In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut

Grove Atlantic, 2010

This is a collection of three separate journeys undertaken by a South African traveller, Damon.  The author, Damon Galgut, is South African.  The character, Damon, is a writer.  I'm not sure how much of the work is actually autobiographical, but I imagine that it must be. 

Because what is certain is that the words on the page come from a deeply personal, intimate place.  Damon's travels are isolated and lonely, yet his memories feel familiar.  It is as if a window to a man's soul has been opened, and when you look in, you see yourself standing there.  Author, character and reader form some kind of trinity and there is a sense that it does not matter whether Damon the traveller and Damon Galgut the author are one and the same.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Atlantic, 2008

I should probably focus on reviewing the two remaining books I've earmarked to complete Project Booker but I was in the mood for a bit of comic relief so I scanned my bookshelf, and The White Tiger called out to me.  I thought I heard a wolf-whistle.  Though I've read it before, I responded to its proposition, since it is a champion specimen and we are on the subject of the Man Booker Prize after all.

When The White Tiger pounced upon the Booker 3 years ago, I was delighted.  It is not a dramatic / epic colonial saga by an Indian author that typically finds its way to the shortlist every couple years or so.  For once, a truly humorous novel with a young, modern voice was given the recognition it deserved.  Not satirical humour (though there is that), nothing you have to "get", not clever dry wit, slightly removed - No, this was in-your-face, dark, unadulterated comedy.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

 My copy of On Chesil Beach has this description by the Independent on Sunday on its front cover: "Wonderful...Exquisite...Devastating". I can't think of three words that are more apt for this novel.

This is a monumental endeavour.  Though he makes it look easy, McEwan sets out to capture, in a mere 150 pages (or thereabouts), a turning point.  The separate lives of Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting have brought them to where they are now; we see how they grew up, how they met, how they fell in love.  Perhaps we might think that their lives were too divergent to now run in parallel, but here, at this brief but important intersection, the split-second decisions they make, right down to the words they choose, will chart the course of their lives permanently.

(Please note spoilers ahead.)

C by Tom McCarthy

Jonathan Cape, 2010

I've been struggling for weeks to get through this book and have finally finished.  If not for the fact that I've said in an earlier post that I'd make a review of it, I'd have long given up.

This is one of those post-modern, experimental works that I don't quite know how to appreciate.  That the plot is inconsequential I can accept.  What I cannot abide are improbable, surreal characters that I am unable to identify with.  While I understand that a novel may be an abstract piece of art, my preference is for writing that tries to reach out to rather than alienate readers.  That is of course my own opinion - there is an entire genre of works that eschews conventional literary devices such as characterisation.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

Bloomsbury, 2010

The Finkler Question really is about what you might call the Finkler question.  It is an almost perfect title. Early on in the piece, Jacobson makes it clear that the word "Finkler" is a substitute for "Jew" or "Jewish".  And so the book is an exploration by a Jewish author of the various lines dividing Jews and non-Jews, whether those lines are clear or indistinct, and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not they can be crossed. And by whom. This, to me, is perhaps best summed up by a line in the book:

As always he wondered if he would ever get to the bottom of what Finklers were permitted to say about themselves that non-Finklers were not.

I did and continue to wonder whether Jacobson would have been able to write this book were he not himself Jewish.