1Q84 - The Verdict

I had heard a lot of things about 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami before I read it. I am a massive fan, along with millions of others, so I was eager to see his new work. Due to living abroad, I patiently waited until Christmas and was given parts 1 and 2 as a present. I then bought book 3 as soon as I finished parts 1 and 2. In the end, I think this is what helped me...

Had I rushed out and bought the books right away, I think I might have felt a little differently. As it happens, the wait meant my expectations were not too over-inflated and I think I came to the book in a better state of mind. I was still excited sure, and worried to see some pretty negative reviews floating around.

So, a quick summary (if this is at all possible!): The trilogy is set in a fictionalised 1984, an alternate reality if you will, where one of the main characters decides to rename it '1Q84' (hence the title). In this world, the two main characters, Aomame and Tengo are inexplicably drawn to one another and over time, their worlds begin to collide more and more. The novel focusses on Tengo's rewriting of a book called Air Chrysalis by an enigmatic young writer (Fuka-Eri) and the consequences of this action. Fuki-Eri's past of being part of (albeit it unwillingly) a religious 'cult' called Sagikate begins to surface and the unusual events described in the rewritten novel begin to look more real than Tengo first thought, beginning with the appearance of two moons in the sky. Aomome meanwhile, moonlights as a skilled killer of abusive men and all too soon, she too is dragged into the world of the Sagikate cult and the mysterious 'Little people' who are said to have great power but hardly anyone seems to be able to explain or want to acknowledge.

Whilst I don't think 1Q84 is quite as good as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles or Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, it still kept me gripped. I wanted to know what was going to happen and I wanted both the main characters to survive. The tension about whether they would get to meet again (after seeing each other last when they were only 10 years old) was definitely strong and I hoped they would meet before one of them was found by the Sagikate cult. Therefore, despite some bad reviews, this is why I think 1Q84 is a good book. If I cared enough to want the charaters to survive, that tells me it was a good read.

I also cared about some of the side characters. Fuki-Eri was a strange character who was quite amusing to read. She was described very well and the scars of her past were evident in her strange manner and almost oblivious perspective of the world. Tamaru, the security man for the elderly woman who employs Aomame, is an intelletual and comforting presence. I liked the way he mentioned to Aomome that Chekov believed once a gun appears in a novel, it must be used. This was an added bit of tension as to whether Aomame would need to shoot anyone or herself at some point in the future. Tengo's friend and editor, Komatsu was also quite an interesting and sometimes amusing character.

However, there were a few characters that didn't work quite as well. I found the chapters in book 3 told by the private investigator, Ushikawa, quite dull at times. I didn't mind the fact that his investigation was a bit pathetic and yielded no results, I just found the details a little boring and his family history even more boring. I have to say I did skip some of these parts. Also, the nurse (Kumi) that Tengo meets whilst visiting his sick father seemed to be a bit too much of a construct used by the author to implant specific phrases and information in Tengo's mind. I didn't really enjoy her presence.

I have read some other criticisms online - mainly to do with repetition and sex scenes in the novel. With these criticisms, I can agree slightly. There are some points where information is repeated by the same character or by both the narrators in different chapters. This was a bit unnecessary and could have cut the book down a little with removing these alone. Also the sex scenes - they were sometimes not written as well as other parts. Additionally, there is quite a few mentions of breasts, as one person pointed out on Amazon. Sometimes it was no problem but sometimes it seemed a bit too much of a fixation. Once you notice something too much in a novel, it probably means it has been overdone a little. Lastly, the use of italics to portray character's internals thoughts were a bit too numerous, sometimes spanning several paragraphs. If it was a character's perspective in the chapter, I am not sure why so many italics were needed.

