Book Review: The Icarus Girl–Helen Oyeyemi

Jessamy "Jess" Harrison, age eight, is the child of an English father and a Nigerian mother. Possessed of an extraordinary imagination, she has a hard time fitting in at school. It is only when she visits Nigeria for the first time that she makes a friend who understands her: a ragged little girl named TillyTilly. But soon TillyTilly’s visits become more disturbing, until Jess realizes she doesn’t actually know who her friend is at all. – Goodreads

I have had this book sitting in my bookshelf for about six years now, gathering dust. I remember buying it in the local independent bookshop that is no longer there, instead replaced by some money services place. I was in and out of that bookshop quite often as a child but unfortunately, during it’s last years which I never seemed to appreciate enough, I didn’t go in there half as much as I should have, having closer access to Waterstones whilst I was at uni.

I remember seeing this on the shelves and picking it up and thinking that it looked really good and very interesting. I was also intrigued that the author at the time was 19 – about the same age as I was at the time I think. So I took it home, promising myself I’d read it ‘soon’ but then just never seemed to get around to doing so. As the years past I would pick it up and look over it, each time thinking that it sounded like it would be a good book – the description, the front cover and the writing inside all appealed. And yet six years passed by and I never read it.

Until the 15th Feb, 2012 that is when I decided to pick it up. I’d said I’d read it as part of the TBR challenge I’m taking part of anyway. This is why I signed up to do this challenge. I have all these books, gathering dust that just seem to recede further and further away with each new book added to my mountaineering TBR. And now here, I have finally read it and guess what – I really enjoyed it!

Anyway, the review…

It’s about a young girl called Jess who doesn’t quite fit in anywhere. She doesn’t fit in with her father’s white family and her mother’s family are back in Nigeria where she doesn’t really fit in either. Her mother’s culture is distant and alien to Jess and her parents seem to not always agree how to bring Jess up – the Nigerian way, or the British way.

When they take Jess to Nigeria to meet her family there for the first time Jess meets a girl named TillyTilly who at first, isn’t all who she seems. At first what seems like a simple story about alienation and an imaginary friend, turns into a rather disturbing ghost story. TillyTilly begins to take over Jess’ life and affect all those around her in ways that Jess is unable to understand.

The story is written in third person perspective, but mainly from Jess’ point of view. Oyeyemi dos a very good job of taking you into the mind of this extraordinarily precocious mind of Jessamy Harrison who is only eight years old. Reading this made me feel like I was eight years old again, the language and the things kids say to each other and are interested in. Her portrayal of Jess’ troubled feelings and emotions are strikingly real.

TillyTilly starts out as a strange kid who you at first think might be imaginary, but Oyeyemi slowly introduces a darker storyline – where TillyTilly isn’t just imaginary but she is tied up with Nigerian folk tails and beliefs. TillyTilly slowly becomes a frightening and dangerous character – who she really is remains uncertain.

The ending is ambiguous but seemed to come to a halt rather abruptly. I like ambiguous endings but I think Oyeyemi could have explored the folk tales and legends that lay behind who TillyTilly was and what was happening to Jess to give the story a little more depth and understanding.

Never mind the fact that Oyeyemi was only 17 at the time of writing this, this is a very good first novel from an author no matter what age they happen to be at the time.  It is overall, apart from some niggles a very well written book that make me want to read more of Helen Oyeyemi’s books in the future, which of course means adding some more to my TBR! One step forwards, three steps back as always.

 

I read this as part of the  2012 TBR Pile Challenge. One book down, eleven more to go!

Tune in Tuesday (4) John Tavener

Tune in Tuesdays is hosted by Ginger over at GReads where we share the music we love, old and new.

Today I’m am going to share the piece of music that has just come up on my MP3 player and instantly reminded me how beautiful and affecting music can be.

I absolutely adore this kind of, more modern ‘classical’ music. I love simplicity and minimalism in music. Another of my favourite composers is Arvo Pärt who I may share at a later time.

I haven’t really listened (knowingly) to much else of Tavener’s work as I’m still fairly new to him. I really must put some time into exploring more of his music, and other composers like him.

