Tim Parks: Sex is Forbidden

Catchy title, eh? Tim Parks again delivers his dry humor and wry observations on the human condition. This was not always an easy read for me, likely due to my own Buddhist-vipassana-fatigue, combined with the structure of the book. It's likely that you do not suffer from my affliction, so this well written novel might be quite enjoyable for you. The story is told by a wild rocker, Beth, whose life is in crisis. She goes to a meditation retreat in Britain and stays as a server in the kitchen for 9 months. It happens to be a Buddhist center teaching vipassana meditation. So, much of the book is the stream of consciousness observing and thinking in Beth's head: about her boyfriend in the band, her older married boyfriend, her family, her life of excess, meditation, the teachers & servers at the retreat, and the tragic incident that led her there. Beth is a very entertaining character, who by the way, breaks most of the rules at the Dasgupta Institute. She wanders into the men's dorm, forbidden, and reads the diary of troubled man, reading & writing forbidden. On her next trip into the dorm she writes in the man's diary, "You love your pain too much." ! I loved thinking about his reaction to finding these words in his diary. While their lives don't intersect, their stories do begin to intertwine via Beth's reflections. A nice conceit. If you meditate, Buddhist or not, you might enjoy Beth's questions and observations as she pushes herself deeper into her practice.

Tim Parks' journey as an author is an interesting one. He has written 16 novels, and also became well known for his memoirs as an ex-pat Brit living in "domani domani" Italia. He has lived near Verona since 1981. The first of his books that I read was Italian Neighbours, 1992, quite humorous. In 2010, he published another memoir, Teach us to Sit Still, A Skeptics Search for Health and Healing. Here Park describes his struggle with long-term chronic pain and his frustrating encounter with the medical machine. In the second half of the book he begins to consider meditation to help himself heal. I'm guessing that his latest book grew out of that experience. 

Don't just do something, sit there....and read this book.

Jane Gardam, Last Friends

Last Friends is the last book in Jane Gardam's Hong Kong trilogy. It was published in 2013 when she was 85 years old. Gardam has an extraordinary touch for creating eccentric characters without letting them tilt into caricature. Old Filth was the popular first book. It is the story of Edward Feathers, who became a giant in international construction law, overcoming a bizarre childhood that I will not try to describe. Filth is an acronym for "Failed in London Try Hong Kong." His wife Betty is developed in The Wooden Hat, as is her love for Feather's rival lawyer, Terry Venering. She is a not particularly attractive woman who creates great passion in men. At this point the reader knows little of Venering other than that he is a brash, handsome, successful lawyer. His very humble roots & strange journey to Hong Kong are revealed in Last Friends. Much of this book is from the viewpoint of an elderly friend of the three main characters, who has left Hong Kong and is living in rural England. She is living in the same small village in which the two foes somehow retired. Memory and its unreliable flashes are part of the tale here. There are many very original characters who orbit the three key ones throughout the trilogy. They are often delightful.

Recital

Our first house concert was not elegant chamber music, but rock/blues/jazz offered by...me. Twenty-two good sports came to hear forty-five minutes of my compositions performed on piano and electronic keyboard. I was quite nervous, so I cannot say that I had fun playing the music from memory. But, hearing people's reactions was indeed fun. No one had any idea what to expect, especially those who had heard Debbie's concerts. The pieces had diverse moods and a wide range of sounds from the keyboard, and I think this is what most people reacted to. For example, the recital began with a slow, dark jazz piano piece that evoked its title, Film Noir. This was followed by a few short vignettes that showed off the keyboard's sound banks. Then, rocking electric guitar, jazzy electronic harpsichord, blues piano, and what one guest described as "science fiction music"! I've taken a break from the keyboards and performance anxiety since then and have been painting. 

