re:mote voices

Title: Her Name Was Lola
Author: Russell Hoban
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Max Lesser is a novelist. Even if his children's book are what allows him the financial security to continue trying to write novels. But it has been 7 years since his last novel, and he is struggling with page one of both his novel and his next children's book. So he takes a break, and heads out to meet a friend for lunch. But on the way he has an encounter with a pungent and clinging demon dwarf. In the process of trying to understand what the dwarf is, and why it is pestering him, he makes a discovery. The dwarf is a demon of forgetfulness, and it has been set upon Max - what has he forgotten and what did he do to earn this punishment? Her name was Lola.

November 2001 and Max is faced with the question of who Lola was, what he did to her, and how could he possibly have forgotten his destiny woman? The novel then flashes back, going through a number of phases. We have a mix of 2001 and 1996/97, the first recollections creeping back into Max's mind of the first meetings with Lola. This leads up to how Max allowed himself to be led astray, and in doing so betrayed Lola. From which the book resides in the past, leading the reader back to the start of the story and 2001 - following both Max and Lola, chapter by chapter, exploring their aftermath.

My discovery of Russell Hoban came in October 2003. At a point where I was reading at least 3 novels a week, and always had my eyes open for what to read next. This lead me to Bloomsbury's site, Hoban's publisher in his adopted home of the UK. There I read an extract from Her Name Was Lola, and from that extract I was hooked, and I knew that I would need to read more. However, at that point the extract was a preview from Her Name Was Lola, the hardback of which was to be published in November 2003. Not quite ready to buy a hardback of someone I hadn't read before, or willing to wait that month to read some at all, I instead have been working through Russell Hoban's back catalogue since.

February 2005, Russell Hoban's new novel Come Dance With Me has just been released in hardback, with the paperback of Her Name Was Lola being released at the end of 2004. For the last several years, fans of Russell Hoban have celebrated his birthday by leaving quotes from his books in various places. With this February being particularly special for Hoban fans - February the 4th 2005 marks Russell Hoban's 80th birthday. A fact that is being marked by a gathering in London, a city that features so prominently in Hoban's novels, which includes visiting key scenes from his work as well as a launch party for Come Dance With Me.

Which is part of why, having picked Her Name Was Lola up in December, I have saved the reading of this novel till the start of February. Celebrating Russell's 80th birthday by reading the book that brought him to my belated attention in the first place. From that discovery, Russell has quickly become one of my favourite novelists. I like the little worlds that he creates, and the way that he manages to get them into books that are usually about 200 pages - making them quick reads, for all that he puts in there.

The Hobanic worlds are usually some form of London, invariably featuring journey's on London's underground or bus system, visits to it's museums and theatres which inform the texture of the narrative, or conversations in London's cafes, bars and restaurants. A London populated by normal people, people who hang out with their friends and talk about music or film, people who meet people and start relationships. But mixed in with that, the characters experience internal dialogues - arguing with themselves, or sometimes when the characters are writers, arguing with their own characters. In the process there are little things which crop up, normally nothing overwhelming, just little encounters that knock the idea of a normal world a little askew. Such that Hoban's characters are stalked by mythical lions, have death whispering through their letter box, or in this case demons of forgetfulness following them down the street. Things which are perhaps tinged by the absurd, but not in a hey look at me isn't this crazy and mad kind of way, rather Hoban's work has a wit and charm, such that these little things are devices and metaphors for who the characters are and what in each case is driving them.

Since that first extract of Her Name Was Lola I have read a number of Hoban's novels, this now being my eighth. With that, acknowledging the fact that I have just finished reading it, and that it is something I've been planning to read for sometime, I would say that Her Name Is Lola is currently the novel by Russell Hoban that I enjoyed the most.