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Isle of Man: “Safe House” starts with a motorbike accident and quickly becomes a car crash of a novel...

12/31/2019

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Safe House actually starts out with an interesting – if not exactly original – premise, a man wakes up with concussion in a hospital following a motorbike crash. Bizarrely he clearly remembers his pillion passenger being taking from the scene in an ambulance before him, yet doctors, police and authorities all confirm there was no second ambulance and no record of the mysterious pillion… a case of post-accident confusion or a sinister conspiracy?
 
Rewind and we learn that our confused patient is one Rob Hale, a heating plumber by trade and racer of motorcycles by talent and inclination. (In real life, the Isle of Man hosts one of the world's most famous motorcycle races, the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT)). One day Rob is called to a remote house on the island to fix a broken boiler. He meets Lena, a strange, beautiful woman, who lives in the house with two gruff-looking men. She tells him she wants to go for a ride on his motorcycle, but she can't tell the two men. Is she a prisoner? a conspirator? a criminal? who cares?

The secret motorcycle ride ends in the aforementioned accident and Lena's disappearance. Rob begins a hunt with Rebecca, the private investigator his mother hired to find out what happened to Rob's dead sister, Laura, that pits him against legal and criminal forces, both of whom are out to get Rob... and so a promising start quickly unravels into an unlikely, confusing and pretty daft tale…and keeps on unravelling.
 
Ewan tries his best to prolong the suspense of who Lena is, what Rebecca's role really is, and how Rob's dead sister, Laura, is involved. It's sometimes confusing to keep up with the characters – especially Rebecca and Lena, who have a vague interchangeability, as they make their way through increasingly outrageous situations, including international conspiracies, foreign billionaires, hard-line environmentalist groups and a fair dose of implausible batterings and murder.
 
None of the above is helped by the author – his prose reads like a middle-aged bloke's self-published ‘hero’ fantasy; and I was surprised to read that he’s published other books before and gained positive reviews. I found his prose turgid, especially in the way things were described to death; whether the logo on a business card, or the detail of every characters' outfit. Sorry, I really don't need to know that Rob completed his fitness workout ensemble with white cotton socks.
 
One trait of the author I found particularly off-putting was the slightly creepy way the main female protagonists were consistently described in terms of their appearance and “hotness” (Ewan’s word). I lost count of the number of times their long legs were described, or their shirts hiked up to reveal skin when they were reaching for something. It felt like the author just imagined his ideal of an attractive woman, described their appearances ad nauseam, but failed give them personalities at all – other than a uniform attraction to indecisive, slightly lecherous, middle-aged plumbers! Could have been more to them as characters but Hale/Ewan’s constant voyeuristic rating of them detracts…
 
I really can’t say any more than this, as you have probably guessed this is just the sort of book that both irritates and bores me…at 488 pages I feel it was probably about 488 pages too long. Harsh? Maybe, but Manx literature deserves better.
 
So off I go to the third constituent country of the UK: Cymru or Wales (sometimes referred to as a Principality, but let’s not confuse things further). As with Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales has a degree of autonomy from the Union with a devolved Parliament (the National Assembly), it’s own national anthem and a language (in principle) of equal status to English. Interestingly, the only country of the UK without its own Parliament or separate national anthem is England...(Westminster is the UK Parliament).
 
With a population of just over 3,000,000, Wales nevertheless has a strong national identity and a – generally – good-natured competitive relationship with England in Rugby and Football (though they share a national Cricket team – more complications). It is largely known for its stunning and mountainous landscape, historic castles and rich and diverse literary and cultural history.
 
My port of call here is in west Wales, to a small town on the outskirts of Aberystwyth; a typical example of austerity Britain along with closed down shops, poverty, violence, drugs and decay - all surrounded by spectacular scenery and beautiful ancient lakes in a stark contrast.
 
I take a three hour car ferry from Douglas to Liverpool, saying a quick hello to England before rushing to catch the National Express from the bus station in Canning Street which takes me as far as Bangor, Wales on another three hour trip. I take an overnight break in Bangor at one of the many cheap B&Bs, and awake refreshed for the final three and a half hour bus trip to Aberystwyth...
 