J.M. Ledgard's Submergence

I finished my 2013 reading with a strong novel, J.M. Ledgard's Submergence. It is a tightly told double-helix of a British intelligence officer in east Africa and a biomathemetician who works on ultra-deep sea research. They meet on a brief vacation & fall in love, an emotion which is unusual for both of them. James More is then kidnapped in Somalia by Jihadists and begins a long period of brutal captivity. Danielle Flinders prepares for and begins a dive in a submersible to the abyssal deep of the Greenland Sea. They have both been loners in their worlds of espionage and advanced mathematics. In their journeys in the story they are both quite alone again. This gives Ledgard a platform for their reflections on many global issues, from Jihad to long-term ecological concerns. Ledgard has been a foreign correspondent for The Economist in Africa since 1995. 

This is definately not a spy novel.  There is very little time spent describing More's life in intelligence before the kidnapping. His treatment during the rest of the book is not remotely martini-glamorous. Ledgard's insights into the men and boys who are fighting the Jihad are subtly made, when he could have been heavy handed, a nice touch. His observations and speculations about the nearly-alien life forms in the deepest seas are thought provoking. Submergence is a short ride that will stay with you for some time to come.

David Gilbert: & Sons

David Gilbert's second novel, & Sons, is a gift to readers of novels: good story, insights and characters, all painted with great writing and a deft touch. This novel is chock full of wonderful one-liners that display playful word-smithing while bringing meaning to the passage. Gilbert keeps the gloves off and the prose is never over-written. & Sons is the story of two families, fathers & sons, husbands & wives, friends, love & meanness, and...writing. The aging A.N. Dyer is a hugely successful novelist, and a not very good father or friend. His lifelong friend, Charles Topping, loved him, and was dominated & hurt by Dyer. Their children are more or less dysfunctional or bruised, each in their own way. They are lovingly and honestly drawn by Gilbert in all of their frailties & faults. Some of these characters are more aware of their own brutality, others blind to it, and some of their love and need. It is not a coming-of-age novel, thankfully, and has none of Jonathan Franzen's sophomoric vignettes of childhood & parents, thankfully again. Each year I read many novels, snooze through too many and am captured by a very few. In 2013 there were two highlights: The Dinner by Herman Koch,  a very dark and very human story, and & Sons, a very human and unblinking story of fathers, sons & friends.

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

Most of the books I have read this year did not involve a lot of chuckles, for example Herman Koch's The Dinner, reviewed in July. However, The Rosie Project brought many smiles. It is the story of Don Tilman, a geneticist working at an Australian University, a man who has never been on a second date. He has less-than-zero social skills and possibly has Asberger's. This conceit could have easily become ridiculous or annoying, but former IT consultant Graeme Simsion handles it with such empathy that it works well...in fact, the reader quickly becomes quite fond of Don. Also, we realize that in many ways all men are like Don, and this is perhaps part of the book's appeal. Don applies his scientific skills to his entire life, including finding a wife. He develops a long questionnaire to eliminate bad matches, The Wife Project. He soon begins to help one of his very unlikely matches find her biological father. Their time together is often hilarious, as are Don's run-ins with the university dean. Rosie is a short, fast read, which might remind you of many people you know!

Take Shelter & Michael Shannon

I watched Take Shelter for the second time and was impressed again by the work of two young artists: actor Michael Shannon and director Jeff Nichols. Shannon here brings to mind a young Robert DeNiro, only with a slight Kentucky manner instead of New York. His acting is understated and at the same time very intense. In Take Shelter he plays a blue collar family man who begins to have terrifying visions that he believes warn him of a natural catastrophe. The hook is that his mother was institutionalized at a similar age with schizophrenia, and he wonders if he is on the same road. He keeps these troubles a secret from his wife & friends, which provides a platform for the power of his acting. I recently was impressed by him in The Iceman, a very dark and convincing portrayal of family man who is a contract killer. 

Take Shelter was Jeff Nichols' second feature film, and is very accomplished for such a young director. His pacing of Shannon's descent into madness or premonition was done with a deft touch. He did not allow the brief & vivid visions to distract from the very human story. The final scene of the film has an elegance that is quite memorable.