With access to cinemas, libraries, pubs, concerts, sports
events, restaurants, festivals, and even barber shops all denied, books take on
added appeal.
Whatever the reader
fancies, just about every topic is covered.
With scientists worldwide scrambling day and night for a
vaccine to cure Covid-19, reading is a proven antidote well-placed to ameliorate
the horrible negative called “lockdown.”
As well as their variety of subject matter, books are
versatile in other ways.
When the sun
shines, a book is the best companion to sitting in the clear fresh air; and likewise
if the elements dictate being cocooned indoors, reading is an ideal diversion.
Although it wasn’t apparent at the time, it was a novel
which may turn out to be uncannily prescient that kicked off my 2020 perfect
vision year.
Set in a distant future which
is more like the past, its storyline imagines an outcome stemming from
circumstances prevalent now. Its author
is the dependable Robert Harris. Watch
this space.
Before elaborating, however, let me start with three
other novels.
Just as the Government declared a belated state of
emergency in the UK, companies were panic-selling shares and shoppers raided
supermarkets panic-buying beer and toilet rolls.
Being in one such retail outlet at that time,
my response was to seek solace and calm among its dwindling bookshelves.
Some page-turning fiction would help to deal
with mad panic and might prevent me from losing the plot.
Three titles stood out, new in paperback.
The first was “One Good Deed” by the prolific American
thriller-writer David Baldacci; the second was “Nothing Ventured” by the former chairman of the Conservative Party
Jeffrey Archer; and the third was “The
Girl Who Lived Twice” written by Sweden’s David Lagercrantz.
I picked Baldacci’s latest based on familiarity with some
of his previous books, even though that was some years ago. His other appeal was that this new one was a
solid-looking novel, at 600 pages a chunky fistful for adapting to solitary confinement. This is a literary sentence.
Jeffrey Archer, whose political page-turners I enjoyed in
the past, had disappeared off my reading radar for more than a couple of decades.
This was at least in part because of misdemeanours that resulted in his
incarceration in 2001 for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
The attraction of Lagercrantz was that despite my
resistance to the idea of another author taking on the mantle of the wonderful Stieg
Larsson and his acclaimed Millennium Trilogy, this would be an opportune time
to open my mind and test out the heir of a specific brand of Nordic Noir.
At the time of purchase any connection between the three
novels didn’t occur to me. All I wanted
was books to wrap my attention.
In
retrospect, it may be that an instinct for nostalgia was secretly operating
without my knowledge, controlling my subconscious shopping choices. Maybe like comfort food. Not being a psychologist and ignorant of
syndromes, however, I’m unqualified to comment.
In any event, Baldacci remains a redoubtable exponent of
American crime fiction.
The cover-note
describes “One Good Deed” as a shift for the author from the contemporary to
what it calls a historical setting.
It’s
a tale set in the year of my birth about the survival of a parolee, who had
been wrongly convicted.
This was an
appropriate way to begin day one of my sequestration and enforced captivity.
Archer (coincidentally the same surname as Baldacci’s
central character) the author, wiser from experience, still knows how to insert
twists of plot and character to enthral.
That includes some dramatic Court proceedings in this story.
The
suspense continues right up to and including the final sentence of “Nothing Ventured.”
The joy of Lagercrantz was the renewal of acquaintance
with memorable fictional characters - Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander
among others - flaws and all.
That along
with the evocative place-names of Stockholm - the city which gave me my first
taste of employment and the birthplace of my eldest daughter - was a source of pent-up
suspense and ultimately of pleasant recall.
Reminders were everywhere of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.
The same applies to the industry of
literature which emanated from Nordic lands on Stieg’s coattails. I may just have to bury the axe and read
Lagercrantz’s first two follow-up novels of Larsson’s inventiveness.
Pandemic or no, who doesn’t enjoy a well-written book,
fact or fiction, whatever is going on out there?
Professional reviewers of books (as well as
authors) have filled many column inches since early April with recommendations
of titles and genres of books to get us through the crisis.
Unsurprisingly, humour features as readers
are judged to need cheering up.
In which case, I was surprised by the omission from the funny
lists that crossed my eyes of two authors whose works make me laugh more than
most others.
