The Coward's Tale by Vanessa Gebbie

First published in UK in 2011; published by Bloomsbury USA on February 28, 2012

When we take the time to look beneath the surface, people are not always what they seem to be.  Sometimes those who seem cowardly are not cowards at all.  Sometimes atonement is mistaken for guilt.  In her unapologetically humane novel, Vanessa Gebbie reminds us of the patience and effort that is required to understand another person, and of the rewards awaiting those who make the effort.

Eccentric doesn’t begin to describe the characters in The Coward’s Tale.  In Chaucer-like fashion, their stories are related by Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, the town beggar, in exchange for coffee and toffee.  Some of the stories teach lessons; some are gossipy; some are funny and some are heartbreaking.  Occasionally it’s difficult to grasp the point of a particular story, but getting to know the peculiar characters is reason enough to read The Coward’s Tale.

Jenkins has a story about everyone in town, as well as their ancestors.  A few examples will give a flavor of Gebbie’s creations:  Icarus Evans, the shop teacher, is consumed by the challenge of making a wooden feather that will float on currents of air; he never stops trying to achieve the impossible.  Jimmy Half (for halfwit or half-alive) Harris, born dead and buried before coming to life, cannot speak, although he was born to be a poet.  Factual Philips, a deputy librarian who covers his walls with diagrams, maps, charts, and lists, with particular attention to the clues and deductions that lead Sherlock Holmes to the truth that lurks behind mystery, finally gets a chance to solve a mystery of his own.  Also obsessed by maps is the town undertaker, Tutt Bevan, who revisits his childhood as he walks through the town in a straight line.  Touching stories explain why the son of a man who died in a coal mine became a window washer, why the son of a thief sneaks into houses at night, why Ianto tells stories while others toil.

In addition to Ianto, a boy named Laddy Merridew furnishes a common thread to bind the stories together.  Laddy wanders about the town, observing and interacting with its inhabitants, feeling lost and unsettled, worrying about his divorcing parents and trying to decide where he should live, listening to Ianto’s stories and wondering whether they are true or just more lies told by an adult.  In many respects Laddy is a young version of Ianto, while Ianto sees his lost brother in Laddy.

As they progress, Ianto’s stories become more serious.  They begin to echo each other:  broken windows and shadows and reflections are recurring images.  The stories share and develop themes.  Maps are bad because “they stop us from finding new places” or they “make places different to how they are in our heads,” although a self-made map can help you confront fears and find your own path.  A nearby coal mine inaptly named the Kindly Light appears in many of the stories, eventually becoming the novel’s central focus.  It is the site of a disaster that worked unexpected changes upon the town and its people -- Ianto most of all.

Witty, wise, and charming, intense and powerful, The Coward’s Tale offers a remarkable blend of humor and pathos.  The novel illustrates the importance of storytelling as an instrument of healing and community bonding.  Ianto’s stories inspire hope even in their saddest moments.  They encourage forgiveness and understanding as they reveal the frailties and faults of the townspeople.  The sad but perfect ending is the final knot that ties the stories together.

Gebbie writes musically rhythmic prose, forming sentences as sharp and shimmery as broken glass.  Both in style and content, The Coward’s Tale is an outstanding novel.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Red Flags by Juris Jurevics

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on September 20, 2011

Solid writing, intense action, strong characters, and a vividly detailed setting make Red Flags a winning hybrid of war story and espionage thriller. The book also offers a nice history lesson in some lesser known aspects of America's involvement in Vietnam.

Erik Rider, an investigator with the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, is assigned to disrupt the manufacture, transportation, and sale of drugs that are used to finance the Viet Cong. Rider travels to Cheo Reo in his undercover role as a captain, where he meets the CO -- Lt. Col. Bennett -- and a CIA agent named John Ruchevsky. After Rider finds and destroys a marijuana field, there's a price on his head, but his real goal is take out the poppy fields. That goal proves to be unpopular with people in the money chain -- people who might be closer to him than he thinks. As Rider digs more deeply into the drug trade, Ruchevsky searches for the spy who is giving classified information to the North Vietnamese. The two investigations eventually become entangled.

