So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernieres

 

This book is the second in Louis de Bernieres’ Daniel Pitt trilogy. I have just re-read it in preparation for reading the third instalment, The Autumn of the Ace. It is, as usual with anything by Louis de Bernieres, a deeply  sensitive and quite beautiful story. Daniel Pitt has come back from the First World War during which he became a legendary flying ace. He is married to Rosie and living in Ceylon where he has a tea plantation. He is happy in Ceylon but Rosie isn’t and they return to England in 1928 at Rosie’s insistence.

Although I have read a lot of Louis de Bernieres’ books I haven’t read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, mainly because I loved the movie so much but I have heard lots of people say they didn’t like it at all because it made a hash of the book. I don’t want to stop loving the movie, of which we have a DVD and which we watch every now and then to our great enjoyment. The point of all this is that on the ship from Ceylon back to old Blighty Daniel strikes up a friendship with the ship’s young Greek doctor, Iannis, who is giving up his job with the shipping line and going back to the island of Cephalonia to look after his wife who is dying from tuberculosis, and to raise his daughter, Pelagia. When I finish The Autumn of the Ace I might just have to get over it and read Captain Corelli to see if there is a further relationship between Iannis and Daniel. It might even come up in the Autumn of the Ace which is going to have Daniel joining up again for the Second World War.

Back to So Much Life Left Over: these characters are so real that I am excited about following their paths straight away with the next book. They all came back to me as I was re-reading it, as did the first story in the trilogy, The Dust That Falls From Dreams. Daniel experiences love, rejection, happiness, sadness, redemption and through it all remains a decent, heroic man. Louis de Bernieres is a master story teller and his female characters are as sensitively drawn and equally appealing as his males.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves character-driven, evocative, intensely moving writing. 

“If you have been embroiled in a war in which you confidently expected to die, what were you supposed to do with so much life left over?”

5 out of a meaningful 5.

Published  by Knopf Doubleday Publishing  Group

I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell

 

Maggie O’Farrell has chronicled seventeen near-death experiences in this most unusual memoir. The most traumatic and the one which brought her closest to actually dying was a bout of encephalitis which left her unable to walk for a year at the age of eight. She has quite remarkably clear memories from this time although, of course, it was such a shattering event that it has probably been discussed by her family over the years, keeping the details of it alive to her.  I broke my leg at age seven and I can remember how the accident happened, looking up at the grown-ups standing around me, being in hospital and the smell of the plaster as it was put on my leg, and mostly howling for my mother when she and my dad left me at the hospital. I don’t, however, have any greatly detailed recollections from such an early age but then again it was a broken leg, not a life-threatening illness, and Maggie O’Farrell also has an author’s gifts of recall and imagination as well as a legacy of problems which emanated from the illness.

There are sixteen more brushes with death following this one. This is a fascinating life story filled with adventure, romance, pain and heartbreak, and happiness. Maggie O’Farrell has written some very good books, the first of which, After You’d Gone, was beautiful, haunting and has stayed with me for many years. She has been very brave here and shown great generosity in allowing her readers to see into her personal life and to get a true sense of the writer behind the words. I have never read a memoir like this one and it was brilliant of her to approach her story in this way.

I intend to read Maggie O’Farrell’s latest book, Hamnet, soon and I wonder how I will interpret her fiction  now, having been given these insights into the author’s personal history. 5 out of 5 from me.

Published by Headline Publishing Group.

Just My Luck by Adele Parks

Just My Luck is a clever story. I don’t want to elaborate on just how clever it is and spoil it in case someone should read this review and decide to buy the book!

Adele Parks writes interesting, thoughtful and very readable books. I got to the end of this one and then went back to the start for a quick re-read to find the hidden clues I had missed.  Lexi and Jake had been friends with the Pearsons and the Heathcotes for fifteen years. They had shared holidays and spent every Saturday night in each other’s company and had made a tradition of buying a weekly lotto ticket together. Then came one weekend when the realisation hit Lexi that the other two couples had lost interest in the lotto and maybe even the shared friendship.

The following week the lotto numbers which the group had always used came up. The prize was £17.8 million and Lexi had bought the winning ticket. The money was to change everybody’s lives in quite dramatic ways and to reveal hitherto hidden personalities.

Some chapters featuring Lexi and her daughter, Emily, and one on Lexi’s friend, Toma, are written in the first person and the rest of the book is in the third person giving an objective oversight to the story. Adele Parks is a terrific writer and this book did not disappoint.

A great read but even if only for the tips on how to act when I eventually win the lottery, I give it 5 out of 5.

Published by Harper Collins H Q

 

The Searcher by Tana French

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This is Tana French’s best book so far. Cal Hooper, 48 years old, ex Chicago police detective, is searching for a new start. His wife, with whom he had been since they were19, has left him, his daughter is in a stable relationship and is living and working in New York and he has come to the west of Ireland to try living in ‘a small town in a small country. It seemed like that would be easier to make sense of’. He is putting to use the carpentry skills he learned from his grandfather years ago to repair a delapidated old farm house on the outskirts of the village of Ardnakelty, 15 miles away from the nearest town. He intends to hunt and fish for his food and live simply and quietly. Of course in no time the entire village becomes aware that they have a man from Chicago PD living among them.

Although  Cal has no intention of looking for any kind of detective work he is soon approached by Trey, a young child whose brother, Brendan, has been missing for six months. It appears that no one is interested in finding Brendan; the locals regard the children’s family as ‘wasters’ and not really worth the bother. If Cal is to find Brendan he is going to be working without any of the tools he was used to in  Chicago; no computerised data bases, no tracking devises, no experienced evidence gatherers. He is a kind man and treats Trey with patience and sensitivity, eventually deciding to involve himself in the mystery surrounding 19 year old Brendan’s disappearance.

