Two extraordinary books, this time; one is fiction but has an amazing follow-up story in to-day’s world; and the other is a science based book which is very relevant to to-day’s world.
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones.
This is the story of a little girl living on the island of Bougainville, to the North East of Australia. A revolution is in progress and all the whites have left the island except one man, Mr. Watt, who is married to a native girl. Mr. Watt decides to keep the school open for the children but has only a copy of Great Expectations from which to teach. You’ve guessed it, hence the name of the book Mr. Pip.
The story of the orphan Pip living in this mysterious city of London becomes so fascinating to the children, especially a 13 year old girl named Matilda, that all they want is to take shelter in their minds from the ravages of real life on the island and immerse themselves in Dickens’s story. But too much imagination can be a dangerous thing.
The story is well written in a very good story telling style that will keep you happily turning the pages. Lloyd Jones won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best Book Award and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for this one.
And now to the modern day part of this story. On your computer, (don’t tell me you don’t have one; if so, go to the library and use one there because you must see this follow-up to the book.) Once in front of the machine, go to Google and type in the words: ‘Coconut revolution’. Up will come a page of listings on the top of which are the words: video results. Click on: Coconut Revolution (2001 50mins) and watch. What a fascinating story. You are now watching the BBC documentary from the very same island where the people have managed to win back control of the south where a huge copper mine had been established by RTZ, the world’s largest mining company. They started their fight back by firing arrows at the helicopter gun ships and making fuel for their truck out of Coconut milk!! There is even another update from when elections were being held on the island and even the rumour of a referendum to decide if they should declare independence from New Guinea.
I went back and read the book again with the video in mind. An interesting experience, to say the least.
Under a Green Sky by Peter D. Ward Ph.D.
More than a couple of hundred million years ago, there was a cataclysmic event which caused the extinction of nearly 97% of all species on earth. This event was called the Permian Extinction. All through the 1990’s and into this century, scientists have been arguing over whether or not this happened due to something large dropping out of the skies or was it caused by something much more sinister happening here on earth.
Don’t worry. You don’t need to be a scientist to understand this book. It is a fascinating chronological discussion by an expert Paleontologist who himself wrote this book, being fresh from his research and subsequent explanation of how the dinosaurs became extinct due to a 10kms wide meteor hitting the earth.
In Under a Green Sky, Peter Ward explains not only the Permian Extinction but also four others of a lesser nature, but none the less, disastrous. The evidence for these ancient cataclysms show very clearly that global warming should not be ignored. Once the oceans start belching the poisonous gas, Hydrogen Sulphide, into a poisoned atmosphere under a sky that is always slightly green and hazy, there is little left but the same dire fate that has overwhelmed this planet several times before.
Some of you may remember a while back when a whole group of people and animals living in the bowl of a long extinct volcano on the west coast of Africa were found dead one morning after the volcano had belched out a cloud of Hydrogen Sulphide during the night, killing every living thing in the area.
Now, once again you have the opportunity to see the essence of this book on video. Go to cbc.ca and click on documentaries. Now look for One Ocean Episode One. This is a fascinating film about this subject and a lot of it is narrated by Peter Ward as he goes about his studies, including some beautiful underwater filming.
Even if you don’t believe in anything to do with global warming, I would urge you to read this book and watch the video. Personally, and for the sake of my grandchildren and their future families, I would rather do something about this now, than leave it for them to have to deal with, by which time it could be a lot more serious.
These two should definitely give you some good chewing till next time,
As this will be my Christmasoffering to you, I am going to review three books each one of which would make a wonderful present. I believe that a book is such a good present, as it gives both the pleasure of reading to and excites the imagination of, the receiver. Here you have fiction, a memoir and historical fiction.
Imagining Don Giovanni by Anthony Rudel
This is a delightful book not just for those of you that appreciate classical music. This is a wonderful love story full of [passion and drama concerning the composition of the opera Don Giovanni. Knowing, as we do from papers, that Casanova was in Prague at the time that Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte were working on the opera Don Giovanni which was to be based on the scandalous life of Don Juan, Anthony Rudel, son of the famous conductor Julius Rudel, has written an excellent piece of historical fiction.
At the time, Mozart was having a little trouble with the cast of Don Giovanni and their interpretation of the love affairs as portrayed by his music and the words of Da Ponte. It took one of the world’s greatest lovers (if history is to be believed!) to go on stage during the rehearsals and demonstrate how to act out love and passion for your fellow actors. There are some wonderful scenes in this book when Casanova is teaching the actors, at the same time we are treated to Mozart’s strong feelings and longing to be with his wife, Costanze, and family back in Vienna.
This is a story full of passion for other human beings, music and the theatre; it is a marvelous piece of fiction based on fact from which a lot can be learnt and a lot imagined.
