cyphomandra

Minus the one I've left at work, and the one I still haven't read - the rest have now gone back.

Jose Carlos Somoza, Zig Zag.
This is a quantum physics serial killer novel in which the murders are committed via string theory, and like the other two of Somoza’s novels in translation that I’ve read it deserves a significant amount of credit just for the sheer audacity of the idea. I liked it more than The Art of Murder and less than The Athenian Murders, and I think my preferences reflect what he ends up doing with the fascinating concepts that he comes up with. Zig Zag is atmospheric and vivid, to the extent that I actually stopped reading it at one point because it was late and I was by myself, and the science in it is intriguing; but the resolution didn’t go enough beyond the standards of the serial killer story to work for me.

Elisa Robledo is a brilliant physicist teaching in a mediocre university, having never apparently fulfilled the promise that saw her invited to an elite physics school ten years earlier. She is also unable to deal with being in the dark and has recurring nightmares, and has a ritual where she prepares herself for a mysterious man with white eyes who will tell her horrible things. Then a bizarre murder sends her on the run, and details of a secret project she was recruited for from the physics school become crucial in working out why – and how – all the project scientists are being targeted. The project is about time, or more specifically time strings, and how these open-ended structures can be accessed from the present to provide images of the past. Such images, because they are still ongoing, are associated with visceral emotional responses – called the Impact – and what becomes apparent is that opened strings taken from people have other consequences.

As I said, this has many creepy, compelling visual moments – the time strings opened from the distant, pre-human past, the appearances of Zig Zag, the murders – and I really liked the science, the team’s interactions and the sense of the whole project as an ongoing experiment, with dead ends and interpersonal dynamics and all. It has some gender issues relating to Elisa’s treatment at the physics school and her reactions to this that I would have liked to see more examined – some of this, though, is possibly bleed-over from The Art of Murder, where I really wanted some more thought about why the objects/paintings were so often women, and so often explicitly sexualised – and the ending felt too easy, but I am still miffed that of his thirteen books there are only three translated into English. So far.

There are a number of Dante quotes and probably any number of references that I'm missing (I did spot that Elisa's teaching at Alighieri University), but my favourite was a non-Dante one, by Karl Schlecta: “Scientists are not after the truth; it is the truth that is after scientists”. Coincidentally, this is the opening quote for a children's book I picked up elsewhere and haven't yet read - Schlecta (whose name appears subject to some variation in spelling) appears to have been a Nietzsche scholar, but I can't find the quote on Google in any context outside the children's book.

Walter Tevis. The Hustler.
The Queen’s Gambit is one of my favourite books (admittedly this is a rather large category), and I’m also fond of pool, although without being particularly good at it. This is a beautifully constructed novel about Eddie Felson, a pool hustler who comes to Chicago to take on the legendary Minnesota Fats, and in the course of a night beats him – at first, and then throws it all away. And then he attempts to put himself back together, with the indifferent help of Sarah, an alcoholic and an Economics masters’ student, and Bert, a helpful man with connections and views about winners and losers.

I read the introduction to this (by Al Alvarez) after finishing the story, and – hmm. He thinks the ending is happy. I think it’s very much acknowledging the impossibility of winning in the world Fast Eddie lives in, and as such is actually quite depressing. I haven’t seen the movie, tho’, which Alvarez specifically contrasts with the book, and maybe that’s altering either or both of our perceptions. I read it as a downer version of The Queen’s Gambit – both stories end with the acknowledgment that their respective games will continue, and what the costs of winning are, but Beth is far more certain than Eddie. And at some stage I must track down The Colour of Money, and see if Tevis agreed with me or Alvarez.

Hsu-Ming Teo, Love and Vertigo.
Grace Tay’s mother kills herself by jumping from her brother’s high-rise apartment in Singapore. Grace, who came to Sydney from her birth country of Malaysia with her family (originally Singapore Chinese) flies back to Singapore for the wake, and the unravelling of her own and her parents’ pasts.

The historical part of this starts with the Japanese occupation of Singapore, and then in 1969 intersects with the anti-Chinese riots in Malaysia. I found the working out of issues of identity, ethnicity and behaviour (both for the parents, and for Grace, growing up in the inner west of Sydney) fascinating, and the themes of transformation and what each character looks for in others (often mistakenly), and the tensions within the family are all very well done (food – as a gift, a duty, or a means of sharing experience – is also a crucial part of this). As is the writing – this won the Australian/Vogel award in 1999.

What didn’t work for me was the sheer unlikeability of the characters. I think of this as a characteristic of a lot of modern “literary” fiction – possibly resulting from the belief that something cannot be realistic if it’s happy – and possibly this is the sort of personal bias that meant I spent a lot of my English degree reading 18th and 19th century novels, where you were still allowed to enjoy yourself. In this book, there are too few moments where I actually feel for the characters, and so when they are unkind to each other (thoughtlessly or intentionally) it lacks enough contrast for me to care. There are exceptions – the event that finally pushes Grace’s mother to commit suicide did prompt an emotional response in me, but more importantly it made Sonny (Grace’s brother) react in a way that made me see him as a person with feelings. With Grace I think this is supposed to happen for me at the ending, when she’s talking to her father, but I haven’t liked her enough throughout the book for this to resonate for me.

(in an unrelated note, I obviously need to read more books set in places I’ve lived in, because I was thrilled to see all the little familiar bits of Sydney).

Also, I am fiddling with entry format. Let me know if it bothers you.