It's alive, Jim, alive...

For reasons too complex to itemise in detail, and which frankly don't reflect well on yours truly, the means of logging into and editing this blog have only just been unearthed. That means there are about 60 books to write up and post here... It'll happen, but in the meantime, how about the all-important bottom line: what have we read and how many POINTS did we give it?

Presenting the Bath Blokes’ Bookclub Senescent Seventy-Five
(the average of scores out of 10 from each BBBC reader)

1 Queen's Gambit Walter Tevis 7.86

2 Kafka on the Shore Murakami 7.66

3 As I Walked Out Laurie Lee 7.65

4 Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Steig Larsson 7.63

5 One Day David Nichols 7.62

6 Engleby Sebastien Faulks 7.61

7 Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 7.57

8 Siege of Krishnapur JG Farrell 7.51

9 Equal Music Vikram Seth 7.47

10 Quiet Yank Graham Greene 7.46

11 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemmingway 7.46

12 Small Island Andrea Levy 7.43

13 Sacred Games Vikram Chandra 7.34

14 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 7.30

15 Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy 7.29

16 Chesil Beach Ian McEwan 7.28

17 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 7.23

18 Secret River Kate Grenville 7.18

19 Endurance Albert Lansing 7.15

20 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 7.12

21 Waxwings Jonathan Raban 7.11

22 The Reader Bernhard Schluk 7.04

23 Saturday Ian McEwan 7.03

24 When the Rain Jonathan Coe 7.01

25 Coming Up for Air George Orwell 6.96

26 Yacoubian Building Alaa Al Aswany 6.96

27 City of Thieves David Beniof 6.88

28 Human Traces Sebastien Faulks 6.86

29 Inheritance of Loss Kiran Dasai 6.74

30 Glasshopper Isabel Ashdown 6.68

31 1000 Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini 6.66

32 Snowman Jo Nesbo 6.53

33 Case Histories Kate Atkinson 6.50

34 Suite Francais Irene Nemirovsky 6.46

35 Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer 6.39

36 Year of Wonders Geraldine Brookes 6.33

37 Salmon Fishing Paul Torday 6.33

38 Plot vs USA Philip Roth 6.27

39 Jesus Christ Jose Saramago 6.23

40 Last City Colin Thubron 6.20

41 The Road Cormac McCarthy 6.19

42 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 6.15

43 Fascination William Boyd 6.14

44 Line of Beauty Alan Hollingsworth 6.07

45 Parrot and Olivier Peter Carey 6.06

46 First Casualty Ben Elton 6.03

47 Cellist of Sarajevo Steven Galloway 6.03

48 Elephant Keeper Christopher Nicholson 6.01

49 Shadow of The Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon 6.01

50 Sisters Rosamund Lupton 6.00

51 Closed Circle Jonathan Coe 5.93

52 Devil May Care Sebastien Faulks 5.87

53 Ebony Tower John Fowles 5.85

54 Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 5.79

55 Tractors Marina Lewycka 5.71

56 Silk Road Colin Thubron 5.67

57 Huck Finn Mark Twain 5.64

58 Don't Move Margaret Mazzantini 5.64

59 Master and Commander Patrick O'Brien 5.60

60 The Ask Sam Lipsyte 5.58

61 Nocturnes Kazuo Ishiguro 5.53

62 Mother's Milk Edward St Aubyn 5.36

63 Margrave of the Marshes John Peel 5.29

64 Wanted Man John Le Carre 5.26

65 Queen Loana Umberto Eco 4.89

66 Apothecary Patricia Schonstein 4.76

67 Contortionist Craig Clevenger 4.67

68 Absence of Hope Ben Jelloun 4.59

69 Damned Utd David Peace 4.41

70 Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 4.29

71 Ten Days in the Hills Jane Smiley 4.21

72 Queeney Beryl Bainbridge 3.94

73 Never Never David Gaffney 3.73

74 Flying Pigs Patrick Gale 3.34

75 Lights Out DBC Pierre 3.17

76 Cry of the Halidon Robert Ludlum 2.56

The Cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Galloway

The BBBC lives! Further posts will follow...

Venue: The Hop Pole, Upper Bristol Road

Date: June 30th 2011

Book: The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway.

Ras’s choice of book promised (on the cover) that ‘…when the everyday act of crossing the street can risk lives, the human spirit is revealed in all its fortitude – and frailty.’ The book created fictional accounts from four of the besieged of Sarajevo, using as a uniting hook the true story of Vedran Smailović, the cellist who in summer 1992 played Albinoni’s Adagio in the street in full view of snipers, every day for 22 days – one day for every fatality in a mortar attack on the market outside the ruins of which he set up his stool.

The cellist isn’t mentioned by name in the book and accounts for a small part of the narrative. When the book came out, a story went around that Smailović was upset that his actions had been appropriated and the truth changed to fit the storyteller’s needs. He’s quoted as saying at the time:

“I didn’t play for 22 days, I played all my life in Sarajevo and for the two years of the siege each and every day. They keep saying I played at four in the afternoon, but the explosion was at ten in the morning and I am not stupid, I wasn’t looking to get shot by snipers so I varied my routine. I never stopped playing music throughout the siege. My weapon was my cello.”

Fair to say we had mixed responses to the book. On one hand was the view that, as Ras said, it was a vivid portrayal of ‘total war’ as it affects those who have little control over their destinies. The characters were strong and believable, one was drawn into and interested in/appalled by their stories and experiences. And while the general feel was similar to the ‘City of Thieves’, about the siege of St Petersburg, there was a strong feeling that this was a vivid insight into European events of the relatively recent past about which many of us felt sadly uninformed. On that level I think there was general agreement that the book met with some success as a narrative, with the simplest sections – such as Kenan's journey to collect water from the brewery – providing the greatest impact.

There was less agreement about the way the book dealt with the wider context of events. The focus was entirely on the besieged. Who were the ‘men in the hills’ who wreaked havoc so indiscriminately on soldiers and innocent civilians alike? What was their motivation, why were they so bent on the total destruction of the city and its people? What were the seeds of the conflict; how far did religious and cultural divides contribute? Mark Th was unhappy about the book in general – the main characters were thinly drawn and went about their actions in a dreamlike state which told us nothing about the causes and factions, while focusing only on the ‘right here, right now’ action on the streets. This lack of balance didn’t work for him. Richard also described it as ‘a good little book’ with the emphasis on the word ‘little’ (as in both ‘short’ and ‘not great’). Ultimately disappointing, as with that palette of material surely something much more enlightening could have been created. We did acknowledge that it would have been a lot more than 220 pages long, however. And Rob makes the point that if the author didn’t set out to write a detailed historical account, which he obviously didn’t, there’s little point in criticising him as if he had. I think.

But for others, notably Rob, Chris, Neil and Mark T, it was an engaging, easily read and thought-provoking book that did exactly what it set out to do. The cunning inclusion of a female counter-sniper character worked very well for some…

There were some comments around the style of the writing: I personally found the introductory chapter about the cellist over-written and overly-dramatic, and subsequent long sections written in the present tense (especially Arrow’s chapters) failed to keep the suspense taut, as the writer apparently intended.

In summary, we acknowledged the book’s brevity, drama and ability to bring to our attention a segment of recent European history that some of us hadn’t been fully aware of. But some criticised the end result, in which only one side of the canvas had been painted in.

We gave it 6.025 out of 10.