Jane Gardam Dies Aged 96

Hello Gentle Reader,

Of contemporary English language writers who could be described as quintessentially English, Jane Gardam would be of them. A writer of the social comedies and absurdities of suburban and middle-class life; the kind of novels which are scoffed at by today’s youth, who dismiss them as genteel and milquetoast. The otherwise polite and unassuming novels of their parents and grandparents, which completely lacks their appetite for what they perceive to be socially conscious issues and attitudes, reflecting their egregious and self-righteous ideals, all the while fortifying them. They therefore miss the cunning curated delights of Jane Gardam, whose novels can be described as orchestral in approach, with critics often gently lamenting that the busyness of a Gardam novel, with all its ensemble characters and multiple narrative threads waterlog the narrative with such saturation that the point and plot gets lost. Jane Gardam, however, remained an astute observer of the everyday, the mistaken timid and common middle-class existence, with its misconceived paltry concerns; but what Gardam captured, was intimate portraits of social comedy and emotional depth of those people within this class structure. In other words, a full-bodied narrative of the human condition in the 20^th century. Despite this, Jane Gardam’s literary career is often regarded as being strangely overlooked and underappreciated beyond the borders of the United Kingdom, which comes down to the fact that Gardam was not a writer who could easily be categorized, no different then Doris Lessing or Penelope Lively, whose bibliographies are equally diverse in form, format, preoccupation, and theme, but maintain a certain affinity to psychological acuity and insight. To their credit and circumstance, both Doris Lessing and Penelope Lively are often first viewed within the context of the twilight years of the British Empire. For Lessing it was the now defunct colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and for Lively it was British Egypt. Afterwards though, Lessing became a firebrand and iconoclast, social barometer and critic, scrutinizing a civilization through the century; while Lively tended to novels dissected personal memory in contrast to official history, foibles and follies of individuals, and the quiet intimate dramas of everyday people. As for Jane Gardam, there remained a sense her sensibilities were English through and through. Still Gardam was shortlisted for the Booker Prize with her novel “God on the Rocks,” recounts a summer of awakening for one girl between the wars. It’s a masterclass novel in psychological and emotional cartography, whereby Gardam proves that the larger the tapestry and the competing perspectives only adds to the text. Sadly, it was beat out by the begrudged novel “The Sea, The Sea,” by Iris Murdoch. Of course, Jane Gardam’s reputation is said to rest on her “Old Filth Trilogy,” with the titular first novel “Old Filth,” beloved as a tragicomic character study. The subsequent novels in the trilogy, “The Man in the Wooden Hat,” and “Last Friends,” continues the study from different perspectives, providing an otherwise encompassing and comedic perspective of old age, and the bittersweet tinge of memories. Other memorable novels include “Crusoe’s Daughter,” which is often described as Jane Gardam’s most political novel in context, but remained fixated on the psychological realities of the main character, Polly Flint, who finds continual reprieve in the story of Robinson Crusoe, as her own life is one marred and shipwrecked by tragedy and circumstance.
 
Rest in Peace Jane Gardam.
 
Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

 

– XXXIX –

All ideologies and idealists are inconveniently confronted with harshness of reality.  

