The Rehersal - Eleanor Catton

I am usually intensely distrustful of 'literary' books.  I often find that they put showing-off ahead of telling a good story.  Clever writing techniques do not necessarily lead to good storytelling.  That is not to say that I am a total philistine – I just like my books to be understandable to those of us mere mortals without degrees in English Literature.  The truly great 'literary' books are those that use imaginative techniques and strategies to tell a story, rather than the story being incidental to those techniques.

Eleanor Catton's Man Booker Prize winning book The Luminaries was often damned in some quarters with the compliment "a triumph of style".  I have not personally read it myself, but knowing something of it, I can see how people may come to that conclusion.  This made me a little nervous about giving her debut novel The Rehersal a go, but having done some research I thought it worth a try.

Now first things first: a confession.  I like Ellie Catton (yes I did just call her Ellie).  I was actually interning at Granta Books when The Luminaries won the Booker Prize and had the pleasure of not only meeting her and her partner but we also all went out boozing together.  She is one of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and I cannot rule out the possibility that this review may be influenced by her being a gem.

The Rehersal tells two parallel stories: that of an elite, slightly Darwinian, drama school and that of a high school in the grips of a teacher/pupil sex scandal.  All of the characters are like open books, like characters in a play.  They keep very little to themselves and articulate every emotion to each other in a very clear and evocative manner.  It is told in a constantly shuffling time scale, moving between months and years constantly, which makes the plot a little difficult to follow but equally keeping the story moving along at a good pace.  Catton never reveals anything too soon, always ensuring that you are kept guessing.

The central plot point: the affair between Victoria and Mr Saladin is kept secret and mysterious, just as it was to the students in the play and pupils at the school. For the girls at the high school, the affair was a great betrayal of their trust, not because it happened, but that Victoria did not tell them. In that community total secrecy was the taboo. Sex was seen as something that was both intimate between the people involved, but also that deserved public scrutiny - something that is interesting to consider in our world.  Moreover, the characters in the story celebrate crisis: being seen as damaged was desirable and the characters who identify as being 'normal' are outcast which is another really interesting thought that Catton throws up.

The storyline in the theatre school is a little less focussed.  While the descriptions of the lessons and attitudes of the teachers were my favourite parts of the book, I felt that it did not marry well with the rest of the plot.  The spine of the story are saxophone lessons given to many of the main characters by an unnamed teacher who has a seemingly unhealthy fascination with the lives of her young charges.  There is clearly some potent symbolism here, but I was not unable to unearth it: it was possibly a little over my head.

Though at times I felt the book to be a little over my head, I loved this book, especially how the characters are completely open with little thought of social propriety, and the examination it contains of teenage social interaction and life is truly something to behold. While this is not my usual genre, I would recommend this to any reader who is willing to dedicate some time and thought to a book.  Trust me, it is well worth it!

8/10

Favourite Quotes

“She is a loner, too bright for the slutty girls and too savage for the bright girls, haunting the edges and corners of the school like a sullen disillusioned ghost” 

“Remember that anybody who is clever enough to set you free is clever enough to enslave you.” 

“Gaining control isn't the exciting part. Sleeping with a minor isn't exciting because you get to boss them around. It's exciting because you're risking so much. And taking a risk is exciting because of the possibility that you might lose, not the possibility that you might win.” 

“The stage is not real life, and the stage is not a copy of real life. Just like the statue , the stage is only a place where things are made present. Things that would not ordinarily happen are made to happen on stage. The stage is a site at which people can access things that would otherwise not be available to them. The stage is a place where we can witness things in such a way that it becomes unnecessary for us to feel or perform these things ourselves.” 

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The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

There are some periods of history that are particularly fertile ground for works of fiction or film.  How many books have you read set during the Tudor and Georgian ages of England, the Civil War era of the United States, or Revolutionary France?  These are all times of either great extravagance and change or great violence and upheaval, and in these periods the author doesn't lay a lot of groundwork – we already know.  These settings come with the additional advantage of being in the (relatively) distant past, by which I mean that nobody alive today remembers it.  Yet there is one that is ubiquitously synonymous (at least in the Western world) with suffering, hate and death: Nazi Germany. 

