We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"We don't teach boys to care about being likeable."

I have always considered  that people are people and that the fact that you have an internal or exterior appendage should really not dictate your behaviour. I've always sought out jobs in male dominated industries to prove that point. Lately, it has been getting to me. Equality seems more and more to be a platitude that people speak of while their actions undermine their very words.

Here are 52 short pages that brilliantly describe some of the core problems and how we might have a hope of addressing them. For instance, how can I have a father that claims to want the best for me and yet laughs at my career "attempts" and belittles any commentary I might have about the industry we have both worked in?

 How is it that I if I earn more than a boyfriend or husband with far inferior intellect, skills and experience;he knows that he can potentially out do my earning potential?

Clearly the scales are not balanced and I think this tiny tome clearly and disppassionatley sets that out.

It is both equal parts distressing and reassuring that the author's experiences in Nigeria, Lagos and America reflect the same struggles around equality of gender. I share her aspirations for "A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves".

In today's crazy media fixated society I worry that aspiration is drifting further away.

 5 out of 5, we should all be feminists. 

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

“Two cups of tea later, they have agreed to drive back to IKEA, where they eventually manage to pick out some glasses that they will both succeed in tolerating for the rest of their lives: twelve tumblers from the Svalka range”

It is a rare skill to refine the words and images of a life in order to draw out real meaning and that is exactly what Mr de Botton has done here. He does it beautifully too. I dare anyone to read this and not reconsider their previous loves in the spotlight of what's reflected here. For our notions of romance are not sustainable and to nurture something real is all about finding the balance you can live with, supporting and receiving support and prioritising that unit.

I can only really comment on that from cold observation, for to be completely honest, I've never really found that myself. 

Certainly I could relate to both Kirsten and Rabih's challenges of the death of sexual attraction, the attraction of being a couple for the prestige it elicits from one's parents and colleagues,;but when you boil it all down, I've just never really met my match and that's sad. Perhaps I never will. 

In any case I'm done with pretending to be less, being conciliatory and all those other falsehoods that draw them in before they see behind the curtain. I'm aiming higher. When I look at this very real portrayal of a married couple ( and I've been there - married that is - despite feeling it probably was more about ticking off a life goal than anything else) I'm encouraged that we are all pretty rubbish communicators and tend to get everything wrong. Life is really about the mistakes we make and how we change because of them. I think this novel really reflects that. It is insightful, hard to read at times and beautiful.

Don't cheat. Just hire a hotel room and try to remember what you fancied about the person in the first place, if that's not there... you are probably best to run.

 5 out of 5, hugs all-round. 

 

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

"That we were wonderful travelling companions, but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal on their own separate orbits."

In some ways, this is the perfect novel to bid farewell to a one sided, toxic relationship with. It is dreamlike, melancholic, beautiful and disturbing. So much love unable to be realised. 


The narrator, K, is hopelessly in love with his friend Sumire, who has never felt anything until she collides with the disturbed Miu ,who can't return the affections that Sumire feels and bam, Sumire just disappears.

Miu wants to make her friend Sumire happy and complete and yet can't  contend with the idea of any lover after her own traumatic sense of circumstances.It is not just the idea of coupling with another woman that lacks appeal. Miu has her own white hair inducing issues. The ferris wheel story reminds me of the way we sometimes repress horrible memories and imagine them as happening to someone else. Miu is a beautiful shell of a person.

In the idyllic Greek Islands, Sumire's disappearance brings K together with Miu and her back story is revealed through Sumire's otherworldly writing. K is propelled into a strange half life and wonders where in time and space Sumire could be. The ending is confusing and strange, is Sumire really back? It seems unlikely that she's returned like Homer's Odyssey and yet the question remains.


The writing, as always is delectable. I'm consumed with jealousy at the deliciousness of the words.

"Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly lost. Or  at least there exists a silent place where everything can disappear, melding together in a single, overlapping figure. And as we live our lives we discover - drawing towards us the thin threads attached to each - what has been lost."

5 out of 5, life is too short not to read Murakami.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

"He did not know  why he was so irrationally happy, for nothing was changed in his life or hers."

