Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, trans. Gregory Rabassa

Published: Penguin, 1998, pp. 422.  Originally published 1967

Genre: Latin American fiction

Blurb: One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the magical story of the Buendia family, who love, lie, fight and rule for a century in Macondo, their settlement in the South American jungle.  Part exotic paradise, part nightmare, Macondo is a fantastic world of miracles and mirages where nothing is as it seems.  Its secrets lie hidden for years in an encoded book, and only Aureliano Buendia, the last in the dynasty, can unlock its mysteries and discover the fate of this strange land…

When, where and why: This is yet another book from my charity shop university days when it would seem my eyes were considerably bigger than my reading stomach (plus ca change and all that).  I’ve had it kicking around on the shelves for ages now, so it definitely qualifies for book 28/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge, and finally decided to read it to continue to explore areas of literature which are new to me.

What I thought: When a book is as well known and as widely read as One Hundred Years of Solitude it’s hard to approach it without certain expectations.  In this case, I was anticipating a magical and mysterious story written in beautiful, evocative prose and while I eventually came to enjoy the book it never quite lived up to these expectations.  It’s entirely possible that this was my fault for wanting something out of the book that it just wasn’t, but I found it slow, confusing and, although it had its moments, described in fairly sparse, mundane terms.

The book started out promisingly: I enjoyed the fairytale style of the narrative, as the father trades increasingly large amounts of money and produce with the visiting gypsies for increasingly bizarre and useless items.  Had the book continued in this vein I would probably have enjoyed it far more than I did, but as I read on I realised that I was getting further and further into the book without any idea of where it was going, or if it was going to go anywhere at all.  I found myself getting frustrated with the book as things happened but nothing ever seemed to change: characters would marry and die, wars would take place, time moved on but everything remained the same.  Part of me thinks that this sense of constancy as things change around the Buendia family and they remain unaffected was what Marquez was aiming for (the novel is, after all, called One Hundred Years of Solitude) and that I didn’t get it, but nonetheless I found this made the first two thirds of the novel feel stagnant and it wasn’t something I enjoyed.

Part of the problem is that nearly every male character in the novel is called either Jose Arcadio or Aureliano (or possibly, just for a bit of exciting variety, some variation thereon), making it very difficult to tell them all apart.  At one point, the author refers to ‘several of the Aurelianos’ (p. 222), and if even he can’t keep them all straight there’s no hope for the reader.  This issue was compounded by the fact that none of them had any distinctive characteristics and so, because they all blurred together, it was hard to get to know any of them.  Again, this may have been a deliberate choice on the part of the writer to make the Buendia family feel separated from everyone else including the reader, in which case it was very effective, but that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed the effect.  This was combined with the vast majority of events being reported to the reader rather than experienced directly, resulting in everything feeling a bit vague.  Being told about apparently insignificant events which happen to characters you neither know nor care for does not an engaging read make.

I don’t know whether it was because the writing improved, or I finally got into the peculiar rhythm of the book, or I just gave up and stopped caring that it was so odd, but I found the final third of the book to be much better than all that had come before and I think this was because the episodes of this section felt more complete and also centred around the female characters, who are much more distinct that the men.  I really enjoyed reading about Remedios the Beauty and her sudden flight, Ursula and her clever ways of coping with growing old and losing her sight, Amaranta’s deal with death as she sews her own shroud, and Meme and her love affair accompanied by yellow butterflies.  Of course, it was still decidedly odd but, like the initial few pages, it was an oddness with a fairytale logic to it that somehow made sense.  However, this section of the book also yielded the biggest eyebrow-raise and snort of laughter in the whole novel, courtesy of this sentence:

…she would play with Aureliano’s portentous creature as if it were a doll and would paint clown’s eyes on it with her lipstick and give it a Turk’s moustace with her eyebrow pencil, and would put on organzi bowties and little tinfoil hats.  (p. 411)

Need I say more?  I’m sorry, I just had to share that piece of awfulness.

In spite of the writing generally not living up to my expectations, there were moments when it was beautiful and insightful.  I thought the tongue-in-cheek explanation of the difference between Conservatives and Liberals was very well done, but possibly my favourite passage describes Pilar Ternera:

Pilar Ternera had lost the trail of all hope.  Her laugh had taken on the tones of an organ, her breasts had succumbed to the tedium of endless caressing, her stomach and her thighs had been the victims of her irrevocable fate as a shared woman, but her heart grew old without bitterness.  (p. 156)

On the whole though, this book didn’t work for me.  I enjoyed parts of the end section, but found the greater part of One Hundred Years of Solitude unappealingly vague.  It is considered by many to be a great work of literature though, so I’m perfectly willing to accept that the fault is probably with me rather than the book.

Where this book goes: This book is staying put for now.  I have Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez on my bookshelf and I think I’ll give that one a try in the new year to give him a second chance.  If that one is equally disappointing though, both will be off to BookMooch.

Tea talk: As I was reading a Latin American book I thought that now would be the time to try some Latin American tea, so out came the Bolivian Chaimate Esmeraldo from Char in Winchester.  I’ve loved all of their teas that I’ve tried so far, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before one came along that broke that trend and this was it.  I thought it tasted oddly like the fried crispy seaweed you get in Chinese restaurants, and while I enjoy that taste with fried rice and shredded duck I am less fond of it in a cup of tea.

