Author Archives: Caroline

On Negative “Reviews”, Bookmark Ripping and Nick Hornby

Posted in Bookish Musings, Books, Cats, Reviews by

In German a slating review is called a “Verriss” which comes from the word “verreissen” – pull to pieces. When I discovered yesterday what the kitty had done to one of the free bookmarks I got in the bookshop, I thought it was somehow apt to use a picture of it for this post.

I’m not the first nor the last who will mention the debate that was raging on Goodreads, Twitter, a few blogs and even in the newspapers last week. Some of the discussions, although heated, were interesting, while others were alienating or downright offensive. In any case they got me thinking about “reviews” in general and “negative reviews” in particular.

The first incident started on Goodreads where a reader posted a negative review of a YA novel (see here). For reasons I do not understand this triggered a massive response from YA novelists who slagged her off collectively. More and more people entered the debate and in the end it looked like some sort of author versus reader war. I have read her review and while it was easy to see that she didn’t like the book, I didn’t think she was offensive. A lot of these debates were going on on blogs and twitter and were picked up by mainstream media like the guardian here. The guardian article then triggered further responses, one from the YA novelist Maggie Stiefvater (here) which annoyed many bloggers but which I personally find very interesting and balanced.

The next incident happened on the page of the speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons where a reviewer posted a very negative review (you can find it here) of a Fantasy novel that many like. This has created a response and an intensity of response I found amazing in itself. I was so captivated I could hardly stop reading. At some point a lot was censored.

Sure, the question comes up whether such heated debates only happen when it comes to genre but I do not think so. When you write literary books you even may end up being torn apart by professional critics which may prove to be more fatal. In the cases mentioned above, there were at least people supporting the author.

Much of the debate was circling around the notion of “proper review” and taking into account what a “proper review” is or should be. It was said that a review can be negative or positive but it shouldn’t manipulate the reader or be guided by intense emotions. With this interpretation of review in mind, it was stated that one shouldn’t write an emotionally charged negative review. If you do so, it’s rather an attack than a review.

I for one do not enjoy writing too negative or snarky book reviews. I have seen too many positive reviews of books I didn’t like on other blogs to find it appropriate to be snarky. Why would I want to ridicule a book? That’s like ridiculing someone’s taste in books. Very often I find that negative reviews are not balanced and are used to make the reviewer look good. They often work along the same lines and are aggressive and offensive. They also often rely on saying negative things about the author and ultimately about his readers.

Still this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t say what we like or don’t like but there is always so much that works in a book anyway or that we know will work for others that we should try to emphasize it. I have found wonderful books through someone else’s careful and thoughtful negative review.

Last week, instead of reading The Savage Detectives, I spent a lot of time with Nick Hornby’s wonderful essay collection Housekeeping vs The Dirt which he wrote for the magazine Believer. One of their mottos, as he writes is Thou Shalt Not Slag Anyone Of. As he explains further

As I understand it, the founders of the magazine wanted one place, one tiny corner of the world, in which writers could be sure that they weren’t going to get a kicking; predictably and depressingly, this ambition was mocked mercilessly, mostly by those critics whose children would go hungry if their parent’s weren’t able to abuse authors whose books they didn’t like much.

When I visit a new blog I read a few posts here and there and I’m very glad if I see the writer has written about books he/she likes and about some he/she doesn’t like and I will pay extra attention when reading negative reviews. Not too long ago I was on a blog who reviewed a book that another blogger had recommended as being particularly great. Said blogger not only hated the book but found it to be insulting his/her intelligence. The blogger went on and on how weird it was that another person did recommend this. He/she took it apart in minute detail, making herself/himself look good and witty in the process and of course that person got a lot of applause. People loved the snark, couldn’t get enough of it. I wonder if anyone else felt as bad as I did. What about the person who did recommend the book (mercifully the name wasn’t given)? Funnily it is a book that I have read and think in its genre it is a very good book. If said blogger only reads romance or even only literary fiction he/she wouldn’t get it and shouldn’t even bother reading it. Reading it and then emphasizing that this isn’t what we would normally read because it is beyond us, is a bit shameful. Maybe the person did sound intelligent, she certainly didn’t sound kind.

There is an instance in which I find a negative review acceptable and that is when the book is morally unacceptable. When it glorifies oppression, racism, sexism, or is a vehicle of harmful propaganda. In that case the negative review could serve as a warning for the reader and is even necessary.