But despite these things - I really enjoyed 1Q84. It's not perfect but as I said, it kept me turning the pages. I enjoyed the two main charaters and believed in them. I liked the presentation of the strange Sakigake cult and the unusual aspects of it. Murakami's usual strangeness was definitely present. To keep everything going for about 900 pages is quite an achievement. There was conflict between the cult and everyone else, between Tengo and his father, between Aomame and her conscience, and between the characters and their pasts. Strangely, there were also odd moments of humour. I think the dialogue was also good overall and I enjoyed the exchanges between chracters, particularly Aomome and Tamaru, who often had some interesting and wide-ranging exchanges.

So in conclusion, don't believe the hype or the criticisms. I would advise you to try reading 1Q84 yourself and remember that although Murakami is a giant of literature, he isn't always completely perfect.

Sons and Fascination (book review)

Sons and Fascination by Gurdeep Mattu

'A good debut novel and a love letter to London'

3.5/5

This London based novel is a great read by a fresh new voice. It doesn't take long to read as it's more like a novella and it is quite dialogue driven. The main chracter, Jack can be a little bit hopeless, but this seems to be his personality more than anything else. The other characters were a little more absorbing in my opinion - Jack's unknown half-brother Sean, Jack's 'uncle' Ray, Jacks father's ex-lover Fran... Overall this is a really solid novel and a good read. The snapshots of London life are also great to see - London often gets a bad rep in books but Mattu obviously loves it!

Jan 2012 update

Hi all,

Happy New Year! Can't believe it's 2012 already. I am really looking forward to the Olympics and seeing how it all pans out!

In the meantime, here is a recent poem...


hear you

as IF a tunnel, echo eco
ache-o, my heart.
Have you to think – keep in
The flesh, my bone don’t

find fun in

shatter ring and ear no
voice now.


Still got my lo ve
he don’t fall
part now cause
you believed in it despite what,
dispirit you
kept it me but forgot
you.

Tawking shit, I hear words like
too morrow, how long
here too? Stay.

Can’t put worse in
words, never rights down, in the
night, inthenight, avalanche
your face
your face
the gauze skin, trumps
tears but I want
sleepless love, no avail launches when
the words
run
definitely, run
not one
let her left
to run


Apart from this, I am currently working on my third novel 'Volta' (working title). It is a bit of a hard slog at times as it is a different style to my last two - new characters and more of a teen novel. I think it has a similar thriller feel though.

I am also in the process of getting my second novel 'Semblance' edited. It doesn't matter how many times you read something you've written, you always miss something! I'd love to get 'Semblance' out there this year so fingers crossed!

Anyway, more soon! x

I'm back and poetic...

Hi everyone,

I apologise for my terrible absence from my blog. I have been adjusting to life in a new city - Madrid - and attempting to be a teacher! It is going very well - I make less mistakes, I know a few Spanish words and the city is brilliant!


Me and a lovely view in Madrid!


I have also finally begun to write again so here are a few recent poems, some my usual style and one a little more traditional in style perhaps. I hope you enjoy them!

1.

Ayuda – if I calling you, please

me / answer someone
something

Take notes: I is trying
grows into? A people a persons
no childs, no more.

For example, in my case I carry
tols, no, tools
of land gu age – (quicker) – language
like sandwich.

Can you under-stand me?
Can you over-stand me?

Poe-hams are losing, poe hams are lost in….
I going to be learning about
this, there there, can you love

me is difficult, I nose it. Don’t need
to speak me, no, I look it with
own –

Fuck, lost in a word. How you
say lost
in a word?

Finding me is
__________
__________
__________
__________

2.

I’ll keep these pieces of you
just in case you can’t make
it back. I’ll scatter them
around the house like leaves that no one
picks up. They are pages of a book nowhere definite.
They will just float around and seem
to disappear

At night, I’ll give life to your laugh, flesh
to your soft hands. I promise. When
everyone else has put you to rest, you will
linger in my life like the jarring
smell of cut grass, not always obvious but when I stop,
I’ll feel you there.

