Do You Remember The First Time – Jenny Colgan

‘This is not my beautiful house ... my God, how did I get here?’ – Talking heads, ‘Once in a Lifetime’, misquoted.

It’s a common feeling among people of a certain age – my age, or that of Flora, the main character in this book (ok, that’s about a ten-years span but still …) To feel that life has somehow got away from you, that it’s become fixed in a whole bunch of ways you’re not sure you’re happy with. Flora’s response is familiar too: ‘I wish I was seventeen again.’ To be able to go back to when life was still unwritten, to a simpler and better time, or to do it all again, and differently this time. It’s a classic question. If you could have it all again, go back to when you were sixteen or seventeen or whatever age it is for you and do things differently – what would you change? Or would you, as the song says, do it all again?

There have been times when I’ve had the same thought – wished I could be sixteen again. If you knew me when I was sixteen then you may or may not understand why! And that’s what interested me about the premise of this book. It’s something I’ve thought about far too much to be honest, because in reality it’s futile and arguably destructive. To quote another song – this is the life you have, this is the life you live. As it says in Ecclesiates, “Do not say, Why were the old days better than these? For it is not wise to ask such questions.” (7:10).

And the book? Well, it takes an interesting twist on the theme. After her wish, Flora is suddenly seventeen again – but not in her own past, she’s still in the present, in a life that therefore she does not know. Only her close friends even know her from her life before, and of them, only her parents have been dragged back in age with her. And she’s been jumped back just a month, so she has a convenient length of history to re-live before the event that prompted her wish, and which no doubt will bring her back – somehow. And then when she gets back to her own life and time, she’ll be living in a different world, a world changed by her actions during her month, which of course makes for a nice satisfying conclusion.

The premise is perhaps a little contrived, but let’s face it, it’s not supposed to be realistic, and any novel is allowed one “gimme” as they say, even if in this case it’s a fairly elaborate one. Other stories I’ve come across have used one of two approaches: either going back in time in your own body (hot tub time machine – yes, I know, I was on a plane) or being rejuvenated in an otherwise unchanged world and time (17 again – ditto).

I did enjoy the book, and on the whole found the conclusion satisfying (apart from her giving up maths and taking art – which touches on a very unhelpful gender model which I think needs desperately to be undermined, not reinforced, at every opportunity). But the fact remains that the whole theme of “what I were seventeen again” isn’t a helpful one. What struck me around the time I read this, after a recent night / day dream on the theme was – if, were I to go back those twenty-something years, I could go back and change my life – why can’t I change my life in the same ways now? That is probably a more constructive question.

The Good, The Bad and The Dumped – Jenny Colgan

This book surprised me, and in a good way.

A few minor quibbles first. The blurb on the back I found a bit misleading, because the implication is that she goes off tracking down her exes after her current bf breaks off the engagement, but in reality the order of events and causality is rather different. Secondly, I don’t like books where the main conflict is basically caused by the MC (who is invariably female – helpful gender stereotyping be damned) is TDTL (Too Dumb To Live). And finally, relationship problems that stem only from the characters not communicating and thinking the worst of each other by default don’t make a good story (how ever realistic that might be).

The good news is that none of those three things come close to spoiling this book. Yes, FMC Posy does have the odd TDTL tendency (with a name like that, how could she not?) But she also has bigger and more credible problems. When her boyfriend proposes to her, she is struck by a sudden uncertainty – is this really the man she wants to marry, or just the person in whom she’s taken refuge after a previous disastrous relationship? This causes her to undertake a mission to seek out her three significant exes (there’s always three, aren’t there? Not counting Jacob Marley, of course).

This I found both believable and interesting. Likewise the furtive manner in which she goes about it, which ultimately leads to catastrophic misunderstanding with her fiancé. At which point the book touches on the other major pitfall, where I was willing her to just try to explain to him what she’s doing. To be fair, with hindsight, maybe it’s understandable that she can’t, but I didn’t feel that when I was reading it.

The three exes are for me the best bit of the book, as she goes through a process of coming to terms with who she is and where she is that finally takes her to the wedding of a man whose name she has not even been able to pronounce since their break-up. Once we get on to exes two and three the book’s structure beds down too, and the way we learn about each in turn makes sense. (I felt towards the start there were slabs of backstory I wasn’t quite ready for).

