What I've Been Reading

So, I've been trying to read Scottish books while I'm here, and extremely conveniently Aye Write (Glasgow's book festival) created a list of two books from each decade called Scotland's Bookshelf.  I've been working my way through the most recent decades with some sidelines back to murder mysteries and other novels just to keep things interesting.

Young Adam by Alexander Trocchi (also a movie with Ewan McGregor) is a bleak novel from the 1950s, quite reminiscent of The Stranger by Albert Camus.  The protagonist, Joe, narrates a drifting story about the accidental death of an old girlfriend and the subsequent trial where an innocent man is accused of her killing, interspersed with his loveless affair with his boss's wife.  Similar to Camus, Trocchi seems to be showing the lack of reason and purpose in life, following the aburdism beliefs that people seek meaning even though there is none to be found.  If you like dark novels that depict the randomness of life, this is one for you.  (side note:  Joe works on a barge that transports goods on the canals where I now bike on the trails alongside of them)

The classic The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark was one of the picks for the 1960s.  Although I read this book years ago, it was interesting to read it again after being a teacher for so many years.  Miss Brodie's attempt to select and foster an elite set of girls seems incredibly elitist to the modern reader.  Yet, set in the 1930s, Miss Brodie's attempts to encourage her girls to pursue intellectual lives would have made her a radical and a feminist.  Her other attempts to encourage them into premarital affairs could also be conceived as radical and feminist for the times, but seem too manipulative to warrant any excuse.  The cult of personality still exists in many classrooms, arising the question of should students love their teacher or love the subject?  This novel reveals the world of Edinburgh private schooling and provides complex and flawed character development of both the protagonist and her girls.

One of the picks for the 1970s was also set in an earlier time.  Docherty by William McIlvanney tells the tale of a miner and his family in an epic span through the first half of the twentieth century.  Tam Docherty, a larger-than-life figure, wants more for himself and his family than a life of poverty and debasement.  His courage and strength make him a natural leader, yet he is unable to articulate what he wants.  Torn between traditions and his desire for something better, Docherty fulfills his classic hero role with its inevitable result.  This novel is filled with Scots language giving a true portrait of a Scottish miner's struggles and hopes.  As McIlvanney was the son of a miner, the realism comes from the source.  A novel that gives a sympathetic depiction of miners, I recommend it if you want to learn more about that aspect of Scottish life.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (a pick from the 1980s) is one of the many novels I've read with a Asperger's style narrator.  Maybe Banks just meant to portray Frank as a cold-blooded killer and I've just become a product of the seemingly ubiquitous diagnosis of Asperger's, but regardless the main character describes his life in a flat, unemotional tone which makes what he is doing seem logical and natural.  Despite the harsh subject matter, this book is a great read since its descriptions of Frank provide a creepily compelling look inside the brain of very odd person.  The twist at the end explains some of Frank's issues, but does not excuse his actions.  If you can stomach violence with no remorse, I think this book is excellent with its strange horror and intense characterization.

A break from bleakness and betrayal, The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell (Irish, not Scottish) uses the in vogue literary techniques of multiple narrators and connected stories in different time frames.  A story both about Lexie, a girl who escapes her narrow, 1950s, suburban existence for London, where she loves a married man and becomes a journalist and about Elina and Ted, a couple who in modern day are struggling with the demands of parenthood.  A easy read about these two couples and their lives, this book was fun to read.

Continuing my delving into less harsh stories, I read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who went on to write The Hundred and One Dalmatians based on her own dalmatian and a friend's comment about how the dog would make a lovely fur coat).  This book, a beloved classic in the UK, describes a quirky family struggling to get by in their rented English castle in the early 1930s.  The family (father, a writer who hasn't written anything since his first ground-breaking novel; step-mother, a beautiful artists' model who dotes on her unproductive husband; and three children, a school-age boy and two daughters of marriageable age) could have arisen from a modern Jane Austen novel, especially when two brothers appear on the scene who could save the family from its penury.  What saves this book from its romance novel is the use of narrator.  Written as though Cassandra (the younger sister)  is writing a book about her life as practice for becoming a novelist, Cassandra's humor and bewilderment as she navigates late adolescence, love, parents, and poverty makes the story come alive.  Its tempered happy ending also creates a story that is not only a page turner but also realistic.  Definitely stands the test of time, and I see why many Brits love this book.