I won’t let anyone take these pieces, no matter
what happened between us. I’ll fly you
at half-mast. I’ll put a photo on the pin board that
won’t ever be replaced. As long as
I remember my own name and yours, I promise.

All the stories and the half-truths in those last days or weeks
won’t be lost – I’ll pick through those threads
and make something for you.
Wherever you’re going, you won’t ask
me to take you home again.
You won’t ask me to take you home.

See you in the walls. See you by the toaster when
I’m still foggy with sleep.
See you, even though you lost
the pieces that make you somewhere
behind those eyes.

Somewhere is Iris.

3. (to be published in the forthcoming issue of 'streetcake')


The whirled is dan generous
- I could make a home but
home won’t forgive.

Don’t wannah loose threads, don’t need
to re-invert – still
think about chile hood in the hood is
where I love.

Missing sum – think! Equations
are more easy, more easy
than pies and mash.

I root my words in cool her, can you
still see
me, por favor.

The streets. Streaks of light darkness,
bow tea full sky.

Don’t you
Don’t it
Forget the about

I just blogged to say I love you...

Hello lovely blog readers,

I am afraid I will not be online much for the next month. I am currently doing an intensive 4 week CELTA course in Madrid. I hope you will come back in October when hopefully I will be posting more comments, reviews and writing!

Until then, hasta pronto (see you soon!)

Nikki x

SNEAK PREVIEW: Second novel, Semblance

Hi all,

Here are the first two chapters of my second novel, Semblance. It is a sequel to my debut novel, Ellipsis. However, I want it to also be a stand-alone novel so hopefully I have included all the details that are needed for this to happen.

Anyway, most importantly, I hope people enjoy it! If you have any comments, do let me know. I'd love to hear whatever you have to say.

Enjoy!

p.s.: Apologies for any formatting issues - blogger has it's own rules!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART 1

Chapter 1 / 0.5 days

22:32

As if losing Daniel wasn’t enough. Yet, we cold’ve could’ve moved on. We could have pretended we were all okay. But now Thom is hurt and he might even die. It feels so wrong to write that.

Why am I writing anything at all? That’s why I think things have changed, as though somewhere inside of me, I know I will need to look back at these notes one day and remember the moment when our family changed forever.

The waiting room is cold. The tea in his hands has hardly helped at all. It is tepid at best and stone cold at worst.

10:45 pm. He’s been in and out of this room for three hours, taking time to check on Thom, take a piss and talk to Mum in the corridor. He has been alone for most of the time, wondering if Thom will pull through.

A stab wound to the stomach – that’s a lot of blood lost. And beyond that, his cousin seems to have suffered something so traumatic that he can’t even begin to understand it. What led Thom to do it? And can they ever bring him back?

It isn’t unexpected, he supposes. Daniel throwing himself in front of that train six weeks ago shocked them all. Richard hasn’t even had time to think about it properly, and now Thom has hurt himself, leaving him to pick up Mum. How can his family be in such ruins?

Suddenly, Richard is not alone anymore. A man comes in and introduces himself as Michael. He doesn’t even knock. He just walks in as if it’s a decent time to disturb someone’s thoughts. Richard has never met the guy before. He is a sensible looking man with an uncomfortable fuzz of stubble. Richard guesses he hasn’t allowed himself not to shave in a very long time.

He explains he is Alice’s brother. Richard asks him who Alice is and he says, “Sarah”.

So, he has been right not to trust her. She had been staying in their house for the last four weeks or so, with Thom defending her more and more as time went on, and now he is being told she lied about her name, she has been ill for a long time, she is sorry for lying to them all.

And most of all, Thom is missing.

Who the hell cares about that strange woman or what she decides to call herself if Thom is missing? She is only important if she was involved with the stabbing, which isn’t bloody unlikely.

Michael seems genuinely concerned. He says he can’t find Alice either. Maybe they’re together? He asks Richard, as though he might know.

