Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Coroner (Jenny Cooper, #1)The Coroner by M.R. Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The heroine of M.R.Hall's "The Coroner" is Jenny Cooper, a temazepam-dependent middle-aged lawyer with history of traumatic childhood and difficult recent divorce. She is appointed a District Coroner near Bristol, U.K. Instead of leading a quiet country life she undertakes a crusade against corporate corruption that was in the background of three deaths.

"The Coroner" pushes many of my buttons. Corporate greed is, to me, at the very top of repulsive traits of modern business environment, and I view the urge to make more and more money as a severe illness on par with alcoholism or other drug addiction. So I may be biased in liking this book so much.

"The Coroner" is well written and somewhat believable (perhaps except having Ms. Cooper appointed as the Coroner). Ms. Cooper is a wreck, but then who wouldn't be after having been married to a heart surgeon prick of a man. The plot is interesting, and the supporting cast well shown, if a little stereotypical. A little too much is happening towards the end, like in an average thriller, but it never reaches the level of ridiculousness.

"The Coroner" is a very good cross of a "coroner procedural" with a legal thriller. I am looking forward to reading more novels by Mr. Hall.

Full four stars, maybe even four and a quarter.


View all my reviews
MyrkáMyrká by Arnaldur Indriðason
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another good novel from Iceland's Arnaldur Indridason. This time Erlendur is out of the plot and Sigurdur Oli plays only a minor part. This solid police procedural plus glum Northwest Scandinavian psychological novel features Elinborg, who - to me - is the most interesting character of the trio. She is, thankfully, no "profiler"; she is just a down-to-earth, hardworking detective, who follows her instinct and manages to extract the important leads from the scarce evidence in the case of a strange rape/murder case, where the presumed rapist was found under the influence of Rohypnol. Elinborg reminds me of Marge Gunderson in Fargo, as played by Frances McDormand.

I have been fascinated with Iceland for many years, and this novel adds a lot to my vision of this country. Thanks to Indridason I feel like I almost have been to Iceland. Elinborg is not only a detective; she is also a cookbook writer. There are some really funny fragments about boiled air-cured haddock. I can't imagine any blander food than that.

"Outrage" is not as good as Indridason's masterpieces "The Draining Lake" or "Silence of the Grave", but it is a very good book.

Four solid stars.


View all my reviews
The Poison SkyThe Poison Sky by John Shannon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is my third John Shannon's book, and I still have several to go. "The Poison Sky" is a strange mystery. From a quiet, Ross Macdonald-style (albeit set in the age of Internet) mystery, it morphs into a cinematic disaster thriller.

The characters are somewhat believable and there is less pop psychology than in the same author's "City of Strangers" and dialogues are not as cheaply philosophical and contrived as in Mr. Shannon's "The Concrete River". However, Jack Liffey is still too good to be quite believable. Lew Archer, despite all his greatness, was more human.

However Mr. Shannon has an obsession of sprinkling scenes of L.A. weirdness all over his novels. "The Poison Sky" has more such scenes than the two previous books I read combined. I am afraid that the trend may continue, and I still have 7 of his books to read. Sure, L.A. is weird, just not that weird. Most people in L.A. are still obsessed with the same thing as people in all other cities in the world - making money and acquiring power in whatever form they can.

The biting descriptions of various religious and para-religious cults are sharp and funny. Writing is economical. The book is beautifully short. The main problem is that what started as a four-star book ended as a one-and-a-half-star one.

Two and three quarter stars.


View all my reviews
The Crime TradeThe Crime Trade by Simon Kernick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What a pleasantly readable book! If one is looking only for entertainment, then Simon Kernick's "The Crime Trade" delivers. It has an interesting plot, good writing, and relatively well-drawn characters. What's more, unlike two previous books by Kernick, it does not degenerate into an idiotic scenario for a thriller movie towards the end. Read the book to its very last sentence as the last pages and the last sentence are delightful.

The police procedural thread is handled much better than DI Gallan's and DS Boyd's personal life thread, but I guess the latter is mandatory in today's crime fiction. Oh well.

Good book! Three and a half stars.


