Books do furnish a room

Brick Lane by Monica Ali I did enjoy this novel; it goes at a good pace and there is a warmth about it that I appreciated. The structure of the novel is interesting. Nazneen is born in a village in Bangladesh; when old enough she is married to Chanu, a much older man who lives in England. She goes to England as a bride in her teens in 1985. The story follows her over the next years (until 2002) as she has children and mixes with the Bangladeshi community around Brick Lane. The novel also cuts to her sister Hasina back in Bangladesh periodically. There are memorable characters in the Bangladeshi community, each coping with being in a strange culture in different ways; some by blending in others by keeping apart. Nazneen’s husband Chanu turns out to be a decent man (he doesn’t beat her); he wants a simple village girl to look after him and doesn’t allow Nazneen to learn English, as she doesn’t need it. The novel is tragic and comic, although the comedy is restrained, it is still there. Ali describes physicality very well; you do get a sense of the characters by the descriptions of physical habits and tics, by the way they wear their clothes, fiddle with their hair and so on. Nazneen develops as the novel goes on and gradually one gets a sense of her becoming rounded as an individual, liberated almost. There are also grand themes; religion and its relation to culture, characters cut off from their origins and adrift in a foreign land, adultery, poverty, family tensions; all the stuff of everyday life and high drama. There are correlations with Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. It is about how much control we have over our lives; can you go back to a dream? It isn’t a simple clash of cultures; it is more nuanced; even Karim, a devout Muslim, is a complex and interesting character. Brick Lane is also a novel about place and the geographical restriction of Nazneen’s life adds to the power of her character development. I know this isn’t a universally loved novel, but I enjoyed it. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Memories of the Ford Administration by John Updike

Cyril Connolly: A Life by Jeremy Lewis Cyril Connolly is a little known character now, but he was one of the bright young things, went to Eton and Oxford. He was at school with Orwell, at Oxford with Evelyn Waugh; friends with Auden, Isherwood, Bowra, Brian Howard, Nancy Mitford, Betjeman, Ian Fleming, Kenneth Clark (snr), Eliot and many others. This review will encompass a gay James Bond spoof and the nature of reviewing (quite current). Connolly spent much of his life writing reviews for national newspapers (in the 1940s for his own magazine Horizon). He wrote two excellent and well thought of memoirs, some collections of reviews and a rather good novel (The Rock Pool). Lewis’s biography is not hagiographical; he had access to much more of Connolly’s papers then the only other biographer Fisher and he is honest about Connolly’s faults; the self-absorption, infidelity (he always seemed to be in love with at least two people at once), moodiness. Connolly was a typical middle class product of the English public school system. He was brilliant when he applied himself, but seldom did. In his youth his partners were almost entirely male; most remained lifelong friends. Women came along in his 20s and he married three times. His first wife was an alcoholic; his second wife was Barbara Skelton (infamously caricatured by Anthony Powell in his Dance to the Music of Time series as Pamela Flitton). It was only with his third wife that Connolly seemed to settle, becoming a father for the first time in his late 50s . Connolly reviewed books for most of his working life; the best and worst of jobs. He was paid to read (bliss), but did not create as much as he felt he should have. His reviews were often very sharp and he would not tolerate the mediocre. He adored Proust, Gide, Joyce. He was an early supporter of Hemingway and Waugh (he found Waugh’s later novels tedious); he championed Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in this country and was a great supporter of the French modernist movement. Here is a sample of what he said about books and writers he found less appealing. About one week’s selection of books; “To read all these books is to be brought face to face with the tragedy of the worthy” and “They are all books that it is worthwhile to have written if there did not happen always to have been something written on the same lines that was better”. Even better; “What can you expect from a slug but a slug track” and “It is the inefficiency of these slop writers, stupidly churning out emotions that have already been better expressed, in a dumb replica of the language that was used to express them, that really infuriates the reviewer ...”. He once described his feeling about reviewing; “the feeling of obscure guilt that comes after a day spent in this thankless task of drowning other people’s kittens”. There is much more, most of it razor sharp and to the point. I do wonder what Connolly would have made of the modern scene. I think I also mentioned a gay James Bond spoof. Connolly wrote “Bond Strikes Camp” in 1962/3. The plot is simple. A KGB colonel has come to London; he has a penchant for men in drag. M orders Bond to get into drag and allow himself to be picked up. Bond does this with some reluctance and picks up the colonel. In the ensuing clinch the colonel’s moustache comes off and he is revealed to be M. M has always had a secret longing for Bond and this was the only way he could think of to get him into bed. It wasn’t universally well received though apparently Fleming didn’t mind. Connolly was a bon viveur, book collector and always lived beyond his means. He could be excellent company, as all his friends attested, he could also be moody and difficult. This is a competent, sympathetic and very funny biography of an increasingly forgotten literary phenomenon. 8 out of 10 Starting Galley Slave by Jean Marteilhe

