Books: What We Can Know, A Novel by Ian McEwan, 2025

The novel offers variations of all possible answers to the question “What can we know?” The answers, as expected, are pessimistic. In a world overwhelmed with data and a digital cloud heavy with “knowledge” about everyone and everything, it is still possible to manipulate memory and history as we struggle to “know”. “Most of life is oblivion,” one of McEwan’s characters argues. The truth about the past is unattainable, as it is controlled by the living and by what they have decided to pass on. We can’t know ourselves or what we are capable of. Memoirs are misleading as we put our “better selves” on the page. In a dystopian post-catastrophic world, an age metaphorically named by McEwan – the Inundation (think climate change of catastrophic proportions), humanities and history are losing the attention of the young. The generation of the future is obsessed with the present. Still, a nostalgic professor from the 22nd century searches for a lost poem recited at a birthday party in 2014. This search reflects the author’s hope that literature will still matter…

While the first part of the novel takes place in the future and centers on the search for the lost poem, the second is a soliloquy of the woman to whom the poem was dedicated. It is the more captivating and emotionally engaging part. Here, the novel becomes a satire of sorts of a poet-genius and his literary circle. The poet suffers from “status anxiety” and “limited forgiveness for humankind,” and McEwan so detests him that he turns him into a murderer. Or did he have to do this because he needed to introduce some thriller element to his otherwise quite essayistic narrative?

Stylistically, McEwan is at the height of his craft; his message is melancholic and ironic.

Books: Heart the Lover, A Novel by Lily King, 2025

What an exquisite tear-jerker, impossible not to love! It is the perfect story about a love triangle, the choices we make in our youth, and the blurred line between love and friendship…

The novel follows three college friends, all passionately devoted to literature. It abounds in literary references as the characters spar, debate, crack jokes, and dissect their lives in an effort to impress one another. The narrator is in love with a boy whose closest friend is also in love with her. The first relationship eventually collapses, and the friend becomes her lover. He fathers a child with her but does not learn of it until his deathbed. He dies holding her hand, while her former boyfriend keeps vigil nearby. Stripped down to its bare plot, the story could easily sound like a soap opera. Yet one quickly realizes that “soap” does not define a novel as long as it is not part of its expression.

The reader gets immersed in the story of the girl as it is told by her – a reflection on growing up, a sensual narrative full of happy moments, dominated by the anticipation of happiness and future fulfilment that is only possible in youth, as well as by pain—pain that youth alone allows us to overcome. Even as the novel ends with death, the reverse perspective on time lived has a healing effect.

The entire book is illuminated by a line from The Aeneid, quoted twice: “Someday we will remember even these hardships with pleasure.” That very pleasure flows through the narrative, making the novel so profoundly moving.

Books: A Separation, Novel by Katie Kitamura, 2017

A highly enjoyable read. With its tight psychological narrative and simple plot, the novel leaves the reader unsettled and brooding long after the final page. The narrator is sent by her mother-in-law—against her will—to search for her husband, who appears to have disappeared during a research trip in Greece. Her reluctance stems from the fact that she and her husband have separated, though at his request, she keeps their unofficial divorce a secret.

The action unfolds in the alien yet stunningly beautiful setting of an upscale Peloponnesian resort. In a dispassionate tone, the narrator reflects on her husband’s infidelities, their past life together, the hotel and its guests, the local woman she suspects of having had an affair with him, and the hollow pantomime of her relationship with her Greek lover. As a foreigner, she is a cynical observer of a land whose beauty she cannot fully apprehend, a language and culture she does not understand, and characters she portrays as degraded through her condescending gaze. While she presents herself as occupying the moral high ground—especially in contrast to the locals and her in-laws, whom she dismisses as superficial and incapable of genuine feeling—the ending exposes her as the character with the most questionable ethics. Her decision to continue concealing the separation from her husband, while also accepting her in-laws’ offer to inherit his wealth, is both puzzling and revealing.

One of the book’s central themes is grief. On the one hand, there is the analysis of grief as experienced by people raised in a Western culture and on the other – the representation of the Greek tradition of professional mourners, grieving as performance, a trance where truth and enactment blur together.