View all my reviews
What Never HappensWhat Never Happens by Anne Holt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"What Never Happens" is the second book by Norwegian Anne Holt that I read. I liked the first one, "What Is Mine" a lot and gave it four stars. I wish I could like this book too, but I cannot. Perhaps it is my fault. I can't stand the irritating manner of writing where almost throughout the entire book Adam Stubo, the police detective, and Johanne Vik, his wife and a "profiler", talk about the case in the middle of dealing with their children, their dog, their meals, and their domestic chores. Maybe this happens in real life, but I find it an extremely poor writing manner. Maybe if the details of their personal life were interesting, this would make sense. But it does not. Mr. Stubo and Ms. Vik are two of the least interesting people I have read about recently. They are just two very boring people.

The plot is potentially interesting and deals with serial murders of celebrities in Norway. There are some nice fragments of prose (for instance, between pages 100 and 101, where Ms. Holt describes an extremely painful event from Adam Stubo's life). There are some astute observations like the one about a certain nation that values "courage and strength more than truth and peace". Still, the writing mannerisms are so atrocious that I found the book hard to read.

I hope Ms. Holt performed better as the Minister of Justice in Norway than as a writer of this novel. I had to force myself to finish this book. The further it went, the more boring it got. The payback of the denouement was minimal.

Two stars. One and three quarters, in fact. Ms. Holt should take Ms. Fossum's class on writing. Or even Mr. Nesbo's class.


View all my reviews
Concrete RiverConcrete River by John Shannon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Advertising blurbs mention Raymond Chandler and his Philip Marlow. I don't think so. It is Ross Macdonald's work that Mr. Shannon's "The Concrete River" reminds me the most, in a good way. Bleak yet acute sociological observations are not what Chandler is known for. Shannon shares with Macdonald a vision of society in decay. They both are disturbed by this vision.

The main character, Jack Liffey is well drawn as is Eleanor Ong, an ex-nun and a community activist. However, some of their dialogues sound contrived, over-philosophized, and just irritating (like the pop-psychology in the same author's "City of Strangers"). On the other hand, the descriptions of a barrio in L.A. are wonderful, and there are some lyrical moments like the vision of plastic cups in the L.A. River. The whole book elegantly meanders around this concrete river. There is even some humor, like the scene featuring a guy with a hacksaw cutting his misbehaving station wagon in two on the freeway. And there is no bloat in the book; it is wonderfully short, at less than 230 pages.

The sad-and-sweet ending fits well this good book that could have been better. Mr. Shannon is no Ross Macdonald, but at least he is trying.

Three and a half stars.


View all my reviews
The Drop (Harry Bosch, #17)The Drop by Michael Connelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Drop", the sixteenth and the most recent novel in the Harry Bosch series, is a very good read. Mercifully, Mr. Connelly understands the limitations of his writing and for most of the book, except for the last part, does not spend too much time on the tribulations of the detective's personal life. He focuses instead on what he does really well - writing a crisp, flowing, and convincing police procedural.

After the disastrous "Reversal", with its paper-thin characterizations, Harry Bosch is again his own brooding, noirish self. Kiz Rider is a way more convincing character than Agent Walling, and even Maddie, Bosch's daughter, seems slightly believable in this book. Hannah Stone's characterization, though, is paper-thin.

Bosch works on two cases - the Open-Unsolved old case of a sex-related murder and on the current case of the death of a councilman's son. The two cases harmoniously intertwine.

I tremendously enjoyed reading Mr. Connelly's vitriolic characterizations of some politicians, members of the scummiest profession on the face of the earth. Why no four stars then? The presentation of the denouement of the old case is formulaic (the usual horrors of the evidence), and provides a sort of an anticlimax to a really good work, otherwise.

Three and a half stars.


View all my reviews
The Fifth Witness (Mickey Haller, #4)The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Fifth Witness" is a good read. I am happy that Mr. Connelly returned to good form after "The Reversal", which I found weak and dreadfully flat (I have reviewed it here and I persist in my suspicions that Mr. Connelly might not have written that book himself - it is that bad).

