When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (translated by Adrian Nathan West)

It's been especially interesting following the International Booker Prize this year as the shortlisted books all take a creative approach to form, genre and narrative in telling their stories. This is certainly true in the case of Benjamín Labatut's “When We Cease to Understand the World” which inventively blends biographical nonfiction and fiction to describe discoveries made by several different male scientists and mathematicians of the 21st century such as Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger. 

Their intellectual revelations made fundamental advancements within their fields of study, altered our human perception of reality and provoked innumerable changes to our lives in ways we don't often think about. But, like any scientific advancement, this knowledge could be used for positive or negative consequences from alleviating famine to facilitating mass killing. The question of the relative “goodness” of any such discovery is tricky as well because if fertilizer is made so readily available it leads to the planet's overpopulation is that really positive advancement? On a personal level, these discoveries also led to many of these intellectuals experiencing a moral, spiritual or existential crisis. They became so overwhelmed by the consequences of what they found some turned their backs on society to become reclusive and/or actively tried to block their findings from being used. It's described how Grothendieck anxiously wonders “What new horrors would spring forth from the total comprehension that he sought?”

Labatut wonderfully dramatizes the details of these men's lives focusing on the toll such genius and knowledge takes upon the individual. By not sticking to biographical fact the author gets at the emotional truth of the dilemmas which attend such intellectual “advancement”. The narrative is so smooth and smart it's like deep secrets are being whispered to the reader by the coolest and most engaging philosophy professor at school. The prose are also so beautiful they have an enchanting and haunting effect. It makes these separate (and sometimes overlapping) tales compulsively readable. However, sometimes Labatut's embellishments can become a little too fanciful as these scientists become consumed with sexual compulsions or drug-induced hallucinations. I get that the mania which attends genius can also be felt and often might coincide with such extremes of experience, but it's also when I became overtly aware of Labatut shaping the narrative into a story whose need for a poetic arc supersedes the grainier stuff of reality. I felt a more effective scene was when an individual becomes lost in a fog on a desert island and we follow his painfully plodding efforts to find his way back to his accommodation.

Just as Stepanova's fascinating book “In Memory of Memory” seriously altered the way I think about memory, Labatut's more streamlined but equally thoughtful book has made me indelibly reconsider the real value of knowledge. Often we feel that if we can scientifically understand every aspect of the unknown we'll be able to control our lives and the world around us. But to exist involves so many chaotic factors and there are so many facets of reality which will remain permanently beyond our comprehension. Labatut shows with extreme but highly-telling examples how passing into a fuller knowledge of life can as easily lead to madness as it does to enlightenment.

Black Spartacus by Sudhir Hazareesingh

I always look forward to seeing what books have been listed for the annual Wolfson History Prize which consistently highlights quality new nonfiction. Since its publication I've had my eye on reading Sudhir Hazareesingh's “Black Spartacus” because of its strikingly beautiful cover and a curiosity about its subject of Toussaint Louverture, a man born into slavery who became a military and political leader of The Haitian Revolution which occurred in the late 18th century. So its listing on this year's prize gave me the perfect excuse to dive into this fascinating and authoritative biography of a man who Hazareesingh dubs “the first black superhero of the modern age”. Indeed, Louverture appeared to have almost superhuman powers as the author describes how this was a man who consistently subsisted on only a few hours of sleep and consumed a meagre amount of food yet led battles from the front and utilized his considerable intelligence to strategize methods to build a Haiti liberated from slavery. This book is a fascinating account about his spectacular rise to power, the enormous challenges he faced, the competing myths surrounding him and his enduring legacy as a black leader with strong libertarian values. Like Spartacus, Louverture used his strength, intelligence and cunning to rise out of his oppressed origins and galvanize his brethren to follow.

What most impressed me about Louverture's incredible story is how strongly this general held onto his values even after his rise to power. The challenge for anyone who comes to prominence is how to maintain that position without being corrupted by it. Though there were numerous politically-motivated slanderous charges against Louverture suggesting he only sought to increase his personal finances, Hazareesingh carefully unpicks these in this biography showing how they are false. The author admits how difficult it is getting to the truth about Louverture's life since much information has been destroyed and Louverture himself presented contradictory accounts of his life out of a need for self preservation. Yet, through careful research and convincing arguments about the logic of Louverture's actions, we can surmise that he primarily wanted to build an independent nation where the black and white population could exist equally while maintaining amicable diplomatic ties with the country's former colonial master.

