’Sufferance’ by Charles Palliser

It’s a surprise to discover the author of the splendid if florid Gothic bestseller The Quincux and the author of this spare, unsettling minimalist novel is one and the same. The excess of the early novel is stripped back to the barebones in Sufferance as, without specifying time or place, we are transported to the Nazi invasion of 1940s Eastern Europe.

And there’s the rub. As with the Booker Prize winning Milkman by Anna Burns, Sufferance reveals little in terms of identification, obfuscating names, places, religion with the resulting broad brushstroke creating little empathy or emotional involvement in the tale unfolding. This lack of emotional resonance results in a somewhat disinterested reading in spite of the (known) reality of its setting.

A young (Jewish) girl is taken in by a family. Or more specifically by the patriarch. The action of the father is by no means humanitarian. It’s purely self interest – the girl’s family Is wealthy and the man is hoping to secure gratitude and financial recompense when things have returned to normal. His wife accepts the new, assumed temporary, addition to the family as does the younger daughter. The elder daughter is less welcoming.

Only things do not return to normal. New laws are constantly introduced in relation to the girl’s race and, with both parents and brother out of the city at the time of the invasion, the girl is going nowhere soon. Much to the frustration of the female family members. It’s only too apparent they are struggling with the outsider in their midst. But little can be done – time has passed and by now it is too late to reveal they have been ‘hosting’ the child. The family face punishment themselves if detected.

Sufferance strips away any artifice of good deed and instead focuses on the everyday difficulties of harbouring, according to the State, an outlaw. And the family must keep this secret from everyone – friends, neighbours, colleagues. And with the introducton of identity cards, curfews and rationing, it becomes increasingly difficult, not helped by a suspicious concierge.

It’s a desperate situation for all concerned as the girl becomes increasingly difficult to cope with and the two daughters increasingly antagonised by her presence. Fear stalks the apartment and the streets of the city. Knowing the real history, Sufferance should be a powerful, terrifying read. But that sense of voyeuristic disconnect prevents such prescience.

Advance copy provided by Guernica and NetGalley.

‘The Folding Star’ by Alan Hollinghurst

Elegantly written it may be, but there is something unpleasantly unsavoury and judgemental in Alan Hollinghurst’s somewhat pompous novel of obsession and personal identity.

Redolent of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice or a gay Lolita, in moving to the historic Belgian city of Bruges to teach English conversation, the disaffected gay Edward Manners finds himself besotted with Luc, his effete young 17 year-old student. In his early 30s, Manners sees himself as something of an aesthete, obsessed with Luc as a thing of beauty rather than necessarily the boy himself. It’s a chaste obsession but with a hint of returned flirtation as an aloof Luc, initially unknowingly, is unaware of his tutor’s interest. Such emotional distance only encourages Manners, particularly as he is aware (but without details) of a sordid tale that led to the boy’s expulsion from his select school a year earlier.

But it being Hollinghurst, nothing is simple as a single narrative of obsession by an older man for a younger boy. Early in his time in the city, Manners becomes the lover of Cherif who himself becomes obsessed with the Englishman. But Manners’ passion for Luc means he cannot return the affection. With teaching insufficient to support his drinking, the tutor finds himself in an emerging (non-sexual) relationship with the father of Marcel, his second English conversation student. The curator and director of the museum dedicated to the (fictional) local symbolist artist Edgard Orst, Paul Echevin employs Manners. As the Englishman gets to know the older man, he discovers yet more tales of obsession.

It’s dense and dramatic, with arguably the most interesting part of the novel revealed when Manners is forced to return to Sussex for the funeral of ‘Dawn’, an ex-lover and schoolfriend killed in a car crash. Manners finally lets his guard down when reminiscing about his now departed schoolfriend and their exploration of sexuality together. Hollinghurst’s lyricism comes to the fore as his memories of two schoolboys are intertwined with the touching nostalgia of his father and his early death.

Hollinghurst is a sublime writer when on form. With The Folding Star, graphic sexual detail (not unusual for the novelist) as Manners enjoys encounters with locals and tourists alike in Bruges, but there’s something uncomfortable about his feelings for Luc and the readiness of others to not only understand but help.

Shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize but lost out to James Kelman and How late it was, how late…

’Western Lane’ by Chetna Maroo

A spare, tender coming-of-age tale as eleven-year-old Gopi finds solace in the grief for the loss of her mother through the regimented squash training schedule introduced by her father.

At the local Western Lane sports centre in east London, Gopi has been playing since she was old enough to hold a racquet. Her Pakistani-born father and his brother Pavan (now living in Edinburgh) have been obsessed with the sport since they were young. Their love for the game has rubbed off onto Gopi (less so her other three sisters). Since the loss of his wife, Pa, struggling to articulate his grief and communicate with his children, has lost himself in the world of squash, constantly playing and replaying videos of 1980s Pakistani world champions Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan. Supporting him through his grief, Gopi frequently joins him into the early hours of the morning.

Her life becomes dictated by the sport and its rhythms. Early morning practices before school and, normally, after. It’s brutal but it’s Gopi’s world. Her father is with her all the way as is Ged, the 13 year-old with his own power and talent on the court. The only cloud on the horizon is her aunt Ranjan, traditional in her approach, disapproving of the upbringing of the four sisters, childless herself and looking to informally adopt Gopi to help relieve the burden but follow in the ways of the family back in Pakistan. Edinburgh beckons Gopi but she is reluctant to leave Pa, her sisters, Ged – and the sport.

Western Lane is an evocative debut novel from Kenyan-born, UK-based Chetna Maroo. Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, it’s a quietly powerful narrative of empowerment, determination and sisterhood. It lost out to Paul Lynch and Prophet Song.

’Study For Obedience’ by Sarah Bernstein

Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, Study For Obedience from UK-based, Canadian-born author Sarah Bernstein is a meditative stream of consciousness that is unsettling and not always easy to digest.

Our unnamed narrator (in fact everything remains unnamed) drops everything to look after her elder brother whose wife has left him and taken the children with her. Home to the wealthy, entrepreneurial brother is a remote manor house in a small village in an unspecified northern country. In spite of his business success, the brother seems incapable of looking after himself – to the point the narrator in her subservience dresses him, feeds him, bathes him. And then, almost immediately after she arrives, the brother leaves on an extended business trip, leaving her alone in a place she knows no-one and does not know the customs nor the language. The brother to some extent has been accepted in the village, but the narrator’s arrival coincides with a series of local natural catastrophes. It is soon apparent she is blamed by the suspicious local, rural community.

And it is soon apparent that she (and her brother) are an obscure though reviled people who had been dogged across borders and put into pits. The author’s surname certainly positions the outsider nature of the narrative and throughout Study For Obedience, modern-day anti-semitism and stereotype is rife – none more so than the revulsion of the villagers towards her presence. Past European histories come to mind.

Meandering, occasionally darkly funny, frequently disturbing, Study For Obedience is extraordinary prose. But whether it make for ‘enjoyable’ reading ia another matter.

‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde

Controversial on its publication in 1891, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of so many that there were calls for the prosecution of Oscar Wilde.

The storyline itself is simple enough. The influential and opinionated Lord Henry Wotton, a man of privilege who lives for hedonism, espouses his views whilst in the company of artist Basil Hallward and his sitter, Dorian Gray. So taken by the young man’s beauty, Wotton states that beauty itself is the only worthwhile aspect of life. So convincing in his arguments, the impressionable Gray wishes that his portrait would age instead of himself. As the old adage goes – be careful what you wish for.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the author’s only novel. Over the years following that first meeting between Wotton and Gray, a friendship evolves between the two men that sees the younger man sink into a secretive life of crime and debauchery. Yet he ages not one jot. It is his portrait that shows the ravages of time and the life he leads. Locked away from view in the attics of his fashionable London home, it is Hallward’s portrait that records Gray’s cruelties, indiscretions and flippancies with others’ lives as well as his own.

