28. Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen

So I’ve been a bit slack lately. I read this story and returned the book to the library (to avoid any more hefty fines which this challenge has given me) before I went on holiday and I haven’t got round to writing it up until now. I’ve also been a bit slack about taking up this challenge again as I haven’t had time to go to the library and pick up some books, which is the main reason why I haven’t ploughed through as many as books as I thought I would. I’ve now started re-reading some books on my bookshelf and am thorougly enjoying them but then I feel like I’m neglecting this challenge. So fear not, dear reader, I shall journey back to the library soon. In the meantime, please sit back and enjoy this review (If I haven’t already lost you because I haven’t blogged in a long time).

Anyway, this book was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly, as it looked like a typical action book, which it was, but set in an unusual location. Well, you can’t really judge a book by its cover, maybe only a little bit. The story begins in World War 2, with two English pilots, James and Bryan, who get shot down during a reconnaissance mission in Germany. They narrowly escape capture by boarding a German train carrying injured Nazis and take on the identity of two Nazis. As the train is taking them further into Germany, they realise that they can’t have the family of the real Nazis meeting them, so they feign insanity. They end up in an asylum which is called the Alphabet House. They endure electric shocks and dubious drugs and find out that there are other inpatients who are pretending to be insane. Don’t worry, I haven’t given much away, as this is only the beginning. I am however, going to have to say what happens next as there is more, so… I can’t believe I’m going to write this, but…. SPOILER ALERT!!  Turn away now if you don’t want to know… well I warned you. Bryan manages to escape but can’t take James with him. Years pass and Bryan is haunted by the idea of abandoning James so he goes to Germany to find him. And that’s it, I’m not going to say any more about the plot. The main story is set in later day when Bryan goes back to Germany so that’s why I had to reveal that part of the story.

The bit that I really liked was when James and Bryan are in disguise and how they try to maintain their cover. The tension is palpable, coupled with the unpredictable actions in the asylum, which had me on the edge of my seat at times. The internal struggles of the characters seem authentic and rounded which made me care about them. Adler-Olsen gives the reader a good insight into the characters’ internal thoughts and emotions. He also paints a very realistic picture of the infirmary train and the aslyum, and how the Nazis try to wheedle out any people trying to fake madness to get out of the war. The latter part, which is set in the 1970s, is also gripping as you are willing Bryan to find James. However, it didn’t hold my attention as it did with the former part in the Alphabet House. The story is much more of a straight-forward action story which is all very well and good but it lacked the suspense that there was when the men were trying to not to be found out. All in all, though, it was an enjoyable read.

27. Between the assassinations by Aravind Adiga

 For Ramin Bahrani

When I saw this book and whom it was written by, I was quite excited to read it as I enjoyed his other book, The White Tiger. At the beginning, I wasn’t disappointed – Adiga’s vivid portrayal of characters and setting were great. However, the story then changed and I thought ‘Okay, new characters and story, no problem, perhaps these stories will interlink somehow’. However, I cottoned on that this wasn’t going to happen and that these were short stories. I was disappointed as I don’t like short stories. I haven’t really thought about why I don’t like short stories before and I think it is because I feel as if I get nothing back after investing my time into caring about the characters and the plot. A short story just cuts it… well, short, and it doesn’t satisfy me. I like to immerse myself in a book and be transported to another world for a time. Although short stories can do this to a point, it’s just not long enough for me to spend in that world. However, being the professional that I am, I stoicly read on to the end. Putting my dislike of short stories aside, Adiga pulls it out of the bag. The stories are all set in a coastal town called Kittur, a ficitional place. The beginning of the book has a Contents page which looks like a page from another book. The stories are labelled by either a morning, afternoon or evening and split over 7 days, suggestive of a travel itinerary. Each story begins with a description of a part of a town, again like a travel book. By setting the book in this way, the author makes the reader feel like a tourist which, in some way, you are. The short stories are about the corruption, the injustice and the hypocracy in India. They look at the caste system and the conflict between Hindus and Muslims. They also look at the complacency and the hypocracy of the middle classes. As reader, you ultimately are a tourist, dipping into this world, being shown how terrible it is and then you dip out back to real life.

