Friday Five: Books Read in September

There are only four for this month so the Friday Five is missing one, but I'm sure it all evens out in the end.

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Harper Collins) - Set in an unnamed South American country, Bel Canto is inspired by the Japanese embassy hostage crisis of 1996-1997 in Lima, Peru. It begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice-presidential home in honour of visiting Japanese dignitary and opera enthusiast, Katsumi Hosokawa. In attempt to secure funding from the guest, the famous American soprano, Roxanne Cross is scheduled to perform as the highlight of the party. Near the end of the evening, a group of terrorists break in, hoping to take the president hostage, but when they realise he is not in attendance, they take the entire party hostage, only to subsequently release all except those for whom they think they might get a higher ransom. The isolation-aspect of the novel is fascinating as the characters develop in relation to each other, and alliances, friendships, and even romances form. As one might expect from a novel that won the Orange Prize and the PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction, it is beautifully written, following the score of an opera with great highs and lows and an explosive ending. Part love story; part hostage thriller; part musical appreciation, it contains many unrealistic and implausible plot developments, but leaves a lasting impression on the senses.
2. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (Vintage Books) - "From July of his sophomore year in college until the following January, all Tsukuru Tazaki could think about was dying." This is the opening line of the novel and if it has similarities with the beginnign of A Man Colled Ove, there are also strong echoes of Frank Kafka. Tsukuru is 36 and reflecting on his past, particularly why his friends suddenly stopped speaking to him and expected him to know why. Encouraged by a new lover, he sets out to discover the truth, meeting each of his former friends to question them individually, and also to understand himself better - why did he simply accept this fact? His old friendship group was a solid unit of two girls and three boys, whose names and nicknames all relate to colours (for example, Kei Akamatsu/ Aka; 'red pine'), except him; "“Tsukuru Tazaki was the only one in the group without anything special about him... Everything about him was middling, pallid, lacking in colour.” His sole interest is in train stations, and he is the only one who leaves the home town of Nagoya and goes to university in Tokyo to study engineering. He is practical and orderly, featuring in logically progressing sentences with limited adjectives - “He took a shower every morning, shampooed his hair well, and did the laundry twice a week.” Despite the clarity of language, the narrative is complex, containing stories within stories, exploring theories of freedom of thought, death and music, and causing Tsukuru and the reader to question, “People do change. And no matter how close we once were, and how much we opened up to each other, maybe neither of us knew anything substantial about the other.”
3. Unfinished Portrait by Mary Westmacott (Ulverscroft Limited) - When Agatha Christie writes as Mary Westmacott, she enjoys the psychology of her characters rather than the mystery of the plot. In this story within a story, the framework is set by the narrator, Larraby, meeting a young woman, Celia, whom she thinks is going to end her life because she has had enough. Sitting on a seat overlooking the sea, the narrator draws her into conversation and Celia tells the story of her life, which Larraby notes down and sends to 'My Dear Mary'. Because she is concerned with the effects of the events, she pays less attention to the specifics; “I’m not going into details – this isn’t a chronicle of such things. There’s no need to describe the quaint little Spanish town, or the meal we had together at her hotel." Celia was an imaginative child who became a sensitive woman, learning to live more frugally once her family's fortune and social standing mysteriously diminished on her father's death. The summary of the ‘coming out’ period of introductions to the marriage market is amusing, terrifying and deeply instructional, as men flock around the young innocent woman who knows no better and might provide them with an heir and domesticity. The ideas of marriage and maternity are both historic and current, highlighting the trauma and depression felt by women who didn't want these circumstances but were not encouraged in any other aspirations.
4. Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver (Orion Books) - having written half a dozen non-fiction, history and geography books, this is Neil Oliver's first work of fiction. Its backdrop is the fall of Constantinople, the skirmishes in Scotland, and another historical figure, Joan of Arc, thrown in for good measure. This makes for an interesting scope of different generations, geographical locations and time periods, but it also makes the narrative a little confusing. Central characters, John Grant and Badr, are mercenaries so have no affiliation with Christians, Turks, Ottomans or Muslims, and there are many violent and creatively cruel deptictions of fighting and torture. The structure is of a bird who soars above the city, diving in and drawing back, giving us a bird's eye view of specifics, and also allowing for generalisations, similar to the Greek gods looking down from Mt Olympus on the humans and using them as playthings - “High above, impassive and imperious, a lammergeier flew, riding columns of warm air and surveyed the movements of the tiny figures trapped upon the world below.” There are some nice turns of phrase - John Grant is a thin child who appears to his mother like a will-o'-the-wisp: “If he had been a pot of soup, she would have stirred in flour, to thicken him" - but there are also plenty of clichés. When John grant learns that the woman who raised him is not his biological mother, it sets up may alternate possiblities and complicated relationships. The novel seems incomplete, as though there are more planned to follow.