Books: The Casual Vacancy. A Novel by J.K. Rowling, 2012

A nice flow of classical prose reminiscent of Dickens (less brilliant though). A tale of two cities divided by class and race. Characters are introduced with their physical characteristics, usually suggestive of their class and moral potential. The action unfolds slowly, tugged forward by small, mundane events that define the everyday life of a community – work, school, child-parent relationships, first love, partnerships, neighbors, envy, ambitions, heartbreak, etc. Sentimental strings are pulled, tragedy and regret abound, nothing can’t be overcome… Post-catastrophe, an optimistic veil drops over reality.

The novel’s episodic structure makes it suitable material for a TV series.

Books: The Names, A Novel by Florence Knapp, 2025

The novel is celebrated as a remarkable debut… How is the quality of a book relevant to whether it is a first or a last one? It is also praised for being “original” – precisely the quality that it lacks. One can easily detect how it was planned and designed (or rather concocted) to achieve the effect it has on part of the female reading public. One can hardly imagine a male having any interest in this book.

Its “scheme” is so transparent that it is offensive….It is a novel that could be AI-generated or could be a product of a young achiever who just completed her Creative Writing class with an A+. It demonstrates certain skills on a sentence level. As a whole, it is simplistic and schematic. Its premise is preposterous – the different names a woman can select for her son determine his fortune. The first choice is the name of the abusive father, Gordon, the second is Julian, preferred by the mother, and the third is Bear, picked by the child’s sister. Predictably, the wildest choice leads to the happiest life story, while the name “Gordon” dooms the bearer of this name.

Obviously, the book is about the choices a woman can make to set herself free from an abusive marriage. How many more books can the female audience digest and laud that tackle abusive marriages? What does the book add to the artistic interpretation or psychological analysis of the issue? I can’t see the point. But this is the damage that the book club culture and creative writing classes have brought upon literature. Anyone who can read and write thinks that “there is a book in me”. The book clubs brainwash the potential reader with mediocre standards where everyone can “relate” to plots and characters using their own experience. No one has ever taught them that books are not to be judged from “experience”.

In addition, the whole notion of “female writing” – who came up with this nonsense? But now it has become like a self-fulfilled bad prophecy! There is now a “female writing” called to life, and it is bad. Did Mary Shelley write like a woman? No and no!

The book clubs and their followers created trends where books like “Flow Like a River” and “Where the Crawdads Sing” became the standard of female writing. Books where woman is one with nature and nature is one with woman…The funny thing is that these writers are thought to be “feminist” while they are promoting and reinforcing the most patriarchal trope of womanhood – the “nurturer”, the “earth”, the “procreator”. And because these books are successful, they become the model for future creative writing students to perpetuate that trend. How very annoying!

A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Nonfiction by Sophie Elmhirst

A fascinating book, based on a true story about a failed ocean trip. On their way to New Zealand and approaching the Galapagos, the British seafarers Maurice and Maralyn get shipwrecked and spend 174 days on a life raft drifting in the Pacific. Their story is told so well by journalist Sophie Elmhirst that it makes you question whether there is any point in reading fiction. Elmhirst’s language is so understated, but her style is so powerful that it manages to create several metaphorical levels on top of this story of adventure and survival.

The first several parts of the book read like a thriller; the last two chapters of the book are heartbreaking. A sea voyage becomes a metaphor for marriage, partnership, love, and death. It is a must-read if you need a trigger to reflect on your own choices and your own voyages…

Yellowface, Novel by R.F.Kuang,2023

What starts as an excellent, witty satire of the publishing industry ends as a boring attempt at changing the genre of the book and turning it into something like a mystery or a psychological thriller.

The most powerful part of the book is the one describing June’s options offered by her publisher as a spec writer after her disgrace as a plagiarist. It is a scathing satire on the “check-box” approach to fiction writing – the author is aiming to tick certain thematic or political or purely propaganda boxes: e.g. race, identity, feminist agendas, patriarchy, etc. Kuang’s own book is ticking one such big check-box – “cultural appropriation”. Hence the title “Yellowface”. Yet, the most important issue the book touches upon is “what exactly authorship is”! Is using somebody else’s story plagiarism? And unfortunately, Kuang tends to side with the wrong answer – that it is. As if you can’t write about experiences that you have not personally lived through… Or you can’t write about a race you don’t belong to… Kuang seems to forget that writing is “expression”, it is about the “how” and not about the “what”. Recent literature though, which manages to get in the spotlight, borders on propaganda – it is more interested in the “what”. It is enough to look at some of the major fiction awards! Or The New York Times’ book recommendations…

Books: Flesh, A Novel by David Szalay, 2025

Somewhat disappointing for a Booker-nominated novel! But aren’t they all recently?

