The Aerodynamics of Pork – Patrick Gale

July 28th 2011, Pulteney Arms, Bath

Gale’s book was described on the cover thus: ‘WPC Mo Faithe is overcome with lust while investigating a series of violent attacks on newspaper astrologers in London.’ So I approached it with an open mind and a song in my heart. However, the trajectory from thereon was distinctly downwards. I confess also to being drawn by the statement ‘Patrick Gale’s first novel is suffused with heady wish-fulfilment…’, always keen to support the work of young struggling artists. What I hadn’t realised was that this was an early 1980s first novel, repackaged to suit the modern book-buying public, who are clearly crying out for blood, sex and horoscopes. Oh and I'm a fool for a clever title and that's really why I chose it.

It really felt like a first novel. We all agreed that there were too many clunking descriptions, oddly one-sided cipher-like characters (Seth’s Dad, Mo’s straight Lewis-type sidekick who started out being written up but came to nothing much) and a triumph of agenda over artistic merit or literary style. Not that he isn’t a bad writer — there were parts that resonated, particularly (and this discussion took place before the civil unrest of mid-August) relating to London in the early 80’s (for those of us who were there at the time), the still-clandestine gay club world, and with hindsight it’s significant and interesting that AIDs doesn’t merit a mention. However, these parts were all too clearly written to the ‘My first serious novel’ template and the dialogue in particular was stilted and unconvincing. I was also struck by the way that while the chapters started out balancing the action pretty evenly between London and Cornwall, about halfway through Cornish events took the upper hand and it was as though it was a bit of a nuisance for Gale to have to go back and work things around in London so it could all lead to a gentle denoument with the London copper in a Cornish garden.

What was the phantom pregnancy all about? Clearly juxtaposing Evelyn’s conviction that her daughter was (legally) pregnant while her son was about to launch himself underage on the libidinous Roly, had something to say about the legal battle bubbling away in the background, but the over-obvious coda (quoting the news of the age of consent debate in the Lords) was a sledgehammer on a cashew, even if it wasn’t clear from the text that the bill wasn’t to become law for some time to come (2000).

I shouldn’t give the impression we hated the book. It was on several levels an enjoyable read: not inaccessible, quite vivid in places (particularly Cornwall), thought-provoking here and there. But I don’t think it will linger long — rather like the duff bottle of Hirondelle… And as is customary with most of the books that I've chosen, it will languish somewhere around the relegation zone.

Average score 3.34. Pants. SC

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.

The Ask – Sam Lipsyte

26^th May 2011

Rob’s description of this as a ‘marmite book’ was an appropriate one. This was one of those books that provoked strong but very different reactions from within the group. On the one side were the ‘ayes’ (Mark Th and Steve in particular, plus Neil and Mark T) who all reported that they enjoyed the read. In contrast, the ‘nays’ (Rob and Ras) felt that it was badly written drivel with few, if any virtues. Chris seemed to sit between these two views.

There was clear consensus among the ayes on a couple of points. Firstly, the blurb on the back of the book is (typically) misleading as this is not a comic novel and certainly not a ‘side-splitter’. The book was seen as a satire on modern corporate America (Steve was very eloquent on this point) that wove in many aspects of modern life. At the same time, it was agreed that Milo’s journey is a sad one. He is a man with many privileges and zero skills, who falls from a very low height, losing his wife and job and being outdone by almost everyone he knows. There was also agreement that while it had been a very entertaining read, the low emphasis on plot meant that, once finished, it quickly began to fade from memory.

On the nay side there was early disagreement about what daily newspaper (not) to read but much closer agreement on what made the book so trying. It was very badly written to the point of being incomprehensible. Lipsyte is a bad writer with a poor command of the English language. The book has no plot at all and both the characters and their situations are impossible to believe in. The book does not resonate at all in England and is unfunny and frustrating. Ras observed at one point that only the Halidon was a worse read while Rob went so far as to compare Lipsyte’s writing to Jilly Cooper and find him wanting.

This marmite polarisation was perhaps the reason for a lively but slightly shorter than usual discussion with book matters concluded by 10.15 and more general conversation following on afterwards. The book discussion tended to remind the ayes of the things they had enjoyed about the book but had already started to forget (trendy Salamander childrearing, workplace politics, loft/cage living, hip 60s parents, business and marketing speak, surfing TV and the internet, cookery shows, student life etc) – and someone (Mark T, I think) commented on how many of the group were smiling at the recollection of these. It looked very much like this recollection also reminded the nays exactly why they disliked this stupid book in the first place.

