Black Swan Green – David Mitchell

It is 1982 and Jason Taylor is 13, an ordinary kid living in the quiet backwater that is Black Swan Green tucked away in the Malvern Hills. His family – executive father, home-maker mother, older sister who calls him ‘thing’ – is middle class normality, better off than most but not excessively.

He also knows his place in the schoolboy pecking order – outside the top dogs who set the trends and call the shots, but above the perennial no-mark losers who bear the brunt of their juvenile posturing. There are two flies in the ointment: he’s a secret poet (“how gay”) and has a stammer that is getting increasingly hard to disguise and that he worries will sooner or later become a stick for the bullies to beat him with.

Jason takes us through this formative year as his stock within the adolescent pack fluctuates according to events and the whims of others. The account is articulate, painfully accurate but without self-pity – he accepts the way of his world; but when the going gets really tough, at home as well as at school, will that be enough to survive?

The quality of writing and characterisation drew me in easily and just as I was thinking this is a pleasant nostalgic read (It’s a Knockout on TV; space invaders in the pub; Chariots of Fire at the cinema and the Falklands war in the news), but going nowhere special, something kicked in and gripped me through to the end.

David Mitchell was born in Worcestershire and was 13 in 1982 so he writes from personal knowledge of the time and place that oozes authenticity. He absolutely nails the world of the 13-year-old boy, at least in 1982 (and 1966 for me); particularly how small incidents magnify in the lens of adolescence into ludicrous highs and desperate lows.

Having also enjoyed ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet’ (see August 2012 review) I am in danger of becoming a bit of a Mitchell fan and may try one of his more esoteric creations such as ‘Cloud Atlas’.

King Solomon’s Mines – H Rider Haggard

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey

Grizzled veteran big game hunter and adventurer Allan Quatermain (familiar these days for his resurrection in the 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is on a boat to Natal when he is approached by two other Englishmen – the aristocratic Sir Henry Curtis and ex-Royal Navy Captain John Good – who are on a mission to find Curtis’s estranged younger brother.

It’s a small world in colonial Africa and Quatermain has heard tell of a young hothead who set off to find the legendary King Solomon’s Mines, fount of untold riches in gold and diamonds. A fool’s errand in Quatermain’s view but as it happens he does have a map he was given years ago by a dying ‘Potugee’ that purports to show the way. And while he wouldn’t undertake such a wild goose chase for the fabled riches, he is prepared to lead an expedition with the noble cause of helping a couple of good chaps recue a fellow Brit. Of course if there are any diamonds available he will take a share.

What follows is a ripping yarn that helped to make the template for many more, with hardships endured, pitched battles fought, and narrow squeaks negotiated; all faced with stiff upper lip and manly camaraderie.

The story is presented as a memoir of Quatermain, so he obviously makes it, but the fate of his comrades and success of the mission are the driving force of the narrative. The wonder of the African interior probably has less impact on the modern reader – we’ve seen it all on TV courtesy of David Attenborough – but at the time of publication would have contributed to the book’s popularity.

Published in 1885 as the European scramble for Africa was gathering pace, Haggard sets this tale in the Southern Africa that he knew from personal experience. As such the book is of its time and its attitude to the native African is instructive. The white man’s supremacy is a given but there is respect for the inferior race, many of whom have admirable, even noble, qualities (including deference!). Indeed the attachment of one of the party to a young native girl could have led to a rather awkward social situation if not terminated by an unfortunate (or fortunate) incident. More distasteful is the gleeful description of the wanton slaughter of elephants, only valued for their ivory tusks.

In summary an instructive read with a period charm and a strong narrative thread that carries the reader steadily through the 300 pages of adventure and derring do.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote

The unnamed narrator is looking back a few years to the early 1940s when, newly arrived in New York, he moved into an apartment block and was intrigued by the mail box label for Apartment 2 which declares “Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling”.

The name and the voice on the stairs soon take form in the delightful Holly – petit, short hair, dark glasses perched on up-turned nose, and chic little black dress (in other words Audrey Hepburn) – and he is smitten by the kitten. As other neighbours tire of her charms in the wake of her late night parties, that she either hosts or returns from keyless and demanding entry to the block from anyone she can rouse, he is more than happy to step up to the plate.

Is she just a good time girl, a gold-digger, or something more professional? What is her background? What’s behind her weekly visits to Sally Tomato imprisoned in Sing Sing? The more she reveals the more the less sense it makes.

Told mainly in snappy New York dialogue it’s an engaging portrait of a free spirit in single minded pursuit of the good life, epitomised by having breakfast at Tiffany’s among the diamonds and the rich smells of alligator wallets and silver.

The narrator is not in that league so he shouldn’t have a chance with Holly; but he’s on hand when her fragile confection of a world looks in danger of collapsing.

Little more than a novella in length and format it makes an excellent quick read.

Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The book’s title is odd but accurate. It’s about love and is set in the Caribbean coast of South America between the middle of the 19^th and the early 20^th century when cholera was an ever present threat at least to the poorer communities.

The story moves backwards and forwards in this period exploring aspects of love. Fear not of apparent spoilers below – what happens is set out early and it is the how that engrosses.

To start (chronologically) there is Fermina Daza’s schoolgirl fixation on the plain but enigmatic Florentino Ariza, which he reciprocates in spades. She moves on, to be wooed by the sophisticated Dr Juvenal Urbino, and we see young married love bloom then fade to indifference under the pressure of in-laws; adultery rears its loveless, lustful head.

Meanwhile Florentino Ariza holds a torch for Fermina through the years, decades even, taking comfort where he can in his many affairs but unable to give of himself in his pitiful state of unrequited love.

Eventually, in old age, Dr Urbino suffers a parrot related death and the widow Fermina is revisited by her childhood suitor. Will this lead to a companiable friendship; a late flowering love; or a final crushing rejection?

The episodic time-shifting story meanders along like one of Ariza’s steamboats on the Magdelena River, with leisurely trips up tributaries and side channels. The long luxuriant paragraphs require unhurried reading but reward with total absorption into the time and place, and lives and loves, created by Garcia Marquez. It has passion and pain, joy and heartache, humour, irony and wisdom.

It reads longer than its 350 pages but is rich and satisfying throughout.