Rose Tremain is one of my favourite authors, but The Colour is the least captivating of her novels that I have read. A story about the early settlers in the south island of New Zealand revolves around the struggles of Joseph Blackstone, his wife Harriet and mother Lilian to make a new life against the wild and dangerous isolation of their new home. However, despite wonderful sections that truly transported you to that awesome landscape, these alternate with what I found to be boring and repetitive descriptions about their hardship. So not many laughs. In fact none. I also thought that the book seemed to be padded out to reach a meaningful 360 odd pages. Some new characters that appear over halfway through would have been OK, but why do we get so much of their back story. This did nothing for the flow of the plot. But Tremain is such a good writer, and so despite it's bleakness, I found enough in the storytelling to keep me interested most of the time.
I stopped reading Money Martin Amis after 80 odd pages. I just could not bear to listen to any more of the garbage that came out of the mouth of the narrator, John Self. The first time I have read any Martin Amis and I thought it may be the last. I tried again and this time made it to the end, though it hardly deserved it. Yes, it was a bit of a struggle, a bit of a rambling mess. But after a while, the narrator becomes a more tolerable character, or did I just get used to him? The writing is the same frenetic jumble of almost English language as John Self talks to you as an almost friend, although friendship is something he would not recognise. Now that tricksy language is normally something I love, but boy, can you have too much of a good thing. Think caviar for every meal. Try this: "At sickening speed I have roared and clattered, I have rocketed through my time, breaking all the limits, guzzling gas and burning rubber, staring through the foul screen with my fist on the horn. I am that fleeing train that goes screaming past you in the night. Though travelling nowhere I have hurtled with blind purpose to the very end of my time. I have lived headlong at desperate rhythm. I want to slow down now and check out the scenery, and put in a stop or two. I want some semi-colons. Maybe Martina will be my big break .... I can't change, but maybe my life can. Mere proximity might do it all for me. Maybe I can just sit back, with a drink (I'm surprised the author did not say a bottle or three)and let my life do all the work". This must have been an exhausting exercise for the writer to have to keep this up for the whole book. Whatever Martin Amis was on when he wrote this, I want some, but only a tiny bit.
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin is an extraordinary book. Very short, only 104 smallish pages, but dynamite on every page. Mary tells the story of her son's demise from her own vivid recollections of that time. There is nothing here outside her own personal experience, but what an experience. Enough to send any mother mad. One review said it was a "gentle, thoughtful reimagining". He must have a thicker skin than me. Mary pulls no punches in what she saw, the images have stayed with her through to old age. The writing is poetic and devastating. Not for a reader of a nervous disposition.
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