Louverture was a devout Roman Catholic and the author describes the influence which the locally practiced Vodou had upon him as well. He was also educated in the political philosophy of libertarianism which guided his belief that individuals should be accountable for themselves. This inspired Louverture to draft a constitution and set in place regulations to maintain order and enhance the independence of Haiti. Though he seemed to continuously beat the odds and live through terrifying ordeals, it seems almost sadly inevitable that Louverture couldn't survive the forces lined up against him which led to his betrayal, arrest and imprisonment in France where he eventually died in 1803. Yet, his far-reaching influence persisted through the years not only for anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements but also in emphasizing “shared ideals of justice and a vision of citizenship based on common political values rather than ethnicity”. He's such a compelling individual so it felt somewhat frustrating at times that we can't know more about his personal life since so little solid information exists. Instead, Hazareesingh focuses more on the military history and political battles which are well documented. While this is understandable, it made this book a less emotionally involving story than I would have ideally liked. Of course, that's the nature of biographies which must necessarily be rooted in fact. It left me hungry to read some of the novels inspired by his life which Hazareesingh mentions towards the end of the book. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to read this passionate account of Louverture's life to learn more about this incredible figure and his enduring legacy.

It'll be exciting to see if “Black Spartacus” is named the winner of this year's Wolfson History Prize which will be announced in an online ceremony on June 9th at 6PM (BST) which you can watch here for free: https://www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/2021

In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova (translated by Sasha Dugdale)

At some point in life we all wonder about our family history. Who were these ancestors whose coupling through succeeding generations has unwittingly resulted in us? What do any surviving photographs, stories and momentos say about them and can we ever obtain a meaningful understanding of these lives from the past? Maria Stepanova has been trying to construct an account of her family history for a long time and become its narrator like a documentary filmmaker: “I would become a stranger, a teller of tales, a selector and a sifter, the one who decides what part of the huge volume of the unsaid must fit in the spotlight's circle, and what part will remain outside it in the darkness.” When her Aunt Galya dies she sifts through the belongings Galya left and discovers that “The meek contents of her apartment, feeling themselves to be redundant, immediately began to lose their human qualities and, in doing so, ceased to remember or to mean anything.” 

Thus, Stepanova presents us with memories, anecdotes, letters, diary entries and other documents alongside her journeys to significant locations from her ancestors' lives to form a loose picture of their past. In doing so we gain access to not only her personal family history, but Russian Jewish life over the course of the 20th century. There are innumerable accounts of this period of European history, but Stepanova brings a new perspective of rigorous enquiry into how we memorialise people from the past and how their narrative has been self-consciously shaped. More than this, Stepanova rigorously questions how we interact with fragments from the past and what memory means: “This book about my family is not about my family at all, but something quite different: the way memory works, and what memory wants from me.” The result is an utterly enthralling rumination on this subject which sheds light on what the past really means to us and the responsibility tied to the act of remembering.

Some books take me longer to read than others and this was one I really needed to be patient with – not only because it's 500 pages long but because the text contains such a density of ideas I often stopped to copy passages out, look up references or documents such as the short film 'Diversions' by Helga Landauer and ruminate upon the many dilemmas the author presents. She gives so much to consider when contemplating the meaning of memory and includes numerous scholarly, literary and artistic references through which to probe how we relate to the past. At some times it does feels too cluttered and that it could have been usefully cut down to streamline the points she's making. Of course, part of the point is: how do you begin to form a story about the past with the enormous amount of material which survives, especially when so many of these things don't really mean anything anymore? She elegantly summarises how “Pointless knowledge expands at an unstoppable rate: not like a building, which grows with the slow addition of floors, more like that terrifying wartime spring thaw when the bodies were slowly exposed by the melting snow.” But it feels like there's a lot to wade through before getting to Part 3 which beautifully summarizes her own unique mission to memorialise the story of her family. Though she concedes at the beginning of the book “I need to make it very clear at this point that our family was quite ordinary” I grew to feel real affection for them through some of the fragments Stepanova includes and her own reflections on deceased family members. There is so much which remains unknowable about these array of individuals including her young male relative who died in combat as part of the “ill-fated Sinyavinsky Operation” of 1942 or a female ancestor who studied to be a doctor in Paris. However, it's not answers about their lives but the abiding mystery which is what's important.

