Ian McEwan: Enduring Love

Despite a few critical reviews of this book I’ve seen and the bad reviews of the movie which I fortunately haven’t seen I approached this book with an open mind and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a novel based on a true story of a mentally ill told nicely by McEwan in an engaging and gripping way.

Saying anything about the plot of the book would most likely spoil the pleasure of reading it as it surprises you from the very first chapter. There were a few moments throughout the book where I thought “well this is a bit weird turn of events, why would he come up with this, it doesn’t make sense, it’s not realistic” but that was before I knew that it all was a true story and the fact that it all happened is even more shocking.

This will be a short review then as I won’t tell you much about the book. Suffice to say it shows how weird the human nature can be at times and how other people can make us screw our lives without our consent or consciousness. A great example of that it is life that writes the most shocking and surprising stories.

I really enjoyed reading this book and uncovering the story, I waited to find out what the next chapter will bring. There was one point where I thought “come on, move on, get on with the story” but that happened soon after so overall a good experience. Although, after reading a few reviews of the movie I wouldn’t recommend you watch it before reading the book. And if you watched the movie and didn’t like it I think it’s still worth reaching for the book. There seems to be a few crucial scenes missing in the movie which I think can make or break how you perceive the story McEwan tells us about here.

My rating: YYYYY

Edyta Szalek: A Dream of the Green Eyelids (Sen Zielonych Powiek)

Isn’t it a guilty pleasure to tuck yourself in a blanket on a sofa with a cup of nice tea on a pleasant evening with a good book. It is my guilty pleasure at least. And some books make you just re-fill that cup of tea until the sunrise the next morning. This is one of them.

The story is nice and engaging – it’s a story of a woman in her mid-thirties I’d say who is reasonably successful in her job in a clothes production company. A story that could probably describe the lives of most of us. But the story isn’t what’s the most important here. It’s the feelings and emotions that accompany it in every step of the way. That different point of view, the honesty of opinions and the strength to talk about things that are not always considered “normal” in public terms make it a distinctively nice read when compared to other books of that type (I mean women literature – though this term sounds a bit demeaning for this book).

I love books that you just can’t put away and that you reach for with a great sense of pleasure and excitement and this is definitely one of them. The only downside of it is that it ends and I am now worried the next book I read won’t be as exciting…

My rating: YYYYY

Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment

I am a bit disappointed I didn’t read this book earlier. Why didn’t anyone recommend it to me? Or did they and I just ignored them as it seems like one of those books that you have to read at school. I was never a big fan of “have-to’s” so maybe that’s why.

It was a really enjoyable experience to get this old edition of the book from my mom’s shelf (from 1974) with its brownish pages and the smell of dust adding to the experience of the times it describes. You can’t not like Raskolnikov as a character, despite the brutal crime he committed. Though I have to admit, killing two women with an axe seemed a bit comical to me. I suppose that could simply be due to all the more brutal crimes we’re used to seeing in movies and on TV nowadays.

The journey Raskolnikov goes on to after the crime is a brilliant description of human’s mind, an amazing journey through thoughts, emotions and feelings of one person put brilliantly and eloquently on paper. Dostoyevsky treats us to not only a great study of human nature but does it with a great dose of humour by bringing a whole variety of characters into play.

Raskolnikov’s punishment is long and exhausting. And you, as a reader, feel that exhaustion yourself and want to end it by giving yourself in, the sooner the better. Though there were many moments when I thought – why not just let it go and get away with it if no one has any evidence against me? Does that mean I have a murderer inside me?

My rating: YYYYY

Olga Tokarczuk: Pull Your Plough through the Bones of the Dead (Prowadz Swoj Plug Przez Kosci Umarlych)

For those who don’t know Olga, she’s a renowned Polish writer with her books translated to many languages, including English. She is a recipient of the most important Polish book prize – Nike.

