Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall

By Hilary Mantel

(Note: Before reading, I want to be clear that this post has very little to do with Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning novel Wolf Hall. I know it's the title of the blog post, but I'm feeling tangential.)

When I first started Reading in Taiwan, it was my mission statement that I would anything and everything that fell into my grubby, book-devouring little hands. The thought process was that I was living in a small town on a small, non-English speaking island with the bare minimum of English books at my disposal. It was a great social experiment and for a time it was pretty damned awesome. I read books I would have otherwise never have read. I read romance, fantasy and non-fiction novels about soccer players. I read I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I was taking one for the proverbial team.

But over the course of three years, things have changed in my neck of the woods. I am not as isolated from the literary world as I once was. A couple of years back my wife was thoughtful enough to buy me a Kindle which made acquiring new books a cinch. Furthermore, acquiring actual bound books made of paper has become a lot easier in Taiwan due to the Internet and 7-11 (God bless 7-11). Nevertheless, I remained resolute in my stubbornness to read anything that came my way and finish everything I started, regardless of how good or bad it was. I mean I read The Story of O when I really didn't have to. I wanted to keep the spirit of the blog intact despite the encroachment of modern technology and increased access to books.

That is, until today.

I was driving home tonight thinking about how I was 40% through Hilary Mantel's 2009 Booker Prize winning novel Wolf Hall. I set the same goal I had set for myself every day this past week: to finish at least 10% before going to sleep. I have accomplished that goal exactly zero times this past week and it suddenly occurred to me that I would not achieve it tonight either, nor tomorrow night nor any night after that. I was staring down another two weeks (minimum) of slogging through Wolf Hall. It felt like the literary equivalent of sitting in a dentist office waiting room waiting for a voluntary, and completely unnecessary, root canal. Why was I subjecting myself to such an avalanche of torture when there are perfectly corpulent books awaiting me on my shelf and Kindle? And considering I was trying to read Wolf Hall quickly just so I could start something new, well, that's a terrible reason to read.

"But what about your mission statement?" I thought to myself.

"A cute but antiquainted dogma," I rebutted. "One rooted in another time. Another place."

"But what will people think when you say you couldn't finish Wolf Hall, a novel that was so celebrated? and why do I sound like Yoda?"

"Care not what people think. Nothing to prove, you have."

(Seriously, this is actually how I think).

The truth is, I was never going to like Wolf Hall. And I should have known.

Don't get me wrong, Wolf Hall is well written and painstakingly researched and probably deserves the Booker Prize for its meticulous (almost obssessive-compulsive) attention to detail alone. But Wolf Hall had three strikes against it right from the start and I should have seen the signs.

First, Wolf Hall is about the English Royal Family in general and unless the novel was written by Bernard Cornwell and is set on a blood-soaked 10th century battlefield in Essex, I'm not interested. As an unwilling citizen of the Commonwealth, I have a knee-jerk disinterest in the Royal Family. Just mention the names of Prince William and whatshername and my mind switches to auto-pilot whereby I continue looking at the speaker and nodding in a polite fashion but internally I have begun to ponder new and interesting ways in which to rip the speaker's tongue from his or her mouth.

Second, Wolf Hall is about Tudor England in specific. As a history major, there are nations and time periods I like better than others and I am hard-pressed to think of a time and place that interests me less than Tudor-era England. (maybe modern day England, but I'll have to run some tests to see which sets off the boredom alarm first and that's a diagnostic I'm in no hurry to run). Give me the Mongol Hordes riding across the Asian steppe or the Early Christian Church fathers or Qing Dynasty China any day of the week. But try to get me excited about Henry disengaging from Rome due to his inability to conceive a son and you've got a recipe for a nap.

Third, the length of the novel was the nail in the coffin. I have a pretty high threshold for shit. I can usually roll my eyes through a bad book just to say I've suffered like Jesus on the cross or something at parties. My mother always called me a masochist, but even I have limits. It's one thing to press on through a 250 page novel you hate. It's quite another to press on through a 700 page novel of the same ilk. I'll force down a bad meal, but I won't eat the leftovers for a week. That's just dumb.

