The Lies of Locke Lamora

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I'm really struggling to write about this book. I don't know what all these fantasy writers are
consuming at the moment at all their cons and festivals, but I say keep it coming. I have had the honour of reading some fantastic, original, well written and incredibly well told fantasy novels recently. And Locke Lamora and his crew have firmly cemented themselves on to this list.

In fact I've sat on this "review" for a few days and I have realised there is little more to be said of this book than has already been said. Pat Rothfuss wrote a brilliant review of it. You should read that.

But what I will say is that I will be following the Gentlemen Bastards again and again and again. I'll be following Locke Lamora around as long as there are books to read about him.

The Secret History

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What self-respecting book starts with the main character confessing a murder on the first page? I mean, that's not how books work. You may have a body in the first chapter or so, but you don't have a confession. That's crazy talk. How do you then draw the book out for 600pp?

This is where Donna Tartt turns into the amazing author I have heard about. She then works from what would usually be the climax of the book, and gradually builds the tension throughout the book. I felt like a tightly wound spring by the end. She piles on anxiety after anxiety with the characters and you don't really realise you have absorbed every single one until it releases. It's exceptionally clever writing.

That's one of my criticisms though. It knows it's clever. It oozes clever. It didn't bother me too much as I personally felt it backed most of it up (although crash courses in ancient Greek history kinda gets me going). But even I felt like it was self indulgent every now and then. I can see this would piss some people off.

Also. I found it incredibly unbelievable how incredibly "likeable" some of the characters were. I am sorry, but they weren't. They were dicks. And the fact you have to tell me over and over again how much people actually liked so and so, backs up my point more than yours. Don't tell me for a page how ridiculously sexist, racist, homophobic, leeching and parasitic someone is and then say "but everyone liked him" repeatedly. No. I bet a lot of people didn't like him. And I bet a lot of them were wondering like me why everyone was so worried and invested in him. Bah. Just wasn't overly believeable. Small part of the story, but enough to irk.

These things aside, I really enjoyed the read. I like books I can't predict. I like reasonably clever books (even when they slightly think they are cleverer than they are). If you haven't read Donna Tartt before, I would recommend her. I am keen to read her other books.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

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I just spent 20 mins trying to explain what happens in this book. I can't. It sounds wooden, repetitive. This happens, then this, then this. In fact, a lot happens in this book. So many things. Finding cats, soldier's stories of war in China, Mongolia and Siberia, marriage break ups, psychics and spiritual healers, wells, 16 year olds in bikinis, wind-up birds, wigs. This book is 600 pages of the inexplicable.

In fact, I found myself halfway through the book and having no clue of what was going on, and where we were going. But I didn't care. Murakami is such a beautiful and lyrical storyteller I was happy for him to keep on taking me. I wasn't worried if I found myself at the end of the book and had no understanding of what had occurred, as the journey you were taken on was enough.

Luckily for me, I felt things got wrapped up at the end. I felt, unlike a few other reviews I have read, that I understood what had happened and that all the loose threads had been gathered together in an ending. Which is great, because I didn't have high hopes for the ending. I had heard that Murakami is not known for great endings. So I was pleasantly surprised. The other thing I have heard again and again about him, is his not particularly great sex scenes. I am not sure if that is a problem of translation, or if they are known in the Japanese as being oddly written as well. I think I had read one of his in the past that had been nominated for the Bad Sex award which was particularly appalling. So again, I was prepared for the worst and it was just normal bad, not terribly bad. Sex scenes are just hard to write well I have decided.

But these small hesitations aside, and then after dealing with my realisation of been lost, albeit pleasantly lost, in the book, it was another wonderful Murakami experience. I am glad I enjoyed one of his more fantastical books as much as his more realistic Norwegian Wood (seeing I have another four of his books on my shelf). I can see him cementing himself on to my favourites list.

The Name of the Wind

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I feel like I am doing myself a disservice if I don't talk about this book, Lexx has been raving about this book for years. We tend to appreciate the same books, but it is rare we love the same books. So I listened to his ravings and carried on. I learnt to love Pat Rothfuss in my own way through Geek and Sundry and for being a genuinely good guy on the internet, particularly standing up for women in general society, but also in sci fi, fantasy and general geekery sub culture.

