Category Archives: The Book on The Nightstand

I’ve seen this book before, I remember picking it up and putting it back on the shelf. The subject did not really interest me. The title seemed too bombastic, the tagline too much. This time however, I opened it and started reading. Time and space disappeared and a few pages later I said to myself, well, why not take it home and see what this is all about.

The story is divided into eight parts, each part representing the view of a different person: Hector, Anouk, Harry, Connie, Rosie, Manolis, Aisha and Richie. A barbecue party where a man slaps a child is seen as the trigger of a series of escalating events that bring about some major changes involving all the characters mentioned above. Friendships are challenged, old family conflicts flare up, sexual issues come to the surface and everything just goes crazy. Among issues explored are infidelity, homosexuality, single parenting, drugs, motherhood and interracial connections.
Even though each character’s perspective kept the story moving at an alert pace, I would find myself alternately looking forward to the next character’s story while at the same time asking myself why I was still wasting my time with it.
Things improved after I reached Manolis’ part – something changed, the story started to feel real and I found my connection. Was the looking-back-on-my-life thoughts of the old man, the proximity of death, the coming back of old friends that struck a chord in me? It must have. That was my favorite part in the book and if only for that I consider I have not wasted my time. There is also a section about Bangkok, and that contributed to the “real” feeling I’d started to get – the exaggerated politeness of the shop girls, the silly smiles and friendly attitude of the locals, it’s all there in the book and here in the real world. It also emphasized the contrast between the stressed out world inhabited by the characters and their view of different cultures.

Reading this novel felt like watching a soap opera where the never ending drama keeps you glued to the TV, even though you know it’s just something to pass the time, that you should turn it off or watch cartoons instead or maybe something on National Geographic. And yet, you are having one of those days when all you want to do is take a day off from the world and lounge around in your pajamas, eat ice-cream straight from the box and watch TV all day. So I kept reading, partly because I hate giving up on a book and partly because of plain old curiosity.
And still, under the profanity that made my head spin, the drugs, the racism, the macho attitude of the men and fearlessness of the women, there is a grain of reality – it made me think of the raw, stripped, naked thoughts that run through our heads, hidden, pushed in corners, willed into oblivion, of desires reaching deep and passion and regrets. This is the amplified drama of ordinary lives.
Time to change out of my pajamas and get back to the real world.

*Read in December 2011

This is my second book by Hill, after Heart Shaped Box, and I have to say I enjoyed it much more. It has the shine and luster of a more practiced novel, you can almost see the elements combining and working together like the insides of a clock. Tick- tock, the little wheels spin and everything works just how it’s supposed to.
If I were to sum it up in a few words, I’d say: The Devil is in all of us. Sometimes it just takes longer for his horns to come out.

Is it a story about love, is it about friendship, or about the (d)evil in all of us, or about human weaknesses, about envy and lust and gratitude and horrendous cruelty? Yes, yes, and more yes, it’s all that and more.

Ig Perrish and Merrin Williams are high-school sweethearts. Their love story starts in a church and ends in an old abandoned foundry. Quite poetic, one might say.
Ig and Merrin seem to be made for each other and apparently nothing stands in the way of a happily ever after. Except, well, someone with an unbelievable streak of cruelty.
When Merrin is found raped and dead, Ig becomes the suspect. By an incredible stroke of bad luck, the circumstances are not in his favor either, but due to his father’s connections, there is no trial and he gets released. Almost a year later, after a drunken night spent at the place of the murder, Ig wakes up with horns on his head. They give him a strange power and he decides to use it to find Merrin’s killer and punish him. The secret is out about halfway through the book – you don’t have to go through the whole novel just to see who did it but you’ll have to keep reading to see why and how that happened.

The narrative goes back and forth between present and past, presenting snippets of events that connect with each other. There are quite a few musical references, The Beatles, Keith Richards, Louis Armstrong to name just a few. Religion is ever present, from the morally corrupted priest to Merrin’s protective golden cross and the blessed tree house in the woods.
The book brings back memories of reading Stephen King’s novel, IT – there are some common elements but Hill made his evil characters much more vicious and straightforward. I particularly liked it for the way in which the author managed to weave the little details together making the story fit together nicely, each detail placed exactly where it can have a better impact, like Merrin’s letter which I thought was a neat insertion – it provides a few interesting answers and brings about closure. If you’re looking for a book which will answer the questions it raises, you have picked up the right one. This is no subtle reading but a pure straight shot of evil.