This book does something truly revolutionary. Rather than present dry historical documents which we inflict our imaginations upon to imbue them with meaning, Stepanova demands we grant a dignified independence to people who can no longer speak for themselves and not shape them into a desired narrative. At first this message felt too unsentimental and accusatory to me, but as I continued reading I came to more dynamically understand the moral implications of fixing people from the past within a certain story. How much of our family histories is true and how much embroidered with fiction? And how do we deal with the feeling that to recite the facts is dull but to fabricate is to deviate from history? It's given me such a new perspective on memory and family history which will continue to impact how I think about the past. At times, Stepanova risks sounding curmudgeonly in her point of view when she forcefully dismisses the prevalence of selfies or damns pornography as the lowliest form of documentation. I'd certainly not make a case for the lasting importance of either of these things, but she doesn't fully consider their broader meaning. While I didn't always agree with a number of the author's points, I've learned so much from this book and it's expanded my perspective on the enormous subject of memory. It's also encouraged me to take a more active engagement in my own family history and speak with my parents about where we come from.

This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

This novel introduces readers to the archipelago of Popisho, a fictional series of islands which form a nation of people possessed with magical qualities and real world concerns. The day begins with Xavier being tasked with preparing a wedding feast for an influential man's daughter. His special ability is being able to season food just with the palms of his hands. This is a super power I never knew I needed but think about how convenient it would be! No more rooting through cluttered spice racks. But Xavier also possesses the title of macaenus, a coveted and specially appointed position in which he prepares a once in a lifetime meal for every person exactly when they most need it. He's also haunted by his wife who died in the ocean and literally stalks the islands while her body gradually disintegrates. Wild enough for you? This is only the beginning of a fantastical journey infused with the awe-inspiring pleasure of dreams and the intensity of nightmares. At one point in the novel there's a magical burst which affects all the women on the island and their affliction is so shocking I couldn't believe what I was reading! I love that Ross has the courage to not only depict such a mischievous event but carry its logic through so we see how it results in chaotic transformation. This wondrous tale confidently leads the reader though the stories and lives of its vibrant characters to inspire, enchant and provoke thoughtful reflection. 

There's a lot happening in this novel with its large cast of characters, multiple plot lines and complex politics which the reader must try to keep straight while also becoming accustomed to the magical qualities which abound through these islands. But, even though I found myself racing to keep up at some points, there's a propulsive energy to this narrative which is so excitingly fresh and delightful that I was utterly mesmerized. The humour and charisma of its characters shines through in the vernacular of their dialogue. It's a book I'll eagerly enjoy returning to in order to better understand its intricacies and indulge again in the all-consuming sensory experience of it. If assigning novels to a genre is your thing “This One Sky Day” would comfortably sit under the heading of magical realism or speculative fiction. But, while such categories are useful to indicate the type of reading experience you will get, no one box will adequately describe the bewitching flavours and electric sensations this novel contains. The magical elements it possesses aren't indulgent flourishes but allow us to consider subjects such as love, addiction, corruption, grief, the legacy of colonialism, classism, sexism, homophobia and infidelity from an entirely new angle. As much as I appreciate a good realistic novel that stays true to the laws of gravity and the bone-dry ticking of the clock, I do love a story that fully embraces a boundless imagination to reshape the world into a thing of wondrous beauty. This novel made me see life in explosive colour again and I loved reading it.

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal

The 2017 cult hit film 'The Greatest Showman' inspired marginalized people about the solace that can be found by establishing your own community with others who don't fit in with larger society. But it also perpetuated a dangerous mythology about P.T. Barnum as a showman who wholeheartedly believed in this ethos and deeply cared about the welfare of the performers in his freak shows and circuses. Elizabeth Macneal's new novel “Circus of Wonders” presents a more complicated fictional story of such an impresario with Jasper Jupiter who in 1866 aspires to create a show that will eclipse Barnum in its success and draw Queen Victoria to attend. He does this through mercenary exchanges purchasing individuals with physical aberration from their families, tyrannically working his crew and making dangerous deals to enhance the spectacles. Though this egotist's circus is at the centre of this novel, Macneal primarily focuses instead on the points of view of two far more sympathetic characters. 

