Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

This book damned near broke my heart. It's amazing.



I saw the film, it was great. Kate and Leo Dio were wonderful and I really do appreciate the fact that their being reunited on screen could finally halt the terrible rumours that They Don't Like Each Other, and Hated Each Other While Filming Titanic - because their combined gloriousness in the film of this book is undeniable. Cheers guys.




But Richard Yates' original novel from 1961 is on a whole other level. At this stage I'll confess that I did read this book because it was set for the uni course I'm tutoring in. And if any of my students ever read this and use my blatant expressions of love for Revolutionary Road to write essays I'll agree with, I say good on ya and just remember to cite this blog correctly :)

I hate to say that I think Revolutionary Road was ahead of it's time, but it was impossible to shake that feeling whilst reading it. We're now used to existential critiques of Modern Suburban Living in the 50s and movies/ tv/ books about the terrible alienating plight of the Housewife but Yates' novel is so insightful and clear and tragic it really is amazing to think it was only published in 61, before it got groovy with capital F feminism and before postmodernity made everyone pop culture nihilists. The 50s and early 60s in most art and literature were still the celebration of the lone-wolf white guys but Yates, with an wonderfully gentle and non-judgemental touch turns his eyes towards the looming specture of suburbia in the US and a young married couple fighting it's dehumanising influence.



Most of Revolutionary Road focuses on Frank Wheeler, with illuminating interjections from a few other characters thoughts and feelings, and tellingly it is not until the devastating conclusion of the novel that the reader is given any direct insight into April Wheeler's mind. The Wheelers are very human and are drawn so perfectly that though I went through many different types of feeling about them, practically feeling all the feelings that there are, I always felt FOR them most strongly of all. And Yates keeps his characters thoughts ambiguous and their behaviour troubling, we're supposed to have a bit of distance as readers. We're supposed to feel part of the same alienation from each other and from this occasionally disappointing world as Frank and April do.

As ever I am conscious of spoilers so I won't delve further into details of the plot. There are a few very interesting and important changes between the film and the novel so don't miss out on reading it even if you've seen the excellent version on the silver screen. You should definitely read this book, whoever you are. But I guess especially if you're one of my students. Yates is a revelation to me as an American author, he's so wry, brutal where he needs to be, and has an unfailing honest and wonderful empathetic style. I wish all stories could be told this way.

*****/***** (5 stars)

The Anthologist - Nicholson Baker

This is an extremely clever book, and for the most part it's a good read and a decent dose of what I sometimes like to call The Fun. The Anthologist by Nicolson Baker is a novel about a poet, Paul Chowder (which is a pretty awesome name), who is struggling to write an introduction to a poetry collection about the importance of rhyme. Paul is a little bit famous, and a lot lazy and as a narrator he provides an interesting, discursive history of his thinking about poetry and it's constituent parts. There are some really lovely moments in the book - the parts on baby talk, how iambic pentameter has a built in invisible rest, and the section where they go blueberry picking I really enjoyed and where of course, extremely 'poetic'. Baker has a lovely ambling style of writing as well and it was very pleasant spending time with his novel.

I am a bit worried that I enjoyed it because I’m so often immersed in lit theory as part of my job that I’ve become the sort of person who finds being lectured about the mechanics of poetic feet and rhyme for the length of an entire novel not only commonplace but insanely interesting when a dog or some blueberry-picking is added. This peculiarity in me as a reader aside, I'm sure many people will balk slightly, as I did, at the high-school flashbacks induced by much of the poetry talk. And there was definitely a feeling that oozed through the quieter moments of The Anthologist that the book was really an exercise in showing how clever and witty the writer is. Maybe I’m wrong, I kind of hope so – but intellectual snobbery, even in a book about an intellectual snob of a poet, is never alright with me.

So I know this review has a few mixed messages. It’s to be expected, I’m a Gemini. But it also can’t really be avoided - the book was both entertaining and painful, lyrical and preacherly, poetic and pedestrian. But I learnt stuff, and the writing itself, if you ignore the intellectual baggage, was undeniably well-crafted and engaging. Maybe someone else can make more sense of their feelings about The Anthologist.

***/***** (Three of Five Stars)

Down and Dirty - Sandra Hill

The thing is, I love vikings. Look here's some vikings now... what's not to like??