In "The Fifth Witness" Mickey Haller returns to the defense side. The plot is as good as in the fabulous "The Lincoln Lawyer". Of course, the characterizations are not as crisp and fresh as in the original (are they ever in sequels? I don't think so.) The legal thriller layer of the book is first-rate. Everything else (for instance, the relationship with Haller's first ex-wife, Maggie the prosecutor) is completely formulaic so it can be easily skipped. By the way, I am curious why the book is so long. Cut all the silly filler stuff, and you'd get a better book. Is there some business reason for writing 400+ pages instead of, say, 250?

Three and one-quarter stars.


View all my reviews
The Reversal (Harry Bosch, #16; Mickey Haller, #3)The Reversal by Michael Connelly
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Oh, the problem with sequels… Often, it is like this. You cook a gallon of good soup. You and your family eat half a gallon one day, and then to prolong the culinary feat, you add half a gallon of water to the remaining soup, and have half a gallon of it the next day. Then you add another half a gallon of water the next day, and so on and on, and soon you have no soup at all, just water, and a memory of good soup. "The Reversal" is a sequel to Michael Connelly's "The Lincoln Lawyer", which is a very good book. Alas, "The Reversal" is not a good book. It is mostly water, not much soup.

We have Mickey Haller, Maggie McPherson, Harry Bosch, and Agent Walling, but they are just names on paper. They are not real people. We have to create their characterizations from what we know from the previous books. In "The Reversal" they are just empty vessels, paper agents to move the plot.

The publisher's blurb says "Written with the depth, pace, and insight…". Two out of these three are false. There is absolutely no depth and no insight. Yes, there is pace. The writing is not up to usual Connelly's level. I would guess it was either partially ghost-written or the author wrote the whole book in a few short weeks, not caring about the style.

Big disappointment! I am scared to read the further sequels.


View all my reviews
The Murder ExchangeThe Murder Exchange by Simon Kernick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The five star rating scale implies the following categories: Excellent, Good, OK (Satisfactory), Poor, Failure. Three stars is exactly what this book deserves. It is an OK book. It is a satisfactory book. Nothing more and nothing less. "The Business of Dying" (four stars from me) by the same author has a wonderful undercurrent of moral ambiguity. It is more than just a crime story. Despite the total idiocy of its fast-action ending, "The Business of Dying" got me thinking.

No thinking needed in "The Murder Exchange". It is an archetypical page-turner (which is a pejorative qualification for me; why would anyone want to turn pages fast instead of savoring the beauty of the language?), relatively well-written, with characters broadly yet adequately drawn. The ending is again written in an idiotic extremely fast-action style, reminding me of, say, Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (which, at least was a comedy), yet, reading this book is not an unpleasant way of spending some time with your brain turned off.

View all my reviews
The CallerThe Caller by Karin Fossum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Norway's Karin Fossum is one of my most favorite authors. She writes about things that interest me, and she writes in a way that is close to perfect for my taste. I do not care much about plot, and do not need fast action. Ms. Fossum writes about Little Things That Are Important In Life, and she writes about them beautifully.

"The Caller" is another lovely, little, quiet book, where seemingly nothing much extraordinary happens for the most part. And yet, people get sick, divorce, and die, because of little things happening. "The Caller" is not a masterpiece, like "Black Seconds" or "The Indian Bride", but I still loved reading this short book. (Incidentally, why do books have to be about 400 pages long, which seems to be industry standard, if 200 pages would suffice? Business reasons, I guess.)

"The Caller" is another book in the detectives Sejer and Skarre series. I do not like series much, because at some point they become minor rewrites of the same book. But when one ignores the two detectives, Ms. Fossum's incisive, mature, and compassionate observations of people's behavior and motivations are the real value of her books. And her wonderfully simple writing.



View all my reviews
The Winter of Frankie MachineThe Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is a very well written book. I read and reread some passages several times because Mr. Winslow's prose is so wonderful. The book is extremely readable and quite funny. Frank Machianno, an accomplished killer, is a fully developed character, described through his actions rather than through the author's words. The plot is tight and engrossing, although the pace slows down toward the end. To sum up, a masterful and entertaining thriller. So why only three stars? I do not really need another book about the mob. The topic is so boring. It has been exhausted. Let's quote from the book (page 167, hardcover edition): "Hanging out with the mob guys, Frank thought, was like being frozen in some perpetual junior high school time warp. The conversations were always about sex, food, farts, smells, girls, small dicks, and homos." Exactly!