I hope everyone else is having a lovely Tuesday and discovering some new music.

Around the World in 80 Books–a Challenge (Started in 2011)

I started this challenge last year actually, I think I just forgot to mention it. It’s part of the reading challenges in the UK Book Club on Goodreads. The basic idea is to read 80 books set in different countries.

I decided to start counting from 2011 and onwards.

According to my spreadsheet, counting all the books I can remember reading, I have read in total books set in about 40 countries, however this counts sometimes if a book has spanned more then one country.

For this challenge I will only count books where the setting is more clear. The authors themselves do not have to be native to those countries so I am counting a separate list of authors as well to make it easier for me.

List of Settings

1.  The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding England English
2.  Beyond the Wall by Christa Laird Poland English
3.  The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa Japan Japanese
4.  Lonesome Dove by Larry McNultry USA American
5.  The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky Russia
6.  Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin Scotland Scottish
7.  Inés of My Soul by Isabel Allende Chile Chilean
8. The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundarsan India American-Indian
9. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness Ireland American
10. Gardens of Water by Alan Drew Turkey American
11. Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg Denmark Danish
12. The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham China English
13. The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong North Korea Korean
14. Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson Austria British-Austrian
15. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell Sweden Swedish
16. Esther’s Inheritance by Sándor Márai Hungary Hungarian

List of Authors

1. Henry Fielding English
2. Yoko Ogawa Japanese
3. Larry McMurtry American
4. Fyodor Dostoyevsky Russian
5. Ian Rankin Scottish
6.  Isabel Allende Chilean
7.  Peter Høeg Danish
8. Hwang Sok-yong Korean
9. Henning Mankell Swedish
10. Sándor Márai Hungarian

As I have rambled about in the past I seem to be pretty stuck in the mud when it comes to reading and the majority of books I read seem to be set in England. Along with the Books in Translation challenge, I am hoping that this challenge will help me expand beyond my cosy norm.

I’m not going to list every book I read within a certain country, but just the first as they come. So if I read another book set in Hungary, it won’t appear in this list.

It’s a long term challenge rather then a yearly challenge like my others. Considering it took me about 20 years to reach 40 countries who knows how long it’ll take me now to reach 80!

Book Review: Esther’s Inheritance–Sándor Márai

Esther and her cousin Nunu are thrown into confusion: until now their existence has been tranquil, self-governing, and they know that the mercurial Lajos will change all of that. Esther has not forgotten that her dazzling lover is a fantasist and a liar, nor that he caused her unimaginable hurt. But she also remembers how he made her feel, that he woke a part of her that has since been sleeping for twenty years.

This is a short, and  beautifully written book. It begins with Esther three years after the story begins, who has decided to write down what happened when Lajos returned and stole everything.

It was first published in its original Hungarian in 1939, the year the  second world war began. Márai was profoundly anti-fascist. Whilst there are no obvious allusions to fascism or Nazism, the novel is I believe an allusion to what had been happening within Europe during the 1930’s.

Lajos calmly walked back into Esther and her family’s life and like before, took and extracted exactly what he wanted, robbing them under their noses with their absolute permission. They knew what he was and they let passively let him in without lifting a finger. Perhaps Márai is also accusing Hungary and the rest of Europe of simply letting Hitler walk in, take or give back what lands he saw fit, despite what they knew what was really happening in the war.

However, I can’t say I know very much about the history of Hungary beyond what I’ve only recently looked up on Wikipedia quite briefly.

The writing is simply quite beautiful and effortless in the way it’s been written (or translated).

For twenty years I had been walking at the edge of a precipice, neatly balanced, calm and smiling. Now I had been woken and knew the truth. But I no longer felt dizziness. There is something calming about the sense of reality, whether of life or death.

It is hard to trust Esther as a narrator for what she says. After all, she willingly allows herself to be taken in by Lajos, claiming it was her duty as if it were her fate. How can you feel sympathy for a person who willingly allows someone to lie and cheat, when they say they knew the truth behind it all anyway. Why let them into your life again?

I wouldn’t say this book amazed me or made me feel anything particularly, but it is the kind of well-written book you can appreciate.