*Read in November 2011

Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop, by Emma Larkin

If you’re a George Orwell fan, I strongly recommend you read this book. Written under a pseudonym, the book describes the author’s journey through Burma, in an attempt to prove that Orwell’s 1984was based on the political situation still in place in this country governed by the military. There are passages or/and references from/to 1984, Burmese Days, Animal Farm and other works by Orwell. Having read the first two, it was easier to understand the narrative and follow the author’s travels to places where Orwell had lived. If, however, you are new to the books of Orwell, it’s best if you wait until you’ve read them before you give this book a try. Things will make much more sense if you do. I’m glad I had the chance to read them before and this book felt like a nice finishing touch. Not to mention that I’ve added Burma on the list of countries I want to visit. And, ironically, a few weeks after I did, I almost got my wish.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

I can never think about dystopia without 1984springing to mind in an instant. That book was my first introduction into this genre and I loved it. That is why it took me a while to get into Brave New World – I was afraid it would be too much like Orwell’s book but fortunately it isn’t.
Huxley creates distinctive characters in a book that takes a slightly different approach from Orwell’s. There are two separate worlds: one of strict rules, mindless tasks and orderliness, and the other, more like a roadside attraction, where the old ways are still in place: rituals, marriage, but also disease and poverty. John and Bernard belong to these two worlds and each gets to experience the other side but as they do tragedy follows.
I would say give this book a try, even if it’s just to see a different dystopian perspective, although I have to say that 1984 remains my favorite.

The Birth of Love, by Joanna Kavenna

What could a supposed madman, a woman about to give birth and a prisoner trapped in an Orwellian-like world, have in common?
Ignaz Sommelweis is believed mad and as he struggles in the hands of his captors, hope and despair mingle in his mind. It’s Vienna, in the year 1865.
Brigid is a woman living in present day London. The mother of a young boy and pregnant with her second child, she experiences the pangs of childbirth and knows the time has come.
In 2153, a prisoner bearing a number instead of a name is showed into a cell and she thinks back to a time when she was free of the system, when life was hard but she was happy.
Switching between past, present and future, the author describes the “worlds” these three characters inhabit; it’s depressing and harsh and painful, but brief rays of hope come true, even if just for a moment. It was an interesting reading experience – there’s a lot of symbolism: the moon, wine/blood, even a supposed “virgin birth” which bring religion into focus, medical knowledge; description of the pangs of birth, which was difficult to read. Would I recommend it? Yes, for the nicely flowing narrative which manages to incorporate all three stories into an almost seamless tale.

There was no way I could have passed by this book and not pick it up, and after picking it up, not wanting to read it. Not even the fact that it was the only copy and looked slightly worn, with a bent corner, could make me put it back on the shelf in the bookstore.

The book is divided into three sections with 37 stories from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. One of them, Sir Betrand: A Fragment, by Anna Laetitia Aikin, can be found here I found the story intriguing, considering it ends just when it gets more interesting. Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle I’ve read before – the rest were new to me.

This is a very good collection of Gothic stories; there are bloody ghosts, evil characters, vampires and haunted houses, religious themes, kidnappings, strange plants, and horrifying acts of cruelty. I got literally sick when reading The Bloody Countess by Alejandra Pizarnik – the story of a beautiful aristocrat who tortured and killed young girls and used their blood in the hope of preserving her youth – the gory details, the vivid descriptions of various ways of torture made for quite a disgusting story.

It was a nice surprise to see stories by authors I’ve read before: Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlett Letter – I read it a few years ago as an assignment for school and liked it very much) with Rappaccini’s Daughter, a tale about the beautiful daughter of a scientist and the mysterious and evil power of a plant; Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island – one of the books of my childhood) with Olalla, in which a man falls in love with a beautiful woman of an accursed lineage; H.P. Lovecraft (I’ve read some short story collection by him but was unable to finish – maybe someday…) with The Outsider, about a creature who lives in a castle and sees itself for the first time with scary consequences.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson sent chills down my spine – I got so engrossed in the story that it became difficult to distinguish reality from a sick imagination, they blurred so well, and only the end provided the key to the mystery.
Sardonicus by Ray Russell is the story of a man punished for his greed: his lips are forever frozen in a horrible grin and no doctor is able to restore his face to normal, until a renowned physician manages to help him but there is a terrible price to pay.

