Pauline Melville

I was overjoyed to see a book that so cleverly balanced the thinking of a native people with that of a modern philosophy. This book has found a way to show you the way the Indians think and how it is totally rational, just as the way the Whites think is totally rational and it doesn't do it by telling you that it is totally rational, it just shows the train of thought and moves on as if there is nothing remarkable. Of course someone playing the violin can turn into a grasshopper once it has show more been pointed out by an observer that this is what he appears to be, that is certainly no different than knowing a priest will begin to spread the word of god around the community once he has established himself among the people.

The story was beautifully written and I enjoyed reading about the various generations of the family and seeing how they dealt with what life was throwing at them. In the beginning, I worried that there would be far too much to the descriptions and storytelling, as it felt like every sentence was trying to introduce something new, but that feeling left as soon as everyone and everything was properly introduced. I quickly became caught up in the read and could practically feel the rain on my back as it dripped through the cracks of a shelter or experience the full heat of the savannah as I read my way from location to location. I never thought it would be possible to explore life from the perspective of two different cultures without picking one side or the other when it comes to an issue that must be resolved, but I found myself completely understanding both sides of every situation that came up in the book. I simply can't say enough about how unique and enjoyable this experience was. show less

‘’All I wanted to do was hurt him. Death was my way of reviving his love for me, punishing him and finally gaining victory in the contest.’’

In Pauline Melville’s stories, chaos comes in many forms. Addiction, obsession, chimaeras running inside the characters’ minds, tyranny, love, family, war, the need to succeed, the futile effort to prevent tragedy. But within chaos, as we all know, hope can be found, born out of our strength and desire to go on and not let ourselves show more surrender. From the Caribbean to Russia, from the Czech Republic to Scotland, from Syria to Argentina, from Germany to England, these characters try to become the Masters of Chaos. Whether they succeed or not is up to us to decide.

‘’The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. A melancholy white mist shrouded Le Repentir burial ground. We walked down the avenue of giant royal palms. The tall trees were stricken with some disease that had turned the drooping foliage mangy and yellow. The cemetery was floated, allowing the dead to move about below and change places. Grandfather was lowered into his grave with a splash.’’

The Master of Chaos: A strong start with an atmospheric story of a dead grandfather who believed that gambling manages to retain the balance amidst the chaos of his life, a resourceful granddaughter and a lively (and complex) family, set in Guyana. The ending is phenomenal!

‘’Noel Dunham then decided to pull himself together and tackle the problem methodically. He would write every type of suicide note in every possible style and then go through them all until one striking and inevitable farewell remained.’’

Fable of A Laureate: In a darkly humorous story, a Nobel Laureate decides to commit suicide because of his writer’s block. But he needs to write THE perfect suicide note and it’s far from easy.

Reason Has Its Limits: The powerful story of a young man who becomes the unwilling confidante of a dictator and the strange twists of Fate. With references to Skrekibuku, the book of Terror in Dutch Creole culture and Saint Death of Mexico, this tale becomes a haunting confession of utter corruption, set in Surinam.

Fable of a God Forgotten: The victim of a vicious attack tries to understand the motives and personality of her attacker. Strangely profound.

‘’That morning, when he went out to the shops, she had been playing the theme tune from the Umbrellas of Cherbourg on the piano, humming to herself with tears in her eyes which she hoped he would notice.’’

The Dostoyevsky House: An elegant satire paying homage to the Russian Short Story, ‘’starring’’ an actor trying to make ends meet in a society that is still trying to find its footing in a world without communism. Set in St Peterburg during a strange summer, with a plethora of cultural references.

Fable of a Missing Word: A brilliant story about a brotherly feud over vocabulary, their wise nephew and the Arawak language, set in an Amerindian village in Guyana.

The Dream of Ocalan: A moving story about friendship and the fight of the brave Kurdish people for identity and independence from the Turkish tyrants.

‘’Of the many invisible cities described by Calvino, there is one remarkable city that is missing. If you approach this city by road you can see the main station on the outskirts. A handful of people loiter on the platform. It is only when you enter the missing city that you understand it consists of nothing but waiting spaces: private waiting rooms, public waiting rooms, foyers, lobbies, ante-rooms, precincts set aside for queuing, courtyards designed for hanging about. The entire city is constructed for the sole purpose of waiting.’’

Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary Discuss Their Suicides: Such a pure, wonderful gem. Two of our most beloved and tragic ladies in Literature discuss love, men, expectations, jealousy and death.

The Dark Photon: What begins as a memoir of students befriending a charismatic teacher soon becomes a testimony of the unthinkable cruelties committed by the dictatorship of Videla in Argentina during the 70s, the Desaparecidos and the escape of monsters to countries that were extremely willing to accept them.

A Fable of Tales Untold: An atmospheric story about the struggle of a Jewish writer as the eras change. Set in beautiful Prague during the Second World War, the Soviet Occupation and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

‘’How dead are the dead? That’s what we need to know, eh?’’

Let Me Out: A story in which hallucinations walk side-by-side with the ‘’teachings’’ of sculptors, and a man is plagued by visions about marble and bronze statues. Set in Norfolk, Florence, Munich and Bamberg.

Morne Jaloux: Set in Grenada, this is a story rich in political themes but, in my opinion, it was not particularly interesting. It felt dull, dubiously preachy and repetitive.

A Bright Yellow Bag: In my opinion, this one was horrible. Full of swearing, absurdities and a strange feeling that I was supposed to feel sorry for the fate of a deceased member of (presumably) the Red Brigade that terrorized Italy for years. No. I won’t. Ever. I won’t feel sorry for anarchists and terrorists. Sue me.