It being written by Oscar Wilde, the novel naturally philosophises on the nature of the aesthete and the repressive, hypocritical values of Victorian society. Much humour is woven into the tale and many see Wilde in the character of Lord Wotton. Perfect youth and the object of desire remains embodied in Gray as desired not only by women but, controversially for the time, by men. It is this latter ‘sensuality’ that created outrage in polite London society for Wilde. Yet it is this very thinly veiled aesthetism and reference to homosexual desire that has kept The Picture of Dorian Gray and its 19th century tale of love, lust and debauchery in the public eye for more than a century.

A gothic horror novel of importance, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a tale of privilege and decadence where the moral code is lost through vanity and selfishness. It being 19th century literature, there are times when Wilde slips into flowery verbage – and the author likes the sound of his own voice through Wotton a little too much. But it remains an eminently readable read.

‘Small Worlds’ by Caleb Azumah Nelson

An immersive lyricism capturing young black experience in contemporary south east London is Nelson’s purview in this beautiful, bittersweet follow up to his debut novel, Open Water.

Over three intense summers, Stephen experiences loss, love, vulnerability and family, immediate and extended as Ghanaian parental histories impact on his day-to-day. Gentle, vulnerable, a little lost, it is through music, dancing and rhythm he can find a sense of himself –

The one thing that can solve Stephen’s problems is dancing. Dancing at Church, with his parents and brother, the shimmer of Black hands raised in praise; he might have lost his faith, but he does believe in rhythm. Dancing with his friends, somewhere in a basement with the drums about to drop, while the DJ spins garage cuts. Dancing alone, at home, to his father’s records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known.

Loving, joyful and supportive, Joy and Eric have supported their two sons through the daily oppression of their Peckham neighbourhood life. As Stephen leaves school, it is music and his beloved trumpet that he hopes his future lies. But unlike the beautiful and sassy Del, it is not to be. Del can follow her musical dream – Stephen not as he is persuaded to head to Nottingham and business studies. But that only lasts weeks as a lonely, vulnerable homesick teenager heads back south to the world he knows.

Small Worlds is a love story. It’s a young man’s burgeoning love for Del, love for the concept of love, love for family – his mother Joy and, eventually following hard times, his father. Music is ever present (Nelson populates throughout the names of songs, artists, musical genres that can be played as an immersive backdrop to the unfolding narratives whether in London, Nottingham or Ghana), providing the man with a sense of self, of belonging. It’s this rhythmic poetic prose in the writing, particularly later in the novel when Stephen visits the ancestral home of Ghana and in the depiction of the reconciliatory father-son tenderness following this visit that provide the novel with its nostalgic bittersweet lyricism.

‘Elizabeth Finch’ by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes falls, personally, into an ought to read category. The accessible and enjoyable The Sense of an Ending and Arthur and George are balanced by the oft tried but failed miserably Flaubert’s Parrot and once attempted (30 years ago) A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. The latter failures come frequently to mind when considering whether or not to read a Barnes novel. Sadly, to that list will now be added his latest, Elizabeth Finch.

Taught, precise language along with an endeavour to make sense of things past and present run through his novels – and Elizabeth Finch is no different. Except unlike The Sense of an Ending, Barnes has managed to make a short book feel like a long one.

It starts off well enough as our narrator, Neil, actor, twice divorced and father of three, was once a student in a Culture and Civilisation adult education class taught by Elizabeth Finch. He becomes consumed by her, admitting I probably paid more attention to what she said and how she spoke than I did to anyone else in my life. It’s not sexual adoration but something much more cerebral Her diction was formal, her sentence structure entirely grammatical,” Neil gushes. “You could almost hear the commas, semicolons and full stops. His championing of her is accepted among the small group of fellow students, even if thought a little odd.

Long after the course has finished, Neil remains in contact with Elizabeth Finch – the occasional dinner at the same restaurant three or four times a year. But her sudden death puts paid to that, only for him to discover he has been left Elizabeth’s journals in her will. Now, he feels, is the time to really understand the woman who shook my mind around, made me constantly rethink. A biography is in the making. But instead, he decides on the ultimate tribute, To please the dead – a biographical essay of her ancient hero: Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor of Rome, who attempted to turn back the disastrous flood tide of Christianity.

