I heard someone on the radio rave about Rash, so I got a couple of his novels out of the library to try out. I started with Serena, a chilling story set in timber camps in the emerging USA frontier. I liked it well enough, beautifully written.
Then I read The Cove, and I was blown away by Rash's ability to tell a story, briefly and poetically. The Cove of the story is a narrow, godforsaken, shadowy valley where Laurel and her brother Hank live. Their parents have died tragically, Hank was injured in WW2 and has returned to patch up the farm so he can sell it and get married. Laurel is ostracised by the people of the nearby town because she has a birthmark and is seen as unlucky because of it and the fact she lives in the Cove.
One day she finds a stranger in the forest who is mute but plays the flute to communicate. Events develop, lives and fates are changed. The pace quickens and you try and rear back from the inevitable precipice you fear they are all going to go over. Superbly written. Not a happy ending, but those are highly overrated!!
Give Ron Rash a go, he is a poet who has written four novels beautifully. Great turn of phrase and handling of language.
For those who like Cormack McCarthy or Thomas Eidson, you will be familiar with the style and beauty of stories like this.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
The cellist of Sarajevo | Steve Galloway
Superb! This is an excellent book, sad and moving and worth every minute I spent reading it.
I had heard of this book for ages but never got round to reading it. I'm pleased I did for a few reasons: it's very well written, Galloway captures the nature of the people living under siege in Sarajevo and it is amazing to think it happened in the 1990's. The city was under siege from 1992 to 1996.
On the 27th May 1992 mortar shells killed 22 people who were waiting to buy bread. For the next 22 days Vedran Smailović, a renown cellist, played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor at the site of the deaths to honor the 22 victims. Although the book uses this as one of the main events, the rest is a fictionalized account of life in the city.
We have three narrators and their lives are incredibly well portrayed, you feel like you are right there, under siege. Arrow is a woman who is a sniper. Kenan, a father who is simply trying to get fresh water for his family. Dragan, an older man who is trying to cross an intersection so he can get some bread.
Arrow speaks of why she is a sniper and how she can kill the 'men in the hills' with a clear conscience, although she has rules and parameters in place for her own sanity. Kenan's walk to the water spring takes all day and he has to cross the line of fire repeatedly to get it. He speaks of his fear and his tiredness and the constant struggle against those who are making a lot of money on the black market selling goods to the trapped population. And Dragan, waiting two hours to try and get across an intersection. He just wants to get bread but is incapacitated by the knowledge that snipers may be waiting for someone to cross that street. Or maybe not. The uncertainty and gamble that each step brings is incredible He is torn as he sees people killed, does it make it safer to cross or increase the odds he will be hit?
It must have been traumatic and exhausting to live through the siege and the destruction of the city. I would like to do some more reading about the conflict and its aftermath.
This book was a good place to start.
I had heard of this book for ages but never got round to reading it. I'm pleased I did for a few reasons: it's very well written, Galloway captures the nature of the people living under siege in Sarajevo and it is amazing to think it happened in the 1990's. The city was under siege from 1992 to 1996.
On the 27th May 1992 mortar shells killed 22 people who were waiting to buy bread. For the next 22 days Vedran Smailović, a renown cellist, played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor at the site of the deaths to honor the 22 victims. Although the book uses this as one of the main events, the rest is a fictionalized account of life in the city.
We have three narrators and their lives are incredibly well portrayed, you feel like you are right there, under siege. Arrow is a woman who is a sniper. Kenan, a father who is simply trying to get fresh water for his family. Dragan, an older man who is trying to cross an intersection so he can get some bread.
Arrow speaks of why she is a sniper and how she can kill the 'men in the hills' with a clear conscience, although she has rules and parameters in place for her own sanity. Kenan's walk to the water spring takes all day and he has to cross the line of fire repeatedly to get it. He speaks of his fear and his tiredness and the constant struggle against those who are making a lot of money on the black market selling goods to the trapped population. And Dragan, waiting two hours to try and get across an intersection. He just wants to get bread but is incapacitated by the knowledge that snipers may be waiting for someone to cross that street. Or maybe not. The uncertainty and gamble that each step brings is incredible He is torn as he sees people killed, does it make it safer to cross or increase the odds he will be hit?
It must have been traumatic and exhausting to live through the siege and the destruction of the city. I would like to do some more reading about the conflict and its aftermath.
This book was a good place to start.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Gentlemen and Players | Joanne Harris
I found this an unusual book, having not read Joan Harris before I'm not sure if it is characteristic of her story telling or not. I was never quite sure what kind of story I was reading until well into the plot. I would call it a subtle who-dunnit.
It is set in an English private school (not state run) in a fairly typical small English town. The tension between the upper class and the lower public class is the main theme of the book. Our narrators are one of the Masters in the private school and Julian, who attends the State school although his father is the caretaker of the private school.
Julian is drawn to the bookish, privileged life of the private school and through stealth infiltrates the system. He adopts the uniform (found in lost property boxes) and sits in on classes. He's smart and loves learning and loves being in control of this 'game'.
As the story unfolds we discover Julian's infatuation with Leon, who is not currently around. It takes most of the book to discover what happened to him.
The story moves between Julian's childhood and adulthood, a story which as it unfolds tends to weave and dodge.
Overall I enjoyed this book although I felt a bit bogged down in the middle but once through, the story gains momentum to a fast paced ending with lots of twists. The main twist is not hard to guess but how we get there is sometimes surprising. Worth reading. It's made me want to read her other novels.
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