Singing in the Dark Times: A moving story about the tragedy in Grenfell Tower, homelessness and the strength of the human soul during dark times.

‘’It was November, 1989. There had been skirmishes throughout the city and then a few days later millions of citizens took to the streets, spring tidal flood of citizenry: medical workers in their white coats, printers, drivers, workers from the factories; this huge river of people spilled out from some unidentifiable source and poured through the streets of Prague. A new city became visible that the day before had been unseen. Truckloads of students waving our red, blue and white flags roared through the streets. Holding hands, my wife, son and I joined the jubilant crowds in Wenceslas Square. Under the grey skies we were blinking as if we had just emerged into the light of day.’’

Many thanks to Sandstone Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

http://booksexy.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/eating-air-by-pauline-melville/

There’s something intriguingly slapdash about Pauline Melville’s new novel, Eating Air. It begins with the narrator briefly introducing himself , – and then the curtains raise and for 407 pages we’re jumping from character to character, scene to scene, at a pace that is exhilarating (if slightly dizzying). Melville has created the literary equivalent of a Cirque de Soleil performance given by middle-aged show more political radicals who have managed to live long enough to know better. Her novel is intense, convoluted, serious in its’ subject matter and carefully plotted. Yet it still manages to feel unrehearsed, capricious and effortless. Somehow, Eating Air comes across as light and insubstantial as… well… air. It’s quite an accomplishment.

The writing, by itself, is startlingly beautiful.

Many years later, when Hector looked back on the way they all gambled so freely with their lives – tossing cigarette packs, cartridges and grenades between each other as casually as if they were fielding in a ball game – he reflected on how those brushes with death seemed to give the young fighters an airy elegance and lightness that made them almost skyborne – as if they were eating air. Fleet, breathtaking decisions were taken easily with a light heart and unshakeable certainty. They were not weighed down with personal plans. They possessed nothing. Hector wondered whether that lightness existed amongst them all because they had no future.

Of course, the reader soon finds that this absence of a future has been grossly exaggerated.

Eating Air is told in three parts. The first and third parts take place in present-day. We are introduced to a group of former political radicals from the 1970’s, long after the dust their actions once stirred has settled. Some have been imprisoned, some fled the country or went on to lead armed and militant factions. The acts they committed were more blips on the map than the beginnings of the revolution they’d expected. Most realize that and have gone on to build lives, but a few haven’t let go of their dreams. All miss the sense of purpose their lives once had. Gradually fate brings them back together.

Part two of the novel flashes back to London in the 1970’s. We meet Ella deVries, a half-Surinamese dancer for the Royal Ballet. We learn about how she met the love of her life, Donny McLeod, and how they became absorbed into this group of British radicals. Both are on the fringe, and their participation in events is more of an afterthought than an act of political engagement. Ella dances and loves Donny. Donny creates mayhem wherever he goes. In theory, they (their class) would be the ones to benefit from the revolution, or so they are told. But they remain aloof and distrustful.

While Eating Air contains the fairly in-depth stories of multiple characters (I stopped counting at 18) Ella and Donny are central to the book, often the catalysts setting events into motion. Yet their role was difficult to place. They never quite fit into the big picture I thought Melville was trying to draw – but they continually make appearances in the stories of other characters. Both actively and passively. It is the Acknowledgements at the end of the book that gives a hint of what Pauline Melville is attempting to do:

If Euripides were around I hope he would excuse my loose re-working of themes from The Bacchae. I also acknowledge standing on the shoulders of many other authors who have given us versions of Venus and Adonis.

I’ll give you another clue: Where Donny goes, pandemonium and Ella follow. Ella is usually dancing.

The classical themes on which the author has based her novel are used with such subtlety that without the Acknowledgement the reader might never have made a connection. But once you have read those lines, and brush up a little on the classics, it becomes so glaring that you can’t believe anyone could read this book without knowing. Personally, I adore books that give that extra gift. That can be read and enjoyed without knowing their secret, but once it is revealed become entirely new books. Eating Air is the story of revolutionaries and terrorists in two different periods of history. It is also the metaphorical story of what is at the basis of such acts and of how such acts can occur. It is fable, farce (laugh out loud funny) and tragedy all rolled together.

If an author writes well enough, he or she can get away with a lot. In that sense Melville is fortunate. Eating Air has flaws, but they can be easily overlooked in the face of such skillful manipulation of language. If the relationships between characters feels too coincidental, almost incestuous, it can be argued that she’s focusing on a specific group of people whose lives are intertwined. If the book seems to contain too much, that some of the plot lines seem arbitrary and unneccessary to the overall novel, well you can say that had the book been edited with a heavier hand the whimsical rhythm of the prose could have been lost. In my mind, Eating Air is such a unique and special book that it is necessary to embrace it exactly as it is.

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Pauline Melville has written two other novels, a short story collection, won several awards and has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. I’d be surprised if Eating Air doesn’t receive the same kind of recognition. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s available in the States, and I’m not sure when it will be. At least I haven’t been able to find it. I’m almost embarrassed to say (after all the gushing I’ve done about this book) that I received my copy as an ARC from the kind people at Telegram Books, London. The Ventriloquist’s Tale and Shape-Shifter have both been published by Bloomsbury USA. show less

Main plot is a cliché and subplots go nowhere. Evelyn Waugh interest, which directed me to the book, is very minor. But the description of life in the Guyanese interior is consistently engaging.