Arts: Literary Reviews

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (1962) by Richard Yates

LIAM ELVISH| LITERARY REVIEW EDITOR

Richard Yates is an author who has been dead for nearly three decades - yet only now, after a lengthy spell of unjust obscurity, is his name gaining some prominence as one of the true literary talents of the United States in the late Twentieth Century. Following his seminal work Revolutionary Road (1961), a powerful account of American suburban monotony, Yates once more magnifies his perceptive glance upon everyday existence in his 1962 collection of short stories, beautifully detailing the lives and losses of eleven separate people. Individual in their experiences, but collective in their hopelessness, these eleven figures represent the flawed myth of the ‘American Dream’ in the immediate post-war period.

Largely set in and around New York, the prevailing despair of city life is reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting. From the tragi-comic ‘A Glutton for Punishment’, detailing the domestic implications for timid Walter Henderson after being fired from his Manhattan office job, to ‘A Wrestler with Sharks’, exploring the cut-throat environment of the newspaper industry (of which Yates himself had first-hand experience), each sketches the turmoil of ordinary men and women in the urban sprawl.

The monstrous flaws of McCarthyism in 1950s America are evoked throughout. ‘The B.A.R. Man’ is a visceral statement on the ignorance of a propaganda-fuelled populace of laymen against the persecuted freethinker, the conformist whip of army brutality versus the tolerant rebelliousness of liberal intellectualism. Skilfully, the crux of the argument is not revealed by Yates until the final few pages, in which an academic departs from a public gathering only to be greeted with hostility by a crowd of anticommunist protestors. John Fallon, scorned by an attractive younger woman amongst a group of night-crawlers who promptly desert him, heads out into the streets of Manhattan, drunk and disorderly, unaware of his state or of time itself, and eager in his bitterness to chase after something, anything. Caught up in the confrontation between protestors and the maverick university professor, Fallon’s intemperate anger results in his instigating an unprovoked assault upon the academic, and his own subsequent arrest. Fallon is the literary archetype of an embittered ex-armed forces worker; a man with a grievance of inferiority, resorting to the language of fists, the only language in which he has been trained to express himself. The story raises questions of the nature of blind human rage, of its weakness in being swayed by reactionary publicity within the modern world.

Other stories in the collection include ‘No Pain Whatsoever’ and ‘Out with the Old’, both dealing with the treatment of the invalid and elderly within the hospital system, a regime of tedium where neglect is merely a gentle waiting-game for departure. ‘Fun with a Stranger’ is set in an elementary school in which the dreary Miss Snell acts as demonstrative proof to her class of life’s perpetual disappointments. It is most painfully evoked after raising their hopes for Christmas gifts shortly before the holidays, before dashing them coldly with her bland offering of stationary - a reminder of how childhood can be marred by rigid traditionalism at the expense of spontaneity. If Germany in the 1930s was governed by conformity with a machinegun, then America in the 1950s was governed by conformity with a smiley face on a cereal-box; and it is Yates’s writings which are most emphatic of all its ghastly effects.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

CHLOE BOULTON | CONTENT WRITER

Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, was published in 2015. The novel surpassed Yanagihara’s debut novel’s reception and sales, garnering a large audience and critical acclaim.

Set in New York, A Little Life centres around four university friends: Willem Ragnarsson, Malcolm Irvine, JB Marion, and Jude St. Francis. The group were randomly assigned together as college roommates and became best friends, and it is this shared history that ties them together as adults. At the novel’s opening, Willem is an aspiring actor working as a waiter in an upscale restaurant; Malcolm comes from a wealthy family but is frustrated by his lack of independence and worries his career as an architect will not impress his father; JB is a painter seeking fame and success; and Jude is working as a lawyer for the public defence office. A reader may assume that over the course of the novel, some of these characters may fail, not finding the success they are so desperately chasing. Each of the four triumphs implausibly in their professions, their lives becoming almost unrecognisable as the decades pass. For a portion of the novel, the perspective shifts between the quartet, with Jude emerging as the enigmatic protagonist. JB and Malcolm recede to the background of Jude’s life, but they are always present, and it is his friendship with Willem that takes the forefront. A Little Life gives a refreshing take on friendship, showing how, over a lifetime, they can take various shapes, growing and shrinking, but remaining everpresent. Though, there is something very unrealistic about the relationships Jude has in his life. For the first fifteen years of his life, he suffers unimaginable abuse, the extent of which is slowly fed to the reader over the novel; subsequently, with the exception of one horrific relationship, Jude is shown unconditional affection – everyone who loves him seeming to be just as occupied with his life as he is. Whilst it does not, and cannot, reflect the realities of loyalty and friendship, Yanagihara creates something very moving to read.