A complete list of books, films and television programs set in Nazi Germany and during the Holocaust is really too long to set out here, but do include such masterpieces as: Schindler's List, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, Sophie's Choice, The Pianist, The Reader, Life is Beautiful and The Damned.  This is illustrious company to have to match up to, and that is before one considers the moral responsibility to not sully one of history's great tragedies with a mediocre portrayal; it is quite another thing to produce something that not only reaches these lofty heights, but also exceeds many of them yet that is exactly what Markus Zusak does in The Book Thief.

Now I would like to start this review with a couple of personal peeves from other reviews: this is not a Holocaust book.  Yes: it is set in Nazi Germany during The Holocaust, and Yes: it does feature a family hiding a Jewish man in their house, and Yes: The book does deal with the repression and death associated with it BUT calling The Book Thief a Holocaust novel is like saying that 1984 is only state control over the behaviour of its citizens - it is a major theme, but it is about so much more than just that one facet.

I also have another peeve: this is NOT a YA book.  It does feature as its main character a child, but so does Child's Play and I'm not sure anyone is quite old enough to watch that!  While the character of Death does have somewhat of a sensitive and regretful sensibility, that doesn't have to make it YA.  For me, a YA book is one that is marketed at teens.  They generally feature a single main character dealing with the problems of youth and growing up.  They have first kisses and loves, friendship and familial relationships, and experimentations with new experiences.  The Book Thief, though you could at a pinch call it a coming-of-age story, and it does have familial relationships at its heart, is not this.  This is general fiction, marketed and read by all.

Anyway, enough with my rants - let me tell you a little more about this awesome book:

The Book Thief opens with a monologue written by 'Death'.  He talks about the Second World War period being a time of intense activity for him, a period where he was needed constantly.  He portrayed shown largely in the Grim Reaper representation, though he does talk about being rather amused by the archetype.  He then introduces the main character, a young girl by the name of Liesel Merminger, who is given up for adoption by her communist mother who knew that, in her care, she would never be safe.  She is sent to the Munich suburb of Molching to live with the kindly Hans and the foul-mouthed if loving Rosa Hubermann.  As a blonde(ish) Lutheran German pre-adolescent, Liesel is not at risk from persecution - but she still experiences the horrors of the Nazi state and the foreign and domestic wars it waged.

 Liesel is the eponymous 'Book Thief' and steals her first book, the unlikely 'Gravedigger's Handbook' at the cemetery during her brother's burial.  This becomes her link with the past, the only tangible connection to a mother she barely remembers and a brother whose death she dreams of daily.  Her later book thieving is for a very simple reason: to even the score.  She has lost so much – had so much taken from her – that taking books is, to her, the only rational response.  She develops a passion for words, yet it is also words that Zusak presents as being responsible for the death that surrounds her.  She finds herself enchanted by them and driven on just as Germany was enchanted by the words of Hitler.

One thing that really marks this book out is Zusak's style.  By having the story written by someone omniscient, he is able to do what I call 'Mean Intentional Spoiling'.  In this way he is able to tell you a character is going to die several chapters before it happens, which he uses to devastating effect.  You are always kept on your toes and you are never able to feel comfortable reading this book because you have no idea when Zusak is about to drop a bombshell on you, something that does literally happen at one point.  This 'spoiling' is a product of Zusak's style of jumping chronologically about, especially when relating the parallel stories of Liesel and the Jewish refugee Max.  This is done in often a fairly whimsical style but when the author wants to be brutal he does so without remorse

The Holocaust of course rears its head in the narrative, and the main way this is interacted with is through Max.  Max is the son of a soldier who saved Hans (Liesel's foster father) during the Great War and flees his home to the Hubermanns in the wake of anti-Semitic persecution.  He is hidden away from sight and his only interaction with the world at all is through Liesel.  They find that they are kindred spirits: orphans of hate, fascinated by the written word and haunted by their past experience.  They develop a powerful bond, and it is this that I think is the most powerful and beautiful part of the story.

