Calypso, Cockroaches, Praxis

So much reading accomplished in the past month or so, and less time to find my blogs.  So, three short accounts of three books, 'yer' mixed bag of titles, and here goes:

Calypso by David Sedaris

Certainly a book to delight me for David Sedaris is a raconteur par excellence whom I have heard on Radio 4,.  He is an American humourist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay "Santaland Diaries." He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. Much of his humour is ostensibly autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his Greek heritage, homosexuality, jobs, education, drug use, and obsessive behaviours, as well as his life in France, London, and the English South Downs.   I have enjoyed the Sedaris radio series for years so was delighted when my Splinter friend Jan recommended the book.  Sedaris is at his best, for me, when he is on family stuff, notably his father! 

For good measure, here is what Amazon has to say:

If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny - it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's writing has never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumour joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet - and it just might be his very best.

What I say: Recommended.

Praxis by Fay Weldon
The only thing this book has in common with Calypso is the etymology of the title word, sharing as it does with Calypso, an ancient Greek origin.

I had not read any Fay Weldon before but this book fell into my pot because it was Shortlisted for the Man Booker and is therefore, for me, a 'set book'!  I could not possibly say in a short paragraph or two what the book is about or what I felt about it.  It is variously described as 'a powerful marvellous novel.... about madness, deceit and the will to survive' and perhaps most succinctly 'Fay Weldon has compressed in her account of the life of one woman an entire spectru of women's lives.'  

Praxis tells the story of a woman from childhood to adulthood. The book begins in wartime Brighton and follows Praxis in her various personalities - whore, adulteress and finally murderer. 

Praxis Duveen is a survivor. At five years old, in 1920s England, she is still innocent, the product of an unstable mother and a flighty father who abandoned Praxis and her half-crazy sister, Hypatia. As the decades fly by, Praxis experiences many incarnations, from prostitute to rape victim, wife to adulteress and eventually becomes the accidental leader of an international women's movement.

Now, from her dingy basement apartment, where she's attempting to write a memoir, Praxis tells about the story of her remarkable journey – peppered with more than a few detours along the way...

Now in her ninth decade, Fay Weldon is one of the foremost chroniclers of our time, a novelist who spoke to an entire generation of women by daring to say the things that no one else would. Her work ranges over novels, short stories, children's books, nonfiction, journalism, television, radio, and the stage. She was awarded a CBE in 2001. 

Do I recommend this book?  I actually found Praxis rather bleak and depressing.  It really did lower my mood whilst reading it.  The book seemed to contain no joy, other than the sexual gratification which Praxis derived from her various relationships.  And even there joy might not be the most apposite word to use.  However, it was one of those books that reads itself, and is a social document of the period that it covers.  

Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo

I like Jo Nesbo's thrillers.  So, evidently, do the Norwegian people.  More than 3 million copies of his novels have been sold in Norway, which has a population of 5,300,000.   

His novels have been translated into over 40 languages. He has his official website

https://jonesbo.com/

and is best known for his protagonist, the Oslo detective Harry Hole.  His books are listed in publication order here:

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/jo-nesbo/

Synopsis: Detective Harry Hole arrives in steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It’s clear that the Ambassador’s family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk. 

When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated. The man who gave him the tape goes missing, and Harry realises that failing to solve a murder case is by no means the only danger that faces the unwary.  But in an unfamiliar city, who can you trust?

I enjoyed it.  It was time to read a thriller and this fitted the bill.  That's it.  

The Leopard

The Leopard by Jo Nesbo

Jo Nesbo is a Norwegian writer, musician, and former economist and reporter. As of March 2014, more than 3 million copies of his novels have been sold in Norway, and his work has been translated into over 40 languages, selling 30 million copies worldwide.  He is known primarily for his crime novels featuring Inspector Harry Hole.

Following the traumatic Snowman case,  a forerunning novel featuring police inspector Harry Hole, Hole  has exiled himself in Hong Kong. Kaja Solness, a new Norwegian Crime Squad officer, tracks down Hole and asks for his help investigating possible serial killings in Oslo. Hole is convinced to return when told that his father, Olav, is seriously ill and will not live much longer. Hole returns to Norway to find that the Crime Squad is in the middle of a power struggle with Kripos and its power-hungry head, Mikael Bellman, who seeks to puts his agency in sole charge of the country's murder cases. Hole finds himself the target of Bellman's hostility, though Bellman is keen to take credit for the result of Hole's work. 

Goodreads says:
In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the city streets. His victims are two young women, both found with twenty-four inexplicable puncture wounds, both drowned in their own blood. The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options. There is only one man who can help them, and he doesn't want to be found. Deeply traumatised by The Snowman investigation, which threatened the lives of those he holds most dear, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong's opium dens. But with his father seriously ill in hospital, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when a third victim is found brutally murdered in a city park.

The victims appear completely unconnected to one another, but it's not long before Harry makes a discovery: the women all spent the night in an isolated mountain hostel. And someone is picking off the guests one by one. A heart-stopping thriller from the bestselling author of the The Snowman, The Leopard is an international phenomenon that will grip you until the final page.  

Compared to the other novels in the series, The Leopard has a more cinematic and action-oriented style, taking place across three continents. The Leopard also contains excessive violence. Nesbø has expressed regret for a couple of scenes in the book.  

What I thought:
As with the Nordic Noir genre of tv series, I enjoy crime thriller literature located in Scandinavian settings.  The chill and dark of the northern landscape and the gritty temperaments of the characters in those landscapes add to the brooding atmosphere in which the detective action takes place.  The Leopard is a fat paperback, some 600 pages in length, and I did find the novel was a shade longer than it needed to be with one or two red herrings leading to false endings as bit by bit all possible candidates for the killer were dangled in front of the reader and then ruled out.  All the same it was a good read and at the time of reading, the violence in the narrative did not particularly strike me as more excessive than that which I have come to expect of a Nesbo crime novel.