A Literary Life

Anybody who has read Ruth Ozeki’s third novel, A Tale for the Time Being, would not say that it is a simple novel.   It has two strands – the diary of a Japanese schoolgirl called Nao, written just before the tsunami and earthquake that left thousands dead, and the life of the reader who discovers Nao’s diary, named Ruth, and based on Ozeki, in the Canadian wilderness.   There are various subplots – the letters of a Japanese kamikaze pilot, the life of a one hundred plus Zen nun, and missing animals, Japanese crows, and some stolen underwear.   And yet, at its heart, Ruth Ozeki’s novel is a simple novel.   It is, at its heart, a novel about a schoolgirl trying to find her place in the world, and a novelist trying to find the end to a story. The principal strand – Nao’s diary – is a well-written evocation of a Japanese schoolgirl’s interior life.   Nao uses slang, emoticons, and switches with ease between English and Japanese, and who feels entirel...

The Irish economy crashed in 2008.   The Celtic Tiger was slain, and modern, cosmopolitan Ireland was left in ruins.   From the ashes of this once mighty land, from amid the smouldering, empty ghost towns around Dublin, there are whispers of song, of voices trying to be heard, of a people trying to say: we’re still alive in here, we still matter, please don’t forget about us.   Donal Ryan’s debut novel, The Spinning Heart, gives voice to those people. Before being nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, Ryan’s novel had already gathered much critical attention.   As the first novel published by Doubleday Ireland, it seemed chosen to speak or a nation.   Then Waterstones, the UK book chain, selected it as one of their choice books of the year, after it had won the Bord Gáis Energy Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.   All of which must have been some major validation for Donal Ryan who admits he had been collecting the rejection sli...

Regular readers of my blog will recall that this time last year I set myself the challenge of reading all the novels longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, reviewing them, and having a guess at who might be shortlisted and who might win.  The challenge was such a blast, I'm doing it again this year. If you've read any of the press surrounding this year's prize, you'll know that it is quite a diverse and thrilling line-up.  It's hard to pick an over-riding theme to the choices.  We've a thriller, a romance, historical novels, contemporary-set novels, from a mere 100 pages to a 1,000.  Good lucking picking a winner from this lot, I say. So who are the runners and riders.  Well, this is who: Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire NoViolet Bulawayo - We Need New Names Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries Jim Crace - Harvest Eve Harris - The Marrying of Chain Kaufman Richard House - The Kills Jhumpa Lahiri - The Lowland Alison MacLeod - Unexploded Colum Mc...