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What are we reading? 15 August 2022
I'm thinking of changing my name here to Shirley. I saw 3, count 'em 3!, yellow cars today. Two on the way to a Doctor's. appt, and 1 on the way home. However, rest assured that seeing yellow cars is the only Shirley attribute I intend to take up. ☺☺☺Rats - the emojis are meant to be YELLOW.
AB76 wrote: "...the idea of martyrs and sacrifice is a deeply felt one and maybe calling this cynical could be controversial..."Not at all. In the 1980s I taught (in France) many young people who had fled Iran... they were the sons and daughters of a Westernised, educated class much despised by the ayatollahs. The young men - not religious fanatics, and maybe not even religious in a number of cases - would have been rounded up and sent away as cannon fodder if they hadn't got out in time.
This would not be the first time that a regime has used war as a way of not only fighting an external enemy, but of reducing the number of real or potential opponents within its own borders - or of using (up) less valued members of the community.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "...the idea of martyrs and sacrifice is a deeply felt one and maybe calling this cynical could be controversial..."Not at all. In the 1980s I taught (in France) many young people who..."
Rather the way that Putin is doing things now.
The Drowning Pool by Ross MacdonaldThis is the second book I've read from the 'Lew Archer' series, and it was a curious experience... Macdonald has significant strengths as a writer, but also major weaknesses - which is why I enjoyed the first half of this story very much, but the second half - not so much.
What, then, are those strengths and weaknesses? For a start, the author is an accomplished wordsmith and provides good descriptions. This one sets the scene, and the insistence on redness hints at the bloodletting to come:
I looked up to the sky to the west, where the sun had dipped behind the mountains. The clouds were writhing with red fire, as if the sun had plunged in the invisible sea and set it flaming. Only the mountains stood out dark and firm against the conflagration of the sky.
Macdonald can also provide the killer detail which skews the description by including a final twist (as Chandler does so often):
The furniture was heavy and old: a rosewood concert grand at the far end of the room, carved elaborately to nineteenth-century taste, stiff-backed chairs of mahogany, a tapestried divan in front of the deep fireplace. The beams that supported the time-stained plaster ceiling were black oak like the floor. A chandelier of yellowing crystal hung down from the central beam like a mis-shapen stalactite.
So, what initially sounds like a fairly neutral description ends by making the room sound unwelcoming and unpleasant.
Unfortunately, the author's skills at plotting are not in the same league. Whereas the beginning is promising - an attractive woman hires PI Archer to discover who has tried to send her husband a letter exposing an affair - the second half of the book contains an incredible number of plot twists, with behaviour that is more or less unbelievable in a number of cases... the characters seem to carry out the author's will as pawns to make the plot work, rather than convincing as agents in their own fate. In addition, we at one point have Archer at the mercy of some evildoers, who don't kill him. Why not? I still don't know.
I'm not sure whether to read more in this series... if only Macdonald could come up with more convincing motivations and characters, it would be worth it. Maybe I'll try another... eventually.
I read the second of the three books by S. Massey set in India, mainly Bombay in 1921. This one is called The Satapur Moonstone and the action takes place in a Maharaja palace mainly, deep in the jungle. I was interested in all the different trees and flowering shrubs that are mentioned and spent some time looking to find photos on the net. Made me wish I could plant some on the garden. Lots of description of meals and clothes, jewels, tiger hunts, attitudes to British Rule, layout of the palace to keep me reading as well as the law and crime.
The last book is called The Bombay Prince. Back in Bombay it starts with the visit of the Prince of Wales (Edward) and the Gandhi protests, how the visit is resented and people avoid it. Another aspect of Indian history to learn about.
Russell wrote about how few novels are set in the North East of !incolshire. It is not a wealthy area. In anticipation - one has to be optimistic - of the clever people fixing my bad eye enough to read proper books again I have bought Edge of England; Landfall in Lincolnshire in hardback by Derek Turner. It sits by my chair waiting patiently next to Am Immense World by Ed Yong. I have managed short snippets with my glass but anyway it pleases me to know they are waiting and they feel good in my hand.