I also love time-travel. And romance books. And not only am I not ashamed, but I very strongly suspect a lot of people out there like any or all of these things too. So I cannot not do this reveiw. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't bring Down and Dirty to this blog. It's the fifth book by Sandra Hill that revolves around a family of vikings and a bunch of Navy SEALS. A very winning combination, as you can imagine.


This one was not my favourite of the series- that honour goes to the first one I read, though the third in this series Rough and Ready, because in that one the Navy SEALS (one of whom was already a time-travelling viking) accidently travel through a wormhole in time while on one of their missions and land in a viking women's sanctuary. HILARIOUS UNWASHED HIJINX ENSUE. Down and Dirty is pretty great too though, this time one of the warrior women from the sanctuary travels forward in time and becomes a Navy WHEAL (maybe it's too obvious if I tell you that that's the female equivalent of the SEAL) and finally gets it on with a SEAL hottie called Zach but known as Pretty Boy who was crushin on her back in the Norselands of her time. This should all be enough to convince you if you're ever going to be the sort to be convinced. They're really funny and the sex scenes aren't as stupid as a lot of romance books. Plus vikings and time-travel, there's something for everyone.

Here is the link to the author's website - she likes vikings too and I particularly like the way she names her books http://www.sandrahill.net/

***^/***** (3.5 stars)

Arthur & George - Julian Barnes

In my own mind this particular review has been too long anticipated. Mostly because I've taken way too long to read it - I read every single other book I've blogged about here since starting Arthur & George, (except The Life of Charlotte Bronte which I read while I was waiting for Mum was finish the Barnes book early this year). The other reason is that I've been talking about this book to any and everyone with ears since reading the first sentence. I've been a big fan of Julian Barnes' since I read A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters a couple of years ago and fell in love with his writing. Then I found England, England and a book of short stories The Lemon Table, while only a fraction of Barnes' very substantial literary output which fully I intend to read through one day, further solidified my barnacle-like attachment to his way of storytelling.



This book is going to receive my first five-star rating on this blog. Since we try and rate as fairly as possible, some of you may stop reading this review at this point and skip below to the Robert Downey Jr pictures. As long as you understand how great Arthur & George is and use the time saved by exiting at this early point to go out and find/read/love this book I will be satisfied. For those of you either harder to convince or who are so enamoured of my blogging that you hang on Every Word I Type, let's break this claim of extreme excellence down -

Arthur & George is based on the true story of the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I was sold on this book as soon as I realised that HE was the Arthur of the title) and a man called George Edalji. Sir Arthur is plagued by his most successful creation - Sherlock Holmes - and the fame the great detective has brought him.



George is a country solicitor who struggles to gain the respect of his colleagues and to gain an audience for his book about railway law. He's also been receiving some hate mail and the police don't like him very much. The two men's paths cross when George is arrested for a really horrible crime and Arthur decides to play the part of detective for real. It really was a landmark event for the English justice system as George's case, called the 'Great Wryly Outrages', became a catalyst for the establishment of the Court of Criminal Appeal in England. There's a lot more going on than a law case in Arthur & George, though that's what brings the titular characters together and changes both their lives. I loved the illumination of Arthur's growing interest in Spiritualism and George's struggle with his own Christian faith and the many other paralells and divergences of character between them - but I especially love the gentle touch of the writing that reveals without judgment the social experience of two men who were, for very different reasons, seen as different and seperate from those around them.

It's hard to convey without the same gifts for writing, the subtlety and humour of Barnes' language and the way he way he builds his extraordinary story - which feels more like looking through a wormhole in time that Being John Malkovich style puts you inside the character's brains than the result of really good scholarship. I don't want to say any more because Arthur & George is a a mysterious, cloudy jem of a book and I don't want to give any more of it away. I love this book. You should all read it. NOW.

*****/***** (5 of 5!)

Here's another picture of RDJ as Sherlock Holmes and his buddy Watson, played by Jude Law - just because I can. What a fine film it was.

The Green Dwarf, A Tale of the Perfect Tense - Charlotte Bronte

Guys, I seriously love this book. It's even better than the title suggests it could be and by gum does it suggest a lot.


