48 Colombia – Gabriel Garcia Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Score  6.28)

This book was a great disappointment. A few years ago the group read “Love in the Time of Cholera” by the same author. I scored that book at 7.5.This one, I’m afraid, will not achieve that score.

The story is basically that an arranged marriage comes to an end on the first night when the husband Bayardo discovers that his new wife Angela is not a virgin, and sends her back to her family home. She names another man, Santiago, as being responsible. He may or may not be guilty.

The number of characters, taken together with such unfamiliar names, made this a very confusing read, and at the end of the book a whole plethora of people, not named before, suddenly appear.

Angela’s two brothers swear to avenge the family honour by killing Santiago. He in turn goes about his normal day’s business, unaware of this pledge. The number of coincidences is quite unbelievable when most of the town’s population tries to warn Santiago but, for one reason or another.

An autopsy is ordered on Santiago. The book would have been improved by not including the gruesome details of this bloody event.

At the end of the day I could only score this book at 3.5.

47  Nebraska – Willa Cather – Oh! Pioneers (Score 8.84)

My  Kindle Version of this book has an introduction by Vivian Gornick, the American critic. It is well worth reading if you can find it, or if it’s in your version.

Hanover, Nebraska, a poor, desolate sort of place, connected to the outside world by occasional trains. When we get there, there are hints of an oncoming winter with serious falls of snow. We meet Alexandra Bergson, her brothers Emil (8), Lou (5), and a kitten, a neighbour Karl (15), Joe Tovesky, her cousin and his wife Marie.

John Bergson (46), the father, is dying.

Drought comes and people start to leave their farms and their land, going back to the towns. Karl’s family prepare to leave too, but Alexandra intends to stay and make a success of the farm. The boys enjoy listening to Alexandra reading “Swiss Family Robinson”. That was one of my favourites when I was a child, read time and time again because we couldn’t easily get to a bookshop except when on holiday, and we had no local library until I was 13.

Cather’s writing is beautiful, with phrases like “He wandered in the fields until morning put out the fireflies and the stars.

We follow Alexandra’s trials and tribulations, joys and sorrows, failures and successes as she improves and extends her holdings. I don’t want to go into any more detail as it could spoil your enjoyment of the book.

If you only have time to read one book this year, do make it this one. It is magnificent. I couldn’t possibly score it any less than ten.

46  Japan –Yukio Mishima – Spring Snow (Score 6.83)

I have had this book for many years, and never picked it up because I had the feeling that Mishima was a difficult read. I was right, and I was wrong. His writing is, in general, easy to read. However, I found myself skipping extended sections dealing with reincarnations, the detailed differences between Buddhist sects, and other Eastern beliefs.

Two Siamese princes have a minor role in the story.

The story revolves round four people. Kiyoaki Matsugae is the son of a Marquis, his friend Shigekuni Honda, his tutor Iinuma, and his on-off girlfriend Satoko. We are told that Kiyoaki and Shigekuni were eleven years old at the end of the Russo-Japanese war, won by Japan, and are 18 at the beginning of the story.

Mishima’s description of Kiyoaki is such that I wondered if he reflects Mishima’s own feelings and approach to life. There are constant reminders of Kioyaki’s effeminate appearance, even as he approaches adulthood.

Iinuma appears to be a war-mongering type of person as he keeps harping on about the violence of life in the Time of the Warring States in Japan, which was brought to an end by the victory of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu and his descendants brought peace to Japan for hundreds of years, by closing the country to outsiders until the American assault on the country aimed at opening up Japan to American trade.

The story morphs into a tale of requited love then unrequited as the target of Kioyaki’s love Satoko enters a Buddhist monastery rather than marry the aristocrat arranged by the Imperial family.

All in all I was rather disappointed in the story. Mishima has such a reputation, but I could only give the book a score of six.

 45   Turkey – Orhan Pamuk – “The White Castle”– March 2017 (Score 3.71)

Set in mediaeval times after the Turks had taken the Near East, this is the story of an Italian who was captured, along with the crew of his ship, when they fell afoul of a large Turkish fleet. Taken into slavery with the rest of the crew he earned their hatred when he used his knowledge to get some slight privileges by curing illnesses.

Eventually he was put to work under a man called Hoja (who was his spitting image, but did not realise it} to devise a spectacular fireworks display for a high society wedding anniversary.

He was offered his freedom if he converted to Islam, but twice refused. Later the Turks carried out a mock execution and he thought he was about to be decapitated, but still did not convert. The Pasha confirmed that he was to remain as Hoja’s slave. Hoja was now working on making a magnificent clock as a present for the Pasha. He wanted to make use of European knowledge for this.

The plague struck the city with many, and ongoing, deaths. Hoja found a bubo on his body and begins to panic, worrying for many pages. Nothing came of it. Eventually, and very belatedly, Hoja became aware that the Venetian was his double.

Up till this point the story went well enough, but when Hoja began to hear (In his head) the Biblical “I am that I am”, this seemed passing strange in a Moslem character. I obviously wasn’t seeing the point, and certainly not the “cool and elegantly jaundiced look at the results of cultural fusion” mentioned in the preface to my edition.

I began to tire of it and was sorely disappointed because of Pamuk’s reputation. Perhaps it was simply a “first novel” problem for me. I scored it at 5.0.

44  Nigeria – Chibundu Onuzo – The Spider King’s Daughter– February 2017 (Score 5.80)

The  narrator is ten year old Abike Johnson whose wealthy father deliberately told his chauffeur to run over her dog, showing right at the start what kind of man he is. She was watching from her bedroom window, but her father acted as if it had been an accident. The dog was severely injured, and in great pain. Abike hid her emotion and her tears and shocked her father by asking him to tell the chauffeur over the dog’s head.

Was she sadistic, or compassionate? She thinks “Abike 1, Mr Johnson 0!”

There is much use of Nigerian patois, which takes a bit of work to follow. Abike talks to a young street hawker, selling by the side of a main road. He is doing this as a result of his family having lost their money and their home so that, although he has learned patois, he speaks Standard English. He has been to New York, and can prove it by the visa stamps in his expired passport. Abike, too, has seen New York snow – gritty and brown.

The first person narrative alternates between Abike and the hawker, letting us see events from both points of view.

I have reached the point where it would spoil the book if I were to tell you anything more about events. It is sufficient to say that the ending is completely unexpected.

I gave the book a score of six.

43 India – Gita Mehta – A River Sutra– January 2017 (Score 7.6)

This book is like an Indian “Decameron”, or perhaps “The Canterbury Tales” without much travelling. The roll of the “owner of the inn” is taken by a retired civil servant from Bombay who, after his wife died, applied for a post at a government rest house, on the Narmada River, and founded by the Moghul emperor.

The Narmada is one of the most sacred rivers in India about which many legends of gods and goddesses, spirits and other beings are told. There ar six stories told, of The Monk, The Teacher, The Executive, The Courtesan, The Musician and The Minstrel. Each is a little gem, linked by the doings and conversations of the manager, his clerk Mr Chagla, his friend Mr Tariq Mia, the mullah at the local mosque and a party of archaeologists who are carrying out a dig some forty miles away.

Towards the end of the book, before the archaeologists return, a minstrel sings the “Song of the Narmada”. The head archaeologist returns just as she finishes. The rest of the book holds a real surprise.

This book isn’t great literature, but I found it an enjoyable read, giving it a score of 8.0.