Mod
Mmm, not-Shirley, need to be careful here, I think. 🚕🚕🚕😉
Storm wrote: "More on book choices. Locally, there is a “super” book groups meeting once a year for groups all over the area. A list of six books is sent out, you sign up and have a day out at a nice hotel with ..."I've belonged to two good book groups, both tied to book stores. One was called "Seminar," if I recall. The two young women who owned were literature majors who missed seminars after graduation. People simply signed up to spend sessions studying a particular book. We spent four sessions on The Master and Margarita, a book I'd read several times. (I had a photograph of Patriarch's Pond in Moscow, where the story begins.) I had to avoid dropping in all of my theories at once--one suggestion per class. I liked hearing others' points of view on scenes and characters. The two moderators were pleasant people. At the last session, given the number of mentions of food and vodka in the text, I brought a bottle of orange juice, a bottle of vodka, and some crackers. (Vodka with the orange juice was optional.) Other good sessions focused on Edmund Burke, three of Oscar Wilde's plays, and Chretien de Troyes medieval epics--the first Lancelot and Guinevere story, the first Grail story. Much fun.
scarletnoir wrote: "The Drowning Pool by Ross MacdonaldThis is the second book I've read from the 'Lew Archer' series, and it was a curious experience... Macdonald has significant strengths as a writer..."
I enjoyed his novel The Chill.
CCCubbon wrote: "I read the second of the three books by S. Massey set in India, mainly Bombay in 1921. This one is called The Satapur Moonstone and the action takes place in a Maharaja palace mainly, deep in the ..."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1uf1...
As a background to the third book, I read about the visit by the Prince of Wales to India and learned more of this disastrous tour. Then I found this video on YouTube which has helped to bring the books into focus. The cameraman had a hard job and a lot of it is film of the Prince shaking hands/ inspecting troop surrounded by men in white hats in the main. He doesn’t look very comfortable. There are few shots of the Indian people and of course, none of the riots and empty streets. What crowds there were seemed to be herded away. Sometimes when watching and reading about the British treatment of other people I feel ashamed.
Robert wrote: "I enjoyed his novel The Chill.Thanks - maybe I'll try that one! He was clearly talented in certain ways.
AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I finished The Widows of Malabar Hill this evening. It is set in Bombay, 1921, as I mentioned before and I continued to have to find some illustration for the clothes the people were wearing..."i love backing up my reading with photos, fashions and other media linked to the settings and locations of novels i read...
I wonder how many of us do this sort of thing nowadays? In common with CCC and AB, when I read a book in a 'real' setting, if it is interesting and relevant to how things play out, I'll take a look on Google maps or (sometimes) on websites dedicated to particular authors, for example this one dedicated to Chandler's Los Angeles:
https://la.curbed.com/maps/raymond-ch...
In addition, if the book includes real historical characters, I'll take the time to read about them on Wikipedia and other sites, for background... it's interesting to find out more about certain individuals referred to in books that are impressive.
Is this a very common behaviour nowadays, given how easy it is to gain at least some background thanks to Google and Wikipedia? Or do others prefer to remain solely within the author's version of events?
CCCubbon wrote: "...the visit of the Prince of Wales (Edward) and the Gandhi protests, how the visit is resented and people avoid it. Another aspect of Indian history to learn about."This visit also features in Abir Mukherjee's Smoke and Ashes, which I'm pretty sure you have read.
How do the Massey books compare to the Mukherjee 'Wyndham and Banerjee' series, CCC?
I'm tempted.
Mod
scarletnoir wrote: Abir Mukherjee's Smoke and Ashes..."
Another series set in this place & period is Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands series, about a Scotland Yard detective sent to India to advise the police there. I read these some years ago and found them enjoyable. The first one is The Last Kashmiri Rose. I've just read a GR review by an Indian writer who says that as far as historical accuracy goes, it's a bit of a mixed bag:
On the one hand, there were a lot of details that were accurate: the description of a colonial household, for example, or the common Anglo-Indian phrases that were used, or Anglo-Indian society and its ways, especially in the army and police. On the other hand, there were other things that were blatantly incorrect and which peeved me...