“Look, I don’t have a clue. I need to find Thom.” He shrugs off Michael’s questions. What a waste of time it is standing in this dark room with the brother of that liar.

Yet as Richard reaches the door, there’s a knock. He opens it and sees a policeman standing there.

“Richard Mansen?” he says, reading from his notepad.

“Yes,” he agrees, still pulling his jacket on. It’s cold outside and Richard guesses that if everyone still can’t find the injured Thom in the hospital, he must’ve made a run for it.

“I’m sorry but I need to look for Thom,” he pushes past the officer.

“Mr Mansen, that’s our job,” the man tells him, almost sulkily.

Richard turns back to him. “Well, you’re not doing that too well are you?”

He continues down the corridor, wondering where to start.

He supposes he shouldn’t have been so dismissive of the policeman but since Daniel’s death, he’s found himself a little more suspicious of them in general. They’d taken ages to follow up after his death and even then, they just said something like ‘open and shut case’. Daniel was just some suicidal loser to them.

Although, it is clear now that it wasn’t ‘open and shut’. There is a reason that Thom decided to turn a knife into himself in that room with Sarah, or Alice, if that’s the name she wants to go by these days. He’d suggested as much to Thom when they’d last seen him and argued about the strange way he was acting. Now he is missing and Richard will never get to apologise for asking him to leave.

Losing his brother and cousin in the space of six weeks – what a pile of shit. And now he has to be some kind of detective, does he?

He looks around the floor that Thom was on but finds nothing. There are a few nurses rushing around, clearly panicked that they have lost one of their patients. Richard ignores them and moves on. He goes downstairs in the lift, which seems to take forever with patients transferring in and out, and finally arrives in the lobby.

Outside, he walks up and down in front of the entrance, pacing. Nothing. He walks around the drop off bays, avoiding the ambulances pulling in. Nothing. He walks between the cars in the car park and only finds Michael again. He is cradling the woman he calls Alice, the one who Thom trusted more than perhaps he trusted Richard before he disappeared.

He wonders if she could’ve tried to kill Thom. Is she crying out of guilt or loss? Whatever happened before, seeing her being heaved upwards by her brother makes him sure that she has no idea where Thom is now. He quickly turns away and pulls his collar up before they can recognise him, walking back towards the hospital.

It is only when he stands in the entrance watching an ambulance pull up without sirens or lights that he realises. In his mind, he believes that Thom is already dead.

Chapter 2 Yellow bruises

I have no idea about you when I leave the hospital.

Thom is gone and this is all I am thinking about, struggling towards the car, leaning on Michael. I am cold, so cold I can’t feel my fingers anymore. Even the bandages make no difference.

I guess you hardly exist yet. In the days and weeks to come, you will start to grow and I’ll realise that I have to be sane again. It shouldn’t be as easy as that but when the Doctor tells me the news one month later, it feels that easy. Sanity – yes. Madness – no.

In the car driving back from the hospital, Michael asks me whether I love Thom. I look across at him, tears still burning my eyes, whispering, “I never told him.”

It isn’t a yes but it answers the question.

Michael doesn’t ask me about Thom after this journey. He only brings him up when he has too, usually when I do. Generally, he tries to blank out the man who nearly broke his nose, who accused him of being a rapist because of my lie, who was on the verge of killing his sister in that bed sit. He doesn’t think I deserved to die, yet he is wrong. I don’t say it though. I never want to tell him about Daniel and how his eyes stared straight through me when I pushed him in front of that train.

“Michael, can I stay with you for a while?” I ask him as he stops at the lights.

He smiles, sleepily. “Ali, don’t be stupid,” he scolds me playfully, squeezing my knee. I have an urge to tell him to call me ‘Sarah’ again but I realise it will never work. He will always call me Alice or Ali. I can’t reinvent myself, even though I believed I could whilst I stayed at the Mansen house.

“Michael, I’m sorry about everything,” I say quietly.

“What are you sorry for?” He glances over but has to look back at the road quickly.

