A Hologram for the King

The Book

There was something very familiar about the whole scenario of Dave Eggers' easy to read novel but I couldn't place it.

An IT businessman, Alan, and his team are in Saudi Arabia to bid for a contract to supply a vanity project by the King. A folly city is being built in the desert but so far it is falling short of expectation due to lack of funding. They arrive to give a presentation but are put in a tent with no wi-fi, no food and every day discover that the King is unable to meet them or are fobbed off with excuses.

During the interminable wait, Alan thinks about his ex-wife, his grown-up daughter and his neighbour who killed himself. He has a cyst at the top of his spine, which he worries is cancerous.

He is introduced to wild drug and hooch-fuelled parties through contact with Danish civil servant Hanne, discovers some contradictions of life in Saudi Arabia through local taxi driver Yousef and develops a romantic attachment to doctor and surgeon Zahra

High-Rise

JG Ballard's novel of social breakdown encapsulated in a high rise skyscraper was written in 1975, when the Barbican in the City of London was the height of fashion. The story is timeless, however, and easily translates to the modern cityscape's of 21st Century - "the ragged skyline of the city resembled the disturbed encephalograph of an unresolved mental crisis."

It has a brilliant hook of a first sentence - "Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months."

Ballard seems to explore two main aspects of human psychology in the book. The often examined nature for setting societal strata - even in a building containing purely high income professionals, the residents set about dividing the floors into groups with higher ranking upper classes on the top floors and the "proletariat" with children at the bottom. Social subdivisions are based on power, capital and self-interest.

Room

The Book

The story takes a while to get used to because its told from the point of view of a five year old boy, Jack, who lives with his Ma in a single room. He has never left it and objects in the room are treated as people, addressed with capital letters, as they are his only friends. They have a TV but the things he sees on it are perceived as not the outside world (as he knows nothing but the room and his mother does not want him to believe there is more out there) but unreal.

Old Nick provides food and clothing and removes the trash. He is the father and visits in the night to have sex with Ma while Jack sleeps in Wardrobe. It is gradually revealed that Ma was abducted while at college and been held captive for seven years. Two years into her captivity she gave birth to Jack.

The Revenant

The Book

Michael Punke's story is based on true historical events but includes a mix of real and imaginary characters and embellishes the facts.
Hugh Glass was a fur trapper in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, exploring and exploiting the wild frontiers in the early 19thC. He is savagely attacked by a bear defending its young, and the fur raiding party he is with decide to leave him behind as he is slowing them down. The party leave two of their number (young lad Bridger and wanted man Fitzgerald) to look after him but Fitzgerald persuades Bridger that Glass should be left to die and they commandeer his rifle and knife, thus leaving him nothing for protection or for hunting food.

Against the odds, Glass crawls his way to the river and gradually to help, with the thought of revenge keeping him going.

The Danish Girl

The Book

David Ebershoff's book is a work of fiction inspired by the lives of painters Gerda Gottlieb and her husband Einar Wegener, who became the first person to undergo gender affirmation surgery to become a woman in 1930. All the other characters and story are conjecture or made up by the author, which is important to bear in mind.

Greta and Einar live together in the creative quarter of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he is a slightly more successful painter of landscapes  than she with portraits. One day, however, when her female subject is unable to sit for her, she persuades Einar to put on stockings and a dress in order to finish the painting. This sparks an awakening in him and Lili is born.

Lili poses for Greta's portraits and she begins to go out to balls and the opera accompanied by an understanding wife. As the portraits become more successful, Greta encourages Einar to become Lili despite his reluctance - perhaps as he can see what blinds Greta.
 As Lili becomes more established, she explores new relationships that causes Greta to worry about losing her husband and resent Lili.