Read Online The Modern Library by Colm Tóibín, Carmen Callil - Free Book Online
Authors: Colm Tóibín, Carmen Callil
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Jesus is a chimera, he barely appears. The novel dramatizes his absence and the presence of four other pilgrims in the desert, each carrying a burden of fear and desire. It focuses on Musa, a trader who has been left for dead by his family and who believes that Jesus has healed him; on his wife Miri, who is pregnant; and on their relationships with the pilgrims. The novel is written in a style of calm perfection, full of echoes of W. B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens, with a remarkable number of sentences in iambic pentameter. The physical sense of the desert is superb; Crace’s telling of the drama between the characters makes the book the masterpiece that his earlier books had presaged.
Jim Crace was born in north London and lives in Birmingham. His other books include Continent (1986), winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award, The Gift of Stones (1988) and Arcadia (1992). Quarantine won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1997, and was followed by Being Dead (1999), The Devil’s Larder (2001), Six (2003) and The Pesthouse (2007).
Age in year of publication: fifty-one.
Michael Cunningham 1952–
1990 A Home at the End of the World
This novel is narrated by four of its characters, and its considerable power and emotional force come from that sense of voice which governs contemporary American fiction. Here the voices of Bobby and Jonathan, old school friends; Alice, Jonathan’s mother; and Clare, who befriends both men and has a child with one of them, are compelling and haunting, full of a melancholy effort to make sense of things. There is a luxury in the writing which echoes F. Scott Fitzgerald; the narrative contains beautiful sentences, astonishing moments of insight and disclosure. The first half of the book, especially, has a rich perfection about it; Cunningham is particularly good on family attachments and entanglements. The early relationship between Jonathan and Bobby, their desire for each other, their early sexual encounters, are wonderfully described, and Jonathan’s mother’s observation of her gay son is superb. (‘I knew the bite and meanness of boys was missing from his nature.’)
In the end, as in all American fiction, the true hero of the book is America itself: its ability to change; the sudden, bright opportunities it offers to make money, to make friends; the beauty and variety of its landscapes; its ability to tempt us with hope and resolution. This is certainly one of the best American novels of the decade.
Michael Cunningham was born in Los Angeles, and now lives in New York City. A Home at the End of the World is his second novel. His fourth novel, The Hours , appeared in 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize. Specimen Days appeared in 2005.
Age in year of publication: thirty-eight.
Robertson Davies 1913–1995
1970 Fifth Business
‘I shall be as brief as I can, for it is not by piling up detail that I hope to achieve my picture, but by putting the emphasis where I think it belongs.’ The novel begins with a careful, precise and striking first-person account of a boy growing up in rural Canada in the early years of the century, his sharp intelligence and narrative skills, and perhaps bitter wisdom, cutting through the dark, conservative world of his parents and their village. Our narrator, almost to spite his mother, takes part in the First World War, and his matter-of-fact version of life in the trenches, of his own injuries and time in hospital, is disturbing and convincing.
But this is not a novel about childhood, nor is it a war novel. It is a novel about what happens then, after the drama of childhood and war. It is told in the shadow of four figures from childhood: Boy Staunton, who becomes a millionaire politician; his wife Leola, our narrator’s former sweetheart; Mrs Dempster, a minister’s wife, who goes mad; her son Paul, who becomes a magician (Davies loved the idea of magic). Our narrator’s sensibility makes him a sharp chronicler of the world around
Jim Crace was born in north London and lives in Birmingham. His other books include Continent (1986), winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award, The Gift of Stones (1988) and Arcadia (1992). Quarantine won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1997, and was followed by Being Dead (1999), The Devil’s Larder (2001), Six (2003) and The Pesthouse (2007).
Age in year of publication: fifty-one.
Michael Cunningham 1952–
1990 A Home at the End of the World
This novel is narrated by four of its characters, and its considerable power and emotional force come from that sense of voice which governs contemporary American fiction. Here the voices of Bobby and Jonathan, old school friends; Alice, Jonathan’s mother; and Clare, who befriends both men and has a child with one of them, are compelling and haunting, full of a melancholy effort to make sense of things. There is a luxury in the writing which echoes F. Scott Fitzgerald; the narrative contains beautiful sentences, astonishing moments of insight and disclosure. The first half of the book, especially, has a rich perfection about it; Cunningham is particularly good on family attachments and entanglements. The early relationship between Jonathan and Bobby, their desire for each other, their early sexual encounters, are wonderfully described, and Jonathan’s mother’s observation of her gay son is superb. (‘I knew the bite and meanness of boys was missing from his nature.’)
In the end, as in all American fiction, the true hero of the book is America itself: its ability to change; the sudden, bright opportunities it offers to make money, to make friends; the beauty and variety of its landscapes; its ability to tempt us with hope and resolution. This is certainly one of the best American novels of the decade.
Michael Cunningham was born in Los Angeles, and now lives in New York City. A Home at the End of the World is his second novel. His fourth novel, The Hours , appeared in 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize. Specimen Days appeared in 2005.
Age in year of publication: thirty-eight.
Robertson Davies 1913–1995
1970 Fifth Business
‘I shall be as brief as I can, for it is not by piling up detail that I hope to achieve my picture, but by putting the emphasis where I think it belongs.’ The novel begins with a careful, precise and striking first-person account of a boy growing up in rural Canada in the early years of the century, his sharp intelligence and narrative skills, and perhaps bitter wisdom, cutting through the dark, conservative world of his parents and their village. Our narrator, almost to spite his mother, takes part in the First World War, and his matter-of-fact version of life in the trenches, of his own injuries and time in hospital, is disturbing and convincing.
But this is not a novel about childhood, nor is it a war novel. It is a novel about what happens then, after the drama of childhood and war. It is told in the shadow of four figures from childhood: Boy Staunton, who becomes a millionaire politician; his wife Leola, our narrator’s former sweetheart; Mrs Dempster, a minister’s wife, who goes mad; her son Paul, who becomes a magician (Davies loved the idea of magic). Our narrator’s sensibility makes him a sharp chronicler of the world around
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