So for all these reasons, I read him. And I recommend others do the same. The first thing that hits you about this book is the storytelling. From the second page, I was hooked. There is something about how this man writes that is mesmerising. You may not be entirely sure what's going on or if you are interested, but his turns of phrase and way of putting things sucks you in.

It not just the storytelling, which again is brilliant. But the characters (just say the word Bast, seriously) are incredibly complex, believable, very likeable, or all of the above.

To be honest, I enjoyed the first part of the story, then I felt it dragged for a while Kvothe was in the city. But I was waiting for the hints of interesting that I had been promised. And to be honest, it honestly nearly lost me in this point, but I hung around for the promise of something bigger. Once we hit the Univeristy though, I was entranced. I loved the story. That was what I was interested in. That institutional way of teaching, particularly magic, in big castles and libraries. I mean, really, where do I sign?

It was very much a first part of a series. People have been annoyed by that, and I can understand that if you read the first book years ago, but now days I don't think you can start reading it without knowing it's part one. The bitching is invalid. What it does make me want to do is to run off and read the second one now, but I shall wait until the third is out. But I will say that if you haven't read it, and want a wonderful novel to whisk you along with it's storytelling, this is something you should read.

Fingersmith

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Sarah Waters is a genius. A twisty, little genius. She has this ability to lead you along a story, where you are all comfortable with how it's going, and how it got there. But then she completely spins you around without warning. Everything you relied on is wrong, and yet makes complete sense just like the story you believed in the first place. And you feel so goddamn stupid that you never, ever saw it coming. But it's okay, you'll pay attention now, you've worked out her ruse. Then BAM! She does it again! And again and again... genius.

Fingersmith, from the three books I have read of hers so far, is the most adept at this. Possibly because the subject matter lends itself more easily to this. The book focuses on two characters playing a con on a rich, young woman in order to access her fortune. The list of characters feature con artists, forgers and petty thieves. It's a clever concept and one Waters executes fantastically.

What I will remark on though, is that compared to Affinity and Tipping the Velvet, the sense of place is not as developed in this book. In her other books I almost felt that London was a character in her books, but not so much this time. Mind you, with so much else going on, this may not have been such a bad thing.

I'm sorry for the vague review. I just feel like if I discuss the book in more depth I will accidentally spoil something for you. I also do feel like I have hit a bit of Sarah Waters fatigue. I tend not to read the same author in a row very often, or even the same genre back to back. And I have read 3 of her books in 6 months, 2 within one month, due to group reads and buddy reads that came up and I didn't want to turn the opportunity down. I wonder if I had read it later if it would have been a 5 star for me? All speculation, but still a brilliant read any way.

The Shadow of the Wind - #51

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I've been in a little bit of a reading rut lately. I'm not sure why, I just haven't really had the energy. I feel rather sad that I fell into it while reading this particular book. Luckily, this book threw me a rope or some other sort of laboured metaphor and helped me out of it. But I think unfortunately my opinion of this book suffered for it.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book immensely. Dark, gothic, mystery with hints of sordid pasts tied to civil war, mixed in with books, libraries and bookstores. All with a pinch of Spanish passion and melodrama behind it all.

We meet Daniel at 10 years old living in Barcelona. His Mum is dead and it's just him and his Dad. His Dad owns a bookshop that they live above. One night, Daniel's Dad takes him to an amazing library/depository called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Daniel can choose one book to take with him, as long as he does everything he can to protect the book while it's in his possession. He chooses the book The Shadow of the Wind and this choice embarks Daniel on a lifetime of obsession and discovery about the author and the book.

What I found confusing, that may be too strong a word, disorientating about the book was I kept on reading the dates, but the book itself kept on convincing me we were in a story set about 100 years earlier. 1850 say, instead of 1950. This was probably the gothic aspect to the storytelling honestly. But I was always a little surprised when they mentioned telephones or cars again. This was particularly so when at some stage in the book we visit a convalescent home. I felt I was back in Bedlam during it's not so pleasant heyday, not 1950s Spain. However, the book did make me brush up on my Spanish modern history, trying to work out who was who and who hated who and what not.

