Showing posts with label Atkinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atkinson. Show all posts

24 June 2012

Comically weird

I am really lucky. If I'd read Kate Atkinson's first novel before reading her mysteries, I might never have had the great pleasure of meeting Jackson Brodie and getting involved in the messy realities of his fictional life. That first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

That book didn't win any awards from me. I couldn't get through it.

But I really enjoyed reading the four mysteries she wrote. And I enjoyed the BBC rendition of a couple of them. I enjoyed them so much, that I picked up her third book when I was last at the library. It is Emotionally Weird, A Comic Novel.

Okay, I'll give it the comic label. There are some funny bits. Not many, but some. While reading the first half of it, I was reminded of what I've heard about Seinfeld. You have to understand, I've seen bits of Seinfeld, but never a whole half hour's worth. I've chuckled at some bits, but not many. I've heard it said that it was a situation comedy about nothing. As a very casual observer, I'll buy that. And Emotionally Weird, A Comic Novel is also about nothing -- at least in the first half that I read.

The narrator's boy friend epitomizes the book for me. She said in an early chapter:
I shut the door and went back to bed and the warm, slack body of Bob with whom I lived in urban squalor in a festering tenement attic in Paton's Lane...
Bob, known by some as "Magic Bob,"... was in fact an unmagic Essex boy Ilford born and bred...
Like me, Bob was a student at Dundee University... He seldom handed in an essay and considered it a point of honour never to go to a lecture and instead lived the slow life of a nocturnal sloth, smoking dope, watching television and listening to Led Zeppelin...
Bob's sense of humour... had been developed the Goons and honed by The Monkees. Bob's screen hero was Mickey Dolenz...
Bob was an unreconstructed kind of person... he had a complete lack of interest in anything that involved a sustained attention span... He was prone to the usual obsessions and delusions of boys his age -- the Klingons, for example, were as real for Bob as the French or the Germans, more real certainly than, say, Luxemburgers...
In the first half of the book, Bob is easily the most distinct character. If you read the quote above, you got a good taste of Atkinson's humor. And, for me, the description of Bob could be a description of the book.

Now, I can't assert that with any assurance because I didn't read the whole book -- just the first half. By page 200, I was tired of reading about an unmagic group of people who lived slow lives of nocturnal sloths. As much as I appreciate some science fiction fantasy and the craziness of The Monkees, I would rather have watched a Seinfeld marathon than finish the book about nothing.

Any chance that you have read Emotionally Weird, A Comic Novel? What did you think of it? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your reactions.
Other reviews (there are distinct differences of opinion here)
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24 May 2012

Reading Kate Atkinson at the lake

When last at the library, I picked up the "Jackson Brodie" mystery that I hadn't read yet. It was One Good Turn. It was actually the second of four books by Kate Atkinson, but I read them out of order. That's okay, they stand alone pretty well.

I had really liked the other three: Case Histories, When Will There Be Good News, and Started Early, Took My Dog. In addition, the BBC made a great mini-series of several stories from the books.

 Most of the stories in One Good Turn were not in the television series. That made reading it even more fun. If my memory is working, this book was as good as the first one and better than the last. There is also more humor, and some of the one-liners are very good.

I'd read about 50 pages when I remembered that Atkinson begins her books with lots of little episodes (not quite short stories) about lots of characters. The fact that I got that far into the book before getting confused about who was who means that I was paying better attention or Atkinson did a better job of distinguishing characters and events.

I read most of this while at the little cabin called Sidetrack on a tiny lake in northern Wisconsin. Between gardening, watching the eagles, feeding the hummingbirds, watching it rain a lot, and worrying about the severe thunderstorm warnings, I had time for reading (and napping). I even stayed up until midnight as I was trying to finish it. It also helped that the weather made TV reception ugly.

Jackson Brodie is still an interesting character. Atkinson still delves into her characters and does a great job of telling me what they're feeling and doing. And she still weaves a bunch of disparate events and people in a unified story by the end of the book.

The stories in this book take place in Edinburgh during its Fringe Festival. Jackson keeps running afowl of the local police and crime scenes. Oh, and he's being chased by a hit man working for a local Tom Petters-like crook. (Details about Tom Petters are available at Wikipedia for non-Minnesotans.) As a matter of fact it's that enforcer who is one of the things that links the novel's characters together.

 I didn't finish the book until I returned home, but I really liked reading it.

Have you read One Good Turn or other books by Atkinson? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought about it (them).
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13 February 2012

Dan was right, again

A couple years ago, Dan Conrad said that Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News? was one of the best books he'd read that year.

I've had mixed experiences with Atkinson's novels. Case Histories was really good. I couldn't even convince myself to finish Behind the Scenes at the Museum. The last half of Started Early, Took My Dog was good, but it took me a lot of work to get to the good bits.

Hoping for the best, I picked up Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News? the last time I was at the Northfield Library.

I was confused at the beginning, not because of how Atkinson wrote it, but beause I thought I'd already read the book. But I knew I hadn't read this one. Finally, I remembered that the stories in this book were in one of the BBC productions called Case Histories. The BBC producers created a miniseries out of the first three novels featuring Jackson Brodie. The setting of the first scenes in When Will There Be Good News? was different from the televised version, but the basic story was the same. Confusion resolved I read on.

There were fewer characters waved around as red herrings in the beginning than in Atkinson's other books, so I found it easier to keep track of what was going on. I also had vague memories of the television version, but I didn't remember a lot of details. I'm glad I didn't, because it made reading the stories better.

There are three stories in the book that revolve around the main characters. And there are interesting connections between the characters -- as there are in the other novels Atkinson has written.

I agree with Dan. This is the best of Atkinson's books I have read so far. Jackson Brodie, the "star" of several books, is relegated to a minor role in most of this book. He's in the hospital after nearly being killed in a train wreck. Not to worry, he heals enough and becomes a vital part of resolving things. And he's the victim of major fraud.

Brodie survives the train wreck because of first aid applied by a 16-year-old who was staying at her tutor's house next to the tracks. The tutor's car accident caused the train wreck. The teenager is also a nanny for a doctor and her baby. The doc and the baby go missing under suspicious circumstances. One of Brodie's old flames, still on the police force, is the lead investigator in that case. Oh, and the young nanny also has a brother who is dealing heroin and not being honest with his suppliers. Just to bring things full circle, there's a 30-year-old back story that ties the doctor to Jackson Brodie.

Jackson Brodie survived the train wreck and the loss of his wealth. The teenager who was the link between all the stories inherited part of her tutor's estate and is headed to university. The doc and her baby survived and got some revenge. There are loose ends that lead to the next book.

More Kate Atkinson? We'll see. There's so much to read and not enough time.

Have you read When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought about it.
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19 December 2011

Started early, took a long time

I wasn't totally discouraged by my attempts to make sense of Kate Atkinson's first novel. I still had good memories about Case Histories. Besides, I'd bought a paperback copy of the newest of Atkinson's books about the adventures of Jackson Brodie, Started Early, Took My Dog. Not only was it a paperback book, I bought it at the end of term sale at Carleton's book store.

As with Case Histories, the book starts out with a plethora of names and few other identifiers. I finally resorted to taking notes, like I did when I read Queen of the Night. Some of the people figured prominently in the stories. Some of the people just happened to be in the area. I was over two-thirds of the way into the book before I could stop checking my notes every couple paragraphs. Here are the notes I took at the back of the book. (I long for the days of the huge Russian novels I used to read that had the casts of characters listed at the front of the book.)


It was about two-thirds of the way into the book that Atkinson began to really tell her main story. That's probably why I didn't have to refer to my character notes as much. Atkinson has stories, lots of them: backstories, side stories, distracting stories, main stories. At the beginning there are few hints about which is which. And she writes little scenes from these stories and seemingly throws them into the book, often without warning. No chapters to speak of. Sometimes a date, sometimes not. Sometimes a horizontal line between scenes, sometimes not. And there are lots of people. Did I say that already?

I really don't want to work this much for a diverting mystery story (or two). I'm having second thoughts about going back and reading the two other Jackson Brodie books. In addition, the plots of the two main stories are, to my mind, overly complex. And the resolution was too quick and slick. It was almost as though Atkinson's word processor told her she had written 100,000 words and she felt she needed to end the book before she got to 105,000 words. [The endings of the television series Bones are like that. (It's one of the three or four TV series that gets watched at our house.) Big mystery, fantastical scientific investigation, a little detective work, and in the last 2 minutes the bad guy confesses or is said to have been arrested. Quick and slick.]

I liked wondering about the main mystery and one of the subsidiary ones. There was one good red herring. Some of the over-complexity was caused by a less than interesting back story. Jackson Brodie needs to get over himself before there's another story about him. Atkinson has to get over over-complicating her novels. Complexity and obscurity do not make for better story telling. (Although at times I think that's what critics imply.)

Have you read Started Early, Took My Dog? What did you think? Anyone besides Dan read other Kate Atkinson books? How did you react? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your response. Or you can just post a comment at the end of this blog entry.
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02 December 2011

Help. What am I missing?

Back at the end of September, I had the pleasure of reading Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. In October, I had the pleasure of seeing the three mystery novels about Jackson Brodie (the first of which was Case Histories) turned into BBC mysteries on the PBS series Masterpiece Mystery. I'm still looking forward to reading the other two Brodie mysteries. But not because of Atkinson's prize winning first book.

Because Case Histories was so good, I headed for the library with Atkinson's name on the top of my to-read list. I had several books to choose from and checked out Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Back in '95, the book was named the Whitbread Book of the Year (now called the Costa Book of the Year). It's a respectable British prize. According to the prize's web site, "The Costa Book Awards is one of the UK's most prestigious and popular literary prizes and recognises some of the most enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland."

According to the relevant Wikipedia page, the awards "are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such, they are a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize."

Notice how I haven't said much about my reaction to the book yet?

I figure I need some instruction about this book.

I only got a bit past half way through it. And I only read that far because I recalled that at about the half-way point the elements of Case Histories began to come together and become a book and a story.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum didn't come together and gave no signs of coming together. It's a mish-mash of partial characterizations, incomplete anecdotes, and confusing descriptions of events.