Finally, a dabble back to the Americas.  Still on the light side, The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards (who also wrote The Memory Keeper's Daughter, another good book) delves into the complexity of parent/child and sibling relationships once all involved are adults.  The main character returns home from her international wanderings and finds that her mother and brother have new lives and don't necessarily need or want her advice on how to live them.  Inter-tangled in Lucy's attempts to   salvage old and forge new relationships with people from her past, she begins a search for an ancestor who has been purged from her family's history.  Unravelling this mystery allows Lucy to determine her own path.  A great read which I highly recommend.

What I've Been Reading

As many of you know, I am a HUGE reader. I read to relax, to avoid my own life, to live vicariously, to laugh and cry, and sometimes, when I'm very lucky I read just to let the beauty of the words wash over me. So, with some extra free time (not having to work), I've been reading a lot. Below are books that some others might be interested in reading also. Enjoy!

Ian Rankin is the UK’s number one crime author. He has written a series with Inspector Rebus whose personal demons rank close to Harry Hole (from Jo Nesbo’s series based in Oslo – found him after I became obsessed with Stieg Larsson of Girl with Dragon Tattoo fame), as in both are tortured souls. The first two novels from the series show the underbelly of Edinburgh, so after seeing the sanitized, tourist version, I enjoyed seeing the other side (vicariously of course!). The first novel, Knots and Crosses, deals mostly with Rebus’s past and is good, but I preferred the second one, Hide and Seek, which predicted a real-life Edinburgh scandal of the police protecting influential men involved with male prostitutes, proving that truth is stranger than fiction or you can’t make this s**t up. Anyway, if you like crime novels like those written by Elizabeth George and Patricia Cornwell, I think you will also like Ian Rankin.

Another famous Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith, best known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, also wrote a series set in Edinburgh called 44 Scotland Street. I read the first book of this series, which has the same title as the series. A fun, though light, read about post-college, flat mates who stumble along through life, generally not living up to their parents’ or own expectations. Some humorous parts help move along the plot, which included finding a lost Samuel Peploe painting (a weird connection was after reading this book, the boys and I saw a Peploe that was in storage at a museum in Glasgow).

Looking for Scottish writing closer to home led me to Denise Mina, who grew up in Glasgow and wrote a trilogy that takes place in the West End, which is our neighborhood of Glasgow. I’ve read the first book so far, Garnethill and really enjoyed the mentions of places I know now. I just started the second one Exile, which continues with the dark threads of incest, domestic abuse and murder but with a bumbling, likeable protagonist to make the seamy side of life bearable. Another fun aspect of these books is the Scottish slang, e.g. chaffing = knocking on the door (or at least that’s what I could figure out through context).

On to the Americans, I recently read two great books about immigrants in the US, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok and Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Both books are about young women trying to navigate a new culture while trying to survive the hardships of poverty and being away from home. Kwok’s book tells about a school-age girl who comes to the US from Hong Kong with her mother after her father dies. Under the supposed patronage of her aunt, who actually tries to hold them back more than help them, the protagonist and her mom try to thrive in a new world. It’s a great tale of a brilliant girl trying to help herself and her family in modern times. Toibin’s book has an older protagonist who is sent to America from Ireland to seek her fortune. There are great characters in this book showing what life was like post-WW2 both in Ireland and in New York. I loved both of these!

Run by Ann Patchett, whom I still adore for writing Bel Canto one of my all-time favorite books, is another great slice of American life. A story about a widower with one ne'er-do-well, birth son and two successful, adopted sons, this book has wonderful characters who you want to sit down and have a chat with. After an accident brings this family into contact with the adoptees’ birth mother and her daughter, you just want to know every nuance of their lives. The only downside is the ending feels a little rushed, which I find is my constant complaint about new books (do the authors get pressured by their publishers to finish or do they just get tired of writing and want it all done?). Here’s an excerpt that describes pain in such beautiful language you almost want to experience it. “She never knew pain could form a light, a bright blinding pool of light. It poured through her. It broke open in her hip and flooded thorough her gut… The pain jarred loose the very deepest part of her heart, a place so secret she never went there herself” (Patchett, Ann. Run. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print.).

Just to plug another excellent book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a great read. I highly recommend it for anyone in the medical profession because it deals with the ethics of research and for everyone else because it shows the inter-twinings of family, class, medicine and race through the story of a woman whose cells have been used in medical research since the 1950s. Absolutely fascinating!