An Affair to Remember

From StarMag, 25th November, 2007

Review by DAPHNE LEE

EVENING
By Susan Minot
Publisher: Vintage Contemporaries, 288 pages
(ISBN: 978-0099273493)

WHEN I’m on my deathbed, I wonder which of my boyfriends I’ll remember as the love of my life.

Reading Susan Minot’s Evening, it occurred to me that one might not be aware that one is experiencing true love while it is actually happening. If you have six lovers your entire life, you would surely need to have had them all before being able to rate them.

Ann Lord, dying of cancer at 65, married thrice and mother of five, is overwhelmed and overtaken by memories of Harris Arden, a man she met when she was 25.

It is the summer of 1954 and she is a bridesmaid at her best friend’s wedding. The bride’s brother comes to meet Ann at the train station and, with him, is a stranger: “She noticed his mouth was full though set in a particular firm way, the combination of which affected her curiously. She felt as if she’d been struck on the forehead with a brick.”

On reading this description, the reader is bound to think, “Ahh ... love at first sight”. But Ann ... does Ann know it’s love? And does she know she will be thinking of this man 40 years hence, while her body is being eaten by disease and her mind is filled with a jumble of words and pictures overlaid by a drug-induced fog?

Visitors come and go, the doctor drops by, her children whisper in the next room. Reality recedes and advances, and is overlaid by and inter-woven with memories, fantasies, visions and dreams.

Ann’s thoughts move seamlessly from the present to the past – Minot uses no quotation marks, which, although confusing at first, is an effective way of portraying Ann’s hazy state of mind.

She is only occasionally aware of where she is and her lives, with various men, in various houses, with various people, merge. She begins a conversation in 1954 and ends it in 1994. Her children are babies, then adults, then toddlers, and then adults again. Her husbands fill her with grief, lust, pity, disappointment, apathy. She is full, full, full of love for Harris. Three days were all they had and then there he is, again, finally. Or is he?

The drug-induced hallucinations allow Ann to return to that enchanted summer when she met a wonderful man who made her self-conscious and drop things like a nervous, lovesick schoolgirl. They allow her to revisit the past, allow him to grace the present, allow questions to be asked and answered or asked and left unanswered.

Was Harris really so lovely, his face “lit from within” or is it the morphine talking, transforming someone who was perhaps just rather sexy into a creature so sublime he eclipses everyone who came before and after?

Perhaps he was truly special. Perhaps he was, only because Ann did not see him grow old and bitter and unfaithful.

This 1998 novel was re-issued this year because a movie based on it was made. But watching the interaction on the big screen earlier this year between Claire Danes as the young Ann and Patrick Wilson as Arden, it’s hard to understand the attraction between the couple. Well, obviously, Danes is a beautiful young woman. However, Arden’s attention seems driven solely by lust. Their first meeting is unremarkable; subsequently they seem merely horny, inspired, perhaps, by fine scenery.

But the movie does not have the benefit of Minot’s fine, poetic prose, her ability to spin emotions into vivid pictures that shine with the transparent light of summer evenings and glow with the brilliance of cloudless star-filled skies.

The three days Ann and Harris shared contain a lifetime’s worth of ecstasy and agony. Doomed love usually does, the emotions experienced by its victims are intensified by the futility of the situation. What if they had never met, fallen in love and been forced by convention, good sense and misadventure to go their separate ways? What if they had not parted, but stayed together and become disillusioned and tired of each other?

Happily, the heartbreak of Ann’s loss casts a light on the shadow of her impending death. Imagined and remembered, Harris is probably better than he ever was in real life.

Sink Your Teeth In

A human girl and a luscious male vampire decide to go steady. A werewolf offers the girl an alternative (hot-blooded) romance. Obviously, some females attract all the right monsters!

From StarMag, 30th September 2007

Review by DAPHNE LEE

ECLIPSE

By Stephenie Meyer

Publisher: Little, Brown, 629 pages

(ISBN: 978-0316160209)

THE story so far ... Bella Swan is a regular teenager in a small American town. She moves there in her junior year of high school and promptly falls in love with Edward Cullen, a handsome senior. Edward seems aloof at first, but, as Bella soon discovers, the reason he’s keeping his distance is that he’s a vampire and finds the scent of her blood intoxicating.

In vampirical terms, Bella is one hot (and living) chick, never mind she’s a pretty average-looking (human) girl. Edward is in love (and blood-lust) with her and is terrified that he will harm her. It turns out that he and his undead mates (all equally scrumptious) are reformed vampires who feed on wildlife, not humans. This makes Bella think that there’s a future for her and Edward. Unfortunately, although she’s safe from him and his friends, a group of rogue vamps have marked her as prey.