View all my reviews
North of Nowhere (Alex McKnight, #4)North of Nowhere by Steve Hamilton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Other readers may like it more. This competently written book has a good beginning, but it steadily goes downward from there; the plot gets contrived and bizarre. The climactic scene on Lake Superior is hilarious in an unintended way. The misadventures of a group of elderly men remind me the idiotic "Camel Club" by Baldacci. No more Alex McKnight for me.

View all my reviews
Right as RainRight as Rain by George Pelecanos
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not my favorite Pelecanos book. True, the writing is solid, plot is interesting, and the book is a real page-turner. DC is, as usual, shown masterfully. But there is nothing more there for me. I value other books by this author much more (for instance, "Hell to Pay", "King Suckerman", "Night Gardener"). I felt closer to all the racial tensions, poverty, and social issues shown in these books. Here, the author "paints-by-numbers", almost like "Now I will write about racial tensions", and he does. "Now I will write about the drug laws being the source of crime", and he does. The main characters are painted with too broad brushstrokes. Seems like the author lost his magic of showing the depth of characters.

Bottom line: Interesting reading? Yes. Literature? Oh no.

View all my reviews
Every Secret ThingEvery Secret Thing by Laura Lippman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A big disappointment for me. The beginning of the book promises an offbeat, unique, psychological mystery. We are told that two fifth-grade girls murder a baby. However, the promise, the tension, and the mystery slowly dissolve in a flood of lengthy and completely irrelevant characterizations of marginal characters. The book would be much better if it were cut by about 60% in volume.

Out of the four main characters, Helen, Alice, and Ronnie are quite skillfully drawn and psychologically believable. In fact, Helen is perhaps one of the most interesting characters I have encountered in years. I would like the book to be more about her, and about the girls. Cynthia, the grieving mother, is also vividly drawn, but she seems more of a repulsive caricature of a terminally vain and ultimately evil creature than a real person. Her grief is nullified by her self-centeredness. The characters of the detectives are not well built and they just seem to be devices to move the plot.

I am not sure whether it was Ms. Lippman's intention, but there is no sympathy in her writing towards the characters, no compassion. Maybe I am weird, but I like an author to have at least a bit of a human touch, some understanding of the fact that weakness is the essence of the human nature. Thus, for me, "Every Secret Thing" hopelessly fails as a novel, even if it barely passes as a mystery.


View all my reviews
The Cutting RoomThe Cutting Room by Louise Welsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very good book. The uniformly excellent writing transcends the usual standards of the genre. Most of the characters are vividly and realistically portrayed. The main character, Rilke, is an antique auctioneer in Glasgow. Other characters, for example Mrs. McKindless, Rose (Rilke's boss), or Les (a drug dealer) come through like real people as well.

"Cutting Room" is, at once, much more and much less than a mystery novel/crime drama. More, because it is so much better written than 95% of the genre's output. Less, because the criminal plot is not that important. I have not been impressed with the subject matter; snuff pornography and casual gay sex do not tickle my fancy. However, these gruesome subjects are handled in a mature, non-titillating way, even if perhaps overly graphic.

Why not five stars then? First, because of the pretentiousness of preceding each chapter with a fragment of a famous poem. Ms. Welsh's writing is good enough to not require crutches of quotes from other famous writers. Second, because the people and places in "Cutting Room" are described incisively yet clinically, and to my taste, they lack a human touch. I have read Denise Mina's books about Glasgow. They show the place as equally grim and forbidding, yet Ms. Mina shows her characters with more sympathy and compassion.


View all my reviews
City of StrangersCity of Strangers by John Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.75 stars, really. A very readable book. Well-written, tightly plotted, with likeable characters. A lot of the action takes place in locations that I know (wide border zone of Tijuana-San Diego), and I agree that the places and the people are portrayed with a high degree of authenticity. The book contains some really well-written, lyrical fragments, which I enjoyed reading just for the pleasure of the language.

