Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

        This is the book that sent me on the trail of books I'm still following now. From this to The One Inside by Sam Shepard to Monsieur Pain by Bolaño and now 2666 by Bolaño as well. There's a common thread between these stories, they're all mysteries with no answers, and all quite surreal.
        It's hard to tell how much of Year of the Monkey is true and how much is fiction, as it drifts between reality and dream with little indication. I found it best to let myself be carried, and then the mystery became the focus. It's not a conventional mystery because there are no individuals involved. Instead, Smith is investigating a mystery of worldwide occurences, of climate disasters happening everywhere, to the election of Donald Trump, to the death of a friend and disablement of another, and a number of small bizarre moments in Smith's life. The culprit of these events is not even a human, as is revealed in the end, though she does give it a name.
        There's very little pressure with this book, it seems like it was written with ease, a stream of events, and is easy to read, too. There's no pressure to stay on top of it, no pressure to investigate the clues because Smith is the investigator and this book is just a series of findings. It feels like there is no more she can say beyond what she's said, but the mystery is still bigger than what is written. I think that may be the essence of any ambiguous or abstract art. A good artist isn't witholding. If we can't understand fully what they're saying, it's because it can't be clearly explained.

Monsieur Pain, Roberto Bolaño

        Monsieur Pain is a Parisian Mesmerist, paranoid loner, and a WWI veteran. This story is a mystery that opens and closes before we (or Monsieur Pain) are able to fully comprehend it, yet we are given an answer at the end. An answer that only raises more questions about the essence of the mystery that precedes it.
        Pain is riding downhill, often looking back at his youth. He's watching himself slide into poverty and not making any effort to stop. He's pulled into the mystery by a woman (whom he secretly loves) pleading that he try his occult healing practice on her old friend's husband, who lays in a pertpetual hiccup fit that threatens to kill him. I'll spare you the details from here, it's worth discovering as you go.

        The strongest element of this novella was not its overall mystery (which, as I said, is unending to this day), but its moment to moment occurences. Throughout most of the story, Pain is wandering the streets of Paris, following some whim or idea or nothing at all. He finds himself in strange places seemingly out of time, and Bolaño does an incredible job of handing you all the fear and paranoia straight from Pain's thoughts, including a couple of chilling moments that may be a thrill to read in a dark room. Descriptions of the darkened streets, the winding hospital corridors, twisted night clubs and junk warehouses pull you into his world.

        And through these strange places, Pain is haunted by images of his old life creeping in, like some unseen hand is trying to lure him, placing references to his old mentor and colleagues, alive and dead, whom he hasn't seen for many years.

        It's a short, strong story that may not work for you, but it's worth a try. It didn't leave me with much immediately, but the questions still occur to me, more and more as the months go by.

The Ghosts of Belfast

I recently finished The Ghosts of Belfast, a first novel by Stuart Neville.  The story is set in Northern Ireland after the truce that brought relative peace following "the troubles."  The protagonist is Gerry Fegan, a former paramilitary hitman, recently released from 12 years in prison.  He is a broken man, a drunk who talks to himself and is generally considered to be insane.  In fact, he is tortured by guilt and is haunted by the ghosts of 12 of his victims who follow him, demanding that he atone by taking revenge on the men responsible for the orders that resulted in their deaths. And so he goes about more killing until the ghosts are finally satisfied.  The book is well written and gripping.  Bad as Fegan is, he emerges as a sympathetic figure here. The treatment of the ghosts is very effective:  they don't speak, but appeal to Fegan with gestures and expressions to identify the men they want killed. They have the moral force to make him act, and as each is avenged he drops out of the picture and no longer haunts Fegan.  This actually works, and it is very powerful.   

In a House of Lies, by Ian Rankin

I read Ian Rankin's latest, "In A House of Lies." The story is very complicated and sometimes hard to follow.  But I don't read Rankin for the story.  I read him for the characters, and the regulars are all here: Rebus, Siobhan, Malcom and Cafferty.  They have come to be like good friends.  I did notice a tic in the writing that grated.  Over and over again, one character "watched [another character] nod."  Once I start noticing it I seem to see it everywhere.