Another instance in which I find it acceptable is when a literary writer who is extremely smug in his utterances about others and dismissive of other’s craft writes something that is bad. In that case you can say, he or she had it coming.

How about you? Do you like to read snarky reviews? Do you write them?

To end on a positive note, here is a picture of  the bookmark ripper and, no, that’s not my bed, excuse me, that’s one of his own. Fluffy and comfy, original Icelandic eider-down.

Everlasting Moments – Eviga Ögonblick (2008) World Cinema Series – Sweden

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At times bitter, at times beautiful, Everlasting Moments by Swedish filmmakerJan Troell is a movie like a painting. Filmed in sepia colored tones, it looks like one of those old photographs from the early 20th century. This is apt and artful at the same time as one of the major topics of the movie is photography. Photography as a means to capture moments, make them everlasting, but also photography as an art form and a source of hope in a bleak existence.

Based on a true story Everlasting Moments tells the story of Maria Larsson. She won a camera in a lottery, stored it somewhere in a cupboard and forgot all about it. Maria is a poor working woman, married to a brutal man, a drinker who hits her and their children. More than once she thinks of leaving him but after having asked the help of her father and been denied any, she slowly gives up. Her father tells her that in the eye of God it is a sin to leave your husband, no matter how he treats you.

Violence leads to her husband being arrested and when he is away, money gets scarce. She decides to sell the camera but Mr Pedersen, the owner of the camera shop, gives her some plates instead, and tells her to use it. What was it that made this gentle man realize that more than money, Maria needed something that would help her survive?

The only times in the movie in which Maria and her children lead a happy life is when the husband is in jail or enlists, when WWI breaks out. Unfortunately, every time, a few weeks after he has come back, she is pregnant again.

It is a slow movie, the shots are captivating, the music is in the background, quiet but underlines the pictures bu still it was hard to watch at times. The husband is so incredibly abusive and when Maria starts to make money with her shots, we do not understand why she stays with him. The same question is asked by her eldest daughter who narrates short parts.

I’m sure in an US movie, she would have left her husband and become a famous photographer. While stories like this do happen as well, the story of Maria Larsson, less grand, more quiet and hidden, is maybe more true to life.

Maria also finds solace in the friendship with Mr Pedersen. He sees the sadness in this woman, the potential and gives her the gift of an art form that will help her see beauty and make a little money. The actors, Maria Heiskanen as Maria, Mikael Persbrandt as her husband and Jesper Christensen as Mr Pedersen, are outstanding in their roles.

I read somewhere that Jan Troell was called a painterly director. This is an excellent expression but in this movie the shots often look like old photographs and are exquisite in all their details.

It was hard to watch how Maria’s man spoilt more than one moment but there was a lot of beauty in the movie. I found it particularly interesting to be reminded of how long it once took to take a picture. How careful you had to be, how complicated it was. Taking pictures was almost meditative, while now, it seems hundreds of images are taken in a very short time, and the process of really looking happens later, when they are sorted out.

Everlasting Moments is part of my World Cinema Series and a contribution to Richard’s Foreign Film Festival.

Henry James: Mme de Mauves (1874)

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It was exactly one year ago that I reviewed Edith Wharton’s Mme de Treymes. Mme de Treymes – Mme de Mauves? Both novellas, both set in Paris, or in the case of Mme de Mauves in St-Germain-en-Laye. It’s hardly a coincidence. And who was influenced by whom is also not hard to find out as James wrote his novella in 1874, while Edith Wharton published Mme de Treymes in 1907.

Henry James and Edith Wharton are both novelists whose each and every book I would like to read sooner or later. Discovering Madame de Mauves of which I hadn’t known anything before was a real pleasure and the first sentences managed to capture me right away.

The view from the terrace at St.Germain-en-Laye is immense and famous. Paris lies spread before you in dusky vastness, domed and fortified, glittering here and there through her light vapours and girdled with her silver Seine. Behind you is a park of stately symmetry, and behind that a forest where you may lounge through turfy avenues and light-chequered glades and quite forget that you are in half an hour of the boulevards. One afternoon, however, in mid-spring, some five years ago, a young man seated at the terrace had preferred to keep this in mind. His eyes were fixed in idle wistfulness on the mighty human hive before him.

