A COURSE OF EXPERIENCES IN ENGLISH
A COURSE OF EXPERIENCES IN ENGLISH
BOOKS
The Girl On the Landing , PAUL TORDAY
Michael and Elizabeth have been married for ten years. Elizabeth has accepted her life with her ‘boring’ but wealthy husband. She kept her job to keep her sanity it would seem and also to retain a sense of normality outside of her husband’s world of visiting Beinn Caorrun, the gloomy house in the Scottish glens near Perth in Scotland which he inherited when his parents died. Michael’s only other interest is his membership of Groucher’s, a club for Gentlemen with its old fashioned rules and regulations. Life with Michael is dull but safe and Elizabeth seems to have settled for that, accompanying Michael on the odd weekend away with fellow golf-playing members of Grouchers and also on trips to Beinn Caorrun, although Elizabeth does not like to visit the old house with its dark rooms and cold bedroom which Michael seems to prefer.
However, Elizabeth suddenly starts to notice a change in Michael. Whilst they are staying in Ireland for a weekend with one of Michael’s friends, he becomes intrigued by a painting on the landing, in particular, the girl in the painting. Michael mentions it to his hosts and is surprised when they tell him there is no girl in the painting. Indeed when Michael later returns to the landing to look at the picture again, the girl he thought he saw has gone.
Following on from this, Elizabeth notices Michael is slowly starting to change from the quiet, dull man she has spent the last ten years with, into a more outspoken and opinionated, but most of all loving and fun to be with husband. Elizabeth finds herself falling in love with her husband as they discover the fun and intimacy together that has been suppressed all these years. But whilst she is enjoying ‘finding’ her husband at last, Elizabeth is puzzled as to who or what is changing Michael.
After making a couple of discoveries about things it seems Michael has kept hidden from Elizabeth, she slowly begins to realise that their fragile happiness is threatened by secrets from Michael’s past. Elizabeth finds herself becoming fearful for both herself and Michael, as she probes deeper into his past which is as dark as the old house at Beinn Caorrun.
‘The Girl On The Landing‘ is the first book I have read by author Paul Torday. Described as a tense thriller, I was intrigued by the storyline, which although starts off pretty mundane, slowly becomes darker and more disturbing with every chapter. What I initially thought was going to be an average read, as it wasn’t holding my interest as well as I had hoped, turned out to be a strangely gripping thriller which is so well written it compels you to keep turning the pages.
As you begin to read this book, you get the feeling it is set a number of years ago. The descriptions of Beinn Caorrun, the people Michael mixes with and his gentlemen’s club:Grouchers, all give the impression that this is not a modern day story. However, the fact they have mobile phones for example, shows this is not the case at all. I also kept forgetting that Michael and Elizabeth are a couple in their thirties as you would be forgiven for thinking that maybe this is a couple in their fifties or maybe even sixties.
I really thought I was not going to enjoy the book, but as Michael began to change, my interest in the book began to improve. Both Michael and Elizabeth seem to become more their real age as the changes in Michael change their life. I found myself drawn into the story, wondering exactly who Michael really was, what secrets were lying hidden in his past and how they were going to be revealed, as I felt it was inevitable that his past was going to return to haunt him.
Torday builds up the tension really well throughout the book, turning what I thought was going to be a mundane story into a dark, chilling one as the suspense builds. Although I did not care much for the character of Elizabeth at first, as I questioned why she married Michael in the first place and came to the conclusion it was for stability and security rather than love, I found myself warming to her as she falls in love with her husband, only to begin to feel that despite her happiness, something is terribly wrong with her husband. Despite my initial reservations, I began to care about her character and as the situation intensifies, I sympathised with her plight as she felt torn and unsure what to do for the best. Although she finds herself in a dangerous situation, she loves her husband and does not want to betray him or his trust in her.
The way in which Torday changes the character of Michael makes for really interesting reading. It was believable and intriguing and I did not know how far Torday was going to go with this character. In fact, I wondered if Torday actually knew this himself when he began to write the book. Maybe this is why the ending felt slightly rushed, as if the author realised he had better start tying up the ends. Having said that, I did feel there were a couple of things left unanswered but it didn’t matter much, nor did it affect the eventual outcome which I did not predict.
Overall, The Girl On The Landing is a well written tale and worthy of its ‘tense thriller’ tag. It is definitely worth sticking with, if like me, you are not drawn into the book right away. I enjoyed the writing and it has left me keen to read more of Paul Torday’s work.
