Mr Kemp
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace.
Some sensational writing. Stories not entirely captivating: the relentless paranoid energy wears after a while. Not a beach read. Game playing gets dull.
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Bits of it very good. Mainly the spot on, still timely, satire. A lot of it average. The novelist’s need to wrap everything up and have every little bit tucked away is annoying and artificial. And the ending: is it bold, ingenious genre bending? Or is it abrupt, silly, and prurient wishful thinking? The dénouement to the follow up Number 11 apparently involves a rampage of giant spiders, so the latter maybe…?
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Excellent. Wonderfully ironic and melancholy narrator. A real pleasure. Infinitely better than the melodramatic Tom Ford film, which is not poignant at all, and tries to show humanity and loss through a fastidious obsession with fashion. But the book is wonderful. How can a book that’s only 140 pages be so full and resonant? Clever without being annoying. Cannot overstate how good it is.
The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino
How can a book that’s only 120 pages be so dull and plodding? Tedious. Without any proper narrative purpose to develop its premise beyond onanistic game playing. Like Zazie in the Metro, in that it’s not very good.
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Tend to give books 50 pages before deciding if they are worth finishing. Happy to give an exception here, with 15 pages sufficing. Suspicions first aroused by description of a bus 'jouncing' down a road - an annoying literary word that by itself is overwritten. Book thrown away after description of a town as like the Tower of Babel and then this subsequent narrative intrusion: 'How admirably he had concealed what must have been the babel of his thoughts!'… no thank you.
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
Very glad to have given Calvino a second chance (a third chance, technically, after the uninteresting Invisible Cities a few years ago). Wonderful fantasy. Was exactly what I wanted it to be. Top of the game writing. Cannot overstate how good it is.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
Few good reading decisions are based on extracts seen in IGCSE English Language textbooks. This is an exception. Extraordinarily beautiful writing. Lee is probably more of a cad than he lets on. Lovely, poetic, but not overcooked imagery (Spanish guitars sound like 'water falling on water'). Occasional cheating by repeating similes: he compares things to 'oil' a few too many times; and then something else is as 'old as Chaucer', and another thing is a 'old as Homer' twenty pages later. Nevertheless, a fine book. To be read by all before gap years, if only to emphasise the importance of wearing a hat in the sun. Cannot overstate how good it is.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Brilliant. Remarquable. Should obviously have read it years ago but have at least read it now. To be read by all students of all ages to see how powerful a novel from 1929 can be. Also to be read by same for the vicarious thrill of the punishment the soldiers enact on their school teacher. Author up there with Cantona, the Red, and Auerbach in list of top Eric(h)s.
A Moment of War by Laurie Lee
Meh. Tepid sequel. Listless. Lee very good at writing about youthful folly, but folly of war less so. Moments of sensational imagery remains though: bad coffee like 'rusty buttons'. Then again, young woman described as having 'a taut dancer’s body', which is a description I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Michael Crichton use.
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
'Sketches' says George Orwell on the back of my edition. And sketches they are. Some of them great. Others bit bland. Always nice to read a journeyman work from someone when you’ve read their masterpiece. Sally Bowles not as interesting a character as the one Truman Capote stole and made into Holly Golightly.
No comments:
Post a Comment