And that, after 44 pages or so of Elizabeth Finch is where the interest moreorless stops. Barnes is at his cerebral best/worst. At first I thought Elizabeth Finch a Romantic pessimist; now I would call her a Romantic Stoic. Are the two conditions compatible? Really? What follows is a tedious history essay interspersed with the occasional tidbit of the unremarkable life of Elizabeth Finch. Sure, we know Barnes can write well – and mass consumption has never been his concern (Arthur and George possibly his closest to a populist novel). But this?

‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ by John le Carré

A modern classic and arguably John le Carré’s best, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy continues following the up and down career of George Smiley with the first in the trilogy featuring Karla, his Soviet counterpart.

le Carré’s expertise in the world of espionage creates a vivid insight into the machinations of the secret service, the at times painstakingly slow, chess-like moves that eventually (and hopefully) illicit responses and results. Smiley’s earlier fall from grace and enforced retirement owing to the death of Control and the ‘changing of the guard’ at the Circus would seemingly see the end of Smiley. But living up to the concept of the spy who came in from the cold, he is asked to return and help identify the mole within British intelligence. One thing is certain – whoever it is was planted by Moscow many years earlier and is a high ranking member of the service and a contemporary of Smiley.

With the young Peter Guillam assigned to support him, Smiley sifts and sorts, watches and questions, revisiting events that led to agent Jim Prideaux’s cover being blown just outside Prague that led to the revelation there was a mole at work.

It’s a very British scandal, riddled with complexities, rainy nights and old boy networks. What it’s not is a narrative of high volume confrontations and shoot outs. There’s a great deal at stake and the mole needs to be exposed and destroyed – but it can be done in a respectful, civilised way with plenty of tea poured and nervous conversations had about futures and the need to keep a lid on the level of exposure.

Booker Prize Shortlist: 2022

Opinions inevitably vary when it comes to placing preferences for one item above another (the Oscars, anyone?). Certainly no difference here as, having read all the books on the 2022 Booker Prize shortlist, the personal burning question is – did the judges make the right call?

Shortlisted books first:
Glory – NoViolet Bulowayo
The Trees – Percival Everett
Treacle Walker – Alan Garner
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – Shehan Karunatilaka
Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan
Oh William! – Elizabeth Strout

It’s a pretty consistent list although surprised that neither Young Mungo (Douglas Stuart, winner in 2020) nor To Paradise (Hanya Yanagihara) even made the longlist – and personally would have loved to see The Colony by Audrey Magee make the shortlist.

So what of the six – and did the judges make the right call in awarding the 2022 Booker Prize to Shehan Karunatilaka and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida?

The last book on the list I read shores up the shortlist at the bottom of the pile. The final book of a trilogy, Oh William! is by far the weakest of the three as Elizabeth Strout continues to follow the narrative life story of Lucy Barton. It’s a pity as the first two made for great reading of a woman who came from nothing and Amgash, Illinois to become a successful writer.  Instead, whilst a tale eminently readable, Oh William! is not as commanding or engrossing as its predecessors. (60%)

At 87, Alan Garner became the oldest shortlisted author in the 60 years of the Booker Prize. An author from my childhood – the fantasies of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath rivalled the Narnia tales of C.S.Lewis as holiday and bedtime reading – Treacle Walker is a playful and luminous novella on the art of storytelling and a beautifully written, evocative fusion of a tale that is difficult to categorise. (62%)

Two down and four to go – and interestingly, to my mind there’s very little between them – but unlike the judges of the 2019 Booker Prize who presented a tie with Bernadine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other) and Margaret Atwood (The Testaments), a decision is to be made. So, being aware that the four are interchangeable according to the day read – fourth on the list is the eventual winner of the 2022 Booker Prize, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

Mordantly funny, brimming with pathos, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida looks to explore and expose the carnage of Sri Lanka’s civil wars. Described as part ghost story, part whodunnit, part political satire, it’s a crazy ride as the story looks to identify the killers of acclaimed war photographer and narrator of the book, Maali Almeida. It’s a frenetic novel that is incisive, frustrating, funny, confusing and was lauded by the judges for its ambition in scope and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques. (70%)