Mulligan Stew by Gilbert Sorrentino Deeply strange, funny, clever, offensive, difficult to read and completely mad (did I just define post-modern novels?). Sorrentino goes hunting for tropes and he pretty much bags as many as are out there, The plot is tenuous but revolves around avant-garde novelist Anthony Lamont and his attempts to write his new book. The characters in his novel have lives of their own. Here literary characters hire themselves out to novelists and move from novel to novel like actors. Characters appear from Finnegan’s Wake, At-Swim-Two-Birds, Dashiell Hammett and Daisy Buchanan from Gatsby also makes an appearance. The characters also have interior lives and relationships outside the novel. At times Sorrentino deliberately writes badly when writing as Anthony Lamont in his novel; it is a noble attempt and he absolutely pulls it off. This does however make for a difficult (if funny) read. During the book its characters become increasingly disillusioned with Lamont’s writing style and begin to plan their escape and the idea of a town full of book characters at rest, having escaped from bad novels or between jobs are hilarious. Apart from Lamont’s truly appalling novel, there are lots of letters from Lamont to publishers, friends, his sister (married to a rival novelist) and his ex-wife. As the novel goes on these letters become increasingly splenetic and paranoid and are a delight. Sorrentino also has a crack at erotic poetry and it’s difficult to describe in mere words how bad it actually is! There is a more or less unreadable brief play in the middle and a section on abstract mathematics attempting to explain contravariant behaviour (this may also be brilliant, but my maths isn’t that good). The orgy scenes again are excruciating and mostly anatomically unlikely. As you may have gathered this novel has lots of different aspects; some work very well, for example the stream of consciousness section near the beginning. Every now and then Sorrentino goes into list mode. The two main characters in the novel explore the cabin they are using in the novel whilst Lamont isn’t writing and they come across lots of books and periodicals. Some of these are just hilarious, some very clever and some just silly; I suspect they must have been great fun to make up. I’m struggling to sum it up and it certainly won’t be for everyone; it is inconsistent, but the best of it is brilliant and the parodies are spot on 7 out of 10 Starting The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Frankie; I read Possession years ago; it isn't that easy a read and I think Angels and Insects is a better introduction to her work. Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser Quite an oddity; it took me a while to decide whether I liked it or not; it’s quite abstract and the protagonist isn’t someone that I would immediately warm to. The novel is written in the first person. Jakob is from a good family, with money and possibly titled who decides to go to the big city (Berlin) and join a school for servants (much as Walser did) called the Benjamenta Institute. The only teaching members we meet are the Principal and his sister. The book is in diary form and consists of Jakob’s reflections and his philosophy; and also something of the philosophy of being a servant and being invisible with appropriate humility. Jakob is highly self-critical (sometimes irritatingly so) and there were times I was reminded of Uriah Heep. Walser’s influences are not easy to pin down. His intensely self critical nature has been compared to Rousseau in the Confessions and to a Dostoyevskian character. One of his translators has argued that Jakob has some similarities to characters in German folk tales (Brothers Grimm); the hero who braves the castle and wins the day against the odds. But victory is bittersweet because at the end Jakob is still back in the real world. Kafka was a fan and it is easy to see why and to see shades of The Castle in particular. Jakob’s odd combination of humility and arrogance and his philosophy sometimes feel unsettling and contradictory; there are clear Nietzschean references and yet Walser is also analysing the middle class/bourgeois psyche which will have such an influence on German history in the early twentieth century. The elevation of the banal and the ultimate discovery by Jakob that at the heart it is all hollow and meaningless; the mysterious inner chambers are not all they seem; neither are the Benjamenta’s. The foreshadowing of Nazism in characters like Kraus is startling; as is the amused tolerance of those in authority; there is a level of madness about it, but it is so simple, at times amusing; but also sad given Walser’s later descent into madness. Pretty much nothing happens on the surface, but Jakob has a hard time living with himself. A later poem by Walser sums it up; I would wish it on no one to be me. Only I am capable of bearing myself. To know so much, to have seen so much, and To say nothing, just about nothing 9 out of 10 Starting A Legacy by Sybille Bedford

Thanks Ethan; I haven't read Divisadero; another for the list!! Tha Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez This is Garcia Marquez at his most complex and polemical. It is an uncomfortable read, disturbing at times. It is also difficult with very few chapters, no paragraphs and sentences that go on for several pages. Garcia Marquez conducts an extended love affair with the comma; his punctuation mark of choice in this book. The novel concerns the nameless dictator of a nameless Caribbean nation; principally it is the story of his decline and death with added detail concerning his bloody reign. He has modestly titled himself “General of the Universe”. Garcia Marquez does have experience of living under dictatorship (Pinilla in Columbia and Franco in Spain). It is a mass of influences that hits you like a torrent of water. As you would expect there is magic realism and surrealism at its heart. However the influence of Rabelais is also clear and there is a strand of mysticism running through it all. The jumps in time are reminiscent of Faulkner. It is also crude, vulgar, violent and cruel as you would expect of any analysis of the internal dynamics of dictatorship. There are also some deeply comic moments. The dictator sells the sea around his island to the Americans who keep him in power. The sea is packaged up and sent to somewhere in Arizona; the general is given a wind machine as a present to replace the sea breezes. The cows on the island are born with the presidential mark already on them. However, the novel is deeply depressing, polemical and focuses on excess. The General is a grotesque and the excesses are completely over the top, even though there is a dreamlike quality even to the violence and perversions. Garcia Marquez captures the chaos and unknowing of life in a dictatorship; there is little sense of time (the General changes it at will), memories are changed at will and reinvented. The atrocities are trotted out and explained by the General. We spend a great deal of time in the General’s head and Garcia Marquez exposes what one reviewer has called “the solitary vice of power”. The General comes to see himself as a god and names his son Emmanuel. This is a fascinating, confusing, shocking and mystical analysis of the heart of dictatorship and the heart of a dictator; charting his decline from charismatic leader to depraved beast. 8 out of 10 Starting Journey to the end of Night by Celine

Thanks Athena; it's certainly worth a try Devi The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje It is a long while since I read The English Patient and I had forgotten how well Ondaatje writes. This is the tale of a journey. Michael is 11 and travelling unaccompanied on an ocean liner (the Oronsay) from Colombo to London (via Aden, the Suez Canal, the Med), where he is to meet his mother. There is a relative aboard who will keep a distant eye on him, but Michael is pretty much left to his own devices. Michael teams up with two other boys in a similar situation; Cassius and Ramadhin. They sit on the lowest table in the dining room, known as the Cat’s table; hence the name. The boys are suitably mischievous and have adventures, get into trouble, annoy the adults and generally behave like boys should. There is an interesting and eclectic cast of supporting characters, including an acrobatic troupe, a mysterious prisoner and his daughter, Michael’s cousin Emily and a fair selection of decidedly eccentric misfits. The whole thing is told from the point of view of Michael in later life. The whole thing has an unreal feel as though the ship is in suspended animation for the duration of the voyage. Routines are set up, romances and flirtations considered. There are a few scandals and disasters and a decently worked through mystery. I felt the present in which Michael was writing and the past didn’t quite gel, but the whole was very satisfying and it drifted by very easily. I’m also reading Mulligan Stew at the moment and that doesn’t drift; it assaults the senses. The contrast was an interesting one. Both books are playing with the nature of memory and the links between the past and present. In the same way, I think as The Go-Between; for ship read country house. Each of the characters filters the past differently. There is also an element of coming of age about it; I’ve been reading a few of these recently hmmmm; here comes dotage!! Anyway I enjoyed it and reading it was a little like drifting along on a cruise 8 out of 10 Starting The Age of Innocence byEdith Wharton

