Silverland by Dervla Murphy

Oh dear, I didn't finish this one, not because it was not well-written, but because the locale was so boring! I first heard about Dervla Murphy when she was interviewed on CBC Radio. She's an Irish woman who has travelled all around the world in mostly exotic or barren locales either on bicycle, pony or on foot, and some of her adventures were amazing. The travel theme was chosen for our first Book Club meeting this fall, so I tried to get her first book which relates her solo trip by bicycle from Ireland to India; however, I mistakenly gave the library the sub-title rather than the title of the book, so weeks went by and in desperation, I ordered her most recent book from Chapters. This is the book I've just set aside. Murphy is travelling through Siberia by train- she began the trip a year previous, but broke her knee and couldn't continue, so this book relates the continuation of her journey. But such a barren landscape- snow and ice everywhere, boring industrial cities, pompous bureaucrats at every turn, surly hotel-keepers, terrible food in many cases- I'd consider this the trip from hell! However, she did meet many interesting people, and I did learn about the various peoples who make up Siberia- they're not all Russian, but there are native-type people called Ewenk and another one I forget just now. So I read some 150 pages, but the history is boring, there are few sights, and I just didn't relate to it at all. One city she says she fell in love with because no cars were allowed! Anyway, I'm not completely giving up because, having discovered my mistake with the title of the book I originally wanted, I've ordered it from Inter-Library loan. We'll see!

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

The nameless narrator of this book, a very contemporary young man, is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what appears to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns all over his body. As he slowly in recovers in hospital, and facing the thought of living what remains of his life as a monster in appearance as well as in soul, a beautiful sculptress of gargoyles named Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists they were once lovers- in medieval Germany. Over the course of his stay in hospital, she tells him stories of their past life, as well as stories of deathless love in four other countries. The narrator becomes addicted to morphine, which is depicted in the story as a snake which has coiled itself around the base of his neck.

This was an excellent read - one that's been on my list for a while. There are some very explicit scenes as the narrator describes his career as an actor in pornographic movies, and I sometimes wondered where all this was going, but it ended up being a voyage into his soul. The stories of their past, and the four related narrations were very well told, and my interest only waned a little when Marianne is creating gargoyles at a frenetic pace, because she knows when she completes the last one, her life will be over. During this time, he is rehabilitating himself from the morphine, so many of the characters in those four related stories show up in his drug dreams.

Davidson is Canadian, this is his first novel, and it took him seven years to write it!

Too Close To Home- Linwood Barclay

A thriller which I read in one day- couldn't put it down!  A family of three is murdered while a neighbour friend is hiding in the house, but is it the neighbour's family who were the true targets?  Easy to read, yet not juvenile in the writing, this was a good way to spend a quiet Friday.  I even read it during commercials while watching Tiger at the PGA!

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Zafon is an excellent story-teller whose first novel, The Shadow of the Wind, I thoroughly enjoyed, so when I heard about his second novel, I wasted no time in purchasing it for my birthday.  I found time throughout the rainy days we had to read it, and I found it thoroughly engrossing. He is a wonderful story-teller with a great sense of colour and mood: the novel is set in 1930s Barcelona - the predominant colours here are black, grey and white- there's lots of rain, mist, shadowy homes, eerie public buildings, scenes  in which there is lots of rich detail, only to be re-visited and find them abandoned for years.  The narrator is David Martin ( with a Spanish accent on the "i") , a writer who finds himself contracted to one Andreas Corelli to write a new religion, even as he is ghost-writing a novel for a rich friend, and trying to finish one of his own for some shady lawyers who have him also under contract.  David lives in a huge mansion which has always fascinated him, a place full of old smells and hidden rooms, mysterious visitors, and one which is visited frequently by three police officers, who think David is responsible for some murders they're investigating. The highlight of the book for me is his visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which also appeared in Zafon's first novel, and it is here he finds a book which leads him to discover the truth about the former inhabitants of his home. I can't say whether I completely understood what was happening- there were lots of odd twists and turns, and I ended up wondering how many of these characters, including David, were actually alive, but it didn't matter: I enjoyed the ride!

The Third Man Factor by John Geiger

"The Third Man Factor is an extraordinary account of how people at the very edge of death experience a sense of an incorporeal being beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive" (book jacket)

The book relates the experiences of 9/11 survivors, mountaineers, divers, prisoners of war, sailors, aviators, and astronauts, all of whom have escaped traumatic events to tell similar stories of having sensed the close presence of a helper or guardian. 