As with a collection of short stories, some are more poignant than others. The stories are sad and none of them have a happy ending. The collection is vivid and heart-breaking and tries to expose the poverty and hardships in India and how people will tread on one another to survive. However, as I got nearer the end, I became tired of reading the same story repeatedly, which made me wonder if I am heartless or a product of the world we live in? Perhaps Adiga is trying to shake the complacency of my comfortable life and to galvanise me to take action?  If this is the case, is he also a hypocrite for making money out of these miseries or a hero for bringing these cases to light? Or maybe, like his characters in the book, we humans are not that black and white.

26. A walk across the sun by Corban Addison

For the uncountable number of souls held captive in the sex trade. And for the heroic men and women across the globe wroking tirelessly to win their freedom

When I go to the library for this reading challenge, I always pick up books in pairs and the coincidental pairing is always interesting. This book couldn’t get any further from the previous one and yet they both say something about being a female. As you can tell from the dedication (which by the way, is the most admirable yet), this book is about the sex trade and the exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. The story is set in India and it is about two sisters: Ahalya aged 17 and Sita aged 15. Their family and their home are ripped apart by a tsumani and they try to reach their covent school for safety. On their way, they are kidnapped and sold to brothel owners. The story intercuts with another – this one is set in Washington and a lawyer named Thomas Clarke is trying to cope after the death of his infant daughter and his wife leaving him. After a major case he is working on collapses, he decides to take a sabbatical to India and work for an anti-trafficking charity. Whilst at the charity, Thomas hears of Ahalya and Sita’s case and goes on a mission to rescue them. This brings him to various places whilst Sita is sold to various gangs across the world. It is a very harrowing story and contrasts starkly with the fluffiness of the previous book.What makes it more poignant is that you know that even though this story is fiction, similar things are happening around the world. At the end of the story, the author mentions that the fictional charity that he uses in the book is simliar to the International Justice Mission.

What Addison does really well is conveying characters and their clear motivations for them to do what they do. He is very good at creating suspense and kept me on the edge of my seat. He is unforgiving in what he lets happen to these girls but he does it without sensationalising. He was very careful to make it authentic as he says that modern slavery is horrifying enough. This is a very good book, telling a story that needs to be told.

 

25. It had to be you by Ellie Adams

To Dad,

for sponsoring the arts

Well the inscription is ironic. This book is about as far as away as it can be from ‘the arts’. This is another chick-lit and you may have noticed by now that I do not like this genre. I have asked myself why I don’t like these kinds of books as I like the silliness of female caricatures on screen (like Clueless or Drop dead diva). I’ve been racking my brains trying to work out why books are different and I think it’s because it feels like the author is preaching to me, as if they are telling me how to be a woman. In films or TV, I can laugh at the over-the-top characters whilst sympathising with them. However, in books, the author comes out with ridiculous statements of how to be a woman or how to be a man. In this book, the author implies that there must be something wrong with men who drink Smirnoff Ice (FFS!) and uses popular cultures as similies. She refers to someone having an undercut ten years before Miley Cyrus (and by the way, the undercut existed many years before then) and referring to someone who shouts in the same way as Len Goodman shouting ‘seven’ (if you don’t know who Len Goodman is, you’re not missing much). It is a serious crime against English Literature. The worst thing about this book and other Chick-Lit books is that they undermine women – they always write about women with vacuous jobs (PR, fashion) who experience a man leaving them (in various ways, eg. death, dumping, divorce) and how they cope (or don’t) until another man comes into their life (usually a friend or someone they hate until they realise their true feelings) and then live happily ever after. Why can’t a woman be single and happy or why can’t female protagonists be more interesting.

The weird thing is, is that as I read it, I slowly got into it. Without my consent, this book had somehow made me like it. I still felt irritated by detailed descriptions of what a character was wearing which had no bearing on the story, and that the author might think I like that sort of thing, what with being a girl and all… I’m still baffled about what I liked about this book. Maybe it was the characters? Maybe because the protagonist had already got her man halfway through the book and the story didn’t end there, or maybe (and most probably the most accurate option) is that I was so horrified by the beginning by the crimes against literature, that my expectations couldn’t get any lower. The saccharin ending was like an awful rom com film that completely over-killed the happily ever after idiom. However, I still enjoyed it and that is most worring indeed.