It's a piece of Bronte juvenilia and it shows - everywhere the marks and illusions of the fictive worlds the Bronte siblings, and specifically in The Green Dwarf Branwell and Charlotte - created and inhabited in their youth.

It's kinda clunky in bits and the courtroom scene at the end is just odd, just as the resolution of the plot is definitely a bit deus ex machina-tastic, but the rawness of it is very engaging and I found myself entirely drawn in by the action and the romance-suspense-war narrative arc triumvirate. It was great to read this having already experienced the mature literary mastery of Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre, as in this so-early work I could really feel the full effect of her playfulness, charm and wit unencumbered by the writerly techniques and skills she developed later. I don't mean that to sound snotty or patronising - Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are unquestionably brilliant and I love them hugely but there is definitely something very refreshing and not a little bit endearing in engaging with the cavalier and romantic world of a Bronte's comparatively happy childhood. Plus The Green Dwarf is hilarious and so ridiculous it's the least boring kind of Romanticism there is.

Not much more to say about this one except to recommend it highly if you want to experience a lot of Bronte in-jokes, some chivalry, some dastardliness, some mysterious cloaked strangers of varying heights, some stabbings, some smooching and some fun old times.

***^/***** (Three and a half stars)

Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis

Never fear, I have many more Bronte books to unleash like child-crackens upon this blog - but even I can get bored of the amazingness of that family and long for a change of scene and society. I wasn't quite prepared for Bret Easton Ellis' debut novel Less Than Zero though. I think the cover of this book tricked me by provoking happy David Hockey swimming pool thoughts like this -



whereas actually what this book makes you feel like is this -



This is actually an image from the 1987 film made of Easton Ellis' book, which I haven't seen and I'm not sure if I could bear it now - even though it has my future husband Robert Downey Jr in it. It's my own fault, the Bronte sisters tenderised me and I've never read any of Easton Ellis' books before or managed to develop anything more than a vague idea about what they might be like. Less than Zero is like an 80s version of one of my favourite books Catcher in the Rye, just without as much verbal roguishness, Robbie Burns references or good headwear. I wish I had been the first to make the comparison between Easton Ellis' and Salinger's teenage-angst-coming-of-age stories because that would have been amazing of me and I could die happy but it's actually so obvious it could easily have been a deliberate 'update' on the classic by the younger writer. The title was taken from an Elvis Costello song that attacks the conservative politics of England in the 1970s by making nasty comments, and rightly so, about a butt-headed English fascist from the 1930s called Oswald Mosely. Both song and novel are concerned with a world in chaos, and the often disastrous consequences of materialist culture. In fact the David Hockney allusion on the cover of the edition I read may be quite appropriate in it's hyper-real, luscious, perky-bottomed other-worldliness...

Less than Zero is about an eighteen year old guy called Clay who has come home to Los Angeles after living in New England for four months. He is beautiful, bored and ridiculously wealthy, as are all of his friends - they do a lot of drugs, have sex with everyone regardless of their age or issues of consent, look at a few dead bodies, watch porn and snuff films, do more drugs, have more sex, there's a dalliance with prostitution, trips to the grandparents summer house, some eating disorders and lots and lots of nihilistic angst. Surprise, surprise, it's a critique on consumer culture! Easton Ellis was 21 at the time this book was published and from what I've read about the author significant episodes of Less than Zero are autobiographical. The anger and despair that presents as the apathy of the narrator feels real. It's a good and useful book. It marks a scary moment of excess and dissipation in capitalism. It's just really unpleasant to read because it's so unrelenting - because the narrator isn't a hopeful existentialist like Sartre or even Holden Caulfield but is instead more akin to the depressed blackboard in Mr Squiggle. And there's no comic relief! Easton Ellis is a talented writer though, and it's certainly a memorable novel but that doesn't mean I could ever bring myself to like Less Than Zero. He also announced that a sequel called Imperial Bedrooms, focussing on the same characters now middle aged, will be published in May this year - hopefully it'll be slightly more uplifting on the philosphical front, though I imagine the bottoms wont be quite as perky.


**/***** (Two stars out of five for freaking me out).

Literary Tattoos

Does everyone know about this site? It's pretty neat!

Contrariwise Literary Tattoos - http://www.contrariwise.org/

My favourite tattoo on Contrariwise - a nod to the Marauders :)