Rider has an interesting relationship with a female doctor -- interesting because Juris Jurevics avoids treating the reader to a clichéd combat romance. In fact, nothing about Red Flags is clichéd. The story is original, the characters genuine.

Clean, crisp, evocative prose sets this novel apart from most war thrillers. Jurevics crafts scenes of war that are poignant and heartfelt. The action scenes in Red Flags are written with adrenalin-pumping power. Although the novel moves at a brisk pace, there are only a few combat sequences. Rather, Jurjevics creates stark images of the fighting's aftermath: devastated landscapes, bloated corpses, haunted soldiers and grieving civilians. He also builds tension with anticipation: you know the shooting is coming but you don't know when. Jurjevics masterfully conveys a soldier's sense of waiting in dread, always living somewhere between boredom and terror.

As background to Rider's personal story, Red Flags captures the political complexity of Vietnam during the war era. The novel's focus on drug trafficking -- an instrument that financed both sides of the war -- isn't new, nor is its depiction of widespread corruption among the South Vietnamese leadership, but its emphasis on the role played by the Montagnard is something I haven't seen in other Vietnam fiction. Jurjevics manages to explain the conflicts between the different political, ethnic, and religious factions in South Vietnam without slowing the novel's pace.

The plot is well constructed and a critical event near the novel's end, although foreshadowed in the prologue, comes as a shock. The novel doesn't have a happy ending but neither did the war. The ending is nonetheless satisfying. The story as a whole conveys a feeling of reality seldom found in the shallow tales of heroism that too often characterize military fiction. This is one of the best military espionage thrillers I've encountered.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Spurious by Lars Iyer

Published by Melville House on January 25, 2011

If it weren't so funny, Spurious would be insanely depressing. W. and the novel's narrator, Lars, both know that, lacking the genius of Kafka, they will amount to nothing. They have been destroyed by literature; it has made them "vague and full of pathos." They are equally unskilled as philosophers. They would like to be intellectuals but they suffer from a deficiency of intellect. Drinking their way through Europe, they are overwhelmed by history that magnifies their own insignificance. A double suicide seems to be in order, but the logistics of accomplishing that task are beyond them. Yet even their deaths would be pointless because they are inconsequential parts of larger structure, easily replaced by others of no greater importance.

Paradoxically, the gloomy friends describe themselves as "joyful." They tell themselves that they are content with their idiocy. They are "celebrants of rivers"; a view of the sea from a passing train while holding cups full of gin is their definition of happiness. Contradiction is a constant in their lives; they never seem to be bothered by (or even to notice) their inconsistency. W. strives to puzzle out the meanings of primary sources written in languages he doesn't understand and to decipher mathematical concepts that are well beyond him. That he gains nothing productive from these efforts does not deter him; he is certain that his life will be spent in continual amazement at his utter lack of ability. Lars, on the other hand, is a capable administrator; he feels the need to earn a living, for which W. frequently belittles him. In fact, Lars is the constant recipient of W.'s insults (W. regards verbal abuse as "a sign of love"): Lars is (according to W.) obese, stupid, lazy, untalented, ill-mannered, incapable of love, and without any fashion sense.

The story careens between the philosophical and the frivolous (as when W. tries to persuade Lars that a "man bag" is preferable to a rucksack). One moment W. and Lars are discussing the relationship between God and mathematics, the next they're pondering the causes of the incurable dampness in Lars' flat or the merits of living in Canada, where residents presumably carry "bear-frightening devices" in their vehicles. There is a zany intelligence, an absurdist wit at work here (in that sense, Spurious reminded me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead). Lars Iyer takes two characters who are lost in existential angst -- indifferent to their fates, deliberately living meaningless lives, convinced they are powerless to change the hopelessness and suffering that surrounds them -- and exposes their vapid, self-indulgent natures. Iyer's satirical take on intellectualism is spot on. Anyone acquainted with a "serious thinker" who takes his or her thinking too seriously will smile with recognition while reading Spurious.