However, I have also found totally idiotic pop-psychology fragments, and some dialogues and events as ridiculously improbable as popular shows on TV. Then, when I read the ending, it hit me: it is not really a novel, it is a treatment for an episode of a TV series, plus some bonus literature that can be filtered out :)

Anyway, I will now look for Mr. Shannon's earlier books, some of which are described as "widely acclaimed" and "highly praised."

View all my reviews
BurnBurn by Sean Doolittle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am slowly working through the January Magazine lists of best books of the year. They selected "Burn" as one of the best mysteries of 2003. Well, other than competent, clean writing, I have found nothing at all interesting in this book. The story takes place in the rich parts of LA, among rich family of owners/gurus of a fitness empire. Lives of the rich and famous. Boring! All characters are caricatures (perhaps except for Andrew, the main character, who is supposed to be an "enigma", but he is a paper-thin enigma). When I finished, I had this image of a three-year old child's rendition of Mona Lisa. That's exactly how "Burn" compares to, say, Ross Macdonald's "The Underground Man".

View all my reviews
The Business of DyingThe Business of Dying by Simon Kernick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel seems to begin as a police procedural, but it ends, basically, as a thriller. It is an excellent read even though it gradually declines from a totally delightful, bizarre (and deeply amoral) first third of the book to the tired Ludlum-style idiocy of non-stop action in its last third. Lots of revenge-style action too, for the revenge-loving reader. This is a very brutal book and it includes some gory passages, which I do not mind because they serve the purpose of emphasizing the underlying message of moral ambiguity. At the same time, portions of this book may be even viewed as funny, if in a sick way. The writing is not stellar but quite good, way above the typical bestselling mysteries or thrillers. One item irritated me - the number of times the main character is able to instantaneously recover after or during a savage beating. Phrases like "... with every last bit of strength I had left I wriggled over..." remind me the funny saying from my childhood about cartoon characters "With his last bit of strength he regained his full strength." I lost count how many times this happens to Dennis Milne.

View all my reviews
What is MineWhat is Mine by Anne Holt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Far from a literary masterpiece, it is a solid and engrossing crime novel, kind of a police procedural about the search for a serial child abductor in Norway. A parallel plot is about reaching into the past to search for justice for a wrongly convicted and imprisoned man. The ending is too nice and elegant, the characters feel only about 50% real, and there are constant references to (extremely overused and misunderstood concept of) "profiling", yet, it is still a very good read.

View all my reviews
Dooley's Back: A Novel of CrimeDooley's Back: A Novel of Crime by Sam Reaves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Clean, economical writing. Fast pace. Likeable and relatively well-drawn main character. Convincing portrait of Chicago. On the other hand, this is yet another book about Chicago Outfit. The book reads like a fairy tale for adults. Cartoonish bad guys lose, good guys win. The plot gets gradually more and more improbable to the point that at the end it feels like a treatment for a Hollywood movie (there is even a device for a sequel). Still, there are more painful ways of spending four hours than reading this book.

View all my reviews
Sail of Stone (Inspector Winter, #6)Sail of Stone by Åke Edwardson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The descriptions of the area and people of Scotland between Inverness and Aberdeen are wonderful and the best part of this book. The book intertwines two plots, one mainly happening in Scotland, the other in Gothenburg, Sweden. Both plots are interesting - one reaches deeply into the past (to the Good War), the other has an almost absurd comedy flavor, but they are not much connected. Eric Winter is a caricature of his own (interesting) self from the previous books in the series and his personal struggles and tribulations feel paper-thin. The author tries too hard to affect a serious, literary style. Still, it's an OK read.