The incidents themselves are fascinating, and, if nothing else, reveal the strength of human beings to survive, and their resilience. The most famous, of course, is the Shackleton Experience of hiking across the Antarctic under harrowing circumstances but with the unwavering conviction that there were not two men travelling, but three, one of whom was always at Shackleton's right, not always visible, but an unseen presence.

Geiger discusses how in the early years of Christianity, monks and hermits retreated to the desert to seek spiritual renewal and communion with God through fasting, self-inflicted pain, meditation and prolonged prayer.  He also cites the vision quest of the tribal peoples of Africa, Asia and North America. the phenomenon of angels ("humans can indeed perceive disembodied entities") He also explains how humans seek out company: we are social beings and we need one another.  Monotony and extreme physical exertion are the enemies, and the knowledge of a presence nearby can be a tremendous motivator to survive. It can also be a ghostly apparition, a manifestation of a guardian angel, or hallucinations brought on by medical conditions like low blood glucose, high-altitude cerebral edema, or cold stress.

Geiger sets out to explain what neurological research has found. A scientist named Critchley was the first to seriously study accounts of the Third Man among the normal population and he was certain that its origins lay not outside the body, but within.

In 1976, Julian Jaynes, an American psychologist provided a context in which the Third Man could be viewed as the product of brain processes.  Until 3000 years ago, the human brain was divided into a right-brain "god-side" which appeared like an omnipotent being who dispensed advice and commands, while a left-brain "man-side" listened and obeyed.. "These voices are always and immediately obeyed.  These voices are called gods.  To me this is the origin of gods.  I regard them as auditory hallucinations."

External triggers such as extreme stress, cold, hunger, thirst are factors involved in appearances by the Third Man, but there is also an internal variable: an openness to experience, which Geiger calls the "muse factor": a person's willingness to explore, consider, and tolerate new and unfamiliar experiences, ideas and feelings."

The Third Man could also be a doppelganger: "an extension of one's own corporal awareness into extracorpoeal space". This is probably closest to my own interpretation of the Third Man: a presence that comes when the traveller most desperately needs it.  The mind creates another persona which aids and supports, not necessarily delivers, but reaches those areas of the psyche which facilitate survival and endurance. "The explorers and survivors in this book had pushed them to the bare limits and they reached the point of sufficient extremity to have experienced an additional unaccountable companion on their journeys."

Time and again, these people who experienced the presence of the Third Man, are convinced that the experience was produced by the brain as a coping mechanism.  Its origins were within, not without. "This benevolent being exists not outside of us, but within.  It is a real power for survival, a secret and astonishing capacity of mind, part of our social hardware. I call it the angel switch...It's the ultimate and quite beautiful example of how we are social animals- that in our time of deepest solitude and needs, our brain or mind finds a way to reassure us that we are not alone, and that fellow-humanity feeling is what ultimately makes the difference between life and death"

Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor

I browsed my own shelves for something to read over the days leading up to and after David's wedding: an unusual exercise, because supposedly every book is on my shelf because I want to read it- the only question is "What do I want to read NOW?"  So I decided on Stanley Park.  Caryn, at Smoothwater, was reading this when we first visited there, and I could see as I was reading it, why she enjoyed it- I do recall her telling us that only that morning a new worker had accidentally run over a small animal- I don't remember what- and she had come out to find the animal was still warm, and it was marinating in her kitchen ready for eating that evening.  My stomach twinged a bit when I heard that, and as a group we decided we wouldn't tell the other girls about her comments.

Now I know why, because in this book, Jeremy, a Vancouver chef who's opened a new restauarant, who also has connections to the homeless in Stanley Park, changes the opening night menu.  I quote:  "...a dozen plump Canada geese, a dozen grey rock doves, six canvasbacks, four large rabbits, fifteen grey squirrels, four huge racoons, and a huge swan".  At this point, wasn't I happy this was fiction?  The fish course was to include goldfish, flatfish and periwinkle.  The menus, of course, would not state the true source, so needless to say Jeremy got himself into a pile of trouble.

The novel was also too long - some 475 pages.  There were interesting side-plots, and I had nothing else to read with me, so I trudged through this, and skimmed through the last 50 pages or so. 

Yuck...