5.58

Parrol and Olivier – Peter Carey

Can't find any notes of group deliberations. Neil supplied these thoughts:

Well, I have to say this was a very pleasant surprise. I have only read one Pater Carey book before, the Kelly Gang story that won the Booker Prize, and I can't say I was that taken with that particular novel. I found the story rather one-dimensional and the laboured interpretation of how Kelly might have told his own story rather monotonous. So I didn't come to this book with high expectations and my first impressions weren't helped much by the opening sections from either of the narrators. Both seemed very dark and foreboding and didn't hint to me at all of the rather comic tale that would unfold quite amusingly afterwards.

It is perhaps a bit of a stretch to liken this to a 19th century Jeeves and Wooster novel, but the underlying humour seems to be there in the re-telling of the master servant relationship, especially as this relationship is so unconventional. I liked the way we alternated between narrators to get their different takes on the situations and the relationship and I found their characters to be well drawn.

I also found the backdrop to the book interesting. It made me realise how little I know about the French Revolution and more particularly the July Revolution and it has made me go on to read up some more about both to try and better understand the background to Olivier's position. It also threw up some interesting questions for me, amongst which was the question of whether there had been any famous female painters pre the 20th century, something which again I have looked in to and find remarkable that there were so few female painters of any note around this time.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the way Carey used hindsight to draw parallels between modern America and this older version, with sideways nods to the potential for ignorant men to become President for example and their early obsession with wealth and property which Carey seemed very clearly to me to be comparing to the open avarice that poisons the country today.

But most of all I enjoyed Carey's poetic writing style and I loved the way he effortlessly constructed sentences which would take most of us hours if not days to come up with if we could ever at all. Take this sentence for example where Olivier describes a wine he is drinking: "In a year it would be a dowager with a faded corsage, but as it entered my mouth it was vigorous and manly, completely composed, its orchestra all present and correct" - take that Jilly Goolden!

The Snowman – Jo Nesbo

24th Feb 2011.

We had clear difference of opinion about Jo Nesbo and Snowman - or to be more precise a difference between those absent and who sent their comments in advance and liked it (particularly Ras and Richard) vs those at the meeting. To be fair, Mark T did start off the discussion with a strong endorsement of the book, but then - as others pulled the author's style and abilities to pieces - gradually lowered his opinion of it. (Such is the power of group pressure!).

In the interests of balance, I'd probably better start with a reminder of what the missing parties liked about The Snowman. Their notes said it "ticked all the police/detective/thriller genre boxes' (Richard), was a "fast moving, ripping yarn with believable characters" (Ras) and (whilst less enthusiastic overall) left Steve "gripped by the imagery and parts of the plot". So - that's the positive comments over!

From those present (which was the rest of us bar Will), there was agreement that it kept us largely interested and the story was (sort of) entertaining, but collectively we were far from impressed either by Mr Nesbo's writing abilities or the credibility of the book as a story that held together - with Neil being particularly critical.

To take the writing abilities first. From Neil's ' it was an undemanding, easy read' to Chris's 'this wasn't the sort of book I thought I'd be reading when I took up the offer to join a book club', there was a strong view that Jo Nesbo was not a great writer. As we explored the Steig comparison, our view was that Nesbo's characters were standard and predictable - as opposed to (for example) the highly original female lead in Steig's books. Though on the more positive side, we has a discussion about how Nesbo had characters that were 'earthy' and flawed and how he took a critical view of society as opposed to Larson's idealistic, left wing/radical heros which was perhaps more realistic. As we bow to Steve's superior knowledge to translation standards, we had to accept that the language quality and creativity is largely Nesbo's - and thus he is responsible for poor writing standards - varying from awful choice of words when trying to write sex scenes (words like 'dick' and 'porking' are not components of erotic literature) through to the more fundamental problem of him having a limited range of 'techniques' to engage the reader.

We almost all agreed that the first seventy or so pages were a really quite gripping read - he created tension and indeed fear on occasions as the first couple of murders were described. But then it became totally predictable - a case of 'oh no, here's another woman with kids, there'll be a death and a snowman any second'. Similarly, the regularity with which people became suspects and were then cleared ended up being beyond a joke. There were several comments about how he failed to explain key points in the story. For example - why did observing his mother being 'porked' by someone (to use Nesbo-lingo) turn the eventual culprit into a mass-murderer (there should have been some exploration of that), or why did Katrine not have bullets in her gun (a key moment but it remained unexplained). Some of the storyline was considered totally predictable - for example we all knew that the handcuffs were going to play a part almost from the first time he brought them into the text. There were differing views on whether it was possible to spot the eventual murderer. Some were genuinely misled, whereas others (including me who can usually never spot the murderer in a whodunit) were convinced from the outset that the sexually gorgeous cop (Katrine) would become a suspect and then be exonerated, the lover and Hole would end up together and thus the extremely nice new partner of his lover was clearly going to be the guilty party, Toooooooo predictable, and incidentally - why did Katrine just totally disappear from the novel for the last quarter of it?

