A Reader on Reading - Alberto Manguel

It's been a good year for finishing books about books.  There was the wonderful Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet, which is one of my books of the year and which I read over the course of a couple of days - there was Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night, and there was his A Reader on Reading.  The Manguels I dipped in and out of contentedly for years - my lovely friend Lorna bought me A Reader on Reading back in 2010 - and it was with a happy sigh that I finally closed its pages a month or so ago.

It's the sort of book that one inevitably reads with a pencil in hand, wanting to make little notes of agreement in the margins - or at least jot down page numbers to read again later.  Manguel's work is a touch more high-flown than bookish books I adore (like Jacques Bonnet's, or Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing) but even when he is discoursing on Argentinian highbrows I've never read of, I can't help loving him - because, at heart, he is simply a passionate reader.

I believe that we are, at the core, reading animals and that the art of reading, in its broadest sense, defines our species.

I had to give up making notes quite early on, because I knew that I'd essentially want to write down every page.  There are literary truths known only to the ardent reader on almost every page.  My head nodded in happy agreement so often that I've probably got whiplash (NB, I probably haven't).  Check out these two:

Like so many other readers, I have always felt that the edition in which I read a book for the first time remains, for the rest of my life, the original one.

(That's how I feel about I Capture the Castle and the curious 1970s edition I read.)

The experience may come first and, many years later, the reader will find the name to call it in the pages of King Lear.  Or it may come at the end, and a glimmer of memory will throw up a page we had thought forgotten in a battered copy of Treasure Island.  

Of course, having read it over so long a period, I can't remember all that much apart from the things I jotted down... I know that I ended up skimming some of the stuff on Borges, and was surprised by how interesting I found a political section towards the end.  When he wrote about individual authors and books, I tended only to be riveted when I knew the books myself (and I love that he uses Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for the source of every chapter's epigraph) but I was most delighted when he wrote about reading or writing in general.

I realised that if reading is a contented, sensuous occupation whose intensity and rhythm are agreed upon between the reader and the chosen book, writing instead is a strict, plodding, physically demanding task in which the pleasures of inspiration are all well and good, but are only what hunger and taste are to a cook: a starting point and a measuring rod, not the main occupation.  Long hours, stiff joints, sore feet, cramped hands, the heat or cold of the workplace, the anguish of missing ingredients and the humiliation owing to the lack of knowhow, onions that make you cry, and sharp knives that slice your fingers are what is in store for anyone who wants to prepare a good meal or write a good book.

Yes, this post is fast becoming simply a list of quotations, rather than a review, but I think that's the best way to entice you to read Manguel.  (Plus, I've just come off the stage for the village's Christmas show, and this is the best you can get out of me...!)  And with that in mind, I'll end with the longest quotation yet - about anonymous authors.

The history of writing, of which the history of reading is its first and last chapter, has among its many fantastical creations one that seems to me peculiar among all: that of the authorless text for which an author must be invented.  Anonymity has its attraction, and Anonymous is one of the major figures of every one of our literatures.  But sometimes, perhaps when the depth and reverberations of a text seem almost too universal to belong on an individual reader's bookshelf, we have tried to imagine for that text a poet of flesh and blood, capable of being Everyman.  It is as if, in recognizing in a work the expression in words of a private, wordless experience hidden deep within us, we wished to satisfy ourselves in the belief that this too was the creation of human hands and a human mind, that a man or woman like us was once able to tell for us that which we, younger siblings, merely glimpse or intuit.  In order to achieve this, the critical sciences come to our aid and do their detective work to rescue from discretion the nebulous author behind the Epic of Gilgamesh or La Vie devant soi, but their laborus are merely confirmation.  In the minds of their readers, the secret authors have already acquired a congenial familiarity, an almost physical presence, lacking nothing except a name.

Thankfully Manguel isn't anonymous, so I can go out and buy other books by him - and the hardback editions of his essays are simply beautiful.  Despite being a die-hard fiction lover, I think my dream books are non-fiction literary essays - which are essentially what blogs are, of course.  My little shelf of books-about-books may not be as extensive or as personal as the wide (and widening) blogosphere, but it holds almost as special place in my heart, and I long to find well-crafted examples to add to it.

