Another Erroneous Book Cover Judgement

I would probably never have picked up The End of Mr Y - let alone bought it - had Pseudonym Resistant not recommended it to me and that is mainly because of its cover, which is all red and gold, with a font reminiscent of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (not my thing) and the appearance of some kiddie, adventure/fantasy book. Plus, it has black-edged pages, although this is quite cool. In fact, as soon as I got the recommendation, I looked the book up online and determined that I might quite like it (on the basis of a one line description that it was a "thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time-travel" - the tag line didn't mention it was also about physics and philosophy), and set about finding it in a bookshop and its cover was very familiar - perhaps because I have been seeing it on the three-for-two tables in Borders for months now.

Finding new fiction has been an ongoing pain in the arse for me for the past year or so. While I could make myself read the old greats or assorted cult fiction I feel I ought to have read, I don't tend to enjoy these and usually race through them far too quickly to get much out of them, making up my knowledge on Wikipedia afterwards. I am swept up neither by the plot nor the characters, which means I might as well have stuck with non-fiction, which is at least interesting and/or educational and which has made up the vast majority of the past year's reading list.

Nor do I find aimlessly browsing the fiction section in Borders very profitable. Occasionally, I will come across something of interest but this is very much the exception; second-hand bookshops and market stalls usually have a more eclectic selection but even so, I haven't had too many serendipitous moments. Recommendations have been incredibly useful, then, and Pseudonym Resistant did pretty damn well with The End of Mr Y, even if certain aspects of the book hit home a little hard (presumably, intentionally so in terms of his recommendation).

The plot is hard to describe without giving too much away. Suffice to say that the plot is almost incidental as the reader comes to realise later on in the novel. For what it's worth, the book begins with Ariel, an impoverished and over-analytical English lit. PhD student, coming across a very rare book by the obscure Victorian author whom she is researching, which kicks off the aforementioned adventure of love, sex, death and time travel, as she tries to unravel the "curse" of the book as well as working out where the hell her supervisor has disappeared to, finding time to ponder on the nature of love, Schroedinger's cat and theology, among other things.

And I really liked it, so much so that I read it all today (this is the other reason I never have any fiction to read: when I find something I enjoy, I want to read it and to get to the end as quickly as possible). There are lots of chunks of magical realism - in fact, as I was reading it, it occurred to me that this was what I was hoping Gravity's Rainbow would be like. One of the reviews on the back of the latest copy of GR that I owned (and subsequently "freed" to make room for J Crew clothes) said something along the lines of, "Jump on this magical, surreal ghost train and you'll never look back from the rollercoaster ride, which crosses time and space, by turns hilarious and haunting."

Now, some might argue that I'm just too much of a philistine to truly appreciate such a great work as GR, whereas Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr Y is much more accessible and hence less rewarding to those of us not researching a PhD in magical realism. The Independent on Sunday review sez, "Mindboggling, brainy and playful. Stretches from theoretical physics to immensely dirty sex scenes, and packed with ideas." Although I didn't find the sex scenes all that dirty (my diet of Jilly Cooper has raised my smut threshold considerably), I would be inclined to agree. It certainly was a total mindfuck, although it's the kind of book that you only realise is going to be messing with your head for weeks to come when you're already halfway through and committed to reading to the end. Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park did that - it starts perfectly normally, lulling you into a false sense of security and then 50 pages later, you're sitting there thinking, what the hell is going on? Mr Y is a lot trippier than Lunar Park, although like the latter, the first few chapters of Mr Y do seem to set it up as your average mystery/literary thriller.

There's lots of clever, self-aware meta too: the role of the author and how - or if - the author can be separated from the book, various descriptions of the use of analogies in thought experiments, and a whole lot of philosophical spiel that it will probably take me some time to untangle. But then, like GR, Mr Y is populated by a wonderful, crazy, ethereal cast of characters, who often provide as much levity as they do hardcore theory. Naturally, the quirky juxtaposition of Ariel's constant referencing of her iPod, alongside her deep love for musty, ancient books, also appealed to me.

There are plenty of Livin' in the Future time travellin' paradoxes to worry about too but these are voiced by the characters rather than being plot holes (or, at least, rather than being plot holes that matter). I was somewhat irritated by the ending too (endings usually do frustrate me), but Thomas even puts a disclaimer about the ending in the acknowledgements, which makes it a little better. Besides, it was beautifully written, if not entirely satisfying (I don't think I would really have expected a different ending). In fact, the whole novel seemed to flow melodiously, sweeping me along with it, rather than washing over me (apart from some of the relativity - special or otherwise). In all, though, an interesting, thought-provoking, yet still entertaining read.