It’s only after Posy has confronted ex number three that the book veers off course, as having realized that her (by now ex-) fiancé is after all the man for her, Posy is put off telling him this by another stupid misunderstanding until a somewhat overdone romantic meeting with champagne in the rain. A few chapters here I think could have been cut, but given what preceded it I was willing to plod through them. And finally we get a happy ending.

Another staple in chic lit (a term which, as I’ve commented before, I do not use in a derogatory way) is Posy’s pair of bizarre friends Leah and (her sister) Fleur. Although very funny, they both turn out to have a little more depth when needed, and I liked in particular the touch of Leah, forever wearing insane extreme fashion clothing, designing for Posy a tasteful, simple, and brilliant wedding dress.

Then there’s the story of Posy’s parents, which is key to her character but feels a little stereotyped (parents divorced, dad remarried and estranged, but turns out not to be such a bad guy after all – could be a lot worse). I guess for the author this is a key theme of the book, but for me the most interesting bit was the way Posy has been affected by her own relationships and how she needs to somehow put each of them, and the expectations they have left her with, behind her in order to accept the man who has proposed to her.

And that is why I liked this book.

How To Train Your Dragon – Cressida Cowell

It’s good to have a vague idea what your children are reading.

I quite liked this. It’s funny, but it does vaguely show some good examples about friendship and the value of sticking up for people when it isn’t convenient to do so. And obviously I respond to the fact that Hiccup (the main character) is regarded as "useless" but in the end saves the day by being sensitive and intelligent - pretty much the opposite of everything I disliked about Forrest Gump.

It does make me wonder though to what extent even at this age range books are already being squeezed into moulds aimed at a male or female market. Yes, it’s good to have books that boys might want to read, but it’s good too for boys to realize that being a man means more than just fighting stuff.

Mind you, what would I know about that?

Fall Girl – Toni Jordan

Toni Jordan’s first novel, Addition, was nothing but brilliant and remains one of my favourite books. So obviously when I saw this in the library I was going to get it out. This book is not Addition, and so it was inevitable that I would find it disappointing.

I also struggled with the subject matter. The story is about Ella, a girl who is brought up in a family of con-artists (I was going to say con-men, but since several of them are women I needed a more inclusive term). That it’s their family background, that they see themselves as artists is interesting, as is the fact that Ella’s dad, the patriarch of the extended family very much sees their work as wealth redistribution in the style of Robin Hood. But while that may not particularly leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth, I still didn’t find it particularly interesting or attractive.

It’s well-written though and the characters are interesting at least, particularly Daniel, the proposed “mark”. And then suddenly, on page 112, with one little throw-away sentence in the middle of a paragraph, the story gets interesting.

This was never going to live up to Addition, and given the subject it’s not what I would have read if it were written by another author. I felt there were more than a few loose ends that could have been tightened up too (I suspect this is because I’m obsessive about such things, not because the story really needs it). If I’m going to be picky, too, I found the motivation behind Daniel’s interest in Ella a little underdeveloped / underexplained, although that’s an inevitable struggle in the poor-girl-wows-rich-guy thread of romantic fiction and at least Daniel feels like a real person in other respects.

But I did like the ending, which actually has a lot of parallels with the last book I read, Signs and Wonders. This isn’t a Christian book, Ella finds love rather than God, but still there is an element of penitence and redemption.

Looking forwards to her next book.

Addendum: I just spotted this great line in the acknowledgements: ‘My own zoological studies … were so long ago that we studied dinosaurs with live examples.’

Signs and Wonders – Alex Adana

This is a great idea, and well executed. The main character, Annie Grace, is a faith healer, the centre of a huge business and daughter of an even more famous faith healer – and both of them are a con. Except … for some reason no-one can quite understand, least of all herself, that’s not entirely true.

I really liked the main character, Annie Grace, who starts off broken and cynical but still with a hint of conscience. I also loved her chauffeur / dogsbody / friend Ernesto – loyal and good-hearted. In fact all the characters were interesting and believable. I have this impression in my mind that a lot of “Christian Fiction” is anodyne, unrealistic, bland and escapist. This book is absolutely none of those things. The world you see in this book feels like the world I live in (even if I’m no Annie Grace). The people feel human, the good ones and the bad ones.

At a theological level too, it works for me – yes, god does heal people, really heal people, and he doesn’t necessarily restrict himself to using the holiest and most devout to do it either. The healing experiences described in the book sounded credible too, at least in that they tie in with real-life stores I’ve heard about healing. The only bit where I lost credibility just for a moment was in the scene where a blind woman is healed – not because I find that unbelievable, I don’t; but because her reaction seemed a little tame. I heard a story recently about a Royal Marine who went to church not particularly believing in anything much and was prayed for and received healing to a knee ligament injury, and of course his reaction at the time was to swear like a trooper … but I digress.

