulously planned robbery, and it is this act that now threatens his independence and life. The novel is so unlike a European crime story that it is hard to categorise it in the genre. Beautifully written and elegantly crafted, it is unlikely to be massed with the airport bestsellers, but that is all the more reason to seek it out.