Caroline by Cornelius Medvei

Lest you get completely the wrong impression about Mel, who gave me Dewey (and thanks for your lovely comments on that!) and High School Musical: The Book of the Film, I thought I'd better review a really good novel that she lent me recently.  It's become sort of a stereotype that when Mel gives or lends me books, it takes me years to read them.  Well, last Wednesday she lent me Caroline: A Mystery by Cornelius Medvei (can this be his real name?), and I started it at about 8.30pm while waiting for my train home - and by the end of the night, I'd finished it.

Mel knew I would love it for a couple of reasons - it plays with the fantastic, and it involves a donkey.  Donkeys are my second favourite animal, after cats (obviously) and I was definitely prepared to enjoy a novel where donkey takes central focus.

It actually kicks off with one of those layered narratives beloved of Victorian writers and earlier - the sort of thing we see in Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights etc., of someone telling someone telling someone, all remembering things perfectly, etc.  So Mr. Shaw's son is relating the story to someone who may or may not have a name.  Sorry, can't remember.  I'm not entirely sure why Medvei did this, unless it's to put all sorts of question marks about reliability and integrity into the narrative.  (It's also a nice excuse to include photographs and scraps, apparently left behind by Mr. Shaw.)  Let's skip past it onto the story proper.

Mr. Shaw is on holiday with his wife and child, from his job as an insurance broker, when they come across Caroline in a field.  They know she's called Caroline, because it's painted on her stable.  Mr. Shaw's son gives this account of the meeting...

They faced each other across the sagging gate.  He saw a rusty grey, barrel-chested donkey, with pretty ears nine inches long (one cocked, the other drooping to the left), head on one side, flicking her tail to keep the flies away.  I noticed her shaggy coat and the pale whiskers on her upper lip, and wondered how old she might be.  I wasn't sure how you told a donkey's age; something to do with their teeth, I thought, but she kept her mouth firmly shut as she champed on a mouthful of grass in a manner that suggested intense concentration mingled with dumb insolence, like a bored teenager with a plug of bubblegum.

And she, fixing my father my her great, dark, limpid eyes - "eyes a man could drown in", as he later described them - took in the hair thinning at the temples, his nose reddened with sunburn, his stomach bulging slightly over the waistband of his shorts (like all his colleagues, my father always wore shorts on holiday, regardless of the weather; shorts were not allowed in the office).

I suppose this was the moment the whole strange affair began; the moment, so well documented in classical poetry and TV soaps and sugary ballads, when two strangers come face to face; the heart thumps, an overpowering force shakes them, like the wind in the birch trees above the stable - in short, they begin to fall for each other.

One interesting result of Medvei giving the focalisation to Mr. Shaw's son is that we never really know what Mr. Shaw is thinking, or quite what level of affection he feels for Caroline.  His son describes it as a love affair (er, non-physical of course.  It's not that kind of book) but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it isn't - that Mr. Shaw simply thinks Caroline is incredible.

And it's hard not to agree.  Mr. Shaw manages to persuade Caroline's owner - and his own wife - that taking Caroline home with him is a good idea.  Once established in the backyard of their terraced city house, Caroline becomes something of a nuisance to the neighbours with her eeee-orrrring.  (We used to live a few metres away from a field of donkeys (known as the 'donkey field', demonstrating an early flair for linguistic manipulation) and, believe me, some donkeys make their presence known.  There was one called Charlie Brown who was LOUD.)  Anyway - Mr. Shaw's solution to this predicament is somewhat unorthodox.  He decides to take Caroline to his office.

After initial protests, Caroline becomes an integral part of office life.  Eventually, even though Mr. Shaw is only a few months away from retirement, she even takes his place.  It isn't clear whether the office staff are having a joke at Mr. Shaw's expense, or whether Caroline somehow does perform adeptly at the job... but these ambiguities aren't practicable once Caroline begins to play chess...

This is where the potential element of the fantastic comes into play.  It's possible that delusion is at work, but it seems more likely (within the context of the story) that Caroline can play chess and look after financial clients.  She never speaks or writes, or anything like that - Medvei is much cleverer, by giving her a curious form of communication which centres around the chessboard.

Caroline: A Mystery has the feel of a fable, but without any moral or message.  But with, so the subtitle proclaims, a mystery.  What is it?  Her unusual abilities, or his unusual affections?  Or simply the suddenness of it all, without any connection to Mr. Shaw's previous life?

As I said before, I read this in a few hours.  It's short (around 150pp) and definitely a page-turner - but with lingering thoughtfulness, rather than the rush-through-discard-immediately feel of some fast-paced books.  Medvei isn't particularly a prose stylist - there is no bad writing though, it's just secondary to the plot and the characters - but he certainly knows how to craft a novel so that the reader rushes through, loving every moment, curious as to what the next page will hold.

