Five Feat . . . Duos

In my irregular themed look at old posts (previous posts here), this time I’ve picked Duos as the link. Like the musical duos Simon & Garfunkel and Althea & Donna, all the titles in this list feature two names in the title. However, they aren’t all couples, there are friends and colleagues too in this batch. The links in the titles will take you to my full reviews.

Beatrice and Benedick by Marina Fiorato

Beginning with a couple though – initially a sparring one – it’s obvious from the start of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing that Beatrice and Benedick are a) destined for each other, and b) already have history! Published in 2014, Fiorato’s sparkling romance takes us back a year to when they met in Sicily, which is under Spanish rule. That politics plays such a part in this novel was unexpected and it adds a depth to the central romance that made things far more interesting. Like the play though, the serious stuff is surrounded by glorious froth, and Fiorato makes time to give us lots of fun too.  She takes lots of references from Shakespeare’s original and builds them into the story. It’s clever and wittily done. I loved it.

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Hawthorn & Child by Keith Ridgway

This is one of those strange novels that is not quite what it seems; at times it insinuates itself into your being so that you almost feel part of the story, at others you’re left outside the action observing from afar, and sometimes you can’t get your head around it at all. Published in 2012, it was widely championed around the blogosphere, and I eventually gave in and got a copy.

Describing it is not easy though. If I said it’s an existential drama about the lives of two police detectives told through a series of mostly linked short stories about characters that come into and out of their lives, I’d be doing it a disservice in trying to categorise it at all. I can say that although it features policemen, it is not a crime novel, but a novel in which crimes happen. Meanwhile, having introduced the two detectives, Ridgway lets them go their own ways for most of the book, popping in and out of stories, sometimes not present at all. I enjoyed the style of the dialogue – very direct, no unnecessary he said, she saids. Contrasting with the snappy dialogue was the observational nature of much of the descriptive text which adds to the pervading air of mystery. This is a novel that will benefit from a re-read (although I’ll skip the gay orgy bit if I do!)

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Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

My first reaction to the book was it’s so dense!  There is so much packed into O&L’s 500+ pages, that it reads like a book that is far longer. That’s not a bad thing though in a really good novel, and this is one. The density is in the dazzling detail which has a Dickensian quality to it, making it a book to be savoured and not rushed. I read it more slowly than I usually do taking nearly the full month, reading several short chapters, of which it has 111,  most mornings.

The story was not at all what I expected either. The playing cards on the front of the original cover would have you think that O&L are an Australian Bonnie & Clyde conning their way through the bush, however, the later cover with its church and praying hands is ultimately much closer to the heart of the story. Needless to say it’s epic in scope. We alternate between Oscar and Lucinda’s stories in the first half of the book. It’s chapter 46 before they are on the same page of the book, and several chapters later before they say a word to each other on board the ocean liner taking Oscar to Oz. There’s an instant attraction, but neither are capable of acting upon it. Hidebound by society rules, theirs is a relationship that will be two steps forward, and mostly two steps back, as misunderstandings and the inability to speak their minds always get in the way, until Oscar gets his chance, but what will he do? A slow-burner and really worth reading.

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Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

I read this for book group in 2008, a few months before I started my blog – but I had put a show review on Librarything! Here’s what I said.

A curious hybrid of a book – the fictionalised biography of two men whose lives briefly entwined. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle becomes interested in a miscarriage of justice when a solicitor is convicted for a series of hate letters and animal mutilations; he decides to apply the mind that created Sherlock Holmes to the case. Told at first in alternating chapters, we compare and contrast the lives of Arthur, the young doctor and dashing sportsman who becomes a megastar writer, and George the meek son of a Scottish mother and a Parsi vicar father, who doesn’t really fit in but manages to do well and become a solicitor. We see Arthur set up as an enthusiast who gets serially obsessed in his work and pasttimes, whereas George likes structure to his life and is happy with his daily commute into work. Eventually things start to happen – George and his father are the targets of hatemail, and then the animal mutilations start happening, and George gets the crime pinned on him by the police who are increasing keen to make an arrest and is sent to jail. Arthur having killed off Holmes, applies himself to the case to get George reinstated after his release with mixed success – achieving a pardon, but no compensation – the government and police force can’t admit to being proved wrong by an amateur after all. And apart from inviting George to Arthur’s second wedding, that’s that essentially. An easy read once you got through the initial character building and a rather low-key finish, but a great middle.

As I remember our book group had so little to say about this book, that our dissection of it was all over rather quickly, all having read it and sort of enjoyed it at the time, but it didn’t stick!

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Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

My last choice, Ali and Nino is a rediscovered novel, published in Vienna in 1937. Written in German under the pseudonym ‘Kurban Said’, by Lev Nussimbaum who was an Azerbajani Jew who had escaped during the Russian Revolution and settled in Berlin. The book was then found and translated into English in the 1950s by Jenia Graman, who apparently found a copy on a second-hand book stall in Berlin.

Azerbaijan in the early 20th century was at the crossroads of civilisations, cultures and religions. Set against this backdrop at the start of WWI is this love story of Ali, a desert loving-Muslim, and Nino, a Christian Georgian princess who yearns to be more European. Theirs is a childhood romance that eventually blossoms fully and they marry despite many obstacles put in their way. However it finally becomes clear that Ali’s real love is for his country which can only lead to tragedy. It gives a fascinating glimpse of what life was like amongst the ruling classes in this cultural melting pot; neighbour to Persia, but stuck between the warring Turks and Russians. With derring-do, glamour, philosophy, and romance, this novel has everything, but ultimately failed to totally grab me – maybe because of Ali’s lack of ambition and liking of an easy life, until his patriotic awakening. It was a very good, but not quite brilliant read but the cover has stayed with me because of those eyes I think!

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Do share more duos in novel titles with me!