Here are some very short (one-paragraph) unpublished reviews of works of fiction I have enjoyed and would recommend for at least some readers. In the reverse order in which I read them, not of publication, so most recent reads first.
The House of Doors, by Tan Tan Eng:
Evocative imagination of a visit to Penang by Willie Somerset Maugham in 1921 that links the histories of Maugham, the first President of Republican China Sun Yet Sen and the convicted murderess Ethel Proudlock (all real people) through the eyes of Maugham’s fictitious hostess Lesley Hamlyn, the wife of a British lawyer. The prose is a little uneven for my taste, teetering between self-conscious poeticism and a sometimes clunking reaching for the aphorism. But the story is well structured, and the sense that all the characters have their multiple layers of secrets makes in the end for a compelling read. Its suggestion that it is the “real” version of events behind the story “The Letter” in Maugham’s The Casuarina Tree , which itself led to Maugham’s being considered persona non grata in the expatriate British community for having betrayed secrets, contributes to the intrigue.
Cent Million d’Années et Un Jour, by Jean-Baptiste Andrea:
A lyrical account of an expedition by a palaeontologist to discover what he is convinced is the site of a complete dinosaur skeleton in a remote valley in the Alps. A man’s struggle with himself, with his few companions and with the natural world. Images of glaciers and tiny men silhouetted against them.
Alice Munro:
NOTE: The news that Alice Munro remained silent over the abuse of her daughter Andrea Robin Skinner by Munro’s husband Gerald Fremlin has made me reluctant to return to the work of Munro, which I began to explore after Munro’s death, as reported in the next paragraph. I will do so some time in the next two or three months.
Since the death of Alice Munro, whose work I didn’t know, I’ve been trying to catch up on what makes this chronicler of small-town Canada so compelling. There seems to be no one place to start, so I’m undertaking a meandering tour of her many short stories in much the same way as she describes herself, her brother and her traveling salesman father making a tour of the rural Ontario countryside in “Walker Brothers Cowboy”, the first story in the collection A Wilderness Station: Selected Stories, 1968-1994. As some perceptive critic (I don’t remember who) pointed out, you don’t remember her sentences but you do remember her scenes. And her moods, I would add, and the perplexity everyone feels when the world doesn’t answer you in the way you’ve come to expect. The second story in the collection, “Dance of the Happy Shades”, is a delicious example of this: it starts with small-town gossip and backbiting and ends in quite unexpected epiphany. Others I’ve admired, and been bewitched by, include “The Beggar Maid”, in the same collection, “In Sight of the Lake”, in the collection Dear Life, and the well-known but nevertheless magnificent “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”, in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. The last two are particularly absorbing, and scary, for those of us with elderly relatives or nearing old age ourselves.
The Winding Stair, by Jesse Norman:
A gripping historical novel set at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and the beginning of the reign of King James I. It charts the rise and rivalry of Francis Bacon and Edward Coke, and along the way makes subtle points about how different visions of the law serve conflicting political and religious agendas. Stylistically owes much to Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, but still develops a recognisable voice of its own. An intellectually demanding read, but it keeps the story flowing and is never dull.
Columba’s Bones, by David Greig:
A disturbing tale of a community of monks on the Island on Iona, off the West coast of Scotland, in the year 825. They suffer a brutal attack from Viking raiders, in the aftermath of which a handful of survivors try to rebuild their lives on this lonely outpost. Violent but also surprisingly lyrical at moments. Spare prose, with vivid images.
Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke:
One of the most haunting novels I have read in years. Set in a fantastic dilapidated palace whose origin is never specified but whose relationship to the everyday world is radically reassessed as the story advances. Unlike anything else I know. A masterpiece.