I would probably have appreciated this book much more if I weren't Indian.
These centre around the Parsi and are far more detailed about everyday life than the Mukherjee series which I enjoyed. As the protagonist is a young lawyer, supposedly the first female lawyer in Bombay, I found the legal status of women very interesting. The books are written from a feminine point of view hence the descriptions of dress and plants. ( i had no idea that there were different styles of turban and sari)I suppose basically they are a crime series and this forms the central plot - both the first couple of books feature women in seclusion and the second inheritance law in the Prince States.
The struggle against colonialism features in both the Mukherjee and these as one would expect from books set around this time but there the similarity ends really.
I did become rather tired of the early part of the first book which was largely about marriage and customs but glad that I persevered .
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I finished The Widows of Malabar Hill this evening. It is set in Bombay, 1921, as I mentioned before and I continued to have to find some illustration for the clothes ..."if i remember right "enhanced" e books were a thing a few years back, with maps, photos and other info added to the text.
its fascinating to delve deeper like this, the internet can be a source of such wonder. When i was reading the Benedetti novel i found a trove of professional photos from Montevideo in the 1960s online, which i am still exploring. Census records(downloaded in PDF form, the whole thing), old documents, contemporary maps are also favourites of mine. (the only minus is UK census records, very little available or collected easily with statistics rather than names and usually not free)
i also use physical references too, part of my late grandfathers belongings were old maps , which have been wonderful to open up and study, when reading about Quebec or Stockholm for example, alongside a set of Harmsworth Encyclopedia's he bought for my birthday once
plus, a lot of this stuff is all free and can be found without too much trouble...
CCCubbon wrote: "These centre around the Parsi and are far more detailed about everyday life than the Mukherjee series which I enjoyed. As the protagonist is a young lawyer, supposedly the first female lawyer in Bo..."I have The Far Pavilions
on my shelf, but it is really thick. Luckily, my library has it in audio - so I will download it and listen forever!Thanks.
I hope others here have read M.M. Kaye. She also did some place-based mysteries. Andamans, Zanzibar, Kashmir - any takers?
PS - I've just found "The Sun in the Morning" - My Early Years in India and England at Powells and have put it in my ever expanding basket there.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I finished The Widows of Malabar Hill this evening. It is set in Bombay, 1921, as I mentioned before and I continued to have to find some illustration for the clothes ..."Give me a map any day. I am so old (school) (read it however you want) that I print out Google maps when I am going somewhere new.
I have also been known to look up odd things while reading. I think that's part of the fun, a nice bonus.
scarletnoir wrote: "I'm not sure whether to read more in this series... if only Macdonald could come up with more convincing motivations and characters, it would be worth it. Maybe I'll try another... eventually."Given my avoidance of series detectives post-Holmes, I've not read Ross Macdonald, though I've seen several readers and critics who consider his wife, Margaret Millar, several of whose books I've enjoyed, the superior writer of the two.
CCCubbon wrote: "re are few shots of the Indian people and of course, none of the riots and empty streets. What crowds there were seemed to be herded away. Sometimes when watching and reading about the British treatment of other people I feel ashamed."
I know how you feel, and there are certainly no excuses for our past behaviour in many cases, but I sometimes feel that we are being "trained" to think of ourselves as they only ones with shameful happenings in our past.
CCCubbon wrote: "I read the second of the three books by S. Massey set in India, mainly Bombay in 1921. This one is called The Satapur Moonstone and the action takes place in a Maharaja palace mainly, deep in the ..."Re Lincolnshire, Hartleys The Brickfield is set in South Lincs, on the border with Cambridgeshire and is fascinating setting, low lying land some of it reclaimed.