Mario Vargas Llosa Dies Aged 89

Hello Gentle Reader,

It is difficult to imagine the Latin American Boom without the late Julio Cortázar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes, or Mario Vargas Llosa. These vanguard writers followed Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, and Miguel Ángel Asturias, continuing to push and elevate the southern continent to forefront of literary ingenuity in addition to being unapologetically committed commentary on political issues of the time; and while Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” is considered a monumental text of the boom and a defining novel of magical realism, the contributions of Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa are no less remarkable or trifle. Mario Vargas Llosa is credit for bridging the initial critical assessment of the Latin American Boom with the ‘old world,’ literary establishment, with his critical assessment and study of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1971. Their short literary friendship, however, was short lived as they were engaged in a physical altercation by the mid 70’s. the cause of the feud remains unknown. As a writer Mario Vargas Llosa was unapologetically prolific, writing in a variety of genres and forms, which ranged from epic, to historical, to comedic, to murder mystery, to essays and criticism. Vargas Llosa’s debut novel “The Time of the Hero,” showcase the authors prodigal talents for experimentation and complex narratives, as the novel itself utilizes multiple narratives and points of views in a non-linear fashion detailing the cruelties of a military academy education, while providing an examination of issues regarding hierarchy, matters of masculinity as a social and common culture institution, and secrecy. “The Time of the Hero,” is viewed within the context as an examination and reflection of Peruvian society as a whole. Of course it was the novel “Conversations in the Cathedral,” which catapulted Mario Vargas Llosa to literary stardom. Once an again, Vargas Llosa blended and experimented with narrative and structure within the novel, cementing Mario Vargas Llosa as one of the defining figures of the Latin American Boom, and being considered one of the great innovators (and soon to be controversial) writers of his generation. In his younger years, as is typical fashion, Mario Vargas Llosa was politically motivated and outspoken often for left-wing and Marxist oriented causes, including being a supporter of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. However, Vargas Llosa became disenfranchised with these movements, souring on Castro, after the Padilla Affair. More interesting, however, Mario Vargas Llosa would later take a run for president, but was destroyed in the race and never ran for public office again. His later years of political engagement included more intense focus on supporting right-wing causes and movements, a far cry from his youthful political enthusiasm. Throughout his extraordinary life and career, Mario Vargas Llosa accumulated a reputation of being an unrelenting giant, a force of nature whose work had the conviction and confidence to achieve greatness, and by 2010 Mario Vargas Llosa receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Now dead at 89, Mario Vargas Llosa’s legacy both literary and politically are intertwined and create a controversial and at times difficult legacy to reconcile if not completely appreciate.

Regardless, Rest in Peace, Mario Vargas Llosa, who indeed lived a very eventful and adventurous life.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

The International Booker Prize Shortlist 2025

Hello Gentle Reader,

This years International Booker Prize left a lot to be desired, when the original longlist was announced. While it captured a noteworthy title, such as Mircea Cărtărescu’s “Solenoid,” it was easily overwhelmed by titles of an otherwise socially inclined statements which either reduced their literary values, or worst yet, were poor substitutions for no literary value at all. The shortlist whittled down the original longlist to six books. While I had hoped the diamonds which did make it on the longlist would inevitably make their way to the shortlist, only a couple were so lucky. The following is this year’s shortlist:

            Solvej Balle – Denmark – “On the Calculation of Volume 1,”
            Vincenzo Latronico – Italy – “Perfection,”
            Anne Serre – France – “A Leopard-Skin Hat,”
            Banu Mushtaq – India – “Heart Lamp,”
            Vincent Delecroix – France – “Small Boat,”
            Hiromi Kawakami – Japan – “Under the Eye of the Big Bird,”

The obvious and most questionable omission on this year’s shortlist is Mircea Cărtărescu’s “Solenoid,” which was also the by far the largest and perhaps the more complex novel included on this year’s prize longlist. “Solenoid,” previously won the International Dublin Literary Award last year. The fact that it was omitted from the shortlist raises a few eyebrows; but I am sure there’s a pettiness to literary awards. The International Booker Prize judges may not want to be seen following in the shadow or footsteps of the  International Dublin Literary Award; just as it can be speculated that they declined to include both Olga Tokarczuk and Han Kang on this years longlist with their recent released novels “The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story,” and “We Do Not Part,” because they’ve either already won the award previously, and have since won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Still the absence of “Solenoid,” feels odd, not just because it was expected to be on the shortlist, but because Mircea Cărtărescu’s novel is unapologetically Borgesian in scope and style with its complexities, while employee heavy dosages of Kafkaesque absurdity.

It is good to see Solvej Balle on this shortlist with her novel, “On the Calculation of Volume 1.” In my own personal opinion, I think, Solvej Balle, Vincenzo Latronico, and Anne Serre, are this year’s contenders. Solvej Balle incorporates both style and narrative in a unique novel which has been described as the literary equivalent to “Groundhog Dog.” While, Vincenzo Latronico’s reimagining of Georges Perec’s 1960’s novel “Things: A Story of the Sixties,” explores the Instagram nihilism of todays millennial generation. Anne Serre’s novel “A Leopard-Skin Hat,” is a more personal novel, sketching the affections of a friends unyielding and undying love for a complex woman whose battling her own personal demons. Serre’s novel recounts a complex life vacillating between hope and desolation, and a brilliant life ultimately cut short due to this.