“For what happened with Thom. Your nose. The horrible incident today.”

“Look, I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt…” Michael’s voice wavers.

I don’t deserve this unconditional love at all. He should feel angry at me, for the past two years – about Mum, the times in the hospital, how I lied to him and ran away from him, how I put my obsessions with Thom and Daniel first.

“I should’ve been the one,” I admit, biting my lip.

“What?” Michael nearly drops his hands for a moment but remembers he’s supposed to be driving and instantly grabs the wheel tight again. “What are you talking about?”

“I should’ve gotten hurt, not Thom.” I start sobbing again. I cry myself to sleep for about two weeks after I lose Thom. This is only the beginning.

Michael pulls over to the kerb and stops the car. He turns to me, his features seemingly bursting out of his face as though he no longer has control of them. His eyes are bulging, his mouth hanging open, his cheeks flushed with red. The bruises around his face are only slightly yellow now and you can barely see them unless you know what happened. Yet, I can see them. And possibly I will never be able to see his face without them.

Although, his yellow bruises also remind me of the moment we found each other again. Amidst all the madness and confusion, we were together again, as brother and sister. I think it’s that moment that seals it. My new colour will be yellow. I will try to keep away from red – the colour that made me follow Daniel and push him to his death.

It’s worth a try anyway.

“Don’t you ever say that…” he takes my bandaged hands and squeezes them, adding “okay?”

I bite my lip at the pain but don’t say anything. I stare into his face through the blistering of tears and feel myself nodding, although I don’t agree.

“You are my sister and I love you, Ali. We can take care of each other now,” he reassures me. He kisses my damaged hands like a rejected suitor. I pull them away from him, clasping them together weakly in my lap.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I moan.

The windows are misting up from the heat and the tears in this tiny space. What I mean to say is ‘I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life’. No Mum, no Thom, no memories. I have lost myself in the obsession and madness. How can I build something out of the shards of the human I once was?

“We’ll sort something out,” Michael looks towards the windshield as rain starts to plummet onto it, and then faces me again, “together.” What a beautiful word. Together. I had believed Thom and I would be together only a short time ago and now I am alone and Thom is lost in the infinite possibilities of London or maybe the UK, the world, or death even…

But I am not alone really. There is Michael. And there is you.

Review of Ellipsis on Spinetingler Mag site

A great review of Ellipsis, written by Michael Lipkin (writer and editor of Noir Journal) was featured on the Spinetingler Mag website today. They also feature an interview with me!

Here is the copy (WARNING - contains some spoilers!):

Reviewed by Michael Lipkin

Ellipsis begins on a London train platform, as an unidentified narrator stares at a man near the track . . .

“I chose him because of the red scarf.

“My palms sweat. Dirt from the wall is smudged across them and slithers in the folds. There is a faint smell of kebab in the air and an excited murmur moving down the platform like Chinese whispers. I wonder how distorted the message will be by the time it reaches my end.

“Can you hear it too, Mum? Do you think they’re whispering about me?”

In these few lines, Dudley offers a striking symbolic image—the red scarf, artistically-crafted creepiness, and a hyperrealism that pulls the reader into the scene—suspended among precise details, suspended in time, fidgety about what might happen next.

The narrator, the reader learns, has been stalking this man for weeks. Slowly, it becomes clear that he or she will push the man in front of the train.

“The clock says 15:32 as casually as ever but it secretly signals to me: this is the correct time.”

The slow hyperrealism continues, details and flowing metaphors keeping the reader on edge.

“It is the scarf that ensnared me . . . . It is a snake that has coiled around my attention and shot its venom into my blood.”

The train approaches. The narrator’s “chest implodes,” and his or her “body springs alive.”

Next follow 23 lines, each a short sentence, each separated by a space—a poem suspended in time. An eternity passes . . . .

Step forward.

Peer into dark.

Wind hisses at hot skin . . . .