Szalay tracks in a coldly observant style the life of a boy from behind the Iron Curtain who is sexually abused by a 40-something woman, the age of his mother. The boy becomes obsessed with the older woman, which leads to the accidental murder of her husband. From now on, things go downhill for the main character – although on the surface, his life trajectory is quite successful, financially, socially, and sexually. We follow Istvan, who leads a life as an “out of body” experience, unable to fully engage emotionally with his female partners. On the other hand, we see him capable of deep hatred – towards his stepson, and deep love – towards his own child. Istvan is not just an unsympathetic character. He develops into quite a monstrous person, and despite his overwhelming unhappiness, he never appeals to the compassion of the reader.

If Szalay’s intention was to show the effects of a totalitarian society and its sexually and socially frustrating system on a generation of people who got to experience the collapse of this system, the result is quite unsatisfactory. Istvan’s story could be anybody’s story. The author seems to have little, if any, knowledge of life behind the Iron Curtain.

If Szalay’s intention was to show the effects of childhood sexual trauma on the life of an innocent boy, this has already been done by Ian McEwan in “Lessons” (2022) in a most brilliant way.

TV:Code of Silence, TV Series, 2025

Another excellent UK thriller! The show is well-written, fresh, and has an original angle as its main character is a deaf lipreader helping with the investigation of a pending heist by a well-known criminal gang. The role of the deaf volunteer-investigator is played by the deaf actress Rose Ayling-Ellis. The success of the series is largely due to her great performance as well as the chemistry between her and a new mysterious member of the gang – Liam Barlow, “Hoodie,” played by Kieron Moore. Ayling-Ellis is a charmer who effortlessly projects both naivete and wisdom. She appears fragile but constantly surprises with unexpected demonstrations of strength and bold moves. The suspense in each consecutive episode derives from the increasing involvement of the amateur detective in the investigation: she starts acting against the advice of the police, makes her own independent decisions, and becomes emotionally involved with Hoodie – all of which makes her a threat to the success of the investigation, but also puts herself in danger. The ending is surprising but somewhat soap-operatic, with the promise of Alison, the deaf lip reader, and Liam, the cool hacker, eventually meeting up in the future – only for the sake of a second season.

Books: Long Island, A Novel by Colm Toibin, 2024

Colm Toibin returns to the heroine of “Brooklyn” – Eilis Lacey, the Irish immigrant, now married to Tony with two grown-up kids and somewhat stifled by the proximity and the routines of his large and closely knit Italian family. Then, quite unexpectedly, the haze of complacency, rather, inertia, is disrupted by the visit of a stranger and his shocking revelation. It is a classical device for opening a novel, and Tobin is a master of the craft of classical belle lettres. The narrative unfolds slowly with relentless drive towards tragedy. And I don’t mean “tragedy” in the Greek sense of the world; it is the Chekhovian type of tragedy of the mundane, where seemingly there is a space for choice that can turn one’s life around, but the characters gradually come to the realization that this choice is impossible.

After Eilis leaves her American home and returns to Ireland, as if to return to the past, the novel focuses on the love triangle – Eilis, Nancy, and Jim. Their fates are intertwined once again, as they attempt to actively manage their moves driven by subconscious complex desires; it becomes evident that fulfilling these desires is impossible. The story unfolds like a tragedy of timing, wrong timing rather, similar to Father Lawrence’s predicament in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” The messenger is “late!” If Nancy had announced her relationship with Jim earlier, if Eilis had given her answer sooner, if Jim were not that secretive, etc., etc. The strings and nets of coincidences so masterfully woven by Toibin become the meta-metaphor for the chaos of life, where decisions, big or small, are determined by so many factors, that the big picture is lost, the “why” is hard to answer, and the easiest choice is to return to the routine, to the choice of least resistance. And when you make this choice, it is pointing you in only one last direction – death. There will be no “turning a new page ” for any of the characters of “Long Island.”

One of the best novels I read recently – literature at its finest!