And it is these bonds of friendship and family that are the most important ones in this story.  I haven't talked much about Liesel's relationships with her foster parents or her best friend Rudy because frankly I don't want this review to go on forever, but these relationships are vital.  If books form the trunk of this story, then it is the relationships that Liesel develops that are the flowers and blossom.  It is these relationships, that are borne through a shared suffering but also a shared hope, that are shown as being the most powerful.  In fact it is this friendship that in the end saves Liesel's life.

It should not come as any surprise to anyone having read this far that I absolutely loved this book.  It is not the easiest read, but it is a triumph.  It waded into a topic considered sacrosanct and a setting saturated by brilliant works, but yet it manages to rise effortlessly to the top.  It is quite simply, and utterly, brilliant.

Read it.

Read it now!

9/10

Favourite Quotes

• "I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right."
• "Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain."
• "The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both." 
• "Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out."
• "I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate."

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Walk Me Home - Catherine Ryan Hyde

We live in a society that demands leadership; that is in love with decisive action.  If you go to your local bookshop and look at any book on self-help title, that's what it'll tell you to do.  Make your mind up and make a decision!  The my favourite one is from Teddy Roosevelt: " In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."  The problem is that most of us are wrong about most things most of the time.  Of course we are, it's how we learn.  What happens though if life-or-death decisions about your life, and that of your little sister are thrown to you when you're just 16?  Well I imagine you'd say you'd be screwed.  Well, that just about summarises my latest book:

Walk Me Home is the latest book by Catherine Ryan Hyde, though it is the first of hers that I have read.  Straddling the divide between YA and Adult Contemporary, it tells the story of Carly and Jen: two sisters who are travelling from New Mexico to California on foot as they flee towards the only responsible adult they have ever known in an attempt to avoid going into care.  Their father is long-since gone, their mother is recently gone (for reasons that are explained later and I will not spoil), and the only adult left in their lives is Teddy - a man who Carly loves and trusts beyond all else, but Jen has reasons to say otherwise - who lives hundreds of miles away and is uncontactable.  They had no money, no transport and frankly no hope. 

After escaping starvation and assaulty/rapey adults (and some nice ones as well) they find a cranky yet kindly old American Indian woman who takes them in despite her catching them stealing from her hen house.  Jen is a fan, Carly is not, leading to the sisters splitting before fate intervening to reunite them at the end.

 

The first thing that I would say about this book is that you have to suspend that part of your brain that tells you that this realistic or believable.  The plot is frankly a little ridiculous and the characters it has to be said are hardly original.  However, there are good facets to this book that I did enjoy.

The first is the drip-drip nature of the story telling.  It is written in a flashback style, with part of the story being told in the present, and the other being about six months in the past.  This means that at the start you have no idea why the girls are fleeing or what it is they are fleeing from.  As the plot progresses then the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together and you start to build the picture, but just as the girls are confused about what is going on, so is the reader.  they don't know who to trust or who to believe, and likewise neither do you.  To quote Blackadder : "it twists and turns like a... twisty turny thing".

The second facet that I liked brings me back to what I was talking about at the start.  Responsibility was thrust upon Carly as the elder sister but, just like Lizzie Bennet in many ways, she is blinded by her own prejudices.  She hates her mother and doesn't believe a word she ever said.  She implicitly trusts Teddy despite mounting evidence to suggest he is a ne'er-do-well.  She insists on trusting no one else and on keeping on travelling, despite appearances that that may be a little suicidal.  With Carly it's her way or the highway (in fact its more her way AND the highway).  She is incredibly tunnel-visioned, and that is both what keeps her and Jen alive, but also what leads them into great danger.  She doesn't know who to trust, so she trusts no one but Teddy.  While this may not be a terribly original character, she is a very interesting one as she is intensely flawed.

This is in many ways a classic coming-of-age story with a very readable style which never reveals too much; keeping you hooked.   It is a story about 'Home' and where to find it when your life is seemingly lost.  It is a tale of hope and optimism in the face of crushing odds which pushes all of the emotional buttons with more twists than a Cornish country lane.  It's faults are many, focussed around the fact that most of the characters fail to act in any sense rationally, but this does not stop this from being an enjoyable read.