At the same time, intermingled with the silliness are bits of genuine philosophy, deep thought disguised as idle chatter. The book demands a second reading just to sift out the sense from the nonsense, assuming it's possible to tell one from the other. As W. moans, he can never be sure whether he is "at the summit of his creativity or the peak of his idiocy."

This isn't a book for readers who can't abide stories that have no plot. This is a novel of comedic conversation, an examination of two friends who travel together, who gaze at the sea and mull over their lives, confess their shortcomings, debate the meaning of friendship, discuss obscure filmmakers, mourn or welcome (depending on their mood) the coming apocalypse, and accomplish nothing. If you can appreciate the humor in that, and don't mind that nothing of consequence happens to the two characters, you'll probably enjoy Spurious. It's fresh, it's original, it's insightful, and above all, it's hilarious.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

First published in Italy in 2010; published in English by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on November 8, 2011

The story that underlies The Prague Cemetery is told, for the most part, by Simone Simonini, a forger who thrives on hatred -- of Jews and Germans, Jesuits and Masons, the French and Italians (although he is half French and half Italian), artists and women, his parents and God -- a man whose motto is “I hate therefore I am.”  In an introductory note, Umberto Eco tells us he tried to create “the most cynical and disagreeable” character in the history of literature.  He may not have succeeded, but he put forth a worthy effort.  Recognizing that it is possible to laugh at (rather than with) hateful people frees the reader to enjoy (or at least tolerate) the absurdly bigoted ramblings of Eco’s scornful rogue.

As the novel opens, Simonini is having an identity crisis -- or an identities crisis, given his suspicion that he is not only Simonini but Abbé Dalla Piccola, about whom he knows nothing.  We soon learn that Dalla Piccola is having the same crisis, wondering whether he is, in fact, Simonini -- except that Piccola seems to know more about Simonini than he knows about himself.  Simonini and Piccola begin leaving messages for each other.  This clever device allows Eco to explore Simonini’s (mostly repulsive) moral character from both an objective and a subjective perspective.  The mystery of the apparent dual identity binds the unfolding story.

Although set in the late nineteenth century, Simonini’s reconstructed memories of his own past begin in mid-century Piedmont and offer an opinionated view of European history in the century’s last half.  Simonini is often employed as a spy for the police and various governmental entities in Italy, France, Russia, and Prussia.  When the truth (in which nobody is particularly interested) is either difficult to find or inconveniently innocent, Simonini concocts stories and documents to satisfy his clients.  At one point, Simonini borrows and embellishes the story of a conspiratorial gathering in an abandoned Jewish cemetery in Prague, a meeting allegedly designed to further a long-standing, sinister plan to control the world.  Standing always in the middle, with loyalty to none and hatred of all, Simonini pits nation against nation, Freemason against Jesuit, and everyone against the Jews, all the while revising his story of the Prague cemetery as new potential buyers for his conspiracy theory come along.

Eco provides a bit of everything to entertain his reader in this grand novel:  drama, intrigue, humor, action, philosophy, brilliant prose, strong characters, and a lengthy history lesson that culminates with the Dreyfus affair.  Eco advises that all but a few minor characters (other than Simonini) really existed, and that the major historical events described in the text actually happened.  Knowing that, I read the novel with Google close at hand.  Learning more about the historical references probably doubled my reading time but the added context made the story more comprehensible.  Serious fiction often demands something from the reader; in this case, the serious reader’s effort will be repaid.

