The Goldilocks Book

Three very different books by three different and successful writers, all three books were enjoyable and depending on circumstances and state of mind, rewarding of your time, but for me only one was the Goldilocks book. Not too heavy, not too light, not too cold, not too hot and the most memorable accordingly.

The first book is Norwegian Wood by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. I didn’t know anything about Murakami but a good friend is a major fan, so big a fan in fact, that I was given six of his books to read. Combined the titles were about a foot thick. I know this is not the important bit but the art direction of the collection is great so I was definitely drawn in. Murakami is a very popular and highly regarded writer in his native Japan and has become well known in the west since being translated into English in the 1980s.

Norwegian Wood is a coming of age tale with a love story centring on three Japanese university students plus an interesting, in fact a sometimes more interesting supporting cast.  The writing is precise and uncomplicated but still highly descriptive; the characters are well drawn, mostly conflicted and slow to act. This is a tale with heaps of teen angst and yet in a low key way, some good times are had. The sex scenes are strangely matter of fact yet ritualistic, symbolism abounds. There is a reverence for nature as well as technology, for quiet over loud, for the individual and the elderly and for dreams and feelings over logic.  At the risk of being culturally clichéd and lazy it seems to me to be very Japanese, VFZ – Very Fucking Zen. I quite enjoyed it but somehow, although there are a lot of emotional things going on, I found it passionless. Everything has a light wash of melancholy so it is heavy on atmosphere but light on action. Norwegian Wood has a hypnotic power, but like Japanese food its restraint and attention to subtleties often makes you a wish for big dollop of messy Mexican or a Supreme Pizza.

If Norwegian Wood is too cold then David Mitchell’s latest book Utopia Avenue might be a bit too hot. Mr Mitchell is also responsible for The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas that was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. Reviews were very mixed. I have not seen the movie or read Cloud Atlas but if any writer was going to write a novel set in the past, present and future with multiple characters and timelines I can see how it might be David Mitchell. Utopia Avenue is thick. It’s over 500 pages and it charts the rise and fall of a rock band in England’s swinging 1960s. I am only 120 pages in but I am already awash with every cliché and stereotype you can find from that particular place and time plus plenty of situations straight out of that always popular topic: the perils of stardom. From A Star Is Born through Spinal Tap to Daisy Jones and the Six I just know I am going to keep finding some very familiar tropes and plot twists.

 Already four real life music stars of the period including pre fame David Bowie have had walk on roles in scenes. People and places from Mr Mitchell’s other books pop in and out. In short there are lots of characters and plenty going on all the time. Mr Mitchell lays it on thick so be prepared for the reading equivalent of a Supreme Pizza with a cheese stuffed crust and extra anchovies. If Mr Murakami’s prose is a cool and quiet like a walk through a snowy forest then Mr Mitchell’s prose and plotting is over the top and fevered like a scary rollercoaster. There is nothing new here but like a pizza with the lot you know what’s coming, and to be fair if you are in the mood to pig out you could do worse.  Am I cheating and going to look like a complete idiot for reviewing a book before I finish reading it? I don’t know but I promise to tell you if it springs a surprise or two. Somehow I doubt it.

Just right and therefore my latest Goldilocks book is Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. I guess she has an advantage as I am a fan of dystopic fiction and Station Eleven does feature a devastating pandemic that finishes most of us off. The story takes place twenty years after the disaster although there are plenty of flashbacks to the time when everything goes to shit. Unlike the difficulties of young love or the dangers and pitfalls of fame this book focusses on the importance of art and culture in people’s lives both in the world we know and in a devastated future.

We are introduced to some great characters who are artists, actors and writers. They are part of a travelling troupe performing the music and plays of the past to the remaining outposts of civilisation. In flashbacks we see how a lot of the main characters are linked by an actor’s death on a Toronto stage on the night that the pandemic takes hold. Ms Mandel is expert at this intertwining of her characters in the narrative’s past and present and she develops her characters more subtly than Mr Mitchell. Her description of the days when the pandemic takes hold is chillingly realistic but nicely understated. Not too hot and not too cold. Unlike Murakami her restraint simultaneously drives the narrative forward with emotional punch while looking back at what has been lost.

 In some ways the book reminds me of the later series of the TV‘s The Walking Dead in the survivors’ determination to start again with the building of civilisation. Unfortunately, as in The Walking Dead, not everyone who survives Station Eleven’s pandemic sees civilization building in quite the same way. There are no pesky zombies but plenty of serious dangers nevertheless.  Ms Mandel also deserves kudos for setting the story in a rural area and resisting using the usual “ruined cities of civilisation gone” vibe. Most importantly the book emphasises the importance of not just humanity continuing but our culture as well. In a crowded genre it offers a new and thoughtful approach. I reckon it is a cracking read by a very gifted writer and coming soon will be a HBO miniseries. Done well it will be great viewing.

Also read recently and completely different from all of the above is David Kilcullen’s Dragons and Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West

To quote an Australian Institute Of International Affairs article by Will Leben, “ In The Dragons and The Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West, David Kilcullen offers a wide ranging analysis of the strategic environment since 1993 and advances two central contentions. The first and central idea is that profound United States conventional dominance in the post-Cold War operating environment created a particular “fitness environment” for potential adversaries. This in turn has seen the adaptive convergence of state and non-state threat actors toward similar offset approaches to Western supremacy in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq, which showed those actors “how not to fight us.” Kilcullen’s second contention derives from the first: that this evolutionary process has led to a contemporary landscape in which the US and its allies face not a “dragon” (like the Soviet Union) or “snakes” (for example, transnational terrorism), but rather a wicked mix of both.”

I couldn’t agree more Will. Not a lot of sex, drugs and rock and roll but if you want to know why wars in the Middle East never improve anything and why China and Russia are doing what they are doing in international affairs then read the book.

Or if that is too much [and having done it I can understand why you might feel that way,] then read Will’s review here http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/book-review-the-dragons-and-the-snakes-how-the-rest-learned-to-fight-the-west/