Cloud Atlas - Book eleven is finally done

Well it has been a long time between blogs and books. Not between reading or writing as my job as a magazine editor keeps me immersed in such activities. I cannot use this as an excuse as I love to read and it is a great balance to the reading I must do. My darling +Daniel was starting to worry I would never make the 100 books we have set ourselves and was being impacted by my apparent lethargy. My big fear was that the 100 books would be a chore and I would resent reading some of the tripe on our list.

I cannot use that as an excuse as the latest tome was the magnificent Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which is one of the most extraordinary books I have read in a long time. The more likely reason was the start of summer and the increased activity when able and the greater need to rest when possible. The English winter was so long and the summer so slow to start we have both found our biorhythms out of whack and have been restless and tired men.

Luckily Cloud Atlas is completely not the reason and such a clever and layered book requires time to think in between reads. There is so much to this book that it is hard to know where to begin. So I choose to start with the film.

For the first time in my life I am completely happy I saw the movie before I read the book. They are different beasts but are also remarkable for the structural foundations and the layers of knowledge and emotions they encompass. I think I am pleased I saw the movie first as I imagine many people being upset at some of the changes the Wachowski siblings made.  Reading the book after the movie made me realise what genius changes they made. Every difference made perfect sense after reading the book. Their ability to reduce vast sections to minimal imagery is amazing. When characters are left out it is not because they are superfluous but rather they are part of a different form of story telling. 

In the book Mitchell needs the extra characters, setting and scenarios to reveal the emotional background. Something that can be done in a picture let alone a moving one. The best example is the early 1900s composer and the removal of a young lady he has a love interest in. In one of the letters in the book he points out who his true love is. That one line explains the Wachowski’s decision.  There are other situations when situations or locations are changed but they all made sense to me as I read the book.

So what is the book about?

In many ways it is the early 1900 composer Frobisher’s story that reveals what we are reading as he is the composer of the Cloud Atlas Sextet.  The music plays a bigger role in the movie as expected but the crux of the piece is that it is six solo pieces that move in progression by interrupting each other and then do the same in reverse order. This is exactly what the book does. Instead of six instruments we have six situations and individuals that we follow. The first is on a sailing boat in the 1800s and the last is in the remnants of humanity in the Hawaiian isles 100s of years after the present time. The Wachowski’s chose to move between all six and again this makes sense for filmic tension.

Each character is on a journey that is unique and Mitchell is extraordinary in the language, cadence and story telling method he chooses for each one. They are completely different languages and his achievement in showing the progression of language is extraordinary. The fact it is not a pretentious read is remarkable in its own right.

 I am sure many will have a go at some of the syntax and his choices of future movements of language. To do so would miss that he maintains readability despite his dextrous use of the language. This allows a broader range of readership than such literary experiments normally allow. I do not know many people that actually finished A Clockwork Orange despite its brilliance.  The readability is one of the key criticisms the book faced and if that is the worst that pseudo intellectuals can throw at you then I am sure Mitchell sleeps well at night.

Each story leaks into the one next to it in the tiniest of ways. It may be a book that one person wrote that another finds or a music score or a movie made of a character later after their death. It may be the words of a salve inspire the future as a god. Or a recurring tattoo that is as meaningful as the reader cares to make it.

There are hints of reincarnation and an on going journey that souls take despite the body they inhabit. This is the whimsical part of the book that can just as easily be read that humans make the same mistakes again and again. The human aspect of the book is that man’s arrogance and greed drives us; especially the white man’s history. This drive both invigorates our innovation but dooms us at the same time. Our propensity to wish for power rather than growth means we will invent technologies that will deplete our resources and kill us.

The book is also about the range of human emotions and how they are expressed differently at different ages of human existence. This is not simply about emotions like love but more how such emotions change depending on our wisdom, age, experience or situation.  The same goes for avarice, greed and hate. Mitchell is sublime in showing the cause and effect across history and demonstrates the difference between real history and virtual history of those that record it.

The message of hope he posits is the species ability to wish for a better future. He demonstrates that the early explorers and inventors who happened to be white men of Europe shaped the world we have now. Such progression came with the idea that white man was better than all others, including the white woman. It also came with the European concept (conceit) of a God who looked down on others as fodder for Christian growth. Mitchell suggests we have the world we do because we wished for it and were too blind to see that such philosophies would lead to dissent and destruction. The hope is that we can wish for a better future but none of these messages are shoved down your throat.

The above is mainly my impressions of the book and its messages. I believe I could write a book on this book and continue for years on what it might mean and does mean. The same could be said for the movie and it is my belief that both the book and movie will be studied for many years to come. I am convinced they will be studied together as a master class of adaption as the resulting visual feast is that. Neither is perfect and I would suggest Mitchell did better in maintaining coherence while breaking boundaries in story telling.

For me this is a book that inspires me with its technical brilliance and story telling capacity. It thrilled me with its content and left me contented with the arrows I drew from the quiver of possibilities that Mitchell created. Note that I have said very little about the actual stories or the plots involved. Suffice to say a number of genres are superbly covered and the range of ideas, language and stories is breath taking in one book. It is a book to read and discover for yourself.

To achieve a better future we need to take honest stock of our past and should not assume we have explored all the possibilities of human potential. I have a saying that I like to repeat about humans and it simply that we can do better. Mitchell provides the proof that our past is not as glorious as the myopic view of the victor’s historical view would have us believe. We all have a cloud atlas inside of us and its moral code is obvious. It does not need prescriptive determination.

I had best get on with the next book and get back on track.

Book 10 The Insider Piers Morgan

Almost everyone knows whom Piers Morgan is since he took over from CNN stalwart Larry King as the station’s talk show star. I like to hear the opinion of those who know him through his USA fame as it is different from the UK.  Here he is known for his journey through the tabloid newspaper ranks to editor of one the UK’s largest national paper.

I was discussing this latest read when I heard an interesting comment from someone who stated they didn’t like Piers Morgan but that he gives a good interview. This is how most people react to this arrogant and sometimes obnoxious man. From reading The Insider, which is Morgan’s diaries during his time as Editor of UK tabloid The Daily Mirror, I believe he would not be too offended by my description. He might mention that he was not like this all the time. 

There is much about Morgan I can easily dislike but reading his diaries was a fascinating and disturbing experience leaving me loathing and respecting him in equal measure.

It is hard for those outside the United Kingdom to understand the place newspapers have in the workings of this country. Morgan’s role as editor in chief of the nation’s biggest left leaning tabloid made him a powerful individual and he got to meet a great many of the rich, powerful and famous.  He may not have been as powerful as he thinks as his complaints against The Sun tended to be around their preferential treatment or beating him to a scoop rather than acknowledge they were bigger and had more influence despite his shoulder rubbing.

Morgan spends a great deal of time talking about his meetings with the Prime Minister and Chancellor and other key political figures of the Tony Blair led Labour government holding power during his tenure. The Daily Mirror, is traditionally a labour paper in this country but is only the number two read tabloid playing a far second to Murdoch’s The Sun. Morgan began his rise with Murdoch papers after was personally given the big break of making him the youngest national paper editor with the notorious News of the World.

Morgan then shunned his Murdoch mentors to join The Daily Mirror but mentions the family fondly throughout his memoirs. Some bridges are worth leaving where they are it would seem as Morgan had no trouble dropping the dirt on all manner of people, from royalty to soap stars to musicians.  There is a very long list who found Morgan’s predatory nature as a tabloid king pin distasteful in the extreme. Morgan would have you believe that a conscious would occasionally pick inside his quick mind but then shamelessly brag about how he would look his victims in the eye and blame their behaviour for the invasion of their privacy.

It is this expose of the private lives of others that makes Morgan so distasteful but his bull headed way in which he understood the nature of his job and therefore completed tasks made you admire his industriousness.  The truth is he invigorated a national newspaper reeling from the corrupt exposure of its owner, Conrad Black. Morgan made himself a celebrity in the process only opening him up to the same exposure he peddled. In the end he became a bigger story than what was in his paper and management eventually released him.

