Zirk van den Berg's Blog, page 2

On opening Andre Agassi's 'Open'

I can't play tennis for shit. Or money. But I am a committed fan, perhaps one that should be committed. Mornings when I trade the world of dreams where I spend my nights for the world wide web where I spend my days, it's a toss up between first checking my email, bank balance or the ATP tennis results.

I write for love. And money. Over the years, I've spent thousands of hours writing. I'd like to think I got better along the way. That's the right and proper order of things, that you get...

Police procedurals – judging on the evidence

The police procedural, the sub-genre of the crime novel that focuses on the police investigation of crime, has never been high on my agenda. However, on the evidence of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's excellent Martin Beck books (discussed here), I was compelled to investigate.

Let's recap the evidence:

I have now read, in short succession, books by three authors whose names I found a Top Ten list of police procedurals. The H.R. Keating, Reginald Hill and James McClure books were all from the early...

James McClure’s ‘The Steam Pig’ – a great crime novel that grates

James McClure’s first crime novel featuring Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and Constable Mickey Zondi, The Steam Pig, appears on a couple of Top Ten lists for police procedurals. The setting, like that of my first crime story, is South Africa. So I was very keen to read the book. Doing so, however, wasn’t the unmitigated pleasure I had hoped for. The reasons are complex.

It is clear from the first line that McClure is a witty writer: For an undertaker George Henry Abbott was a sad man.

If that’s not a...

James McClure's 'The Steam Pig' – a great crime novel that grates

James McClure's first crime novel featuring Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and Constable Mickey Zondi, The Steam Pig, appears on a couple of Top Ten lists for police procedurals. The setting, like that of my first crime story, is South Africa. So I was very keen to read the book. Doing so, however, wasn't the unmitigated pleasure I had hoped for. The reasons are complex.

It is clear from the first line that McClure is a witty writer: For an undertaker George Henry Abbott was a sad man.

If that's not a...

Sjöwall and Wahlöö – taking crime to the gatan where it belongs

After reading seven Swedish crime novels in a couple of weeks, I'm even beginning to think of street names as Thisgatan and Thatgatan. But even more curious is the fact that Swedish crime books have become so popular in the English-speaking world.

Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson may have become popular on their own merits anyway, but perhaps neither of them would even have written crime stories if it hadn't been for the police procedurals their compatriots Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö wrote...

Stieg Larsson was having fun with the Millennium “trilogy”

It was a few years after everyone else had read the Millennium trilogy and halfway through the second book that I realised author Stieg Larsson was having us on. The books about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are elaborate jokes.

If Wikipedia can be believed, Stieg Larsson had only considered publishing these manuscripts shortly before his death, when he was already deep into the fourth book of what is now, weirdly, marketed as a “trilogy”. The author’s otherwise puzzling hesitance to p...

Stieg Larsson was having fun with the Millennium "trilogy"

It was a few years after everyone else had read the Millennium trilogy and halfway through the second book that I realised author Stieg Larsson was having us on. The books about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are elaborate jokes.

If Wikipedia can be believed, Stieg Larsson had only considered publishing these manuscripts shortly before his death, when he was already deep into the fourth book of what is now, weirdly, marketed as a "trilogy". The author's otherwise puzzling hesitance to p...

Revisiting genre giants Elmore Leonard and Henning Mankell

In the last two weeks, I revisited two of my favourite crime writers and learned a thing or two – not all of it positive.

Both of these authors have long reached the stage where their names dwarf the actual book titles on the covers. This, more than any printed claim, is the sure sign that an author is successful. So, kids, dreaming of publishing a book isn't the ticket any more – you have to dream of publishing a book where your name is bigger than the title. To achieve success, the author...

How long must a book be to be a book?

Why are books that should be 60 pages long so often 600 pages long, asks author Sam Harris in a recent article. He did so only in passing while building another argument, but it's a matter worth some consideration.

Harris's answer is that publishers need the books longer, so they can sell them for more. The suggestion is that there is some practicality about book production that makes it economically attractive to have longer books. But what happens to this justification when you're dealing...

My life, fate and Vasily Grossman's 'Life and Fate'

Vasily Grossman's novel with the all-encompassing title Life and Fate is number 1 and 5 on the Guardian bestseller list this week, if I can believe the pop-up that appeared on my screen as I was web surfing. Apart from the oddity of the book appearing twice, what intrigues me is: why now? I've had the book on my shelf for 25 years.*

Back in the 1980s, I had a deep love of fat Russian books, along with a curious infatuation with fat Russian women. (Something about those East Block javelin...