One is a Swedish novelist,
the other is an English travel-writer whose mother was Irish.
Two decades ago, the travel-writer Pete McCarthy
published two of the funniest non-fiction books I know.
His début in 2000 was “McCarthy’s Bar” followed by “The
Road to McCarthy.”
The first is an
affectionate and hilarious portrait of “a rapidly changing country,” Ireland;
and the second pursues the clan history and far-flung Irish connections as he
travels widely to places such as Montserrat, Tasmania, Morocco, and New
York. Brilliant travel-writing.
Sadly the newly in-vogue phrase, Life’s too Short,
applies to Pete as he passed away in 2004, aged only 52.
My vote for the funniest fiction takes me back to Sweden.
It may lack alliteration, but the work
of Jonas Jonasson is the polar opposite of Noir. His is Nordic Blanc, I would
contend – try Baltic Blanc.
Apart from an
unerring ability to create unique levels of absurdity and daring-do, Jonas has
a penchant for long titles.
His début was the succinctly-named “The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and
Disappeared.”
The story produces
unexpected bonuses relating to the centenarian’s important role in momentous
historical events of the twentieth century.
Subsequent novels by Jonasson include “The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden” and “Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All.” All hit the funny bone.
People’s tastes vary.
There’s more to lockdown life than comfort food and humour, important as
they both are. Allow me to make a case
to make in favour of books which will resonate with readers with added impact during
an emergency for other reasons.
Three recent
such titles which I can’t ignore come to mind.
The story-lines are all completely different from each other and
likewise with the styles of prose.
“Cilka’s
Journey” by New Zealander Heather Morris is an epic tale of
survival, based closely on a true story, about the harrowing inhumanity of
Stalinism and the Russian gulags. Published last October, it is her follow-up
to her renowned début “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”
Whereas the premise and setting may appear to be (and
are) alarming, the author’s skill ensures that the story of Cilka unfolds paradoxically.
Instead of unremitting bleakness, it inspires
hope as an example of the human spirit’s capacity to resist the worst imaginable
excesses of adversity and injustice. Never
Say Die. It puts our contemporary tribulations
into a context.
Another recent novel is so good that it won the 2019
Booker Prize.
Bernadine Evaristo’s modern
and often funny take on Britain today “Girl,
Woman, Other” tells the stories of twelve people, mostly black and mostly
women.
Her themes include immigration,
feminism, LBGTQI, blending in and cultural identity.
June’s global protests about racial prejudice
add immediacy and poignancy to this superb work.
As promised and finally, I give you Robert Harris latest
book.
“The Second Sleep” was published last autumn in hardback as were Cilka
and Girl Woman Other. All three pre-date
Covid-19. 
Harris’s earlier “The Fear Index” is set against the background of the banking collapse 2007/8; and his “Conclave” recounts an intriguing story about a fictional and believable papal election.
The Second Sleep is set in an era several hundred years
distant, where people live a medieval life, marked by a return of religious
observance.
Religion has banned
exploration of the past as heresy, in spite of which illicit uncovering of lost
artefacts like plastics and strange objects bearing the image of a bitten apple
have been unearthed.
Archaeological finds include a mysterious list of
scenarios written by a Nobel prize-winning scientist envisaging a threat to
science-based life, with a dire warning of potential apocalypse.
Climate change, nuclear exchange, computer
failure, and wait for it – a pandemic resistant to vaccine – are cited as
potential factors.
It couldn’t happen – or might it?
©Michael McSorley 2020
Postscript:-
This Covid-19 series now comprises of 5 articles to
date:-
Part 1 (24 March 2020) A Test for Elected Leaders[i]
Part 2 (11 April 2020) Coping with Contagion, a Survival
Strategy.[ii]
Part 3 (30 April 2020) The New Vocabulary[iii]
Part 4 (21 May 2020) Following the Science[iv]
Part 5 (11 June 2020) Beautiful books
[i] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-test-for-elected-leaders.html
[ii] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/coping-with-contagion-survival-strategy.html
[iii] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-new-vocabulary.html
[iv] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/05/following-science.html
Thanks Michael. Have you read Andrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series? Bernie Donahue
ReplyDeleteNo, Bernie, but on your say-so I've added him to my list
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