This is a slim, but powerful volume. I imagine that, had I read it as a younger person, I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much. Perhaps what struck me was the sense of futility of middle age, of being trapped in an unpleasant, unrewarding situation and being tempted by the promise of an alternative.
There is a sense of the inevitable that lends the air of gothic horror to the New England farm. Every woman fears the sense that, as she ages, she becomes invisible and in some ways Zeena is the very personification of this. Her cousin, Mattie, is her potential sparkly new replacement. **Spoilers**, no-one gets their happy ending here. Zeena and Ethan trapped in a loveless marriage, Matty caught between love and destitution; and no-one profiting from the tragic events that ultimately bind them all together.
Certainly my review might give you the impression that the novel is hard going and it was not a quick or easy read, despite its size.  That being said, it was beautifully and poignantly rendered. I was particularly surprised that a broken pie dish and a sled ride could move me so much. I'd be interested to hear your opinions.


 5 out of 5 times love is fleeting and we all become our worst relatives.

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

"Sarcasm was dangerous to its user, identifiable as the language of the wrecker and the saboteur"

This novel is a delicious surprise package. Looking at such a slim volume, the reader could be mistaken that this might be a short-lived distraction, lacking emotional weight. 

That would be a massive miscalculation. Perhaps it resonated with me particularly because, quite coincidentally, my first visit to a live symphony was actually a celebration of the work of Shostakovich. 

The tale is likely to resonate with the times we find ourselves in, fake news, blind agreement, mob rule; the Internet age has birthed its own thought police reminiscent of the dark times of Russian History. Where a talented man's art can fall victim to the vagaries of political expediency and the dominant rhetoric.

Casting aside the political, the aspect of the novel that is truly amazing is the lyrical style of the prose which is as beautiful and moving as music. It ebbs and flows with impeccable timing and is to be admired.

This is the kind of novel that writers dream of writing, intoxicating and beautiful.

5 out of 5 songs can also be cyclical.

Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell

"In it stood the largest, most hideous, most elephant-legged grand piano that Edwardian money could buy."

I really wanted to love this more, it had moments of such delight, despite the timing being a little off. Somewhere in the middle, my interest waned and then, just when I would consider abandoning it, it evoked the odd chuckle and my progress was reinvigorated. I was introduced to this novel by its inclusion in The Guardian's 1000 novels you must read.

I'd probably describe it as Wodehouse Light. It brings a lighter touch to the humour, which is more polite, hidden and yet often, more pointed. This is polished, amusing and subtle and yet it just lacked a little sparkle for me.

I'd really enjoy hearing some other views and I imagine this would make a fantastic television adaptation, somewhere between Downton Abbey and Miss Fisher minus the murder.

 4 out of 5 subtle chuckles.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

"As the winter deepened, the transparent clarity of Nook's eyes seemed to increase"

This was one of the rare occasions where I'd seen the movie adaptation first. If you're familiar with my reviews you will know that's usually something I try and avoid. Thankfully the book and movie are quite different and diverging beasts, so I was able to put it out of mind.
What's not to love about Murakami and his mix of the dreamlike and the visceral? I'm a fairly recent convert to his works and am certainly enjoying discovering each offering. The other worldliness of being a young adult at university is captured here, albeit with some rather depressing tones of suicide and mental illness. Sex is at the centre of it all, whether it be the one off, life changing kind, the casual hook ups that grow increasingly amorphous or the healing, feeling of belonging kind. Just like life its all a bit confusing and a bit of a mishmash. Set in the 1960s, and the title reflecting the favourite Beatle's song of the protagonist's friend, then later girlfriend (of a sort). She is Naoko, the former girlfriend of Toro Watanabe's best childhood friend ( who kills himself). Joined by their shared loss of KIzuki at the tender age of 17, Toro and Naoko have a strange and often strained relationship.
Toro's love life, and often lack of it, makes for engaging reading and introduces a strange and often tortured parade of characters. If it all sounds a little bit too gloom and doom, it isn't, it remains page turning-ly compelling and is a beautiful read.
I don't wish to ruin the book for you, so, semi-spoiler - the ending drove me to distraction and left me feeling bereft. When you take into account that the beginning of the book is Toro looking back miserably,it does, however, draw a someone perfect symmetry. I wish I understood Japanese so that I could really explore the source.


 5 out of 5 times you can never read too much Murakami.