This is basically what you learn in Twilight, the first of Stephanie Meyer’s series about young love undead-style. In the second book, New Moon, things get decidedly hairier (or rather, furrier): Following an incident involving a paper cut and some seriously thirsty vampires, Edward decides to check out of Bella’s life to ensure her safety. Bella, feeling rejected and angry, decides to drown her sorrows in some reckless behaviour. She starts hanging out with her friend Jacob Black, a young motorcycle-riding Native American wild child. Nothing very naughty happens, though. All the pair gets up to is performing motorcycle stunts.

But then Jacob gets turned into a werewolf and, suddenly, Bella has two extremely personable monsters in her life – we should all be so lucky!

Although Bella gets on really well with Jacob, she can’t forget Edward. The latest book, Eclipse, sees her reunited with the love of her life – cue sighs of pleasure and longing from teenage girls the world over.

Okay, as a certain teenager I know likes to tell me, I am “excruciatingly old” and, thus, probably not the reader Meyer had in mind when whipping up her tale of love, lust and chastity in Forks, Washington, pop 50,000. In Eclipse, Bella and Edward spend an inordinate amount of time snogging. Such scenes always include Bella waxing lyrical about Edward’s cold, hard body, his icy lips, glittering golden eyes, etc. Bella, by the way, is hot to trot, but Edward is a gentleman vampire to the hilt. His self-possession is admirable, astounding even, and also, if you ask me, rather tedious.

My first impression of Eclipse was that of a whole lot of heavy breathing and heaving chests capped inevitably with the breathers and heavers having to metaphorically slap each other with cold towels. I guess all that self-control is kinda sweet, especially coming from a boy who’s really hundreds of years old. However, as I started to lose count of the scenes in which Edward firmly but kindly stops Bella from ripping his clothes off, the word “tease” started to occur to me.

No, no, not Edward. After all, he is just acting according to the will of his creator. Ms Meyer on the other hand ... well, I’d just like to say that there are a great many teenage girls out there who are going to keep on buying these books until Edward and Bella finally do the wild thing.

Meyer, a practising Mormon, has likened the conflicts and challenges faced by her vampire characters to what human teens have to experience in real life. True enough, but I remember being a teenager and I really don’t think that most fans of this series would give a damn about Edward’s inner demons if he weren’t cute.

Is there more to Eclipse than Bella and Edward’s romance? Well, Jacob makes his presence felt more than ever and the rogue vampires are closing in. It looks like Bella is in for a bloody (or even bloodless) graduation, but can you blame the girl for finding it hard to concentrate on werewolves and possible violent death while the monster of her dreams goes on ad nauseum about saving “it” for marriage?

Poor Bella. The desire to find out if she gets her ... erm ... heart’s desire was what kept me turning pages. Obviously, as much as sex sells, abstinence keeps one coming back for more. That’s what Meyer’s books seem to say, anyway.

Bella: She's such a tease!

Train Man Rides On ...

From Otaku Zone, Jan 2007

TRAIN MAN: A Shojo Manga Paperback

Story: Hitori Nakano

Art: Machiko Ocha

Publisher: Ballantine Books;

179 pages

(ISBN: 0-345-49619-1)

For ages 13+

IKUMI Saiki is an anime fanboy. This breed of humans is notoriously anti-social. They do nothing but read manga, watch anime and hang out on Internet message boards. But, like most geeky fanboys, Ikumi harbours hopes, albeit not very high ones, of having a social life and, most importantly, a girlfriend. Well, wonders never cease, but one day, he tells a drunk off for harassing a girl on a train. The girl is impressed and grateful and sends him a pair of pretty Hermes teacups. Ikumi is filled with hope … could she be the one?

If you’re a manga fan, this story should ring bells. There have been several other versions of it, not to mention a television series and a movie! In fact, Train Man is based on a true story and its original printed form was edited copies of message board conversations between Ikumi (who called himself Train Man) and his various online friends to whom he turned to for advice on how to win the heart of Hermes (as the girl on the train was nicknamed, thanks to the teacups).

It’s a rather sweet story, I guess, if you’re into happy endings, but I don’t think it merits all the publicity it has received. Only in Japan, surely!

This manga was a chore for me to read. The way the pages are sectioned, it’s not very obvious what order the text should be read in. I also had problems recognising Ikumi. His hair seems to change colour every other page. Maybe it’s what they call art! Maybe I’m too cynical and this story is just too upbeat for me!

I wonder what the real Ikumi and Hermes are up to now. Instead of 500 versions of the story of their blossoming romance, someone should write a sequel. Are they still together, I wonder? Or has Ikumi, flushed with success, taken to stalking girls in trains and/or become a playboy? Someone hunt them down and find out!