Tana French’s fine writing brings all her characters to life and evokes the Irish landscape vividly.  Cal’s interactions with people are real and drawn beautifully. To read the book is to become immersed in the misty Irish hills and valleys and to know the people who live there.

An utterly superb read! 5 out of 5.

Published by Penguin Australia

Courage Under Fire: Daniel Keighran VC (with Tony Park)

Whether your preference is for either biographies or novels, Daniel Keighran VC’s life story is an autobiography that reads like a best-seller novel and will, I am sure, appeal to a very wide audience. Dan had a childhood, from the time his father reappeared in his life, which quite understandably could have broken his spirit but from which he emerged as a young man with great strength of character. He was lucky to have as his mentor his grandfather, although they didn’t spend a lot of time together after Dan and his sister, Susan, moved to a remote part of North Queensland with their parents; but whenever they did see each other Dan always listened to his grandfather’s words of wisdom and learned from them. He obviously had inherited his grandfather’s honourable, heroic nature and the sad part of Dan’s story is that his grandfather did not live to see him awarded the Victoria Cross.

From the age of eleven Dan was coping with many hardships and, amazingly for an eleven year old, learning from adversity and using his innate problem-solving capability to cope with whatever was thrown at him.

Dan’s courage under fire was the stuff of legends. He is a remarkable young man and his description of his actions which led to the awarding of our country’s greatest military honour should make all Australians proud to know he walks among us. In true heroic style he is a self-effacing man with a great sense of humour and his bravery and honesty shine through all of his words.

Dan doesn’t flinch at admitting that his military career, followed by the responsibilities he has undertaken as a consequence of being a Victoria Cross recipient, have taken a toll on his private life. I wish him happiness in everything his future holds.

There are some great young Australian actors around and Dan Keighran VC’s life is crying out to be made into a blockbuster of a movie!

5 out of 5, of course!!

Published by Macmillan

Son of the Brush by Tim Olsen

 

I took a long time to read this memoir by Tim Olsen, son of John Olsen who has the reputation of ‘Australia’s greatest living artist’, because every time Tim referred to an artist or a work of art I felt compelled to look each one up so I could see who or what he was writing about. This exercise added greatly to my interest in the story of a child who grew up surrounded by people whose lives were totally dedicated to the making of art. With his parents and sister he lived in many and varied artistically inspiring locations including Watson’s Bay on the east side of Sydney harbour; Notting Hill, London; a Spanish village called Mojacar; Hill End in country New South Wales and Dural in the rural outskirts of Sydney.

With this background Tim’s life was always going to be about art but he turned from painting to curating and, with his stored knowledge and understanding of his chosen subject, he set about creating galleries which would accommodate the works of the best artists he could find. He has held countless successful exhibitions for his clients and he has carved out a truly impressive career.

Through the quite fascinating story of his personal as well as professional life is woven the thread dealing with Tim’s overcoming his addiction to alcohol. His day to day world involves of necessity a lot of entertaining and, as well, he grew up surrounded by artists, many of whom, including his father, viewed alcohol as an intrinsic ingredient almost in fuelling their creative endeavours. As the son of a famous father Tim enjoyed benefits and privileges many people would envy but it was always going to be difficult for him to make his own way in life.  His heartbreak when his father left his beautiful mother thus bringing to a end an idyllic if unconventional childhood and the consequent adjustments he had to make were hard for a sensitive boy to make sense of.

 I have seen how alcoholism invades someone’s life. It gets easier every day to step inside that fog and leave the world outside. Tim’s eventual victory over his addiction is an inspirational story. It is hard to see from the outside why someone like Tim would have needed to barricade himself from a world full of art, travel, beautiful and famous people, his adored son and his loving father but life is never that simple.

I was very happy when I was referencing the artists Tim was naming to find Nicholas Harding. I was looking at the Archibald Prize entrants at the Sydney Art Gallery a few years ago when I came across a stunning painting of one of my favourite authors, Robert Drewe.  I didn’t make a note of who painted it at the time but when I looked up Nicholas Harding while reading Son of the Brush I found it there together with some other beautiful paintings by Nicholas Harding. I have thought of that painting often and it was lovely to see it again, if only on my iPad, courtesy of Google! (I’m hoping one day to win the lottery and buy a Nicholas Harding of my own.)

5 out of 5!

Published by Allen & Unwin

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin

This is Ian Rankin at his finest. John Rebus is so perfectly written it is hard at the end of each book to come back to the realisation that he is a character in a novel and not a real, live person!

Rebus has retired from the police force although he keeps in touch with Siobhan Clarke into whose capable hands have fallen the cases which once would have come his way. Advancing years and health problems have slowed him down physically somewhat but mentally he remains as sharp, and as dogged, as ever. 

In this book Rebus’s daughter, Samantha, calls on him when a tragic event takes place in her life. Rebus finds himself  in the village of Naver where Samantha lives carrying out a murder investigation although he is constantly having to be asked to leave it to the local police force and he also becomes involved in searching into events which took place during the Second World War in a prisoner of war camp which is situated near the village.

Meanwhile, Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox are carrying out their own murder investigation in Edinburgh and coincidentally there is a possible connection with the murder in Naver. Obviously Siobhan will become the focus of the Rebus books over time, which echoes Quintin Jardine’s Bob Skinner series where Bob’s daughter, Alex, is starting to take the central role with Bob still an important figure in the background.

There is still much enjoyment to be had from reading a Rebus novel. Ian Rankin is keeping them as fresh and exciting, and real, as ever. Definitely 5 out of 5.

Published by Orion.