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury Bradbury’s famous allegorical novel still packs a punch today. It is a follow up to Dandelion Wine and contains many of the same characters and is based on Bradbury’s own childhood. It tells the story of Jim and Will two boys who live next door to each other and who are almost 14. The Carnival comes to town; only this is no ordinary carnival and there is something sinister about it. It contains a wonderful collection of characters: Mr Dark, who co-runs the carnival who is tattooed all over, Mr Cooger (his partner), the dust witch, the skeleton, Mr Electrico and so on. However the real hero of the story is Will’s father Charles Halloway, who is in his 50s. There are suitably nasty sideshows and rides and the danger that one might become a permanent part of the carnival as it rolls on around the country. The themes are age old (the struggle between good and evil) and coming of age, but also the importance of being young at heart. The power that things and people have over you is dependent on how much power you invest them with. Not wholly convincing, but the real message is to live life with enthusiasm and zest and an open heart. Evil is defeated by laughter and a smile (if only it were thus). It’s a good read, suitably atmospheric and chilling. So what am I doing reading it at my age, rather than in my teens? I wouldn’t have been allowed to read it when I was younger. By the time I left home for university and I could read what I liked I was reading Camus, Sartre and Kafka, so this one missed out. However it was rather gratifying that there was a character of my age at the centre of things; there’s hope yet!! Not only that the hero was a librarian and loved books. A simple heart-warming tale that, on the whole has stood the test of time. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser

Thank you Julie and Pontalba; I know I have to read more Stegner! Angels and Insects by A S Byatt A S Byatt goes back again to the Victorian era she writes about so well and has put two novellas together. “Morpho Eugenia” and “The Conjugial Angel”. Both are well written and as always Byatt makes excellent use of poetry; especially Tennyson’s In Memoriam in the second novella. Morpho Eugenia (the Latin name for a South American moth) is about William Adamson and Amazonian explorer who has returned and is consulting with Lord Alabaster, a cleric who is also obsessed with moths, butterflies, insects and is a generally obsessive collector. Adamson agrees to catalogue his collection and becomes entangled with his family and marries one of the daughters. This is a suitably gothic tale and is layered with symbolism. Adamson himself becomes one of the specimens. There is intrigue and secrecy and Byatt plays with the surname alabaster, using the whiteness of the skin of Adamson’s wife to symbolize purity. She then plays with the idea of the “purity” and decay and degeneracy underneath. This is also set around the time that Darwinian ideas and the debate about evolution are taking place and the tensions around these ideas also underlay the novella. There are fairly lengthy descriptions of the social life of ants which are gruesome and fascinating at the same time. Matty Crompton is an interesting character and she plays the part of the intellectual foil to Adamson very well. It is a satisfying and intellectually stimulating gothic tale. The Conjugial Angel takes a look at the Victorian obsession with séances and the next world. There is a tenuous link between the two stories in the form of the sea captain. The main focus of the tale is Emily Jesse (formerly Emily Tennyson), Alfred Tennyson’s sister. The séances revolve around (amongst others) Arthur Hallam, the subject of Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam. Hallam was a close friend of Tennyson’s who died at the age of 22; he was also engaged to Emily Tennyson. The novella takes place many years after Hallam’s death and after the writing of In Memoriam. Byatt examines the persistence of love, memory and the way the living hold onto and re-interpret the dead. It is also about the guilt of those who carry on living. There is a bleakness about the séances and Byatt throws in some Swedenborgian theology just to spice things up. There are some masterly touches which provide symbolism and humour; the pet raven and the farting dog! The use of the poem is excellent and Byatt provides a master class in the meanings behind the poem. Two very good novellas providing a snapshot of the Victorian period and some of its eccentricities and hidden depths. The strong characters in these tales are the women; the men are mostly weak, led (though amiable), absent, opinionated or villainous. The women have the inner strength and usually see the way forward. Byatt writes beautifully and if you like Victorian tales this is for you. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner This is a wonderful novel. It is the story of two couples set from the years of the depression until the 1970s; it drifts along at a sedate pace with little violence, little action, but a great deal of human warmth. It is an analysis of friendship and marraige from the beginnings at a college where Sid and Larry are employed. Their wives Charity and Sally meet and all four become friends. The friendship lasts a lifetime and the novel takes us right to old age and death. Stegner writes very evocatively and sets a scene rather well. The descriptions of the countryside makes you feel that you are there as well. The characters are entirely believeable; human, with faults and strengths, believeable and loveable. Charity Lang is a remarkable creation. This is a novel about appreciating life, appreciating friendship, love, generosity, ups and downs and the simple things. Most of all it is about love and acceptance. It is intelligently written, beautifully simple and beautifully profound. I can you hadn't guessed (I think I've hidden it quite well), I loved this book. Given the subject matter and because it encompasses the end of life as well as active youth, it could have been sentimental or maudlin, but it wasn't. This is the novel as therapy. 9 and a half out of 10 Starting The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

It is worth reading Devi! Reversing the Gaze; Amar Singh's Diary Fascinating selections from the diary of Amar Singh, a minor Rajput nobleman and Indian Army Officer. He kept a diary for 44 years from 1898 when he was 20, until 1942 when he died. The actual diary is vast, 89 volumes (800 pages each): even Pepys only managed a dozen or so. This is a selction from the years 1898 to 1905. This is a shame as I would liked to have seen Amar Singh's development over the years and also his service in the First World War in Turkey and on the western front in Belgium. There are copious footnotes (a necessary evil) and glossaries and sometimes it is difficult to hear Amar Singh's voice between the authors' explanations and reflections 9intersting as these are. He began the diary as an exercise set by his tutor to improve his education. Amar Singh was also a great reader and keeps a record annually of what he has read. His range is wide, from popular long forgotten novels, to Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard and the like, to histories of his local area, to spiritual tomes (Hindu and Christian), self help books and even sex education (in preparation for his marraige. The extracts cover Amar Singh's time with his Pratap Singh (he was sent from the age of 10 with several other young men for training), his time in the Imperial Cadet Corps, family life and marraige, ceremonial occasions, relationships with the British. There is a great deal of detail and family relationships are complex, but it is all fascinating. Amar Singh is no saint and we see his struggles and attempts to do the right thing. He talks in detail about the relationships with those around him, including his wife, but especially his contemporaries at the Cadet Corps, the British Officers, his mentors and servants. Amar Singh is very influenced by his tutor and friend Ram Nathji who was a scholar and widely read; and Amar Singh's style of writing picks up Ram Nathji's post Rankian positivism laced a sense of moral drama influenced by Carlyle. Amar Singh describes his time in China in 1900/1901 fighting for the Empire in the Boxer rebellion. He spaends a good deal of time dealing with his love of horses and polo and occasionally hunting. There are tenderer moments, his marraige, the birth of his daughter and her subsequent death. His wife continues to have daughters and Amar Singh is pressurised by his family to take a second wife to produce a son; a pressure he resists. Amar Singh is a mix of traditional views and customs and modern ideas. Some customs he feels should be maintained, but he is not afraid to question and challenge as well. The most interesting parts are his relationships with the British, officers and political representatives. He writes about his conclusions; some of the British he likes and they treat him as an equal; some do not and there are instances of racism and prejudice.This is the point of the title "Reversing the Gaze"; it's him looking at them and analysing their relationships. Amar Singh's conclusion in 1905 "I wish God would show a day to me when we Indians would be a free nation moving about at our own free will and ranked as a nationality on the same footing as England, France or Russia. i fear I shall never see it ..." Sadly he did not My only quibble is I would have liked to have seen how Amar Singh developed over the years; he is still young and inexperienced at this time; but it was a fascinating diary 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Cyril Connolly; A Life by Jeremy Lewis

