It’s very true that men as well as women nowadays feel pressured to attain the ‘perfect’ body, doubtlessly egged on by countless airbrushed images of models.  Indeed, I have sometimes perhaps overdone it in the gym in my desire to improve my physical well being.  However, there is a health aspect to gym going which Susie Orbach seems to rather overlook in Bodies, since a ‘healthy body makes a healthy mind’ doesn’t seem to be one of her mantras.  As a psychotherapist, Susan Orbach is more interested in the ‘talking cure’, and would appear to think it is the norm for the humanity to be quite inactive.  While it may be part the culture of the day for people to be physically unfit, this wasn’t so in the past, when there was a preponderance of manual labour.  In some ways, I think Bodies could be quite a dangerous book, in that it downplays the fears of a developing ‘obesity epidemic’.  While the levels of obesity may not reach the levels predicted in this current moral panic, there surely can’t be any harm in ensuring that the youth of today are more active.  Indeed, it’s only by having informed discussions about nutrition that we may finally be able to escape the vicious circle of a daughter being overly influenced in her eating by a mother’s constant dieting.  Susie Orbach does provide some fascinating case studies of individuals who have taken to sculpting their bodies to extremes (such as the former soldier who was convinced that life would be far better if his legs were removed below the knees, a case that could not be cured by talking).  Yet she doesn’t always provide the whole story, so we are left wandering what happened to many of the individuals in such circumstances.  Much of Bodies is quite repetitive, and I felt that it would have been a lot more concise and powerful if Orbach’s main points had been restricted to a long article rather than a book, as its current format did not sufficiently engage me.

This is an account by a young American missionary of his attempt to convert the Amazon tribe of Piraha to Christianity.  Daniel Everett always knew that this was going to be a challenge, as the Piraha have resisted conversion for centuries.  However, fired up by youthful enthusiasm, Everett thinks that he will succeed where others have failed.  The main reason for his confidence is that he is a highly trained linguist.  So, he and his family settle in the Amazon.  Yet it’s not long before they run into trouble, as his wife and children suffer from malaria, which Daniel misdiagnoses.  Although the Piraha and other local peoples are very helpful in his bid to save his family, Daniel shrugs off the suggestions that they may be suffering from malaria until it is diagnosed in the hospital in which he has sought aid.  Later on, Daniel and his family come under threat from the Piraha when an unscrupulous river trader gives them alcohol.  The Piraha, annoyed that this missionary may have attempted to deny them access to drink, become abusive to the point where Daniel feels compelled to remove their weapons.  Another fascinating episode is when Daniel is confronted by a massive anaconda in the river.  However, I was less enamoured by Everett’s comprehensive account of the Piraha language, which became too technical at times for me.  While I appreciate the importance of his work, in trying to record a language that is now only spoken by a few hundred people, it’s inevitable that all languages, even English, will one day die.  During his time with the Piraha, Everett plays an important role in preserving their way of life, by persuading the government to create a Piraha reservation, as they are as at much as threat as the indigenous people in are James Cameron’s popular movie Avatar.  The Piraha ultimately resist Daniel’s attempt to convert them, as they refuse any narrative (such as the Bible) that is not the testimony of living witnesses.  Instead, Daniel identifies with the Piraha so much that he loses his own faith.  Everett’s conclusion that the Piraha’s way of life is literally paradisiacal is the only part of the book that feels underthought though, as this is contradicted by episodes that display the more unsavoury aspects of the Piraha character.  Everett’s only mistake seems to be that by living with the Piraha so long, he has identified with them a little too much.  Yet one can very much understand why he would do so in such a vital environment.

This is a fascinating second novel from Bethan Roberts.  Kitty answers an advert in her local newspaper for a ‘good plain cook’, and while she is quite plain, she is not a good cook.  Her plainness is partly due to the fact that she is so young and inexperienced.  The advert had also called for her to be ‘broad minded’, so Kitty is not so shocked to discover that her employer, Ellen Steinberg, lives at the cottage with her lover, the poet George Crane.  Indeed, Ellen was the cause of George’s split from his wife.  No, Kitty is more disgruntled to find out that she may be required to do a little parenting for Ellen’s daughter, Geenie, especially as she believes that Ellen should be looking after her daughter herself.  Yet Ellen seems more preoccupied by the task of typing up the letters of her late husband. It’s not long before Kitty is entertaining the idea of romance with the other hired help, the gardener Arthur.  George is supposed to be writing his great novel, but seems more occupied by romantic ideals concerning the working classes, and it’s not long before he and Kitty begin to exchange admiring glances with one another… Geenie, who’s often been kept out of school by her mother, is quite lonely and seems quite naive as she begins to enter womanhood.  So, when George’s daughter Diana arrives, it’s not long before she gets embroiled in a plot to bring down the ‘foolish housemaid’ Kitty…  Bethan Roberts is very effective at bringing all the characters to life, as the narrative is told from a variety of points of view. It’s fascinating to discover that the novel is based on a period in the life of Peggy Guggenheim, the famous art collector. In its harking back to the past, and its theme of the relationship between the classes, The Good Plain Cook is worthy of comparison to Sadie Jones’ The Outcast.  Yet Bethan Roberts’ novel is far more understated, especially as few of the protagonists’ hopes and fears ever come to fruition.  You could almost describe this novel as being like Ian McEwan’s Atonement, but without all the histrionics!