 

24. The Eden Legacy by Will Adams

To Robert, Eleanor and Grace

Fortunately, I managed to read the books in the correct order. This is the sequel to the Lost Labyrinth. Without giving too much away, the main protagonist, Daniel Knox is now living under a new identity. He works as an underwater archeologist for a British firm, searching for ruins of a Chinese shipwreck in Madagascar. Looking for revenge, Daniel spends his time researching the Nergazedes on the internet which leads them to him. Unbeknownst to him, they send a hitman to kill him whilst he tries to find a missing friend and her father who disappeared from a boat.

Rebecca Kirkpatrick flies back home to find her missing sister and father. She meets Daniel and they both try to find her missing family. Meanwhile, the hitman and his accomplice try to find Daniel. In true action story fashion, it builds to a climax near the end. I’ll stop talking about the plot so as not to give anything away. It was an entertaining read and it made a nice change to read a story set in Madagascar. There isn’t really much more to say about this book, unfortunately. There wasn’t anything awful or particularly amazing about it. It was just an easy read which unfortunately means that I haven’t got much to say about it.

22. Watership Down by Richard Adams

To Juliet and Rosamond, remembering the road to Stratford-on-Avon

Ah Watership Down. Finally, I’ve come across a classic. I’ve read it before but had sort of forgotten it, although there were one or two sections of the book that I remembered. I had seen the cartoon too and also vaguely remembered it. I was very surprised at how good the book is.

The story begins with Fiver, a small rabbit who has an awful vision that he can’t interpret but he knows that the rabbits must leave their warren immediately to avoid a tragedy. No one believes him apart from his brother, Hazel and they manage to convince a small number of rabbits, including one Bigwig, to join them and set off on a journey. A journey always makes a good story, in which the journey taken is not just the physical one. It’s the perfect tool for character change. As we all know, being out in the open away from the warren can be a very dangerous place indeed for rabbits, so this story is about how the rabbits try to find a suitable place to live, whilst traversing all the dangers they encounter, then finding female rabbits to reproduce with. The book culminates in Bigwig, one of the protagonists, trying to liberate female rabbits by infiltrating a prison-like warren dictated by a ruthless leader called General Woundwort. As the name suggests, the General organises his warren like a prison guarded by regiments and there is a clear hierarchy of power. Each rabbit is bitten and depending on where he is bitten, he is allocated into a Mark, a group of rabbits who are guarded by officers and sentries who are overlooked by a Captain. Above the Captain are the Council rabbits who look after an area in the warren, e.g. one is responsible for feeding, one for breeding etc. Similar to a dictatorship in real life, the ordinary rabbits suffer whilst the ones in power have privileges, which makes ordinary rabbits aspire to become an officer, which self-perpetuates the whole system. This book is about survival and it makes for great reading.

Adams clearly did his research about rabbits and he credits the book The Private Life of the Rabbit written by, and very respectfully referred to as Mr R M Lockley. What was good about this book was that not only did I believe that these were actually rabbits I was imagining, but Adams managed to make me care and sympathise with these rabbits as if they were human characters. It is a very clever device as I was totally consumed by the action and willed the rabbits to succeed in sticky situations. The way Adams did this was by using the usual character devices: insight into characters’ feelings and motivations, distinctive character traits and idiosyncratic ways of speaking. Even the peripheral characters have one or two sentences about them that sum up who they are which is emphasised by their actions. What made the rabbits comparable to humans was that Adams gives them a language and a belief system. Like other writers who try to create a different world, Adams copies Tolkien by giving the rabbits their own language so that we humans, have to be told what each lupine term means. He does this by using footnotes to tell us how to pronounce words and their definition. The rabbits also tell each other stories of El-ahrairah, a cheeky and mischievous rabbit who was the prince of the rabbits. Like a naughty child, he tries to avoid and outwit Frith, the creator of the world. El-ahrairah reminds me of the Monkey King (the cheeky monkey in the 70’s cult classic Monkey Magic or for the more literary, the cheeky monkey in the Journey to the West, one of the four great classical novels in Chinese literature) as he is naughty but ultimately a good rabbit. The myths inspire the rabbits in their plans to help them ro rescue female rabbits from General Woundwort. At one particularly tense fight in which Bigwig is blocking the entrance to his warren against General Woundwort, Bigwig’s friend, Bluebell is telling a story about El-ahrairah talking to a fox to calm the does. It is a vicious fight and when General Woundwort is winning, he tries to get Bigwig to join his side. This is when Adams mixes the dialogue between General Woundwort and Bigwig with El-ahrairah and the fox. This is the only time in the book when the myths and the main story collide. It creates drama and suspense and works very well. He also uses other stories to reflect the action in the main story – every chapter begins with a quote from other writers such as Shakespeare and Yeats.

