Quarantine

Wow, what a read!  I finished this last night about  midnight and then just kept  mulling it over for ages. I could not leave this novel behind me and I think that is one of its strongest pulls, its pitch perfect sense of time and place.  This is no mean feat considering we are talking about Jesus in the wilderness about 2000 years ago.  Infact by coincidence the time of the Christian calendar we are in now, the lent period before Easter. 

But don't be fooled, this is no biblical allegory of what it was like to be in the wilderness for 40 days and night without water and food.  This was the harsh reality, with a thumping fist, of what life was like for the people of this time, as the caves around Jesus were also full of fasting misfits trying to find peace with themselves and their existence. (Running off to caves in the wastelands of the Jericho hinterland for spiritual guidance seemed to be a bit of a 'thing' during this period. )

Now Jim Crace is passionate about his scenario and every time I read bits of this book my heart raced because life comes across as so unremittingly awful and harsh. Jesus arrives from the  Galilee to test his strength in god.  ( Crace always used a small case for God, not capital which I found odd to begin with, but could understand by the end...nothing was formalised. ) 

Jesus is young and unaware of his talents and as he is  walking through the scrubland trying to find a cave to sleep in he finds a dying man and innocently heals him and brings him back from the brink of death. Infact the man he cures is totally horrendous, a devil in human form. His wife is really frustrated that he is still alive because it means more subjugation and ridicule. But Jesus is unaware of his actions because he hides himself away in a cave for an unprecedented 40 days without food or water to fight his own temptations and have his own personal discussion with god. Jesus is hard core....he doesn't do what the other spiritual people do.  They all break the fast  after sunset because this is sensible, but not Jesus, and everyone knows that after just 30 days of no water or food you will die, especially in that heat.

I don't really know how to put into words the affect this book had on me.  Crace is not a religious man at all, he is a story teller and he does a fantastic job at telling us what starvation and thirst does do the body but what I really liked about this book is that Jesus and his personal torments were not a a major part of the book.  People's lives were going on around him and ultimately when something 'biblical' happens, other mundane lives and relationships of equal worth are building/breaking.  But Crace's incredibly linguistic and poetic way of writing did turn this book into quite a weirdly spiritual experience for me. The human devil is clearly expressed via Musa, the awful guy whom Jesus innocently brings back from the dead, Jim Crace sure knows how to write enigmatically about evil!   But  I'm not sure what Jesus role is in this book.  We know he is meant to embody the opposite of evil, but does he? To me he embodies people's hope and wishes. other people have told you what he has done, so you want to believe it yourself.  this is so true when Musa tells his tale of rebirth to the other cave dwellers and then they all hang around outside Jesus' cave hoping that he will come out and cure them.  But he never does.  He is too immature at this time and self possessed with his own demons,  a kind of religious  fanatic. But the ending is strangely ambiguous. To Christians it will be  sacraligous, to me it made a kind of perfect sense BUT it is something Iwould really like to talk to with someone who has read the book!   Freia?! 

The Summer Book

Another quick read for me. Insomnia has its advantages. This book was strange and rather otherworldly.  I know it's a Scandinavian classic and yes, I did enjoy it a lot but one thing is, I didn't find it funny. Many of the reviews say it is humorous, but I never found it to be so! 

I thought it was beautiful, comforting, philosphical and oddly zen like. Like reading and meditating at the same time, but not funny.

Tove Jansen, of Moomin fame,  wrote this after her own mother died and based it on her mother and niece, who used to spend the summer months in the Gulf of Finland on their little Island. The Grandmother is very old, extremely independent and also wise and fair and the little six year old grand daughter, Sophia is 6 and prone to mad tantrums, wild out bursts and full of imagination.  Their relationship together is brilliantly told. Jansen gets into the childlike inquisitiveness of Sophia just as well as the end of life stillness of the Grandmother.  Both seem to spend a lot of time on the ground, Sophia coz she is inquisitive, grandmother because her legs are too weak to move very far. They both end up cheating together whilst playing cards,  going out on boat trips, breaking into houses and talking about heaven and death. grandmother  says that there are no ants in heaven and that Angels have day trips away to go and see their friends in hell. The two of them also seem to spend of a lot of time doing nothing and just sleeping. I suppose this is because the sun must be up for nearly 24 hours a day so their body clocks are a bit screwed! 

The island is also a main character in the book and almost every flower, bit of bark and forest is described in great detail.  It seems like a vast and exciting world and obviously to these two it is!  The introduction is interesting too, written by Esther Freud. She visited the island and was shown around by the now adult Sophia and it took just 4 minutes to walk around!   I think that is what I like the most about the book, the joy of greatness to be found even in the  smallest of places. It all depends on how you view things! I also loved the character of the rather crotchety old grandmotherShe is absolutely brilliant. But as for a good read, I'm in two minds, lots of the little chapters were just rather weird. I just couldn't get my head around what was/ wasn't going on. The stories were not in any order, time was all mixed up and the father figure, who never said a word, was just a brooding figure in the back ground who just worked at his desk whilst mourning his dead wife. For me this was all a bit unsettling because there was a lot being said through absence of writing. 

I can't explain what I mean... An interesting book which I found uplifting, extremely calming and just a little bit odd! 

Headhunters

After my last intense read it was pretty cool to curl up in my bed and read this book literally from start to finish in one big book binge. I do have a soft spot for Jo Nesbo, if that is the right word.  I find his world view of a place infested with super sickos a comforting read and I'm secretly in love with the alcoholic, dark, twisted genius of a detective called Harry Hole but this book didn't have Harry Hole in it.  INfact this book was not about the murder of vulnerable women but rather about repellant guys who are out to kill each other. ( not quick enough in my opinion!) Guys with egos the size of rhinos and personalities the size of shrivelled nuts.  Everyone in this book was FOUL but that was part of its ridiculous charm, how revolting everyone was.  Parts of it were funny though, if you are prone to laughing at sick jokes and find toilet humour amusing, which obviously I do! 

  I'm glad I finished it in a night though.  I wouldn't have wanted it hanging around in my vicinity for too long.

This book is  Nesbo at his weakest but still a total page turner for me. I hated everyone but still needed to know what was going to happen to them.  I think  I'll just stick to my Harry Hole addiction in the future!  But  I'll give Nesbo the benefit of the doubt. For some unexplained reason I just love reading the sick, twisted nonsense he writes about. I find it incredibly funny and parts of this book did make me howl with laughter!!!