Thanks Frankie and Athena; Labyrinth is worth a read if you like historical fiction. Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley This is a difficult one to review. One of Huxley’s lesser known works; before Doors of Perception and after Brave New World and written as the Second World War finished. Difficult because it covers so much ground. It is a philosophical treatise, a critique of capitalism, fascism, socialism, especially of imperialism. It has a go at post-modernism and at Joyce, Woolf et al. It is a critique of religion in its traditional form; an exploration of Huxley’s attraction to Buddhism. It predates much existential thought and 60s radicalism and accurately predicts it. It talks about the trashing of the planet in a way that feels that it might have been written in the last ten years. It irritated and delighted me in equal measure. In the midst of that is a coming of age novel. It predicts the growing power of Russia and China; the collapse of Empire and at the same time preserves a lightness of touch and a sense of humour. Sebastian Barnack is 17, with blond curly hair and is rather beautiful. His father John is a lawyer, anti-fascist and humanitarian. Unfortunately he does not understand Sebastian’s need for evening clothes and a social life because these are mere fripperies and totally unnecessary. Sebastian is an innocent (virgin) and a poet and does not understand his father’s asceticism. He is to spend the summer in Italy with his uncle Eustace. Eustace is a hedonist and sensualist, promising to teach Sebastian about life and love and buy him evening clothes! Bruno Rontini, a friend of Eustace will teach Sebastian about the spiritual side of life. The novel takes place over one summer, apart from an epilogue some 15 years later. Sebastian learns about life, loses his virginity, writes poetry, makes some mistakes; one of which (though simple and not too heinous) echoes through the years. There are some startling moments. There is a death from a heart attack which Huxley describes with exceptional vividness and it feels all too real. I am not sure how Huxley does it, but he kills off a significant character (and I’m thinking No! You can’t do that) and at the same time the whole scene is hilarious; this is writing of a high order. The hilarity goes on as the character, who is an atheist discovers that death is not the end and the attempts to contact loved ones through a medium are very funny. The descriptions of life after death are irritating and unconvincing and a bit nirvanaish, but the point is made. This novel for me is better than any of Huxley’s other work I have read. Sebastian is a typical 17 year old boy; hung up about girls, selfish, innocent and fancies himself as a poet. Sebastian grows up as he encounters goodness in the shape of Bruno Rontini and wickedness in the shape of fascism. There is even a type of reconciliation with his father by the end of the book. Embedded in the tale are the ideas; plenty to react to! Suffering is not always ennobling. “Democracy is being able to say no to the boss, and you can’t say no unless you have enough property to enable you to eat when you have lost the bosses’ patronage.” “For four and a half centuries white Europeans have been busily engaging in attacking, oppressing and exploiting the coloured people’s inhabiting the rest of the world. The catholic Spaniards and Portuguese began it; then came Protestant Dutch and Englishmen, Catholic French, Greek Orthodox, Russians, Lutheran Germans, Catholic Belgians. Trade and the Flag, exploitation and oppression, have always and everywhere followed or accompanied the proselytizing cross. Victims have long memories – a fact which oppressors can never understand.” It is powerful stuff and Huxley comprehensively dismantles western liberal ideas in a ruthless and pitiless way. The answers he gives are not convincing, but the demolition is spot on. There is much to argue with and Huxley is a little smug sometimes; but this is a thought provoking book. It foreshadows Fritz Fanon, Rachel Carson and the 60s radicals and it looks back on the post-modern movement. I like books that you can react to; I disagreed with a good deal, but it was a great ride!! 9 out of 10 Starting Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse This was a bed time read; the time when I will read things I otherwise may not. In this case historical fiction in the guise of yet another (yawn) grail quest. All these medieval storytellers (Chretien de Troyes; yes I do mean you!) have a lot to answer for. This is split between early 13th century France at the time of the Cathars and France in 2005; the main protagonists being Alais in 1205 and Alice in 2005 (Of course there isn't a link of any sort; familial, psychic or anything!!!!) . The background of the 13th century is the persecution of the Cathars in Languedoc; in the 20th century it is an archealogical dig in the same area. The whole grail thing is dressed up in slightly different robes; three old egyptian books, a ring with a labyrinth on it, a similar bit of stone, a special cave, seversl dudes who live for centuries, a small amount of blood from people of different religions: liberally mix them up and chuck them around France and there you have it. Add some splendid villains, a few manic Catholics (a la Opus Dei in Dan Brown) and you have a mystery; spice with a few romances, some infidelity, some hopeless yearning and a spot of medieval siege warfare and serve to the readers. I think any archaelogist reading this would be horrified as I'm pretty sure that digs don't fundtion in the way this one did. The historical part is full of holes, the switching centuries can be irritating and the whole plot requires a significant suspension of disbelief. However, it is well written, better than Dan Brown and reads easily. It also had the merit of sending me to sleep on a number of occasions. This may sound like I didn't really like it, but I've read many worse books in my time (anyone remember The Late Great Planet Earth; yes I really read that in my teens!) and it rattled along at a decent pace. It didn't seem 700 pages long; assuming of course I haven't dreamt reading half of it! 6 out of 10 Starting A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