Of course, I want to be clear that I'm not calling Wolf Hall a bad book. It most certainly isn't. It's just not my thing. Not at all. Not even a little.

But all this got me to thinking about novels that I have left unfinished. Surprisingly, in a lifetime of voracious reading the novels I have quit are few and far between. I've read lots of books that seem to pop up on other people's Did Not Finish lists. I've read (and enjoyed) long books like Infinite Jest. I've read difficult books like V. by Thomas Pynchon (I didn't understand it, though) and I've read the entire Old Testament. I've also read my share of terrible novels (Cathy Lamb comes to mind) But when it came to finding books I never actually finished, I could actually only think of six (though I'm sure there are more):

1. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Of all the books I have ever hated, I hate this one the most. I hated it from the beginning. I hated the language. I hated the fact that each character took three pages to ask for a cup of tea and I hated Tom Bombadil (seriously... WTF?). I think I dropped this book somewhere around page 400 and have vowed never, ever to pick it up again.

2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: At the age of 16 I had this notion that I was going to become a man of letters or some such nonsense. I determined to read all the great works of literature and I was going to start with The Brothers Karamazov. Great start. I got about 60 pages in, realized I didn't understand a single thing that was going on and I went back to reading Michael Creighton novels. I've been meaning to pick this one up in recent years, but there is always something more interesting on my shelf. I think my 16-year old self has 37-year old me spooked.

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: I love Marquez and I've read several of his other novels, but this one eluded me. Perhaps it had something to do with every character having the SAME GODDAMNED NAME!

4. Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte: I recall literally throwing this novel out my bedroom window with only 40 pages to read. I recall hating it with every fiber of my being but for the life of me, I cannot recall why. As I said before, I'm a masochist, but not so much of one that would willingly revisit this novel to find out why I hated it.

5. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: Because it's plain terrible.

6. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: I honestly believe that everyone who loves this novel didn't actually read it. It's worse than The Black Arrow.

I can now add Wolf Hall to this esteemed list of personal literary failures.

When God Was a Rabbit

When God Was a Rabbit

By Sarah Winman

The blurb on the back of this novel says:

This is a book about a brother and a sister.  It's a book about childhood and growing up, friendships and families, triumph and tragedy and everything in between. More than anything, it's a book about love in all its forms.

Having read that, I should have known I wouldn't enjoy this book.

OK, I probably should have known from the title. That labored, idiosyncratic title.

Oh, it's not that I don't enjoy books about brothers and sisters or childhoods and friendships, etc. Certainly those themes are the foundation for many a great novel. And certainly I couldn't possibly dislike the novel because it's about love. I'm jaded and cynical, but I haven't lost all of my humanity quite yet. No, the tip-off should have been the short, clipped sentences. I should have seen that this novel was going to make an effort to be clever, quirky and irreverent, which isn't necessarily bad if the novel actually ends up being clever, quirky and irreverent. But it is my experience that every time an author sets out to write a novel that is clever, quirky and irreverent it turns out to be clumsy, awkward and tedious.

When God Was a Rabbit, is clumsy, awkward and tedious.

When God Was a Rabbit is told from the perspective of Eleanor (Elly) and chronicles the childhood and early adulthood of her, her brother Joe and a odd ensemble of friends that include Joe's teenage lover Charlie (who loses an ear in a Middle Eastern hostage crisis), Elly's best friend, Jenny Penny (who is revered by Elly and her clan, but for reasons I must have missed entirely) and a cast of characters that take themselves so terribly, terribly seriously. It is a novel that suffers from a bad case of Cathy Lamb Disease in that it tries to cover literally every social and cultural ill in the entire modern world from sexual abuse and child neglect to gray-area spousal homicide to September 11th. All the while this cast of characters spend their days naval-gazing without a notion toward what it all means.

