A literary treasure hunt from a Nobel Prize winner gets top billing in this week’s reviews

NOBEL Prize winner Le Clezio’s literary treasure hunt takes readers to colonial Mauritius, and Mei Fong examines China’s one-child policy.

Fiction

The Course of Love

Alain de Botton, Hamish Hamilton $32.99

Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of de Botton. His philosophical and psychological insights delivered through nonfiction books such as The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (five stars from me) are a delight. But this so-called novel is odd. The relationship of the two main characters seems little more than a vehicle for the author to muse on marriage, courtesy of this “typical” — as in typically troubled — relationship. It allows him to regularly, in italics, interrupt the story to insert his assessments of what has just actually happened: why did one person get angry, why did the other refuse to talk?

His take may be a bit depressing for some; for others it’s just realistic — he thinks we are doomed to be disappointed with our partners because of impossible expectations, of them and of marriage. But he also thinks that, in time, we can overcome this. Fascinating as usual; just not my idea of a novel.

ROY ECCLESTON ***

Fiction

The Prospector

J.M.G. Le Clezio, Atlantic Books $34.99

The Nobel Prize winner is on home ground but in an earlier era, on Mauritius at the turn of last century where Alexis L’Etang lives idyllically with his parents and sister, listening to Bible stories, rambling through rainforests, naming the stars, and being drawn, always, back to the sea. It ends abruptly with family bankruptcy and an all-consuming hurricane that uproots trees and homes.

Alexis sails off on the trail of the Corsair’s treasure, with a map that bears strange clues. It is impossible to do justice to this marvellous book, as Alexis finds the island, decodes the map’s meaning and falls in love with dark-skinned Ouma, who teaches him to fish. It is an exquisite and harsh parable for the meaning of life and it reads like a rapture.

PENELOPE DEBELLE *****

Memoir

Two Decades Naked

Leigh Hopkinson, Hachette Australia $29.99

Leigh Hopkinson’s candid account of life as a stripper shines a gentle light into the shady world of adult entertainment. From the shabby stages of the less salubrious bars in Christchurch to the more glamorous gentlemen’s clubs of Melbourne and London, Hopkinson has strutted and twirled her way around the world. She’s clearly enjoyed a successful, and lucrative, career taking her clothes off six times a night.

Although undoubtedly voyeuristic, this isn’t a titillating account of seedy sex and sequined G-strings; in fact, there is very little sex in the book. It’s really about the author’s journey of self-discovery. And there are colourful anecdotes about the “regulars” who pay big money for a private dance, no touching allowed, and perceptive insights into the diverse lives of the other strippers. It’s a fascinating and funny through-the-keyhole memoir.

DIANA CARROLL ****

Current affairs

One Child

Mei Fong, OneWorld $29.99

If you had to board a train so crowded that you wear nappies because you can’t get near the toilet, you’d think twice about too many people. China’s one child policy looks simple, and there have been plenty of reports about ruthless birth control and spoiled only children.

Journalist Mei Fong looks more widely at the effect of the one child policy on the nation’s economy, demographics and religion. Who will cope with the tsunami of older people? How will whole villages of young men find wives — and is an overwhelmingly male generation inevitably more aggressive? How much does a baby cost, to adopt or for surrogacy?

Fong suggests the policy was ultimately unnecessary and she introduces us to the individuals who have borne its costs. Her very readable stories give a terrific insight into China’s radical change.

ROBYN DOUGLASS

****

Junior Fiction

When Friendship Followed Me Home

Paul Griffin, Text $16.99

Seventh grade orphan Ben has had many disturbing changes in his life and is preyed upon by bullies and asthma, but has settled into a happy routine with his adoptive mother, his letterboxing round and his interaction with nice Mrs Lorentz at the local library. The icing on the cake is Flip, a scruffy little dog that follows him home one day and becomes his constant companion.

Flip introduces him to Mrs Lorentz’s daughter Halley, a girl dressed in rainbows but with shadows under her eyes and a bright beret on her chemo-bald head. Together they work to register Flip as a Reading Therapy dog, while Ben nudges the fantasy novel Halley is writing nearer to his own taste for science fiction.

Life has more than one tragedy in store for Ben and corresponding heart-tugging moments for the reader, but the boy’s openness, warmth and resilience commend him to a readership far wider than the mid-primary age-group for whom the novel is so tenderly designed.

Katharine England ****1/2