As my grandfathers family were from Lincolnshire, i will concur that its never been that wealthy. My ancestors on his side were from Waltham and Grimsby(NE Lincs), i got back to the 1640s....my grandfather wasnt from a poor background but the area was certainly not prosperous for the majroity
Russell wrote: "Gpfr – Another classy intro. Thank you.AB - “…The tone and style of "Weekend at Grimsby" was immensely sad, themes of nostalgia for the fighting days of WW2, Italy and africa, with brave polish ..."
how interesting Russ, looking at foreign born people in London, 1951, the Poles are a significant % and that would have been a mix of the refugees and ex-serviceman i imagine. I have worked with a few people with Polish fathers dating from that period......i would imagine ex-Polish RAF men would have been up in the Lincs area
@scarlet – I’m with you and AB and CC – I like to check the historical figures (Cornwallis turning up in The Year of the French comes to mind), and maps and other details. I think it helps to fix the story in the memory, but mainly I do it just for curiosity. That piece on Chandler is excellent.
giveusaclue wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "re are few shots of the Indian people and of course, none of the riots and empty streets. What crowds there were seemed to be herded away. Sometimes when watching and reading about..."i watched an excellent bollywood film called The Ballad of Mangal Pandey, which was a more serious film in that genre, with white actors speaking hindi(including a young Toby Stephens).
It is a historical true story and one section where an angry british officer berates and whips an indian man shocked me, it wasnt an english film, so it was maybe exaggerated but it was familiar to me in all the endless british arrogance that infects this island. It emerged with brexit and covid, where the brits always know best etc..
It also pops up with reading Scullys remininsces of 1870s South Africa, where the cape colony raised violent british militias to attack and subdue the local tribes, again that violent and somehwat empty violence is never quite accurately remembered when the brits are seen as a mild, tea drinking eccentric race.
Football hooligans, squaddies brawling in Gibralter, tourists speaking pidgin spanish and french, i have been ashamed of my own country constantly in my life....
CCCubbon wrote: "These centre around the Parsi and are far more detailed about everyday life than the Mukherjee series which I enjoyed. As the protagonist is a young lawyer, supposedly the first female lawyer in Bo..."Lorentfly has replied over on What We’re Reading to my rare posting there about these books to give more information about the sari.
CCCubbon wrote: "I did become rather tired of the early part of the first book which was largely about marriage and customs but glad that I persevered ."Thanks for that - if you struggled, I imagine that it would be even heavier going for me! If I do try these, I may well skip the boring bits - something I very rarely do, as it goes against the grain.
MK wrote: "Give me a map any day. I am so old (school) (read it however you want) that I print out Google maps when I am going somewhere new."I know what you mean... in the early days, I used to print out pages of Google maps, too... and we rarely use a sat-nav, though it was once very useful to find a garden in a particularly obscure part of France, down some tiny roads. I like to have a paper map as well and use both.
Where Google Maps does score, though, is in the existence of street view which allows the user to 'visit' virtually sites mentioned in books - for example, when reading Un certain M. Piekielny, the section dealing with Romain Gary's childhood led me to use this facility to 'visit' the statue to Gary in Vilnius, as well as his childhood home, and various other addresses which retain evidence of the significant Jewish population which lived there pre-WW2.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mon...
It also, incidentally, allowed me to make the surprising and accidental discovery that there is a PI living in the same flat complex as my daughter - not something I expected to find in our sleepy town!
Russell wrote: "@scarlet – I’m with you and AB and CC – I like to check the historical figures (Cornwallis turning up in The Year of the French comes to mind), and maps and other details. I think it helps to fix the story in the memory, but mainly I do it just for curiosity. That piece on Chandler is excellent."I'm glad you enjoyed it... I also enjoyed the biography of Chandler which is mentioned on that site, though mainly for those who love Chandler's books, I think.
giveusaclue wrote: "I know how you feel, and there are certainly no excuses for our past behaviour in many cases, but I sometimes feel that we are being "trained" to think of ourselves as they only ones with shameful happenings in our past."I reckon all nations have their dirty secrets - perhaps especially those with a colonial past, but not only those by any means. Nations came about by conquest and the to-and-fro of wars - a bloody, dirty business. The UK is no better or worse than most others, I suspect - and in any case, comparisons are probably pointless.
It is for each nation to decide what they want to do with their own past and history: were their leaders great men (usually men), or bloodthirsty tyrants? Did conquest and colonisation really 'civilise the natives', or create unnatural borders leading to endless conflicts?