Happy with an Ache

From StarTwo, 24th February 2006

Review by DAPHNE LEE

LOVE WALKED IN

Author: Marisa de los Santos

Publisher: Viking, 307 pages

(ISBN: 978-0670916177)

I ADORE happy endings! Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Actually, I remember a time when I didn’t. I wanted my reading matter to be full of misery, violence, hate and angst. I turned up my nose at books filled with love, kisses and smiles, and considered happy endings passé, even trite. But that was when I was young and foolish. Foolish! A blithering pompous ass, more like it!

Well, you’ve probably figured out that Love Walked In is a happy book with a happy ending. It’s not, however, the sort of happy book in which there is no sadness, hurt or heartbreak. Oh, there’s a great deal of tears and anguish and loss here. However, there’s also a lot of mending and healing and, by the final page, every broken heart is well on its way to being whole again.

So, it’s not a fairytale and not quite happily-ever-after – it’s happiness with a bit of ache on the side, because you can’t appreciate joy without sorrow.

The last time a book made me feel this way was Jostein Gaarder’s The Orange Girl. That was a lovely book too, made up of equal parts agony and ecstasy. Such stories are few and far between: Elizabeth Bowen’s A World of Love; Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Now this. And, of course, it being the age of unoriginal screenplays, it’s about to be thoroughly spoilt by being made into a film. Yes, de los Santos has sold the film rights of her first novel to Sarah Jessica “Carrie Bradshaw” Parker’s production company. And the film will star (surprise, surprise) Parker herself!

I knew this before reading the book. And so, when I was reading it, I kept getting these pictures in my head of Parker as Cornelia Brown, the heroine of Love Walked In. And you know what? They’d never stick. Parker is no Brown, never was and never will be. Blame it on Sex and the City, but, to me, the actress will forever be the girl who threw away the love of a good man to be with a lying, cheating scoundrel. That’s something Cornelia would never do. Not in a million years.

I admit it. I love Cornelia Brown. What a wonderful woman! I love her because she’s warm and loving. I love her wit, her generosity and her compassion. I love her because her favourite film is The Philadelphia Story, which, in my book, means she has impeccable taste.

Cornelia’s love for beautiful things is also lovable. She doesn’t love frivolously beautiful things like Manolo Blahniks and clothes she can’t afford but charges to her credit card anyway, but beautiful things like a falling-to-pieces antique chandelier that she buys for a song and then, with infinite patience and care, restores to its full and former glory.

Of course, her love for beauty also means that she thinks Cary Grant is “the best man in the world” and although this is something I cannot relate to or understand, I forgive her because even when a Cary Grant look-alike enters her life, Cornelia doesn’t allow this dream-come-true to cloud her better judgment.

Martin Grace, “a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit” walks into the cafe Cornelia manages and changes her life. In her words, “My life – my real life – started when a man walked into it”. She worries about how this statement sounds – will it be greeted with snorts of derision and scorn? It’s the sort of statement that countless love stories are based around and upon. A silly, romantic statement that usually means that the heroine is a melodramatic floozy. Not in this case though.

Because, when Martin Grace walks into Cornelia’s life, it really does change things. Martin Grace walks in and it changes the shape and texture and tone of Cornelia’s life and it really amounts to love walking in because he leads Cornelia to find true love, but only in a way that is totally unexpected.

That’s part of the book’s charm – that it isn’t as predictable as most chicklit tends to be. Apart from anything else, for once, the heroine’s biological clock isn’t going crazy; for once, the heroine isn’t defensive about being single; for once, she’s not obsessing about her weight or her job; for once, the male characters are beautiful but not gay.

And then, there’s Clare.

Clare is Martin’s daughter. Clare lives with Viviana, her mum who is lovely, loving and lovable until she loses it and abandons her scared and bewildered 11-year-old child. Martin, who has been keeping deliberately distant for years, suddenly finds that he has to be father to a child he doesn’t know and doesn’t love. What does he do? He hands her over to Cornelia.

Carrie Bradshaw? Sorry, but I can’t imagine what she’d do with a depressed 11-year-old. Probably mix her a Cosmopolitan and take her shopping at Sak’s. The good news is I don’t have to watch the film when it comes out (although I’m sure my curiosity will get the better of me) and neither need you. But even if you decide to, it doesn’t matter so long as you read the book first. You have to read the book first because you have to experience the beautiful story, witty heroine and elegant writing before Hollywood ruins it, which, I feel in my bones, it will.