I could go on (and I clearly have) but I realise that this may bore some readers so I’ll cut it short. Adams’ sense of drama and how he manipulates the story and its format is very clever. The urgency of life and death and how one desperate plan relies on another and how each intersperes one with another, makes for a gripping read. So much so, that I missed my stop on the train and had to get off the next station. I also ran the risk of walking into lamposts by trying to read whilst walking to work. For me, this is clearly a sign of a great book.

 

 

 

21. The Clown Service by Guy Adams

To Agents “Loorbins” and “Drudles”, for their consistent support in the fireld. Mission accomplished.

Well, what an interesting book. This is about a secret agent called Toby who gets relegated to Section 37, an intelligence service specialising in the paranormal. Now hold on, don’t go away just yet. This is an enjoyable book. It is set in London for one, and so differs from the usual American paranormal government story. There is a character called August Shining, who is effectively the British Mulder, and his bolshy sister; Jamie, who has to get out of his face to travel to astral planes; an ex-wrestler who has built a kind of travel machine; and where would a good spy book be without a crazy Russian man bent on world destruction?

It is written by the same author whose book I read previously. Like the previous book, it uses classic devices such as prophetic statement to arouse the reader’s interest. The book switches from 1960s to present day and between various locations. To help the reader orientate where she is, Adams states location and date before each section. Adams also plays with perspective, changing it from 3rd to 1st and back to 3rd again. He keeps up the pace by switching from story to story and each section ends on a cliff-hanger leaving the reader wanting more – Dickens would be pleased.

As the action picked up the pace, so did the structure of the novel. Adams made each section shorter so they became more like scenes in a film. I really enjoyed this book and whizzed through it. Like a film, there was a suggestion of a sequel, I hope there is.

17. Pigs Foot by Carlos Acosta

Para Berta y tia Lucia, ambas victimas de la misma enfermedad. Y Para Charlotte y Aila

Well I did a Google translate and it says “For Berta and aunt (or girl) Lucia both victims of the same disease. And for Charlotte and Aila”. Now obviously as it’s Google Translate, I will take this dedication with a pinch of salt as Google Translate isn’t known for its accuracy. However, it does make me wonder and it sounds like a sad dedication. If this dedication is accurate, is it a disease as in an actual disease, or is Acosta using this word figuratively, in the way that greed or ignorance can be seen as a disease, for example?

Anyway, back to the book. This again was a refreshing read after the dry spell of Ackroyd’s books. Like the previous book, it is set in a different culture. This time, it takes place in Cuba and the fictional story is set against the real political backdrop of the time. The story opens with the narator immediately talking to the reader which is a powerful device to grab the reader’s attention. The narrator’s voice is very strong and he takes us through his ancestors’ story starting from the 1800s, just before slavery was abolished in Cuba.

However, as the story goes on, the narrator’s voice became weaker. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a strong and enjoyable story but the narrator gets a little weaker in comparison. I also enjoyed the story of his ancestors more than his own story. The story then becomes quite surreal but I won’t give it away. All in all, the book is an enjoyable read and makes the commute bearable.

What is interesting about this book is that the writer is the Carlos Acosta, the famous ballet dancer. It is always interesting (and a little annoying) when I encounter someone who excels at more than one thing. All I want is to write and publish a book. Maybe I should try ballet.