But I could have handled that if it weren't for Sarah Winsome's hopelessly contrived and frustratingly cumbersome prose. It was like reading an entire novel written in passive voice, from individual sentences, to paragraphs, to chapters and ultimately to the entire narrative itself. My kingdom for an active sentence! My fortune for straightforward plot advancement. If real people talked like the characters in this book, nobody anywhere would understand what the hell was going on at any point, ever. As a reader, one has to learn to read between the lines, but when you are reading between the lines that are between the lines (and in passive voice)... well, there is only so much one reader can take.

And the false endings! I felt like I was reading the literary equivalent of Lynyrd Skynyrd's extended version of Freebird. There were literally dozens of places in which Winsome could have wrapped the narrative up as neat as a bow, but she continued to forge right on ahead into the uncharted territory of unnecessary developments (The entire last twist surrounding the events of September 11th were so forced I had to physically restrain myself from throwing the book out the window). I'm sure someone will tell me that I've missed a metaphorical point (probably something to do with cultural amnesia or some such nonsense) but I'm not listening. Metaphors never, ever trump a good story. And that's what was missing from When God Was a Rabbit... A good story.

Listen, I'm going to be blunt. There is more I could write about the failures of this novel but it isn't really worth the time it has already taken me to write this review. I really hate saying things like that because, as I've said before, anybody who has taken the time and put forth the effort to write a novel deserves the utmost respect (and for that, Sarah Winsome, you have mine... in earnest). But I would be remiss if I were to lie or sugar-coat my loathing for this novel. I'm sure it has garnered excellent reviews somewhere (I declined to check) and you certainly shouldn't base your decision about whether to read this novel or not on my blog post. But be forewarned, if you have found that my reviews jive with your reading tastes, this novel is one that might be best left on the bookshelf.

Or better yet, the remainder bin.

Oh well, it's still better than Henry's Sisters.

Dead Famous

Dead Famous

By Ben Elton

According to Ben Elton, England is going down the tubes and it's all reality television's fault. Once a proud nation that resolutely stood up to the Nazis during the Battle of Britain and stared imminent annihilation in the face with cool determination and a stiff upper lip. British men were made of moxy and steel and their women, well, they were made of moxy and steel, too! Winston Churchill defiantly proclaimed that:

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

Immortal words from one of the great modern statesmen. Britain would stand proud for another thousand years thanks to Churchill's (and Britain's) resolve.

Just a half-century later and we have an entirely different generation with entirely different values and an entirely different vocabulary. It's probably worth lamenting, if it weren't so damned funny. In Dead Famous, Ben Elton's highly improbable, post-post-modern novel about a preposterous reality television program, characters have insanely amped up names such as Woggle or Gazzer or Moon, probably don't know where to buy Winston Churchill brand cigarettes if you asked them and speak like this:

"Woggle, he da man! Da top man. Respect! But the whole show is totally wicked, so fair play to all the posse in the house. Kelly's my girl, Oojah, Oojah!"

There's a lot in that quote I really don't understand. I can't imagine that anyone, anywhere actually talks like this, but if there is, I never want to meet him or her. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer eloquence.

Now, I should have known I wasn't going to like a book that featured characters with names like Woggle or Gazzer or Moon, especially one that centered on a third-rate reality game show called House Arrest. I despise reality TV with a passion and have never understood people's fascination with such thinly-veiled voyeurism. But, I persevered and, at the end of the day, I actually enjoyed this book for what it was, and that what it's all fookin' about, inn't? Respect!

So what gives?

I suppose the reason enjoyed this book is that it was such an over-the-top parody of reality television and didn't attempt to squeeze some sort of moral or philosophical point out of what is, ultimately, an extremely hollow genre of entertainment. I mean, anyone who stops to consider the social and cultural implications of reality television is simply going to think themselves into a considerable headache and be nowhere closer to a solution than they were an hour previous. It's lowest-common-denominator television and anyone who argues otherwise is delusional or simply dim.