View all my reviews
The End of the Wasp Season (Alex Morrow, #2)The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Actually, it is 4.5 stars. I just can't give away five stars for a very good yet not completely perfect book. This book does not rise to the greatness of the author's "Garnethill" or "The Dead Hour", but it still is a highly recommendable work, in no small part part due to Ms. Mina's outstanding writing. Alex Morrow is a more completely developed character than in the previous novel ("Still Midnight"). The story is extremely interesting, even if we think we know, from the very beginning, what exactly happened (not that I care much about the "whodunit" aspect).
What I value most in this book is Mina's scrutiny of mental illness. There is not much of socio-economic observation, but psychological insights almost make up for it. Writing is not as uniformly stellar as in most Mina's previous books; it almost seems she did not spend enough time writing this one. However, I found the beginning of the book totally engrossing, in particular observations of school life as seen by Thomas reminded me a little of Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". Also the ending reads great, and Ms. Mina's attempts to write from the point of view of a mentally disturbed person are fascinating.
One more thing - although I read the book pretty thoroughly, taking delight in the language, I must have missed something because I do not understand the very last sentence of the book (and one sentence half a page above it). Well, it probably makes me like the book even more.

August 22, 2012 update: Well, my wife read the book, and explained what I missed. She is a more careful reader. She liked the book too.

View all my reviews
Misterioso (A-gruppen, #1)Misterioso by Arne Dahl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good read! 4.5 stars in my book. Reminded me of Sjowall/Wahloo series from the Seventies, with their relentless critique of capitalism *and* socialism. A very good police procedural.

View all my reviews
UnwantedUnwanted by Kristina Ohlsson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Interesting plot. Atrocious writing manner: substantial portions of the book report on the detectives' lives, which would be great if these reports gave some depth to the characters. No such luck here. The characters are not even flat, they are one-dimensional.

View all my reviews
The Dead Hour (Paddy Meehan, #2)The Dead Hour by Denise Mina
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book! I am not into reading books for their plot but rather for learning about people and the world as well as for the pleasure of reading well-written prose. This book delivers all, even the plot. Very different than "Garnethill", yet outstanding.

View all my reviews
Black SecondsBlack Seconds by Karin Fossum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(This is a review I had originally posted elsewhere, in July 2010, before I read several other books by Ms. Fossum.)

I have been reading mystery novels for over forty years, at a pace of about a hundred books a year. Karin Fossum's "Black Seconds" is her third book I read, and to me it is the best. I began with "When the Devil Holds the Candle" and I liked it. I loved "Don't Look Back", especially the masterful way the author teases the reader at the beginning, by way of a "false start". I found "Black Seconds" among the very best books I have ever read. Yes, it is a mystery, and it sort of keeps you guessing to the end, but that is not important at all. The psychological portraits of the characters are drawn so well that I felt I had known these people for years. The gentle "interrogations" towards the end of the book are reminiscent of Dostoyevski's "Crime and Punishment". There is not much action, but there is so much truth about people instead. Ms. Fossum writes extremely well, and the translator did a splendid job in managing not to spoil the dry, to-the-point style.

A piece of real literature.

View all my reviews

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Haruki Murakami: "Kafka on the Shore"

Kafka on the ShoreKafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" is an extended dream. Things happen in quasi-reality and are connected with each other in ways quite different than the causal and physics-based connections of the boring real world. The plot meanders around, shooting off in various directions and introducing new characters. Yet the further it goes, the more it remains the same. The Oedipus myth, the pains of growing up, and a murder mystery form a foundation on which Mr. Murakami's discourse on the metaphorical vs. real world is based.

"Kafka on the Shore" is a magical realism novel. In fact, it is not that magical - the unreality is basically limited to talking cats, mackerel and sardines rain, and flutes made of souls of dead cats. But the reality in the novel is structured in alternative ways. The author says it himself (about John Coltrane's solo), "the repetition breaks apart the real, rearranging the pieces". The causal and chronological web of connections is replaced with a structure where things are "like pieces of the puzzle that fit together."

Mr. Murakami is an extremely gifted writer. There are some hilarious fragments of prose in the book; I could not refrain from laughing when a young prostitute pleasuring Hoshino discusses finer points of Hegel's philosophy or when the two gender-equality seekers attempt to intimidate Oshima. Commentaries on various pieces of music, classical, jazz, and pop, are captivating. Most importantly, though, there are also many moments of magical and hypnotic beauty. The episode when Kafka, guided by the two soldiers, visits The Other Place, is deeply moving.

