June Reads

I’ve had To the Dogs on my shelf since it came out at the start of the year but other things kept getting in the way. Blending the murky Glasgow underworld with the towers of Glasgow Uni, this is a cracking story of a man trying to escape his past but never quite succeeding. It’s a page turner, as all Louise’s books are, but she’s up to something new here. One of the usual rules of crime fiction is that all loose ends should be tied up but—no spoilers—that isn’t the case this time. One thing I’ve never really liked about crime fiction (and thrillers in general) is closure: it always feels too unreal. Life rarely has closure and many of these stories are supposed to take us into the “real” world where we might get mud on our boots and blood on our hands. To the Dogs feels real, as in actually life-like, and that appeals to me a lot. I won’t say more because spoilers, but Louise can be heard talking about the book on the excellent Scots Whay Hae podcast here.

Talking of blood on hands, Val McDermid—another brilliant Scottish crime writer—has joined the Darkland Tales series (long-time readers will know all about this, novellas about Scottish history written by some of the best Scottish writers out there) by reclaiming Queen MacBeth from Shakespeare’s libel. Taking what we know of the real MacBeths, McDermid tells the start and end of Gruoch’s (Lady MacBeth’s real name) journey to the throne. In reality, the MacBeths came to the Scottish throne through far more honourable roads than Shakespeare invented, and ruled well for more than two decades. Both a love story and a rollicking adventure across the Highlands, this is another brilliant addition to the series (the fifth so far).

I’m working on an academic paper about Murakami (it was inevitable really) and this book by Jay Rubin, one of Murakami’s translators, has been invaluable. It’s probably not all that fascinating to just sit and read unless you are a real Murakami obsessive (I go through cycles with his work but generally I’ve cooled on him a lot of late, something I touch on in my paper) but it’s a fun glimpse behind the curtain of publishing, translation, and writing…

…as is David Karashima’s Who we’re Reading when we’re Reading Murakami. Karashima is himself a translator and this book is something of an attempt to shine the spotlight on the art of translation through those, like Rubin, who have translated Murakami. Some of it is real nitty-gritty stuff about translation, editing, and especially abridging, which I find interesting but is pretty nerdy. It only goes up to the publication of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, so isn’t hugely helpful for my paper but worth reading nonetheless if people talking about Murakami is your bag.

The new edition of Michael Azerrad’s biography of Nirvana is unexpectedly wonderful and, from a writing point of view, experimental. Originally published in 1993—before Kurt’s death—I never much cared for Come as you Are. It was pretty good on the backstory—early band members, Kurt’s life growing up—but as it came out in the middle of the story (even then it was obviously the middle of the story, just no one knew how it would end) and it was done with the full cooperation of the band and Courtney, I always felt it was pulling its punches. Turns out it was. What Azerrad means by “amplified” isn’t that there’s more detail—I mean there is, but that’s not what’s interesting—it’s that he is explicitly commenting in the text on the early version of the book. The text now is presented in normal type and in bold—bold being the original version of the book, normal being the new text—and what this amounts to is the literary equivalent of the DVD commentary track. He corrects himself, he comments on his own naivety, he’s honest about deliberately leaving out some of the scandalous details that came up in the course of his research, he makes fun of his own writing, and—movingly—he dwells on the number of times Kurt mentioned suicide that he never picked up on in the moment. This kind of revisiting may have been done before but I’ve never seen it done quite this way. New editions are common as new details emerge, but usually the text is overhauled, the old errors tossed out. Yes, this is a very detailed study of the band that reads much better with some distance from events, but it’s also a brilliant exploration of the realities of journalism, the tightrope you have to walk between being honest and ensuring access to your subject continues (the stories of Kurt’s reactions to journalists that “crossed'“ him are chilling), and how to maturely face up to your own mistakes and shortcomings as a writer and researcher. Nirvana aside, Azerrad has done something wonderful here with the biography form.