Books read in September

The following are short reviews of the books that I read in September. The marks I have given them in the brackets are out of five.

Over the Wide and Trackless Sea - Megan Hutching (3.4)

New Zealand’s European women are the focus of this book, and it seems they shared many hardships, including long journeys, hard work, death of children and natural disasters. Their stories personalise the experience and there are many similarities in their accounts, told through diaries, letters and memoirs. It is also interesting to see that feelings of homesickness and displacement are the same ones that affect immigrants today. Megan Hutching writes in a straightforward style without any elegant interpretation or embellishments which makes incidents seem even starker.

It is very hard to know what women thought. Their tales are usually told through men; they were at the mercy of their husband or father, and they were hardly mentioned by other people. They seldom wrote about their feelings or personal information although they do provide domestic information about household routines.

The eleven women in the book have varied lives and Hutchings describes details that colour each of their lives; sheep farming; whaling; gum-digging; genteel life in politics and suffrage; missionary work; fossicking for gold along West Coast beaches; and housekeeping.

The book has large print and is easy to race through, suggesting it might be aimed at old ladies or amateur historians. It is a good starting point for anyone wanting to write a play or short story about any of these women and there is an extensive bibliography for further information.

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (4.3)

This novel is based upon a great concept and it is a thrill to read; a sort of dystopia in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale with an emphasis on the possibility of cloning people so that they will be able to donate organs and offer people the chance to have children with enhanced characteristics. It is set in an alternate contemporary Britain where things are eerily similar but different.

Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are pupils at Halisham, an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. They are told that they are special and it is important for them to keep themselves well and ‘healthy inside’. They know nothing of the outside world and they form intense friendships and harbour little secrets, for which they feel guilty. This is believable because their world is so convincing and claustrophobic – evoking memories of schooldays best forgotten.

Kathy, now aged thirty-one, narrates the story with hindsight. She wonders throughout whether they could have guessed what was coming, dropping oblique hints and enigmatic asides. Information is drip-fed to the reader, which means the conclusion isn’t the shattering solution of a mystery, as this has already been revealed. Consequently, the novel is not exactly a thriller and it feels slightly unsatisfactory at the end. It is a sort of science fiction but very human. The relationship between Kathy, Tommy and Ruth is well depicted as they grow from puzzled children to confused young adults. The reader grows with them, making discoveries about their life at the same time as they do.

It starts to drag towards the end, however, and the conclusion is unsatisfactory Many questions remain unanswered which is a little frustrating, but the lasting impression is bleak. The overwhelming feeling is one of regret and it challenges the reader to do something vital; to prove that you are not simply a clone, programmed for a destiny beyond your control. And therein lies its power.

Venice - Jan Morris (4.7)

This biography of a city has historical and geographical information thrown in. It is not chronological (although there is a timeline at the end) but the seemingly random thoughts and observations are expertly corralled. Jan Morris writes with affection and obviously enjoyed living there, investing the city with a character of her own – Morris refers to Venice as ‘she’ throughout. Venice was the place where East meets West; a continental cosmopolitan trading port on the water with a unique place in history – both real and imagined.

He/she (the book was originally written by James Morris, but reprinted when she was Jan with a new foreword) writes of the people; the islands; the canals; the bridges; the boats; the buildings. The one thing he doesn’t write about is the food – “It’s not a gourmet city” – and it is refreshing to read a book about Italy that isn’t full of gastro porn. In fact there are no pictures at all, and although an illustrated guide might be nice, the words are enough.

He explains the fascination and the appeal of Venice through the sights and the sounds and the incomparable light. From the opening paragraphs, Morris writes with warmth, reverence and affection. To read his words is to fall in the love with the city as he has done. For the first-time traveller or the repeat visitor, this is an excellent introduction or memento of a unique city, and a wonderful piece of writing in its own right.

The Food Taster - Peter Elbling (3.7)

This faux memoir of Ugo diFonte, who becomes the food taster for a powerful Renaissance Duke, is part fairytale, part history and totally immersed in the art of storytelling. He is a simple man whose unpretentious attitude makes the book an amusing read; although light on historical detail, it doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t.

