Author Archives: Cecilia Quirk

A FINE BALANCE

Rohinton Mistry (McClelland and Stewart, 1995) ISBN: 0-679-44608

Rohinton Mistry’s Giller Prize-winning novel A Fine Balance is one of those books I am able to appreciate only on an aesthetic level. It is very well-written, intricately plotted, and full of excellently-drawn, memorable characters. I liked it well enough to start with. The final third of the novel, though, is (spoiler alert) an intentional and miserable spiral downwards. Fair warning: this review will give away the ending of the novel.

A Fine Balance is the story of five people who together struggle to make a living in the changing economic climate of 1970s and 1980s India. There are two tailors, Ishvar and his nephew Om, who have been driven from their village through a combination of caste-violence and economic necessity to Mumbai. There is the Parsi widow Dina, who employs the tailors when her own eyesight has failed to the extent that she can no longer support herself with her own sewing. Then there is the student Maneck who boards with Dina while studying in Mumbai.

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THE KINGDOM OF GODS

N K Jemisin (2011) ISBN: 9781841498195

The last of N K Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy, The Kingdom of Gods follows trickster god Sieh as he forms a complicated relationship with the descendants of his former slavemasters, the last Arameri heirs.

Set some hundred years after the events of The Broken Kingdoms, this novel features a world teetering on the edge of political and social collapse.  The Arameri dynasty has, without its god-slaves, fallen into decline and struggles to retain power and influence through other means.  In this respect, The Kingdom of Gods is very interesting. Medieval Stasis is one of my least favourite tropes, and the feverish efforts of the remaining Arameri to hold onto the dregs of their empire strike a realistic chord. Unfortunately, in most other respects I found this book the least enjoyable of the series.     Continue reading

THE BROKEN KINGDOMS

 N K Jemisin (Orbit, 2010) ISBN 9780316043960

The Broken Kingdoms is the second in N K Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.  Set 10 years after the events of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, it follows blind artist Oree Shoth as she takes in a silent homeless man and becomes involved in uncovering the cause of serial god-murders.  The breakdown of the millenia-old power structures due to the events of the previous book is just beginning to show and the world feels at a turning point.

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THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS

N K Jemisin (Orbit, 2010) ISBN 0316075973

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first of N K Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.  The trilogy is set over several centuries, beginning here with the story of Yeine Darre, the young ruler of a poor and vulnerable region.  She is brought to Sky, the glittering capital of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, upon being named heir to the Arameri family and thus to world leadership, by her estranged grandfather.  The Arameri have become masters of their world because they have as their slaves an assortment of powerful gods, the Enefadeh.  Yeine quickly learns she is not the only heir, but has competition in the form of psychopathic Scimina and her brother Relad.  Meanwhile Yeine investigates her mother’s murder, aligns with the Enefadeh in their quest for freedom, and struggles to defend her home kingdom from annihilation.  She is especially drawn to the most powerful of the Enefadeh, Nahadoth.

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SNOW

Orhan Pamuk (trans. Maureen Freely)

Faber and Faber (2004) ISBN 978-0-571-25823-9

Of Orhan Pamuk’s many gifts as a Nobel-awarded writer, one of the most fascinating is his ability to blur the lines between real life and fiction.  Though the people he creates in his novels can speak and behave in ways that are surreal, in the context of his writing they are believable.  This is a gift he shares with Haruki Murakami, a writer with whom I am more familiar, though the style and themes of Pamuk’s work is very different to Murakami’s.  To qualify this observation I must add that I have thus far read only two and a half of Pamuk’s novels–The Museum of Innocence, which I didn’t particularly like; My Name is Red, which I promise I will one day finish; and Snow, which I review here.  As in The Museum of Innocence, Pamuk is himself a character in Snow, which contributes to a feeling that the story, despite its surreal moments, might be true.

This edition of Snow was published as part of Faber and Faber’s ‘Revolutionary Fiction’ series, described as “celebrating provocative political fiction from around the world”.  It centres upon the Turkish headscarf controversy, with which I have only passing familiarity, and the suicides of young women who have refused to remove their scarves and thus been banned by the Turkish secular state from attending school.  A spate of such suicides occurred in the south-eastern city of Batman, but in the novel they occurred rather in the city of Kars, close to the Armenian border.  “Kar” is the Turkish word for “snow”.  This is played upon also in the name of the novel’s chief character, Ka.

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Mark Reads/Mark Watches (markdoesstuff.com)

I recommend review blog Mark Does Stuff to almost everyone I know, sooner or later.  So, while reviewing a review blog might seem unorthodox, I would like to recommend him here, too.  Blogger Mark Oshiro is, from all appearances, a warm-hearted and engaged person.  I have been following him since his first foray into total-book reviews, Mark Reads Twilight, some years ago.  This project, and all projects since, start with his near-complete lack of knowledge of the subject matter.  There have been some surprising gaps in his pop-culture knowledge, many of them made understandable by aspects of his upbringing which he relates in several reviews.  It has been a delight to watch his style and personality develop over time.

Though it doesn’t likely mean much in this era of fan-involvement, I was inordinately pleased when Mark Oshiro added me back as a friend on facebook.  Being shy and socially awkward, I have since made no effort to contact him.  He has speculated about a possible journey to Australia next year.  To demonstrate my affection I almost offered him transport across Melbourne before managing to restrain myself until he threw out the question*.  Yes, a virtual internet stranger.  He has that effect on people.  Or perhaps it’s just me.

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IN A DARK WOOD WANDERING

Hella S. Haasse  (trans. Lewis C. Kaplan and Anita Miller, Arrow Books, 1989, ISBN 0 09 9744708)

In a Dark Wood Wandering appears to be a compulsory part of any good second-hand bookshop collection.  Though compared at its release to The Name of the Rose and similar works of medieval-based fiction, it seems to have been largely forgotten.  Impelled by its glorious cover, despite my mother’s warnings not to judge a book that way, I have attempted several times to start this book.  As a medievalist and historical literature fan this novel seemed theoretically ideal.  Sadly, the effort required in getting into the novel was not well repaid. Continue reading

HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Fourth Estate, 2006, ISBN: 9780007200283

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun was, from memory, a very fashionable book to have read some years ago.  It achieved great success worldwide, receiving the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007 and many positive reviews.  Set before and during the Nigerian Civil War, the novel examines colonial and post-colonial Nigerian politics, white attitudes towards black Africa, international reactions to the Civil War, nationalism and varying forms of hypocrisy, amongst other themes.  Despite the sharpness of Adichie’s criticisms, though, the novel is easy to read and very accessible to those who, like me, have little background knowledge about Nigeria or the Igbo people. Continue reading