As such I arrive in a post-Brexit Wales with high hopes for a redeeming novel for my journey’s closing stages. I was not disappointed... Broken Ghost is, quite simply a uniquely Welsh merging of mythology and nature, set against the modern mundanity, futility and hopelessness of small-town life in west Wales. Author Niall Griffiths takes a bleak contemporary setting and uses a notion of possible redemption, just out of reach, of rising above what Wales, the UK, the world has become; to poignant and profound effect.
 
This book had an honesty and a transcendence that moved me intensely and I am delighted to have discovered it.
 
Gweld chi mewn Cymru!

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'C'mere 'till I tell ya': A Great Craic in Dublin with Charlie Savage

12/30/2019

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Charlie Savage, the eponymous protagonist and narrator of this book, once ended up in Wales on Christmas Eve, looking for a Tamagotchi. Dublin was full of the things, but the daughter’s heart was set on a pink one.

This is the kind of man we meet when we open Roddy Doyle’s new title. Charlie is a “type”. He’s a Dubliner through and through. A decent aul’ skin. Pint drinker. A no-nonsense sort, who might walk into Insomnia café and order “a plain black coffee with no messing”. He’s also a father, a grandfather; mad about his family. He even gets a SpongeBob tattoo on his chest so his three-year-old grandson won’t have to; telling him he’s just looking after it for him. This is someone who’s aware of how ridiculous the world can be, but who nonetheless participates in the whole joke.

Irish Independent readers will be familiar with Charlie from his slot in the weekend magazine. Now a year’s worth of these columns is collected in one work. And whilst it is promoted as a novel, its episodic quality and occasional jarring repetition signposts this as a compendium of stories rather than a lineal novel proper…

It’s worth noting that this isn’t his first foray into this format. In 2011, he introduced Two Pints via Facebook. A series of imagined conversations between two men at a bar. Not unlike Charlie and his drinking buddy, they riffed on current events, always maintaining a gruff, detached ‘bloke-tone’.

Charlie Savage feels like another stab at this idea, but a better one. We get a more complete reading experience. Charlie and his fellow characters are fleshed out. A world is drawn. And the humour feels less cynical because of this.

There’s a knack to this character-sketch style writing, and Doyle for the most part has it. It depends on “on the money” observations and on-point humour. Writing like this is like performing stand-up: make ’em laugh and you can get away with anything.

Doyle knows how to work a crowd. His north-Dublinese is fluent; never mocking, never overstated. He describes a nativity play where his young daughter, playing Mary, arrives onstage and says “Look, Joseph [ . . .] we’re after having a baby boy.” You can hear it, if only faintly, that charming Dublin lilt. Doyle’s humour is subtle. He has an ear for things particular to Irish people that are particularly funny.

So, Doyle plays ball. He represents. Charlie’s drinking buddy has realised that inside he’s been a woman all along (Savage refers to him as the Secret Woman – without a hint of mockery, only fondness). His son might be gay . . . or bisexual, intersexual, pansexual, polysexual (he runs out of sexuals before ever reaching “heterosexual”, which his son turns out to be). In order to represent the modern world, you must use modern-day terminology and attitudes.

Of course, he’s treading a fine line here. The ‘over-woke’ (Google it if you need) world is partly what he’s mocking – why would a three-year-old want a tattoo, for God’s sake? – and partly what he’s welcoming: Charlie gets the tattoo instead.

It’s a difficult balance and at times depth is lost in its pursuit – his daughter’s attempt to turn him into a social media influencer (by podcasting him shouting at the telly) flounders and finally peters out, seeming a little too forced. But it’s style that bolsters the piece.

​More than comedy or insight, this work has tenderness. Charlie genuinely loves his family and his wife – even if he struggles to remember which children have which grandchildren, “The house, of course, is full of grandkids. I'm sure they're mine but I don't recognise half of them. But they must know who I am because they keep throwing themselves on top of me every time I shut my eyes.” It does more than make us laugh, it warms our hearts somewhat.