I have been looking for a book like this for a long time; there’s nothing quite like a Gothic tale. There are some good horror stories nowadays but the old ones are still my favorite. I will be reading this again someday.
For some reason I think this song&video by Florence and The Machine fits rather well with the whole atmosphere of the book. I especially love the first part, right before the tempo picks up. The lyrics are good too.

*Read in November 2011

In the morning before breakfast I go outside to say hi to my three balls of fur. I open the door and a black little nose is right there, sniffing at the air. I crouch to give her a pat and she starts barking loudly and jumping about, excited. That’s Blackie, an all-black-with-a-spatter-of-white-on-the-chest little dog. I call her little but that doesn’t have anything to do with her age. From behind a big potted plant I see her mother, a pair of intelligent eyes that look straight at me, and I read the question there: do you have any food? Off to one side lies Honey, big and fat – she barely stirs but I know that if I go to her she’ll start licking my hands slow, methodical, affectionate.
Have I wondered what goes on in their heads, what they would tell me if they could talk? I have. That is why, when I saw “The Art of racing in the Rain” I knew this was the kind of book I would like to read. Not because I’d find some answers (I wish!) but because I love animals. I did love Enzo from the first page, the old lab with an obsession for opposable thumbs, a believer in Mongolian legends. And even if it was obvious from the beginning how the story was going to end, I still wanted to read it.

Enzo was adopted by Denny when he was but a few weeks old. Over the years, the two of them forge a beautiful friendship – there are joys and sorrows and moments of uneasiness, but they are always by each other’s side. Enzo is no ordinary dog – the writer gives him a unique voice, even if that cannot be translated into words:

I tried. I tried as hard as I could to form words for him but they wouldn’t come. I tried to beam my thoughts into his head via telepathy. I tried to send him the pictures I saw in my mind. I twitched my ears. I cocked my head. I nodded. I pawed.
Until he smiled at me and stood.
“Thanks, Enzo,” he would say to me on those days. “You’re not too tired, are you?”
I would stand and wag. I’m never too tired.

Enzo likes to watch tv and he’s a big fan of racing, a passion he shares with Denny, who would leave every now and then to train for racing competitions. Over the course of the entire novel, racing becomes more than a passion, it’s another analogy for life:
“The race is long. It is better to drive within oneself and finish the race behind the others than it is to drive too hard and crash.”

Apart from racing, Enzo enjoys movies and we get to find out about his favorite actors: Steve McQueen, Al Pacino and Paul Newman. There’s also quite a funny observation concerning George Clooney that made me chuckle. In fact I found myself in turns, smiling, nodding, getting excited and in the end, crying.
I loved the end – apart from the inevitable drama there was also hope and a wish that came true, and that was touching and I smiled behind my sadness.

*Read in November, 2011

(A new translation, with an Introduction, by Arthur Goldhammer)

It’s time for a classic again and since Émile Zola has been on my list of writers to read, I decided to pick out The Kill as my introductory book into the realm of his works.
The Kill (published in 1871 under the title La Curée) is the second book in a series of twenty novels titled Les Rougon-Macquart. The books follow the lives of descendants of a family set on a background of French history. Banned upon publication, the book was translated several times and even made into a movie, The Game Is Over, starring Jane Fonda, in 1966.

The story begins in the Paris of the 1850’s. It is a time of quick money to be made, of speculations which could turn staggering profits, of luxury, debauchery and gluttony. Every vice is exacerbated; love affairs are used to manipulate deals, while rivers of money pour into the houses of the rich who only think of spending them as quickly as possible. There’s an opulence which dazzles the eye and the people appear to be marionettes to be dressed in the finest, most daring and rich costumes. Indeed, the whole book gives the reader the impression of watching a great spectacle: here a socialite dresses up for a great ball, her clothes a triumph of French couture, there a speculator planning to get his hands in the next profitable business, or a lazy son whose main goal in life seems to be to drink from the cup of debauchery until the very last drop; a rush for pleasure, for aesthetic opulence, for money and more money to spend, for parties and gossip and the latest trend.
Paris seems to be a character in itself, pulsating with life, always changing, always on the move.