There are no easy answers to such questions - but I do hold against the nationalist right-wing narrative that all that happened can be conveniently swept under some historical carpet.
(It should not be forgotten, either, that much conquest was carried out by 'tribes' (loosely understood) and private companies, rather than 'nations' as we now understand the term. In those cases, the profit motive was front and central - no mealy-mouthed mention of 'doing good' to anyone but the owners or shareholders. Such ventures, too, were not invariably intended to be violent - I'm sure trade played just as great, or a greater part in the interaction of groups or nations as did war and conflict. No doubt expert tomes have been written on these subjects!)
Re colonialism. I remember my French history lecturer highlighting the essential difference between British and French colonialism: the British didn’t believe any natives could BE British, and the French didn’t understand why the natives wouldn’t WANT to be French.The historical, political, and cultural effects of colonialism are dealt with subtly in the book I mentioned yesterday, The Colony, by Audrey Magee.
Basically, it is all about greed and power, isn’t it? I think with loathing of the history of our hereditary peers. Some reached their position by making money (usually over the backs of the poor, be they black or white) and the rest through violence and ambition at court. And now their descendants sit in positions of influence for no good reason but their family. And educate their offspring in exclusive schools and expect still to be the ruling class.
It is time for a complete revolution in our political system in order to bring about social change.
It is my fervent hope that Brexiteering is the last hurrah of a dying way of life. I’ve just had my designer coffee and I’m off to the barricades.
That’s an interesting distinction Storm.I remember how horrified I was when I read about the way a supposed hero of the British, Richard the Lionheart, had massacred so many people and yet we look on King John as the villain!
I was struck when watching that film of the 1921 Bombay visit that there were glimpses of the rich and diverse Indian culture which were largely ignored in favour of white men in white pith helmets.
I will join you on the barricades!
Storm wrote: "Re colonialism. I remember my French history lecturer highlighting the essential difference between British and French colonialism: the British didn’t believe any natives could BE British, and the ..."the Portugese Empire had a similar approach to the French, where the empire was at one with the motherland, its people were seen as the "ultramar", settlers and natives. Its a more complex relationship than the British one, as there was the same racism, lack of education and repression for the native people but there was also some kind of philosophical idea of what the empire meant.
It is interesting to note that unlike the Portugese or French empires, British settlement outside the dominions (Canada, Aus, NZ, S Africa) was minimal or almost non-existent. Most of British Africa and India never had more than 1% population of white settlers, though of course unlike the French or Portugese they did have the dominions to emigrate to
Storm wrote: "Re colonialism. I remember my French history lecturer highlighting the essential difference between British and French colonialism: the British didn’t believe any natives could BE British, and the ..."Wonderful stuff! I can't tell you how much I agree with all this... only this week, I was telling my wife - only half-joking - that it was time for a few heads to fall in the basket...
(I'm not sure why we oldsters get a bad press for 'stealing the futures of the young', or for some sort of complacency - the older I get, the angrier I feel. Whoever these rich old bastards are, it's not most of us!)
Thanks all for expanding on the subject of colonialism. I agree, don't sweep things under the carpet, but don't try to change the narrative. And CCC is right - Richard the Lionheart was a warmongering barsteward, but he did live in totally different times. Is Putin any different except that at the Richard was brave (daft?) enough to be on the front line, which is more than can be said for said Putin. Blair, Bush......
Social media has so changed our lives. I know, I know, trite. But nevertheless true. I like Twitter and I see the flaws but it helps me keep in touch with what people on the other side of the divide are thinking and feeling. The thing about the internet and all its platforms is how the narrative is shaped. CC mentioned the narrative about « good » King Richard and « bad » King John. And yet both acted evilly. So why has the narrative been shaped that way? And so it makes me think about how I am being shaped by the ongoing narratives around me. Since truth has become a moveable feast, and a straight answer as rare as gold in a turd, working out fact from fiction , and whose facts anyway, has become a full time job.I have to say I really enjoyed The Echo Chamber, by John Boyne. I think it is an ephemeral book, one which marks a point in time in a society, a marker, but it is funny and sharply satirical. I can’t give examples because it was a library book which I have had to return, but there were laugh out loud moments. There was also anger under the surface. Satire is notoriously hard to pull off in my opinion and can quickly become wearing and strained but I think he probably pulled it off because he had so many targets to aim at: cancel culture, saying the wrong thing and having your career go down the toilet for it, the gender wars, the sanctimonious pretentiousness of middle class dogoodery, and many other delicious barbs.