Had this book taken itself even a little seriously, it would have fallen flat on its face. Instead Elton carefully portrays each of the "housemates" as the cardboard cut-outs they are: The boozer, the struggling actor looking for a break, the quiet doctor who is trying to blend into the surroundings. the lesbian, the manipulative and money-grubbing producer, the bitter evictee, and the smelly hippie anarchist that endears himself to the public. Elton's characters have about as much depth as a puddle. There are no subtle personalities and no extended networks of friends or family (only those relevant to the plot). Each character is no more than the sum of their parts as they appear on television. Single-serving characters as Edward Norton might say.

When a murder is introduced to the plot (something that would obviously send a REAL reality show to a screeching, lawsuit-addled halt), the already absurd cast of characters is thrust into improbability hyperdrive that includes attempted suicide, and a kick-boxing Irish lass. I mean, what's not to like? Had they added a fifty-foot giant iguana that terrorized London I wouldn't have batted an eyelash.

Add the impossible circumstances in which the murder takes place (in an enclosed environment littered with cameras that document the happenings in literally every corner of the house) and give each and every "housemate" a motive for killing the victim (some very flimsy motives, I might add) and you've got yourself an enjoyable, if ultimately pointless read. The wonderfully pyrrhic conclusion is worth the price of admission alone. It was so unnecessarily convoluted that I had to read it twice and it still made my head hurt, but who cares? It's reality television literature which means it's like the junk food of fiction. I'll feel bad for a few hours after finishing the book and forget the entire thing by next week (unless of course I descend into a downward spiral of junk food books and choke on my own vomit).

For the one or two people who read this blog on a regular basis, you might ask: "Why give Dead Famous a pass and Henry's Sisters such a colossal fail?"

Well, my dear reader, it was all about delivery. While Cathy Lamb wrote with all the sincerity in her entire body and failed, failed, failed, you get the impression throughout Dead Famous that Ben Elton is simply taking the piss out of our modern culture (or lack of culture). As is mentioned before if at any point in this book had Elton waxed intellectual on the state of modern pop culture and the decline of Western civilization you would be reading a blog post akin to Henry's Sisters. As it stands, he didn't and the book is every bit as vacant as you would expect. It's the difference between Zoolander and It's Pat: The Movie. One is so stupid it becomes smart parody, the other is simply stupid. There is a fine line and one that is not easily explained. I would suspect that the people who cannot tell the difference between parody and stupid are also fans of reality television.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time on this book. Let me give a closing example to prove my point about stupid-turned-funny. At a crucial point in the book when the remaining non-murdered "housemates" are sitting around chatting about God, one of the characters spews this thought-provoking sound bite of wisdom:

"I'm quite interested in Eastern religions. For instance, I reckon that Dalai Lama is a fookin' ace bloke, because with him it's all about peace and serenity, ain't it? And at the end of the day, fair play to him because I really really respect that."

Take away the annoying Britishisms and you have a Hansel quote, right there. That's comedy gold, right there, Jerry!

Wicked!

Henry's Sisters

Henry's Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

Sweet merciful Jesus, it's rare that I read a book that not only sucks but also unleashes the full force of my ire and disgust. Alas, Cathy Lamb has written such a book. A book so mind-numbingly bad that I came within a camel's hair of putting it down (something I have not done with a book in almost five years). A book so poorly written that I actually read several reader reviews before I sat down to write this, thinking that I could commiserate with other readers about a book that just might be the worse thing I have ever read (and I've read Twilight).

Imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that Henry's Sisters seems to garner favorable reviews around the net. Goodreads, Amazon and Visual Bookshelf readers all seem to like it well enough, which made me check my medicine cabinet to see whether someone has been slipping me crazy pills again. Rest assured, they have not.

The atrocities committed by Cathy Lamb are so extensive that I have spent the last 300 pages (of a 400 page book) mentally cataloging them. I should have written them down because I fear I have forgotten so many that I will not be able to express my loathing in as much detail as I would like, but I will try. I figure the best way to organize this is with a simple list, beginning with:

1. One dimensional characters.

Christ Almighty, this pissed me off by the end of chapter four. Cathy Lamb writes characters like George Lucas creates a planet. Like Lucas' one-climate planets, each character in this book is characterized solely by his/her one defining quirk. Isabelle is a slut. Cecilia is fat. Janie is obsessive compulsive. Momma is cruel. It's as if these (cartoon) characters exist only through their one (and only, mind you) idiosyncrasy. None of these characters ever do anything beyond the bounds of this one, single attribute. By the end of the book when I should have been crying, I could only imagine cardboard cutouts of these characters being moved around on a cheap soap opera stage.

