Your week between the covers
01/06/2010
From the World Cup to Stalin's Russia, the best reads reviewed
The Lost Books of The Odyssey
Zachary Mason (Jonathan Cape)
World Cup Wishes
Eshkol Nevo (Chatto & Windus)
Africa United
Steve Bloomfield (Canongate)
Engineers of the Soul
Frank Westerman (Harvill Secker)
Inside The Wicker Man
Allan Brown (Polygon)
If you’re going to base your first book on a classic piece of literature, they don’t come much bigger than Homer’s Odyssey. US author Zachary Mason has done just that with The Lost Books of The Odyssey, a radical reworking of the epic Greek epic poem, and it’s a work of considerable ambition and no small amount of skill.
Eschewing the grandiose epic format of the original, Mason delivers 44 brief passages that reimagine Odysseus’ heroic journey, creating compelling and idiosyncratic snapshots of that world, getting under the skin of the familiar tale to reveal the human heart at the centre.
Less ambitious is World Cup Wishes from young Israeli author Eshkol Nevo. This is his second novel, and the story centres around four young men who have an idea while watching the 1998 World Cup final – they’ll all write down their wishes for the next four years then open their notes in four years’ time at the next World Cup final.
It’s a neat idea for a book and it allows the author to examine themes of friendship and betrayal, male bonding in all its forms. But ultimately there’s something a little underwhelming about World Cup Wishes, Nevo never really getting inside his characters’ heads enough to create a truly moving story.
Another book published to coincide with the World Cup is Africa United by Steve Bloomfield. Bloomfield is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya, and this fascinating journey across Africa sees him examine how football has often played a vital role in the society, mindset and politics of various African nations.
Visiting 13 countries, from Egypt to South Africa and Liberia to Somalia, Bloomfield has written a heart-warming and eye-opening account of the empowering nature of the sport. From child-soldier rehabilitation to minefield amputees taking part in a continent-wide tournament, it’s a moving tribute to the transformational power of the game, and a thoughtful examination of the flipside of football from all the glamour and glitz on show in South Africa next month.
Slightly more highbrow is Frank Westerman’s Engineers of the Soul. Westerman is a Dutch journalist, and here he merges investigative journalism, literary history and travel writing as he journeys across modern Russia to look at the legacy of literature under the Soviet Union.
Stalin referred to his high-profile authors as ‘engineers of the soul’ but as the Soviet dream collapsed their words became as much a prison as the labour camps of the totalitarian state. The tale is intriguing but Westerman occasionally gets a little bogged down in the details.
Finally, Inside The Wicker Man by Allan Brown, a comprehensively revised new edition. The book tells the definitive behind-the-scenes story of Britain’s most infamous cult horror film, which was dogged by strange rumour and bad luck. Brown’s research is meticulous and his prose self-effacing.
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