It was a great read. I think I missed some things with the 3 weeks it took for me to get through the first third of the book (yes, I took longer to read it and probably didn't pay attention. It's been that kind of month), but once I hit that point, the book took on a momentum of it's own. And I had to wake up and pay attention as I would get left behind, and also because I wanted to be swept along with it. The last third of the book was just constantly punctuated with "Oh my god!" or sharp intakes of breaths. Just when I thought it couldn't top itself, it would surprise me again.

This rating is an honest "it's not you, it's me" one. Maybe one day I will pick it up again and give it all the time, love and attention it so greatly deserves. I will definitely check out it's sequels though.

The Name of the Rose - #50

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What complete and utter self-indulgent wankery.

That is my opinion in one sentence. Feel free to stop reading now, as that is pretty much the long and the short of it. Eco seems so desperate to prove to everyone how incredibly clever he is, even though he is a leading academic in his field of semiotics as far as I can tell. So with this incredible insecurity shining through, he takes a wonderful premise for a story, but is incapable of keeping his hand off it for two pages at a time, so we get 500pp of "look at me! look at me!!!!".

I am really, REALLY annoyed. I saved this book for close to the end of my Around the World trip, as it was supposed to be wonderful. I kept reading even though I didn't enjoy it at all, as people were all "I didn't like it except for the end WHICH WAS AMAZING!" It's not. I promise it is not at all. I picked who the mastermind was 100 pages from the end as I was so bored and skipping half the pages of blatant symbolism that us-normal-peons-are-too-stupid-to-understand-but-look-how-wonderfully-smart-Eco-is, and thought I would have some fun picking the most preposterous person. Hmmmm.

Also, if you can't speak Latin, you're kinda stuffed. Because even though the book is translated from Italian to English, they decided not to translate the Latin. Because everyone speaks Latin these days. Uh huh. I thought this would be okay. I thought it would be fun and I might learn something, so I translated the first couple of phrases on post it notes, in case I needed to translate a couple of things later. This got old after about 30 pages. Especially as the monks talk more, as apparently, half their speech has to be in Latin. I know they did speak Latin, but translate it in a translation ffs. As you keep reading you can't help feeling that everyone knows more than you. Later we throw German into the mix too, because, you know, we can.

This would be a forgivable, although annoying, problem except intersperse the Latin with:

• Complicated, unnecessary most of the time, obscure Catholic politics of the 12th, 13th and 14th Centuries. Long, long, long sections that discuss which weird cults (which are only cults when people declare them cults, and that can change Pope to Pope) hate who and did what; 
• Weird Catholic/medieval symbolism of Bible stories (thank god I've read that cover to cover a few times) and then odd, mutated, mythological creatures on steroids that are described in EXCRUCIATING detail and never mentioned again;
• Constant ranting about how women are disgusting, evil, not good for anything, and we can't work out why God created them. I get that was normal Catholic dogma in the 14th Century. However, we are talking about how if a woman is attractive and you notice her and are attracted to her, she is obviously a witch as why would you look at her otherwise and it's all her pact with the Devil. It was all too close to my own experiences and the teaching I was subjected to within the church around 2000. That just makes me feel ill, that in 6-7 centuries, in some groups/sections of Christianity, that hadn't changed that much; and
• Ridiculously long and complicated (half in Latin) philosophical debates about life, the universe, everything, logic and rhetoric. When they started debating the philosophical merits of unicorns (which they believe existed) for several pages, there were audible screams.

I can't for the life of me work out why 38% of ratings are 5 stars. And another 36% are 4 stars. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that reading this book lures you into a form of Stockholm Syndrome. Or it's the psychological phenomena they have observed, that occurs when you do something for tenuous reasons and little reward, you convince yourself you liked it, enjoyed it and chose to do it, so your brain can cope with why you did it in the first place. Eg. you eat a bug for a monetary reward. But after you do, you only get given 20 cents as your reward. There is a disconnect between the reward and your action, it's not equal compensation. You then convince yourself so strongly that you did it because you wanted to, not because of the money. It stops a psychological meltdown. It seems like a plausible explanation for this book's ratings.

I just felt the entire time Eco was having a pissing competition with someone, and I didn't know who. Other academics? Look how good I am, I can write academic papers and best selling novels? Or just the world? All I know is that I got dragged into one insecure man's willy jostling and I feel incredibly deceived and a little dirty about the whole thing.

