The Silent Angel

Heinrich Boll's first novel (after his novella The Train Was On Time) was suppressed in Germany in the early 1950s and not published until several years after his death in 1985. The traumas of a defeated nation were still too fresh, despite the fact that The Silent Angel has virtually no wartime content. Instead it tells of a man's search for bread, an identity, and some human comfort in the ruins of Cologne in May 1945. Boll makes a powerful and austere statement of universal value.

The Miraculous Barber

Satire and irony are harder than they look. Done well, like in Anatole France's books, the effects seem effortless. The Miraculous Barber by 20th century French author Marcel Ayme is an example of a more thudding, juvenile kind of satire. The characters are cutouts consisting of one or two attributes, which is why there are so many of them. The bawdy humor must have been funny to someone, sometime, but has aged poorly.

The Believers

When a writer you enjoy dies, you're left to go through the works again (and maybe again), hoping that your earlier enthusiasm is not diluted by the subsequent readings. That is the case with Mordecai Richler, and I have been happy to find that his novels and essays are just as rewarding the second (or third) time around. But what can also happen is that a living writer can bring some of the same type of enjoyment, which is what Zoe Heller does in this novel.

The Believers is a family drama, with comedic and cruel accents, set in New York in 2002. The family patriarch, a prominent left-wing lawyer, has a stroke, and his family goes on (or stumbles) without him. The caustic wife, Audrey, is the source of much of the bitterly funny dialogue, which has echoes of Richler and even Waugh. Heller's prose has perfect rhythm, and her metaphors and similes strike home. I can't recall a single bad sentence in the whole book.

Chavs

In many ways, Chavs examines from the left the issues Charles Murray tackles from the right in Coming Apart. "Chav" is derogatory British slang for a poor person, especially one who is idle, tasteless, and prone to drink and mischief. Author Owen Jones attacks this stereotype and sympathizes with the working classes who have had their lives cut out from under them by the loss of manufacturing and mining in Britain. It is clear that a terrible price has been paid and that government policies can make things worse for the poor, but the structural changes Jones laments happened decades ago and globalization is not going away. In tilting at windmills, Jones too often presents the working class as a lump of labor through which only others can work their will.

The Hunger Games

I've read a lot worse.

The Third Policeman

It is worth remembering now and then that the word "novel" means new, original. So many books fall well short of that definition, but Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman hits the mark. The book, a mixture of fantasy, philosophy and science, with a kind of mystery thrown in, succeeds in being unique without being annoying. It is also quite funny.