 

Esther’s Inheritance is the first book I have completed for the “Books in Translation” challenge hosted by The Introverted Reader.

Tune in Tuesdays (3)–Bryn Terfel

 

Tune in Tuesdays is hosted by Ginger from GReads where she invites people to share their love of music, both old and new.

 

 

I was going to share a different one, but I turned onto this randomly and Bryn Terfel’s voice just brings a tear to my eye. I love him. This video’s a little out of season, but it is also one of my favourite songs, even though I’m not religious.

And here’s another of Bryn, singing one of my favourite songs whilst dressed in a Welsh flag jacket :

 

I wish this could be our national anthem, it’s truly rousing unlike God Save the Queen which often sounds like it should be played at a funeral the way people mumble it.  Oh well I suppose it isn’t too bad when you listen to it.

Book Review: Faceless Killers–Henning Mankell

 

Genre: Crime

Published: 1991 (Sweden)

Pages: 298

 

 

 

An old man on the farm is discovered brutally murdered and his wife laying next to him, beaten and barely alive. Written in the early 90’s, Kurt Wallander is police detective on the verge of entering a new, different world where society is changing around him. As well as the changing front of society, the growing crime rate and the increasing friction growing between Swedish people and the growing refugee camp populations, Wallander has to cope with the fact his wife’s left him and his father’s going senile.

This is the first book in the well known Wallander series. It is a good, solid crime fiction although it is as of yet nothing outstanding. The pages turned steadily rather then fast but I enjoyed the introduction to the character of Wallander and the way the crime investigation was written and laid out. It felt clean, well written and nicely detailed. I suspect the more I read in the series the better it will get. The only trouble is that I’m bad at continuing with series of books – I start them, particularly crimes and then never seem to get around to reading the others in the series.

Kurt Wallander is a typical sort of detective you expect to find in a crime novel. Separated from his wife, a distant daughter, works all hours, has insomnia, consumes alcohol, eats junk food and has a couple of different quirks. In Wallander’s case it’s his love for opera music and his father who is possibly going senile. Wallander is struggling to hold both his personal and professional life together without going mad.

As of yet, it hasn’t stood out as anything beyond the norm – although my experience with crime fiction is more from crime dramas on television. As it is the first book in the series it is more concerned with introducing Wallander as a character as well as drawing the reader into the area in and around Ystad.

There is a careful attention to detail whilst maintaining a rather minimalist style to the writing. You follow Wallander from one lead to another, and up and down the various dead ends. It touches on neo-nazism and racial tensions which seems to me at least – a popular theme within Scandinavian fiction and drama – not that I’ve read or seen much though.

It is a promising first book and I have heard nothing but good things about Henning Menkall. He’s obviously a popular Swedish crime writer for a reason and I’m looking forward to delving into more of his books in the future.

Bah, reading!

I am having such a reading slump. I have only actually started and finished one book this year and that was A Son Called Gabriel which at least I did actually enjoy. Otherwise I’ve been trying to slog through Our Mutual Friend, which I had been looking forward to reading since November last year. And whilst I am enjoying it somewhat I guess I’m just not really in the mood for it at the moment. However, I don’t want to put it down because I’m already about 300 pages into it and I don’t fancy having to read those all again.

 

So, instead I’ve been picking up other books to read in between OMF, which is not something I usually do. I’ve always been a monogamist reader but over the past few months seem to be double and triple booking. For me, it doesn’t feel like I’m reading and I can’t seem to enjoy one book if I know I have others hanging around my neck like dead weights.

This doesn’t bode well for all my 2012 challenges either… the 8 bricks I’m supposed to be reading (Our Mutual Friend is 800!) and the classics when all I’m doing at the moment is reading lighter easier fiction just to try to ease my mind back into reading.

This happened last year as well – it took me until March/April to get my reading mojo back and even then I seemed to spend a lot of time feeling a kind of uncertainty about the books I’d be reading next – would I enjoy them, will I ever look forward to reading a book again? I seem to get so anxious nowadays selecting a book, or starting a new book that’s it’s impacting on my enjoyment of reading.