Fun, but I am angry too, an angry oldster who thinks action is needed and as I’m retired now, I don’t mind getting arrested as I am dragged off the barricades.
Mod
Re trade, mentioned by scarletnoir and "glimpses of the rich and diverse Indian culture" in the film mentioned by CCCubbon, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India by William Dalrymple is an excellent read.The tone of this early period of British life in India seemed ... to be about intermixing and impurity, a succession of unexpected and unplanned minglings of peoples and cultures and ideas.I've mentioned in the Films & Series thread the series Indian Summers that I'm watching at the moment.
Excited to have my Ernesto Sabato novel lined up now, its been tempting me all year and am going to start it soonOn Heroes and Tombs was written in 1961, re-issued in Penguin Classics in 2017. Sabato didnt write much fiction, he is arguably as famous outside Argentina for his work leading the official commission into the fate of the "disappeared" during the Dirty War from 1970s to early 1980s.
Its a far thicker volume than the excellent The Tunnel which i read a few years ago, i saw that as sort of Latin-American existentialist classic.
This will be my eighth latin american set read in 2022 and my third Argentinian fiction read.
Gpfr wrote: "Re French colonialism, it has always struck me how little children in French colonies had to learn about "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois"
scarletnoir wrote: "The Drowning Pool by Ross MacdonaldThis is the second book I've read from the 'Lew Archer' series, and it was a curious experience... Macdonald has significant strengths as a writer...
...
I'm not sure whether to read more in this series... if only Macdonald could come up with more convincing motivations and characters, it would be worth it. Maybe I'll try another... eventually"
Sounds like you might be advised to skip ahead to some of the later books in the series: I think MacDonald and his creation evolved over the course of time and my impression is that in those earlier books he was perhaps trying a little too hard to meet what he thought were the expectations of readers looking for a typical hard-boiled detective story. As the series progressed, he paid less attention to that kind of thing and wrote more to his own strengths.
I'm speaking only partially from experience, having so far read only up to The Doomsters (#7 of 18 in the series). There's a Goodreads reviewer named Bill Kerwin who says that the next one, #8, The Galton Case, is the first where MacDonald gets everything right, so I'm looking forward to that one. But for me, there's already been significant progress from the first few books (which in any case I think I liked more than you did).
MK wrote: "I'm thinking of changing my name here to Shirley. I saw 3, count 'em 3!, yellow cars today. Two on the way to a Doctor's. appt, and 1 on the way home. However, rest assured that seeing yellow cars ..."The yellow car phenomenon grows. Soon it will even reach the press, giving the Seattle Times a chance to deny it.
AB76 wrote: "Excited to have my Ernesto Sabato novel lined up now, its been tempting me all year and am going to start it soonOn Heroes and Tombs was written in 1961, re-issued in Penguin Classics in 2017. S..."
Have you read Tomás Eloy Martínez's Santa Evita or Vargas Llosa's Death in the Andes? Both good reading.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Excited to have my Ernesto Sabato novel lined up now, its been tempting me all year and am going to start it soonOn Heroes and Tombs was written in 1961, re-issued in Penguin Classi..."
I loved both novels Robert, Vargas Llosa is one of my favourite latin american writers and the whole cult of Eva Peron and those 1950s days in Argentina is fascinating
Juan Jose Saer is worth exploring too, he was an Arab-Argentinian and i recommend exploring some of his novels
Berkley wrote: "..for me, there's already been significant progress from the first few books (which in any case I think I liked more than you did).."Thanks for those comments - Macdonald, so far, is one of those writers who annoy me a bit by being very good at some things, but let themselves down by being poor at others... if (God forbid) I ever ran a class in creative writing, and got handed in some stuff like this, I'd say: "Now then, little Jimmy - how come your descriptions are so brilliant, but your characters behave like no human yet seen on this earth? Think about why people do what they do - does it make any sort of sense?"