Title:

Author: Angela Carter

Published: Penguin, 1987, pp. 133.  Originally published 1974

Genre: Short stories

Blurb: In each of these mesmerising tales is a search for heightened sensitivity.  Reality is left behind.  Filtering ordinary experience through her hallucinatory imagination, Angela Carter exposes the subterranean desires and obsessive fears lurking in the unconscious.  Her characters are haunting, often sinister: an expatriate Englishwoman who takes a Japanese lover, a white hunter who finds pleasure in killing, a puppet who murders her master.  With a voluptuous and elegant style uniquely her own, Angela Carter evokes atmospheres at once erotic and disturbing.

When, where and why: After I was introduced to Angela Carter’s writing at university, I bought everything of hers that I came across. I started reading this one while I was struggling through Pillars of the Earth as it’s a nice, small book and easy to read on the tube, unlike Ken Follet’s huge volume.  It counts as book 27/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge.

What I thought: Fireworks is a very apt name for this collection of stories: like fireworks, they are short, sharp bursts of concentrated but brief beauty, all with an underlying element of danger.  However, while Angela Carter always writes excellently, this was definitely not my favourite of her short story collections as, although her prose is rich and full it sometimes feels a little stifling in this book and I often caught myself committing the sacrilege of wishing for fewer words and more plot.

In the story ‘A Souvenier of Japan’ Angela Carter’s fictional self says:

But I do not want to paint our circumstantial portraits so that we emerge with enough well-rounded, spuriously detailed actuality that you are forced to believe in us.  I do not want to practise such sleight of hand.  You must be content only with glimpses of our outlines, as if you had caught sight of our reflections in the looking-glass of somebody else’s house as you passed by the window. (p. 10)

This is a fair illustration of how these stories work: they don’t provide full narratives with fleshed out characters, but give tantalising glimpses into worlds where you can never be quite certain of anything.  There is a dream-like quality to the stories which makes them feel uncanny and remote and just a little bit too odd for me, I think.  Carter’s epilogue explains exactly what she was doing in this collection and I found that very helpful, illuminating some of the more bizarre elements of these madcap stories (particularly the incest; I swear incest has been a theme in almost everything I’ve read by Carter now).  I always enjoy it when an author decides to let their readers in on their thought processes, particularly when they are as patently oddball as Carter’s, so this provided a welcome opportunity to help untangle some of my thoughts on the book.

Even though I found Fireworks just a smidgen too off the wall for my tastes, it still bears Angela Carter’s wonderful writing style.  One of my favourite examples in this book is her description of London in the story ‘Elegy for a Freelance’:

London lay below me with her legs wide open; she was a whore sufficiently accommodating to find room for us in her embraces, even though she cost so much to love. (p. 115)

This perfectly illustrates why I love Angela Carter’s writing and will definitely continue to seek out and read her books.

Where this book goes: This book has been slipped back onto the shelf with the rest of my Angela Carter collection.  I’m looking forward to the next time I pick up one of her books, although I like to leave a fair while in between them so that she always seems fresh and new.

Tea talk: As I picked up this book specifically to read on the tube there was definitely no tea drunk while reading.  I’m lucky to have space to get my book out, never mind a travel mug as well.

Author: Joanne Harris

Published: Black Swan, 2008, pp. 572.  Originally published 2007.

Genre: Fiction

Blurb: Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and Annie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolate shop.  Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the door.  The wind has stopped — at least for a while.  Then into their lives blows Zozie de l’Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, and everything begins to change…

But this new friendship is not what it seems.  Ruthless, devious and seductive, Zozie de l’Alba has plans of her own — plans that will shake their world to pieces.  And with everything she loves at stake, Yanne must face a difficult choice; to flee, as she has done so many times before, or to confront her most dangerous enemy…  Herself.

When, where and why: I picked this one up from my favourite second hand bookstall because I always enjoy Joanne Harris’ books.  This one is a sequel to Chocolat, and I seized the opportunity to rejoin Vianne and Anouk as they work their magic in people’s lives.  I knew I was going to enjoy this book and so it seemed the perfect read to follow the medieval monstrosity.

What I thought: I’ve enjoyed the Joanne Harris books that I’ve read in the past because of their luxurious, sensuous writing,  filled with delights for all the senses, and their somewhat homely, domestic settings which are nonetheless never mundane.  This book continues in that excellent tradition and I really enjoyed it, not least because I got to read about some of my favourite characters again.

Initially, I found this book a little confusing because it has three first person narrators, something that isn’t immediately obvious as they all have similar voices.  Eventually I worked out that the little pictures at the head of each chapter represent the different women (a sun for Vianne, a Cat for Zozie and a moon for Anouk) but by the time I noticed this I was about halfway through the book and I didn’t really need them.  At first this lack of distinction irritated me, but as the book progressed I came to the conclusion that that was exactly the point: Anouk’s voice blurs into Zozie’s which blurs into Vianne’s.  This happens in direct speech as well as in the narration and I found it a key part of showing the insidious way in which Zozie subtly takes over their lives.

I think that I prefered the balance between magic and everyday happenings in Chocolat: there the magic seemed more subtle and commonplace, whereas it is overt and plays a more central role in The Lollipop Shoes.  However, I think that this was a necessary shift of focus to prevent the sequel being a reiteration of the first book rather than the unique novel it is, and I still love the way in which Joanne Harris weaves the two elements together throughout the book, using magic to explore commonplace issues such as growing up and being an outsider.

Where this book goes: This book has been added to my ever growing Joanne Harris collection, although I’m fairly sure my mother is going to want to steal it soon.

Tea talk: This book had me wanting to reach for the hot chocolate, filled as it was with mouthwatering descriptions of confectionery.  However, I was good and opted for some sweet, tasty Milk Oolong.  Not quite as good as hot chocolate made with milk, cream, real chocolate, sugar and cinnamon, but much better for the diet.