The only problem with "What Was Lost" is that it was over too quickly. Catherine O'Flynn's debut novel is so very enjoyable. From the first page where the "bus driver was keeping the bus at a steady 15mph, braking at every green light until it turned red", her storytelling is quite magical. I was led to believe that the central character was Kate, a ten year old part time sleuth, who keeps watch at a new Birmingham shopping mall in 1984. Not always the most diligent detective "useful drill though, he caught us sleeping" and her still childlike tendency to keep swivelling her office chair on the lino "tried to keep a tight rein on this habit", O'Flynn captures her personality right on the button. Although a sense of impending danger is inescapable.
But by page 68, we have travelled forward to 2003 and Kate is no longer around. Instead we follow Lisa, the assistant manager of a record store, and Kurt a security guard as they go about their dreary working lives in the revamped Greenoaks shopping centre. These are two wonderful characters, especially Lisa whose brother Adrian we met in 1984. Lisa deals with with one stupid shop assistant in such a mature way that you can only wonder at her maturity.
But the star of this mystery story is Greenoaks itself. Built on industrial wasteland that Adrian had made his playground, the author portrays a wonderful atmosphere that is down to both the workers and customers of the complex. She writes with a style that is funny, witty and unpretentious. Just very readable and a great mystery story, what more could you ask.
If only Nicole Krauss had learnt the skill of brevity. Her complex and literate book "Great House" is possibly the most tangled and confusing novel I have read for a long time. I liked the idea of the story being told by four separate characters (well five actually, but that is what I mean) at different times and in different places and this is challenging enough without being so oblique. We eventually find out who the narrators are talking to, except for the fourth. Is Isabel just talking to us? And I like a book with jumps in time and place, but it needs to be consistent and sometimes we wonder where we are. Especially if you read it over a couple of weeks. So put all these together and you have a really challenging book. It is certainly not without merit, and there are many passages that will stay with me. The writing is sophisticated, compulsive and at times very instructive.
To illustrate my concerns, I have to refer to a letter written by Lea to Isabel in the last of the four sections that make up Part One. This is a most valuable piece of information about this particular story, but in my view should have waited until the end of the book which is when it was written. It almost gives too much away. And then by the time you read Part Two, you have forgotten what it said. The link between the four stories is a huge old desk that belonged to the father of one of the main characters before it was stolen, along with all his furniture, in 1944. Although it never appears in the second story which seems like it it is from another book. There are passages where our narrators recall memories, but these are sometimes too long, boring and detract from the narrative. It seems like the book is really a memoir or a confession. But just as you become frustrated, there appears a gripping passage.
Ultimately I felt a little let down that what could have been a superb novel ended up being too clever for it's own good. It was complicated enough without trying to be even more obscure. I will try to read it again, this time not having to unravel what is going on, and missing out "True Kindness". The explanation of this part's title not for the faint hearted. One reviewer said it was like a pack of cards that the author had dropped and picked up in the wrong order. I just think she left some on the floor.
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