Book Review: Jonathan Barnes: The Somnambulist

I'm not entirely sure what drew me to this book or even if I'd heard of it before I bought it, but I'm sure it was probably the cover and the title. And the cover reeked of Victoriana - it was in the guise of a poster for a magic show and outlined how bereft of literary merit the book was. It was a promising start.

Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is an outstanding book, it's a tome, a work of epic proportions delicately planned and intricately detailed. Anything set in Victorian times will remind me vaguely of that. That and Mr Dickens. The somnambulist had a lot to live upto, and Jonathan Barnes, a first-class honours student from Cambridge in English Literature makes a good attempt.

The book has all that you would expect of this genre, interesting characters and scenarios, the dark, grimness of 19th Century London, unsavoury characters and a perpetual influx of beautifully crafted sentences. But it never really quite makes it. The characters are intentionally unlikeable, written with bizarre physical characteristics and odd penchants. And though interesting and varied, I just don't like them, and don't really care if they win or lose. Another obvious comparison would be with Sherlock Holmes who on occasion was an absolute bugger to Watson, but I still liked him, and I liked Watson, and there was always that element of respect to be garnered. The Somnambulist himself is somewhat of an enigma, but also an entirely unnecessary addition, he plays no significant part specific to his character traits and certainly is not the worthy eponym of the novel. Looking from the character arc angle, most are colourful but irrelevant, interesting but fleeting, perhaps needfully so and I do welcome the variety, but I feel that perhaps these could have been fleshed out a little and perhaps had a longer, more useful part in the novel rather than just a series of brief appearences; often they had the air of a new idea that just had to be added to the manuscript, as though the novel grew organically without much redrafting.

Onto the plot. I like the plot, but that is again because of the variety and colour that Barnes has painted it with. There so much to keep you interested. But events and the characters therein are tenuously related, there are a number of loose threads and dead ends that really could've been tied up. The mystery element to the story were never fully realised because the plot moved at such a pace that it never seems to give you that moment to think "what's going on?" or "ahh, that explains that." There were very few mysteries in the first chapters that were tied up in the later chapters and so on. There were some interesting twists, but these were primarily a post-modern angle wherein one was reminded of the fact that this was a story and a patchwork of ideas.

To summarise, I think Mr Barnes is an exceptional wordsmith. His vocabulary is better than most writers and he can build such vivid imagery that I've rarely seen elsewhere. The imaginative aspects of the book are excellent and had this been a 600-page epic I think it would've been a masterpiece. I'd like to draw a comparison to a Victorian freakshow, as that's what this book reminded me off, somewhat fantastical but segmented and non-contiguous, jumping from one colourful scene to the next without that current underlying it; a series of junkie highs. I had the same problem with the recent Danny Boyle film, Slumdog Millionaire, it was an excellent film with a great story but was poorly bound together and paced like a set of long steps puncuated by bland flat landings. I liked The Somnambulist, I found it very readable and enjoyable and criticise it only because there is so much potential. Jonathan Barnes will, I'm sure, mature into an exceptional writer and I will watch his career closely.

Dickens, Charles: Hard Times

Except maybe Shakespeare, is there an author more famous than Dickens? How many other authors have been immortalised through the adjectivisation* of their name? I think that really must be the definition of fame and celebrity; the adjectivisation of one's name; Marxism, Newtonian, Cartesian, Leninism, Dickensian. Kafka almost gets there, with Kafka-esque, and a number of philosophers and sociologists do, but few storytellers (Clancian, Grishamian? Come on!).

Hard times is set in an imaginary industrial, British any-town. Like many of Dickens' books, it focusses less on the elite, and more on the lower-classes, I'm sure this must be a reason for its popularity. It observes the discourse and interactions that emerge from circumstance. Hard times is not richly plotted nor overly complex, it is a linear plot but crafted with such care that each paragraph is like a poem in itself. The characters are rich, realistic and individual with such traits as to make them believable. There exist three environments in literature, the now, the then and the alternative. The then, or the historic, is rendered with such detail and accuracy that you really feel like you are observing these places and people rather than a pithy echo.

I feel it is often easier to empathise with those whose plight is more desperate which often amounts to those down on their luck. In turn, it is frequently the case that 'down on their luck' is synonymous with having little money. This is part of Dickens' magic, he gets to the raw nerve, talks to you on a one-to-one basis. Him and I understand the same things, that's what I like. Perhaps this is why people often compare Dickens to King, though this may be doing Dickens a disservice (Steinbeck would fit the bill better in my opinion), it is clear how the comparison is made.

I think in the future when reviewing Dickens' books I will have to start on the basis of the plot, much like comparing King's books, the style should be taken for granted. In that case by self-comparison, this is not one of Dickens's greatest, the plot is not outstanding, the characters only marginally memorable. But, still a classic book.


*I don't think this is a word, but the English language is not that prescriptive!

Homer: The Odyssey

Translated by T E Lawrence.

Not many books can live up to a title as profound as this one. It conjours up not mere adventure, rather a journey of epic importance. The episodes within this story are well known, they are some of the oldest and most creative ever imagined; their survival through centuries, indeed millenia are testament to this. However, it's not the events that I remember this book for, it's the writing. This is not to denegrate the influence this book has had on literature and story-telling, rather to highlight the value that translation and interpretation of a text has on its enjoyment. This is the only translation I have read, but I have glanced through others, including some modern interpretations, they each bring their own angle to the story. T E Lawrence (of Arabia) colours Ulysses and the whole cast with a particular aesthetic. Each word has its place in the sentence, each word is required, each sentence is vital. I like that in writing. I like tight sentences, otherwise it just seems a little 'fluffy'. The style is almost 'classical' Dickensian; if Dickens had translated the Odyssey, it would have sounded like this. I have never read a book so slowly. I have tried various different reading techniques, but when I am enjoying something, I savour each word. With a piece like this, it is only fair to give each word its full value. This is something that has been crafted, not spat out by a group of ghost-writers. It is a classic text, the highlight of a fading genre.