Ismail Kadare is an Albanian writer, and Chronicle set in the southern town of Gjirokaster during WW2. I don't know much abou historical or modern Albania or even much about WW2 for that matter but this book still made perfect sense to me, was beautifully evocative and a joy to read.
Usually when I'm enjoying a book I race through it. I'll take a couple of days to read it if I'm going slowly. With Chronicle it was different. I've been reading it since the last post. It'svery unusual for me to read like this but somehow it suited the book itself. I feel I have given it the sustained attention it deserves.
Told through the eyes of a young boy, the book tells the story of the inhabitants of Gjirokaster under Italian (then Greek, then Italian, then Greek, then Italian...then German) occupation. Kadare writes (or is translated - I think both writer and translator have done a brilliant job here) absolutely beautifully. Evocatively. His descritpions of the city and its surroundings, and perfect descriptions of the characters are absolutely enchanting and very moving.
This isn't a book full of wild action scenes, but I found that it was still a very tense and gripping read. The rumoured presence of Vasiliqia, a Greek holy woman who goes round choosing male citizens to be executed just by pointing at them, was a horrible moment. And the inevitability of Isa and Javer's fate...The book is gentle, with touches of humour and very clever use of a child narrator, but still does not shrink from the real nature of war. Perhaps the saddest part, from my view, was the death of the old lady Kako Pino, something that truly shocked and horrified me.
Kadare has written a very clever, but still enjoyable and above all moving book. The narrative is interspersed with smaller sections of news, but whereas this might distract from a less accomplished story, I found the fragmented structure very appealing. Chronicle draws together traditional Albanian superstition and society with the modern world, and throws in the calamity of war to stir things up still further. When you realise that much of this must have been based on Kadare's own experience, the story is even more profound.
I haven't said this before (or at least I don't remember if I have) about any book, but this is one that I think everyone - no matter where they come from or what their background is - should read. And I would even go so far as to rail and wail about why it isn't on the national syllabus - it should be (but that's another argument). One of the best books I have ever read, and definitely one of my favourites. Bless the day I was trauling through Amazon and it came up in my recommendations! And thank you Ismail Kadare for opening my eyes through your genius literature!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Yeah yeah, I know I've only read this because it's recently been turned into a film, but I haven't seen the film yet, so it's alright! Also I've read some of his Nocturnes before and have always been tempted by An Artist of the Floating World. But this is the first full Ishiguro I have read, and hopefully I'm off to see the film this week, so it will be interesting to compare.
But anyway, the book. I really enjoyed it. Short and sweet, literaray but not head-in-the-clouds, difficult message but easy reading. I think everyone should read this book, even if they don't usually enjoy reading. It was such a relief from the old D. H. Lawrence (I'm still struggling through that...I loved it but he's really over-descriptive!) but was still sophisticated and interesting.
Brief outline: Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are students at Hailsham. Eventually they go out into the big wide world. Their world is not like ours: after the Second World War, it was discovered that all sorts of diseases could be cured through transplants, and so they started manufacturing clones to grow organs. The book tells the story of their complex relationships, the clone + transplants thing being mostly a distant - but crucial - backdrop.
When I was enthusing about this book to one of my friends, she screwed up her face and said, "sounds just like 'The Island'." Referring of course to that mediocre Ewan McGregor/Scarlet Johansson film. True. The organ donor stuff has been done before in Hollywood, even if it hasn't in literature (although I don't know which came first, Never Let Me Go or The Island). But the fact is, Ishiguro's story is completely different: the clone thing is a backdrop. What he really focuses on, what he has clearly observed in incredible detail, and what makes the book a joy to read, is the fact that it is the human relationships that make the story. It could be set in our world and have the same poignancy; the fact that Ishiguro sets it in a different one is, as I say, more of a backdrop.
So yeah. No big blockbuster explosions here. But sharply observed and incredibly moving human relationships. A book that I think has made me a wiser person.
I have one criticism Never Let Me Go, and it is just a little niggle really. It's told from the point of view of Kathy, looking back on the past. Ishiguro uses this really interestingly; this is a brilliantly-crafted example of the unreliable narrator if ever there was once. The narrative voice is consistent and sympathetic. Ishiguro has created realistic characters, but ones who I cared about, and it is obvious what a skilled writer he is, from the fact that the voice never falters for one second. However, this was my little niggle with it: at times the unreliable narrator stuff - the way she would digress, then come back to a point, then relate a little anecdote from the past, and then jump to the present - was really interesting, but at a couple of points in the book I wish it had been a bit more...reliable. Just set down some solid facts here and there for a change would have been nice.