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The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

MILLIE GARRAWAY | CONTENT WRITER A Little Life has been heavily criticised for the suffering that the characters endure throughout the novel. With the novel being written in third person, readers are forced to watch Jude’s pain, sadness and hurt, rather than share it with him. The extent of his suffering is revealed slowly, each description seemingly more elaborate, and certainly far worse, than the last. Yanagihara refuses to let Jude overcome his childhood, not compromising anywhere, but instead letting his past consume him as he grows older. This consistent misery in the novel, despite all its brilliant other aspects, makes it incredibly difficult to recommend wholeheartedly.

All in all, this novel is an unrelenting one, it is beautiful and heart-breaking. Yanagihara’s storytelling is admirable, and in 720 pages builds the lives of characters that readers cannot help but care deeply about.

Those who are planning on reading A Little Life are advised to check all of the trigger warnings of the novel, available to read on booktriggerwarnings.com.

Once a student at Royal Holloway herself, Sarah Perry created waves again with the release of her second novel, The Essex Serpent, in May 2016, outperforming the stirring story of her debut, After Me Comes the Flood, and becoming a bestseller in the United Kingdom.

The novel is set in 1893 between Aldwinter, a small village in Essex, and the bustle of London. Having taken inspiration from both a woodcut from a 1669 pamphlet The Flying Serpent or Strange News Out of Essex, detailing a sighting near the village of Henham-on-the-Mount, as well as Perry’s own experiences, The Essex Serpent follows the newly-widowed Cora Seaborne on her adventures through the county’s various villages, in search for physical evidence of the legendary Serpent. Following her recent release from an abusive marriage, the novel uncovers Cora’s rebirth into single life, after the prolonged death of her sadistic husband leads her to Essex’s muddy shores. Uprooting her son Francis and maid-turned-companion Martha in the process, Cora relentlessly hunts for truth in the tale of the Essex Serpent fed to her by her dear friend Charles, whose empathy sees no bounds. In her undeniable determination to find this elusive serpent, Cora invades the life of the local vicar William, a scruffy, righteous man, who is left infatuated with her boyish, chameleon nature. The serpent becomes a thorn in his already-decorated back as his reminiscence on past sins leaves him weary, causing him to lose control of his flock, whose Godfearing natures lead them to fall slowly into the grasp of the tale. Nonetheless, Perry continues to be a master puppeteer so that Cora herself cannot be singled out to be the causality of this disarray and the tale of the serpent is left a thrilling uncertainty until the end. Never leaving a breadcrumb to follow, Perry unequivocally captures the reader’s attention without fail, as we begin to understand the identity of the Essex Serpent outside of speculation and discover the outcome of Cora and Will’s feelings for each other. The cosy misery of the characters leaves the reader in a satisfied sadness; the rejection of impish characters provide a warming contrast to the guilty pleasure of blooming forbidden love between the vicar and Cora, evoking a shamefulness in the reader’s quiet observation. Cora Seaborne, always in the back of the vicar’s mind, is, however, a kindness to his wife whose slow demise leaves her longing for Cora and her husband’s companionship to return, thus feeding the reader’s appetite for romance. Perry has encapsulated the gothic style in this awardwinning piece of Victorian fiction, leaving a bittersweet taste in the mouth of the reader. The Essex Serpent is a thrilling and atmospheric novel that challenges presumptive perspectives of period literature.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

GRACE FROST | CONTENT WRITER

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), traverses the globe, connecting the East and West with narratives that illuminate the struggles experienced by those in immigrant and diasporic communities. Lahiri constructs stories from a range of perspectives to demonstrate to the reader how child, adult, grandparent, male, and female are all affected in their own way by adjusting to a new environment and the conflicts that arise from cross-culture life. The dichotomies between old and new, East and West, and child and adult are explored through this collection as each new narrative voice teases out the prejudices and holes in a culture of gender and age hierarchies, traditions, and expectations.