There was part of me that might have asked for a different ending, but I think it’s a better book with the ending it has. At its heart this is a story of redemption. What more could you ask for?

Just as I Am – Virginia Smith

This could have been a great book. It’s about a “colourful” young woman (purple hair, facial piercings) who suddenly becomes a Christian. Mayla Strong is certainly a great character. When she becomes a Christian, she sets about trying to work out what it means in practice. This causes some interesting friction with the culture of the fairly conservative-sounding church in which she finds herself.

Up to there, this could have been a great book. But I felt there were several things that let it down. First, Mayla seemed to learn an awful lot about how Christians are and aren’t supposed to behave very quickly. She didn’t seem to have many issues with the parts of her previous life that she’d have left behind – relationships etc. The characters she came into conflict with in church seemed fairly easy (although perfectly valid) targets – the would-be matchmakers in particular (A single young person in possession of a faith is not universally also in want of a spouse, nor should they necessarily be - q.v. this excellent post).

It also felt a bit preachy in a lot of places. Perhaps it made some assumptions of its own (is it actually wrong for Christians merely to be at a party where people are using illegal drugs?) Perhaps I come from a Church background such that a lot of the things that others might find shocking in this book simply aren’t for me.

I also felt too many of the characters in the book were too perfect. Mayla herself, for example, her mum, and the pastor, all seem to do the right thing and say the right thing pretty much all the time (at least where it matters). Real Christians aren’t like that, or at least, the ones who are don’t make good novel characters because they’re not believable.

The final point of sadness I felt about the story was at the end where Mayla decides to remove her facial piercing (which she had earlier changed from a stud to a cross – a very good touch) and recolor her hair in a natural shade. Almost as if it’s saying that while yes you can be a Christian whatever you look like, to really be a good Christian and fit in you do need to look boring like everyone else.

All of which is not to say I didn’t like it. It is in turns funny, serious, and poignant, particularly Mayla’s anger after her gay friend dies of AIDS. And maybe if you’re at a church like the one in this book then this would be a good thing to read. But I’d have liked it even better if it had been a bit more edgy.

Veiled Freedom – Jeanette Windle

What does it mean to write Christian Fiction, or to write fiction as a Christian? That’s a question that I’ve been pondering ever since I read Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and possibly ever since I first did NaNoWriMo. One difficulty this question posed for me was that I’d never read any. It was that question that led me to browse the Christian Fiction category on Amazon to see what was available for free when I got a Kindle for my birthday (I am a cheapskate after all). I’d already decided that part of the answer had to be that writing fiction as a Christian had to mean engaging with the real world in some way, which seemed to rule out most of the titles on offer. Then I spotted this one. About a Christian aid worker and set in contemporary Afghanistan it seemed to have potential.

My first impression was that the book was portraying an Americanized perception of Afghanistan, the way you might imagine it if you’d watched CNN but never actually been there. This of course was disappointing. For about half the book, this continued, and the story looked set to be heading towards one of those “odd couple” romances with a private security contractor. But the longer the characters spend in Afghanistan, the more they come to understand the place, and the more realistic I felt the portrayal of Afghanistan and its people was. The more, too, I got gripped by the story and the people and wanting to know where it was going. It wasn’t until very late on that I realized it wasn’t going where I thought it was, and where it went instead was much better.

If I’d come at this book looking for a gooey romance with an interesting backdrop that would make me feel the world was a nice warm cuddly place, then the ending would have been disappointing. On the other hand, if I’d come at the book with a romanticised perception of Afghanistan I would probably have learned something from it. That wasn’t where I was coming from, but I learned a lot from it anyway.

So what is the purpose of Christian fiction? Or, what kind of fiction should a Christian write? And is anyone out there actually doing that? Well, it needs to engage with the real world, not ignore it. It should educate and broaden the mind, not allow the reader to escape into a world of their own prejudices. Indeed, it should probably look something like this.

On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

Since we went on holiday to Weymouth and went to see Chesil beach I thought I'd have to bring this and read it there.