This is a book that helps you understand the murky and mainly banal nature of power and the eternal gossiping of those who only get to hold power for a short time. Whether they be politicians, stars or the media themselves these are people thrust into lime-lights they do not control and will not stay there long. The truly powerful, like Murdoch, are treated with a fawning respect and every encounter is important whereas the fleeting power of politicians provide encounters where posturing is more prevalent.

Morgan states at the start that he intends to be honest about his nature knowing he was a first class prick at times. When you read about such moments it is hard not to feel that he has erred on the side of misunderstanding as a way to explain his more questionable choices rather than any sense of personal responsibility. He was just doing his job as he saw it and woe betide anyone who disagreed with him.

It has taken me a while to get to book ten, as although I found this a bit of a slog, the improving weather and increased activity has reduced my reading time. Life develops a different flow once the long winter has gone and +Daniel has found the reading slow down just as much as I. He gets his train ride to and from work and I now wonder if I will finish the 100 books we have set ourselves. Even this blog has sat in my computer for days now and I write away to continue the process as I intend to finish the task.

So it was not simply that Morgan’s diaries dragged, they did a bit, and to be fair there was interesting things within his musings. Morgan shows himself as principled or stubborn (it is hard to decide from this one sided view) and he was not afraid to stand his ground as he proved with early opposition to the Iraq war despite his apparent support of the government. Although there are positive motives to what he did you cannot help but feel that sensationalism drove much of what he did. He ends up appearing as someone who is nice to you while your proximity provides the story and just as ready to smile as he drives a dagger into your posterity.

Morgan has continued to succeed so there is no doubting his drive and persistence but some of that journey as being on USA talent shows for Simon Cowell showing that he is just as driven to be famous as those he ridiculed and made fun of.

Book 09 The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge - Masterful storytelling

Beryl Bainbridge is one of those authors I have always wanted to read and I suspect I am not alone. Nominated for the Man Booker prize five times you know she is no slouch with a pen. So it was pleasing to see her on the list of books I am to choose 100 from to read in a year with my lovely man +Daniel. We are both realising that we are on track to complete the task although it is early days and already we find that nicer weather brings more chores and less time to read.

I picked this next on the list as it was relatively short and I could easily carry it on my recent business trip to Cornwall. I read most of it on the train back. In between glimpsing the brilliant countryside that particular trip provides. In fact a few times I put the book away after glancing up to see we were crossing a vast bridge over the sort of picturesque valley you see in picture books. Stone built farms next to a babbling brook with green fields leading to forest and sea. Another distraction to my reading time but one that improved my Instagram output.

Photography is a major hobby and part of my life. I keep dreaming of one day making it a profession but the jump from regular day job to erratic self employment seems so vast when we still carry debt on our backs like a weight of oppression. At least the debt is nearly gone so new dreams can begin.

I start this blog with that little mundane preamble, as it is appropriate for The Bottle Shop Outing, which is a strange little book about mundane people doing mundane things but having dreams of something more in their lifes. Of course the book is also about something completely different which is always the mark of a good writer. There is an awful lot of information packed into 200 pages but Bainbridge is an artist at allowing just enough information out to fire the imagination and ensuring your head fills with more detail than she ever offers.

The story is of two women in their early thirties who share a bedsit in London and have secured a job at an Italian run bottle shop. Most of the other workers have been brought over from a small Italian village to work for the wealthy Mr. Paganotti and speak little English. In fact their dialogue is so colloquial that the Italian owner hires a translator for disputes. The Italian workers see their boss as their saviour and would never say a word against him or the deplorable working conditions and pay. This is the obvious reason he has accrued wealth.

The two women are thin Brenda who allows herself to be subservient, and the luscious and larger Freda who has aspirations to be a movie star and marry a man of wealth. To say they are an odd couple is an understatement. Whereas the male version of that moniker relied on slap stick for humour, The Bottle Shop Outing is a much darker affair where the jokes come at the expense of another character’s dignity.