One thing this book will do is have you turning the pages. Because of the unreliable narrator, and the way it digresses, and skips backwards and forwards, the story and its background are built up in patches, meaning the only way to find out more is to keep reading. Compulsively! It frustrated me, but in a good way. In a can't-put-it-down kind of way. The end wasn't wholly unexpected but it wasn't what I had expected (if that makes sense) and there are still a few questions left unanswered at the end. A page-turner. A good'un.
I enjoyed this book very much. While not the most ground-breaking book I've ever come across, nor the best, it is one I will come back to and has definitely encouraged me to read more of Kazuo Ishiguro's work, and he is undeniably a very skilled writer.
Next up I'm reading 'Chronicle in Stone' by Ismail Kadare (in translation, I don't actually speak Albanian, in case you were wondering). I tend to read more female writers over male ones but it's really nice to be breaking the habit a bit at the moment. No matter what people say, men and women are different and do have different perspectives on life, and even write differently. So it feels good to equalise it all a bit. Dunno what I'll read after that. Probably worm my way through to the end of 'The Rainbow' with Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' for light relief (in French). But I have a pile of books here that all need reading. 12 in total and that is my current bedside shortlist; in the hallway there are another 134539087340872103 I keep meaning to get round to. One day I'll get there. Maybe!
But anyway, the book. I really enjoyed it. Short and sweet, literaray but not head-in-the-clouds, difficult message but easy reading. I think everyone should read this book, even if they don't usually enjoy reading. It was such a relief from the old D. H. Lawrence (I'm still struggling through that...I loved it but he's really over-descriptive!) but was still sophisticated and interesting.
Brief outline: Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are students at Hailsham. Eventually they go out into the big wide world. Their world is not like ours: after the Second World War, it was discovered that all sorts of diseases could be cured through transplants, and so they started manufacturing clones to grow organs. The book tells the story of their complex relationships, the clone + transplants thing being mostly a distant - but crucial - backdrop.
When I was enthusing about this book to one of my friends, she screwed up her face and said, "sounds just like 'The Island'." Referring of course to that mediocre Ewan McGregor/Scarlet Johansson film. True. The organ donor stuff has been done before in Hollywood, even if it hasn't in literature (although I don't know which came first, Never Let Me Go or The Island). But the fact is, Ishiguro's story is completely different: the clone thing is a backdrop. What he really focuses on, what he has clearly observed in incredible detail, and what makes the book a joy to read, is the fact that it is the human relationships that make the story. It could be set in our world and have the same poignancy; the fact that Ishiguro sets it in a different one is, as I say, more of a backdrop.
So yeah. No big blockbuster explosions here. But sharply observed and incredibly moving human relationships. A book that I think has made me a wiser person.
I have one criticism Never Let Me Go, and it is just a little niggle really. It's told from the point of view of Kathy, looking back on the past. Ishiguro uses this really interestingly; this is a brilliantly-crafted example of the unreliable narrator if ever there was once. The narrative voice is consistent and sympathetic. Ishiguro has created realistic characters, but ones who I cared about, and it is obvious what a skilled writer he is, from the fact that the voice never falters for one second. However, this was my little niggle with it: at times the unreliable narrator stuff - the way she would digress, then come back to a point, then relate a little anecdote from the past, and then jump to the present - was really interesting, but at a couple of points in the book I wish it had been a bit more...reliable. Just set down some solid facts here and there for a change would have been nice.
One thing this book will do is have you turning the pages. Because of the unreliable narrator, and the way it digresses, and skips backwards and forwards, the story and its background are built up in patches, meaning the only way to find out more is to keep reading. Compulsively! It frustrated me, but in a good way. In a can't-put-it-down kind of way. The end wasn't wholly unexpected but it wasn't what I had expected (if that makes sense) and there are still a few questions left unanswered at the end. A page-turner. A good'un.
I enjoyed this book very much. While not the most ground-breaking book I've ever come across, nor the best, it is one I will come back to and has definitely encouraged me to read more of Kazuo Ishiguro's work, and he is undeniably a very skilled writer.
Next up I'm reading 'Chronicle in Stone' by Ismail Kadare (in translation, I don't actually speak Albanian, in case you were wondering). I tend to read more female writers over male ones but it's really nice to be breaking the habit a bit at the moment. No matter what people say, men and women are different and do have different perspectives on life, and even write differently. So it feels good to equalise it all a bit. Dunno what I'll read after that. Probably worm my way through to the end of 'The Rainbow' with Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' for light relief (in French). But I have a pile of books here that all need reading. 12 in total and that is my current bedside shortlist; in the hallway there are another 134539087340872103 I keep meaning to get round to. One day I'll get there. Maybe!
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