New York, Mon Amour

After looking forward to the release of Paris, Je T'Aime for months, I never got around to seeing the film, which is made up of 19 (?) short stories, one set in each of Paris's arrondissements, providing a patchwork quilt of Parisian life. Now, it seems that a new film (New York, I Love You) goes one better by doing the same thing for New York. It isn't due out until next year but there is already a teaser trailer online (featuring good, ol' Regina Spektor) and it looks pretty good. The cast is full of the bold and the beautiful too: Natalie Portman (who was also in the Parisian version), Christian Ricci, Kevin Spacey, Orlando "out-acted by the ents in LOTR" Bloom, Rachel "ew!" Bilson, Ethan Hawke and that hot Croatian guy from ER.

I thought I had read that Zach Braff was directing (he of the massacre of L'Ultimo Bacio) but he isn't listed on IMDb, although about ten people are including both The Other Boleyn Girl and her sister. Interesting. There is a good chance that it's full of cheesy schmaltz, just like Love, Actually, but maybe some of the stories will be genuinely poignant and charming instead of OTT.

It's about New York and so the chances of me enjoying it are pretty high, nonetheless. Roll on February...

Killing Time in WeToCoRo

It's been a long time since I entered those irritating lifts at Goodge Street tube station - eight years, in fact. Nice as the Fitzrovia-Bloomsbury interface is, I don't generally have much reason to visit this neck of the woods, apart from on my seemingly never-ending apartment hunt. Tonight though, the brother and his ex have booked into the crashpad and despite my protests, I ended up staying at myhotel Bloomsbury - "where east meets west" (I'm pretty sure the Hong Kong tourist board have copyrighted that phrase; you would think so given how liberally it is smattered across the entirety of Hong Kong and Kowloon, anyway). I like boutique hotels; the room is small but not cramped and has plenty of nice amenities - free wireless internet, flatscreen TV (if only I watched TV...), Aveda toiletries, art on the walls. The location - just off the Tottenham Court Road, near Goodge Street, is pretty good too, with plenty of restaurants, pubs and bars in the immediate vicinity, as long as you don't mind paying a premium for staying in the quartier of the media and the Mad Men.

Indeed, the last time I had time to kill in Charlotte Street was in 2000, when I was doing my work experience at an advertising agency. My parents decided that rather than commuting, they would pay for me to spend the week in an apart'hotel overlooking Trafalgar Square and so I would journey a few stops up the Northern Line, each day, to Goodge Street. It was quite a mad week, even for an ad agency of the Sterling Cooper calibre. One lunchtime was spent translating a brief into French, another listening to an amazing voiceover guy record an ad for Bell's whiskey, switching seamlessly between accents at a second's notice, another acting as an extra in the background for a TV ad (I can't remember the company; only that it involved the main actress swirling around and around with a huge umbrella in a square just off Charlotte Street), and another brainstorming ideas for an (apparently ill-fated) online climbing kit company, 9feet.com.

Even now, the ToCoRo quartier evokes random memories in me - oh, look, it's Heal's; that's where I had to run, urgently, one lunchtime to buy some item of overpriced home furnishing for a pitch. Charlotte Street was heaving, even though it was only a Thursday. I wanted to find some casual, low-key place where I wouldn't feel conspicuous as a lone diner; this proved impossible. For some reason, even though I have no problem roaming the world by myself, going to the cinema alone, eating breakfast or lunch out by myself, eating dinner - solitary - in a restaurant still scares me. I always think people are secretly laughing at me - the loner - when in reality, they haven't even noticed. Somehow, though, it's a psychological barrier I find hard to cross - from the "er, can I have a table for [cough], please?" / "FOR ONE?" exchange with the maitre d' to the way I feel I have to avoid ordering the cheapest food and wine, even if those were the items I most wanted from the menu, to avoid being considered a loner and a cheapskate by the waitstaff.

I did eventually overcome my nerves and find somewhere to eat. Most of the smaller places were full and much as I would like to try out Roka to see if it is as good as the reviews claim, I felt it was somewhere to save for a special occasion, or at least for when I had company.

I was about to concede defeat and sheepishly slink into Zizzi or Pizza Express when I spotted Bertorelli, which looked independent and although it was (founded in 1913, no less), it is now owned by the Chez Gerard group. Anyway, the large, fashionably decorated dining room was heaving but the friendly Aussie maitre d' found me a table somewhere I could people watch and scribble in my Moleskine without feeling as though everyone was watching me. I ordered a really nice glass of Pinot Nero (I should hope so, given that it was £6 for a 175 ml glass - Mad Men prices, clearly), which I sipped while writing another partial installment of the novel. My pizza - one of the specials - was a principessa (well, what else could a princesss order?), which was topped with parma ham and rocket and was much nicer than Pizza Express's nearest equivalent, even though it wasn't any more expensive. The puddings looked really good too - especially the panna cotta with chocolate-hazelnut sauce - but I settled for a double espresso, instead.

