Two not-terrible books that I was somewhat disappointed by

I've just finished two books that have both been on my bedside TBR pile for some time. Both of them are books I was keenly anticipating reading, based largely on the regard in which I hold earlier works by the authors. Now, having completed both, I find myself ... underwhelmed? Neither are awful books - both have points of interest, both have things to recommend them - but given what each of these writers has shown themselves capable of in the past, these books just ain't it.

This book, billed as a novel (spoiler alert - it is not in fact a novel) is purported by Barnes to be his last book. However. Given this is the same writer who gave a long-form interview over a decade ago that was billed as The Last Interview, and has been nonetheless all over the press ever since, giving more interviews than a Bridgerton actor, I think we can take that with a grain of salt. For the sake of Barnes' legacy, I actually hope it is disingenuous, because this would not be a strong note on which to end a genuinely meaningful literary career.

Barnes is interested in memory, and how it works, particularly through a Proustian lens. He is also, unsurprisingly for a man in his late 70s with an incurable (albeit managed) blood cancer, interested in death, or as he chooses to term it, "departure" - from life, from consciousness, from the self. This book is full of discussions about both these topics, some more engaging than others, written in an essay-style letter to the reader directly from Barnes himself. (See why I say it is not a novel?)

Allegedly, the story part of the book is about Stephen and Jean, two pseudonymous old friends of Barnes who he introduced to each other at university, then parted ways, and who he contrives to bring back together again for a late-life marriage that also goes sour. In reality, Stephen and Jean are utterly uninteresting, as is their November romance, and I think Barnes even realises this himself, given how little page time he actually gives them. Jimmy, Jean's feisty little terrier who Barnes eventually adopts, is by far the most vivid character in the book, and the only one (author included) that I cared about in the slightest.

At the end of the day, while this is well-written (Barnes is too skilful to write a poor or flat book from a stylistic perspective), it is both non-compelling and so self-absorbed as to be irritating reading at times. A lot of the insights seem either obvious or a touch meretricious, although the final chapter marginally pulls that back with some observational passages that feel more genuine and less self-indulgent. 

I think my mistake was expecting this reflection on his own mortality to rival, or be a companion piece, to his incredible book that looks at the death of his wife, The Sense of an Ending (which won the Booker, deservedly, in 2011, and is one of my favourite Booker winners of the twenty-first century). It just isn't that, though, and although I can (and do) really admire the elegance of the writing, I wasn't ultimately moved by it, and I won't read it again. 6/10.

This is the second novel translated to English by Japanese writer Asako Yuzuki, whose novel, Butter, was both a smash hit and one of my favourite books of the past three years. I went into this one excited to see what it would be, and expecting great things.

Hooked is a story, ultimately, about female friendship and the difficulties therein, of which Yuzuki seems to take a fairly depressingly dim view (which somewhat surprised me given the warm relationship between Rika, the protagonist of Butter, and her best friend, Reiko). 

There is not a single even remotely healthy female friendship in the book, and moreover, there is not a single even vaguely likeable female character. (I would argue that Shoko's husband, Kensuke, is the only relatively pleasant *person* in the whole book). It's quite hard to really engage with a story where your dominant emotional response is not only "you're all awful", but "you're all awful and I don't give two tiny mouse-sized shits what terrible trouble you end up in".

The various deficiencies of Eriko (ostensibly successful businesswoman, actual sociopathic stalker), Shoko (ostensible easy-going lazy housewife blogger, actual toxically selfish and detatched grifter), and Maori (ostensible girl's girl who knows how to support her friends, actual greedy and often cruel predator) are spotlighted in bright unrelenting lights. Even minor characters like neighbour Keiko, literary agent Satoko, and Eriko's mother are shown to be defective in critical ways.

I understand that Yuzuki is making a larger point about how the structures of patriarchy poison the well for female relationships with each other as much as with men, but I don't think she lands the fish, to continue the analogy from the title. These characters are so extreme and weird and off-putting that they almost read as caricatures, especially Maori, whose behaviour is so comic-book-villain that it had me laughing incredulously at some points (I don't think that was the intended response).

Yuzuki does try to suggest a redemption arc for both Shoko and Eriko (separately) at the end, and it's quite a good way to finish, but ultimately, wasn't enough to rescue the book fully for me. I found it readable, but not compelling or particularly insightful, and it's another one I won't be back to. 5.5/10.