Both women are sure how others see them and both are wrong. It is this expert unravelling of their true selves while being privy to their slightly deluded self perception that makes Bainbridge a master of her craft. In peeling behind the everyday bigotry and prejudice that the characters present she is peeling back the layers of the society in the early 70s. Much of the humour is set within the language and cultural differences between the two English ladies and the Italian workers. As well as a burly Irishman. All the while the jokes are laid at your feet and you are unsure whether to laugh or be embarrassed. Layered throughout this dark humour is an extraordinary tension that something is going to go terribly wrong.

The outing in question is a bus trip to a stately manor and the whole factory has awoken with possibility. While Freda presumes that everyone wants her, it is Brenda in her meek subservience that attracts more attention. Freda is horrible to her friend because of this but then Freda is fairly horrible to everyone in her self opinionated righteousness. The Italians see the day as a day of great freedom and little by little it is revealed that the company is not as generous as it first seems with a Sunday being chosen and everyone putting in to pay for the bus and food.  

Nothing happens as it should and the outing itself is nothing that is planned. Many of the workers miss out on the day and those that make it end up with a day of farce and tragedy that will change the lives of some forever. Part of the humour is that keeping face and social position is as important for some as change is for others. When we are afraid of change it tends to be thrust upon us.

Much of the story appears to be the preparation for the big day out but in reality is just a chance for us to get to know the characters and have a bird’s eye view into not how many people had to live in London in the 70s but the inner workings of these people’s minds and ultimately ourselves. It is not always nice viewing as we get to see the difference about how we are seen and how we see ourselves. Most of all how we treat others based on what we think they are.

There are some excellent scenes with love fumbling in unusual places and too many people in the bedsit can create all sorts of mayhem. Especially when a gun toting mother in law shows up to put the wind up Brenda for leaving her drunken abusive husband. Brenda really is the saddest of the group. Brought up with manners so impeccable that she can only say no when she truly wants something and has to say yes whenever she doesn’t want to for fear of offending.  

Despite her obvious weaknesses we are constantly reminded that she has left her husband. A courageous thing to do at the best of times but there is no applause for this act as she is judged but what people see and not by what she has done. Bainbridge has stated that this character was based upon herself that probably accounts for the darkness of the honesty shown Brenda.

The outing occurs and the bad thing brewing occurs and thus begins an even darker part of the book as all the early character flaws and fears are the basis for covering up a tragedy that befalls the group. The humour is more biting as social appearances are pushed to the limit while at the same time adhered to in a traditional sense but in the most surreal circumstances. I found myself laughing at the silliness of the people but gasping at the seriousness of the situation. Those socially embedded responses can be used to cover a multitude of sins.

Bainbridge is artful enough to provide a mystery and even directs the answer but never actually brings it up in an open scenario. All the clues are there. All the players have played the part expected of them. Only Brenda is the potential loose canon but she chooses the easier path. To allow things to lie and to return to her parents. After her ex in-laws refuse her advances.

Flawed characters in dank settings with no real hope within their trapped existence but handled with such skill by a masterful practitioner in the art of writing that the darkness is tinged with lightness and a love for life that endears you to the tale and the people within.

When I finished it felt complete.

Book Eight The Snow Child Eowyn Ivey - Love at first Frost Bite

I fell I love with this book. +Daniel had warned me this would happen but like any such emotional event it is something you need to experience for yourself. One of the blurbs on the back of the copy I was reading said The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey was a fairy tale for adults who no longer believed in fairy tales.  This is a fitting description for a book that was about very adult themes of loss and grief and love but written in a way that made you want to dance through the Alaskan wilderness in full winter as if there was no danger.

Very few books have ever produced tears in my eyes but this one did and the times when this happened were very surprising. Who would have thought shooting a moose could be so emotive. Or an ending that you are warned for most of the book will happen still catches tears in the back of your throat. How a person’s name yelled the right way could sound like a wolf baying. The skill of the writing had me checking the claim that this was Alaskan native Ivey’s first novel.

In a nutshell the book is about Mabel and Jack who have been married for a number of years but later in life than those around them. In attempting to deal with the long held grief of a stillborn child they bravely pack up from East Coast USA in the 1920s and move to Alaska to start a new life. The first thing you realise is that Mabel is not suited for such a life and Jack is not keen on involving her in the man’s work.