“The lovers were in love with the new Paris. They often dashed about the city by carriage, detouring down certain boulevards for which they felt a special affection. They took delight in the imposing houses with big carved doors and innumerable balconies emblazoned with names, signs, and company insignia in big gold letters. As their coupé sped along, they fondly gazed out upon the gray strips of sidewalk, broad and interminable, with their benches, colorful columns and skinny trees. The bright gap stretching all the way to the horizon, narrowing as it went and opening out onto a patch of empty blue sky; the uninterrupted double row of big stores with clerks smiling at their customers; the bustling streams of pedestrians – all this filled them little by little with a sense of absolute and total satisfaction, a feeling of perfection as they viewed the life of the street…They were constantly on the move…Each boulevard became but another corridor of their house.”

The book follows the life of three people: Aristide Saccard, his second wife Renée, and Maxime, his son from his first marriage.
Against this background of decadence, Renée’s life seems just another tiny spark lost in the crowd. Her marriage is merely a business transaction meant to save her reputation – she gets a husband and he gets the fortune he’d always dreamed of. Renée spends her days in frivolous pursuits which her husband finances while at the same time using her influence to increase his fortune. Fleeting between love affairs, bored with her life of leisure, she sets her eyes on her stepson, the young Maxime, and their incestuous relationship will cause her to oscillate between despair and happiness. Her fate brings to mind Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – however, Zola took things much further with vivid descriptions of sexual encounters, parties, and lavish dinners meant to intoxicate and stimulate the senses. Paris is a cauldron of desire always on the verge of boiling.

“She raised her head. The upper branches of the trees stood out against a clear sky, while the irregular line of houses blurred to the point where it resembled masses of rock jutting up along the shore of a bluish sea. But this strip of sky made her sadder still, and it was in the darkness of the boulevard that she found a certain consolation. What remained clinging to the deserted avenue of the evening’s noise and vice was her excuse. She could almost feel the heat of all the footsteps of all those men and women rising from the cooling sidewalk. The shame that had loitered there – the momentary lusts, the whispered offers, the one-night nuptials paid for in advance – evaporated, hovering in the air like a heavy mist roiled by the morning breezes. Leaning out over the darkness, she breathed in this shivering silence, this bedroom scent, as an encouragement that came to her from below, an assurance that her shame was shared and accepted by a complicit city.”

I found it best to savor the novel in small doses. The richness of the language, the obvious “moral hollowness” of the characters combined with the spectacular renderings of Paris made reading the story an interesting and enjoyable experience – a glimpse into the decadent life of the city in the 19th century.

*Read in November, 2011

Having just finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman, I involuntarily reached for Pandora in an attempt to continue on the path of the gods/myths stories. I am not stranger to Anne Rice’s prose, having read a few of her books of which “The Mayfair Witches” was by far my favorite.

The story begins in a café in modern day Paris, where Pandora, an ancient vampire, is writing her life’s story. Like the famous woman who inspired her name, Pandora is about to open the box which contains the memories of a life that goes back to ancient Rome. Reluctant at first but then caught under the spell of remembering, she starts writing about her father, who was an important Senator during the reign of Augustus Cesar, her brothers and her life. It was a time of freedom and learning, of oratorical discourses and leisure which came to an abrupt halt when Pandora’s family was murdered and she was forced to go into hiding to the great city of Antioch. Tormented by blood dreams and followed by a mysterious creature rumored to be a blood drinker, Pandora seeks refuge into the temple of Isis where she learns about the ancient worship of the goddess which included feeding on blood. There she sees Marius again, a blond, blue-eyed “blood-god” whom she had met as a young girl in her homeland. Their love will keep them together for two hundred years in the city of Antioch where they would spend their days reading ancient texts and arguing, keeping vigil over the ancient Pair, the King and Queen whose death would cause the extinction of all blood drinkers.

This book was a tangle of stories, names, writings and old legends set on a background of vampire lore. It starts beautifully, with Pandora slowly trying to gather her ideas and bring back memories of childhood. There are beautiful passages imbued with sensuality:

“Naturally, David, you would leave me something elegant, an inviting page. This notebook bound in dark varnished leather, it is not, tooled with a design of rich roses, thornless, yet leafy, a design that means only Design in the final analysis but bespeaks an authority. What is written beneath this heavy and handsome book cover will count, sayeth the cover.”
“I am thinking about your request in writing. You see, you will get something from me. I find myself yielding to it, almost as one of our human victims yields to us, discovering perhaps as the rain continues to fall outside, as the café continues with its noisy chatter, to think that this might not be the agony I presumed – reaching back over the two thousand years – but almost a pleasure, like the act of drinking blood itself.”