As in the case of this year’s longlist, this year’s shortlist also leaves a lot to be desired. The judges for this year’s award in turn gave the impression of weighing social justice commitments or commentary to their evaluations, which ultimately may have seen a lot of worthy books and novels dismissed because they did not sufficiently meet this criteria. Of course, that being said I am not privy to the judge’s rubric in how they assessed and weighed the nominated books, and as such ultimately my opinion is personal and of speculative nature; but this year’s lists seemed to be coated in a veneer of aggrandizing social commentary over purely literary evaluation.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

Eastbound

Hello Gentle Reader,

Traveling by train occupies a visage of the old-world travel, one of privilege and genteel inclination. Conjuring images of first-class cars and dining cars, full-service amenities, providing the transitory composition of the comforts of home in the compact, perfect for the individual whose life can be encapsulated in carry on, a requirement for the lifestyle of transit, continually in motion propelling ever further into the distance. Before the expansion and commercialization of air travel, trains were the only way to efficiently and effectively mauver through landscapes. They were the logistic marvels, carrying cargo and passenger alike, on predestined serpentine tracks, they zipped and zagged along, whizzing by onto new horizons. Passenger car rail travel still operates and exists, but remains a European reality, an otherwise densely populated and developed luxury, benefiting a smaller surface area with a denser population. In the case of Canada, commuter rail and passenger rail have all but fallen out of fashion. A few still exist, but are exuberant and luxuriously priced journeys for the locomotive aficionado; while daily commuter trains have come under considerable criticism and scrutiny as passengers of the service have criticized the services habitual tardiness and consistent deliverance of inconveniences, further compounded by a lack of infrastructure investment and upkeep, in addition to preventive maintenance, which only exasperates delays and cancellations. The national railways of Canada, long since privatized, hold only profit in their eyes with shareholders in their ears, exist only to ship freight from one end to the other; moving people is no longer in their portfolio. No, the Canadian mode of cross-country travel is one of independence, the demand for control of one’s asphalt destiny, the long-haul road trip, the dreaded endless car ride. Piled into the backseat with siblings or the overflow of luggage, most Canadian children would be familiar to the term ‘close quarters,’ as they endured and rode onto the expanse of the frontier, passing through villages, cities, and the sense of endless driving into a yawning landscape of boundless space, punctuated with pits stops where one relieves themselves and stretches their legs, before resuming their motorized voyage once more, where bon voyage is aptly replaced with: on the road again. Of course, road trips became a symbol of freedom and wanderlust, popularized by the Beatniks and Jack Kerouac’s celebratory novel of the open road, “On the Road,” which traced the cartography of youthful hedonism as it embraced the discombobulation and disorientation of perpetual transience and movement as a state of being in the pursuit of adventure and meaning in a postwar world. The indefinite sense of dislocation of space in motion, and the claustrophobia of shared travel within the liminal space between departure and destination, are beautifully captured by Maylis de Kerangal’s novel “Eastbound,” which recounts the happenstance chance encounter between two individuals, who in sharing a train ride, find their journeys intertwined within one another, and become comrades and accomplices in a shared escape; at first by a sense of intrigue and interest, fueled by sympathy, later soured into disgruntled entanglement, fortified by the aggressive desperation and plea, until finally resolved  with an understanding that the moment of turn off and turn back had long since past. 

Maylis de Kerangal is a French writer whose novels trace and recount with intensity the proclivities of the human condition, ordained towards ingenuity, innovation, and creativity, which inevitably entangles itself within the catchall term of occupation. Through topics which range from cooking, to painting, to engineering, to surgery and organ transplants, de Kerangal places each subject beneath the microscope and drills into the essence of each preoccupation, revealing and unfurling the subjects beyond their immediate and palpable realities, whereby Maylis de Kerangal traces their incognito and ethereal connections to the human condition and the indominable spirit of human achievement and the capacity for creation. Through a literary style that maneuvers effortlessly between breathless breakneck sentences, which skip like stones across the surface, never sinking into the mire of superfluous detail, while sketching and describing the facts and figures of the matter with cinematic grace. Inevitably this means de Kerangal is compared to a documentary filmmaker in a literary sense, whose voluptuous literary language encapsulates and celebrates the achievement of craftsmanship, while exploring through broad brushstrokes the interior of the characters. The exploration of the private interior is the hallmark of “Eastbound,” as it traces the mismatched duet of two unlikely travelers who find themselves aligned and then bound together on the Trans-Siberian Railway, cutting through almost a quarter of the Earth’s circumference.

