The Element of Water - Mandy's Review

They were of the future, not the past, she and Wolfi; young and modern. They could shake off the burdens that made the older generation crooked, stumbling forward whilst peering back over their shoulders, sly-eyed, hagridden, concealing their shames and stigmas. Each carried his secret like a suitcase, kidding himself that it was invisible to others. Superciliously, they dared you to demand, Open up that case. Let’s see what you’ve got in there. Renate. Karl. Mr Quantz even. Patterson. The Frauleins with their smut about Jews. Admirals. Issie and Wolfi, Wolfi and she, would live in a new world, free of all that. (p142)

When I signed up for this blog I was hugely excited to discover that Stevie Davies had made the Orange longlist in 2002 with The Element of Water. Not only is Stevie Davies one of my favourite contemporary authors, but The Element of Water was one of the few novels of hers I’d yet to read.

The events of the novel circle around Lake Plon, Germany, in 1945 and 1958. Once home to the retreating Third Reich, the area has now been turned into a school for British Army children. Our fresh-faced protagonist Isolde (Issie) arrives to take on a teaching job, eager to start a new life, but instead discovers a past that is difficult to shed. Objects are being retrieved from the bottom of the lake, everything from medals to a violin; and Issie discovers a disturbing connection between this Nazi memorabilia and her absent father.

The atrocities of World War II are juxtaposed with the institutionalised cruelty displayed at the school thirteen years later. We are shown an ingrained hostility, employed as much by the German and British staff as the students themselves. Issie attempts to stand up to what is going on but finds herself unable to bring upon change before tragedy occurs.

Davies bravely and deftly tackles the major themes of identity, guilt, forgiveness and complicity. Whew, sounds rather heavy doesn’t it? Yet the outlook is not entirely bleak. Those partial to a little romance can lose themselves in the lyrical portrayal of the developing love between Issie and Wolfi. Those of us concerned with the bigger picture should thank Stevie Davies for snatching the wool from our eyes, making us better equipped to quell similar brutality in our own times.

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Mandy's Review.

I won’t bore you with the basic premise of We Need to Talk About Kevin. If you are reading this, I’m sure you know it is constructed as a series of letters from a mother to her husband, as she tries to make sense of her son’s recent killing spree.

Let me start by telling you what I like about this book. Shriver is a master of structure. She knows exactly what to tell us and when, withholding certain information until exactly the right moment and then dangling just the right amount in front of our eyes, drawing us deeper and deeper into the murky depths, just when we thought we couldn’t take any more. Although this is a difficult and painful book to read, I read it reasonably quickly, precisely because of this luring quality.

The grand questions Shriver tackles are also brave and admirable. Nature vs. Nurture; Good Vs Evil; Conjugal Roles and can we/ should we love our children, no matter what? Yet these issues are clouded somewhat by one of the book’s major flaws.

On page 307, Kevin says to his mother, ‘Is there anything or anybody … you don’t feel superior to?’ Here, he grasps exactly what is wrong with the book. Eva is constantly and tirelessly superior for 400 pages. Franklin is blindly optimistic to the point of tedium - and, here’s the rub, Kevin is so constantly bad, that there’s absolutely no possibility that anyone could love him in any meaningful way. In fact, by about a third of the way through, his actions fail to shock me, I’m rolling my eyes and thinking here we go again.

In other words, the characters are flat, to the point of being one dimensional. I find myself wishing that once, just once, Franklin would lose his temper with Kevin; that Kevin would - I don’t know - offer to help with the laundry or something and that Eva could narrate just one incident without some clever, sarcastic aside. My problem is not with disliking the characters, I’ve read many books where I’ve hated characters with a passion and yet still cared what happens, because I believe in them.

To me, We Need to Talk About Kevin was like watching Tom and Jerry, where one of them (Tom? Jerry? Who cares? And that is just my point) gets flattened by a steam roller again. Shriver would be more qualified to make us uncomfortable if Eva was a little more like us, if Kevin was more like our kids, sometimes good, sometimes bad. It would have been a better book, if I’d been left thinking, there but for the grace of God, rather than, well, that’s all right then.

Mandy: Introduction, Reading to Date and Goals.

Hello everyone. I’ve always followed the Orange Prize quite religiously and so, when I stumbled upon this blog, I couldn’t resist joining up.
I intend to take part in Orange January and Orange July and also read many more listed books throughout the year. I have plenty of unread short and long listed books on my shelf, so, for January, I intend to try to read what I already own, rather than buy any more books. After reading some of the reviews on this blog, I can tell I’m going to fail this task miserably!
I will be treating long listed/short listed/new writers and winning books in the same way. If the book appeals to me I’ll be reading it, whatever category it falls in to. I’m ashamed to say, I’ve read none of the new writers. I intend to change this.
Here is a list of the books I’ve already read;

2007
Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2006
On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel
The Accidental, by Ali SmithThe Night Watch, by Sarah Waters

2005
The Remedy, by Michele Lovric

2004
Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
Kith and Kin, by Stevie Davies

2003
Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

2002
Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters

2000
Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier

1997
Anita and Me, by Meera Syal

1996
The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker