THE ABSENT BY RAJ DRONAMRAJU IS NOW FOR SALE ON AMAZON

Here's the link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00752SU9E

and as always here's my publisher's webpage for my different books http://www.rajbooks.com/

THE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING BY BERYL BAINBRIDGE

Aside from being well read and also familiar with all the post modern conventions of the novel, I was pleasantly surprised to realize at one point while reading THE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING by Beryl Bainbridge that I had no idea where this book was going.

On the surface, this is a confined carefully plotted “small” novel taking place in a set period of time, in a set environment with a couple of well defined characters and several other important supporting characters.

But underneath is something else and that something else is open to debate or at least more than one type of genre/style description – Is it a black comedy?  Commentary on the plight of women in a man’s world?  Commentary on class structure? Commentary on the failure of communication between men and women? A murder mystery?  A horror story?

The facts of the novel are simple – mousy Belinda, afraid to stick up for herself, a perpetual victim, and buxom six feet tall, manic, aggressive Freda are unlikely roommates in London who also work together at a small bottling plant (of wine) run by Italians.  The book deals with the tragic, ridiculous, humorous events that transpire when they join their fellow mostly male employees for a weekend picnic outing at a nearby park.

Once I finished reading this book, I realized immediately how much I loved its uniqueness and its unwavering commitment to its own universe.  This is a book written by a writer who not only knows specifically what they want to say but has a created an exact world for the telling of the story.

Hard to think of a time where I have encountered a writer with more control over their narrative, that is, control that is not seen by the reader nor stifles the plot.  A fantastic book!

HYMNS BY CARDINAL

One of the most interesting facets of social networks is interacting with those who have produced something you enjoy.  In other words, exchanging comments with writers, musicians etc. basically with those who are famous for their art.

I have had the opportunity to communicate directly with Eric Matthews whose music with its beautiful orchestral arrangements and seamless vocals I’ve enjoyed very much.  He’s an irascible, contrary type but his observations on a whole host of subjects are always interesting.

Before Eric embarked on a solo career, he was part of a duo named Cardinal ,along with Australian singer/songwriter Richard Davies, that made one self-titled album in 1994.  And what a record it was!  Davies, the Lennon to Matthews McCartney, was the primary singer although Matthews could also be heard and there was a lot of harmonizing.  His clever wordplay was elevated by Matthews spacious arrangements or was it the other way round?  

It’s been long awaited but Davies and Matthews have reunited as Cardinal 18 years after their debut and put out a second album entitled HYMNS.

I will describe the new record this way – Harmonies? Bigger Chamber Pop? Perhaps not so structured around piano and string and acoustic guitar as the first album – there are more drums here, more standard pop rock fare.  I find songs like “Love Like Rain” which follow an  electric guitar XTC power pop direction to be less interesting than songs like “General Hospital” (my favorite song after the first few listens) which layers vocals on top of vocals as Davies voice rings through with a pleading quality.  However, I am happy to state the interesting songs are the majority.

To put it simply, both men seem to be bring out the best in each other – Davies gives a harder edge to Matthews music and Matthews arrangements give the proper backing to Davies.

“I want you to change but stay the same” goes a song on HYMNS named Rosemary Livingstone and that sums up my feelings initially upon hearing about a Cardinal reunion and album.  This record goes places the first one doesn’t and is bigger in sound (there is more brass courtesy of Matthews in addition to harmonies and strings).  Maybe it doesn’t connect as emotionally, as directly as the debut but it’s a good and satisfying if much delayed follow-up.  Hope it’s not another 18 years before the third Cardinal album!

   

THE VODI BY JOHN BRAINE

When I was a boy, I had an active fantasy life imagining there were two invisible ghosts, one younger, one older, on the balcony of the apartment where I lived with my parents.  I developed over those elementary school years a whole mythology for them, not just about their ghostliness but a whole biography and family history as well as ongoing adventures.

A long time later, when I was an adult and going through a hard patch of loneliness and unemployment, I also made up a fantasy life.  In this case, it was one of several scenarios based on what had happened if it studied other subjects in school and gone on to different careers.  Again, it started off generally but soon developed its own complex structure with me living a completely separate life.

In both cases, changes of life led to me forgetting these fantasies and moving on.

In the case of Dick Covey, protagonist of THE VODI, he is revisiting a fantasy life he and a friend talked about constantly as kids.  They built it up into something that was part of every aspect of their lives, only losing interest when they entered high school.  Dick is in a position to revisit this as he is, at the beginning of the story, bedridden in a sanatorium due to Tuberculosis.  He is in his mid 20’s and is a veteran of WWII (the story takes place in the late 1940’s early 1950’s).

Dick and his friend Tom created half- animal, half human, ferret like creatures called Vodi, who were arranged in a hive and presided over by a huge fat old hag named Nelly “who had only four teeth in her head”.  They are responsible for everything bad that happens in life.

What The Void and Nelly mean to the story could be interpreted in many ways because this is a book with many themes, many topics all skillfully weaved together.

In fact this is one of the most complete novels I have ever read.  The story is not especially complicated although it does move backwards and forwards but there is so much going on due to the fact that Braine is using the narrative to address many ideas, notions, opinions, observations.  Using a novel as a vehicle for this type of exploration is difficult to pull off but Braine does it flawlessly.

