Staring at the Sun – Julian Barnes

This compact novel of under 200 words was written in 1986, which is relevant for the current day reader forty years on. It is in essence the life story of Jean Serjeant from a teenager in 1940 to her centenary in, well, about now, requiring Barnes to envisage a future we are in.

The novel falls into three broad sections. The first covers Jean’s early sheltered experiences influenced by two older men. Her Uncle Leslie is a bit of a chancer who clears off to America to avoid the call-up, while ‘Sun-up’ Prosser is a RAF pilot billeted with the Serjeant household, currently grounded, who beguiles Jean with his tales of flying his Hurricane.

The middle section deals with Jean’s marriage and subsequent twenty years of childless dissatisfaction and mild abuse that takes an unexpected turn with the birth of her son, Gregory. Her life suddenly broadens, and she discovers things about herself and the wider world.

The final section shifts the focus to Gregory, now approaching sixty, and his interaction with the ‘General Purposes Computer’ – developed by the government to enable all citizens to access all information in a conversational style (a pretty good approximation to current AI). Gregory is a troubled soul and uses GPC as a counsellor of despair, posing questions of life, death and religion. His mother provides more prosaic advice.

The writing is wordy but eminently readable (typical of its period) and is lifted by the effective repetition or echoing of seminal moments from Jean’s early life (Uncle Leslie’s pithy phrases, Sun-up Prosser’s mysticism, a picture on her bedroom wall) and later travels to see the wonders of the world.

A book of its time but no less interesting for that.

The Midnight Library – Matt Haig

Nora Seed has had a bad day, a bad few weeks actually, but thing come to a head when her cat dies, she’s sacked from her job in the music shop, and her one and only piano pupil gives her up. Her estranged brother doesn’t want to know, and her only real friend has moved to Australia and isn’t responding to her messages. She now has no purpose, even the old guy next door is getting his medication delivered so she is no longer needed to pick it up from the pharmacy.

What is the point? There is no reason to go on like this. As midnight approaches, she swallows tablets, washes them down with wine, composes a note.

Instead of death she finds herself in limbo – in the Midnight Library attended by someone who looks like, and is, her old school librarian, Mrs Elms. Mrs Elms explains. Nora has another chance, chances even, at life. The books on the shelves each represent a version of her life in which she made a different decision (yes, we are in parallel universes territory).

Nora chooses a what if moment, opens the book and is transported to the current time in that life where the alternative decision was made. If she likes it, she can stay; if not, she will at some point return to the library. How many goes can she have? More than enough as it turns out as she samples lives lost through taking one path over another.

It is easy reading with playful short cameos of what might have been, though with each iteration, questions of credibility intrude. Haig, as ever, shares his mental health insights and brand of wellbeing philosophy, which for me became a little wearing. The ending, by the time it comes, is rather predictable.

A pleasant enough read but falling short of expectations raised by his previously enjoyed books - The Ridleys and The Humans.

Should We Stay or Should We Go – Lionel Shriver

It is 1991, and Cyril and Kay Wilkinson are in their early fifties, he a GP, she a nurse. They have been to the funeral of Kay’s father, dead after ten years of physical and mental decay that has drained both their financial and emotional reserves. And there are still three aged parents left.

As NHS professionals they acknowledge the load also placed on the health services, and the national finances, by such a lengthy demise. They resolve to not be such a burden to the nation, nor their three children. They make a pact – to end their lives voluntarily when Kay (the younger by a year) reaches the age of eighty, when they judge life tips from worth living to the downward slope into dotage. Cyril immediately obtains the means to fulfil their intentions, which is henceforth stored in a black soapbox at the back of the fridge.

Thirty years later, both in reasonable health though carrying the average deficiencies of their ages, push is approaching shove, and the black soapbox in the fridge is looming large. Time to review matters – should they go as planned, or should they stay?

Shriver then plays with the possibilities – second thoughts, disagreement, stubbornness, third party interventions – and in a series of alternative endings, maps out potential outcomes. That these take place in post-Brexit, post-Covid, Britain adds to the fun.

Darkly humorous and deftly executed, it articulates questions we need to address about quality of life and responsibility for care as the population ages. It is a book brilliantly conceived, thought provoking throughout, and written with fluency and commendable conciseness.

Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell

It starts with an eleven-year-old boy, Hamnet, desperately seeking help for his twin sister, Judith, who has suddenly fallen ill with a fever. It is 1596 in Stratford-upon-Avon, and their father is away in London, their mother is tending her beehives across town, their elder sister and grandma are out; and their drunk of a grandfather refuses to be disturbed.

Cut to fifteen years earlier, and the father is a callow, though well-educated, youth giving lessons in Latin to two sons of a gentleman farmer. Neither tutor nor pupils are concentrating; the tutor is more interested in the person crossing the farmyard with a hawk on their wrist.

The two narratives play out, the earlier one building through courtship, pregnancy, marriage and family life to catch up with the later, culminating in a deathbed vigil. The aftermath provides a third, uninterrupted narrative going forward.

The writing is lyrical, moving when necessary. The familial relationships – husband/wife, mother/children, son/father, wife/mother-in-law, brother/sister – are portrayed through subtle but telling scenes, with words not said but meaning clear.

Part one, with the split narrative, is enjoyable reading, even the tension filled climax. Part two is more difficult due to the overwhelming sadness but remains compulsive.

Interestingly, no surnames are used, and the main man – tutor, husband, father of the twins – gets not even a first name. But we know who he is and, by the end of the book, possibly why he wrote a play called Hamlet.