Sadly, these are about the only paragraphs I really enjoyed from this book. I read the story fairly quickly because I just hoped it would get better and I do hate giving up on a book. As the narrative continued and I was thrust into the precipitating events, everything seemed just a blur of people, references to famous writers and texts. Ovid’s Amores and Metamorphoses, a quote from Shakespeare and references to her own books and characters like “Memnoch the Devil” (which I haven’t read), Lestat, “The Queen of the Damned” (I’ve seen the movie), bits of Egypt and Roman history, all contributed to make the story too intricate for my taste. Add to that a penchant for exclamation marks and fast dialogue and the picture is complete. What I can say is that I’m glad I got to read “The Mayfair Witches” first. Had I started with this book, it would have been difficult to give Anne Rice’s books another try.

*Read in November 2011

I started on American Gods with high expectations. For the longest time I went back and forth between Gaiman’s novels, wondering about which one I should read first (I say “first” because I had no doubt this will be only the first in a line of Neil Gaiman books to be read), and after finally placing Anansi Boys back on the shelf, I took American Gods home.

About the story:

The old gods are still alive and the new gods are not happy about it. There’s a war coming and they are preparing for battle. All of them.
On parole from prison and on his way home to attend his wife’s funeral, Shadow meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday who offers him a job. Being alternately thrust into the heart of the preparations for war and told to hide in a small town, Shadow meets some interesting people and takes an even more interesting journey across America.

As I am a big fan of books involving gods and other mythological creatures, this book appealed to me from the start. Add to that a few interesting characters some unexpected plot twists and I was all set to enjoy the adventure. However, in the last 150 pages or so I was anxious to get some answers as the story seemed to drag on too long. And I did get them.
This is one complex tale and if you expect things to move in a straight line you will be disappointed. There are quite a few meandering paths to take and many side characters to meet before the mystery can be explained. From an abundance of gods and goddesses who have the ability to shape-shift into animals, to small town people and interesting places, this was no quick read for me. My patience was tried several times to the point where I just wanted to flip ahead a few pages, but luckily I didn’t. Gaiman has the ability to construct a believable story with real-life characters, and inserting them into a plot that has just the right combination of weirdness and total normalcy. I like how even the supposedly ‘good guys’ aren’t perfect but rather a mixture of good and bad, how it was perfectly acceptable to meet a god in prison and have the dead walk again and to read about a goddess who devours men in order to survive.
There are a few references to other authors and their books: Herodotus, Stephen King and Charles Dickens come to mind. I’ll let you discover the names of their works for yourself.

Some of my favorite passages:

“So yeah, my people figured that maybe there’s something at the back of it all, a creator, a great spirit, and so we say thank you to it, because it’s always good to say thank you. But we never built churches. We didn’t need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion. The land was older and wiser than the people who walked on it. It gave us salmon and corn and buffalo and passenger pigeons. It gave us wild rice and walleye. It gave us melon and squash and turkey. And we were the children of the land, just like the porcupine and the skunk and the blue jay. “

“Still, there was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.”

The edition of the book I got has a peculiarity (typing error perhaps?) which goes on pretty much to the end of the story, so many sentences look like this:

“Aprecise voice, fussy and exact, was speaking to him, in his dream, but he could see no one.“
“Aman in a dark suit….”
“Atired white woman stared at him from behind the counter.”

Somebody loved their A’s so much they didn’t want them to feel lonely.

*Read in October 2011

I picked Winter Ghosts on an impulse. The title conjured up scary images in my mind and I do love a scary story. What I got, however, was something slightly different.

This is the story of a man, Freddie Watson, who is trying to come to terms with the death of his brother, declared missing in 1916, one day before the Battle of Somme. Freddie knows his brother was the favorite child in the family. As grief tears the family apart, it is clear that Freddie has to deal with the death of his brother by himself. Years later, after some time spent in sanatoriums following a nervous breakdown, Freddie started traveling around France in the hope that the cooler climate of the mountains will restore his frail nerves.