Among the themes covered are the illness as life changing event and the idea of a good attitude as a cure, childhood patterns set early and attempting to conquer them in life, the growth of England after WWII and the end of a certain type of life, how hard it is to start a small business.  All this plus very good commentary on the dating habits of young 20 something men and women at this time.  Also in there is never giving up in the face of adversity.  Dick’s illness teaches him this and at the end he is about to take a chance as far as an employment business opportunity involving his father and also not giving up on love chasing the woman he is truly interested in.

The end may seem a bit rushed as we go from Dick bedridden to Dick up and taking day trips away from the sanatorium and the final scene of him leaving very quickly for good but I don’t think all the connecting detail that is not explicitly written is going to be necessarily pertinent.

When one reads a book that that leaves you with a very full picture of the events described in conjunction with a solid theme or themes running throughout, I think it is fair to say that book is a masterpiece and THE VODI is such a book.

 I’ve written about John Braine before  http://rgdinmalaysia.xanga.com/660458883/in-praise-of-john-braines-brain/  I would say THE VODI is the best I’ve read by him so far certainly his most experimental, challenging, and complete novel.

BERYL BAINBRIDGE - PRE-READING NOTES

I’m jumping right in to the bibliography of Beryl Bainbridge with three novels – THE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING, YOUNG ADOLPH, and THE BIRTHDAY BOYS.

Bainbridge was a writer who started off as a female variation of the angry young man working class writer of the 1950’s mixed with observations on the social experiments/evolution of the 1960’s.  Around the late 1980’s, she turned into a writer of historical fiction albeit not of the starchy, stiff kind but rather more surreal with multiple viewpoints often part of the story.

THE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING, which seems to be the best of her books according to the consensus of literary critics I’ve read and which I’ll be reading first, is an example of the first type of Bainbridge’s novels. YOUNG ADOLPH and THE BIRTHDAY BOYS are an example of the historical type.

In an obituary for Bainbridge (She passed away in 2010), her writing is described as “mordant” which can be sarcastic or incisive.  I’m hoping for both.  I will post reviews as I finish each book.  

   

THE ABSENT - COMING SOON

THE ABSENT, my next novel, will be out soon.

Here'a little info on the background of the novel and an excerpt http://rgdinmalaysia.blogspot.com/2011/07/excerpt-from-absent-by-raj-dronamraju.html

The backcover blurb

“I take capitalism personally” In THE ABSENT  a nameless and almost faceless narrator’s experience as an employee at a modern medical supply company in transition becomes an everyman’s tale of the disenfranchised American worker.  Faces begin to emerge from a crowd of names as the narrator settles into an acceptable job, yet the narrator’s generally nihilistic and hostile attitude towards the so-called American Dream is understandable, as we find the busy hive of his colorful co-workers eliminated one by one in the name of efficiency.  Their attitudes emerge between detailed observations of inter-office politics and off-time spent in drunken escapades and extra-marital affairs—and we discover our narrator mostly reflected by his relationships to those around him: an inverted story, as much from the co-workers’ perspectives as the eye of the narrator.    

                This is a first person account throughout however, and although we find the narrator’s recalled attendance at college more of an education in hilarious alcoholic escapism (an education that comes in handy after work as well), he does seem to learn that other people can be worthwhile companions.  These are real human beings, much like the 99% of the Occupy movement, losing their jobs, security, and peace of mind to corporate greed and the financial gain of the few.  THE ABSENT is an indictment of employment driven by efficiency over humanity; and here Raj Dronamraju has again nailed his target with deft nihilistic precision. 

MY HOME IS FAR AWAY BY DAWN POWELL

MY HOME IS FAR AWAY is Dawn Powell’s “serious” novel.  That is it does not have the screwball satiric tone of her other books mostly set in the hustle bustle of post WWII advertising age New York such as ANGELS ON TOAST which I reviewed here http://rgdinmalaysia.blogspot.com/2009/03/angels-on-toast-by-dawn-powell.html  and THE LOCUST HAVE NO KING which I reviewed here http://rgdinmalaysia.blogspot.com/2009/06/locust-have-no-king-by-dawn-powell.html .

That isn’t because she writes in a more serious way.  There is a tone to the recollections of her childhood and young teenage years that is not bitter or angry despite the hardscrabble life she had.  Rather, she views it all as a big adventure and her descriptions are not tainted by negative feelings.

Because make no mistake, while some of the actual details are not necessarily true (For example when the middle sister based on a young Dawn Powell runs away, she actually stayed with an aunt not strangers as the book tells), MY HOME is largely based on Powell’s early years in Ohio.  The death of her mother, her father’s lack of responsibility and remarriage to a cruel, abusive stepmother, the relationships with her other two sisters are all events out of Powell’s life.

Regardless, this is an excellent novel.  It is clear from the detailed, painstaking descriptions and the methodical timeline discussions of what is occurring in specific years, at specific times that this based on real life experience but it is also a powerful story with wonderfully fleshed out, original, eccentric characters (the kind we all have in our lives and characters each with their own quirks and/or dysfunctions).  This is a narrative of a tough childhood that ranks with MY CHILDHOOD by Maxim Gorky in terms of power.

The cruel stepmother scenes in particular are really powerful.  Of course, it might mean more to me because my stepfather was an evil person and a similar type of personality and I could relate.  However, I do think Powell invests this character with full-on foulness that anyone could relate to.  

The fact that someone like Powell I associate with a different kind of writing can produce something like this makes me respect her even more.  On my future reading list are more of her books –THE WICKED PAVILION and  THE GOLDEN SPUR.