Review: Little Bee by Chris Cleave

The marketing for this book is deliberately evasive on the topic of the plot of this book. The suggestion is that telling too much beyond the fact that something horrific happens on a beach in Nigeria will "spoil" everything for the reader. This kind of self-created hype ratchets up expectations for the book. And my track record with high expectations and the frenzy surrounding the books they are trumpeting as the next best thing to sliced bread is not a good one. I do much better with low key surprises that make me want to shout from the rooftops about a book's understatedness. Obviously that was never going to happen here given the paucity of information about the book itself coupled with the overwhelming number of vague laudatory comments concerning it. And I have to say that I think the secrecy surrounding it does the book a disservice which has no bearing on the actual contents but which affects the reader's experience of the book.

Opening with Little Bee in an immigrant detention center, one in which she's been for several years, this is the story of her experience in Britain after escaping the oil-greed fueled atrocities in her home country of Nigeria. Told with flashbacks to the events that led her to try and seek asylum this is a personalized account but also a sobering look at a massive political problem, one that offers few solutions. Little Bee, whose real name she hides, ever fearful, wants to find Sarah and Andrew, the British couple she met on a Nigerian beach one surreal day and amazingly, she does find Sarah, knocking on the door the very day of Andrew's funeral. In short order, it becomes clear that all of the characters in this novel have been profoundly changed by the senseless and apathetic violence they each witnessed that day by the ocean. Little Bee continues to run, examining every place she lands for ways to kill herself should she need to escape "the men." Andrew was haunted by his inability to sacrifice and ultimately unable to live with his failure. Sarah is numbed and reeling, reaching out for human connection but cannot feel its warm healing. Even Charlie, Sarah and Andrew's young son, as been affected by his parents' unconsidered vacation, donning the persona of Batman in order to save the world as he knows it, not understanding the futility of heroism.

The characters here are clearly delineated. Little Bee is preternaturally wise for her young age, which is perhaps to be expected given her life experiences. Some of the sections she narrates are a little overly self-conscious and over-wrought. Sarah is not as sympathetic a character, her motivations and actions less understandable than Little Bee's. I found Charlie to be a tad annoying and intrusive although certainly the safety of his world (leaving aside his father's death) is meant to contrast with the all-consuming fear rampant in Little Bee's Nigeria. Sarah's lover, Lawrence, while meant to be a voice of caution, seems to have a vested interest in Sarah's continued frozen existence and as such was not a terribly appealing character.

I know other people have raved about this book but I think that the novel itself is overwhelmed by the idea behind the book. It didn't help that I tend not to enjoy having the author or narrator address me, the reader, directly from the text, and that does indeed happen here. That said, the topics of immigration and asylum, our casual Western disregard for or outright denial of the atrocities occuring elsewhere are important and should be held to the light. Would I have raved about this book like so many others had my expectations not been stratospheric? I guess we'll never know. As it is, I liked it well enough but that liking comes with a thin film of disappointment. Most people will find this a revealing and amazing read and book clubs will find much to discuss if they, unlike my book club, are willing to go out on a limb and choose a book in which the entire plotline has remained cloaked and secretive.

In the interest of full disclosure, I bought my own copy of this book and several weeks later, the publisher sent me a copy as well.

Review: Independent People by Haldor Laxness

If you were being quizzed, how many of you, even those of you who are well read, could come up with an Icelandic author off the top of your head? I know I certainly couldn't have before being introduced to not only an Icelandic author but to THE Icelandic author, 1955 Nobel Prize winning author Laxness. This bleak, desolate novel of a poor sheep farmer ekeing out an existence for himself and his unhappy family can be a tough read. After all, it doesn't sound terribly appealing, does it? But it is far more than the plotline would suggest.

Opening the story with the recounting of a old myth, the reader first Bjartur of Summerhouses hiking to his newly purchased croft, which is reputed to be haunted by the characters of the myth. We see the measure of the man when he refuses to toss a stone on the cairn built to appease the mythic figures he disdains. And we know his hard-headed determination will not yield to anything, not to softness, kindness, foolishness, or truth. He has worked for 18 years to be able to put down a downpayment on a poor farm with only a small sod home/barn on it and a few animals but he feels richer than the richest man around. To this remote holding he brings first a wife, who gives birth to another man's child alone during a blizzard, bleeding to death in the process. Surprisingly Bjartur opts to raise the baby as his own, finds another wife (one who seemingly had little to no choice but to marry him) and fathers more children, only two of whom live past infanthood.

This is really Bjartur's story as most of the other characters are one dimensional, with the exception of eldest daughter Asta Sollilja. Life is hard and nature cruel but Bjartur continues to eke out an existence. There are great descriptive swathes spent on worms killing sheep and butchering animals and the like but somehow, they only add to the narrative. Like a homegrown sort of Odyssey, all experienced within a day or two's walk, the experiences and adventures of the bombastic Bjartur are all oriented towards a striving for home (and in Bjartur's case, of independence). Almost all reviewers have called this an epic book, and it does indeed feel epic. Echoes of poor farming settlers everywhere abound but there also seems to be something indescribable that is purely Icelandic here as well. It feels as if this must have been written under the lowering sky of sunless winters. And yet, I think it brilliant in a depressing, downtrodden sort of way. Probably not for all readers, as there is little (no?) joy to be found in the characters here. But for those who want to persevere, they will be rewarded with nuggets of truth.