20 Books of Summer – final reviews part 1 – Orwell + books #21-22 by Barrett & deWitt

Now the first week of being back at School is over, I shall revert to some shorter reviews for the remaining books I read which, Orwell excepted, were extras to my twenty! So I don’t feel guilty about reviewing them late.

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Animal Farm by George Orwell

This was a book group choice – we’re on an animal/plant related alphabet theme at the moment – so this was ‘F’ for Farm. I won’t say much – but most of our group had read it at school many years ago, me being one. The thing that struck many of us on our re-reads was that it read like a children’s book with added horrors. This was especially the case for me as I read from my Folio Society edition which is illustrated by Quentin Blake!

Although I had an abiding memory of Boxer and his fate, I had largely forgotten the never-ending saga of the windmill. The execution of the sheep and chickens who owned up to breaking the rules was shocking, and the KGB dogs were nasty too. We had a good discussion about the animals and who they all represented, but got stuck on Squealer (Molotov – I looked it up). Orwell lays on the satire really heavily, which is why it felt like children’s story perhaps. You can certainly understand why it’s still on the GCSE syllabus though.

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Wild Houses by Colin Barrett

When published earlier this year this debut novel, from another up and coming Irish author, got rave reviews, and has now been longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, so it was an ideal time to dust my copy off and get it read over the summer. Although I enjoyed it, I couldn’t see why it was longlisted for the Booker.

Set in Ballina in County Mayo in Ireland’s north-west, Wild Houses recounts the story of a feud between a small-time drug dealer Cillian English and the larger area-controlling Mulrooneys. Mulrooney’s enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, kidnap Cillian’s younger brother Donal, known as Doll, and take him to the house of Dev, who occasionally stored things for them for a bit of extra cash. Dev is virtually a recluse, living alone outside town since his mother died with just her yappy dog for company. He didn’t realise he’d have to store the Ferdias and their hostage though when they came knocking that night.

Sketch shoved the kid in the back to get him moving. He was wearing only one sneaker and carrying the second in his hand, obliging him to hop a little on his socked foot across the drive’s stony gravel. When the kid was close enough, Dev could see that his face was marked, a dark nick, too fresh to have scabbed, lining the rim of one eye. The boy gazed expressionlessly up at the house, then Dev. 

Doll, who to be frank, is a bit of a waster, is seventeen-year-old Nicky’s boyfriend. She’s getting increasingly worried about him since they got separated at a party and she’d had to get home, hungover, by herself. It’s not until she and Doll’s mum uncover the magnitude of Cillian’s debt that the situation becomes clear and the need to get Doll back safely becomes paramount.

As the novel becomes increasingly thrillerish, Barrett’s humour allows for light and darkness which made this novel a good read. The characters of Dev and Nicky in particular are well-drawn and sympathetic, both are increasingly worried about Doll as the novel progresses – Dev fervently hoping yet hiding it from the Ferdias that the worst he is imagining isn’t going to happen, and Nicky even though she’s not sure she and Doll have any future has the same worries. It is a well-written novel and I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure whether it was quite Booker longlist material – I feel I’ve read similar stories before. However, as debut literary thrillers set in North West Ireland go, Kala by Colin Walsh was better (but not eligible for this year’s Booker). By the way, in case you’re wondering, a goat does crop up at some point!

Source: Own copy. Jonathan Cape hardback, 255 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s or Amazon UK via my affiliate links.

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The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

Canadian author deWitt is one of those authors I’ll read anything by (although he has yet to surpass The Sisters Brothers). His latest novel was published last year, and is the story of Bob Comet, a retired librarian. One day out walking, he encounters a confused old lady at the store, and helps out by taking her back to her care home. There, he discovers that they could do with a volunteer to talk to the residents, play cards, and so on and although he’s as old as them, he takes it on. Then one day, he discovers something that will rock him to his core and bring back all those memories – his life as a librarian, his wife Connie met when she comes into the library, his womanising best friend Ethan, and the time he ran away from home as a child, having the biggest adventure of his life.

It’s fair to say that Bob is one of life’s straight men, so it’s not surprising that his best friend would be his total opposite in character. Ethan may be a lovable rogue, but he needs a friend like Bob. Their friendship will suffer once Ethan meets Connie though – they get on like a house on fire – and Bob, usually so calm and collected, sees green. You know what’ll happen…

Bob’s biggest life adventure happened when he was eleven and ran away from home in 1945. He boards a train, where he is taken up by Ida and June, two would-be thespians hoping to put on a performance at their destination. He’s eventually returned home to his lone mother, no father in sight. It seems that this experience was enough to satisfy his need to wander, and he spends the rest of his life staying put and reading for adventure.

His desire to run away was brought on by all the traditional things. In answer to the narratives of the adventure novels he’d been reading he had fabricated a narrative of his own, which was that he was unhappy, and that his mother didn’t love him, and that he hadn’t a friend in the world. This was what he told himself, and it was true, but only partly true.

I wasn’t entirely convinced by the episode with Ida and June, they felt anachronistic to me, as though they belonged in the wild west once the railroad had arrived, not 1945 – it also went on a bit. But, putting that to one side, despite the general melancholy overtones, this novel about the extraordinary things that can happen to an ordinary man was full of deWitt’s typical dead-pan humour and was an enjoyable read.

Source: Own copy. Bloomsbury hardback, 2023, 342 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s or Amazon UK via my affiliate links.