Like in Mme de Treymes we have the theme of intercontinental marriage and its difficulties. The young American Longmore, the narrator of Henry James’ novella, meets the beautiful and sad Mme de Mauves on one of his walks in St. Germain. A mutual friend introduces them and before leaving for London asks him to keep her company and distract her, as she is trapped in an unhappy marriage. Mme de Mauves is a young, very rich American woman, married to an aristocratic Frenchman. While she married because she romantically idealized the title, she also married for love, while he married her for the money only. It is known that he not only spends her money but has one affair after the other.

The more time Longmore  spends in her company, the more he admires her, pities her and finally falls in love with her. He would want her to confide in him but she refuses. As much as he is in love with her, he would never attempt anything and is taken aback when her sister-in-law suggests they should have an affair. It’s only natural, according to the sister-in-law, for a Frenchman to have affairs but it isn’t natural for a woman to make him one scene after the other and to torment him with reproaches. In an earlier conversation with Longmore, M de Mauves complains about his wife. He thinks that she is too morbid, to fond of reading and solitude.

A lot of what we find in James’ later novels can already be found here. The contrast of morals between France and America, the almost impossibility of a marriage between a rich American and an aristocratic Frenchman. Adultery. Divorce seems no option although Longmore hopes so at a certain point. I think it would be really great to read Wharton’s and James’ novella together. Both have drastic and surprising endings but in the case of Mme de Mauves, I’m not sure whether it isn’t surprising because it is implausible. If anyone has read the novella I’d love to discuss the ending.

It seems that of all of his novels The Golden Bowl is the most similar to this novella, although, without the tragic end. The negotiation that fails in Mme de Mauve is successful in The Golden Bowl, or so it seems. I have not read the Golden Bowl yet but would like to very much.

The writing in Mme de Mauves is complex, typical for James, it’s by far less readable than Mme de Treymes.

While this may not be his best work, it has reminded me of all I like in his writing and has certainly put me in the mood for another of his longer novels.

Has anyone read Mme de Mauves? Which are your favourite Henry James novels? Portrait of a Lady is one of my favourite novels but I also like many of his other books with the exception of The Turn of the Screw. I didn’t get along with that at all.

Drive – The Book by James Sallis (2006) and The Movie by Nicolas Winding Refn (2011)

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James Sallis’ taut neo-noir novel Drive is nothing if not surprising. All the more so should you have seen the movie first and now want to read the novel. I had barely finished the book when I watched the movie and it was extremely interesting to see what and how they changed it. I don’t want to spoil the fun for those who have read the book first and have not seen the movie yet. I will just mention a few differences.

Sallis’ book is extremely well-crafted and has an interesting structure. I know I will read it again, just because of that. The story can be summarized in a few sentences. At the beginning of the book we see Driver in a pool of blood, three dead bodies next to him. How he got there and why will be revealed in bits and pieces during the novel. The story jumps backwards and forwards in time, only revealing a little in each chapter. The chapters can be read like short stories. They work on their own. This structure and the way information is given, only in the smallest of slices, exemplifies one of the main themes of the book.

Life sends us messages all the time – then sits around laughing over how we’re not gonna be able to figure them out.

Driver is a stunt driver for the movies. He is the best. Driving is what he knows best. His reputation is such that he is contacted by some criminals and hired as the driver for getaway cars in robberies. Driver is non-colloquial to the extent that even his delinquent bosses are stunned. Try to be more mono-syllabic and you’d be reduced to complete silence. Driver doesn’t want to know details. He drives. Period. And tells you that. In very short sentences.

Driver and many other people stay nameless all through the book which symbolizes a lot and mirrors an element of his childhood.

Mostly, when she spoke to him at all, she just called him boy. Need any help with the schoolwork, boy? Got enough clothes, boy? You like those little cans of tuna for lunch, right, boy? and crackers?

With a mother like that no wonder Driver never really attaches any meaning to his name or is much interested in elaborate conversation. This doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in people or relationships. He tries to be with people, he does contact people and hang out with them. He even takes care of some. Despite this lack in open communication, Driver’s interior life is far from empty. Passages like the one below are frequent in the novel.

Driver marvelled at the power of our collective dreams. Everything gone to hell, the two oft them become running dogs, and what do they do? They sit there watching a movie.

It’s rare that I’m this fascinated by a crime novel, this amazed by the writing. After having finished it, I could hardly wait to see the movie.