At the end of the day, like a pleasant afternoon in a Dublin Bar, sipping Guinness and putting the world to rights with an amiable local, it’s enjoyable but by closing time I’m ready to move on..

Next up is the Isle of Man (don’t forget the UK explained video I posted earlier). This is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. Whilst the Queen is Head of State (technically the Lord of Mann), it has its own President and parliament (the High Court of Tynwald) and is not part of the UK.

​The Manx population is just over 80,000 and, accordingly, my research into relevant novels was a frugal one, though I finally found an interesting-sounding one set on the Isle called Safe House, by Chris Ewan.

I get a taxi from the city centre to the Dublin port for
€13 and am just in time for the 10.45am ferry to Douglas (capital of the Isle of Man). I embark as a foot passenger and 3 hours later and €26 poorer I arrive in Douglas, en route to the winding small-town roads that grace the annual TT motorbike races and a remote country house that may not be all it seems…
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Street Libraries Prove that Size Doesn't Matter!

12/26/2019

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Amazing what you can come across when you're not looking for it! Discovered this on the edge of my local park in Canberra whilst out on a Boxing Day stroll...at first I thought someone had dumped a fridge. On further inspection it turned out to be a tiny library complete with books (of course), sunhats, chairs and a postbox for reviews :)

Love the face that local resident(s) have taken the time to set this up and maintain it for the community - great way to spread the reading bug...  I got home and googled 'street library' and it turns out there are thousands of these quirky little libraries worldwide (on a principle of take a book and leave a book, or just take a book and bring it back)​. There could well be one near you, so next time you're out walking keep you're eyes peeled - or why not set one up yourself? :) 

https://streetlibrary.org.au/

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Belfast Gate: A Troubled History and a Hope for the Future

12/24/2019

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It takes some skill to write a comedy novel against a backdrop of some terrible history, and Tony Macaulay walks that tightrope in his novel Belfast Gate.  It is a story of four elderly women, two Catholics, Patricia and Bridget, and two Protestants, Jean and Roberta, who decide to ‘do something’ about the huge gap between cross-community efforts for lasting peace and re-establishing normal lives, and the existence of a dubious, divisive, so-called peace wall.  They plan a campaign – Get Our Gate Open – and call their gang the GOGO Girls.  Jean is the leader of the pack.

They know it is not an easy thing to do to challenge thugs, bullies and shadowy figures, but they find the grit and determination to at least try to find a way to improve their divided streets.  It is a journey of anger, frustration and exasperation, but also of strength and bravery.

The dialogue is written in pure Belfast-speak and many of the exchanges between the women, the self-appointed big shots and disinterested youths are amusing in a ‘wait-a-wee-minute’, ‘catch-yourself-on’ kind of way. There were some chuckle-worthy moments - as when one of the Gogo girls complains about her "vangina" - which turns out to be her chest pains... but I must admit I found the relentless funny observations and self-aware stoicism eventually started to grate on me; as did the almost naïve approach of both author and protagonists… a woman in her 80s besting a former UDA member by effectively calling him a ‘wee naughty boy’? I’m not so sure reality would pan out so idealistically.

Tony Macaulay does maintain a degree of realism though, using incidents and graffiti messages and other references to maintain a feeling of tension. And, hidden amongst some of the groan-worthy humour there is much grass roots wisdom in the lines and between the lines too.

But, don’t be lulled into thinking that it’s laughs all the way.  There are moments where the plot takes an unexpected turn, and, as I mentioned right at the beginning, it takes skill and writer’s courage to pull a surprise without harming the spirit of the story.

Jean is the stand-out character but the individuals in the supporting cast are strong too, and Macauley does make efforts to dig beneath the stereotypes on all sides…

Ultimately, this is a novel that works as a timely reminder that ordinary people can make things happen while idle politicians fail to work positively for the people.

That said, there is a fine line to tread between whimsy and humour in portraying dire situations (as in the movies The Full Monty and Brassed Off – glossy feel-good movies that use the awful poverty of ex-mining towns to the background scenery).  As a more convincing comic-realist depiction of Northern Irish sectarianism I’d suggest Alan Bleasdale’s 1985 film No Surrender.