This is a fascinating novel by Eli Gottlieb.  Nick Framingham is coming to terms with the death of his best friend, Rob Castor, who had seemed to have a stellar career in New York as an author.  Not only has Rob committed suicide, but he also murdered his ex-girlfriend Kate Pierce.  That would be traumatic for anyone, but Rob’s death is just the first in the series of dominoes that shatters Nick’s life.  Lucy, Nick’s wife, has problems with the fact that Nick seems to be absenting himself away from her and the children in the wake of his grief, and is none too impressed when he meets Belinda again, since Belinda was Nick’s first love, as well as Rob’s sister.  As his marriage disintegrates, Nick tries to engage with his children, but seems unable to loosen their bond to their mother in any way.  This stokes up memories of the distant relationship that he had with his own father.  The decline of Nick’s marriage is superbly dealt with by Eli Gottlieb as he takes Nick and Lucy on an all-too familiar journey.  As painful as their imminent separation is to Nick, this is nothing compared to the ghosts that rise up from his childhood, as old family secrets seem to threaten his whole concept of identity…  This is a beautifully related narrative, although one would have thought that one of the secrets concerning Nick’s past would have been revealed when he first started dating Belinda.  There’s much drama to be had in this novel from the death of the prudish conventions that were observed by the previous generation.  I found the scene that depicted Kate’s murder to be suitably poetic (since it involved writers as both assailant and victim).  Now You See Him is a very compelling novel that never fails to surprise in its relation of Nick’s deepest dark secrets…

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Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’ was the most anticipated novel of 2009, and was the literary event of the year. Alex Carmine examines all the themes in depth, and provides a chapter-by-chapter analysis of ‘The Lost Symbol’. From Alex’s assessment of the novel, it is very much apparent that Dan Brown has not only been adhering to his own formula, but that he has also been following Joseph Campbell’s concept of the hero’s journey. We know that Dan Brown likes to play with the names of his characters, so Alex explores these in great detail. In this way, Alex reveals the name of the real American family upon whom the Solomons are based. Alex also shows that, following its development within ‘The Da Vinci Code’, Dan Brown’s still very much in tune with his ’sacred feminine’ side, with his stunning representation of womb envy. Dan Brown’s fascinating depiction of masculinity within this novel is studied too. In addition to this, Alex explores the literary devices that Dan Brown employs, and the magical sleights of hand that he uses to make the reader look the wrong way. Indeed, one of the main arguments in this book is that Dan Brown has hidden much of the true meaning of ‘The Lost Symbol’ behind various veils of allegory, much as the Masons do with regards to their secrets, and like the Symbologist Robert Langdon, Alex reveals these meanings to you. However, Dan Brown is an author who also likes to reward his readers, so Alex examines the clues about the novel that he disseminated prior to publication via Facebook and Twitter. Furthermore, Alex considers the various Masonic practices depicted within the novel, and bring to the fore the conspiracy theories that surround this mysterious fraternity. Alex Carmine’s very close reading of the novel literally leaves no stone uncovered, and will transform your own interpretation of the text.  

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This specially extended e-book pdf edition of Dan Brown’s "The Lost Symbol": The Ultimate Unauthorized and Independent Reading Guide features wholly comprehensive coverage of the clues about the novel that Dan Brown placed on social networking sites prior to publication.  The build-up to the publication of The Lost Symbol is covered in much more depth.  The e-book edition also includes hyperlinks to websites that provide additional context for The Lost Symbol.

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The Metarevolution

Grant Bartley is the assistant editor of Philosophy Now.

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At the age of 22, Jack is going nowhere. Stuck in a New Mexico backwater, slicing dead cattle for a living, he is ready to seize any opportunity to make something of his life. So when his workmate Ed tells him about the $25,000 stashed in a bus station locker in San Francisco, and when he meets and falls for the beautiful De S’anna, a sweet Italian supernova of sweat and lips and purple-black hair, the two events propel him into a journey of love, drugs, madness and determination as he tries to make real those two seductive mirages, the accidental fortune and the perfect love. Christopher Neilan’s debut novel is a coruscating tale told in vibrant, visceral prose. Funny, sexy, poetic, thrilling and endlessly inventive, Abattoir Jack is a very impressive achievement.