What is going on with me? Why can’t I just relax – take stock and just believe in my books? Reading shouldn’t be stressful but sometimes I just feel it’s getting that way and I end up not enjoying books as much as I could have.

It makes me feel sad that I haven’t read very much at all for practically two months. Two absolutely wasted. It sucks and I miss reading so much.

I know we all go through reading slumps and funks. A variety of things usually helps me get out of them – crimes and YA books are usually easy to read and often guaranteed page turners. Sometimes I re-read a favourite book of the past. Other times, when I’m in a peculiar type of funk I find myself wanting to bite off a huge chunk and read a non-fiction or a heavy classic I might have chickened out on any other day.

At the moment I am reading Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell, the first book in the Wallander series. I remember getting it with some Amazon gift tokens about two or three years ago, becoming very excited about reading it and then naturally, not reading it until now. I’m also reading The Fall of Reach by Eric Nyland which is uhm, based on the Halo series on the Xbox. Kinda embarrassing.

I’m hoping that afterwards, refreshed by a little Swedish crime and Galactic space wars… I can get back to actually enjoying Our Mutual Friend. So this blog might be a little quiet on the readery front for a while, but hopefully I’ll find my mojo and get back to my usual reading self.

Hope everyone’s having a good Friday and looking forward to the weekend.

Tune in Tuesdays (2)

Tune in Tuesdays is hosted by Ginger over at GReads where each week we share the music we love – old or new.

Now… this week I just don’t know who to share. Patrick Bruel or… Agent Freso? One is French, the other Icelandic. So, which one? I want all my Tuesdays to come at once.

I’ll go with Patrick Bruel for this week as I’ve been feeling in such a soppy mood.

 

I can’t speak French so I don’t understand what he’s singing about, but I like music in foreign languages because you can just appreciate the sound of the words more then anything else.

And here’s another, just for the hair:

 

*grin* I know it’s cheesy but I can’t help it!

Cross stitching

I am by no means a artistic person – I’m all fingers and thumbs with zero patience for things but cross stitching is relatively doable and besides, I just love some of the designs you can find. I haven’t really done many – I started last year then sort of fell out with it. However, this year, 2012, I decided that I would a) eat better b) learn how to cook c) take up running and d) get back into cross stitching seeing as I quite enjoyed it and I need something to do whilst I obsess over watching Masterchef.

I started this design by Michael Powell last year, then lost the bloody thing so I bought it again with the mind to actually completing it. By blogging about it I figure that I better complete it this time around or else I’ll be a little embarrassed. Here is my progress so far, which is not very much but at least it is starting to look a little bit like something now. It is going to be a bookmark going of course that I can figure out how to finish it off at the end with this piece of felt I’m supposed to ‘tack’ onto the back.

This is going to be the finished product. I hope mine ends up looking like this – I think I’ve stabbed myself more often then not. I love the designs on Powell’s website – they were enough to make me want to take up cross stitching just because I wanted to be able to have them. And I suppose the only way is to do it myself…

This one is my first sort of ‘bigger’ cross stitching projects. I’ve done maybe five or six other little things from magazines my Mum gets. Most of those were quite easy and a little bit bigger. This is done on 16 ct Aida and involves a lot of shading, although no half or quarter stitches.

I would love to do some more of Powell’s cross stitch patterns, not just the bookmarks but all of the others. I just love them they are so vibrant and fun to cross stitch as well.

This one is top of my list – although the kit is quite expensive but it looks so fun and I love jumbled up English cottages.

 

 

I know there’s loads of arty, creative bloggers out there – what do you like creating?

Tune in Tuesdays

 

Hosted by GReads

A weekly feature hosted by me that showcases music – my other passion in life besides books! Each week I will post a new or old song in hopes to gain more interest. Help me in spreading the love of music!

Yay, another music meme – I love sharing music and I’m so glad I spied this over on A Paperback Life.

What do you get when you add Adele to Linkin Park? You get Chester Bennington’s absolutely perfect rendition of Rolling in the Deep.

 

I just love this. I love Adele, especially her second album and this is one of my favourite songs. And I love Linkin Park because their music is so meaningful and different each time. In fact, I can’t think which version I like more – the original or the cover.

What has everyone else been listening to recently?