The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

What a strange book. Set in India, paternal twins are involved in the death o their cousin - something that affects them as adults. The story is told by jumping back and forth in time, from when the twins were only children to when they are thirty. That's not so unusual - it's a common tactic of novelists, but the author dribbles out the facts of the tragedy in small bits of premonition here and there. Here's an example:

He assumed, not without reason, that he would be the first in his family to follow in his mother's wake. He would learn otherwise. Soon. Too soon.

Which, of course, gets the reader thinking who the other members of the family are and why they might die. The author as narrator is giving us privileged information that only the author knows. She does this constantly, as a way of keeping the reader interested while she paints the picture of India and the lives of the children and the adults around them.

It worked very well for me for about 200 pages - then I got impatient with it. Even near the end, when the reader has discovered most of what happened, the author still is digressing into the lives of peripheral characters when I just wanted the torture of not knowing what happened to be over.

And yet, there is no single scene that describes the tragedy completely. It's all told in bits and pieces, which ultimately detracted from the final pages for me.

One thing the author can do very well is write from the viewpoint of a female child. She was perfect.

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Despair would be a better title, since that is the tone of this novel. And it sums up how I felt when I finished reading it.

I loathe the protagonist. He is selfish, hypocritical, melodramatic, and unrepentant. He is worse than the characters who commit violent acts in the novel.

So it's tough for me to get past my dislike for the protagonist and the overall feeling of despair I get when reading this. Is the author a good writer? Yes. Would I recommend this book? No.

Last Orders by Graham Swift

An outstanding novel. Obviously a homage to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. The narration is the same - first person serial, with seven of the characters sharing the duties of narration, all in first person. The chapter titles are the names of the characters who narrate, except for the chapters which are named for locations, which serve to advance the action.

The story is similar to Faulkner also. A man has died, and wishes his friends and family to make a trip to throw his ashes off a pier. Sound similar?

And it shares some of the black humor of Faulkner as well, although not as dramatic. With Faulkner, I shook my head in disbelief at the actions of the characters, while actually believing what had occurred. Swift does not evoke that same reaction, but portions of the character's "quest" are wryly humorous.

So an outstanding effort. I admire anyone who can plan and execute a novel of this much precision.

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

An interesting novel of WWI. An English doctor compares and contrasts the customs and beliefs of Polynesian headhunters with the conduct of soldiers in the war.

This is the third book in a series, and I read it because it won the Booker prize, without reading the previous novels. It was tough to get started because of that. The author didn't waste any time recapping what had happened before, so I had to guess and piece together the characters as best I could. I have to say it is not intended to be read without the preceding novels, but I managed.

"It's not worth it" is the basic message here, referring to the war. There are also graphic descriptions of homosexual sex too. One of the soldiers is bisexual, engaged to be married, and has sex with female prostitutes, his fiance, and various men. I believe his character may be explained better in the previous novels, or at least the author may give some background.

So it's interesting, just not that effective standing alone.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Sort of the Australian version of the James gang from the American west. It even happened around the same time. This is a novel, although it may be based on fact - I didn't realize this until I read the acknowledgments at the end. It's written in the form of a journal by Ned Kelly, an account of his true history addressed to his daughter.

Which is part of the problem I had with the book. Kelly didn't know how to use commas, or, more correctly, the author chose that Kelly should write that way. Not only commas, but the usual things that an author would use to show that his narrator is uneducated. Makes the novel a little difficult to get interested in, and hard to read, and wearing. I almost gave up around page 200 - it was just more of the same, but I slogged all the way to the end.

It won the Booker prize, but I was not that impressed.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

A strange little novel, with an unexpected twist at the end. I don't think I have ever read a novel with an ending like this one. I've read about murders, and suicides, and accidental deaths, but nothing like this - don't worry, I won't give it away.

It is very short. This edition is less than 200 pages, and with large print. It might be 50 thousand words. Yet the author gets his story out there and nothing seems to be missing. Not a lot of words are wasted, obviously.

His novel, Atonement, is one of my favorites. This novel is very different, but it's also finely crafted and a delight to read.