I confess that I found the end of the novel rather disappointing. Torday is such an intelligent writer that almost until the very last word I was expecting him to play with the reader, to overturn the stereotype of the violent schizophrenic. He does not do so. As Elizabeth takes over the narration, we lose touch with the reality of her husband's experience. Michael's earlier account is so brilliantly handled - his struggle to find a sense of self, his rationale for joining Grouchers ("it was like putting on a uniform that said everything about me that anyone needed to know") and above all his sense of coming back to life as the antipsychotics leave his sysTtem - that Elizabeth's description of looking into his eyes and "trying to understand how much of what was behind them was still human" fails to convince. Then again, perhaps it is a testament to Torday's success in creating the all-too-human Michael that I feel such a strong compulsion to protest.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, SHERMAN ALEXIE
The title tells it like it is. Sherman Alexie was born a Spokane Indian. He grew up where the book is set, on a reservation - the "rez" - in Wellpinit, Washington state. He was, like his central character, hydrocephalic at birth, "with too much grease inside my skull". And in his teens he attended Reardan High School, off the reservation, near the rich farm town, where all the other students were white. Many authors hum and ha when asked if their fiction is in any way autobiographical. This one makes no bones about it and yet skilfully manages to transform his actual experience into a novel. True fiction. Absolutely.
Arnold Spirit Jnr, known simply as Junior on the rez, speaks directly to the reader and is both narrator and illustrator, a cartoonist. He feels like rubbish, gets beaten up as a matter of course because he lisps, stutters and looks like a freak, but with a pen in his hand he finds a sense of being "important". He can at least express what it's like living his life. For example, he describes on one page how it "sucks to be poor", and on the next sketches portraits of his parents as they might have been if someone had paid attention to their dreams. His could-have-been mother is smart in her suit, a community college teacher. His another-life father is hip, a professional saxophonist. He doesn't draw what they actually are. He just uses a couple of words for that. She is an ex-drunk. He is a drunk. In fact Junior only knows five Indians who have never drunk alcohol, one of them being his bandana-wearing grandmother: "Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling."
Junior might have brain damage from surgery and seizures but he is following in grandmother's footsteps, engaged with the world, full of anger and energy. Too full. When he sees his mother's name in a geometry textbook in class, he just cannot bear that his generation are still studying from the same books as the last. There is a graphic illustration of boy throwing a book at his white teacher and breaking his nose. Suspension follows. But then the wounded teacher comes to visit. He isn't happy about Junior's assault but he's also brimful of guilt, as his job has been to educate their culture out of his Indian students. And he has some advice for Junior: "You have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope." And the most hope belongs to white people. So Junior makes the bold decision to leave his home turf and go to Reardan. No matter that he has to walk more than 20 miles to get there each day because there isn't enough money for gas.
BOOKS
The Girl On the Landing , PAUL TORDAY
Michael and Elizabeth have been married for ten years. Elizabeth has accepted her life with her ‘boring’ but wealthy husband. She kept her job to keep her sanity it would seem and also to retain a sense of normality outside of her husband’s world of visiting Beinn Caorrun, the gloomy house in the Scottish glens near Perth in Scotland which he inherited when his parents died. Michael’s only other interest is his membership of Groucher’s, a club for Gentlemen with its old fashioned rules and regulations. Life with Michael is dull but safe and Elizabeth seems to have settled for that, accompanying Michael on the odd weekend away with fellow golf-playing members of Grouchers and also on trips to Beinn Caorrun, although Elizabeth does not like to visit the old house with its dark rooms and cold bedroom which Michael seems to prefer.
However, Elizabeth suddenly starts to notice a change in Michael. Whilst they are staying in Ireland for a weekend with one of Michael’s friends, he becomes intrigued by a painting on the landing, in particular, the girl in the painting. Michael mentions it to his hosts and is surprised when they tell him there is no girl in the painting. Indeed when Michael later returns to the landing to look at the picture again, the girl he thought he saw has gone.
Following on from this, Elizabeth notices Michael is slowly starting to change from the quiet, dull man she has spent the last ten years with, into a more outspoken and opinionated, but most of all loving and fun to be with husband. Elizabeth finds herself falling in love with her husband as they discover the fun and intimacy together that has been suppressed all these years. But whilst she is enjoying ‘finding’ her husband at last, Elizabeth is puzzled as to who or what is changing Michael.
After making a couple of discoveries about things it seems Michael has kept hidden from Elizabeth, she slowly begins to realise that their fragile happiness is threatened by secrets from Michael’s past. Elizabeth finds herself becoming fearful for both herself and Michael, as she probes deeper into his past which is as dark as the old house at Beinn Caorrun.
‘The Girl On The Landing‘ is the first book I have read by author Paul Torday. Described as a tense thriller, I was intrigued by the storyline, which although starts off pretty mundane, slowly becomes darker and more disturbing with every chapter. What I initially thought was going to be an average read, as it wasn’t holding my interest as well as I had hoped, turned out to be a strangely gripping thriller which is so well written it compels you to keep turning the pages.