While not being an outstandingly special or romantic place for dinner, Bertorelli is fun and trendy and with a decent selection of puddings and wines by the glass, as well as the usual variations on an Italian theme for main courses - a decent and not too obscenely priced (apart from the wine) standby for when one is WeToCoRo on a Friday or Saturday night, without a reservation at Roka or Pied à Terre.

As for the night of hoteldom, in some ways it's nice to be able to slob around in a dressing gown and leave the place in a state and to access the interweb, but in other ways, it would be nicer to be in the crashpad where I have all my stuff and where there is a cable to plug my iPod into the speakers so that I am not forced to listen to Radio Slush (OK, I could find another station but it's been so long since I've listened to a non-internet radio that I'm not sure I can work out how. Besides, Jeff Buckley it might not be but If You Could Read My Mind ain't such a bad choon.

Ghosts of Nowheresville Past

After a dearth of fiction in my life for the past few months, the past five books I have read have all been novels, most of them enjoyable while none of them spectacular. I suppose that too much time spent reading non-fiction has taught me to become too much of a speed reader, skimming over certain paragraphs and details, in an attempt to get to the end of the book - and the next book! - as quickly as possible. Of course, my skim-reading skills also stand me in good stead for novels, too, but only those where the substance is more important than the style. I was almost entirely ambivalent about The Alchemist, for example - probably because I read it too fast and didn't take the time to lap up the language, while Dana Vachon's Mergers and Acquisitions - the tale of a mediocre i-banker in NYC, who seems to lead a charmed existence, which ultimately turs out to be far emptier than he had ever imagined - went down very well (OK, so any book set in New York is already starting out on a good note).

The latest book to add to my read-in-2008 list was recommended by Maman, which would normally have meant that I might not have bothered (she is an incredibly slow reader, taking weeks or months to finish a book I would have devoured in an afternoon or a nuit blanche, and so we tend to enjoy completely different types of novel): Rebecca Stott's Ghostwalk. I don't normally go for ghost stories/hauntings/supernatural/spiritual bollocks, but this one provided satisfactory alternative, rational explanations for some of the goings on.

The main reason I bought the book was because it was set in Nowheresville - in fact, you could say that Nowheresville was the biggest character although, to put it mildly, this ain't exactly the equivalent of New York in Bonfire of the Vanities. There were references to local pubs, colleges, story-telling punt chauffeurs, the fact that there are no mountains between Nowheresville and Siberia (hence the fact it's always damn cold), rowers, familiar street names - even my gym got a mention. The basic plot is that after Lydia's friend Elizabeth is found dead in the river outside her house, Lydia returns to Nowheresville for the funeral after years of escape in Brighton, only to hook up with her old flame, Cameron, who is Lydia's son, a brilliant neuroscientist whose wife eventually became too much of a strain on Lydia. Cameron hires Lydia to finish the book Elizabeth was writing about Isaac Newton, alchemy and some suspicious deaths in the 17th century - only the deaths seem to be being echoed in the present day (history repeating itself but not as farce here), as well as all sorts of other funny business, and Lydia must work out what Elizabeth found out before she died so that she can set old ghosts (metaphorical and - maybe - physical) to rest. After all, "you have to know the past to understand the present" - according to Carl Sagan, anyway.

Long extracts from the book Elizabeth/Lydia are writing are copied out in the novel but I couldn't be bothered to read them properly (and I don't think it affected my enjoyment of the book) but I liked the rest of the novel enough to plough through it very quickly. Although it is a thriller, it is hardly full of action scenes - in fact, much of the action happened 400 years before the story was set - and seems to move along langorously, carefully and very, very precisely, like a diligent historian might. Dry, detailed explanations of Newton's experiments in alchemy are juxtaposed with tender, bittersweet scenes between Cameron and Lydia. In fact, much of the book is told in the second person - Lydia is addressing Cameron, telling him her story - her whole story - for the first time, as though she is finally able to be fully honest and the effect is that an air of sadness hangs throughout, which you might expect in a murder-filled novel and yet, really, it is more a sadness for times past, experiences lost, memories faded and friends separated.

There are plenty of other sub-plots, themes and contrasts as well as the interactions, entanglements and oppositions of the past and the present - art and science, research and animal ethics, the logical and the supernatural, love and loss, friendship and fear - but in all, Ghostwalk was a pretty engaging read (not to mention the fact that it has characters and a plot - oh, and dialogue - all of which have been somewhat lacking in this year's forays into non-fiction).