I’m aware I’ve been a little cynical in my review so in interest of fairness here is a quote from the author himself in September 2019:

“Well, [Belfast Gate] was a little flippant but I suppose the point is that we’re at our best in Northern Ireland when we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and when we’re at our worst when we take ourselves far too seriously. We really do have a great sense of humour; it’s quite a dark sense of humour and the book is full of that. Our sense of humour has gotten us through some very dark times. I truly believe we in Belfast could live without 30-foot walls separating us. And I think that anything we can do that takes us forward, imagine a future without walls dividing us is a good thing. With investment, regeneration, and jobs etc. in a way that makes it safe and prosperous in interface areas is what we need. We need leadership from Stormont to make that happen but I think that humour and warmth would certainly help us along.” (interview by By Conor O’Neill @ Culturecrushniblog © 2019)


Given that Stormount (the Northern Irish Parliament) dissolved in 2017 over an argument between the DUP and Sinn Fein, leaving the country effectively without a government, one can only hope that Macauley’s vision becomes a reality soon.

For my next book I stay on the island of Ireland and hop across the border to Northern Ireland’s much bigger southern neighbour; the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann).

In this pre-Brexit time while the ‘backstop’ Irish border is still being argued over I am able to pass easily from Belfast to this EU country via Intercity train. This goes direct from Belfast to Dublin Connely (Irelan’s imposing rail station). Second class is reasonable at €41 second class for a 2 hour journey and it takes me straight to my next destination – the capital city of Dublin with Charlie Savage a new (sort-of) novel by renowned author Roddy Doyle.


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Merry Christmas and best wishes for more adventures in literature in 2020!

12/24/2019

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Familiar Territory: A Scottish Novel of Returning for Narrator and Novelist

12/23/2019

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Author of my Scottish novel choice, Stonemouth, is Iain Banks; one of the most prolific and highly regarded Scottish writers of modern times. He is also one of my favourite authors – I devoured his early novels, such as The Wasp Factory, Walking on Glass, The Bridge and, perhaps, his best-known novel The Crow Road. However, from my thirties I began to slowly fall away from Banks’ world; his works seemed at times to be sitting within a thematic and narrative comfort zone, a little – dare I say it – Banks-by-numbers (a similar fate befell my early love of Stephen King novels).
 
And so I approached this novel with anticipation but also a little warily, like meeting up with a long-lost anarchic outspoken friend from back in collage and half-hoping he hasn’t fallen into mid-life tedium.  Could Banks have come up with a daringly original work here, decades after his debut? Well, no, not really. Not in my opinion.
 
In truth, you don’t need to be a die-hard Iain Banks fan to know that these characters, or people like them, have appeared before (ditto the plots, “twentysomething returns to hometown for a funeral and seeks to rekindle a lost love of youth, with a sort of mystery attached” – could be The Crow Road synopsis as well as Stonemouth). While Stuart Gilmour, the protagonist and narrator, has some depth, the rest are largely stereotypes verging on caricatures: the patriarchs of the town’s two crime rings with their loyal but dim sons and beautiful but independent daughters (one of whom Gilmour, of course, falls in love with); the bisexual best friend who is a heavy drinker and drug taker; the son of a wealthy estate owner whom they all befriend to get access to what is effectively a giant playground; the old man who takes Gilmour under his wing in an odd kind of friendship who turns out to be his future girlfriend’s grandfather. And so on.
 
Gilmour, and his friends and enemies, are the mix of Irvine Welsh-like smart/thick, druggy/clean, friendly/violent people you’d expect to meet in a town like Stonemouth which – just like any other provincial, semi-industrial town in slow decline in Britain – has everything from sink estates to hunting estates, but I didn’t see enough of them to feel I was involved in their lives. Even though Gilmour relates the story I never felt sufficiently drawn in to care about, or really believe, his motivations and feelings – especially in his romantic hankering for former love Ellie, which tip over into the mawkishly sentimental on occasions; Banks has always trodden a fine line here. I found myself increasingly irritated by their toing and froing along the lines of “shall we get back together?” “I don’t know” “yes, maybe, I need to think” etc. I just wanted to scream I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU DECIDE JUST GET ON WITH IT!
 