2. Constant reminders of one dimensional characters.

Cathy Lamb does not think much of her readers. I know that writing teachers will always tell a burgeoning writer to "assume your reader knows nothing." But there are limits to this. Lamb reminds me of Isabelle's sluttiness, Cecilia's eating and Janie's compulsions on EVERY PAGE OF THE BOOK! Holy hell, woman, I got it! Mentally disabled Henry is the only sane person in the Bommarito family. I can handle that. No need to hammer it into me every seventh sentence!

3. Characterization of men

This has bothered me in other books, but none more than this one. Aside from Henry (and he's mentally disabled, remember?) all the male characters in this book either rape, abandon their family, cheat, lie, mass murder, say impossibly insensitive things, act like a raging idiot or (just to mix it up) a combination. I'm not anti-feminist or anything, but c'mon! Some of the men in this book were about as intelligent as Curly from the Three Stooges. Great if you are writing absurd comedy. Absurd if you are trying to write great drama. When the only male character written with any compassion is mentally disabled (in case you forgot), perhaps you are trying to send a subtle message?

4. The dialogue is impossibly bad

Seriously. Lamb tried to write witty arguments between these sisters but it invariably sounded like the sorts of arguments that six year-olds have over who's father can beat up everyone else's. Case in point:

"Your momma's got good tits," he told us, smirking, when Momma was out of earshot.

"And you have a small dick," I told him. "Flaccid. Weak."

"And a fat ass," Janie added. "Like blubber cannons. I'd like to chop them off with a hatchet."

"Are you related to a pig? Your nose, it's amazing," Cecilia said. "Piglike. Snort for me, would you, you ugly pig?"

Who talks like that?

5. Mentally disabled people and Vietnamese people speak the same.

Guess who is mentally disabled and who is Vietnamese...

A) "I no take a second. I no want a shot."

B) "I no understand. Your face... Ah Isabelle."

6. The litany of tragedy

I wonder whether this may be Cathy Lamb's last book. I say that because she seems to have tried to squeeze as much tragedy into 400 pages as is humanly possible. Rape, murder, Vietnam flashbacks, cancer, death, abortion, family dysfunction, homelessness, cruelty toward the disabled, messy divorce, serial rape/murder, psychological disorders, abandonment, prostitution etc... etc.... etc.... I know this book is supposed to be about the triumph of the human spirit and the importance of family but jeez, Louise, save an issue or two for your next book, would ya?

7. Telegraphing the reveals

I can visualize Cathy Lamb sitting at her computer (or typewriter or whatever) thinking to herself: "Oh man, when my readers find out the truth behind this deeply imbedded plot tidbit, won't they be surprised. What she fails to understand is that her well-placed clues are dead giveaways for what is coming, which really takes away from the enjoyment of the book when you know exactly what's coming in a couple of dozen pages. The white haired man in the street was really their long-lost father? Imagine!

8. Blatantly obvious statements

Such as: Pancreatic cancer are two words you never want to hear.

You don't say....

9. Thinly veiled devotionalism

This is what really galled me. About halfway through the book I realized that I was reading Christian literature. I knew there was something askew, much like when you realize that the sort-of-good-but-kinda-odd rock you were listening to was actually Christian Rock. This is a novel akin to The Shack, a book I read and detested last year. Which, come to think of it, would explain all the positive reviews this book seems to get online. This is the sort of book that is read by a very specific slice of the reading public. People who are shocked by graphic language and sexuality. Readers who identify with one-issue people because they are one-issue people themselves: Christians.

Anyway, There are a host of other, lesser reasons that this book sucked, I feel like I've wasted enough time and words on this disaster of a novel. I wouldn't recommend this book to my worst enemy. Don't bother.