Her latest book is about Janina Duszejko, an old lady living in a remote house at the Polish – Czech border. She would seem average – teaching kids English in the local school and looking after the local summer houses outside the season – if it wasn’t for her unique hobby. Janina feels passionate about two things – animals and astrology. In her opinion you can tell everyone’s future from the stars which she likes communicating to people around. To say the least, this doesn’t really make her many friends around, she’s rather considered to be a bit of an old weirdo. As she is a bit of a loner and leaves far away from what we would normally call a civilization, she also finds special interest in animals – dogs, deer, foxes, wolves – all live that surrounds her.

There is a crime in the book too – a series of mysterious murders that occur in this small village one after the other with all the clues leading to a conclusion that it is the animals that are taking revenge on people.

Janina is a bit too eccentric and a bit too passionate about what she thinks is right. And if you read this book assuming that was intentional it will bring an ironic smile on your face and let you enjoy her continuous monologues. If you take her seriously however, and this may actually be the way the author intended, then this character just seems a bit fake to me, with her looking at the world through astrology and putting animals above people and her feeling of being someone better than anyone else around her. If we do assume that it is indeed an ironic picture of such a person than this book is a pleasure to read – it’s quite slow paced but that’s not necessarily a negative in this case. The language is beautiful and the story is actually involving. And the ending is the icing on the cake.

But (there’s always a but), looking back at the pictures this book created in my imagination, despite the crime and the blood this book seems pretty colourless to me. I don’t know whether it’s because it’s winter when most of the action takes place or whether it’s just because that’s what life is like, it just left a dark, dull recollection in my memory of the place and people described in the book.

I did enjoy this book but I still wouldn’t say I am a fan of Tokarczuk. I liked the House of Day, House of Night by her the most so far and it is available in English so I recommend it. This one though less so, unless you read her previous books and know what to expect.

My rating: YYYYY

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The most popular of Kundera’s novels is set during the Russian invasion on Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the beginnings of the communist regime in the country. In this light Kundera sets his characters – Thomas, a surgeon who chose not to work with the communists and ended up washing windows in Prague instead of treating his patients. Theresa, Tomas’ beloved wife and artistic photographer. Painter Sabina, Thomas’ lover. Franz, Sabina’s lover after her and Thomas’ ways went in different directions. All totally different but equally interesting.

Kundera plays with opposites here – soul and body, which for some people should be kept separate. Thomas treats sex and love as two separate things and for Theresa, brought up in a family where nudity was not a taboo up to the point where it become embarrassing and disgusting, even though she thinks love and sex should go together and suffers Thomas’ infidelities, she despises her body and rejects its existence.

The most important of the opposites Kundera debates here are the lightness and heaviness of being. Kundera says that we only live once and what happens in that life will never happen again. He enjoys the theory that we could live all the options of the choices we make in our lives to find out which of them turns out best. And then when we could relive our life we would know which choice to go for, which will be the best. But as that isn’t the case and our life happens only once it means it’s not meaningful at all (“einmal is keinmal”). And that’s the lightness and insignificance of it. And so to combat this insignificance we do things to add some “weight” to our lives – Thomas does it through sleeping with a number of women to leave something behind him, Sabina does it through her paintings but will it change anything?

"How can life ever be a good teacher if there is only one of them to be lived? How can one perform life when the dress rehearsal for life is life?"

Even though the novel has one main plot – the story of Thomas’ and Theresa’s life together, Kundera adds in many digressive stories on a side which only add to the enjoyment of the book. He talks a lot about communism and what it made of many intellectuals’ lives in Czechoslovakia at the time. Talks about love and its purity. He compares the love to pets to the human love and sees the first as something that is really pure as it is unconditional and with no expectations.

He also makes an elaborate discussion about kitsch and its importance especially in the world of politics but not only. He says that “brotherhood of all the people in the world can only be built on kitsch”. And whether you agree with it or not, he makes pretty strong arguments to support it.