You have to understand that the books never bored me (the absolute no-no) but irritated by failing to be as good as they might have been. I did read a much later book - The Underground Man which is 16/18 in the Lew Archer series... again, some superb descriptions (of forest fires), but weak plotting - it takes a lot to swallow a tale in which THREE murders are committed, ALL THREE are witnessed - in ALL THREE CASES by either young children (twice) or by a special needs adolescent (once). So, the witnesses can't give a reliable account.
Surely, a halfway competent editor could have pointed Macdonald in a direction with fewer plot absurdities?
But still - as I say, there's some very good stuff there and I shall almost certainly revisit the author sooner or later.
giveusaclue wrote: "but don't try to change the narrative."I'm not sure what this means... maybe you'd care to expand on the phrase? As it stands, it just sounds like a slogan.
Currently up in the Arctic Circle on an almost perfect autumnal day in the Yllästunturi National Park in Finland. A tremendous few hours hiking this morning, now back for a late lunch, write some reviews and listen to Old Trafford..
Here’s a few reviews from what I’ve been reading in the last few days..
Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse by Dave Goulson Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse
This was my fifth of the seven books shortlisted for the Wainwright Conservation Prize, and the fourth most impressive, just above a book on a similar topic, The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World.
Though Goulson’s approach is different to Milman, he falls into the same traps, in that the book is crammed with facts and statistics, and that is very much to the detriment of the reading experience.
I admire his research, but as something only a little more than a beginner in this field, I was soon overwhelmed, and soon after it becomes all too much, and interest is lost.
Quality conservation writing this is not, though it is an impressively researched piece of work.
There’s a positive though over the Milman book, Goulson chooses a rare and endanger insect to write about for two of three pages at the end of each chapter, and this is the highlight.
The Night Ship by Jess Kidd
This was a disappointment as I’ve hugely enjoyed everything Jess Kidd has done before. They’ve all featured her trademark humour and an underlying dark streak; it’s not so much the plot that captivates, but the set of characters she creates, and then their interactions.
That’s all mostly absent here.
The story here is based around an actual historical atrocity. In 1628 the ship Batavia, the flagship of the Dutch East Indies company ran aground on the Houtman Abrolhos islands, off the west coast of Australia. A group of sailors became mutinous, with the result that 180 of the crew of 300, including children, were murdered.
So there’s the potential for Kidd’s speciality, an unsettling ghost type of story with that black humour. But actually what materialises is like an anaemic cup of tea, bland and watered-down. With two 9 year olds as protagonists, each in their own time strand, it may make a half decent book for 12 - 14 year olds, but these days, with Kidd’s name comes a expectation of great things, and this certainly isn’t great.
Kidd, or her publisher, received a grant from the Western Australia government for work on this book. Maybe along with it, went some sort of criteria for how the novel might proceed. I struggle to believe that, but it is so far from what she has previously written. Diversity is fine, but I hope she reverts to her previous style of writing next.
Incidentally, included in the collection of short stories, The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights, is a story written for the collection by Jess Kidd, called Lily Wilt.
This is her at her very best. Set in Victorian times in Ireland, it is the story of a photographer requisitioned to capture the image of the corpse of a beautiful young woman, and he falls in love.
There’s so much to it that it could easily be stretched to a novel length 200 pages.
But for Kidd’s fans, it’s a must.
The Famous Magician by César Aira translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Chris Andrews
This is from a new series from New Directions, Storybook, which claim to be, according to their website, slim hardback fiction that, ‘deliver the pleasure one felt as a child reading a marvelous book from cover to cover in an afternoon.’
I’ve some quibble with that, but first to the book..
I’m a huge Aira fan, more so of his horror and humour, but I admire everything I’ve read from him.
