Books read in August

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

Border Songs – Jim Lynch (4.5)
The anti-hero of Border Songs is tall, autistic, dyslexic Brandon who thinks in pictures, compiles mental lists of all the birds he has seen daily, and makes temporary art that is obviously influenced by “the great Andy Goldsworthy”. He joins the Border Patrol to catch drug smugglers and illegal immigrants, and discovers an uncanny talent for turning up in the right place at the right time.

His father, Norm has a failing dairy herd, a half-built yacht in his barn, and a wife (Jeanette) who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. He fantasises about Sophie the masseuse, who may or may not be writing a book about the inhabitants of the small town, and turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants in return for bundles of cash. His neighbour, Wayne taunts him from the Canadian side of the border where the drug laws are different, and Brandon falls in love with Wayne’s daughter Madeline who puts her gardening skills to good use.

No one actually knows where the boundary is, and a lot of money and effort seems to be poured into a ditch. The novel is whimsical and lyric with gentle prose which leaves a lasting impression. Full of a cast of picaresque characters and universal themes of exploration and defence, this book is simply beautiful.

Two Caravans – Marina Lewycka (4.4)
Marina Lewycka’s second novel covers some of the same ground as her first, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, but in this she focuses more on the experiences of immigrants, legal or otherwise, in England. Obviously there are good and bad people of all nationalities – Ukrainian, African, Polish and even English. Told from a variety of perspectives, the story is also an expose of the demise of socialism in favour of the exploitation of the labour force.

This is not a novel about the unemployed underclass. Everyone in this book wants to work, even if it is low-paid, often demeaning in appalling conditions (the chicken farm is a narrative highlight), and usually illegal – no union members are employed. This is a capitalist society where self-preservation is everything and the human cost in employment rights is the first casualty.

Bizarrely, where there is exploitation, there is also integration as people are treated similarly despite class, gender, religion or race. Many of the immigrants came to England with hopes of a bright future, escaping “that old derelict Soviet world that we are trying to leave behind”, only to have their dreams of the Promised Land shattered by the reality with its hints of the violent underworld; human trafficking, guns, stolen passports and underage prostitutes.

There are constant shifts of point of view as we follow the different characters and this makes it difficult to get to know any of them well. It develops into a Mills and Boon/chick-lit type romance but there are acres of slapstick shenanigans and economic politics to travel though en route. Much of the plot is implausible but that’s not really the point, as it is more a novel of ideas and principles. It is far from dry and sterile, however, and the humour and language is as sparkling as in her first.

Timoleon Vieta Come Home – Dan Rhodes (4.5)
The title obviously brings to mind Lassie Come Home, and the fact that it features a mongrel, Timoleon Vieta, encourages the comparison. Cockcroft is a faded English composer and socialite who lives in a dilapidated farmhouse in the Italian countryside. He dreams of his previous lovers and lives only with his dog, with whom she shares a deep friendship. When a mysterious stranger arrives, known only as The Bosnian, the relationship is tested, and we have to question who is indeed man’s best friend?

The Bosnian and Timoleon Vieta don’t see eye to eye and the Bosnian persuades Cockcroft to drive the dog to Rome and abandon him there. Timoleon Vieta immediately sets out to walk back to the farmhouse. Along the way he encounters various people who are living out their own tales of love and pain, offering a kind of solace to those around him who take him in and feed him for a couple of days, giving him various names, before he resumes his own incredible journey.

It’s a hard-to-categorize book, written in a deceptively simple style. There are disturbing moments and there are heartrending passages, but it is a fantastic little read – like a twisted parable that has no moral. Life just is. This could be a Canterbury Tale based in Umbria – the dog’s tale, as it were.

The Sonnets – Warwick Collins (2.3)
I don’t understand the point of this book. Warwick Collins has taken Shakespeare’s sonnets and woven a very loose and not particularly entertaining story around them. Half of the novel is actually comprised of the sonnets themselves, which anyone with interest will have read already, and he even makes up a couple, passing them off as the ones that got away.

He writes his story in Shakespeare’s voice as he stays with the Earl of Southampton, his patron, when the theatres are closed. Southampton is fatherless and placed under the guardianship of Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s chief minister. Lord Burghley sees his ward as a rival and despises Shakespeare’s verses. Southampton, on the other hand, is flattered and impressed with the sonnets although he advises caution, telling Shakespeare to couch his sentiments in ambiguity; a handy explanation of the obscurity of the sonnets which allows Collins to interpret according to his will.

There are rumours of homosexuality to be countered. Through the questioning of Shakespeare by Southampton’s mother, who demands the household needs an heir, it is made clear that the love expressed towards the young lord in the sonnets is purely platonic and an example of artifice. Meanwhile, the dark lady is a married courtesan who becomes the mistress of both Southampton and Shakespeare. Christopher Marlowe gets a cameo role as he competes for Southampton’s attention, and is frequently compared with Shakespeare.

Collins has chosen to write in the first person but he doesn’t want to relinquish the omniscience of the third, which results in a dissatisfying effect. Collins also attempts to circumnavigate the restrictions of the first person narrator by having Shakespeare imagine a scene at which he is not present, which is awkward and jarring in its construction. He does capture the Warwickshire scenery of parks and woodland, but he also has a repetitious turn of phrase. Generally, this is a shameful exploitation of one great man’s art by a much lesser writer.