Christopher Neilan began writing seriously when he realised it was unlikely that anyone would pay to hear him play guitar, and yet more unlikely that anyone would pay to hear him explain in detail his favourite Tom Waits songs.  He has been ‘working’ in TV comedy since 2005, when Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, writers of Peep Show, managed to get him a job on a sketch show.

He has written several short stories, has worked for producers Phil Clark (Peep Show) and Ash Atalla (The Office), and has been affiliated with a number of terrible short films (and a few alright ones).  He plays his guitar at night and works behind a bar.  He’s studying an MA and he does not have a car.  He’s moved three times in three years but he’s not moved very far. Christopher has a degree in Film Studies from the University of Kent, a diploma in Filmmaking from the Brighton Film School, and has one pair of jeans that fit rather well.  He lives in Brighton.

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Daniel Davies’ The Isle of Dogs is a brilliant debut novel that looks at the relatively new British phenomenon that is dogging.  Denis Robert’s Happiness concerns the affair between a writer and a young arts graduate, which depicts similar scenes of seedy sex.  In tone, it’s quite similar to a recent episode of the French crime drama Spiral II that looked at Paris’s swinging clubs, and maybe this novel was the inspiration for the episode. Happiness’s press release states the belief that this novel reclaims erotic fiction for men, but I’m afraid that it left me cold.  Its structure, which involves the man and woman relating their point of view on opposing pages, is innovative, but I’m not sure that it really works here, since both protagonists are hardly strong characters and are quite anonymous. Denis Robert probably did this on purpose, but it means that the reader has little invested in either of the characters, and doesn’t really care what happens to them. Although Happiness runs to 200 pages, it’s more of a novella in length rather than a novel, since many of the passages don’t fill a page.  Since the man is the writer, it feels very much as though he’s in charge, and it’s he who controls and perhaps edit the narrative that his lover writes, as he purloins the notebook from her bag towards the end.  Since her narrative continues after this, her thoughts towards the end must be constructed by the writer as they were at the beginning.  Although I only recently read this short book recently, I really can’t remember all that much about Happiness, as it didn’t leave much of an impression on me at all.

  Daniel Davies’ The Isle of Dogs is similarly structured, as Jeremy Shepherd’s narrative is framed by another writer, and it also involves the seedier side of sex.  This is where the similarities end, for where the tone of Happiness is quite draining, The Isle of Dogs is very fresh and raring to go in comparison.  It helps that the Shep’s first person narrative is far more engaging than those found in Happiness, probably due to the fact that his thoughts and feelings are more fully reported, and his story is far less disjointed.  As well as dogging, The Isle of Dogs concerns the preponderance of CCTV in the current British surveillance culture.  Of course, the irony is that one of the main points of dogging is to watch other people having sex, yet Shep and his colleagues always have to be on the watch out for the police that are out to spoil their fun.  Arranging liaisons on the internet is convenient, but it does lead to some surprising encounters, such as that between Shep and one of his work colleagues.  The Isle of Dogs, as the title perhaps suggests, goes beyond this to become a state of the nation novel, as it also deals with the fractious issue of immigration.  Despite the many sex scenes, Daniel Davies would never win the Bad Sex Award, as there is nothing that cloys in his depictions of these liaisons.  The Isle of Dogs also contains some wry, arch humour.  The only fault that I could find with the novel is that it does veer slightly towards melodrama in the end, but this really does not detract from this fantastic novel too much.

Although I’m a bloke, I am partial to a good, well-written romance.  On the outside, it would appear that there would be a lot in Crossed Wires to appeal to me.  For instance, I spent many years happily ensconced in Cambridge, where Peter, our hero, is based.  It’s also great to read a book where my surname – Mahoney – features, and is pronounced correctly for a change. However, I’m sad to report that beyond this, Crossed Wires didn’t enthrall me much at all.  Indeed, some of the crossed wires involved (i.e. Peter thinking that our heroine may be South Asian in descent) prove to be quite inconsequential, and perhaps get in the way of any romance too much.  A great deal of the plot is family based, which I’m sure will resonate more with readers who have young children, as Mina and Peter do.  However, I did lose track of who was who amongst Peter’s friends on more than one occasion. Indeed, some of the minor characters were possibily too well sketched out, as there seemed to be quite a few loose ends in the novel regarding them, which I found frustrating.  Since Mina and Peter hardly meet due to the crossed wires and the physical distance between them, there’s little actual romance going on between them.  No, Crossed Wires is more about the path leading up to romance; which is fine, as far as it goes, but this means that some of the drama and the passion of the relationship is rather absent.  Despite the fact that Peter and Mina know a lot about each other’s lives and families, the fact that they live so far apart means that the reader is uncertain that any lasting relationship will actually ever develop, despite the novel’s byline stating that ‘Sometimes love is more than an accident of geography’.  I wasn’t too keen on the rather dull, matt cover that Headline have done for this book either.  Don’t get me wrong, Rosy Thornton’s a very competent writer, it’s just that this romance didn’t spark for me.