Unable to prevent his mother from hanging herself, Ugo is the unfavoured son, driven from home by the cruelty of his father and brother, Vittore. He finally finds fortune in the home of Duke Frederico, where he raises his daughter, Miranda. She is the apple of his eye but, just like Prospero (in one of many Shakespearean similarities), he attempts to protect her by preventing true love.

Ugo is earthy, artistic and passionate with a love of cooking. The Renaissance food is rich and sumptuous, including spit-roasted quails, capons in lemon sauce, and calves’ brains, with lots of recipes at the back. At times his rants on food verge on gastro-porn.

He is a fabulously unreliable narrator, partly due to his increasing drug dependency, and also because he listens to gossip and tells tales, embellishing the truth to make it more interesting. He admits to being tantalised by the power of a good narrative, and learns the power of oratory, noting that the substance of the story is not as important as the artifice.

Fear of magic and witches form a backdrop to the novel, as do suspicion, deception, the Inquisition and various forms of torture. Ugo leaps from one escapade to the next and extricates himself from many a life-threatening situation while preserving his daughter’s dignity. There is always room for sardonic humour, however, and just as a pompously written menu can conceal an inedible dish, Peter Elbling demonstrates that the simplest story can be enveloped in the richest prose.

What Happen Then, Mr Bones? - Charlotte Randall (4)

This novel about the Montague family has a backwards-in-time storyline. This can be a bit disconcerting, but it is the point of difference of the novel and is mentioned at the very start, so you can’t say you weren’t warned. There is a list of characters at the beginning – in order of appearance – and their relationship to each other which helps us to keep track. The family is traced from modern Petone to 1650 Oxford, incorporating recurring themes of medicine, ageing, death, love and infidelity. After waking up on a dissecting table, Anne Green changes her name to Valentine and writes her memoirs which are handed down through the family; some of whom are interested while others are not.

In her distinctive style, the author directly addresses the reader. We have the benefit of hindsight and modern knowledge, plus we know what happens later in the story. This is deliberate artifice but encourages the reader to experience the characters’ experiences with a measure of dramatic irony. It breaks all literary conventions and draws the reader in with confidences and confessions. It is all written in present tense as if the same observer was present at all events.

Life and our expectations of such are continually changing. It changes when we grow up and when children arrive on the scene. It changes again when we grow old. Ngaio Halifax, Susan’s mother-in-law begins a scrapbook of her memories, but she doesn’t really know why. The history of countries change and New Zealand certainly altered with immigration and colonialism. History is served with a generous side portion of cynicism, humour and wit as the voice of the people mingles with the history of mishap. It is told in asides, as it affects but is not central to the main protagonists’ lives.

What Happen Then, Mr Bones? is an interesting novel, not afraid to tackle big themes (art; religion; history; fear of birth and death; magic; medicine; natural remedies and prayer; the eternal contest between faith and science) from a quirky irreverent angle and without pretension. This is refreshing in any writer, let alone one from New Zealand, and I will definitely look out for her other novels in future.

Reflections of Venice 3

There are churches galore which, according to the tourist guide, all contain ‘important works’. We pass their façades, either as we sweep by on the water or as we walk through the web of waterways. The only one we enter, Chiesa della Pietá has an exhibition of violins and related woodwind instruments on account of Vivaldi being one of Venice’s favourite sons.

Other notable Venetians include Cassanova and Marco Polo – men of exploration and swagger; hedonistic rather than scholarly. I can’t imagine Leonardo da Vinci sitting down to his inventive drawings here. He would have been out partying in the streets, drinking and revelling, hiding behind a mask and not taking responsibility for his actions.

All is pretence in Venice, and not just the multitude of Carnivale masks. There are a couple of stone lions still in the city – the statues look friendly, but you used to be able to denounce someone by writing their name on a piece of paper and placing it in the lion’s mouth – the ensuing events were then far from friendly. I want to see these lions but we don’t seem to go their way.

