re:View – The 2012 bookshelf V: Welcome to the dark side
Right, more bookshelf from last year. With Pratchett and the Bavarians done, let’s move on to some pretty dark (and seriously brilliant) stuff.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
I dodged this one in school when it was on the final-year English reading list, and then my little brother dodged it in his final-year English class and passed his copy on to me. I’m glad I read it only now, almost ten years on from school. What a brilliant and painful book – those murders were haunting my nightmares for weeks. I don’t usually enjoy non-fiction much, but this one really changed my mind. As a journalist I was captivated watching the results of Capote’s meticulous (and obviously tireless) work evolve and constantly intrigued by the question of how much was fact and in how far he allowed his mind to fill the gaps. And I am in awe of the writer who can start by giving you the outcome of the story and then go on to build so much tension into it that, as you read it, your brain almost refuses to acknowledge you already know what’s going to happen.
Pens: 5 out of 5
By the way if you’ve ever wondered what became of the characters in the book, here’s a really moving interview feature portraying the later life of Bobby Rupp, the then-boyfriend of murdered teenager Nancy Clutter.
Dark, darker, noir: Introducing my new obsession
I don’t think I ever even ready so much as a real crime novel in my life. And then I watch a movie and end up knee deep in seriously dark crime stuff..
So I was watching L.A. Confidential the other day and kept thinking that somehow the movie didn’t make sense – as if there was a much bigger story behind it that had been chopped up for the adaptation. I didn’t know about James Ellroy at the time, but was little surprised when a quick search brought up L.A. Confidential, the book. And then the entire L.A. Quartet series. Being a bit weird about serial stuff, I had to start at the beginning, of course.
Although Neverwhere had left me 
Oh-kay, weirdness alert. I wasn’t really sure about the whole Thursday Next series, but decided to give it a go after several friends recommended it. And I’m afraid it ends for me with volume one. Although the meta fiction thing grew on me about halfway through the book (when the actual plot finally kicks in after some over-indulgent introductory rambling), the concept behind it seemed just a bit too chaotic. Special detectives protecting our literary heritage? Cool. Real people and fictional characters jumping in and out of books? If we’re going that way, fair enough. A Nineteen Eighty-Four inspired setting? Well, if you must crush us with references, okay. It was when the time travelling came in that I got a bit of overload, and when it moved on to the vampires and werewolves, I finally had enough. It’s a shame that Fforde had to hopelessly over-clutter The Eyre Affair by cramming in every possible aspect of fantasy literature he could think of. Because the bit about moving between the real world and literary world would have been pretty awesome without all the rest annoying the hell out of you.
A collection of short stories from one of the funniest comedians around. From a dude in Montana who makes his money hoovering prairie dogs out of the ground, to a teenage girl who invites hundreds of thousands of MySpace friends to her house party, to the author of a business book entitled Highly Successful Secrets to Standing on a Corner Holding Up a Golf Sale Sign, this book is full of fantastically messed-up characters. And behind each story – most of which, admittedly, are a bit off weird – you discover the very touching truth of human encounters. And that’s what makes Rich Hall so good and so funny.
What can I say! Adrian Mole has been one of Britain’s favourite literary characters for decades, and finally I am one of his many fans. Sue Townsend is a complete genius, and not just because of her uncanny ability to get into the head of a teenage boy. It’s Adrian Mole’s entire world – from the early 80s West Midlands small-town life to the 90s Soho food renaissance – that makes these books such an unbelievably delightful read. To me, a German with a not very solid basis in British history who has spent the last four years trying to figure out this country, the Mole Diaries have been a most enjoyable lesson in recent cultural history. And I also very much wish I’d known Adrian Mole when I was a teenager, because it would have made being a teenager infinitely more bearable. I cannot tell you how much I love these books.
Another German provincial murder mystery, part three of Rita Falk’s bestselling Franz Eberhofer series is mostly more of the same, which in this case means more hilariously entertaining micro-cultural comedy with a bit of a crime story in the background. To be fair, I probably only love these books so much because they are set around my home town and feature a whole range of characters and customs that could have been plucked straight off our road in the village. Most of the fun in this series is based on regional culture and dialect, so this one’s probably best enjoyed by German natives / native speakers, which means we can move right on to the next book.
I had almost given up on Christopher Moore in the light of the recent, largely disappointing additions to my bookshelf. But then, just in time, along came Love Nun to sway my opinion of his writing back into more favourable regions. This is a great adventure, with a good story that’s nutcase enough to have you laughing out loud but doesn’t go completely off the rails in terms of the plot. A washed-out pilot stumbles onto a remote island, where a vaguely mental doctor and his evil wife are doing some not exactly ethical stuff with the cannibalistic natives under the guise of an old cargo cult. Much madness ensues. This could also make a fantastic movie, by the way.
Oh wow, that was dark. Prattchet’s teenage witch has certainly grown up, and for a witch that means facing a whole lot more than puberty. This book made me realise once again why I love Pratchett so much: It’s comic fantasy, but there’s a balance, a kind of very practical-minded morality to it. With Pratchett magic’s not all sparks and glamour; it has consequences and requires sacrifices. And so I Shall Wear Midnight reveals that Tiffany’s dallying with her magical powers in the previous volumes didn’t only lead her into immediate showdowns with mythical enemies, but has also conjured up a much more complex force from a deep, dark corner of history – one that’s frighteningly human. Where there’s witches, there’s always people with a stake, and history tends to go in cycles and repeat itself. And with the ancient spirit of a powerful witch-hunter on the loose and turning her land against her, the stakes are high for Tiffany. Meanwhile, there’s still that issue with boys being idiots…
The idea of a mortal young man becoming Death’s apprentice / holiday cover and getting himself into all sorts of supernatural trouble certainly makes for an entertaining story. The style is very Pratchett, which is always a good thing. Sadly, aside from Death (who totally rocks on any appearance throughout Discworld), the characters just didn’t get to me. I didn’t massively care about their fate, which also means I wasn’t too bothered about the outcome of the story. Maybe it’s because of the main character, Mort, who’s just not very interesting. I had a similar problem with the male protagonist in The Truth – they’re both all right, but they’re just a bit flat. In contrast, all of Pratchett’s female characters I’ve come across so far have been multidimensional and complex, with contradicting good and dark sides, and very distinct quirks and attitudes. It seems to me as if Pratchett is putting a lot more attention into the creation of his female characters, embellishing their personalities with a massive amount of those feminine kind of details you don’t necessarily expect to ever even cross a man’s mind. Mort is still a good book though, just not one of those that I will remember for a long time.
My little darling! Auntie Mame is one of the most dazzling characters I’ve ever come across in literature. Spreading her charms at the centre of this fictional memoir of a boy raised by his rich, eccentric aunt in 1920s New York, Mame is a socialite slightly ahead of her time, who turns her nephew’s life into a mad fairground ride with one outrageous adventure chasing the next.