The title story follows a day in the life of Mr. Kapasi, a tour guide and translator, as he drives the Das family, secondgeneration American-born Indians who, as the former notes, ‘looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did’. Through his outsider status, the tour guide objectively views the family and notices the differences between his own values with those of the Westernised-Indians before him. In particular, Mr. Kapasi notices how this family does not behave as he understands a family should. The children demonstrate little to no respect for their parents and Mrs. Das does not display interest in her children. Lahiri refreshingly centres the narrative on a character of lower status whose experience of diaspora is when it is in direct conflict with his own culture, causing him to question what he has been brought up to understand as ‘right’.

Lahiri’s collection also spotlights the cross-culture experiences of children through ten-year old Indian- American Lilia in ‘When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine’ and eleven-year-old American Eliot in ‘Mrs. Sen’s’. Despite their contrasting ethnic backgrounds, their similar western upbringing influences their limited view of the world. The title characters originate from Pakistan and Indian, respectively, and their presence in the lives of these children helps to educate them on the traditions and values that form life in the East. Lilia’s father desires for his daughter to learn about her heritage, the divide between India and Pakistan, and to be as Indian as possible in her predominantly western life. For him, it is essential to uphold elements of his home country and one way he does this is by welcoming folk like Mr. Pirzada into his home. Together with his wife, the adults watch Indian news, eat Indian food, and reminisce on their lives back home. All this is viewed through Lilia’s eyes and the reader is drawn into her thought process as she gradually develops an interest in understanding what is happening as the war unfolds, and why the adults’ attitude shifts from joy to sadness. Similarly, Eliot gradually learns more about traditional Indian culture as he quietly watches Mrs. Sen, noticing her different dress, food, language, and that she does not view America as her home.

This collection provides an essential insight into the ways diasporic experiences affect people at every stage of life and how we all have something to learn from those unlike us, even just by quietly watching and asking questions just like Eliot.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

ALI KRAUSOVA | PUBLISHING AND CREATIVE DESIGNER

Iwas the last of my friends to get Covid and before it finally got to my turn, I was almost weirdly proud of not having had it yet. ‘Must be my drinking and smoking keeping that immunity up’, I thought to myself. Then I got kicked out of a pub one night and woke up the next morning, Covid positive. Really, it ended up being duller than I would have expected. A friend became invested the moment I told him I had lost my sense of smell. ‘This is the perfect time to read Süskind’s Perfume’ he said, ‘I want to know how you will grasp those descriptions without the ability to smell anything.’

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who, unlike a certain reviewer when reading it, has an exceptional sense of smell. Grenouille’s character is challenged from the beginning as a result of his rough childhood, he moves from one place to another without finding much love anywhere. Eventually, Grenouille becomes involved with a perfumer called Baldini, who teaches him everything he needs to know about perfumery. When Grenouille encounters a young girl whose smell he cannot resist, he begins his series of murders to preserve scents just like hers. The novel is fantastic in its psychology, from Grenouille’s frozen child within him to how he manages to trick others into perceiving him as superhuman based solely on his scent. For a book so descriptive, one does not want to skip forward like one often wants to do when presented with Oscar Wilde’s knowledge on varieties of textile in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Having the sense of smell or not, the reader is not there with Grenouille smelling virgins anyway, but Süskind words it so well it is easy to imagine, and oddly, beautiful even.

When only one murder has happened with only 50 pages prior to the ending, scepticism arises. It is a Story of a Murderer after all, so how is it that the reader is inundated with descriptions about Grenouille constantly perfuming himself instead? Süskind perhaps became a bit bored himself and, to draw the novel to an end, he concocted a ridiculous extreme, somewhere between a town orgy and graveyard cannibalism: one was tempted to go back to Grenouille admiring the smell of Seine.

Nonetheless the novel is clever, enjoyable, and it tricks the reader just like it tricks the audience within it; a good kind of absurd. I still remember the perfume I used to wear when I first fell in love. Scents bring memories vividly so maybe it is not exaggerated to think they could also change the impression one gives. After all, Grenouille proves that love is dependent on a smell, possibly, because it is blind.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

VIKTORIA PRACZKO | CONTENT WRITER

Gillian Flynn’s thriller novel, Gone Girl, occupied the ‘Number 1’ position on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list for more than eight weeks in 2012 and continues to receive great public reception a decade later. In addition to being an exceptional work of detective fiction, Flynn also manages to accurately illustrate reality and its basic components and principles. Her effective use of dialogue and imagery forms a clear and captivating narrative, making the novel almost impossible to put down.