The Venice Lion (St Mark’s symbol) is everywhere; in paintings and sculptures, carved on the side of buildings or stood atop pedestals – he is winged so could take off at any moment. I suspect those wings are clipped and his majesty is fading, otherwise I doubt he would remain here, and he looks sad rather than proud.

The Romanesque-Byzantine style of Saint Mark’s Basilica seems ostentatious with its gilt mosaics and five cupolas; its splendid marbles and gilded copper horses. The adjacent campanile was once a lighthouse although no longer, and the practical purpose of guiding ships into the harbour seems far preferable to me than a repository for a dead man’s bones.

The Torre dell’Orologio is something special with its blue and enamel face with zodiacal depictions to indicate the phases of the moon and its sundial and hands for pointing out the time rather more prosaically. It is familiar from having a baddie thrown through it by Bond in Moonraker and has pieced itself back together very nicely indeed.

Many of Venice’s treasure were hidden or removed when the Germans occupied the city during the war – the Venetians had learned their lesson from Napoleon’s previous plundering. Rooms were sealed up and ornate painted ceilings covered with tar to prevent the invading army from enjoying the gaze of cherubs – which might actually have put them off. But the Germans, with their love of art and fine things, did not destroy Venice; it remained intact throughout the war.

Long before the Germans’ arrival, however, there were specific areas for segregating the Jewish community. In 1516 the Ghetto was instituted by the Venetian republic as a compulsory place of residence for Jews. The word itself originates from Venice, being a contortion of the word ‘geto’, meaning to throw or cast as the foundries were located here in early times. There is an air of money-making with unfavourable connotations, which Shakespeare picked up in The Merchant of Venice.

But despite all this, I still like the place. I like the bustling market around the Ponte di Rialto; I like the occasional peaceful canals (literally backwaters) with the reflections of light from the water dancing on the brickwork.

I like drinking a glass of prosecco; the bubbles even eliciting laughter from a jolly gondolier who has popped into the bar for a break, his boater askew. I like watching the gondoliers negotiating the waterways and jostling for position outside the hotels, hitching their gondolas to the palina (the coloured striped pole painted in the noble family’s colours) while casually smoking cigarettes or chatting on cell phones.

And I like standing on the bridge, leaning on the balustrade and watching the lights of the shops and restaurants winking on in the dark; their reflection broken only by the watercraft that still plough up and down the canals with red and green lights hung for navigation.

Reflections of Venice 2

Time flies when you’re wandering about and we run out of it, so don’t get to go to Murano. I buy some of the glass jewellery on the main island. The shopkeeper is furious that we want to pay by credit card and he snaps at us and throws the card on the counter, but of course he takes our money.

It becomes apparent that nothing in Venice is for free. Every other place we have visited has offered a map to find your way around and a brochure with sights highlighted – not Venice. When we see a drinking tap we hurriedly fill our water bottles, glancing around to check we will not be fleeced of our Euros or arrested.

There is a clear attitude that your money is welcome but you are an inconvenience, and hardly anyone smiles. Him Outdoors remarks that it seems like a theme park and I guess it does, visited each year by more than 12 million tourists.

The shops all sell glass, lace and masks to tourists (my favourite is the one with the hooked nose which is the Black Death Doctor; the beak was filled with medicinal herbs and essences to disinfect the air and protect the doctor from contagion during outbreaks of the Black Death).

Everything is retail and ‘hospitality’ – I use the term loosely. Venice used to be a hive of ship-building, fishing and trading, but now there is no discernible genuine industry save the men who make the gondolas (with wood from the Cadore region) but there are only a handful of them, and they exist to service the tourist trade also.

We visit the squero, the boatyard in which the gondolas are made. Only three or four are made each year to exact specifications – strong, fast and black. The laws concerning their build were ordained in the sixteenth century. They are 11 metres long, made of 280 pieces of wood, and coated with seven layers of water-proof paint. They are deliberately lopsided to counter the weight of the one-oared rower at the stern.

I like the boats – from the big noisy vaporetto to the silent (unless you get a gondolier who fancies himself as a singer) gondolas. Police boats cruise the canals and the bright red fireboats wait at the Ca’ Foscari ready to rush to emergencies.