While Banks is a more than competent writer, Stonemouth doesn’t have the breadth or depth of imagination of some of his other work. While he includes his trademark moments of sickening violence set within everyday surroundings to great effect, it is in the end a very straightforward story, and one which did not entirely convince me. A case in point is Banks’ narrative voice… whereas The Crow Road hit us from the start with it’s first line (“It was the day my grandmother exploded”), Stonemouth opens with a single word “Clarity”.
 
I also had a problem with the voice. Gilmour is a bright, articulate young man who left Stonemouth five years ago for reasons that form the centrepiece of the book, but as a first-person narrator he doesn’t quite ring true. Often we get one or two paragraphs of pure description of his surroundings, almost as if Banks is filling up his word count. Are we meant to believe Gilmour has simply stopped what he is doing and is telling us what he can see, because he feels like it? There’s an uncomfortable mix of Scottish colloquialisms and standard English. Gilmour’s narration is straight – most of the time – even though he’s from Stonemouth, and I could live with that, but it was the variation in the written dialogue that caused me problems. I wasn’t convinced that Gilmour, Ellie and others would speak in perfect English, while often the people around them are speaking with strong accents.
 
Set over five days and told by Gilmour in the present tense, albeit with substantial past tense flashbacks, Stonemouth redeems itself to a degree by revealing gradually the events of five years ago, and by building to an admirable if predictable climax, and slightly less admirable or suspenseful resolution..
 
The book doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t trick you, and it probably won’t surprise you; it just lets Gilmour tell you his story. Couple that with a straightforward tale of love, violence, betrayal and family honour, and you have a reasonable semi-epitaph in the last published novel of Iain Banks (The Quarry, his last, was posthumous) before he succumbed too-soon to gallbladder cancer in 2013, after marrying his long time love.
 
He proposed by asking her to "do me the honour of becoming my widow." Sums Banks’ writing up really, quirky, humorous, sentimental but never shying away from acknowledging and facing the darker elements of being… RIP Iain Banks.
 
And a fond farewell to Scotland too as I head across the sea to the only UK country not on the British Mainland (watch the UK video previously posted if confused): Northern Ireland, which is variously described as a country, province or region within  the United Kingdom. Located in the northeast of the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland.

Getting to Northern Ireland is a doddle – no passport or visa checks required, even in this post-Brexit era – I just book a 11.30am StenaLine ferry from the fishing port Cairnryan on the east coast of Loch Ryan for €38.00 and land up in Belfast, the major port and capital city of Northern Ireland, a land long beset by troubles – political, economic, religious, military, and criminal.

The novel set here is Belfast Gate by local author Tony MacAuley. The Belfast Gate refers to the euphemistically named ‘peace gates’ intended to keep sectarian factions apart but also dividing communities. The first peace gates were erected in the 1920s – before a certain Donald Trump and his dreams of a “big, beautiful wall” was even born. As of 2017 they continue to multiply.

The novel is described thus: “It's Belfast in 2019 and despite more than twenty years of peace, scores of so-called peace walls continue to separate Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods. Jean Beattie's grief turns to anger when police refuse to open the peace gate at the end of her street to allow her best friend's funeral procession through to her church on the other side of the peace wall. The gate remains closed because local youths, led by Sam on one side and Seamie on the other, are recreational rioting. Comforted by her friends Roberta, Bridget and Patricia from the cross-community pensioners' club, Jean vows the gate will be opened. On the fiftieth anniversary of the erection of the peace walls, in the era of Brexit and Trump's border wall, the themes in Tony Macaulay's laugh-out-loud novel resonate far beyond Northern Ireland.”

​See you on the other side!  

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What's in a name? Well, if you're talking about the UK quite a lot actually...

12/11/2019

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Now en route to Scotland I am heading back to my country of birth - though not my constituent country...as I am actually a British Citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who originates from the constituent country of England...I am also soon to become a joint Australian / British National, but let's not complicate things further.

