bookshelves: currently-reading
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i liked this about a boy growing up in an afrikaans christian household in the 1970's in south Africa . the story is told in one long chapter with interspersed passages describing the boy as a grown up soldier fighting the guerillas in Angola where he dies .
clearly the family are decent people trying to maintain their way of life against the oncoming changes when apartheid is dismantled and i really enjoyed the intricacies of family life and the boy's blood brother friendship and his relationship with his older sister .
the father clearly sees his role as protecting God's beautiful country which his race developed from the terrible apocalyptic threat of the natives . the writer makes the mother and father obviously sympathetic which makes disliking them difficult .
Unfortunately such a poignant story is ruined by a scene of gratuitous child sex abuse which seems to be parachuted in from another novel . the rest of the book deserved better than this grotesque hackneyed reminder that childhood innocence is an illusion and that growing up is a harsh experience .
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by Giles Foden
i completely agree ]]>
Alistair
read and liked
Lily's
review of Ladysmith:
"Ladysmith suffers from a complete lack of subtlety, both in the heavy-handed characterizations and the predictable relationships and plot. It earns its two stars for a.)the descriptions of siege conditions, which are horrifying and vivid, and b.)bei...more "
"Ladysmith suffers from a complete lack of subtlety, both in the heavy-handed characterizations and the predictable relationships and plot. It earns its two stars for a.)the descriptions of siege conditions, which are horrifying and vivid, and b.)bei...more "
i enjoyed this story about the siege of ladysmith in the Boer war but in all honesty it is not great literature with the writer trying to get too many angles into the novel
a bit of adventure , a bit of politics with ghandi and churchill making cameo appearances , a bit of love and slap and tickle , a few noble natives , and a bit of cruelty . the horror of the siege is well described but the characters do not come to life and are flat
passed a few hours easily on a long flight . ]]>
most biographies of famous writers are blighted by the fact that the subject often did a lot of writing which is not very exciting . the other downside is that the biographer pads the story out with endless quotes from the letters and books . luckily Somerset Maugham , the richest and most successful writer in his heyday of between the wars , led a long and interesting life . he travelled extensively and seemed to know everybody .
he was also a spy for the uk Government .
he ended up living it up in monte carlo a wizened lizard skinned " gent "
the " secret lives " referred to in the title were of course his homosexual activities .No one was safe in his presence it seemed . it is ironic that these activities were illegal in his lifetime and today we might think this oppressive and highly homophobic but that Maugham also engaged in a kind of sex tourism with youngsters which today would lead to being on a paedophile list and prison . the biographer glosses over this and gives Maugham the benefit of the doubt on other nasty parts of his character particularly his treatment of his wife whom he married for the sake of propriety and with whom he had a daughter
despite being 400 plus pages long this was an easy read . ]]>
this was a lot better than i thought it would be . after i bought it i thought it loked a bit like book club fodder but i enjoyed it
a piano tuner who would not say boo to a goose goes to Burma to tune a special piano which belongs to a renegade highly eccentric british officer who is fighting in the jungles .
the piano tuner's long trip to burma and fall under the officer's and burma's magic spell is well told and the outcome surprising . perhaps the contrast between the piano tuner and his humble dry background and the exoticism of the officer and Burma are a trifle too obvious but i got carried along with it all .
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this is brilliantly dark and tough . set in yorkshire and featuring corrupt coppers with the inevitable one honest one trying to find some diamonds in the filth he is surrounded by , the pace is furious .
the background is the yorkshire ripper investigations and the novel is relentless in depicting this story intertwined with an internal police investigation into the possible corruption of yorkshire high ranking cops as they blunder around trying to solve the case .
it's all very nasty and the pages reek of cold , dark badly lit streets , the smell of stale smoke , cheap clothes , poor canteen food , harsh neon lighting and the rubbish filled waste grounds . the industrial north in decline with a serial killer making everyone jumpy .
this is one of a quartet of novels and was part of a TV adaptation which i missed . it makes " Life on Mars " seem like " Dixon of Dock Green" . 'evenin all "
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this was a bitter let down . On the face of it i should have liked this .
it is the autobiography of the chimpanzee who starred in the Tarzan films.
However once the conceit of an ape writing and reflecting on his life in the golden age of Hollywood wears off it becomes simply boring . If you want to know that Marlene Dietrich was a lush and Errol Flynn liked the laydeez read on . it is all meant to be satirical and an outsider's look at the dark side of stardom
a great chance missed . maybe the PG Tips chimps story would have been more fun . ]]>
Alistair
read and liked
Elaine's
review of Me, Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood:
"The fun of the conceit wore off pretty quickly, the reveal at the end is moving, but getting there was a slog. "
"The fun of the conceit wore off pretty quickly, the reveal at the end is moving, but getting there was a slog. "