The tale is undoubtedly a sad one: it focuses on the last day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, the drunken British ex-consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac, as he drinks himself into oblivion.

The first chapter is set one year on from the main events of the novel, and so introduces some of the characters and sets the scene a little. Then the rest of the novel charts the events of Geoffrey Firmin’s last day – which, rather fittingly, happens to coincide with the local fiesta known as “The Day of the Dead”. This kind of symbolism is used a fair amount in the novel, which is in part an exploration into the spiritual struggle that Geoffrey faces. Being deeply depressed, Geoffrey lacks the strength to try and change himself, rather choosing to passively accept whatever happens to him, abdicating personal responsibility in favour of a semi-mystic, semi-lazy fatalism.

Although Firmin’s life is clearly in a mess, a faint ray of hope appears when his estranged wife turns up, on a mission to save him from himself. Then there is Firmin’s brother too and other friends, all wanting to help him escape from his severe drunkenness and depression and start re-building his life. However, theirs are not the only voices that he hears when deep in his mescal-soaked haze.

Although not an easy read by any measure (trying to follow pages and pages of Firmin’s drunken ramblings is no mean feat), this is a stark and powerful book. Being a true tragedy, I wouldn’t say I especially enjoyed reading it, however it is thought-provoking and Geoffrey and Yvonne Firmin are certainly characters that I am unlikely to forget.

But what was the use of a will if you had no faith? This indeed, she saw now, was also Yvonne Griffaton’s problem. This was what she too was seeking, and had been all the time, in the face of everything, for some faith – as if one could find it like a new hat or a house for rent! – yes, even what she was now on the point of finding, and losing, a faith in a cause, was better than none.

If you like this, you may also enjoy: Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory.

As sombre as the title and indeed the main plot line undoubtedly is, this is a hugely readable and, I have to admit, immensely enjoyable feast of a novel.

For me, the whole appeal and attraction of the book is its intriguing, unique and wry narrative style. It is dark yet humourous, sad but also fun, highly nostalgic and often quite poignant. Here is the opening paragraph, which gives a taste of what it is like:

On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide – it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese – the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope. They got out of the EMS truck, as usual moving much too slowly in our opinion, and the fat one said under his breath, “This ain’t TV, folks, this is how fast we go.” He was carrying the heavy respirator and cardiac unit past the bushes that had grown monstrous and over the erupting lawn, tame and immaculate thirteen months earlier when the trouble began.

In fact, its narrative voice is unlike any other that I can think of in that it is told from the first person plural perspective – that is, it is narrated by a collection of men who are looking back to their shared childhoods, growing up in the same neighbourhood as the five doomed Lisbon girls. This strange narrative perspective gives the book an otherworldly feel, as the boys/men discuss various ‘artifacts’ relating to the five girls they were all so enchanted by.

If you like this, you may also enjoy: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, or The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath or Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.

A few weeks back I decided to read Zadie Smith’s much acclaimed White Teeth. This was Zadie Smith’s first novel and was published when she was only 24 years old. Having read some of the hype surrounding the book previously and then having read the pages of praise inside the front cover, I was looking forward to something very literary, very contemporary and very wonderfully clever.

So what did I find?

Well, a bit of a mixed bag, if I’m honest.

Yes, it is a sprawling, colourful, postmodern tale packed with a bright assortment of characters. Yes, it explores themes of heritage, multiculturalism, the differences between generations, cultural stereotypes, and the state of modern Britain. Yes, it is well written in parts. And yes, it made me smile on occasions.

(Can you feel a “but” coming…?) But, I have to say I was not blown away by this book.

Zadie Smith is clearly a talented writer and whilst some sections were very intelligently written and well crafted (for example, I thought the way the various strands come together at the end of the book was very well done),  I still found other sections of the narrative pretty uninspiring to be honest.

Another issue I struggled with throughout the novel was the fact that I simply didn’t care much for any of the characters. Now maybe this just highlights some failing of sympathy on my part, but try as I might to engage with the different characters, they all seemed to be portrayed as small-minded, selfish and often fairly ridiculous, and there was little in the narrative that elicited in me much interest or sympathy for any of them.

The novel also seemed to offer conflicting messages on several of the key themes. Now maybe this is all part of a clever post-modern ploy to refuse to offer any neat, simple synthesis of complex issues, in order to challenge the reader in his thinking. However, it felt at times more like sloppy editing, to be honest. Here are a couple of quotations from the end of the book, as an example of the divergent views expressed:

In a vision, Irie has seen a time, a time not far from now, when roots won’t matter any more because they can’t because they mustn’t because they’re too long and they’re too tortuous and they’re just buried too damn deep. She looks forward to it.

Likewise, the brothers will race towards the future only to find they more and more eloquently express their past, that place where they have just been. Because this is the other thing about immigrants (‘fugees, émigrés, travellers): they cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lost your shadow.

I’ve perhaps been a little harsh in my review, as this is not a bad book by any means; it just didn’t meet my expectations.  I would cerainly still be interested in trying another of Zadie Smith’s books in the future.