Thanks Athena; it's worth reading A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy This is typical Hardy, but not one of his better known novels. I found this one very variable; in parts as good as Hardy gets, in other places too rushed, too formulaic and predictable. The title is based on the Laodicean Church in the Book of Revelation; who were neither hot nor cold. They were described as being tepid, possibly passionless; neither one thing nor another. However hardy's use hear relates more to one who is unable to make their mind up; torn between two possibilities. The plot is straightforward enough. The De Stancy family are have fallen on hard times and have had to sell the ancestral home to a local indistrialist; a Mr Power. He dies and the castle passes to his daughter Paula. She becomes very wealthy, single and the owner of a large if somewhat delapidated castle. George Somerset, a young and rather impecunious architect is wandering round the countryside and drawing bits of buildings and churches. He comes across the castle and falls in love with Paula (so far very Hardy). Hardy uses his training as an architect here to go on at some length throughout the book about various architectural features and periods. Somerset manages to get himself taken on as architect to rebuild the castle. Meanwhile military man William De Stancy would quite like the ancestral home back and Paula is clearly very attractive (money and a castle!). Somerset and De Stancy are rivals and Paula struggles to make up her mind. There is a good cast of minor characters. Mr Dare is the villain of the piece and De Stancy's illegitimate son (unknown to everyone but De Stancy). Dare briefly works for Somerset and works for his father to win Paula by fair means some of the time, but mostly foul. There follows various architectural shenanigans, several perambulations around Europe, engagements made and broken, deception, treachery and most of all Paula Power's complete inability to fix on one course of action or one suitor. Hardy sets up the action well in the first part of the book and as always builds the scene and characters in an assured way. The second half of the book is not as strong and the wanderings round Europe feel rushed. However the very last sentence of the book is brilliant and breathtaking; Hardy at his very best; it almost rescues the book, but not quite. Hardy composed this novel whilst on his sick bed; dictated it to his wife. On the whole I enjoyed it, despite its variability. It has been described as a comic novel; although there are comedic touches, it is as much tragedy as comedy. Hardy's "happy" endings (when he does them) always have an edge; this one is no different. It's a shame about the variability of the middle part of the novel; it could have been great. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting The Autumn of the Patriarch by Marquez

Thanks Athena and Pontalba Kafka on the Shore by Murakami Rather magical, sometimes confusing, but easy to read with lots of themes and byways to get lost in. There are also some serious points to ponder and questions to ask. I enjoyed the read and finished it yesterday; however reflection since has produced a few interesting thoughts. There are effectively two plots which intertwine and gradually move towards each other. Kafka Tamura is a 15 year old boy who lives with his distant and rather cruel father, his mother and sister having left when he was small; there is a strong oedipal theme in the book. He leaves home to find his own way in life. Nakata is a man in his 60s living on welfare. When he was a child he was part of an incident where a group of children on an outing all lost consciousness. He was the only one seriously affected; he cannot read or write and his abilities seem quite limited. He is able to talk to cats and they talk back to him. He feels he has a mission to accomplish, but is not sure what it is. Surreal forces lead Nakata; he finds a lost cat, is lead to kill a cat-killer (who may or may not have significance for Kafka), is able to predict/make things fall from the sky (try mackerel and leeches). Nakata knows he has to travel over a large bridge. He meets a lorry driver called Hoshino who latches onto him and helps him in his quest and they follow Nakata’s instincts up to the end. Hoshino’s journey is interesting in itself as he discovers the joy of classical music and meets a Hegel quoting prostitute. He also meets a concept who takes the shape of Colonel Sanders. Meanwhile Kafka finds his way to the same city Nakata is headed for. He meets a girl who looks after him briefly (is he his sister? Possibly, possibly not) and finds his way to a library where he meets the rather distant Miss Saeki and the friendly Oshima. Kafka spends some time at Oshima’s cabin in the woods and begins to live and work in the library. Here he becomes obsessed with a late 1960s song called Kafka on the Shore and Miss Saeki as she was in her younger days (to explain would take over long). The whole thing comes together in a satisfactory and suitably magic way as the two stories converge. There is an awful lot going on; there are links with Japanese religious (particularly Shinto) traditions all wound together with the oedipal myth. The potency and power of music as a transformative medium; reality and dreams interrelate in interesting ways. There are, of course, lots of cats; though the torture scenes with the cats are a little stomach churning, but thankfully brief. The shadow of the war is present. There is, I think a tension between self-suffiency and interdependence; particularly in the relationships between Nakata and Hoshino and between Kafka and Oshima. I think the philosophy of Hegel is also important, especially the idea of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. I wonder whether the two strands of the story are thesis and antithesis with the synthesis at the end. Incidents and moments in the book also mirror the same type of movement and I suspect a second reading would illuminate this more: Murakami has said there are riddles in the book which become clearer when the book is read again. There are some questions I want to pose though. Hoshino and Kafka have remarkably good/mind-blowing/fulfilling sexual experiences; doesn’t anyone ever have bad sex in Murakami novels? More seriously Kafka has sex with Miss Saeki who is in her early 50s (and who may or may not be his mother). He is 15 and this left me with an uncomfortable question. If we reversed the roles and Kafka was female and had sex with a man in his 50s, what sort of reaction would we have? That is a particularly pertinent point at the moment in Britain given the Saville and others investigations (It is worth noting that Rolf Harris has been charged with having a sexual relationship with a 15 year old girl when he was in his early 50s). Writers have to write about these things and in the context of the book nothing felt out of place given the magic realism going on. However, the question occurred to me, so I’m posing it. The novel is beautifully written, inventive, funny and magical and I enjoyed it as I’ve enjoyed all the other Murakami novels I’ve read. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

The Professor by Charlotte Bronte Very early effort which reads like a practice run for later novels like Villette and Jane Eyre (which reminds me, I must read Villette again). It is an engaging first person narrative in which William Crimsworth describes his young adulthood and his attempts to earn his living. We learn about his grim family and Bronte uses her experience teaching in Brussels when Crimsworth moves there to teach. Most of the novel revolves around Brussels and the world of the small teaching establishments. The novel doesn’t move at any great pace and we see Crimsworth through romance, dense pupils, and difficult employers to eventual independence, marriage and his own school. The last chapter packs a great deal into a short space of time and it feels like a sketch for extending the novel by another couple of hundred pages. There are some interesting themes in the novel. Bronte clearly has issues with Catholics and Belgian youth. However, her view of an ideal marriage is noteworthy. When Crimsworth asks Frances Evans Henri to marry him, she is very clear that she will only marry him if she can be independent of him, earning her own money. Crimsworth readily agrees and keeps to the agreement (unlike many men of the time I suspect). This was quite radical for the time. The ideas are roughly sketched and developed in later novels. It is also a bit reminiscent of the Victorian self help books; hard work and self-reliance win out over the bonds of family and community. It is an easy, pleasant enough read which I enjoyed for what it was; an early effort. 7 out of 10 Starting Time must have a stop by Aldous Huxley