Which leads us to the implausibility of numerous bits of the story - a problem noted by Richard amongst his enthusiasm. To give just a few examples of those spotted by those of us downing the beer in the Devonshire:

The way the police unquestioningly accepted the first dead person as being the murdered with almost no evidence or rationale

The body in the freezer (obviously a major investigation into a missing policeman would not have looked in a freezer in the basement of his holiday home - far to complex a concept for the average Norwegian cop)

Hole just accepting the mould-man into his house, giving him the key (particularly when he was going on about the Snowman being close to him) and then still not questioning it when the Residents Association people said they knew nothing of a mould problem

Hole disarming Katrine with a fishing rod

The six storey dive into the canal

Etc etc

Finally, to end of a positive note, we all thought the mould man bit was a very clever red herring - I think everyone thought that ti would have something to do with the denouement - and the re-appearance at the very end was a nice touch. A question someone (can;t remember who - sorry) asked was whether it was just a red herring or whether it was a metaphor for decay in society, the police force and so on).

6.53

Sister – Rosamund Lupton

27^th January 2011

Once again we found we had a book that was capable of splitting opinion. The split was basically down the lines of Chris, Mark and Neil quite liking the book while Ras and Steve were a lot less keen. Amongst those of us that enjoyed the book there was a feeling that the book was a page turner with a relatively unusual premise in that it was a sibling investigating the disappearance rather than a detective, that it drew you back in wanting to read more and that a number of the characters were well drawn, most notably the two sisters and their mother. Mark particularly enjoyed the family relationships and found them interesting to read, meanwhile I admitted to welling up whilst reading the passages dealing with the funeral (an admission I am sure to regret having made) and one or two others agreed that it was moving in parts.

On the down side everyone seemed to have elements of the book which they felt detracted from it to some extent or other. For a number of us it was the ending and the fact that we were supposed to believe that Bea has just made up all the meetings with Mr Wright, and much else, whilst lying on the floor of a public toilet, half drugged. Many of us clearly felt this didn’t work. In fact I quoted a line from the author’s Q&A at the end where Rosamund Lupton says that she believes it is important that writers are prepared to “take on the chin what has to be re-written, however drastically” and expounded my theory that she was forced into the change of ending by a persuasive editor, wrongly in the opinion of most of us.

In the meantime I was also not persuaded that Bea could be so perceptive of people’s characters when she was so emotionally stunted; Chris thought the plotline of big drug company doing whatever it took was one that sounded a little too familiar, Ras didn’t like the jumps in chronology, the fact that we were left unsure of whether Bea was saved or not and the unrealistic relationship with the fiancée, while with Steve it was easier to list what he did like than what he didn’t (although high on his list were grammatical errors, such as spelling wretch as retch, not using a capital P for Pantone, and the fact that he felt rather excluded from the intimate “conversation” between Bea and her sister). Steve admitted to having got off on the wrong foot with the book and not having read it all because he really wasn’t engaged by it. He also raised the interesting question as to whether it was fair comment that not only were all men less convincing (see Richards notes), but also in general all men in the book were bad and potential suspects while all women were good and potential victims.

So, in summary, everyone, including Richard whose notes we reviewed, felt the book had drawbacks, but whereas for some of us they didn’t bother us much and generally we were happy to be taken along for the ride, for others these were often major stumbling blocks that they found it difficult to get past.

From Mark Th: I think I sit with Ras and Chris on this one. The first third was really enjoyable and the narrative device of combining Mr Wright with her letter to her sister created an engaging and very funusual take on a usually very male genre - allowing her to write with a feminine sensibility about her feelings for sister, mother Todd, Mr Wright as well as advance the plot. The development of the female characters and their relationships was also absorbing. From about halfway it drifted away from credibility (as Richard has pointed out in some detail) well before the final scooby doo banalities of the denouement. This may reflect my problems with this type of genre, as the writing was at times both poetic and insightful while the plot was a bit silly.