I know it's still early to mention the C-word, but I think this would make a lovely Christmas gift for the animal lover in your life.  If that person happens to be you, then... what are you gonna do??


Others who got Stuck into it:

"This is a lovely little book!" - Jackie, Farm Lane Books

"a small but finely wrought – and very enjoyable – read." - David, Follow The Thread

"Sheer delight from start to finish, amusing, sad and wonderfully written, with great economy of style." - Elaine, Random Jottings

Box Clever

It's always exciting when you read something completely out of your comfort zone (if you should have such a thing) and you find that you absolutely love it. This happened to me months and months ago when I read Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman. Boxing, beetles, Nazis... none of these are on my hitlist of must-haves for books, and yet Beauman's novel is one of the most interesting and compelling that I've read this year. Sadly I didn't write my thoughts down at the time, and now that it's actually been published, I'm having to cast my mind far, far back to remember what I thought... with the help of Claire's review and Lynne's review! Sorry if I've missed others...

Boxer, Beetle flits back and forth between two time periods - in one, trimethylaminuria sufferer and Nazi-paraphernalia collector Kevin (also known as Fishy) is investigating the work of scientist Philip Erskine. Erskine occupies the other time period, in the 1930s, where he encounters Seth "Sinner" Roach. Sinner is a five foot tall Jewish man who, despite his stature, is incredibly good at boxing. Which catches the attention of a man interested in eugenics. Oh, and beetles. Hence the title - alongside investigating Sinner, and paying for the privilege of examining him over a period of time, Erskine is trying to develop a strain of very resilient beetles. As you do. Oh, before I go further, I have to mention the first line - which really grabbed me into the novel, as well as putting a smile on my face:

In idle moments I sometimes like to close my eyes and imagine Joseph Goebbels' forty-third birthday party.

Well, don't we all? I should add hear that Kevin isn't a Nazi sympathiser - nor, of course, is Ned. Kevin collects the memorabilia without having the slightest fascist leaning. Unlike quite a few of those roaming around 1930s London.

But East End London isn't the only place we see in the 1930s - Erskine whisks Sinner off to a country house, and the family of his fiance (I think... as I said, I read it a long time ago) Evelyn. Evelyn is a rather fab character, a composer of atonal, avant-garde music. She makes the mistake of asking Sinner whether he likes avant-garde music (remember, this is the working-class lad who likes beating people up, swearing and joining gangs):

"I'm quite sure you would," said Evelyn, "I can almost invariably tell." Evelyn was aware that she didn't compeltely convince when she made knowing remarks like this, especially to someone like Sinner with that gaze of his, but she didn't see how her repartee was supposed to gain any poise when she had absolutely nobody to practise on at home. If she tried to deliver a satirical barb at dinner her father would just stare at her until she wanted to cry. And Caroline Garlick's family were lovely but the trouble was they laughed rather too easily, rather than not at all - it wasn't quite the Algonquin Round Table. She was convinced that if she had been allowed to go to Paris she would have had lots of practice, and of course me lots of people like this boy, but as it was, if she ever met any genuine intellectuals - or any beyond their neighbour Alistair Thurlow - they would probably think she was hopelessly childish. For about a week she'd tried to take up heavy drinking, since heavy drinkers were so often reputed to be terrific conversationalists, but most of the time she just fell asleep.

This isn't, to be honest, the main tone of the novel. This humour, and this sort of almost Wodeshousian character, are drowned out by violence and antipathies and all sorts of terrifying things. Sinner is a pretty unremittingly horrible person. But Beauman's writing is so good, the pace so well judged, and the climax so dramatic that I couldn't help admiring this novel to the hilt.

It is difficult to get across my enjoyment of this, because I can't point to any of the characters or any aspects of the plot which appealed. If I were just to read a synopsis of Boxer, Beetle, I'd probably steer well clear. That's why I'm not going a 'Books to get Stuck into' feature today - I just can't think of anything along the same lines. So you'll just have to take my word for it, until you get your hands on the novel - Ned Beauman is a very talented writer, and if he can make this novel addictive for me, just imagine what he's capable of!

For more from Ned Beauman, pop back tomorrow - I'll be posting an interview he was kind enough to do with me... find out what inspired Boxer, Beetle, what Beauman's doing next, and a little about his famous mother...