I really liked the way this book was structured. It tells the story of only a few hours in the life of two people, but telescopes into that how they came to that point, and then where their lives go afterwards. There's no doubt it's brilliantly written. Whether it works ultimately depends on whether you can believe that the somewhat extreme scenario it describes is actually convincing given the characters and where they've come from. I guess it is when you're reading it, but whether it still works on reflection I'm not sure.

One particular thing that I'm still puzzling about in my mind is the setting of the final scene, on Chesil Beach itself. Having actually sat on the "infinite shingle" of Chesil Beach myself, there was something incredibly peaceful and timeless about its "infinite shingle", but at the same time it's a place of amazing solitude, even in the presence of other people. Does that make the book's conclusion more or less likely? I'm not sure.

The ending of the book was sad, but not somehow depressing. One thing that's brought out throughout the book is that a wonderful happy ending is only a hair's breadth away - as if in some infinite universe of possibilities, all the other universes might have seen a different conclusion. Somehow that's a lot less depressing than feeling that the unhappy ending was inevitable. I particularly felt seeds of hope, of what might otherwise have been, in the last few pages, where the book zooms out and shows the two characters making their way through the rest of their lives - a great touch.

I had reservations when I heard about this book that it might be trying to argue against the viewpoint of keeping sex for marriage. I don't think it does - or if it does, it's not very successful. If anything it's about communication - the clue, I suppose, is in the book's first two sentences. And communication is always a good thing.

The Red And The Black - Stendahl

Dad recommended I read this (on my new Kindle! whoohoo!) It has some interesting observations about the nature of France back in 1830 and in particular the nature of the catholic church there and then. What struck me particularly was the relationship between the main character and the younger woman later in the book - society may have changed since but people don't really change.

Generation X - Douglas Coupland

I've read a few books recently and I'm getting behind on commenting on them, don't know what to say ... Quite liked this, it's not a story per se but it was quite perceptive in its day about young people of the time (my time!) The comment about the end of history is somewhat undermined by the fact that the Berlin Wall came down between the book being written or at least set, and being published. But the stuff about being the generation after the last generation to be able to buy a house (much less retire with a decent pension) is still pretty perceptive.

Where Rainbows End – Cecelia Ahern

For the first two-thirds of this book I was quite gripped. The story is a familiar one: two people who are clearly meant for each other, but through one thing and another – bad luck, stupid mistakes - it doesn’t quite work out, until finally, everything becomes clear and they all live happily ever after. And for most of the book, I rode the waves and troughs, hoping and looking forwards to the final conclusion. Until, that is, the end of part 3, which unleashed just one twist too many. And when two main characters do eventually get together, I’d long since reached the point where for me it felt too late.

This kind of troubled me. To have a few twists and turns before eventually getting together – that was a storyline I could cope with. (Home, anybody?) But how many twists and turns is too many? The characters in Home break up at 17 and 20 (ish), and get together again at 28 and 31. That still leaves them time to spend most of their lives together. At the end of said part 3, the characters in this book are early 30s. But when they finally do get together, they’re in their 50s, and I somehow feel that by then it’s very much a consolation prize rather than lifelong fulfilment.

Ok, maybe I’m ageist. Maybe it’s because I’m very much of the age in between those and therefore feel unreasonably that this is the age that counts. Who knows why, but at the end of the book I felt that the ending didn’t really justify all the angst the author had put the poor characters through on the way there. That’s why it’s taken me a while to write down my feelings about this book.

But then I had a thought. Maybe the reason that doesn’t feel like a satisfying conclusion to me is because my relationship with God has left me just a bit spoilt?After all, so many times through the Bible, God makes the best of a bad job, and not only that, but somehow manages to produce something out of the ruins that’s even more beautiful than what was there to start with. God's people reject him by asking for a King (1 Samuel?), but from that royal line comes none other than Jesus himself. The Bible starts with a garden but ends with a city – starts with God creating two people in the unfulfilled hope that they will choose to love him, but ends up with a an almost countless number of worshippers.

Maybe for a lot of people life would be bearable if they had a thought that they might arrive at whatever their desired goal is, in the end, whatever the troubles in the meanwhile. But that’s not enough for me. Brought up on a diet of Grace beyond comprehension, I want it all – to have my cake and eat it; to be repaid for the years the locusts have eaten (see Joel). A recipe for disappointment, you might think. But not for me. On occasions to numerable to count, that has simply been my everyday experience of a life lived with God.

But then, a story like that - who could make it up? Fiction is bounded by what we find believable. God, fortunately, is under no such limitation.