The Famished Road - #49

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So from one Booker winner to another. And we could hardly get any more different. This book is a classic example of why I and the Booker Prize do not get along very well. This is why I avoid them now and almost miss amazing books like The Luminaries. Because a good 50% of them are just a bit crap.

The Famished Road is the story of Azaro who is a small child who was born into a family in Nigeria. But Azaro also is a spirit child, which is a spirit that is born as a child who doesn't want hang around in the mortal world and wants to go back to the spirit world asap. Makes a lot of sense really, much nicer way to think of the child mortality rates.

The book follows Azaro through an indeterminate amount of time. He doesn't seem to age at all really. It talks about him and his experiences. Real worldy - he's living in the world where Nigeria is about to be independant and the political upheaval is insane resulting riots and such. But the rest of the book is Azaro hallucinating weird spirit dreams. Some of them are interesting, some of which I wish I knew the myth for. But some of them, most of them, are tiring.

They talk about the poetic nature of his writing. And it is, especially the dreamy bits. But there is so much drunkenness, vomiting, eye fluids, chasing children around to beat them (properly beat them), it loses the poetry for me. Yes. It's 1960s Africa I realise, but still not so poetic.

I honestly had very little clue what was going on 90% of the time. There was little continuous story throughout the book, and I feel this review is similar. It was incredibly frustrating. 500pp of nothing. Prettily phrased nothing, but nothing. There was no climax. There was no resolution. Book just stopped. It would have been the same if it had stopped 300pp earlier. And there are another 2 books about Azaro. No thank you very much.

The Luminaries

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First of all, I need to thank Christina for giving me this book. Because, well, what a ride. I was not honestly going to go out of my way to read this. Yes it won the Booker, but long time readers of my reviews know that that could go either way for me. It makes me hesitant about the winners now. But with a heartfelt recommendation and a gifting, how could I say no? And with a Chunky book challenge this year, perfect timing.

The book is essentially looking at 12 main characters. They all live a West Coast New Zealand town, Hokitika, which is a gold rush town. People have moved around the world in the 1800s chasing gold, and settled in New Zealand. All of these men occupy different roles in this gold rush town and this book tells their story around a particular day. They recount this day to a 13th man. There are another 7 characters that influence and feature in this story. They are all described to you in a neat character table in the front as you would describe astrological entities. It sounds like a lot of people, but at over 800pp not really. If you get lost in the first part just flick back to this chart. I did and it fell back into place. But really, you get to know them all rather well.

This book is a work of art. I do not mean that in a trite saying way. I mean it is literally and intricately crafted and artistically thought through every step of the way. There is stuff I know I do not understand, and another reading may divulge that, but I think I wouldn't enjoy a second reading as much for reasons below. Particularly, the star charts used through out the book. I could work out who would be the main influences in the parts but not the intricacies. I understood that the moving of the stars through time of the different parts influenced the behaviours of the characters somewhat. In fact I could see how the stars influenced the characters, with them being sympathetic and trustworthy in the first part, but as their stars changed so did they, and you couldn't quite tell who to completely believe. It was clever, shifting suspicion to multiple people realistically. However, I didn't get a lot of the individual chapter names, in fact by the end I stopped reading them. But always read the chapter summaries.

I was describing the book to a few people the other day, both online and in real life. The book for me is like a spiral. Or a seashell. You start at the most outmost edge and you follow the ridge further and further in. This is what the book is like. You start at the periphery and get drawn further and further in, with more things exposed and revealed to you the closer you get to the centre. To begin with, it's true, it doesn't quite make sense. And they choose some of the most unsympathetic characters as your introduction. But the more you get in, the more you want to know. You get tighter and tighter towards the reasons, the truths and the characters and their motivations.

Honestly, I thought that she would drop all, if not some, of the balls. Everyone interacts with everyone in their own ways and their own stories. That's 20 factorial storylines! That's a hell of a lot of storylines. But she doesn't drop one! It's astounding.

I will admit I was wondering what the last few parts were about. Then there are more and more subtle reveals. Until the very last page...

This is, for me, an amazing novel. I am astounded how well constructed the whole thing is. And due to holidays, I devoured it. I would have been done days ago if it wasn't for stupid work. This well and truly surpasses all the other Bookers I have read. It actually deserves that damn prize. Read it. Read it now.