And it took a long time for me to get half way through the book. I had the tendency to fall asleep after reading a few pages.

By half way through the book, I'd begun to distinguish between some of the characters, but not all of them. There was the narrator, who began telling the story at her conception. Some people in Mississippi might have appreciated the fetus' omniscience, but it was confusing, especially since after her birth, the narrator seemed not to know everything. There was the narrator's sister, Patricia, whose life would have made a more interesting story. The narrator's parents were intriguing, but not terribly interesting. And there were a bunch of other people, most of whom I could not distinguish from one another.

When I gave up on this book, I picked up Thomas Perry's Runner. By page 10, I was hooked on the story and caring about the characters. I really should have dropped the Atkinson book and picked up the Perry book long ago. I'll write something about Runner soon.

So, has anyone read this who can instruct me about why Behind the Scenes at the Museum was a prize-worthy novel? Or has anyone had an experience like my discouraging one? Write and tell me and the rest of this little bit of the world what you think.
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26 September 2011

Surprise! Surprise!

My expectations for a good book are probably pretty low. I don't demand big truths like Barbara Kingsolver. I like a story well told. I want to read about characters who are more than marionettes or caricatures. I like realistic stories to remain realistic and for fantasy stories to make me wonder.

As I finished Case Histories while sitting in front of the little lake named Blake, I realized I'd gotten more than I expected from a good book. Kate Atkinson's book took me by surprise because I expected just another mystery novel. This one was more.

The story is well told, but it's told in little episodes from different points of view. Sometimes the episodes were only a paragraph long. Sometimes the voice telling the story switches from one character to another with little warning. As a reader I had to constantly be "on my toes" -- no groggy reading or skimming through this one.

The book begins with three tragic and horrific short stories set in 1970, 1979, and 1994. A child disappears, a young woman is murdered, and a girl runs away from neglectful grandparents after her father is killed by her mother. Gradually these disparate events begin to come together in the files and investigations of a private investigator in Cambridge (UK). Former police investigator Jackson Brodie is approached in the course of a few days by people involved in these three "cold cases" for help in resolving them.

There are two or three principals involved in each of the stories, and Brodie is an experienced investigator who asks good questions and has good instincts for evaluating the answers he gets. Most of the people he meets and talks to are interesting and complicated, and, as the story progresses, so is Brodie. Atkinson sends him off into very personal internal daydreams in the middle of interviews sometimes, and they are very revealing. As distracting as those were to me as a reader, they didn't seem to distract Brodie from his quest for more information. However, Brodie's past includes a couple horror stories as tragic as the ones he's investigating.

I thought that Atkinson's writing was so evocative of the characters' emotions that often I could only read short bits at a time. It's realism without improbabilities. Well, there's one big and one smaller improbability, but I can always let a remote coincidence or two slip by. Neither the story nor the characters depended upon the improbabilities.

Case Histories is the best book I read this summer. Since summer is officially over, that's a wrap.

So, who recommended Kate Atkinson? Come on, out with it. You deserve some credit somewhere in karma. Have you read Case Histories or another of Atkinson's novels? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought of it (them).
Jason Isaacs (actor who plays Jackson Brodie) interviews Kate Atkinson about the BBC adaptation of Case Histories

Trailer for the BBC series Case Histories

Teaser for the BBC series Case Histories
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27 April 2009

From Minneapolis

Bird Loomis isn't the only person to send in recommendations recently.

Dan Conrad, whose words have appeared here to great effect in the past wrote again.


As the news in the real world continues to be little but gloom and doom... I've turned (in fiction writing) to a series of heroes and heroines who face problems that would make Hercules wince but never fail to come out victorious--and then some.

Ken suggested Laurie R. King, and I started with Art of Detection featuring Kate Martinelli--a lesbian cop in San Francisco. [For reasons I don't understand, this book's title shows up as The Art of Detection on illustrations.] Now I'm going back to the start of the series and then take up with the heroine introduced in Beekeeper's Apprentice - I think.

My favorite right now is one Molly Murphy who is introduced by Rhys Bowen in Murphy's Law.

Molly is wanted for murder in Ireland (ca1900) but has immigrated (illegally) to New York and is bent on being a private investigator--against all odds.

Then there is Maisie Dobbs who enters in a novel by the same name by Jacqueline Winspear. It doesn't hurt that her experiences as a British nurse in W.W.I and her being part gypsy give her uncommon insight.

Then there is that disgraced son of a British nobleman who solves murders in high places (with help from his sometime actress, prostitute, spy girlfriend) in 4 novels by C. S. Harris. I'm about 80th on the waiting list for the 4th in the series.

Oh, then there's my favorite so far this year, and not just because of the name. Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News. It takes a while to get going but when it does, hold on to your hat. You'll love that teenage girl and older heroine even more than the featured detectives.

That's it for now. Got a bunch of books on Christianity as it was before Constantine (to say nothing of the Apostle Paul) twisted things around to create a religion unrecognizable by the early followers of Jesus. Enough for now.

See also:


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