A young woman named Nell feels isolated in her community because of birthmarks which speckle her skin and, though she's kidnapped by Jupiter, she comes to embrace the circus' opportunities and the sense of importance which comes from being refashioned into a wonder known as the “Queen of the Moon and Stars”. But she soon realises that this isn't necessarily an empowering form of celebrity, her newfound freedom has limitations and the public's adulation has a sinister side. Jasper's brother Toby has always been the more awkward and less favoured of the pair. From an early age they hatched a dream of forming a circus together, but Jasper's ambition supersedes his brotherly love and there hangs between them a secret from their days being involved in the Crimean War. The complicated relationship between Nell and Toby plays out amidst the rise to fame of Jupiter's Circus of Wonders.

It's a dramatic and moving tale which delves into the moral ambiguities which arise when people who have been diminished by their families and communities seek to achieve independence through the only methods which are available to them. I have a natural affinity for tales of circus life and one of my favourite novels is Angela Carter's “Nights at the Circus” so I was instantly drawn into Macneal's story. As with her debut novel “The Doll Factory”, she has a wonderful talent for vividly creating a sense of history within her fiction and evoking how it might have felt dealing with the struggles that these individuals faced in particular periods of the past. By referencing iconic fairy tales within the novel, Macneal reminds us that these are stories of wondrous magic but they also have a dark heart and timeless lessons about the price of obtaining what you most desire.

Real Estate by Deborah Levy

It's easy to get drawn to looking at a real estate agent's window and dream of the ideal home you might inhabit. In this book Deborah Levy muses upon how she's done this too especially because her “crumbling apartment block on the hill” is far from ideal. But, rather than planning to acquire bricks and mortar, Levy more often muses upon what shape her “unreal estate” might take as well as the homes and possessions which might be included in her “portfolio”. This playfully allows her to imaginatively craft and mould a fictional space and habitation that's not anchored to reality. Moreover, it leads to more searching thoughts upon what it means to inhabit a life through a particular lens; in Levy's case as a writer, a daughter, a mother, a friend, a divorcee and a woman who is about to turn sixty. These autobiographical meditations obviously have a deep personal meaning for the author but they also speak to what it means to be human and the troubling question: how do we inhabit the present moment when we can so often be preoccupied by what we've lost and what we wish to have? 

There's a delicious exuberance to Levy's journey as she moves between temporary residences in Mumbai, New York, Paris, London, Berlin and Greece. This takes place over the course of 2018 as she's working on her novel “The Man Who Saw Everything” and it's so compelling to read about the images, themes, places and influences “David Lynch, one of the film directors who had most inspired my approach to fiction” which helped shape that book. The same was true of the previous instalment of Levy's memoirs “The Cost of Living” when she was writing her novel “Hot Milk”. The three volumes of what's been branded Levy's 'Living Autobiography' thus make up a fascinating commentary on the writing process and an invaluable exploration of the influences which fed into the creation of her unique novels. However, I have to admit, I favour reading Levy's memoirs more than the fiction itself which I admire and appreciate but don't love as much as reading about her thought process and endearing experiences. Deep issues to do with art, feminism and humanity are paired with humorous wit and flights of fancy which make the 'Living Autobiography' a delicious and richly enjoyable experience.

Somehow Levy makes the mundane and embarrassing things in life seem wonderfully glamorous. She collects an eclectic range of objects “Electric bikes, wooden horses and silkworms would be part of my property portfolio”. She makes drinks when people visit her by chilling glasses or squeezing oranges and she goes to great lengths to recreate a particular guava ice cream. She's the ultimate eccentric aunt whose party I want to crash as a shyly curious Patrick Dennis. Towards the end of the book Levy herself crashes a London literary party and has an unsavoury encounter with “a male writer of some note, but not in my own hierarchy of note”. It's delectable how she puts him in his place. Equally, she hilariously mocks the way we project images of our lives and habitations on social media: “Look! Look on Twitter: our ducks are sleeping under the willow trees!... Look! Look at you looking on Instagram! Here we are, setting off on our country walk with Molly, our sweet-natured Burmese python!” She rightly identifies the physical accumulations and projections of our lives as flimsy illusions disconnected from any true sense of security or happiness. She brilliantly describes how “If real estate is a self-portrait and a class portrait, it is also a body arranging its limbs to seduce.”

There's something deeply consoling about following Levy's non-conventional approach to living, creating art and establishing a constantly-evolving amorphous sense of home. I drank deeply from this book and savoured every drop, but I'm still wondering what filthy rhyme she invented to remember the code to get into her Paris apartment. Perhaps, if I'm lucky, she'll one day sing it for me. More seriously, although this is labelled as “the final volume” of the ‘Living Autobiography’ I don’t see any reason why it should end and we shouldn’t hope for further instalments detailing Levy’s life and valuable insights.