Basically the UK is a complicated entity, thus the high number of books from the British Isles that my journey is ending on - and that's before we get into The Republic of Ireland, along with the Isle of Man, and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey (the latter three being Crown Dependencies but not part of the UK itself). 

Rather than trying to untangle all of this historical confusion, I have added a link to a video that ably explains all in 5 minutes much better than I could! (Although it omits the Principality of Sealand which proclaimed independence from the UK back in the 60s and is still going strong, of which more later...)

Sitting comfortably? Then let's begin...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
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Lost in Space? Nowhere to Hide in the Faroe Islands

12/7/2019

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After a rather banal run of novels as I skirted the Arctic Circle (just my opinion of course) I was pinning my hopes on this book to revivify my home run with just 8 books to go!

I was not disappointed; I loved this book – which I felt I truly inhabited from the title to the final sentence; and which reminded me why I began my journey a decade ago…

In most of us there is the secret (or not so secret) desire for greatness, to be shortlisted for the Nobel or the Pulitzer, to be the latest Oscar winner. With the advent of YouTube, it seems any ten-year-old with a half-decent voice is on the fast track to virtual fame. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes, no matter how fleeting or ill-merited they are. Which is perhaps what makes the hero of Norwegian author Johan Harstad’s debut novel so refreshing and fascinating. He shies away from fame or recognition of any sort:

“The person you love is 72.8 percent water and there’s been no rain for weeks.” So begins Mattias’ musings in Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?

After losing his girlfriend and his job, first-person narrator and unassuming ex-gardener Mattias leaves his home in Stavanger, Norway to travel with a friend’s rock band to a concert on the remote lunar-like Faroe Islands, located halfway between Scotland and Iceland. It is notable that Mattias is a jaw-droppingly gifted singer but refuses to step into the limelight – opting as the band’s sound engineer. The link to the title is clear in the persona of Mattias: his idol is Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, who has long gone unnoticed. So we follow this man who wishes not to be followed, tracing him through Harstad’s engagingly deadpan but nonetheless impactful prose.

“I’d decided I didn’t need to be the best, the most popular, or even liked, I just wanted to find myself a vacant space and stay there, do my thing, maybe I was just frightened of disrupting something, of knocking the world out of its delicate balance by being in the way, in the wrong place. If I was too visible, people tied to me.”

Following a series of events he can’t remember, waking up in the Faroe Islands in the middle of a remote rain-soaked road and inexplicably carrying a pocketful of cash, Mattias ends up living in a kind of commune for people existing somewhere between a mental institution and normal society. He is picked up by a man named Havstein, who runs this remote psychiatric half-way house in a small village north of the capital Torshavn. There, Mattias joins a quirky but lovable bunch who make wooden sheep to sell in tourist shops, get drunk and climb mountains, and listen to nothing but The Cardigans - their limited interaction with the world matches Mattias’s own desire to disappear.

Despite this isolation we do get insights into the wider Faroese society: with the group’s regular trips into Torshavn, the unique language, emigration due to dwindling job opportunities the annual whale hunt (graphically described in one scene) and of course the ever-present, treeless, and bleak lunar-like landscape… all filtered through the unique perspective of Mattias’ perception.

Buzz Aldrin is a long, rather picaresque novel crammed full of digressions and scenes that would seem superfluous but for Mattias engagingly deadpan dialogue. Near the novel’s end, Harstad introduces some plot elements (including an unlikely journey and some secret psychiatry files) that seem overly contrived. Nevertheless, these narrative flaws are more than made up for by this novel’s abundant charms. From the very beginning of Mattias’s story, I was hooked by his voice, a compelling mix of humility, melancholy, earnestness, and humour:

“It is a Tuesday. There can be no doubt about that. I see it in the light, the traffic outside the windows will continue to stream all day, slowly, disinterestedly, people driving back and forth out of habit rather than necessity. Tuesday. The week’s most superfluous day. A day that almost nobody notices among all the other days. I read somewhere, I don’t remember where, that statistics showed there were 34 percent fewer appointments made on an average Tuesday than on any other day. On a worldwide basis. That’s how it is.”

