Tag: literary fiction

Book Review: The 7th Function of Language by Laurent Binet

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Funny, clever but challenging satire on French politics and intellectuals

7thfunctionAbout the Book

Publisher’s description: Roland Barthes is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van. It’s February 1980 and he has just come from lunch with Francois Mitterrand, a slippery politician locked in a battle for the Presidency. Barthes dies soon afterwards. History tells us it was an accident. But what if it were an assassination? What if Barthes was carrying a document of unbelievable, global importance? A document explaining the seventh function of language – an idea so powerful it gives whoever masters it the ability to convince anyone, in any situation, to do anything. Police Captain Jacques Bayard and his reluctant accomplice Simon Herzog set off on a chase that takes them from the corridors of power and academia to backstreet saunas and midnight rendezvous. What they discover is a worldwide conspiracy involving the President, murderous Bulgarians and a secret international debating society. In the world of intellectuals and politicians, everyone is a suspect. Who can you trust when the idea of truth itself is at stake?

Book Facts

  • Format: ebook
  • Publisher: Vintage Digital
  • No. of pages: 400
  • Publication date: 4th May 2017
  • Genre: Literary Fiction

To pre-order/purchase from Amazon.co.uk click here (link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme)

My Review (3 out of 5)

If I tell you this book is about the death of the author of ‘The Death of the Author’ (Roland Barthes) plus one of the character wonders if he’s just a character in a novel, you’ll understand we’re well into metafictional territory here.   This is a funny, clever novel but at times it is a little too knowingly clever. Furthermore, if you have little knowledge of linguistic theory, its main players or French politics then I fear a lot of the jokes will be lost on you. This reader has a limited knowledge of linguistics from having studied for an MA in English but I reckon a lot of the satire and allusions went over my head.

As well as Barthes, there are parts for real life figures including Michael Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Sartre and Umberto Eco. Whether they would be flattered by their depiction as sex-obsessed, alcohol-fixated individuals constantly engaged in intellectual one-upmanship, I’m not sure.  Really, it comes across as a colossal payback for anyone who has ever had to struggle to understand linguistic theory or semiotics.

Think The Name of the Rose transported to the Paris of the 1980’s, with Inspector Bayard given the task of tracking down a document that reveals a previously unknown seventh function of language that will give the possessor unrivalled powers of persuasion (very useful if you want to become President of France). Bayard engages a side-kick in the person of linguistic lecturer, Simon Herzog, who attempts to help Bayard understand some of the concepts, with limited success it has to be said. Simon is probably the most engaging character in the book. I particularly liked the scenes where he uses James Bond films to explain linguistic concepts and decodes the educational backgrounds of drinkers in a bar from their gestures, in the manner of Sherlock Holmes with the man who loses the goose in ‘The Blue Carbuncle’.

I really wanted Julia Kristeva to be the culprit (and I’m not saying whether she was or wasn’t) just because I had to study her work as part of my OU course and found it almost impossible to understand.  Sorry, Julia.

In the end, the in-jokes and the satire rather overwhelmed the unravelling of the mystery so although I could admire the achievement and the author’s obvious erudition I couldn’t love this book. I admit I struggled through some of the passages.  I’d like to give a big shout-out to translator, Sam Taylor, who had to cope with some extremely abstruse linguistic and semiological concepts.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Random House UK, in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Satirical, intellectual, playful

Try something similar…Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

LaurentBinetAbout the Author

The son of an historian, Laurent Binet was born in Paris, graduated from the University of Paris in literature and taught literature in the Parisian suburbs and eventually at University. He was awarded the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman for his first novel, HHhH.

Connect with Laurent…

Twitter https://twitter.com/LaurentBinetH

Book Review: Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik

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boston

Tender story of the land, friendship and secret lives

About the Book

Publisher’s description: During the Second World War, Rene Hargreaves leaves her children with her aunt and boards a train without buying a return ticket, so sure is she that she never wants to see her husband again. Instead she starts a new life as a Land Girl on Starlight Farm. She finds its owner Elsie Boston and her country ways strange at first, yet as their relationship develops they become inextricably dependent on each other, long after the war has ended. When their shared life is suddenly threatened by a visitor who comes to stay and events that follow, they must begin to fight a war of their own against not just their community, but the nation’s press and the full force of the law.

Book Facts

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Pages: 320
  • Publication date: 27th April 2017
  • Genre: Literary, Historical Fiction

My Review (5 out of 5)

The story is based on the life of Rachel Malik’s own grandmother but, as she states, the book is ‘a fiction and not a speculation and it should be read as such’. Initially, it took me a while to adapt to the rhythm of the author’s writing style: ‘For they were all gone: two sisters married and third moved away; three brothers, dead such a long time ago – their names engraved on the memorial to prove it; her mother and her father as well’. However once I did, I really became immersed in the story and totally engaged with the two main characters, Rene and Elsie.

From the start, Elsie is an enigmatic character, cherishing her solitude and resisting intrusion from neighbours, seeing this as ‘encroachment’. At the same time, she has a ‘lonely power’ that proves strangely attractive to Rene: ‘Elsie wasn’t quite like other people, but that didn’t matter to Rene’.   Elsie’s strangeness is communicated in small ways, such as by gestures. When Rene first arrives at Starlight Farm: ‘She had offered her hand to Elsie, and Elsie had reached out hers but it wasn’t a greeting – Elsie had reached out as if she were trapped and needed to be pulled out, pulled free’. Gradually, they find each meets a kind of need in the other – Elsie, for companionship and a conduit to the outside world, and Rene, for refuge from her past: “Elsie knew that Rene fitted. A stranger to be sure, but one who didn’t make her feel strange.’

The development of Elsie and Rene’s relationship over time is tenderly observed without explicitly stating its nature.  Instead their growing mutual dependence is indicated by small things, like shared evenings listening to radio plays or the way they address each other: ‘A “we” was creeping into their talk, sometimes an “us”‘.  Eventually, Rene shares more details about her own history and the choices she has made. The War beings tumultuous change but also new beginnings for the pair. Then a figure from Rene’s past disrupts their way of life and brings with it grave consequences that puts their life together under an unwelcome and potentially life-changing spotlight.

This book is probably not everyone’s cup of tea (not that there isn’t plenty of tea drinking in it) but I absolutely fell in love with it.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Penguin Books UK, in return for an honest review.

In three words: Moving, tender, engaging

Try something similar…A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

About the Author

Rachel Malik was born in London in 1965 of mixed English and Pakistani parentage. She studied English at Cambridge and Linguistics at Strathclyde. For many years, Rachel taught English Literature at Middlesex University. Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is her first novel.