Thank you Frankie, Poppy and Willoyd. I think if I'd read Proust 20 years ago, I would not have appreciated it as much. Once you really start to feel the passage of time and you see the sands of your life running down I think you appreciate much more what Proust is getting at. Guernica by Dave Boling Some reviews almost write themselves, not this one. I wasn't sure what I was going to make of the book. In the first place, what is an American journalist doing written a novel set around the awful atrocity that took place at Guernica? Do we need any more Spanish Civil War novels? Is this just a "lets pick an atrocity and write a novel"? To address some of these; Boling is a sports journalist, but he married a Basque woman and he has clearly absorbed the culture (and the food; I always like an author who takes the time to describe the food!!) and spent time there. Having married into Basque culture Guernica was always going to be there. Boling feels people know Guernica because of Picasso's painting, rather than because of the event itself. So he is writing about what his family knows. The novel itself is a typical generational family tale of life, love and loss in the tradition of novels such as Captain Corelli's Mandolin. There is a certain predictability to it. It is not difficult to spot who is going to die and who is going to live. Picasso's little cameo pop ups seemed to be to be unnecessary and probably there to make historical points. The same goes for Manfred von Richtofen's appearances with the Condor squadron. The descriptive passages relating to the countryside, the sea and the food (don't forget the food) are lovely. The bombing and aftermath are suitably grim, as is the loss of characters who have been present since the beginning of the book. There are also a few excellent comic turns, and the book is not without humour. On the whole, I think the novel just about works. It is written with warmth and compassion; Boling cares about his subject and his characters and this comes through. That is what lifts it above the mundane. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting Angels and Insects by A S Byatt

Thanks Athena, Poppy and Willoyd; I agree, they should both be on the currency. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel Intermittently funny, sad, tragic, malicious and rather ghoulish novel; good in parts, but overlong and repetitive. It is certainly well written; Mantel is a great writer, as Wolf Hall has shown. The plot meanders rather a lot and doesn't really go anywhere. The premise is simple. Alison is a psychic/medium, a good one, but rather disorganised. Colette becomes her sidekick and PA and organises her life. The dead, however are less easy to organise. Here's the key to the book. The dead are no different to the living, just as unpleasant, nasty, forgetful, vindictive. There is little of the grand reunions of families; most wander aimlessly, rather lost and are obsessed with trivialities. Mediums know this, but change the message to something more palatable. Spirit guides are generally not spiritual and thoughtful native americans or interesting foreign potentates. Alsion, most of the time, has Morris, a vulgar and crude circus performer who abused her as a child. He spends a large portion of the book doing unspeakable things with food and kitchen utensils. There are lots of spirits around Alison, most of them men who abused her in one way or another, who seem to be carrying on with their existences as they come and go. The descriptions of the psychic circuit in the south of England, in dingy town halls and plastic hotels is very funny. As are the other members of the circuit, all looking for the next spiritual/psychic thing. There is a good deal of flashback to Alison's horrific childhood; horrific beyond words and one wonders whether Mantel is making a link here. For all her upbringing though, Alison is relatively tolerant and kind. When she does become angry with someone (dispute over a car parking space), she is incisive and amusing. Her realtionship to the hard hearted Colette is central to the book. Colette is as damaged as Alison, leaving a loveless marraige, but unlike Alison has less of the milk of human kindness running through her veins. As time goes on, she is also abusive to Alison. There is a good deal to provoke thought, quite a lot of humour (Alison and Colette living on a middle class housing estate and being mistaken for lesbians), some quite close to the bone descriptions of violence and abuse, which have more force because they are slightly understated; but ultimately the book runs out of steam before the end for me and the characters became arther irritating. Nevertheless it was very easy to read, I liked the different take on death and afterlife and in parts it was very funny 6 out of 10 Starting Mulligan Stew by Gilbert Sorrentino

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf How to review a novel like this. I remember Evelyn Waugh’s comment about having to review/critique P G Wodehouse; “like taking a spade to a soufflé”. There has been a little debate recently about who to put on the back of the new £10 note in this country. Jane Austen seems to have won; I would have voted for Virginia Woolf! Stream of consciousness and set in a day, but definitely not Ulysses; this, for me, is one of the great novels. Not only is it beautifully written, it is beautifully constructed and Woolf switches the types of narration as quickly and easily as she switches characters around twenty of them in all. Clarissa Dalloway is the main character; a woman in her early 50s who is preparing for her party in the evening and looking back to a particular time in her youth. She shares the stage with Septimus Smith a young married man who fought in the war and who is suffering from what was then called shellshock and would now be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; he is quite seriously ill and haunted by Evans, a close friend who died. There are so many strands running through this book that it’s difficult to know where to start. The relationship of the past with the present is vital; having recently read “The Go-Between” there is an interesting parallel. Hartley’s “The past is another country” is similar to Woolf’s technique of bringing the past into the present, but making it almost alien and unknowable. I think you can say that for a number of the characters; for Clarissa and Peter, for Sally, especially for Septimus and Rezia. Sexuality is a background flavour almost, but distinct. For Clarissa and Septimus there is a looking back to what is almost portrayed to be a gay relationship; Clarissa with Sally and Septimus with Evans. This is the past intruding into and ruffling the present again. Mental ill health is another theme. I am aware that the original plan was to have Clarissa take her own life at the party, and Septimus was not part of the story. I think perhaps Woolf separated two parts of herself into the two characters, in an almost bi-polar way. The two characters never meet; I wonder if they met within Woolf. But this is also suggestive of the way society keeps mental health separate. The psychiatric establishment in the form of Bradshaw comes out of it very badly; the approach being worse than useless. Inevitably, feminism is part of the mix. Clarissa has some independence because her marriage gives her space. The women who try to be independent by different routes do much worse. Sally, so daring and independent in her youth, becomes a very conventional mother of five and loses that spark. Miss Kilman, who has a degree in history, is lonely, bitter and born again. It is almost as though Woolf is saying the best way for her is a marriage that makes few demands and gives space, because at the moment the other ways lead to despair because of society. Then there are all the literary references, the wonderful minor characters, the descriptions of the day. A great novel. 9 and a half out of 10 Starting The Professor by Charlotte Bronte

Time Regained (volume 7 of Proust) I've been reading Proust for just over a year, just a little a day. I'm going to miss dipping into it, it's become part of my life. Still so beautifully written that it's almost impossible to review. Some of the old favourites return again; Gilberte, Charlus, Morel, Mme Verdurin amongst others. The time period spans the First World War and takes us into the narrators' middle age and towards his own death. Memory and the weight of the past recur as themes and it is as though the narrator is making the sheer weight of the manuscript into the weight of the memories he carries. The flow of time and the sense that our presence in that flow is a temporary one and we will be washed away like those before us, was, for me a central part of this volume. We see old friends aged and passing on; nothing lasts forever.Proust plays with the nature of time and memory in ways that are subtle and often involuntary; memories triggered by chance meetings and sensations. On a lighter note, the BDSM came as a bit of a surprise and I thought I'd wandered into Edmund White's memoirs or a Parisian shirt ripper! The war, although clearly having a significant impact on France, on the narrator's beloved Combray, and on his circle of friends; is not central. It's effects are seen by the waves it makes rather than by direct description. Proust understood the importance of narrative and story in our lives; reminiscence becomes increasingly important as we grow older and we embellish and interpret as we go along weaving in new meanings amongst the old stories. Proust's genius is, for me, the way he grasped this tendency and expressed it so exactly. He seemed to understand the nature of time and memory in human consciousness in ways we are still now only beginning to grasp. 10 out of 10 Starting A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy

