Book Awards Reading Challenge

A stunningly inventive, deeply moving fiction debut: stories that take us from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran; from New York City to Iowa City; from a tiny fishing village in Australia to a foundering vessel in the South China Sea, in a masterly display of literary virtuosity and feeling.

In the magnificent opening story, “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,” a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father’s experiences in Vietnam—and what seems at first a satire of turning one’s life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. “Cartagena” provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In “Meeting Elise,” an aging New York painter mourns his body’s decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees, where a young woman’s bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.

Brilliant, daring, and demonstrating a jaw-dropping versatility of voice and point of view, The Boat is an extraordinary work of fiction that takes us to the heart of what it means to be human, and announces a writer of astonishing gifts.

Last year there was a great deal of excitement around this collection of short stories, culminating to being awarded at least one major literary prize (The Dylan Thomas Award). The author, Nam Le, was born in Vietnam, came to Australia as a child, and has lately been splitting his time between Australia, America and soon in the UK as well. We definitely claim him as an Aussie!

Nam Le has a chameleon like quality to his writing. In one story he is a struggling writer dealing with the visit of his father, in another he is a teenage assassin in the barrios of Columbia, and then again as a young woman visiting her friend in Tehran. He really doesn't miss a beat no matter whose voice he is telling the story in.

In Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice, the voice is that of a writer in his late 20s who is struggling to meet the deadline for an essay that is due, and with the visit by his father. Despite being of Vietnamese our writer has chosen to try and avoid telling the refugee stories that he knows, but during this visit by his father he gets to hear at least one more story of how his dad came to be living in Australia.

Having read that first story, it was something of a surprise to realise that the next story, Cartagena, is told from the point of view of a 14 year old hit man from the barrios of Columbia who needs to face up to the consequences of at least some of his actions.

Meeting Elise is another complete change of pace. This time the story is written from the perspective of an older man who is fast coming face to face with his mortality. He is hoping to meet up with his estranged daughter, but there is nothing at all certain in the arrangements.

The fourth story is probably my favourite, Halflead Bay. The main character is a young boy who is trying to deal with his mother's serious illness, and with the budding attraction he feels to Alison, who just happens to be connected with the town bully. My teaser from Teaser Tuesday came from this story.

If I had to pick my least favourite of this collection it would probably be Hiroshima. Le once again assumes a female voice, this time a young girl who is living in Hiroshima in the days before the end of WWII. Despite saying that it was my least favourite it was still a very poignant story, especially as the young girl comments about being able to differentiate between a squadron of planes flying overhead, and the war time slogans such as "do without until victory". One question that this story did make me think of is whether there are any historical fiction novels that are out there that speak about the Japanese WWII experience. There are a few that are set in Germany, but I don't know of any set in Japan about the normal Japanese persons experience.

In Tehran Calling, a young woman is trying to escape her broken romance and goes to visit her best friend who is now living in Tehran, and who is agitating for women's rights. Sarah and her friend Parvin had been somewhat estranged, but Sarah sees this as a chance to rectify that, but her visit to Tehran surprises her in many ways.

The final story in this collection, The Boat, is the story of a young girl who is trying to escape from Vietnam as one of the boat people. The boat is barely seaworthy, and very overcrowded, and it isn't long before the journey becomes perilous in many ways.

If you are looking for a short story collection, then this is certainly one to consider.

Famous journalist sentenced to prison.
Mikael Blomkvist, editor of Millenium magazine, is found guilty of slandering billionaire financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom.

Henrik Vanger, C.E.O. of the powerful Vanger Corporation revives hunt for solution to niece's disappearance.
Harriet Vanger vanished 40 years ago from secluded Hedeby Island.

Lisbeth Salander declared legally incompetent

Computer hacker Lisbeth (code-name "was") loses control of her own affairs. The notoriously delinquent 24-year-old surveillance agent could not be reached for comment.

If you were to ask me what types of books are the hardest to write reviews about, normally I would say it was those books that were just mediocre in that they didn't inspire great enjoyment, but they also were not so terrible that you were tempted to wallbang them. Despite the fact that this book is definitely NOT one of those mediocre books I find myself struggling to decide where to start. The main reason for this is that there is just so much going on in this book.

There are in effect three major strands within this novel. The first is the story of Mikael Blomkvist. He is a investigative journalist and publisher who, as the book opens, finds himself on the wrong side of the law, found guilty of libel against wealth financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. Not content with winning his case, Wennerstrom seems determined to destroy the magazine that Blomkvist runs with his best friend and on/off lover Erika Berger. Mikael decides that his best course of action is to make himself scarce to give the magazine the best chance of survival.

Enter wealthy industrialist Henrik Vanger. After conducting his own investigation into Blomkvist, Vanger offers him an unusual opportunity. He wants Mikael to move to the country and live on the island where many of the Vanger family make their homes, and write a family history. The more important task for Mikael is to investigate the disappearance of Vanger's niece Harriet some 40 years prior. This investigation has run into dead ends almost from the beginning and yet on his birthday he receives a gift that can only be from the killer, if there was a killer, seemingly to torment him until the end of his life.

As Mikael investigates it becomes clear that there are many secrets in this powerful family - feuds between family members, fanatical Nazism, abuse, and many other unpleasant secrets. Even Mikael cannot believe what he finds out!

The third major character is Lisbeth, the girl with the dragon tattoo. Lisbeth is a ward of the state due to the fact that she is perceived to be incapable of managing her own affairs. In fact, she has socialisation issues, but is a brilliant hacker who freelances to perform background checks and the like.

As Lisbeth and Mikael come together, events take turns that are difficult to imagine, and in the hands of a lesser writer could become over the top and unbelievable. Luckily for us, Larsson mostly avoids the potential pitfalls in such a dramatic story! That doesn't mean to say that this is a perfect book because it isn't by any means! As you read through the latter pages of the book, there appears to be at least one, if not two, possible natural endings but instead the book carries on for a further 50-100 pages, almost as though the author realised there were too many loose ends to be carried onto into the next book.

Lisbeth is unique. She is someone who skirts on the edges of society and of the law. She is edgy and difficult to those around her with lots of issues that she needs to deal with. Most of the major characters are well defined and there are very few two dimensional characters throughout the book.

Orginally written in Swedish, there are some issues with editing and translation. At one point for example he is talking about a road name where he says it was obviously enough called Stalagatan (or something like that - I've returned the book now so can't check). As someone whose only exposure to Swedish is the product names at Ikea, it was nothing obvious to me, I can tell you!

I noticed on Larsson's website that there is currently a movie being made of this book. For a first book this is an assured, complex, edge of the seat thriller that has so many different themes. Larsson died after handing in the first three books in this series, so his planned series will never be completed. However, I can't wait to read the next books in the series and to enjoy the ride that he was taking me as a reader on for as long as I can!

This book was the winner of the Boeke Prize and Glass Key for the best Nordic crime novel of 2005. In my opinion, these awards are well deserved. I highly recommend this book.