As you begin to read this book, you get the feeling it is set a number of years ago. The descriptions of Beinn Caorrun, the people Michael mixes with and his gentlemen’s club:Grouchers, all give the impression that this is not a modern day story. However, the fact they have mobile phones for example, shows this is not the case at all. I also kept forgetting that Michael and Elizabeth are a couple in their thirties as you would be forgiven for thinking that maybe this is a couple in their fifties or maybe even sixties.
I really thought I was not going to enjoy the book, but as Michael began to change, my interest in the book began to improve. Both Michael and Elizabeth seem to become more their real age as the changes in Michael change their life. I found myself drawn into the story, wondering exactly who Michael really was, what secrets were lying hidden in his past and how they were going to be revealed, as I felt it was inevitable that his past was going to return to haunt him.
Torday builds up the tension really well throughout the book, turning what I thought was going to be a mundane story into a dark, chilling one as the suspense builds. Although I did not care much for the character of Elizabeth at first, as I questioned why she married Michael in the first place and came to the conclusion it was for stability and security rather than love, I found myself warming to her as she falls in love with her husband, only to begin to feel that despite her happiness, something is terribly wrong with her husband. Despite my initial reservations, I began to care about her character and as the situation intensifies, I sympathised with her plight as she felt torn and unsure what to do for the best. Although she finds herself in a dangerous situation, she loves her husband and does not want to betray him or his trust in her.
The way in which Torday changes the character of Michael makes for really interesting reading. It was believable and intriguing and I did not know how far Torday was going to go with this character. In fact, I wondered if Torday actually knew this himself when he began to write the book. Maybe this is why the ending felt slightly rushed, as if the author realised he had better start tying up the ends. Having said that, I did feel there were a couple of things left unanswered but it didn’t matter much, nor did it affect the eventual outcome which I did not predict.
Overall, The Girl On The Landing is a well written tale and worthy of its ‘tense thriller’ tag. It is definitely worth sticking with, if like me, you are not drawn into the book right away. I enjoyed the writing and it has left me keen to read more of Paul Torday’s work.
I confess that I found the end of the novel rather disappointing. Torday is such an intelligent writer that almost until the very last word I was expecting him to play with the reader, to overturn the stereotype of the violent schizophrenic. He does not do so. As Elizabeth takes over the narration, we lose touch with the reality of her husband's experience. Michael's earlier account is so brilliantly handled - his struggle to find a sense of self, his rationale for joining Grouchers ("it was like putting on a uniform that said everything about me that anyone needed to know") and above all his sense of coming back to life as the antipsychotics leave his sysTtem - that Elizabeth's description of looking into his eyes and "trying to understand how much of what was behind them was still human" fails to convince. Then again, perhaps it is a testament to Torday's success in creating the all-too-human Michael that I feel such a strong compulsion to protest.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, SHERMAN ALEXIE
The title tells it like it is. Sherman Alexie was born a Spokane Indian. He grew up where the book is set, on a reservation - the "rez" - in Wellpinit, Washington state. He was, like his central character, hydrocephalic at birth, "with too much grease inside my skull". And in his teens he attended Reardan High School, off the reservation, near the rich farm town, where all the other students were white. Many authors hum and ha when asked if their fiction is in any way autobiographical. This one makes no bones about it and yet skilfully manages to transform his actual experience into a novel. True fiction. Absolutely.
Arnold Spirit Jnr, known simply as Junior on the rez, speaks directly to the reader and is both narrator and illustrator, a cartoonist. He feels like rubbish, gets beaten up as a matter of course because he lisps, stutters and looks like a freak, but with a pen in his hand he finds a sense of being "important". He can at least express what it's like living his life. For example, he describes on one page how it "sucks to be poor", and on the next sketches portraits of his parents as they might have been if someone had paid attention to their dreams. His could-have-been mother is smart in her suit, a community college teacher. His another-life father is hip, a professional saxophonist. He doesn't draw what they actually are. He just uses a couple of words for that. She is an ex-drunk. He is a drunk. In fact Junior only knows five Indians who have never drunk alcohol, one of them being his bandana-wearing grandmother: "Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling."
Junior might have brain damage from surgery and seizures but he is following in grandmother's footsteps, engaged with the world, full of anger and energy. Too full. When he sees his mother's name in a geometry textbook in class, he just cannot bear that his generation are still studying from the same books as the last. There is a graphic illustration of boy throwing a book at his white teacher and breaking his nose. Suspension follows. But then the wounded teacher comes to visit. He isn't happy about Junior's assault but he's also brimful of guilt, as his job has been to educate their culture out of his Indian students. And he has some advice for Junior: "You have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope." And the most hope belongs to white people. So Junior makes the bold decision to leave his home turf and go to Reardan. No matter that he has to walk more than 20 miles to get there each day because there isn't enough money for gas.
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