There is also an interesting and funny debate over poo… But I won’t steal all the pleasure of reading this book for yourself.

Even though some of these subjects sound really heavy there is some lightness in the reading of this book that makes it really pleasant experience. And thus I truly recommend it.

My rating: YYYYY

Marian Keyes: Sushi for Beginners

Hi, I’m Ted. I work in the Ministry of Agriculture, writing reports on yearly sheep population growth. At least by day. By night I’m a stand-up comedian. I tell owl jokes in Dublin pubs and clubs in hope to finally find myself a girlfriend. My downstairs neighbour and good friend in our single’s misery is Ashling and it’s her that this book is really about. Her and Lisa. And maybe Clodagh (oh yeah, the beautiful Clodagh…).

So Lisa is a chief editor at Colleen, an Irish magazine. She got transferred here from London and I think considers Dublin to be hundred light years behind. She is a fashion freak and a workaholic, married to sexy Oliver (at least that’s what the ladies say…).

Ashling works as Lisa’s assistant, her Little Miss Fix-It. Her job is to photocopy, write, read, call and from time to time, when Lisa’s got a good day, attend the fashion and beauty events with her which she loves so much.

Clodagh is married to Mr Perfect (again, that’s what the girls say!). Has two kids, doesn’t need to work and is extremely pretty. She’s best friends with Ashling which only gives me hope to see her more often…

We all have our ups and downs, as do all the ladies mentioned. I quite enjoy listening to Ashling’s stories about her job, the articles she writes for the magazine and people she meets. All sounds really cool, maybe except for Lisa who can be a real b*tch. But hey, job’s a job. Until at some point it all falls apart. The reason? Yeah, men, women, relationships - as ever.

But it all ends well, as you would expect from such a book. I finally manage to feel happy again! (who would have thought). Homeless people get jobs, people get divorced and married. People screw up and fix things.

All over, I’d recommend you reach for this book and read more about us. It’s good fun, we won’t bore you here. We may just make you crave for sushi as the end result…

PS. And I think it’s the easy-read factor that I enjoyed the most reading this book, after (and before) the heavy ones from the challenge list! So if you're a woman and you're after something light this book is a good cboice. I give it 3 hearts as I don't think I'll remember the book for long - it's more of a time-nicely-spent thing. (Joanna)

My rating: YYYYY

David Malouf: Remembering Babylon

I have to admit, this was the first book by an Australian I ever read. And, I’m pretty sure, the first one about Australia and its history too.

The story is about Gemmy, an English boy who at young age finds himself shipwrecked at the coast of Australia and gets adopted by a tribe of Aborigines and spends 16 years living with them. After that time, as the settlers start to inhabit the land, he encounters a group of white kids and goes with them back to their village. And that’s where Gemmy’s trying to regain his “whiteness”, ability to speak English again and fit in with the local society. It proves difficult, for both, Gemmy as well as those who decide to provide him with a place to sleep and a seat at their dinner table.

In the end things don’t end as we’d like them to – the smooth assimilation of two cultures isn’t easy and the question is whether anyone even makes an effort to make it happen or whether people just prefer to push through, whatever the cost.

There are a few interesting characters in the book. There is of course Gemmy himself and the kids that find him in the swamp. There is the schoolmaster, George Abbot, an Englishman who got send to Australia by his rich uncle, not exactly by his own choice. He tries to fit in and find himself a purpose but struggles terribly. Until he meets Leona, a girl his age who lives with her aunt in a house away from the village. Mrs Hutchinson and Leona are considered a bit crazy by the villagers as they live on their own and do not integrate with the rest of the society. But that’s exactly where Gemmy finds himself a shelter when everyone else gave up on him.

Interesting read, definitely a breadth of something new for me, very enjoyable and so I’ll give it 3 hearts for that.

But now I need something light, women’s literature maybe to get a bit of a rest from the challenge. But I’ll be back to it soon!

My rating: YYYYY