'Tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus

Time for another in my very occasional round-up of reviews. I don't review everything I read and my star ratings should not be taken as absolute - I have been known to change my opinion over time!

The Man Who Forgot His Wife by John O'Farrell

The problem with novels by people who are known for being funny is that you tend to expect punchline-driven humour all the time. You're reading each paragraph waiting for the payoff. This was perhaps the problem with O'Farrell's first few novels, and probably why I enjoyed his non-fiction slightly more. There's a bit more seriousness in The Man Who Forgot His Wife. The plot doesn't advance a lot beyond the initial amnesia premise, and there's a highly contrived and unlikely scene where our hero does the business with the French assistant on the gym mats, while being viewed on security CCTV. Otherwise, though, it's quite an enjoyable and involving book which has you reading to the end. ***


Infinite Sky by C.J. Flood

One of those raved-over Young Adult novels which I had been meaning to read for ages - perhaps it was inevitable that it would not live up to the hype over on Goodreads, but I found it something of a disappointment. The author is very good at evoking an unsettling atmosphere, but I didn't feel completely engaged with it and wondered at times where it was going. It's also irritating that it refuses to pin itself down to a particular time - it feels contemporary in places, but then we have the jarring detail of teenagers looking for a phone-box. There are some poignant moments, though. **




Doctor Who: City of Death by Douglas Adams and James Goss

One of the best-remembered Who stories from the Tom Baker era, and one of the last to be novelised thanks to various ongoing rights issues. As James himself says in his note, it's the 'most authored and least authoritative' Who adventure, the product of an insanely frenzied weekend of writing by Adams and producer Graham Williams so that the director would have something to work with on Monday. Could the novel possibly live up to the TV story? It does, and it also adds a wealth of Adams-style humour, character moments and asides without ever deviating from the spirit of the screened episodes. The novelisation almost becomes the definitive version of the story, so much so that you are convinced you actually saw the 'extra bits' on TV. An expanded backstory for John Cleese and Eleanor Bron's art critics, a first name for the Countess, the whole history of the various splinters of the alien Scaroth scattered in time and some great jokes about Parisian manners are just a few of the wonderful highlights. Things to forgive - some dodgy French and a few winceworthy typos. ****½


Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

Another which I came to with high hopes, having enjoyed a couple of the author's early novels. Set in the heatwave of 1976, which the author does a great job of portraying, it's the story of an absence - the missing father of the Riordan family and how his disappearance affects the strained relationships in the rest of the clan. Some of the family feuding is tedious at times and veers close to parody. There is a sense of a heat-exhausted novel staggering towards its conclusion rather than steaming ahead, but there is still much to enjoy here. ***

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A novelist I was not familiar with. I came to this book with no expectations other than the vague notion that it had been garnering a lot of rave reviews, but I was determined to read it without prejudice. All I knew was that it was the story of human society twenty years after a catastrophe, in which the heroine and her band of fellow actors travel the devastated landscape of Canada, performing Shakespeare. Emily St. John Mandel's fourth novel turns out to be very much more than this. A haunting story of loss, memory and of what actually matters in the world, Station Eleven is a stunningly clever, compelling collage of various intersecting characters' stories from before, during and after 'the collapse'. A subtle gear-change halfway through catches you by surprise, and yet is still entirely 'right'. One of the best novels I have read in the 21st century, it's full of moments and images which will make you look at the world anew and wonder how it - and you - will be remembered. It will be hard to beat this as my book of the year. Recommended without hesitation. *****