Vathek by William Beckford There is a story behind my purchasing this book. I occasionally bid on book lots at the local auction house. Recently I bid on a box of books which looked rather interesting. I managed to transpose the numbers and ended up with a different box of books, most of which I didn’t want. However there were seven folio society book from the late 1950s and early 1960s, which I have kept (sending the others back to auction). This was one of the folio society books. I knew little about Vathek or William Beckford before this. It has been classified as a Gothic novel and was written in the 1780s. Byron cited it as a source and Keats certainly was influenced by Beckford’s descriptions of the underworld. Lovecraft and Poe were also influenced as have been other writers in the fantasy genre. There is a touch of the Arabian Nights about this and it is set somewhere in the Middle East. It concerns wealthy potentate Caliph Vathek and his exceptionally cruel and evil mother Carathis. Vathek is fabulously wealthy, has lots of eunuchs, lots of wives, loves the pleasures of the flesh, has built a Babel like tower and is also thirsty for knowledge. The story is based around Islam and involves genies, djinn and even The Prophet putting in his views from heaven. Vathek desires more wealth and more power and that is where the “fun” begins. We have mysterious strangers, lots of acts of cruelty and immorality, magic artifacts and talismans, sacrifice (of children), pursuit of glory, feasting, pride and a journey to find treasure and fortune. The last twenty pages with the descriptions of hell are quite fun when everyone gets what they deserve. These days the story is fairly unremarkable, although there are some unusual flourishes; it was originally written in French. It is effectively a pact with the devil novel; just set in an Islamic context. There are also some comic turns. The characters are predictable and rather flat and after a time the descriptions of even more fabulous wealth, debauchery and cruelty just become boring. As a whole it didn’t really work for me, but there are also other issues which revolve around Beckford himself. Beckford was wealthy, very wealthy (inherited) and his income at the time was over£100,000 a year, which was a fabulous amount at the time. In later life he was a bit of a recluse and spent way too much money on pointless building projects. He wrote Vathek in his early twenties whilst in France. The reasons for leaving England are not entirely clear. It seems he was conducting an affair with a boy eight years his junior (William Courtenay, son of an aristocrat) . The boy’s uncle found out and advertised it in a newspaper. Beckford and his wife left the country for a while and he wrote Vathek whilst in France. Beckford continued to be noted for eccentricity and there are lots of stories about goings on at his home. All this is of little relevance really. What is of relevance is the source of his wealth; the slave trade and plantations in Jamaica. Byron, whilst appreciating Vathek made some rather acerbic comments about Beckford’s wealth. I am left with a picture of a man wasting large amounts of money of ornate buildings whilst the sources of his wealth suffer thousands of miles away. It left a bad taste. 4 out of 10 Starting Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Thank you Frankie; but one of the reason's I've read more books is beacuse I'm older!! Wait till you're my age! Benjamin Britten by Paul Kildea This is an excellent and very readable biography of one of the great British composers. Britten is still something of an enigma and contradiction; a difficult subject, just as he could be difficult in real life. Quintessentially English, he seemed to be part of the establishment, yet he was hated by many parts of the establishment. He was a pacifist and totally anti-war; spending the first two years of the war in the US. He was gay and made no pretence of heterosexuality by getting married like many of his contemporaries. He lived with his partner Peter Pears (also Britten’s muse, the voice for whom he wrote his greatest works) from 1937 until Britten’s death in 1976. The relationship was turbulent at times; they were apart a good deal when Pears was on tour with operatic companies. They always fell out on the telephone and made up by letter! The relationship survived and Britten died in Pears’ arms. Kildea works through Britten’s life in a systematic way, charting his great and minor works and their origins in clearly and informatively. He points out that Britten was often slated by the critics, often because he was too innovative, but also because he was not initially perceived to be part of the music establishment (and he was gay). Kildea also assesses (and he is competent to do so), those of Britten’s works which are weaker. Peter Grimes is clearly a magnificent opera, powerful, tragic and steeped in the land and sea of Suffolk where Britten lived. Come to think of it, most of Britten’s major operas have a tragic turn; Billy Budd (based on the Melville short story), War Requiem (based on Owen’s poems), The Turn of the Screw, Owen Wingrave and Death in Venice. Death in Venice; it had slipped my mind that Britten had set it to music at about the same time as the Visconti film. I suddenly feel I would like to get hold of a copy and see what he made of it. Peter Pears was, of course, the key to much of Britten’s music, having one of the great operatic voices of the twentieth century. Not the strongest tenor, but Britten always said that Pears had a better sense of the music and the feeling it required than anyone else he worked with. And, of course they were partners. It was no secret and was accepted by their inner circle of friends. It has to be remembered that for the first 30 years of their relationship homosexuality was not legal and periodically well known actors, musicians etc were entrapped by the police. Britten had some influential friends and had been made a Companion of Honour, but there was a reaction. Other composers like William Walton were resentful and believed there was a homosexual conspiracy in music! In 1952/3 Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, the Home Secretary, launched a Mccarthyite witch-hunt against gay men; sending out young police constables to entrap men (dubbed the “pretty police”). Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who helped to break the Nazi enigma code was one of those caught (he later committed suicide (probably). The tabloid press were on board, especially the Daily Express. Britten was also interviewed; sadly no records exist. However at this time Britten was writing an opera to celebrate the accession of Queen Elizabeth and maybe his response can be inferred. The opera had a gay composer (Britten) and of course a gay tenor as Essex (Pears). It also had a gay librettist, director, conductor, choreographer, producer and a gay interior designer. It was also based on a book by a gay writer. This was seen as deliberately provocative and the opera was panned by the critics. What the Queen thought is not recorded, however Britten remained on friendly terms with the royal family and they commissioned further works from him. Kildea doesn’t think Britten was on a crusade, and he is probably right, but there is a sense of giving the music establishment, tabloid press and government the finger. Britten was in America in 1940 and lived for a year in a house in Brooklyn which he shared with W H Auden, Pears, Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles and the fiction editor of Harper’s Bazaar, George Davis. Others moved in and out staying for a while; Gypsy Rose Lee (I kid you not), Anais Nin, Kurt Weill, Salvador Dali and his wife (they moved in later in the year), various members of the Mann family (Britten became friends with Golo, which came in handy when he wanted permission to turn Death in Venice into an opera). Leonard Bernstein thought it was a mad house and Louis MacNeice said it was exactly what was to be expected from such a group of bohemian individuals. Whilst all the mayhem was going on Britten spent much of his time tinkering on the piano and writing stuff. This is a fascinating biography, well worth reading. 9 out of 10 Starting Reversing the Gaze, Amar Singh's Diary