11. Touching Distance by Rebecca Abrams

For my mother, Sonia

Hello again. Happy New Year. It has been quite a while since I’ve posted what with Christmas holidays getting in the way, I haven’t commuted for a while which means that I haven’t read for a while. But here I am again with a new post. I had started reading this book before the Christmas holidays and stopped to eat and be merry, but then continued again. I will try and not let my reading break influence my opinion on this book.

Touching Distance is based on a true story about Alec Gordon, a Scottish doctor who tries to find out why so many women die soon after child birth. This book is about his struggle. Struggle to find out why and what is causing these deaths, struggle with his family and struggle with what he should do when he does make his discovery. It deals with the minutiae (I’m always looking for a way to fit this word into a sentence), but Abrams pulls this off. The narrative voice is muted in its style in that it is understated. This works very well to narrate Alec’s internal struggles.

I was intrigued about what it could be that caused the deaths of the women and why some died and some did not. I was really rooting for him to find out but also frustrated by his clumsy approach to enlightening people. However, this just makes him more real as a person I suppose. It is drawn out at times but again, not everything can be action all the time, particularly as it’s based around a true story.

So without giving too much away, I would suggest you read this book as his unsung hero deserves some attention for making a precious discovery. There are too many unsung heroes in this world and they should also have their story told.

9. The House of the Mosque by Kader Abdolah

To Aqa Jaan

So I can let him go

This dedication makes me wonder if Aqa Jaan is a real person as he is the main protagonist in this book. However, at the end of the book, in the obligatory acknowledgement section, it states that this story is a work of fiction and not to be considered as fact. So perhaps Aqa Jaan is a very strong character that the writer has to write about otherwise he will haunt him forever.

Finally after a recent spate of shallow books, I found a book I could get my teeth into. This story tells of a household that runs a town’s mosque in Iran. Aqa Jaan is the head of the house, and there are his family, the Imam’s family, the cleaners and other people who come and go. It could be very confusing as I am ignorant about Iran and am not used to the names. However, there is a handy family tree at the beginning of the book which helped me to keep track of things.

The house and the mosque get torn apart by the Iranian revolution in 1979. It is quite an evocative book and manages to create a world that although is very different to mine, I could easily imagine it. The writer is also very good at getting into the characters’ minds and letting the reader know their motivations and emotions so that I could empathise with the characters even though they are very different to me.

The author shows how a religious revolution which is at first welcomed by its people, quickly turns on its supporters. Aqa Jaan first approves acts of rebellion against the Shah who is supported by America and he is ecstatic when the Shah gets overthrown. However, the regime recruits over-zealous people who have their own agenda and become perpetrators of violence. There is Imam Khalkhal whose ambition and belief overcomes his compassion when he is recruited to act as Allah’s judge and executioner. He is also the father of Lizard, a boy who was born just before the revolution who walks on all fours like a lizard and cannot speak. Lizard is the victim and the product of his father’s dark side. He is killed when he gets in the way of an important Aytollah being assassinated by Shahbal, son of a blind man who lived at Aqa Jaan’s house. Like all victims of violence, Aqa Jaan yearns for peace. Years later, Shahbal writes a letter to Aqa Jaan, informing him that he has escaped to the Netherlands and that he will make the world aware of the atrocities that occurred at home. I read the short biography of the author and was surprised to read that the author’s name, Kader Abdolah, is an alias and that he wrote resistant literature during the Iranian revolution in Iran and also escaped to the Netherlands. Clearly Shahbal was partly based on the writer.

 

It was interesting to read this book at a time of on-going problems in the Middle East and the uprising of Al-Qaida and then Isis. It is worrying and sad that there has been a ‘war’ and on-going religious violence since 2001, or more likely that there has always been violence somewhere in the world but I have noticed it more since that time. What this book does is to show that Muslims are like everyone else in that they care for their family, worry about their everyday affairs and that the majority of them want peace.

 

This is an excellent book and as you can see, this is one of my longest posts. It is an endearing story that is woven onto the background of a real life event and crammed full of symbolism and imagery (I don’t have enough time to go into and I want to leave something for the reader). It is entertaining yet gritty. In short, this is my kind of book.