Indeed, the prose occasionally borders on the surreal, reminiscent of Brian O'Nolan’s brilliant The Third Policeman. For example: “the café fell quiet as we talked, in the silence I could hear the other patrons’ eavesdropping ears climb down from their tables and scuttle across the linoleum floor to listen in on our conversation”.

For someone who wants no lasting evidence of his existence, Mattias is fascinated with what he calls “Kodak moments”, or mental snapshots. Harstad aptly captures our desperation to hold on to moments, especially through digital preservation. In a particularly poignant passage, Mattias listens to The Cardigans CDs over and over again, searching the audio tracks for anything to recall the presence of someone lost to him.

Ultimately, his fear of engaging with the world perhaps comes from his realisation of the inevitability of loss in the end, of nature’s temporary nature, where nothing can be fixed in time:

“The microscopic cells that formed your face in the photograph your parents have hanging in their living room are gone, exchanged for others. You’re no longer who you were. But I am still here, the atoms may swap their places, but nobody can control the dance of the quarks. And the same applies to the people you love. With almost stationary velocity they crumble in your arms, and you wish you could cling onto something permanent in them, their skeleton, their teeth, brain cells, but you can’t, because almost everything is water, impossible to grasp.”

Nonetheless, Buzz Aldrin is filled with an emotional exuberance that’s a rare and joyful reading experience and Deborah Dawkin’s translation preserves that exuberance along with the brisk pace of Mattias’s narration. Over the course of almost 500 pages, I became thoroughly immersed in Mattias’s world, and even though I finished reading Buzz Aldrin more than a week ago, the book has stayed with me. A fact that demonstrates what Mattias eventually realizes: “Even an invisible person will be seen in the end, as a white aura flickering through nature, and there are no places to hide.” I’m sure the irony of Buzz Aldrin – who eschewed recognition for his moonwalk – leaving his footprints for ever on the moon’s surface is not lost on Harstad.

My greatest wish for Mattias is that he be allowed to disappear into the inevitable obscurity of contentedness he so craves. I can give no better complement to Harstad than to conclude this is one of the best and most engaging books I have read in recent years and, for Mattias’ sake, I sincerely hope there is never a sequel…

 
So, reluctantly but inevitably, I leave the Faroe (or Faeroe, take your pick) Islands and head back to a very different Britain (or UK, take your pick) to the one I departed from back in 2009. My first port of call will be Scotland and Stonemouth (also the name of its setting a fictional seaport town north of Aberdeen.  

There is no longer a ferry from Torshavn to Aberdeen which would have been ideal, so – with apologies to Greta Thunberg - from the capital I have to take a helicopter to the airport at Sorvagur then a 6 hour flight to Aberdeen via Copenhagen.
 
The fact that this was the penultimate novel by Iain Banks – a literary idol of mine in my teens through to 30s and taken too soon by cancer – means I should be in safe hands. Although not, I hope, too safe – at his finest Iain Banks’ writing is edgy and dark (The Wasp Factory, Walking on Glass, The Bridge), but later works have occasionally, seemed a bit too…easy. Let’s hope it’s the former. For now I’ll leave you with the publisher’s blurb as a taster.

“Stewart Gilmour is back in Stonemouth, Scotland.

“After five years in exile his presence is required at the funeral of local patriarch Joe Murston, even though the last time Stewart saw the Murstons he was running for his life. An estuary town north of Aberdeen, Stonemouth, with its five mile beach, can be beautiful on a sunny day. On a bleak one it can seem to offer little more than sea fog, gangsters, cheap drugs, and a suspension bridge irresistible to suicides.”
​

See you back in Blighty!
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Arise, Sir John of Sealand!

12/2/2019

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Certificate, seal and Official Documents arrived in the post today.
By orders of Prince Regent Michael I am now a Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Sealand!
​Arise Sir John Richard Brookes OMS ;)

Sealand will be the penultimate stop on my world literary journey!
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Dutch Artists Paint Giant Bookcase on Apartment Building

12/2/2019

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I'd love to live here! Would have to be '1984' for me...

Link to story.
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