Many of the themes in The Prague Cemetery resonate in modern times, including the attempts governments make to instill fear of the “other” in their citizenry as a means of gaining power and control, an exercise that supposedly justifies “harsh measures” to control alleged criminals.  There is little difference between the detentions without trial in nineteenth century French prisons that Eco describes and those that occurred at Guantanamo in our recent past.  The recycling of lies and the ease with which people are fooled when told what they want to hear -- a recurring theme in Eco’s novel -- is also a truth that readers might recognize in the modern world.  As Simonini frequently observes, a jaded writer can dredge up a twenty year old discredited story and pass it off as new, confident that most readers (who are likely reading what they want to believe) won’t know the difference, or won’t care.

Some readers might be offended by a rather graphic scene involving a devotee of Lucifer named Diana and the erotic role she plays in a Black Mass.  The scene is far from gratuitous -- it is, in fact, critical to the story, and beautifully written -- so I mention it only as a warning to those who might be put off by content of that nature.

Lush prose, confident storytelling, a Byzantine plot of dizzying breadth, even a series of sketches illustrating scenes in the novel -- all these elements combine to form a novel that is both serious and extraordinarily fun.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

Published by Knopf on October 4, 2011

At the age of eleven, Michael boards an ocean liner bound for England. With his friends Cassius and Ramadhin, he explores the ship and befriends eccentric passengers: Mr. Fonseka, a literature teacher from Colombo who displays the "serenity and certainty" Michael has observed "only among those who have the armor of books close by"; Mr. Daniels, who has transformed a section of the hold into an exotic garden; the musician and blues fan Max Mazappa; an Australian girl who greets the dawn by roller skating fiercely around the deck; Miss Lasqueti, a woman with a surprising, hidden background who is traveling with dozens of pigeons; a hearing impaired Singhalese girl named Asuntha, and others. "Simply by being in their midst," the boys are learning about adults, including those assigned to sit with them at the low-status Cat's Table, situated at the opposite end of the dining room from the Captain's Table. Michael's other lessons include his first fleeting experience with love and desire, as well as a taste of European racism, both subtle and (particularly in the case of the ship's captain) overt.

Two other passengers Michael knows only by sight. Sir Hector de Silva, a wealthy but ill passenger in Emperor Class accommodations, has bad luck with dogs, perhaps because a spell was cast upon him. At the opposite end of the social spectrum is a prisoner, rumored to be a murderer, whose midnight strolls on the deck -- closely guarded and in chains -- the concealed boys observe with fascination.

Michael Ondaatje keeps all these characters in motion like a master juggler. They are a fascinating bunch, and Ondaatje weaves them in and out of the narrative while maintaining a perfectly balanced pace: not so quick that the story whizzes by without time to appreciate its nuances; not so deliberate as to lose its energetic force.

At its midway point, the novel skips ahead from the 1953 voyage to events that occur twenty years later in Michael's life, events that trigger memories of the friends with whom he bonded on that formative journey. Although the writing in that section is exceptionally strong and quite moving, it has an out-of-joint feel, particularly when the flash forward ends and the voyage resumes. Subsequent interruptions to tell the reader of future events are shorter and more seamlessly integrated into the narrative. Eventually those passages become essential to the story; they complete it. Ondaatje writes: "Over the years, confusing fragments, lost corners of stories, have a clearer meaning when seen in a new light, a different place." The perspective that Michael gains with time, after reconnecting with individuals he met on the voyage, permits him (and thus the reader) to reinterpret events that occurred on the ocean -- particularly a moment of drama that becomes the story's nucleus, and that Michael can only understand fully many years later. For that reason, although The Cat's Table could be viewed as a coming of age novel, I think Ondaatje is suggesting that we spend our lifetimes coming of age -- that is, acquiring the wisdom and perspective of adulthood.

There is a restrained, graceful elegance to Ondaatje's prose that every now and then made me stop, blink, and reread a beautifully composed sentence or paragraph. He writes with affection of dogs and artists, of the needy and of those who give selflessly of themselves. This is a marvelously humane novel that works on a number of levels, but most of all, it is a joy to read.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED