Richard Farr (Author of Emperors of the Ice)

Richard gave

to:

King of the Badgers
by Philip Hensher

My rating:

Picturesque Hinmouth lies on an estuary in the southwest of England, and is close to Barnstaple University. These are obvious stand-ins for Exmouth/ Exeter and the University of Exeter (where Philip Hensher teaches English), and he surveys the lay of...more Picturesque Hinmouth lies on an estuary in the southwest of England, and is close to Barnstaple University. These are obvious stand-ins for Exmouth/ Exeter and the University of Exeter (where Philip Hensher teaches English), and he surveys the lay of the social land with an intimate, brilliantly detailed eye. What happens to the snobs, yobs, busy-bodies, have-nots and ne'er-do-wells of Hinmouth and its suburban hinterland when a little girl goes missing and her unappealing family's story doesn't add up? In setting this going, Hensher writes with a darkly comic flourish - and a wicked precision about the modern English niceties - that makes you think of Jane Austen. By page 100, though, it seems to me, two different things have started to go wrong.

Technically, what goes wrong is that Hensher introduces too many characters, makes their interconnections too vague and episodic, and in general connects scenes and themes as if he has heard of Impressionism but not seen it. To put it another way: every scene without exception is a good draft scene, but a good editor would have killed two-thirds of the darlings. Sure, this is not the sort of book in which every sentence should be a cog in the plot. But (for instance) why does the author think we should care about Mauro? (Here? In this book?)

The bigger problem is harder to articulate, and defend as a cogent criticism, but perhaps I can explain to some people what I mean when I say this: I kept being reminded of why I so strongly dislike almost everything Martin Amis has ever written, regardless of how well-written it is. It's a question of moral atmosphere, I suppose. The laughter in Austen is light, even when mordant, and always compassionate. The laughter here seems colored by a cheap, shallow, depressingly clever-schoolboyish cynicism. You can identify strongly, as I do, with Hensher's evident anger that England has been turned into a sort of open prison ruled by meekly-accepted "authorities." (The current Pry Minister, David Cameron, is as witless a fool about these aspects of national life as was his predecessor. David and Tony, may you burn in hell, naked and surrounded by security cameras.) But it is hard to avoid the sense that Hensher thinks these problems - plus the crime, the death of manners, the snobbery and shabbiness and everything else - are to be recorded only with bitter laughter, since after all we (or the characters) deserve it. (It's striking that he seems to exhibit real sympathy for one gay couple, one elderly widow, and almost no one else.)

Both problems contribute to the book's fatal slackness of rhythm - its surprising (in the end, despite all the good bits) dreariness.(less)

Richard gave

to:

The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications
by David Deutsch

My rating:

Ambitious even by the standards of BIG picture pop sci (Hawking, Greene), Deutsch's "four strands" view of reality encompasses everything from how evolution might affect the universe as a whole to time travel, the very nature of a "theory," and quant...more

Richard gave

to:

A Way of Life, Like Any Other
by Darcy O'Brien

My rating:

The pleasure is all in the voice. This unshockable, worldly-wise Hollywood teen, with his droll perceptions about his once-successful parents and their rich, hi-gloss friends, is so well-drawn that he bears comparison with Holden Caulfield - and that...more

Richard gave

to:

A Gift from Zeus
by Jeanne Steig

My rating:

People who give this wonderful book a bad review on the grounds that they or their toddlers were shocked by it deserve to be chained to a rock, or turned into swine. This is NOT a children's book (though we read it to our children when they were abou...more

Richard gave

to:

The Odd Women
by George R. Gissing

My rating:

What do you do, if the only socially acceptable career is marriage - and no one marries you? In late nineteenth century England, millions of women were condemned to live a life of shabby-genteel desperation because there simply weren't enough men to...more

Richard gave

to:

Leviathan (Leviathan #1)
by Scott Westerfeld

My rating:

This is a fun, upper-end-of-middle-grade steampunk twist on the Great War, in which British "Darwinists" fight using re-engineered animals (including a sort of flying whale), and the German-speaking "Clanker" powers oppose them with the steam-driven...more

Richard gave

to:

Cloudsplitter
by Russell Banks

My rating:

This has been on my 'must read' shelf ever since it was published. A sort of "True History of the Brown Gang," it is told from the point of view of one of John Brown's sons, Owen. I'm guessing Russell Banks thought third person would not work because...more

Richard gave

to:

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997
by Piers Brendon

My rating:

Immense - but lots of fun, with a picaresque novelist's eye for the barmy character in bizarre circumstances. And, after 200 years of books about how marvelous the Empire was, the sheer monotonous incompetence, blindness and brutality recorded in the...more

Richard gave

to:

Birds Without Wings
by Louis de Bernières

My rating:

Majestic and hugely under-rated. One of the best novels I have ever read by a living author.

Richard gave

to:

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
by Ken Jennings

My rating:

A witty and well-written tour through the sub-culture of people who own six different atlases. And the sub-sub-cultures, like Geography Bee Champions, people who are clinically addicted to geocaching, and people who feel guilty about how much time th...more

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Richard gave to: King of the Badgers by Philip Hensher	My rating:
Picturesque Hinmouth lies on an estuary in the southwest of England, and is close to Barnstaple University. These are obvious stand-ins for Exmouth/ Exeter and the University of Exeter (where Philip Hensher teaches English), and he surveys the lay of...more
13 hours, 9 min ago · see review
Richard gave to: The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications by David Deutsch	My rating:
Ambitious even by the standards of BIG picture pop sci (Hawking, Greene), Deutsch's "four strands" view of reality encompasses everything from how evolution might affect the universe as a whole to time travel, the very nature of a "theory," and quant...more
Apr 27, 2012 11:54pm · see review
Richard gave to: A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien	My rating:
The pleasure is all in the voice. This unshockable, worldly-wise Hollywood teen, with his droll perceptions about his once-successful parents and their rich, hi-gloss friends, is so well-drawn that he bears comparison with Holden Caulfield - and that...more
Apr 27, 2012 11:32pm · see review
Richard gave to: A Gift from Zeus by Jeanne Steig	My rating:
People who give this wonderful book a bad review on the grounds that they or their toddlers were shocked by it deserve to be chained to a rock, or turned into swine. This is NOT a children's book (though we read it to our children when they were abou...more
Apr 27, 2012 11:12pm · see review
Richard gave to: The Odd Women by George R. Gissing	My rating:
What do you do, if the only socially acceptable career is marriage - and no one marries you? In late nineteenth century England, millions of women were condemned to live a life of shabby-genteel desperation because there simply weren't enough men to...more
Apr 27, 2012 11:10pm · see review
Richard gave to: Leviathan (Leviathan #1) by Scott Westerfeld	My rating:
This is a fun, upper-end-of-middle-grade steampunk twist on the Great War, in which British "Darwinists" fight using re-engineered animals (including a sort of flying whale), and the German-speaking "Clanker" powers oppose them with the steam-driven...more
Apr 27, 2012 10:41pm · see review
Richard gave to: Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks	My rating:
This has been on my 'must read' shelf ever since it was published. A sort of "True History of the Brown Gang," it is told from the point of view of one of John Brown's sons, Owen. I'm guessing Russell Banks thought third person would not work because...more
Mar 13, 2012 02:27pm · see review
Richard gave to: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 by Piers Brendon	My rating:
Immense - but lots of fun, with a picaresque novelist's eye for the barmy character in bizarre circumstances. And, after 200 years of books about how marvelous the Empire was, the sheer monotonous incompetence, blindness and brutality recorded in the...more
Feb 12, 2012 03:30pm · see review
Richard gave to: Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières	My rating:
Majestic and hugely under-rated. One of the best novels I have ever read by a living author.
Feb 01, 2012 09:29pm · see review
Richard gave to: Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings	My rating:
A witty and well-written tour through the sub-culture of people who own six different atlases. And the sub-sub-cultures, like Geography Bee Champions, people who are clinically addicted to geocaching, and people who feel guilty about how much time th...more
Feb 01, 2012 09:20pm · see review

Richard's Bookshelves

Richard's Friends (4)

Richard's Fans (1)

Richard Farr

Goodreads author profile

combine editionsBooks by Richard Farr

Upcoming Events

rssRichard's Recent Updates

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Richard's Friend Comments

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combine editions
Books by Richard Farr

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Richard's Recent Updates