Only the very cynical, very mean-spirited could fail to be heartened and delighted by Love Walked In. Reading it, I not only felt happy, but also thankful and thoughtful. That’s a good thing at any price. I cried over the final few pages and when I put it down, I laughed a crazy laugh that made my sons grin and dance like wild things.

“Why are you laughing like that, Mama?” asked my three-year-old.

“Because I’m so happy it hurts,” I said. That’s the best kind of happy, don’t you think?

Death of the Heart

From StarMag, 13th Feb 2005

Review by DAPHNE LEE

THE LANDSCAPE OF LOVE

By Sally Beauman

Publisher: Little Brown

(ISBN:0316729434)

WHEN I read a Sally Beauman novel I find myself feeling both caressed and harassed. Her narratives are hypnotic; her words – symbolic and evocative – are full of portent and significance. I am lulled by the beauty of her style and the glamour of her characters, yet haunted by the certainty that nothing is right in the worlds she describes.

Her books are rich, dark things. Her characters, especially the women, are beautiful, dangerous and misunderstood. An air of doom prevails; secrets and lies fester and pollute everyone and everything, while lust and love compete for dominance: both are equally destructive.

Will she ever write a book full of nondescript people leading blameless, boring lives? It’s hard to imagine. Her latest, The Landscape of Love, is just what one has come to expect from her. Set partly in a mouldering, haunted abbey in the Suffolk countryside, it could have been a romantic, picturesque tale a la I Capture the Castle. Why, given the right tone it could have taken a satirical turn and ended up a modern Northanger Abbey. But no, Landscape is just exactly what her fans want – firmly and woefully a Beauman exercise in hand-wringing tragedy.

As the title suggests, it is a love story – that is, an anatomy of the emotion as experienced by and seen through the eyes of the novel’s characters. Love’s terrain is rugged, unfriendly and unforgiving – typical Beauman-country, a battlefield on which her characters die a thousand deaths, disillusioned, desperate, frustrated and obsessed.

It ain’t pretty, but it’s compelling, and like all Beauman’s work, one loathes to stop reading. She teases you mercilessly, constantly hinting, implying and inferring, so that the suspense is unbearable. Unfortunately, disappointment is also inevitable. All the hoo-ha is, at least I find, about nothing – how could it not be when whatever revelations Beauman has in store have your energetically back-flipping imagination to live up to? (Of course, it may just be that I have a more gratuitously morbid and disgusting imagination than hers.)

It’s no different with Landscape. Nevertheless, what a page-turner it is – the feeling of anticipation, when you’re right in the middle of the story, is hard to beat. Beauman has been likened to Daphne du Maurier (her last novel was actually a re-telling of du Maurier’s Rebecca) and I agree that she comes very close to matching that writer’s broodingly elegant style. In addition, Beauman, like du Maurier, specialises in puzzling yet beguiling female characters and settings that exude a sense of both mystery and menace.

In Landscape, we are bewitched by the Mortland sisters. The youngest, Maisie, is only a girl when the story opens, but she is also the narrator – a sly, intensely observant one who sees ghosts. Her sisters, in their early 20s and late teens respectively, are the beautiful and scornful Julia and the wild, bookish Finn.

It is the summer of 1967 and the family are gathered at the ancestral home. Also present are the sisters’ childhood friend, Dan; his best friend, Nick; and Lucas, an aspiring artist who is in the process of painting the sisters. In the second part of the book, both Lucas and the painting are famous; Julia and Nick are unhappily married; and Dan is a drugged-out has-been, suddenly gripped by the urgent need to make sense of that last summer in Suffolk.

This second portion of the book, set in London and narrated by a bitter and desperate Dan, is harsher in tone than the first, reflecting both his state of mind as well as the dog-eat-dog social climate of late 1980s Britain. And yet, there’s something about Maisie’s gently pensive voice, and even Julia’s final, dispassionate words, that are more unsettling than Dan’s explicit and intentionally offensive account.

All three are, in fact, masters of concealment, deliberately leading the leader deeper and deeper into a story by dangling the truth like a carrot. Ultimately, however, one is left in the dark. I even re-read the book, hoping to benefit from hindsight, but the second time around only made me certain that Beauman intended to leave us guessing. With this book, about that treacherous land called love, she may have decided that hiding the truth might be the most honest course of action.

Books by Sally Beauman, Daphne du Maurier and others about love and how it can really, really suck:

S. Beauman:
Dark Angel
Rebecca's Tale

D. du Maurier:
Rebecca
My Cousin Rachel

Others:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Babel Tower by A. S. Byatt
Heartburn by Nora Ephron (at least this one is funny)
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
The Willow Cabin by Pamela Frankau