It seems incongruous that a city built on water should have problems with fire, but most of the buildings are made of wood and highly flammable, so there are many fires – such as the inferno that destroyed La Fenice in 1996. I even love the private motorboats that drift about waiting to get to open water so they can open throttle.


But if Venice weren’t built on water, would anyone come? Would it be any different from any other town? There are Save Venice funds and campaigns to which people (mainly Americans) give money to restore artworks, buildings and churches, hoping to prevent bits falling off or entire edifices crumbling and collapsing into the lagoon.

So should we save it or not? I suppose the argument is similar with the Elgin Marbles or shrunken heads – if the natives aren’t going to look after them, then we should preserve them for the future. But isn’t this patronising? Should we let nature take its course, Ozymandias-style, and destroy things if need be? Aren’t there people in poverty who deserve our attention over artefacts?

If Venice is sinking, it is because she always has been. She is built on stilts submerged in the muck of the water – the caranto formed by alternate layers of sand and clay – which slowly subside with the inevitable passage of time. What would Darwin make of our attempts to maintain this patently inapt and inadaptable regime – is it like saving the Kiwi?

So yes, it is like a theme park, and it’s full of tourists and advertising hoardings – you can’t even see the Bridge of Sighs because the iconic structure has been prostituted to the marketing dollar.

Reflections of Venice 1

At breakfast-time on the television we see caribinieri storming crowds with riot shield and guns. We express concern but the man at the hotel just shrugs, ‘campagne, Napoli, Cammorah’, as if to say this happens all the time. Fortunately we aren’t going there; Venice is today’s port of call.

We drive to Treviso and catch a train (delayed) so it is midday by the time we emerge from the Santa Lucia station. We walk over the controversial new bridge of glass, steel and panels of Istria stone which I actually like – I’ve never had a problem with the juxtaposition of ancient and modern architecture, as long as it is tastefully done – á la Louvre pyramid.

We hop on the vaporetto and cruise down the Grand Canal, stopping at every station en route to let folk on and off until we are all disgorged along the waterfront. Geographically and metaphorically, the Grand Canal is the centrepiece of Venice; the chief waterway of art and commerce. I have been reading Jan Morris’ seminal work about the city in preparation for the trip and she puts it best:

“It is at once the Seine and the New Jersey Turnpike of Venice, the mirror of her beauty and the highway by which the cargo barges, horns blaring and engines a-blast, chug towards her markets and hotels. The ordinary Venetian canal feels frankly man-made: but most people have to stifle an impulse, now and again, to call the Grand Canal a river.”

We head to the Arsenale – Dad would be proud. Founded in the 12th century and surrounded by tall walls, it was the biggest shipyard in the world where 16,000 workers toiled with boiling pitch and tar to make weapons, oars and naval equipment.

We thread through the small back streets (calletta and rio tera – filled-in canals) trying to get away from the throngs and find somewhere to eat. Him Outdoors is in a sulk because he doesn’t like crowds and would rather have stayed in the mountains, but I insisted he had to see Venice.

As I am deciding which way to go, I hear a plop in the water and am astonished to think that perhaps fish actually live in these canals. I look down to see a rat swimming away. Of course I know there are pantegane (water rats) here, but I didn’t actually want to see one. I itch for the rest of the day and we find pizza and beer as far away from the water as possible – which obviously isn’t very far.

Fortunately there are a lot of cats in Venice which help with this population. On the island of San Clemente there are whole colonies of cats fed and looked after by Dingo, an association which supplies food, medical care and small shelters for cold winter nights. The Venetians traditionally love animals, which makes me feel kindly disposed towards them.

There are about 450 bridges in Venice (every guide book I read quoted a different number) and I feel as though we walk over at least half of them. Apparently there is a marathon on the second Sunday in March up and down the city bridges (Su e zo per i ponti) – I’m sure we conduct our own as we traipse around for eight hours. In every campo and down every ramo we find someone perusing a map, evidently lost.