Interestingly, Flynn’s work is not only admirable for its engaging use of language but for its suspenseful plot. Gone Girl’s gradually unfolding crime case allows the reader to experience the so-called literary ‘adrenaline rush’. Alongside the progression of the novel’s storyline, there is an evident increase within each event’s intensity. Flynn’s crime fiction bears an outstanding memorability as the reader continually encounters surprises and often makes shocking discoveries. As the long list of mysteries gradually unravels, the reader is recurrently confronted with unexpected twists that are almost always different from their initial anticipations. Gone Girl is not what it appears to be. It is so much more.

The story revolves around the mystery concerning Amy Elliot Dunne’s disappearance on the morning of her 5th wedding anniversary. The narrative of the novel alternates between Amy’s diary entries and her husband, Nick’s, perspective. For the first reading, the story may appear as a

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simple mystery; however, with a second look, one may assume that the titles of its three parts could suggest a more sinister undertone: ‘Boy Loses Girl,’ ‘Boy Meets Girl,’ ‘Boy Gets Girl Back (Or Vice Versa).’ Flynn also utilises differing time frames for the two characters to create a disturbing shift within both the chronology and the reader’s understanding of the events. She does this subtly using a somewhat question-and-answer-like format between the dialogues of subsequent chapters, simultaneously demonstrating the general complexity and the interlinking nature of relationships.

Flynn’s choice of the epistolary format for Amy’s side of the story also introduces a feminist strand into the plot. Amy’s narrative can be considered very progressive as it is grounded in the present age and approaches current issues, specifically regarding the role of women in modern society and the dynamic of long-term relationships. Gone Girl is not your ordinary Saturday night read, but the book that you could have previously seen proudly presented on your friend’s bookshelf as one of their most valued ornaments. Flynn is one of the rare authors that are able to engulf any type of reader within ten pages of their works. Not only does she effectively convey the power of emotional manipulation between her characters, but projects it onto the reader itself. Gone Girl is an exceptional psychological thriller that innocently traps you into its realm, confusing you to an extent that you are unable to distinguish between the true and false elements of the plot. But ultimately, how far is too far for love?

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

REBECCA WEIGLER | CONTENT WRITER

C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia are undoubtedly amongst the most beloved children’s books of all time, with success and notability also deriving from the 20th Century Fox film franchise. Aslan the Lion, the White Witch, and of course the Pevensie children, are household names to many. The book series, originally published in 1950 and having sold over 100 million copies worldwide, has influenced not only readers and audiences, but also many authors over the years, certainly making it a milestone in the genre and future of Children’s Literature. In many ways, The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe paved the way for late 20th Century and early 21st Century fantasy novels, especially those aimed at younger readers.

Following an evacuation to a new home due to World War II air-raids, Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Pevensie work together in order to save the land of Narnia and their newly found companions. Lucy, the youngest of the Pevensie children and the most curious, is the first to encounter the land of Narnia after walking through the wardrobe in the house of Professor Digory Kirke, where they are now living. To Lucy’s surprise, the wardrobe never seems to end and opens out into a snowy landscape and a world different to her own. Lucy visits the land of Narnia multiple times, encountering characters such as Mr. Tumnus, the loveable Faun with whom she develops a friendship, and after not believing her tales at first, the other siblings begin to follow.

Edmund gets himself into a trap with the White Witch, subsequently initiating a sequence of betrayal and problems for the other siblings, while Susan and Peter learn about the prophecy on which they will soon embark. Each chapter leads to a new adventure, whether this be encountering the house of the White Witch, or when the children discover the talking lion Aslan, and Lewis does a tremendous job of using engaging dialogue between the characters to allow readers to picture the scene and the atmosphere. The dialogue is also saturated with relatable sibling comedy and childlike curiosity, all of which makes the novel a perfect, fast-paced read.

Combining the pure joy and excitement of childhood adventure, with magic and a sense of the unknown, Lewis has constructed an easy-to-follow journey into a captivating world of wonder. It has witches, talking hybrid animals, battle scenes, every quality of a fantasy novel that appeals to the expectations of young and adult readers alike. If you aren’t familiar with the franchise, or have seen the films but are yet to pick up the books, The Chronicles of Narnia certainly lives up to its decades-long reputation and will ignite your imagination the next time you open your wardrobe.