The live next to and around each other and each chapter moves the point of view from one to the other and we are privy to their private thoughts and fears as their past is unveiled and their hopes revealed. A number of things happen that change their lives and one of the most notable is the Benson family who through the force of nature that is Esther, the matriarch of this family of men, intrude upon their lives to become their friends. The Bensons, including George the Dad and Garrett the youngest of their three sons, prove to Jack and Mabel that we cannot live life alone even when we want to.

Not surprisingly winter is harsh and for the first thirty pages I kept hearing Ned Stark warn that winter was coming as the Alaskan weather dictated the moods and fears of the small homestead struggling to find its feet. The tension between the couple is palpable but each holds a deep affection for the other that they have difficulty expressing.

One night the couple find themselves behaving like children as huge flaked snow falls around them and they make themselves a beautifully described snow girl in a rash of sadly unusual moments of love for each other.

The book itself is based on an old Russian fairy tale and Ivey chooses to not only highlight this fact but incorporates into the story. This means you know fairly early where the book has to conclude for the magic to work. Over the years following that night a young girl enters into and out of their life and may or may not be the result of their handiwork in the snow. None of this is really important as you go on each character’s journey of self discovery that explores how we can all go further than we ever imagine, how friendships can be formed in the most unlikely places and how love has a strength all of its own. Faena is the girl in question and comes back into their lives each winter bringing gifts both visceral and intangible. Jack and Mabel discover their capacity for love and protection and their grief is overtaken by their determination and love.

There are scenes and sections that held me like very few books have before. I may be a gay man but I do not believe the general clichés of the world are true so do fall for the line that we gay men are more sensitive than other men. I do not see emotional connection such as this book offers to be of the realm of the female. I only see men and women whose emotional connections are repressed. This is one of those reads that delves into the recesses of even the most cynical and allows them to experience life like they probably never will. For most of us it is a harshness of life we do not want to. The ease of reading but depth of emotional content put me more in mind of someone like Chekov who I consider a master of the sublime through the mundane.

This is one of those books that will be in book clubs and Oprah lists, like The Time Traveller’s Wife, and will generally considered a woman’s book but I believe this does it a great disservice. This is a layered and nuanced read that enables the reader to climb inside a number of different character’s minds and experience their world. A rare achievement in my reading experience. Every character is richly drawn and all go through real change that life puts us all through.

It is only the snow girl Faena who is more than human but she is no mere fairy tale creature skipping through the drifts, and is able to hunt and kill and skin to stay alive. This may be a fairy tale but you are constantly reminded at the harsh and dangerous world we are in.

I am not a great fan of excessive snow falling where I live, as +Daniel will attest but I found the descriptions of the geography and the weather in this book to be so engrossing that I found myself on romantic internal journeys over the wilds of Alaska just to actually see what was in my mind. Of course my common sense would always remind me it was just a book.

Faena is of the woods and of the snow and for much of the book only the couple can see her allowing the reader to doubt the veracity of their experiences. This was such a clever device as normally fairy tales like this occur to people in isolation. Bringing the tale into a real world setting allowed the line of sanity and imagination to be artfully explored. One of my favourite lines was in a letter from Mabel’s sister who represents what they left behind and expresses the families growing admiration at what the couple achieve.

‘I remember with some shame that the rest of us teased you about seeing such spirits, but now my own grandchildren chase similar fancies and I do not discourage them. In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.’

Mostly this book is a visual treat to the imagination and cries out to be made into a movie. I found myself wanting to see the cinematic version immediately, which is rare. There is no need to change much as the magic and dialogue is already there. I still want to see the characters and situations brought to life even though I know it will never come close to the movie that keeps playing in my mind.

The only negative thing I can say to this book is that it has slowed up my reading in the 100 book challenge as The Snow Child has stuck with me and plays out in my mind making it very difficult to follow the words in another book. Thank goodness for long train journeys as I intend to crack onto the next one on the 5-hour train trip I am now on.