“The Bookshelf” is an occasional feature in which members of the English Department – students, faculty, and alumni – share with you books that they would highly recommend as good reads.
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Reviewed by Maria Geertsema
It was the dedication that got me. After all, how can you turn away a book that is dedicated to
you? "You know how it is. You pick up a book, flip to the dedication, and find that, once again,
the author has dedicated a book to someone else and not to you.
"Not this time."
Fat Charlie Nancy, the protagonist of this novel, has to contend with the hardship of an
embarrassing father. Now most of us would rather not be with our parents in certain situations,
but whether at a dog show competition, the first day of school, or in the hospital near his
mother's sick bed, Fat Charlie Nancy is perpetually plagued with this unfortunate sentiment.
Embarrassment resides even after his father's sudden death. Fat Charlie attributes this to his
father's lasting influence; when he names something, it sticks. Not only is the death a cause for
a sore point, but Fat Charlie attends the wrong funeral and misses the service and everythin' of
his own father.
Chalk this up as another unfortunate and embarrassing incident. Fat Charlie returns in a state
discomfort to the neighbourhood where he grew up with the company of four old ladies. It is
here he is informed that his father is a god and he has a brother he never knew he had. Nothing
out of the ordinary, right? All he has to do is talk to a spider, and his brother will come.
This carefully spun story by Neil Gaiman, author of the book Stardust (which has been made
into a major motion picture), is a story of Fat Charlie and his family in which the reader is easily
entangled. Fighting. Revenge. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. Love. Mothers‐in‐law. This book
promises enjoyment until the very end.
Review of Our Mutual Friend
By Emily Williams
It was in my third year of an English degree that I suddenly realized I was a fraud: how could I be an English major if I’d never read anything by Charles Dickens? So I picked up Oliver Twist. It was the beginning of the end for me…. I was hooked. Oliver Twist was followed by Bleak House, and since it was now the summer and I had guaranteed reading time during my sunny lunch breaks, Bleak House was followed by Our Mutual Friend. While I had struggled a little with the highly descriptive 700-odd pages of Bleak House, this was not to be the case with Our Mutual Friend.
If you have heard that Charles Dickens is “boring,” you haven’t read Our Mutual Friend. Dickens’ plot has enough twists and turns to keep the most avid soap opera fan riveted to the screen.… I mean, to the page. While there are chapters that slow down the pace, the way the story comes together in the end makes it worth the time spent setting the stage.
Written in Dickens’ distinctive style, Our Mutual Friend is a masterpiece of plot and character development. The story revolves around the mysterious death of John Harmon, heir to a fortune left him on the condition that he marry the girl his father has chosen. Harmon’s death affects the upper and lower classes, causing relationships to be created and unravelled, all in Dickens’ characteristically descriptive and witty way. These characters range from that pillar of English society, Mr. Podsnap, through the members of his dining circle, to Lizzie Hexam, daughter of a man who fishes for money – money scavenged out of dead men’s pockets. Some take themselves too seriously (cough, Mr. and Mrs. Veneering), while others are comic from their first appearance (yes, Mr. Noddy Boffin, this is you). While Our Mutual Friend is a devastating critique of the Victorian obsession with money and manners, it is at the same time a wonderful story full of endearing characters (who could resist poor Mr. Twemlow?) intertwined in ways you won’t expect!
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Reviewed by Marijka Westerhof
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich isn’t quite like anything you have read before. This novel—this painful memoir— is a heartbreaking account of life as a Soviet work camp prisoner. This Nobel Prize-winning novel describes the gulags located in Siberia and recalls the day-to-day struggles of its prisoners. The story follows the protagonist, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, through one day of his ten-year work sentence. His crime to earn such a punishment? Supposed espionage when he was captured by the Germans in WWII, though the claim was entirely false.
Readers encounter the pain, hardship, and loneliness of the communist work camps. Not only is the hopelessness emphasized in the novel’s descriptive language, but it is also portrayed in the seemingly mundane action of the novel. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich never reaches a climax, yet it increasingly draws the reader into its story of survival. From the too thin gruel the prisoners eat to the frigid temperatures of a Siberian winter, the matter-of-fact descriptions cause a reader to grimace with compassion for the overworked and underfed victims of the Soviet communist regime.
It becomes quite apparent that Solzhenitsyn must have spent some time in one of these work camps. In fact, Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in a gulag for making a derogatory comment about Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, in a letter to a friend. Shortly after One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published, Solzhenitsyn was branded an enemy of the state. Though his book was published in the 1960s, releasing thousands of copies into the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn was eventually censored and deported in 1974, only four years after he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Recognizing that this is a politically-motivated novel, this is most-assuredly a must-read for anyone interested in history or international affairs!
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Reviewed by Joel Faber, a 4th-year English Honours student
The genius of this excellent novel is focused in the expression of one character: the narrator. Christopher John Francis Boone is autistic. He knows all the countries of the world and their capital cities, and every prime number up to 7,057. He is painstakingly exact about objective things and very observant, but does not easily understand facial expressions, body language, or anything beyond the explicit meaning of words. Haddon uses the first-person narrative form to allow the reader insight into Christopher's character, and in so doing intensely focuses on his unique perception of reality. Christopher often observes interaction between other people which he does not fully understand, but the significance of which is plain to the reader -- in the relationship between his father and mother, for example. The effect of this perspective is to immerse the reader in reality the way that Christopher experiences it, while simultaneously highlighting the effects of his social impairment.
A potential danger of writing a novel through an autistic narrator is of doing injustice to the challenges of autism, either by using it lightly, as a gimmick, or by misrepresenting the experience and real struggles of autistic people, but Haddon has worked closely with autistic students, and not only has the necessary respect and familiarity with autism, but is able to translate that understanding fluently into literature. A striking undercurrent throughout the book is of the implicit love and empathy felt for the narrator by the author. The Curious Incident is compellingly real, rivetingly told, and touchingly honest. Mark Haddon has succeeded in telling not simply the story of the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, but in telling the person of Christopher John Francis Boone -- and he is a person we all need to meet: someone from an often-misunderstood part of society, uniquely gifted, and deeply in need of our love; no different than every other human being.