Aliocha is the first. A conscripted solider who is described as but a boy who has still to fill out the uncertain adult man’s body that he has developed into. Aliocha finds himself amongst the other conscripts, crowded and cramped together, their rowdiness disguising their own anxiety of their impending service as they zip along the far eastern reaches of Russia into the unknown. None of them know where their end destination is, while each of them plots and discusses the way they escape, when they unload at stations they crowd and herd together smoking in close knit groups, never straying far from the shadow of the train and their nearing, albeit unknown, destination, before returning to their compartment:

“He’s posted at the far end of the train, at the back of the last wagon in a compartment slathered in thick paint, a cell, pierced by three openings, that the smokers have seized immediately. This is where he’s found himself a spot, a volume of space still unoccupied, notched between other bodies. He has pressed his forehead to the back window of the train, the one that looks out over the tracks, and stays there watching the land speed by at 60km/h—in this moment it’s a wooly mauve wilderness, his shitty country.”

Then of course amidst the crowded chaos, Aliocha is casually assaulted, a premotion of what brutalisation awaits of wherever he is going, as the train maneuvers through the endlessness of the Russian far east, described as a “enclave bordered by the immensity,”:

“at the end of the rails, there will be the barracks and the diedovchina, the hazing, and once he’s there, if the second-year conscripts burn his dick with cigarettes, if they make him lick the toilets, deprive him of sleep or fuck him up the ass, no one will be able to do anything to help [. . .],”

Enter Hélène the French expat who finds herself on the same train as Aliocha. Rather than feeling conscription, however, Hélène is abandoning her Russian boyfriend, Anton, who in turn has returned to Russia to accept a position at a hydroelectric dam. For Anton this is a homecoming, but for Hélène, who is alluded to being more oriented to the metropolitan, finds herself alienated and isolated within the aforementioned immensity of Siberia, its rugged rustic terrain and provincial qualities, which inevitably have her pinned as a foreigner, which forces her to board the first train out, which happens to be train barreling eastbound to Vladivostok, a roundabout return to France. The encounter between Aliocha and Hélène is a chance once, shared by observing the emptiness of Siberia as it statically flies by the moving train:

“But they don’t move, standing before the pane of glass which is like a movie screen for them, where everything stirs gently, molecular as terror and desire, and then suddenly the night tears open and the landscape hardens outside, clean, geometrical, pure lines and new perspectives, the end of the organic night, the forest rises up in the razing light of dawn, and it’s still the same forest, the same slender trees, the same orangey trunks, a forest identical to itself to this extent is insane [. . .],”

Aliocha’s desperation for desertion, to be spared his conscripted fate, is what compels him to reach out to Hélène, who doesn’t see a beggar or victim of circumstance, but merely an individual in transit, a fellow runaway. Be it pity or sympathy, Hélène is complicit and extends a generous hand to the young conscript. What follows is a brisk and tense narrative. Neither Aliocha or Hélène can communicate wholeheartedly with either one and bumble enough understanding through a smatter of Russian and pantomime. Maylis de Kerangal doesn’t bother detailing the breakdown in language or failure of communication, instead de Kerangal captures their understanding through furtive effervescence and the context of experience. Via narrative, de Kerangal moves between intimate fixation on both Aliocha and Hélène, engaging in detours into their past and psychology, providing enough insight to understand their motivations and their present predicaments, to broad brushstrokes of cinematic detail describing the landscape in transit, or a roiling boil of images capturing the essence of the situation. One beautiful cascading passage, reveals all the Russian images and stock characteristics Hélène had collected and collated when she had envisioned Russia; while the imagined planetary woman of Aliocha, showcases just how out of place the conscript is within the grit reality of military service. Maylis de Kerangal prose is the true gem of the novel, however, which is pitch perfectly translated by Jessica Moore. The sentences skip with breathtaking speed, a parade of images which remain airy and ethereal, never becoming excessive or voluble, teetering on the void of superfluous loquacious meaninglessness, and are stitched together with seamless perfection. “Eastbound,” is a gem of human drama. A mastery of narrative which strikes a balance of beautiful prose with compelling narrative, an absolute pleasure to read.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary