#4 - Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Notes from the Underground is described on the back cover as a 'short novel' - however, whilst the print only covers 110 pages, short is the last word I would use to describe the novel. Whilst it's not an entirely bad  book, it took an age to trawl through.

Focusing on the insane ramblings of the narrator - the man known as Underground Man - the novel takes two parts, the first a thought process completely devoid of narrative, and the second a sort-of-story that's still pretty mental.

Essentially, in the book, Dostoyevsky wanted to get across to the reader some of the complicated feelings and ideas that surround the philosophical area of existentialism - and that's cool with me. But his choice of narrator, in my eyes, is where he makes his big mistake. Because to convey these complicated ideas, Dostoyevsky chose a man who has been underground for forty years, and doesn't really know how to explain because he doesn't write.

Go figure.

A good read if you're really interested in existentialism, but a painful torture if you're anything less than interested in it.

Pages: 110

Bottom Line: Deep philosophy attempted by a bitter hermit who doesn't really know how to write anyway.

#3 - The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time by Mark Haddon

On a post-read analysis, The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night Time instantly comes off as two things:

1) Absolutely brilliant.

2) Very spoilable.

So whilst attempting to hedge around the large parts of the novel which are much more appreciated when you stumble upon them yourself, let me begin to explain what makes this book so damn brilliant.

Firstly, is this books clean cut ability to switch audiences at will. The book is led forwards by Christopher, a fifteen year old who you might as well think was 12, due to his Asperger's Syndrome. Whilst the mental state he finds himself in allows him an almost superhuman ability at maths and science, Christopher's emotional dislocation and lack of understanding of the world beyond his road leaves him with a very simply spoken, matter-of-fact and intensely readable voice, which has the ability to both shock the audience and ignore the obvious to some comic effect. 

The other side of this voice, however, is a certain appeal to younger readers, and whilst I wouldn't give this book to my nephew due to some of the content - violence, hard issues and some words that make even my seasoned eyes flinch - the book has won numerous awards for it's depth and appeal to this notoriously tricky audience.

But what I love about the book is it's sublime mix of simplicity and absolute story telling perfection. It's easy enough for an adult reader to sit through all near-300 pages in one sitting due to it's pacy narrative and light style, but whilst this style is normally an inhibitor to other writers, Haddon uses it to great dramatic effect. Whilst Christopher may not see the obvious or understand the implications of what people are saying, the reader is put in an advantageous place without being told what is happening, leaving you on the edge of your seat waiting for Christopher to realise the horrible occurrences behind the red curtain of the novel.

A runaway train of a novel including Sherlock Holmes, a dog being killed with a fork, hard-hitting drama, A-level maths and a train-elf (That bit literally had me in tears of laughter), The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time can't come with enough praise, and a book which leaves you thinking in declarative sentences for hours afterwards. It's the perfect novel whether you're looking for a quick read or a deep thought-provoker, and I can't recommend it enough.

Pages: 268

Bottom Line: A boy with Asperger's syndrome attempts to find out who kills his neighbour's dog and instead ends up writing a Whitbread award winning novel.

#2 - Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises was my second book of the year and my first taste of Hemingway, a man and a name synonymous with heavy drinking, Nobel Prize winning, fist fighting and generally being hardcore. Interesting, perhaps, that the first novel by this machine of a man is one that could be loosely described as a romance.

Jake Barnes, an American expatriate in Europe, does indeed romanticise. He takes the same economical interest in the culture, the hills, his friends and alcohol as he does with recent divorcée Lady Brett Ashley, who seems intent on sticking her fingers in everyone's romantic pies - a source of pretty much all drama in the novel.

The thing about Hemingway's 'economic' style of writing is that it casts a very mechanical light over everything that occurs, feelings, drama, and people included. We hear all about the love other people feel for Lady Ashley, and we see the sometimes violent result of this bouncing around the friendship group like a bull in a china-shop (And oh are there a lot of bulls in this book) but we never hear of Jake's apparent love for her, which results in a rather detached narration by him.