7/10

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Unbreakable - Kami Garcia

Anyone who has been to university knows that there are two basic academic groups: the Science students and the Arts students.  There are of course some subjects that straddle this great divide such as Psychology, Geography etc but these are the main two.  Now I hope you will please indulge me if I be a little broad and sweeping.  

In general Science students like facts, numbers, theories, equations.  They like something tangible; something that they can follow so that they can add ‘x’ to ‘y’ and get ‘z’.  They like to ask questions and get definite answers, or at least some kind of an answer – preferably one that can be expressed in a few words.  

Arts students, myself included here, do not like this.  We don’t answer questions: we like to say things like “well to an extent that is true but really there are a number of factors...” We like to pooh-pooh so-called facts, saying lines like “facts get in the way of a good narrative.”  Now this is of course because the kinds of questions that we tackle are not the same: they are creations of man, not of nature.  You can come up with an equation to figure out how fast something falls or what time the Sun will rise in the morning, but you can’t create one to explain what makes Mozart’s music enchanting or JRR Tolkein’s works enthralling.  You can’t express art through numbers, be it music, painting, sculpture or literature, yet this has not stopped people from attempting to work out the formulas to the perfect book – the 5 easy steps to telling a best-selling story – and in my view, Kami Garcia has attempted to do just that.

I won a copy of Kami Garcia’s first solo book Unbreakable from a competition on Goodreads.  I entered the contest not really bothering to work out what it was about, just because I fancied a free book.  The cover of it made it look a little silly but it was free so who cares right?  The book is a YA supernatural story about a girl named Kennedy who was living the kind of life that 14 year old female protagonists of YA books always lead: alone, boyfriendless and angsty about it, bookish and devoted to her parents (or in her case parent).  Her life is suddenly torn apart when a demon, latched onto her cat like a plague flea on a rat, kills her mother and she is only saved by a pair of dashing twins who tell her that she was descended from a secret order of, in effect, demon hunters.  

So we have the stereotypical protagonist, in a stereotypical-ish plot and now we are going to hit new levels of lack-of-imagination: the twins.  They are both teenage boys but have different characters: one is level-headed and sweet but a little dull; the other is handsome, dashing and damaged.  Care to hazard a guess where the love interest of this story lies?  Oh these three are not alone.  We also have the bitchy, fightery girl who sees the protagonist as a liability, and the nerd, the technical support guy who is no threat to the protagonist and is merely there to provide cool things.  

The plot, other than a lot of angsting around, is about demon/ghost hunting, specifically about preventing a powerful demon from escaping into our world and it is up to our motley band of barely trained teenagers to do it.  Think Ghostbusters but 15 years old and with worse stuff.  And meaner demons.

I think you so far get at why I think this book isn’t great: it’s as formulaic in structure and characters as the speed of light.  Indeed the plot, up until the end at least, is so incredibly predictable that anyone in any sense familiar with YA literature could tell me the entire plot from a small number of clues.  The characters in many ways are caricatures, not over-blown in any sense but just perfect tropes.  I won’t spoil the plot for you, but frankly you could guess most of it from here.  The ending is actually quite good and rather salvages the overall plot into something rather decent, but really this book, while not riddled with faults, suffers from the very basic problem that it is entirely formulaic.  It is as if Kami Garcia had distilled every YA book that she had ever encountered into a mathematical formula, created an algorithm, inserted the names of each character trope that she wished to include, and pressed “Go”.

The book is not badly written, nor is it a terrible read: it is just bland as all hell.  You finish the book and feel very little from having completed it because you feel that you have already read it before.  It is incredibly lazy storytelling and in some ways makes me a little pissed off because I have no idea why this was published.  Books these days are churned out in their  tens of thousands every year and yet the industry is still struggling and it will continue to struggle if all they produce is mediocre, middle of the road, formulaic works such as this.  This books really is one of those times where I wish that it had been bad – if it had been bad then at least it would have been original.

4.5/10

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