This fits more into his postmodern work, it’s playful, and although he never refers to himself, self-reflective. He offers up that he doesn’t write about himself as there are too many ‘painful scars’ he wants to forget. But he obviously does, as with this, and things like the wonderful The Literary Conference.
Here, after a bout of writer’s block, he wanders to the market and unsuccessfully avoids a meeting with the insufferable boor, Ovando, ‘a complete loser’.
They take coffee, and the writer’s opinion of Ovando is soon altered when he pulls off some impressive feats of magic, including turning a sugar cube into gold.
Offered the chance to learn the skills involved, the writer is told that he must give up literature. He has a choice to make.
Typical Aira in many ways; deranged, outrageous, quietly amusing and unputdownable.
Back to New Directions though.. their series of hardback fiction is only available in ebook at the moment. 48 pages for £6.50.. too much.
Put two of his short works together perhaps? Or lower the price.
I suspect at the moment the only people who will buy are fans of his like me.
It’s a pity, because there are several others in the series I would really like to read… in time, I guess, they will be reduced.
and, The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski
Reading Bukowski is like no other reading experience.
I don’t think there’s much difference between his prose and his poetry.
I’ve read several reviewers say they prefer his poetry, and I can see why, it enables him to put a particular stress on a certain phrase. There’s a feeling also that he is talking directly to you, the writing is so personal at times.
This was his last book of poetry to be published in his lifetime, and certainly there is the impression that he wants to set the record straight on a few matters. Of course there’s the wit and cynicism that epitomise him, and the recurring themes of drinking, writing, womanising, and unsuccessful employment, but death is frequently mentioned or insulated at.
Though Bob Dylan has said he has no admiration for Bukowski, ‘a fat old bore’ he called him, there are plenty of lines here that could have come from either of them.
There’s a lot in this book. I’ve had it next to the bed for a few months now, diving into it for half hours at a time, and noting any memorable lines. Here’s a few..
You know: I’m drunk once again here listening to Tchaikovsky on the radio. Jesus, I heard him 47 years ago when I was a starving writer and here he is again, and now I am a minor success as a writer and death is walking up and down this room smoking my cigars, taking hits of my wine, as Tchaik is working away at the Pathétique, it’s been some journey and any luck I’ve had was because I rolled the dice right.
I often carry things to read so that I will not have to look at the people.
.. as a very young man I divided an equal amount of time between the bars and the libraries; how I managed to provide for my other ordinary needs is the puzzle; well, I simply didn’t bother too much with that— if I had a book or a drink then I didn’t think too much of other things—fools create their own paradise.
..well, death says, as he walks by, I’m going to get you anyhow no matter what you’ve been: writer, cab-driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I’m going to get you…
I can identify with Bukowski on this..
I have never welcomed the ring of a(The Telephone)
telephone.
“hello,” I will answer
guardedly.
“this is Dwight.”
already you can feel their imbecile
yearning to invade.
“yes, what is it?”
“well, I’m in town tonight and I thought…”
“listen Dwight, I’m tied up, I can’t…”
“well, maybe another time?”
“maybe not…”
Andy wrote: "The Famous Magician by César Aira translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Chris Andrews This is from a new series from Ne..."
thats a rip off Andy,i am suprised they do things like this sometimes and ebooks are supposed to be quite well priced!
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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The pieces gathered here, the longer ones, start off quite pleasingly. They have a dream-like haze of mystery and yet they are positive and seem to be leading somewhere. But at a certain point a disconnected heaviness drifts in, and it is as if they have crossed over into the form of a recounted dream, which, just like any dream of my own, lacks structure and meaning. I lose track of the writer’s purpose.
So while I appreciated the rich colours of the writing, the rounded pleasure of a well-told story was largely missing. Even a prose-poem has to have some direction.
That was what I thought up to page 116. Then we have the 12 pages of the title piece, placed at the end. It was worth getting the book for this alone. It is intense and beautiful. Every word counts. A writer who says he has lost the power of articulate thought still finds joy in life, and expresses these numinous moments most wonderfully.