The majority of the novel takes place in the picturesque countryside of Spain, and whilst there is much opportunity for wax lyricism, Jake talks about the setting like he talks about Lady Ashley - we know that they are both beautiful, but we can't really feel it. Many people have described it as beautiful, and so I feel as though it's only me who feels as though the book is equivalent to someone telling you over the phone that the room they are in is very hot - you have no reason to not believe them, but you're not exactly sweating.

That said, I did enjoy the book, but for slightly different reasons to how the blurb said I would. Hemingway, a journalist himself, doesn't make you fall in love with his characters as much as he documents them perfectly, taking a slice of the Lost Generation of the 1920's, a generation of rock-steady livers and battle scarred men loose living on a financial boom, and filing it away for future generations to look back upon. 

That said, for lack of description, I did picture one of the characters - who is described only ever as a Jew - as Mort from Family Guy. This awkward pop-culture crossover genuinely made my experience of the book ten times better.

Pages: 216

Bottom Line: If Hemingway was a beer, you wouldn't get drunk on him, but everyone else would.

#1 - Seasonal Suicide Notes by Roger Lewis

My first book of the year - a bargain £1.95 purchase from my local charity shop, bought a month ago for it's promising reviews and timely name - is Seasonal Suicide Notes, a series of diary-letters penned by Welsh biographer Roger Lewis. As a non-fiction book, it was sure to bring some sort of lesson with it, and I promised myself not to be disappointed by the plot, as it's not something you can really twist within the genre. However, the lesson gained from the book wasn't necessarily for me, but for the author himself, and it was a lesson that as a biographer I thought he might of already learnt, what with being a biographer and all. The lesson is simple: If you're going to write a book based around a person, try to make sure they're not a complete tosser.

Giving this book a bad review is a bit of a double edged sword, considering how badly he begs reviewers within the book to be nice, and considering the way in which my mother always used to tell me not to be mean to bullies, because they probably have a lot of pain in their life - a good explanation for the first chapter, 20-odd pages dedicated to the authors distant father getting 'cancer of the bumhole'. But I feel as if the bad review was impossible to not write, considering the reviews written on the sleeve of the book - which promised me that I would 'cry with laughter [...] blubbering, sniffling and gasping' - which were all inaccurate, and all, as it transpires, written by his mates - and when I say mates, I mean the ones he doesn't rapidly insult as soon as their obituaries are written ('Harold Pinter obit. What a ghastly clanking beast he was').

So it is with marginally small amount of guilt that I point out all of the borderline racist humour, intellectual snobbery, complaining about being fat, and whining about how badly he's paid before quickly telling us about his holiday home in Bad Ischl, Austria. Lewis does a lot of name-dropping of people I've never heard of, which is infuriating, and hurts my pseudo-intellectual ego. He also, despite visibly showing a sense of humour in some parts, isn't funny, which together with the reviews written by his friends and relentless name-dropping, tells me that the jokes - which are originally letters to his friends, lets not forget - are one of those 'you had to be there' affairs. And don't get me started on his sons (Sébastien, Oscar, and Tristan) who seem more like the Oxford-rimming posh bastards I see arguing about whether or not coffee is vegan in Starbucks the more I read about them.

The funniest parts of the book are the disorientatingly quirky clippings from the local newspaper - 'A couple in Elmsdale Road have been left "in a state of shock" after a plastic swan "worth around £15" was stolen from their garden.' - and the only bit that genuinely made me laugh out loud was the author clarifying that he was parked next to a mosque, describing it poetically as 'a mosque'. 

Not a terrible book considering the £1.95 I paid for it, but a ruddy awful one considering £13 retail price.

Pages: 200
Bottom Line: Relentlessly quoting obscure writers isn't the way to the heart of a teenager who thinks he knows a lot about literature.