Three outstanding books that I was not disappointed by

I'm going into hospital for a (hopefully relatively minor) surgery tomorrow, but before I do, I thought I'd give some thoughts on the wonderfully palate-cleansing three books I have just finished - such a great change after being disappointed by the Barnes and Yuzuki books (see last post!)

I read these three books in tandem, alternating between them as the mood struck, and I thought each of them was near-perfect of its type. All were relatively short - more evidence, if more were needed, that you don't have to write doorstoppers to pull off something great - and they were incredibly different in tone, style and affect from each other. One was contemplative and moving, one hilarious and witty, one dark and sad and incredibly powerful. I would recommend each of them without hesitation, but for very different reasons.

"It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a chappie wish he’d got a soul or something"

I can't believe I've never read Wodehouse until now, but what a great treat this was! 

Light as a feather, charmingly silly, genuinely hilarious, full of clever wordplay, with a unique and delightful style - I loved it. The characters of both Bertie Wooster (absolute waster of an over-privileged snob) and Jeeves (genius valet) are so vivid and charming in their different ways, and it's so relaxing to read fiction with such low stakes that you can just roll with the shenanigans with a giggle. 

I mean, how could this not make you laugh?

"As I stood in my lonely bedroom at the hotel, trying to tie my white tie myself, it struck me for the first time that there must be whole squads of chappies in the world who had to get along without a man to look after them. I’d always thought of Jeeves as a kind of natural phenomenon; but, by Jove! of course, when you come to think of it, there must be quite a lot of fellows who have to press their own clothes themselves and haven’t got anybody to bring them tea in the morning, and so on. It was rather a solemn thought, don’t you know. I mean to say, ever since then I’ve been able to appreciate the frightful privations the poor have to stick."

I'm really glad I started with a short story collection as a way to read myself in to the Wooster / Jeeves oeuvre, but am now looking forward to reading the novels at a leisurely pace. I think they'll be absolutely perfect palate cleansers between heavier books. 9/10 from me.

This is the first book by Argentinian writer Claudia Piñeiro that I have read, and it packed a massive punch.

Shortlisted (deservedly) for the International Booker in 2022, Elena Knows is not, despite Piñeiro's usual crime fiction ouevre (at least in English translation), a mystery novel. It purports to have a potential mystery at its centre, but very quickly, it becomes all too apparent to the reader that there is no mystery here, only the unspeakable tragedy and indignity of a degenerative slow death that steals so much more than it first seems.

Elena, 65, the titular character, is suffering from advanced Parkinsons. Suffering is the right word here - she is not living with the condition or experiencing the condition, those are too value-neutral expressions for the grim march of what she bluntly terms her "fucking whore illness", which is progressing appallingly. 

Elena's daughter Rita, 44, was found hanging in the local church belfry some months before the book's action starts. Her death is accepted by everyone else as a suicide - tragic, of course, but not a subject for further investigation. Elena alone is convinced that Rita has been murdered, and sets off to find a woman, Isabel, who she believes owes her a debt, to enlist Isabel to act as her "body" in pursuing the investigation.

The action of the book takes place across a single day as Elena painfully drags herself across the city to find Isabel, interspersed with both flashback scenes and Elena's internal monologues as her memories surface and are processed. Throughout, Piñeiro's (and her translator's) grip on tone and language is incredibly tight; she is able to paint a picture of dysfunctional love and relationships twisted beyond reason with a startling economy of phrase (Elena describes Rita's suitor, Roberto, as "that hunchbacked boy... attached to his mother like an infected appendix no one dared to remove.")

As a study of the brutal toll that degenerative illness imposes on those who have them and those who care for affected people, it is blunt, insistent, and terrifying. As an indictment on the banal miseries of navigating health systems and complex requirements, it is achingly familiar. And as a statement about how much - or how little - we can really know about those closest to us, it is stingingly sad.

I won't give away the end, despite it not really being a mystery. Rather, I'll finish with a sentence that captures the mood extremely well: "Rita stood motionless watching the paper as it blazed, crackled, and danced until it changed colour, melted away, turned to ashes, and finally, went to the place that fire goes when it burns out." 9/10 for me.

Strout never writes a less than beautiful book, but there was something in particular about this novel that really moved me. 

It is the story of history teacher Artie Dam, living through the lead  up to the 2024 American election and its aftermath, living through cataclysms in his own life as the world around him grows darker and darker.

Artie Dam is a wonderful protagonist - not as intellectual as Lucy Barton, not as delightfully spiky as Olive Kitteridge, but contemplative, gentle, and above all, decent. His relationship with his son, Rob, in particular really moved me, as did his role as a genuine mentor for and protector of his students. Artie's deep, deep sadness is as much, if not more, for the future he sees being stolen from the young as for the loss of the beauties and freedoms of the past.

As a portrait of a fundamentally good, decent man struggling to make sense of an increasingly indecent world, it was incredibly affecting, and meets the moment we are in, to an extent that few books really have. I loved it deeply and will certainly re-read it. 9/10.