Maybe it’s lucky book and movie do not have a lot in common. Some story lines that are not very important in the book, have a major importance in the movie. The movie has nothing of the staccato rhythm of storytelling of the novel but delivers the story chronologically, leaving out everything about Drivers’ childhood and developing a major love story.

I didn’t mind those liberties at all because you can see book and movie as two separate things, one serving as a draft to the other. This is one of those movies I see myself re-watching many times. I absolutely loved it and one of the major reasons for that is the soundtrack. This is one of those glossy movies in which picture, story, actors and score form a tight whole and each part is perfect. Remove or change one thing and it would crumble. What I liked best was the extremely soulful, almost dreamlike atmosphere the soundtrack created, those beautiful pictures of the illuminated L.A. skyline at night and the surprisingly tender love story. I have often issues with the cast but it’s perfect in this movie. I couldn’t imagine a better Driver than Ryan Gosling or a better person for Irina than Carey Mulligan.

With a director like Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising) it was to be expected that the movie would be visually compelling but not shy away from graphic scenes and strong violence.

You can watch this movie, see the differences with the book and still like it, and you can still admire the book as well.

Probably still under the influence of the movie, I haven’t done the book enough justice. If you want to read more focussed reviews, Guy reviewed it here (that’s the one that made me discover the book) and Max reviewed it here.

Thanks to the major success of this film the books by Sallis are now reissued. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Ghost of a Flea. The re-release is due in May 2012.

World Cinema Series and Foreign Film Festival

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I realize this is awkward and a bit funny. I did already kick off my series last week but I never wrote a proper introduction because I didn’t think anyone would join. Meanwhile there have been two introductory posts, one by Novroz (Polychrome Interest) here and one by TBM (5o Year Project) here and quite a few people who said they would like to join us as well as you can see on the World Cinema Series Pages.

As a result, the World Cinema Series is now officially an event and you can sign up on the page which I will amend slightly, adding parts of this post.

Coincidentally Richard (Caravana de recuerdos) has started a Foreign Film Festival on his blog which is open to interested participants as well.

Just a few words on the “rules”, similarities and differences of our events.

I will, as I stated already, review up to two movies per month and add the review links to my page. The aim is to take a trip around the world in movies. This means I’m personally interested in movies that open a door to another culture. I wouldn’t review a Turkish crime movie that is set in the US. Not sure that exists but you get the idea. However I will review a German movie whose topic is Cambodia and I also plan on reviewing documentaries. But this is my interpretation. If you like fantasy movies and want to explore how different countries handle this in different ways, that’s a neat interpretation as well. All a participant has to do is link to my page and add a comment with the link to their review so I can add it. I will try to do an occasional wrap up post but nothing scheduled.

I’m glad if anyone has suggestions. I’m not very familiar with African filmmaking for example.

Richard’s Foreign Film Festival, in which I will participate as well, works a bit differently. Foreign is interpreted depending on your country of origin. No French movies for the French. You can sign up with Richard here and post links to your reviews on his blog. While I will just collect links, Richard will do a monthly wrap-up. The two projects are really two faces of the same medal. Movies can be entered on both sites.

What we decided off-line is that we will maybe organize the one or the other watchalong. The movies will be announced early on and we will post our reviews and discuss the movies on a set date. Suggestions are welcome.

At the end of the year  I will give away a DVD to the person who has managed to cover the most countries. Old reviews are not considered as an entry.

Other introductions

Dhitz

Here are the links to all the reviews

 

Ann Patchett: The Getaway Car (2011) A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life

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In one of her wonderful Friday Five Series Jacquelin Cangro mentioned Ann Patchett’s essay The Getaway Car that is only available in e-book format. How lucky I just got a kindle for Christmas and could put it into use for the first time. I’m really grateful to Jacquelin for mentioning this essay as it may very well be one of the most wonderful pieces on writing that I have read in a long time. On some 50 pages Ann Patchett combines memoir with some advice that is useful to anyone who has ever thought of writing or who was interested in the process of writing. All the fans of Ann Patchett will love this little book as well, I’m sure. I haven’t read anything by Ann Patchett so far but I certainly will sooner or later.

There were a few elements in this book that I would like to mention, still, the take home message from this post should be – go and read it for yourself. It’s brilliant.

Ann Patchett writes about those wonderful pictures we have in our mind and as soon as we start to write them down, they start to look pale. Like pierced butterflies in display cases. What we need in order to over come the disappointment of not being able to capture our own images is forgiveness.

I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.

