Charles Elton (1)

In The Songs Isaac “Iz” Herzl, famed activist folk singer, is fading into obscurity and old age. He is a narcissist, a celebrity famed for his support of justice, but neglectful of his family, particularly his three children. The oldest, Joseph Martin, is in his fifties and has only spent twenty minutes in his father’s company. He’s the songwriter in a moderately successful musical writing duo with his childhood friend Alan. Alan’s wife Shirley was also his childhood friend, the three of them a tight unit. Meanwhile, his teen half-siblings may have been raised by their father, but they do not spend time with him. Rose and Huddle are brilliant teens in a world of their own, neglected by Iz and the other adults in the household. Rose is mostly focused on Huddle and his struggle to live as much as he can while Duchenne Syndrome, a form of muscular dystrophy, slowly kills him. The story follows Joseph and Rose as well as Shirley. We also follow Maurice, a strangely vehement young boy whose friendship with the young Iz Herzl changes his life forever.

The Songs struggles to connect these people. Perhaps it is more accurate to say readers struggle to connect these people. Even the familial connection between Joseph and Rose is weak, without even idle curiosity to maintain it. Joseph seems to believe he does not deserve a happy life. Shirley is trapped in past tragedy. Maurice is a zealot. Rose is the only one I really came to care about. Herzl himself is a background figure, an old man upstairs who is fading away, surrounded by hangers-on, ex-wives and lovers who are grotesque in their indifference to his children. Herzl is equally grotesque when he meets Joseph for the one and only time. This failure of heart is never explained though it is manifest in all the adults in the Herzl household. Yes, we learn the great secret of Iz’s past, but it does not explain his indifference to his children unless the author’s idea is that ideological commitment incapacitates one’s emotional commitment.

Still, I liked Rose. I liked Shirley, too, or more accurately, I sympathized with Shirley. I liked Rose. She’s brave. She’s smart, and she knows how to love fiercely and well. I felt pity for Joseph, but found it hard to feel sympathy when he is so self destructive.

One of the biggest flaws for me is that we are supposed to believe Herzl is a great song writer and activist, someone inspired by Joe Hill, someone who is known worldwide and beloved worldwide, of the stature of Pete Seeger or Joan Baez, but the songs are embarrassingly bad. The best song is a ditty by Joseph, a parody of an already existing song which gives it some sense of rhythm.

This is not a book for people who love the music of protest and resistance. There isn’t anything close to music in it. It seems completely unsympathetic to resistance, portraying everyone who is part of the world of protest as narcissists. For example, because two members of the Herzl household want to use the kitchen at a specific time, they want Huddie’s meals to organize around their needs. Of course, this is not possible as he needs his meals on a regular schedule, prompting one to say he would have more self respect if people did not treat him like an invalid. This is when his Duchenne’s has progressed far past the point of needing a wheelchair to where his muscles for breathing are weakening.

People like to pretend that people who care about the world cannot care for individuals, that’s a lie, but it is the animating bias that drives this entire story. It also ruins the story because it makes everyone in it false and inauthentic.

The Songs will be released June 6th. I received an e-galley for review from the publisher through NetGalley.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/9781590517994/… (altro)

Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton is about the fallout of being the inspiration for a famous fictional character. Loosely based on the life of Christopher Milne and his fictional counterpart in the Winnie the Pooh books, this book follows the life and times of Luke Hayman after the death of his author father and the ways in which he can't escape being compared to his father's creation, Luke Hayseed.

The book is told from multiple points of view, namely, Luke, an American who brings the Hayseed books to California (and inadvertently makes them world famous), Luke's troubled sister who wants to know why she was never included in the books. The events of Luke's life and the explosion of his alter ego's rise in fame come out of order, though there is somewhat of a progression forward in time. This mixture of points of view and moments in time make for an unnecessarily confusing narrative.

When I read the book, I was unaware of the author's work with the Milne estate but the similarity to Christopher Milne's life is unmistakable. That said, knowing now about that connection, I find myself less pleased with the added drama (namely Arthur's violent death and the American making posthumous fame possible). These elements don't ring true and in light of the source material, there is already enough there to make a compelling character study while still being fictional.… (altro)

I was initially attracted to this book by its tagline, that it is a book about how a book broke a family. The summary on the back tells about a book like those about Narnia, written by an author who is also a father and husband.
That writer is Arthur Hayman, who has written a couple of books about Luke Hayseed (named after his own son Luke), and his adventures in the Darkwood behind their house with the mysterious and elusive Mr. Toppit. Arthur is hit by a car while in London. The first one on the scene to comfort him is Laurie, an overweight American woman looking for direction in her life and has come to London on holiday. She follows him to hospital and alerts his wife. When Arthur dies she joins the family in their house in the country. Arthur is buried by his wife Martha, his daughter Rachel and younger son Luke. The rest of the book follows the four survivors for the next decade, and the influence, both for the good and for the bad, that the Hayseed Chronicles have on their lives. Luke has to live with not being the Luke from the books. Laurie grabs the books to give her life purpose. Martha wrestles control of the books back from the publisher who first published them. And Rachel has to deal with not being in the books at all.
The idea of the story sounded good, and the story is not bad per se. But it doesn't seem to flow right. The start of the book is pretty slow, and then suddenly a lot of events and consequences get lumped together in quick succession. It is a nice read, but I can't help but feel that Elton could have done so much more with his ideas. Three out of five stars.… (altro)

I was intrigued by the blurb on the back cover ('... jangly with secrets'), but the secrets were pretty few and far between. I couldn't warm to any of the characters apart from the main narrator, Luke, and I wanted the book to end for all the wrong reasons. In my opinion there was virtually no character progression there, and instead the reader gets treated to lots of incidental, irrelevant and distracting background for some of the minor players, including a Round Robin letter from Laurie's radio station boss-turned-manager. The author does make the occasional valid, thought-provoking point, and Luke's voice is suitably wry and dead-pan to raise the occasional smile, but those are not enough to save the book. One for the charity shop, I'm afraid.… (altro)