The train arrives. The man mouths the words “Right on time.” The demented narrator pushes . . .

Was the man speaking to the narrator?

And that’s just the first chapter, five pages.

Next the scene shifts to an insurance office, the narration to third person.

Thom Mansen is an empty man, on the phone all day telling customers why their housing insurance doesn’t cover some mishap. The job provides what Thom needs—a script to guide him though life.

Suddenly, Thom gets a phone call. His cousin Daniel is dead, hit by a train. Thom immediately feels guilty that he never really got to know Daniel. Yet he remembers that his cousin was mysterious, difficult to know.

Daniel is not exactly Thom’s cousin, though. When Thom was twelve, his own parents were killed in a car accident. He was adopted by his Aunty Val, who had two sons: Daniel (Thom’s age to the day) and Richard (a few years older).

So why does Thom still call her “Aunty Val” and refer to Daniel and Richard as “cousins” instead of “brothers”?

As the chapters and alternating narratives tightly interlock, readers learn that the stalker/pusher is an attractive young woman with dark curly hair, who was recently in a mental hospital after her own mother (“Mum”) had died.

It becomes clear that this story of murder and mystery also has within it the parallel and ironic stories of two dysfunctional, crumbling families.

The young woman (whose name is really Alice but uses the name Sarah) is haunted by the thought that she knew Daniel and that he wanted her to push him in front of the train. Yet her mind is clouded—she can’t remember. Obviously a delusion. Or is it?

The story has two unlikely detectives searching for the truth of Daniel’s life and death—Thom and Sarah, the killer herself.

Dudley’s plot ensnares the reader more deeply as Sarah attends Daniel’s funeral. Little by little she gets to know the family, soon even living with them on the pretense that she is behind on her own rent. And she innocently gets Thom to fall in love with her.

Then Thom discovers a jolting clue—a brief note left by Daniel with the exact time and place of his death. Did Daniel know he would die in front of that train at that moment?

Thom and Sarah separately begin to find more clues, all consciously left by Daniel.

Sarah thinks:

“[W]as Daniel a genius who left behind an unsolvable puzzle? Or was he simply an ordinary man who wanted to die?”

Ellipsis is not a story of action. It plays out through characters’ dramatic discoveries, thoughts, and conversations. Yet the slow-paced hyperrealism creates as much mystery and suspense as any fight scene or shoot-out.

A character, about to explain a startling new development, may become conscious of her breathing or of the details of the peeling paint on a wall, leaving the reader’s heart stopped, wondering what will be revealed next.

Wondering–because in this story, people, events, relationships are not what they seem. Startling discoveries and revelations dramatically shift readers’ thoughts and expectations.

“You know why he jumped?” Thom asks sternly. Aunty Val blinks for several seconds, her lips taut and dry. It is so silent Thom can hear her swallowing; it is the loud and elongated sound of fluid squeezing through a tight pipe.

Dudley is a poet as well as a novelist. She uses her skill as a poet to weave the tight fabric of this story—not just with hyperrealism, but with metaphors that come to life, powerful symbols, subtle foreshadowing, and parallel events and images.

In fact, the book deserves a second read—to see more deeply into the foreshadowing, symbolism, parallelism—or whatever else—the reader may have missed in the first reading.

There is a moment toward the end of the story when one character’s shocking revelations become a bit complex, slightly like part of a soap opera. But by this point, Dudley and the story have built enough credibility to absorb this moment; and the new knowledge smoothly blends into the story’s unexpected, enigmatic conclusion.

Perhaps Dudley has forewarned the reader of the nature of the conclusion in an earlier description of Daniel.

“He is like that book, The Catcher in the Rye, because after you’ve read it cover to cover, you’re not really sure what happened when someone asks you years later.”

But readers need not be put off by the enigma of the book. It’s a tale that will keep them wondering, gasping, thinking, smiling, grimacing, rereading. What more can a reader ask for?