My main gripe about the novel is that it is just a random pile of stuff strung around the 'world as a metaphor' theme. Yes, the world and the life are random (as Heraclitus once said ,"The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings"). Dreams are random too. Yet, I don't like literature being random. To me, a great work of art should provide an organization to the chaos of the inner and the outer worlds and thus transcend that chaos. I see "Kafka on the Shore" just as a mirror that reflects the human struggle for meaning. It is not a step toward the understanding. In a sense, the novel is a beautiful, yet empty shell.

Four stars. (One star added for Kafka's visit to the place deep in the forest.)


View all my reviews

J.M. Coetzee: "Disgrace"

DisgraceDisgrace by J.M. Coetzee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

J.M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" is the first so-called "serious" book I have read in quite a long time (although some of the mysteries are serious literature in their own right). It is a stunningly well-written book, beautiful yet very painful to read - not because of scenes of violence or abuse, but because it is unrelenting in showing truth about people and their wretched lives.

David Lurie, a writer and a communications professor at the Cape Technical University, has an affair with a young woman, one of his students, and is forced to leave his job in disgrace. He moves to his daughter's smallholding in Eastern Cape and tries to adapt to rural life, helping with farming chores and with euthanizing animals in a rescue center. Soon, David and his daughter are subject to a violent act, rooted in racial conflict in the post-apartheid South Africa. This brief and simple synopsis of the beginning of the plot is quite misleading; so many issues are touched in this short book that a literary critic could write an essay based on every single page of the novel. An attempt of mine to review the depth and complexity of this book would be ridiculous - it would be akin to a grade-school student discussing a unified field theory.

The novel is rich in unforgettable scenes. The university inquiry into David's affair is superbly portrayed, and the animal euthanasia scenes are gut-wrenching. One could fill quite a collection of quotes with acute observations like "nothing so distasteful to a child as the workings of a parent's body" or "the proper business of the old: preparing to die". Mr. Coetzee is a virtuoso writer, and I wish I did not have the mystery-novel-related habit of fast reading, so that I could savor the writing and the language.

This extraordinary novel offers no message. There is no closure, no redemption. There is life and its continuity of hope and suffering, of death and birth.

Five stars.


View all my reviews

Nicolas Freeling's "The Kitchen: A Delicious Account of the Author's Years as a Grand Hotel Cook"

The Kitchen: A Delicious Account of the Author's Years as a Grand Hotel CookThe Kitchen: A Delicious Account of the Author's Years as a Grand Hotel Cook by Nicolas Freeling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nicolas Freeling's "The Kitchen: A Delicious Account of the Author's Years as a Grand Hotel Cook" seems a strange book to read in the times when Big Mac, chicken nuggets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwich are considered edible food. Nicolas Freeling, the great European mystery author with some 30 novels to his credit, writes about his 15 years as a cook in hotels in France and England. These were the times and places where food was taken seriously.

He begins as a lowly help in a Michelin-starred hotel, then moves to the Hotel des Pyramides in Paris, to finally work as a second sauce cook in a Normandy coast hotel. In 1954 he moves to his native England and works in a series of hotels in the English countryside.

"The Kitchen" is a charming little book about what it means to be a cook. About the smells in the kitchen, about the sound of chopping vegetables, about reusing every little leftover scrap, and about techniques of holding a knife. But mainly it is a book about people; Mr. Freeling paints vivid portraits of cooks who were his teachers and his co-workers: Fred, the larder chef, Monsieur Bonvalet the "Dad" in the seaside hotel, and the Matron, in England. It is also a very funny book; characterizations of eating and living habits of hotel guests are hilarious, the incident with a trout escaping from a display tank is pure slapstick, and I love "sabir, the international language" that was developed because cooks hailing from different countries needed to communicate with each other.

Mr. Freeling explains why giving exact amounts and exact processing times in recipes does not make sense because no two seemingly identical ingredients are ever the same and no two frying pans ever conduct heat in the same way. The book also provides a bigger lesson that transcends the culinary trade: one cannot learn a complicated craft out of a book; without years of hard work gaining experience, one would always remain an amateur.

A good and very pleasant read.

Three and a half stars.


View all my reviews