Reviews
Ill/\Vl l()(3lli ESSAYS PETER CAREY
Wrong About Japan (i aber) COO.
Kikujiro changed Carey's life
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‘To be a successful father,’ Ernest Hemingway once said, ‘there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at them for the first two years.’ Peter Carey, the twice Booker Prize-winning author, would most likely disagree. For he didn’t just look at his son Charley in his formative years, he became obsessed with his cultural take on the world. Subtitled ‘A Father’s Journey with His Son’ this gentle, relatively cliche-free set of essays is about a trip Carey took with his 12-year-old to a very different
Japan.
Carey Snr had already visited the land of the rising sun but when his boy started showing an obsession in ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano’s 1999 fleeing- gangster—with-kid road movie Kikujiro, Carey realised that this may be his chance to bond with the boy before he spins out into the wilderness of adolescence. On suggesting the idea, Carey is told by the lad that he doesn’t want to go if ‘I have to see the real Japan.’ A hostage to his son’s wishes, the Careys embark on a journey with a teenage guide called Takashi that eschews Shinto shrines for anime, futuristic technological
design and Godzilla.
Initially, it’s a little bewildering to see Carey, best known for meaty novels like Oscar and Lucinda tackle something so seemingly lightweight. But through a series of narrative diversions, odd anecdotes and warm honesty in his detailing of the relationship between himself and Charley, this historically smart although slim book is a joyous distraction until Carey produces his next novel. (Paul Dale)
RELATIONSHIP TALE JENNY ECLAIR
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It's always intriguing to read works of fiction by writers better known for deing something else wrth their days. Having thrilled to Jenny Eclair's trademark brand of delightfully crude stand- up on more than one
occasion (including graphic descriptions of the Queen Mother allowrng herself a vaginal examination in a clothes shop changing room). the Perrier~award wrnning turn's prose efforts are disappointineg docile in corriparison.
In this follow-up to Carnbenve/I Beauty. the turban-wearing lady novelist focuses on two families whose stability has been imperilled b). that most tiresome of phenomena: the male mid-life CriSis. One man's extra-marital philandering and another‘s dissatisfaction with his second famin are brought to a head when the two broods converge on the same
Italian holiday resort. The book is often fun. undeinanding reading. but Eclair's take on marital impasse. for all its knowing Wit and sharp observation of domestic life. is also Surprisineg sad and Cynical. (Allan Radcliffe)
SOCIAL DRAMA CLARE GEORGE The Evangelist
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This is Clare George's second novel and like her debut. The C/oud Chamber. it deals wrth the role of SCience in somety and how we relate to it. The Evangelist in question is Our narrator, Professor Max Oldroyd a devoted atheist and biologist who has spent a lifetime
battling creationists: in an effort to spread the '.‘.'ord of Darwin's theories to the iriasses. Oldroyd spends the book reexaniining hit; life. a fraught anti often painful expt-zrience. after a combative interview With a journalist sparks liirrt ()ll.
Although the frarne the novel is hung on appears flimsy George is an expert at (:liaracterisation. especially With the figure of Oldroyd who is complex and contradictory yet utterly believable. This is more a novel of ideas than a plot driven opus. but the eternal struggle of sCience versus religion is delicately and precisely examined. wrthout seeming overly stuffy or studious. (DOug Johnstone)
CRIME DRAMA GUILLERMO MARTINEZ
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A murder disturbs the peace of a sleepy English town. right under the nose of an ingiiISitive foreign national. SOund familiar? Guillermo Martinez's writing debut indeed reads at times like a contemporary Agatha Christie. but this is not to the book's detriment. The Oxford Murders bezng no derivative sleuth novel. Simple stOrytelling. authentic characters and conceivable Situations are brought together in
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MICHAEL WHITE Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood
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. ,5 Michael White has made his name as a general interest biographer through honest p(‘>rtrayals of popular subjects. Larger focussrng on literary figures. such as CS Lewrs and JRR Tolkien, he has exhibited a talent for making the unintelligible and dry altogether more digestible. In his latest offering we are granted the life. times and legacy of Niccolo Machiavelli. A little- known and much maligned character, he proves to have been a leading diplomat in a most turbulent and scandalous period of European llISlOTy White )oylully conveys the political and soCial backdrop of 15th century Europe Without resoning to a dumbing down. It is a balanCing act he perfOrms well. and as wrth the narrative pace and structure. he always seems to have a firm grip on the reins. The reSUlt is a fascmating ibSight into one of the great minds of the renaissance that also makes for a delightful read. Mark Edmundsoni
Books editor Brian Donaldson picks the debutantes of 2005
Glasgow UniverSity‘s Creative Writing course continues to churn them out and Rodge Glass (pictured) is this year's big hope. No Fireworks (Faber) is a mystery novel about a sixtysomething boozehound obsessed with Henry VIII who dips into some spooky secrets from his past when his dead mum starts writing to him. An intriguing premise. certainly, but one which Vikas Swarup aims to match with O&A. (Transworld). This debut centres around an orphan boy in India who is investigated for having the gall to win top TV game show, Who Wr'l/ Win a Bil/ion?
Emily Maguire explores the darker side of life with Taming the Beast (Serpent's Tail), a coming—of-age erotic drama about a young woman's violent affair with a manipulative older guy. Similarly bleak material resonates through Jenna Blum's first novel Those Who Save Us (Canongate) as we follow the tale of a German girl in the 19308 split between her conflicting loyalties to the Fatherland and to her humanity caused by the treatment of Jews in the nearby Buchenwald. In Simonetta Hornby's opener The Almond Picker (Viking). the Palermo-born. London-based lawyer for children writes about a dead Sicilian matriarch and the true life she may or may not have led.
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