Boys Don't Cry by Fíona Scarlett

The title of Fíona Scarlett's debut novel has a deeper meaning beyond the traditional notion of masculinity where men don't show their feelings. It also has to do with expectations placed upon boys to grow into a certain mould and fulfil a particular role in their families and communities. These pressures are difficult to overcome and often lead to violent or rebellious behaviour especially for two brothers growing up as the sons of a drug dealer/muscle man for a local Dublin gang. Joe is an artistically-gifted seventeen year old who has a promising scholarship to a private school. Although he's determined not to be like his father he finds himself falling into the same traps out of financial necessity and a desire to help his friend who is indebted to the gang. His frustrations and sense of dissolution are compounded by his younger brother Finn's serious illness which drives everyone in the family to grief. The novel alternates between Joe and Finn's perspective as we follow their heartrending journey. It's a bold and sensitive portrayal of how these bright young lads must wrangle with the circumstances they are born into and the power of familial love to grant much-needed compassion when we're at our most desperate. 

I've not read much fiction that's brave enough to take on the difficult subject of a child suffering from cancer. The only other novel I can think of is “All the Water in the World” by Karen Raney. The matter is especially harrowing to read about in Scarlett's book because the voice of Finn's character is written so well that I fell in love with him. His colloquial dialogue is imbued with so much humour and humanity that I got a strong sense of his individual personality and the working-class part of Dublin he's grown up in. Equally, the tender relationship he has with his brother Joe is described so convincingly that in Joe's sections I developed a real understanding for moments when he lashes out or sabotages his own opportunities. The author is so skilful in guiding the reader through the stages of Finn's illness and the attendant agonizing feelings this evokes for the family along the way. However, I was a bit confused by the action in Joe's section which leads to a dramatic confrontation. The plot line where he carries out a task for the local gang leader felt a bit unclear to me. But this didn't detract from the powerful emotions evoked by Finn's battle with cancer and the tremendous bond of this family unit. The novel movingly shows how a family can simultaneously tear itself apart and mend itself.

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Sometimes writing has a kind of talismanic force drawing us into the past so that we feel enlivened and profoundly connected to the sensibility found in the text. “A Ghost in the Throat” is a book dedicated to such an experience. It's part memoir, part exercise in fiction and part process of translation. Doireann Ni Ghriofa meditates upon the life and writing of Eibhlin Dubh, an 18th century poet and member of the Irish gentry. After her husband's murder, Dubh composed the ‘Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire' which is a long poem or dirge that is a visceral cry for this agonising loss which still feels painfully real centuries later. Ghriofa connects to this voice and it fills her imagination as she goes about her days caring for her children. She sets out to translate the poem from the Gaelic into English but is also drawn into researching and recreating what can be traced of Eibhlin Dubh's life since little is known about what happened to her following her husband Art's murder except through the recorded history of her children and their progeny. The caoineadh wasn't originally written down but orally passed along over time until it was eventually set to paper so the text is also imbued with the lives of all who've spoken it. Ghriofa meaningfully describes how this makes it a uniquely “female text” and how the state of motherhood physically connects her to a wider sense of women's history. It's extremely moving how Ghriofa describes the way Dubh becomes such a strong presence in her life and how that connection is transformative.

Ghriofa is a poet so there is a lyricism to her writing which reveals the deeper meaning and beauty of everyday tasks even while acknowledging that reality can often be habitual and mundane. Her intense desire to research the poem and Dubh's life prompts her to continue doing so even when the demands of motherhood mean her time must be parsed out in carefully planned minutes. She writes that “This is the life I have made for myself, always striving for something beyond my grasp, while hauling implausibly complex armfuls.” Yet there's a nobility to her efforts which show how this is the way in which life is meaningfully spent. The fact that so little was recorded about Dubh's life says something about the way history placed less importance on the lives of women. Ghriofa's task of tracing the barest of clues and imaginatively filling in the blanks is both an act of commemoration and a reclaiming of this female lineage. She acknowledges that “We may imagine that we can imagine the past, but this is an impossibility.” So the narrative she creates is necessarily a fiction and imbued with her own sensibility, but it takes on its own power and truth. This book is startlingly original in the way it describes how great literature can become a living presence in our lives and I loved the expansive power of Ghriofa's prose.