Books Reviews
CRIME DRAMA
CORMAC MCCARTHY No Country for Old Men (Picador) O...
Seven years since his last novel, Cormac McCarthy pares back his poetical evocations of landscape and squeezes philosophical enquiry into a fistful of platitudes about moral decay, but otherwise, this is violent, bloody business as usual. Calculatedly thrilling, McCarthy’s latest work unapologetically bends the reader towards the conventions of generic crime fiction and it’s no surprise that the film rights have already been snapped up. Relentlessly deterministic in its biblical darkness, there’s a murderous impetus that arrives on page five and approaches glorification throughout, yet remains the right side of parody thanks to some cracking one-two punch dialogue and a memorably amoral villain.
Set some time in the 19805 along the Texas-Mexican border, the novel turns on the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad, when hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers a scene of bullet-strewn vehicles, bodies and $2m. He absconds with the money but guiltin returns with water for one of the dying men, ensuring his trail is picked up. Like Moss, Sheriff Bell is a little out of time (the escalating drug trade far more than he can handle), the book’s human heart who has seen the doors of hell thrown open on his watch. Chigurh though, is the angel of death himself, a psychopath with a cattle gun and a broader conception of fate than any of his victims.
This isn’t McCarthy at his best, as one motel shootout simply blurs into another and the female and Mexican characters stay underwritten, but it’s brilliantly tight and seldom less than terrifying. (Jay Richardson)
. ‘4 L [of n "
ICONIC BIOGRAPHY JEREMY SEAL Santa: A Life (Picador) O.
mind. in reality Jeremy Seal plays this lengthy book straight throughout. running in tandem his own experiences of the beardy present-bearer With his attempts to
trace his origins across the world. The travelogue pieces and family scenes make for a pleasant and Witty diversion. and the subtext of St Nicholas moving from religious
A biography of Santa? While the idea may
sound like the product of a pointedly satirical
30 THE LIST ii- i / Nov 9005)
icon to catch-all capitalist figurehead does make for interesting reading. However. perhaps in tribute to the book's subject matter. you'll need the patience of a saint to wade through the dry — although undoubtedly fluently written and meticulously researched — historical details. The facts. figures and paintings may be a good weapon for anyone confronted with a sceptical child (he exists because it says so here. OK?) but like a badly-cooked Christmas dinner. this is a well-intentioned but often indigestible test of endurance. (Emma Newlands)
POP PHOTOGRAPHY MARK HAYWARD & KEITH BADMAN The Beatles Unseen (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) O...
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Saying that you have managed to uncover something new about the world's biggest ever band is quite a boast to make. While the mammoth Anthology TV series and accompanying book told the Fab Four's story from start to finish in gynaecological detail. this book is altogether different. The photographers are not always your traditional snappers as memorabilia collector extraordinaire Mark Hayward has gatlxered shots from a myriad of sources (fans. passers- by. Beatles staff, even
the band themselves) and brings together a variety of perspectives. Dipping into select moments of the band's lives. recording moments on and off duty — many of which are often awkward. unprepared and with varying levels of competence — only adds to the compelling nature of the book. It does actually feel like you're gaining a real insider's peep and The Beatles Unseen offers probably the only view of the Quarter hitherto unviewed. And whether you're a fanatic. a collector or curious voyeur. it is well worth a look. (Mark Robertson)
COMING-OF-AGE DRAMA JOHN LYNCH
Torn Water (Fourth Estate) .00
With this. his debut novel. Irish actor John Lynch seems to have created a work that would perfectly suit a big-budget screen adaptation. As with many Hollywood discourses on life in Ireland. it's filled with colourful characters. drunken escapades and deep-rooted familial guilt. with the Subject of sectarianism also emerging. Yet the story is also told in a somewhat sombre and occasionally over- emphasised tone — Lynch filling the first few pages with a dizzying amOunt of combating metaphors before his characters find their feet — that promises you won't break into laughter reading it on the train.
Given the subject. however. that's hardly surprising. Seventeen- year-old James Lavery was just eight when his father died. and the intervening years have chipped away at the
heroic image he held of him. as well as his mother's sanity and his own pubescent desires. It's actually an intimate and successful novel. but not one to cheer up the cold winter days. (David Pollock)
KIDS COMEDY RICKY GERVAIS
More Flanimals (Faber) CO
Fl‘é'inimals
Ricky Gervais and illustrator Rob Steen's followup to their 2004 foray into the flanimal kingdom is every bit as disappointing as its predecessor. Until how. flanimals were a garish and undiscovered species and seem to be related to mini trolls. red onions. crabs. diseased amoebas and dinosaurs (not necessarily in that order). Basically. this is a showcase of Steen's gross larceny of the complete works of Gary Larson and Gervais' love of nonsense words and verse ('this raknid scrabrapnor is the angriest maddest ripper-flan in the universe'). childish vulgarity and Top Trumps.
While the conceit behind this second (and hopefully final) gallery of filthy muc0id freaks is admirable -. in that it encourages children to experiment with language and form — the whole thing loses its lustre by about the third page. Some of the receipts for this book are going to charity so perhaps criticism is a little churlish.
(Paul Dale)
HISTORICAL MEMOIR HA JIN
War Trash
(Hamish Hamilton) 0...
Yu Yuan is an educated and solitary Chinese combatant then POW in the Korean War who finds himself regularly caught between his communist and nationalist countrymen.