On one such day he gets caught up in a winter storm and comes close to losing his life. Dazed and bloodied, he makes his way to a nearby village where he is given help and a place to spend the night. That night the village celebrates “la fête de saint Étienne” and Freddie is invited to the party. The celebration, however, is stranger than he thought. The food, the people, the clothes, the atmosphere, everything makes Freddie feel as if he had stumbled back in time. At the party he meets a striking young woman, Fabrissa, and her story manages to shake Freddie from his lethargy. Determined to find out more about her, he asks the villagers but his inquiries are met with strange looks and not much more. Undeterred, Freddie continues to search for Fabrissa. What he finds is a way to face his grief and move on. He begins to understand that life is worth living, that loved ones die but are never forgotten, and in the end holding on to happy memories is all we have.

I liked the book for the easy pace, the stories within stories, and the bits of history it provided (I didn’t know much about the Cathars and their religion and this book made me want to find out more). The story however, became predictable after a point. Reading this book felt like taking a walk through a forest on a quiet afternoon: you can see the path winding up between the trees and you know the exercise will do you good, just like you know that the scariest thing you’re likely to encounter will be a squirrel or a rabbit. Despite the “ghost” element it wasn’t scary – there was a point where it seemed things could get more chilling but it passed quickly and the story went back to its even pace. An enjoyable quick read.

*Read in October 2011

A bit of an update:
I’ve been a bit lazy in the writing department these days. There are a few books sitting on my desk, waiting to be reviewed, and a few others that I can’t wait to start reading. Right now I’m enjoying a long awaited holiday and also keeping my fingers crossed that the rains will stop so I can go on a trip I’ve been dreaming about since last year. Until then, I’ll try to get back to writing and this is the first (overdue) review. Happy reading!

***

Pulse

The book contains 14 stories (I wonder if the author was superstitious) about life, choices, love and marriage. I was attracted to this book by the title – it seemed like an interesting name for a book.
While at the bookstore I started reading the first story, East Wind, about Vernon, a late thirties divorcee, who falls in love with Andrea, an East European waitress. There was something funny and likable about Vernon, and I decided to take the book home and continue reading.

What I really liked about this book was the way the author managed to infuse the stories with humor but also with sadness at the same time, a notable accomplishment which is tricky to achieve within the same story. There’s also a bit of cynical witticism in the “At Phil and Joanna’s” stories (there were four), in which a group of friends gather for dinner and some verbal banter. The dialogue is entertaining and well written, the topics ranging from politics and grammar to sex and religion to name just a few.

Another story I particularly liked was The Limner. I must confess I had never heard the word before (and that is yet another reason why I liked this book – finding new words) and had to look it up in the dictionary. The limner, Mr. Wadsworth, is a traveling portrait artist. He can’t speak or hear, due to a childhood illness, but that doesn’t mean he’s dumb, as some of his customers seem to think. Attention to detail is observed not only when painting, but also when dealing with others and he manages to form an accurate opinion of the people he meets. This is one of my favorite passages from the story:

“The limner had shown the collector of customs some miniatures of children, hoping to change his mind, but Tuttle merely shook his head. Wadsworth was disappointed, partly for reasons of money, but more because his delight in painting children had increased as that in painting their progenitors had declined. Children were more mobile than adults, more deliquescent of shape, it was true. But they also looked him in the eye, and when you were deaf you heard with your eyes. Children held his gaze, and he thereby perceived their nature. Adults often looked away, whether from modesty or a desire for concealment; while some, like the collector, stared back challengingly, with a false honesty, as if to say, Of course my eyes are concealing things, but you lack the discernment to realise it. Such clients judged Wadsworth’s affinity with children proof that he was as deficient in understanding as the children were. Whereas Wadsworth found in their affinity with him proof that they saw as clearly as he did.”

In Carcassonne, the author explores the concept of marriage, how couples meet and what keeps them together over the years. Is it passion, like the type Garibaldi and his wife Anita felt the first time they laid eyes on each other, or is it something more subdued, like the man who had met his wife at an office party and when asked what did he feel when he saw her, said “I thought she was very nice”. Do couples without children have more chances of staying together, unencumbered by responsibilities and worn out by worries, and what about gay couples? Questions, musings, experiences shared. No miraculous recipe for a long, happy marriage, only doubt and various perspectives – it’s all a roll of the dice.

There were a couple of stories I didn’t care much about. While I had no complaints about the writing style, which by the way, seems to flow nicely enough, those stories in themselves fell short of interesting. But then it’s almost inevitable for this to happen in a book of short stories.
An entertaining read, quite different from the books I usually pick. I have to admit I was more excited about this book when I finished it but for some reason I postponed writing a review and in time my enthusiasm decreased considerably, which is a shame, really…

*Read in August 2011