The Greek for Love by James Chatto
This is a memoir with a difference. James Chatto is an Englishman who fell in love with a Canadian, Wendy Martin, who became his wife, but not before a passionate and, at times, melancholy love affair takes place starting one summer many years ago on the island of Corfu. You may well have read some of Chatto’s writings in Canadian magazines and newspapers, as he and his family have lived for some time in Toronto as well as on Corfu.
James and Wendy were captivated by the way they were accepted so readily by the locals once they had bought and renovated a ruined house on Corfu, amongst the olive trees and grape vines. The way they did this is very different from certain other stories based in the south of France. They were on Corfu at a time when they could swim naked off a deserted beach which now is surrounded by villas and bijou hotels. The more they learned Greek, the more they enjoyed the social life of the local village and particularly the stories and myths as told by and about the locals on balmy evenings at a table outside the local taverna, where there was always much laughter and plenty of local wine. There are descriptions of wonderful meals (Chatto has published several cook books) of fresh sardines, lamb as only the Greeks know how to cook it and fresh fruit from the surrounding trees.
It isn’t until near the end of the book that a tragedy occurs that brought tears to my eyes for the first time in many, many years of reading all different types of books. Tragic as this part of the book is, it in no way detracts from this wonderful story; indeed, it gives one tremendous faith in human kind and the ability of all of us to survive unwanted and unwarranted tragedies in our lives. This is a delightful memoir, superbly narrated, funny, imaginative and very, very readable.
Angel’s Game by Carlos Zafon
For those of you who haven’t read any Zafon, give yourselves an early Christmas present and go and buy a second hand copy of Shadow of the Wind by Zafon, you will love it. Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a very well known Spanish writer of historical fiction in Europe and has been translated into about 40 languages. As a historian, there is much that can be learnt in a most pleasant way from reading his books.
Angel’s Game is another of Zafon’s books translated by Lucia Graves, Robert Graves’s daughter, and it is this translation that makes for such a fine book for those of us reading it in English – unlike certain other Spanish writings which have been translated using modern idioms even in 18th century dialogue.
This is the story of a young man, David Martin, who lives in a dark and mysterious house in the centre of Barcelona and spends his time writing cheap and gaudy novels under a pseudonym. He is visited by a French editor who decides to make him an offer. If he will write a most extraordinary book, the like of which has never been seen before, he, the French editor will give David Martin a fortune to do with as he pleases. The house itself features strongly in this story because of its previous owner whose personal belongings are still to be found in a locked room at the back of the haunting house.
Needless to say, not everything is as it seems in this gothic universe of romance, tragedy and mystery all surrounding the passion of books. This is a masterful story and, yes, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books does appear again in this intriguing and well written book.
I wish you all a Very Happy Christmas and good chewing amongst the pages as well as at the festive table. Here’s to 2010!
Here are (or is, depending on your approach to collective nouns) another couple of books to add to the pile that you are hopefully enjoying.
The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin
Olga Grushin was born and lived for the first 18 years of her life in Moscow. This is her first novel after settling in America and marrying an American.
This is the story of the Editor in Chief of the main Arts magazine in Moscow who always has to publish glowing critiques about Russian Art whilst secretly admiring works by Van Gogh and others. He spends his evenings alone in his apartment painting in the style of Van Gogh and hides his works, until such time as his cousin turns up unexpectedly for a visit and stays in the apartment.
What is amazing about this book is that, despite being brought up and educated in Russia, Grushin wrote the manuscript in English and the resulting book has been compared to Nabokov and Bulgakov in its style of writing; personally, I never quite understood all the excitement about Nabokov, apart from his unbelievable arrogance concerning other writers. So, Lolita; I remember paying 5 shillings to borrow an illicit copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover when their Lordships had been locked into the House of Lords to see if we youngsters should be allowed to read it!
Anyway, this is an excellent read concerning life and the Arts under the Communist regime in Russia and being a shorter book, is perfect for those boring lunch breaks. Grushin has another book coming out this fall, Concert Ticket, and I am greatly looking forward to getting my hands on that one.
Speaking of Communists, here’s a great read for the lovers of James Bond, who wondered just how much fiction there was in those stories (personally, I couldn’t have cared less, as long as Bond got the girl, got the villain and still managed to get his hat on the hat stand at the first throw!
Secret Asset by Stella Rimmington
Stella Rimmington was the Head of MI5 or, in other words, she placed real life James Bonds around the world as M. She held this position for around 5 years, so you know that you are reading about authentic situations that are close to the truth when you read her books.
This is an exciting story based on a terrorist plot driven out of an Islamic bookstore in North London, and, in passing, you get a good idea how a surveillance operation works. But this one turns even more interesting when there is a tip-off that a mole is at work in British Intelligence. Will MI5 manage to trap the mole before he/she is able to carry out the terrorist plot? Stella Rimmington writes very well in this genre and certainly has the knack of creating a page-turner based on authenticity.
Funnily enough, her first book At Risk also caused their Lordships some excitement, as they were asked to consider, by the Lower House, whether this book could be published in view of the Official Secrets Act; as if she was about to put her compatriots in danger!