Calm and reflective, Claire Keegan’s novella Small Things Like These is short in word count, morally visceral in impact. It places Ireland’s inhumane Magdalene Laundries under the microscope. Ostensibly a home for ‘fallen women’, the laundries in local Catholic convents were found throughout Ireland where the young women experienced everything from deprivation to abuse and death. Short and capacious, it is a deeply affecting debut novel. (71%)

Glory is the novel I thought would pick up the prize. A coruscating African Animal Farm, a commentary on global politics, a bitter yet, at times, incredibly and bitingly funny chorus against corrupt Zimbabwean politician Robert Mugabe, Glory is NoViolet Bulawayo’s follow up to her 2013 literary debut, We Need New Names. It’s an equally deeply political and social observation of life in Zimbabwe. But, in cloaking her world and her characters in the voices of animals, Bulawayo avoids potential tome-like overt political agitprop. Instead, she can call out and emphasise the absurdities of politics, both localised and global, and how the common people are impacted in an accessible energy of a novel. (72%)

But my preference falls on new-to-me American author, Percival Everett and The Trees. Everett has written more than 20 novels and was Pulitzer Prize shortlisted in 2020. But few of his books have made it outside the States. Comic masterpiece The Trees will change all that. A dark social satire that directly addresses racism past and present in a bold and shocking way, it also mixes in old-fashioned pulp fiction film noir storylines of murder. It’s a page-turning comic horror of a novel: it also topped the best of the 2022 Booker Prize list for me. (74%).

Yet although it was not my preferred choice, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, because of that ambition in scope and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques was arguably a good call to win the Booker in 2022. My jury is out on that one.

‘Best of Friends’ by Kamila Shamsie

A tale of identity (personal and political) and the ties of friendship over forty years, Best of Friends was surprisingly chosen as one of the best books of 2022 by, among others, The Guardian, The Observer and The Financial Times.

Told in a split time frame in two parts – 1988 Pakistan and present day London – Shamsie’s novel presents best friends Maryam and Zahra. As 14 year olds in Karachi, they are already besties of a decade and share a love for George Michael, a blooming curiosity in boys and a determination to be successful in their lives. For the wealthy Maryam, favoured over her father by the entrepreneurial grandfather, there is little question as to her road to success. The family leather business is hers for the taking. And in modern day Pakistan, with Benazir Bhutto poised to become the first female prime minister, Maryam’s future is not so absurd a prospect in the traditional male domain.

Zahra’s future is not so assured – but with a likely Cambridge scholarship on the cards, she can succeed through academic prowress and support from her comfortable middle-class parents – a cricket journalist and school principal.

With change in the air, the atmosphere in Karachi is electric. But a decision to attend a party results in the world of the two teenage girls changing forever.

Thirty years later, Maryam and Zahra remain friends but, now living in London, their lives failed to follow the expected path – certainly for Maryam. Packed off to boarding school in the UK shortly after the infamous incident at the party and the family business sold thereafter, Maryam’s path to success proved to be a little more arduous. But a success she is in the world of finance and startups. Zahra has also succeeded in the public sector and heads a London-based NGO. They remain friends, bound together by loyalties and shared memories of the past.

Two influential women both moving in the corridors of power. But when the past finally catches up with them, a rash decision by Zahra threatens the very basis of the women’s friendship.

Best of Friends is a fairly well written tale, but one full of safe platitudes. The reader is rarely allowed under the skin of the two protagonists – it’s more surface explanation than in-depth exploration. There’s little in terms of the gap between the two timeframes and why the two have remained friends. We’re simply told that that is the case. Considering Shamsie’s novel is exploring the very nature of friendship, we need more. Ultimately, Best of Friends is a disappointment: safe in a cosy, unchallenging way – even the reveal of Maryam’s sexuality and home life is a suburban extension of the novel’s underwhelming lack of tension.