She writes about inspiration and that one of the most important works for her was Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg – The Magic Mountain that she read when she was very young.

I think what influences in literature comes less from what we love and more from what we happen to pick up in a moment when we are especially open.

She loved it so much that all of her own novels reproduce that basic plot of

a group of strangers being thrown together by circumstances and form a society in confinement.

She also writes about writing chronologically, about chapters and pacing and writer’s block which doesn’t exist, according to her. She does write about MFA’s and whether it is possible to learn creative writing. This is especially interesting for Europeans who, I think, frown when they hear someone has taken courses in creative writing or even acquired a MFA.

Something I found valuable as well is her take on research.

As much as I love doing research, I also know that it provides a spectacular place to hide. It’s easy to convince myself that I can’t start to write my book until I’ve read ten other books, or gone to ten other places and the next thing I know a year has gone by.

Here lies the answer to why she thinks there is no such thing as writer’s block but procrastination.

It’s a short essay but it’s very well written and contains a world of valuable suggestions and stories of her own life.

Amor Towles: Rules of Civility (2011)

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This is the reason why I always look forward to new releases because ever so often you discover a new book and simply enjoy it to the extent of wanting to start all over again after finishing it. This doesn’t always have to be a book that will enter the literary canon, it can just be a novel that makes you spend a few extremely entertaining hours. Like a well-made movie.

If you want to get the proper feel for Rules of Civility, you should listen to Billie Holiday singing Autumn in New York below. As Katey Kontent, the books narrator and main character, rightly says, every city has its season and for New York that seems to be autumn. And this book is all about New York in the 30s, its atmosphere, the Jazz Clubs, the lifestyle of the upper classes, drinking champagne and Martini’s, party going. It also made me think of Hopper’s famous painting Nighthawks, melancholic looking people at a bar late at night. When I visited Amor Towles website, I discovered that that’s exactly what he had in mind.

But what ultimately made me love this book was the narrator and main character, Kate Kontent. She is witty and intelligent, quick at repartee, full of wisdom. No wonder this is a highly quotable book. There a so many bon mots in it I could have copied one after the other. And I like a character who loves reading and makes you want to dash out and get the books she talks about. At the beginning of the novel, she reads Dickens and then moves on to Agatha Christie, overcoming her prejudice about mysteries and discovering a world of comfort and justice.

Rules of Civility tells the story of one year in the life of Katey Kontent. The novel begins in 1966 when Katey and her husband see the photo of a shabby looking Tinker Grey in an exhibition. Tinker who was one of the famous Wall-Street bankers. She knew Tinker and tells her husband so, however she doesn’t tell him how well she knew him. After this short intro the novel rewinds to New Year’s Eve 1937.

On New Year’s Eve 1937 the intelligent and sassy Kate and her best friend and roommate Eve, a gorgeous blonde from the Midwest, sit in a jazz club, waiting for someone to pay them a few glasses of champagne, when the extremely elegant and rich looking Tinker enters the club and they get to know each other.

They get along so well that the three of them hit the town together on many nights until they have a terrible accident. Until this time both women are interested in Tinker for different reasons but it is very obvious who he would like to get to know better. The accident changes everything, their relationships and ultimately it changes the course of their lives.

The year flies by in front of the reader. Katey who was a secretary becomes an assistant for a new glamour magazine, she meets interesting people, has different relationships with men but there are four people, including Eve and Tinker, that are more important than anyone else and although they will drift apart, she will never forget them.

It’s amazing to see these people come to life. At the end of the novel I thought, I had met Kate, Eve and Tinker, Wallace who joins up and fights in the Spanish Civil War and the ever so joyful Dickey. It’s a very artful novel. Towles knows how to create a world that comes to life and thanks to Kate’s incredible sense of repartee the novel is full of great sentences.

The most important theme of the book is making choices that’s why it’s such a melancholic book. As Katey says, even if you make the right choices

I have no doubt that they were the right choices for me. And at the same time, I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes losses.

I could have added a lot of quotes but chose not too. All these sentences are embedded in the novel and are like little gems that we discover while reading and every time I tought “Oh that’s so well said” or “That’s so nicely phrased”. I don’t want to spoil these discoveries for anyone.

I really enjoyed this book, it’s very well written and it would make a wonderful movie.

I discovered the book on Danielle’s blog who reviewed it here. Jacquelin Cangro reviewed it here and Tracey here. Jackie mentioned it here.