The City and The City by China Mieville My first China Mieville and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It does not easily lend itself to straightforward analysis. Mieville has said he wants to write in every genre and this one is very solidly a detective novel, with a good slice of Chandleresque noir. Yet, of course it is also much more; there is a strangeness to it which lends an air otherness which is not really science fiction or fantasy; but it works. The action takes place somewhere in the east of Europe in the cities of Beszal and Ul Qoma. The cities occupy pretty much the same space geographically, but are entirely separate. Citizens of one city are brought up to unsee everything in the other city; people, buildings, traffic. The concept is a complex one and is presided over by a very secretive organisation called Breach, who have a great deal of power. Into this mix is thrown and old and mostly denied theory that there is a third hidden city between the two (Orciny). There is a murder that crosses borders, so police from two jurisdictions are involved. The whole plot is suitably convoluted and well balanced. Mieville throws in a lot of his influences. One of the main protagonists' experiences in Breach are pure Kafka. There are lots of other influences, but I also think Mieville's political views are also suggested. Many reviews have pointed out that for those who dwell within cities there is an unseen city; whether this be the homeless, the poor, night workers (the list is lengthy)and this is central to Mievill's idea. However he does not push this point; the plot and genre are central. You can ignore the myriad references and still enjoy the book as pure detective; the main characters are all likeable and the villians not obvious. The descriptions of bureaucracy are excellent, and if you work in local government, all too true. I loved it. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds I used to read a lot more science fiction 20 years ago than I do now, but I've had this on my shelves for a while and the other Reynolds I read was ok. Reynolds is an Astrophysicist and clealry knows his stuff. This is the first of a trilogy and is on a grand scale, what is termed space opera, I suppose. The plot is complex with a number of narrative strands and focuses on why there appear to be few extant spacefaring civilisations and many more civilisations that appear to have ended/been destroyed. There are lots of interesting ideas related to how humans get around in the vast emptiness of space. The possibility of living on in digital form is not a new one, but Reynolds takes it a little farther. Like Iain Banks, Reynolds also uses the idea of a level of sentience in machines and does some interesting things with it. The space suits with views of their own and a good line in sarcasm are quite amusing. All of the three main protagonists have their own particular agenda and Reynolds weaves their coming together very well. Two of the three main protagonists are female, and that was refreshing. The whole thing is a bit noir and at times there is a clautrophobic feel. There is also a bleakness to it, which wasn't a fault and at least Reynolds didn't use Banks's trick of slaughtering all of his main protagonists in his sci-fi novels. The characterisation is a little thin and two-dimensional at times and more emotional depth would have been welcome. The descriptions of the ship; a massive one, with a skeleton crew, in a sort of graceful degeneration, are very good. The timeline is confusing all the way though, but does manage to come together at the end. However the very end of the book is a bit of a fudge, but as it's the first part of a trilogy, that is forgiveable. If you like your sci-fi a bit gothic and on a big scale with big ideas, then this may be for you. 7 out of 10 Starting Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles Bizarre and periodically funny novel about how things can go spectacularly wrong from small beginnings. Set in a nameless city in Eastern Rurope. Oskar is an obssessively clean, tidy and neat composer who is going over to LA to get divorced from his wife. he asks an old university friend (who he hasn't seen for some years) to look after his flat. It is a bright, shiny minimalist flat. There is an expensive piano, expensive books, a shiny kitchen, an expensive leather sofa and most of all a massively expensive wooden floor which is Oskar's pride and joy. The aforesaid friend is something of a slob who is a little accident prone. Oskar leaves lots of notes everywhere about how to look after the flat and the floor. There are also two cats and voluminous instructions on how to care for them. Oskar's notes are odd and almost psychic (like the one under the piano lid saying don't play with the piano). There is a great deal of red wine and descriptions of hangovers. The inevitable happens and the friend, who is also the narrator, puts a glass on the floor and leaves a small stain. Then life just spirals out of control in a graceful and gradually spiralling way. Lots more wine stains, broken glass, blood, blue dye (you'll have to read the book for that), adventures with the rubbish chute, a reappearing animal corpse, a pack of wild dogs and general death and mayhem. It is easy to read, fairly slight and amusing at times. The blurb in the book says it's about alienation and entropy, and at a stretch I suppose that's true. The ending is a bit dull and the build up to it is rather predictable; you can see it coming. I originally heard this on the radio as a book at bedtime reading. I remember it being funnier then; possibly it is better as an audio with some juicious editing because at times the joke is dragged out a bit. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting Vathek by William Beckford

The Start of the End of it All by Carol Emswiller Quite a quirky and unusual collections of stories that are not easy to categorize, but are very good and thought provoking. Published by The Women's Press, the cover says science fiction, they won a fantasy award and they are most certainly feminist. A few are clearly science fiction, sort of, but they reflect on life and society now. Some are just straightforward short stories that are easily set in our present, many are open ended and have no obvious setting. Having said that, these are good stories for a number of reasons. Emshwiller moves easily from lightness and humour to sadness and has a nice touch in satire. In many of these stories the lead role is taken by women, no surprise, but they are almost entirely older women in their 50s and above. They are strong, human surprising, often lonely characters (loneliness is one of the themes). All the characters have flaws, but that makes them all the more attractive and the stories all the better. Many of the female characters feel they don't belong and that is also a theme, as is resolution of this lack of belonging, in ways that vary and are not always entirely comfortable. These stories do take some reading, often because Emshwiller makes you work for resolutions; it isn't all neatly wrapped for the reader and sometimes thought and a re-read is necessary. I'm deliberately avoiding much detail about the stories because to describe most of them is almost to tell the stories; there are lots of subliminal and psychoanalytic half-references (watch out for the Jungian psychoanalyst). The alien invaders who promise women an end to the tyranny of men, only to replace it by, yes, you've guessed it! "Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss!" The best stories are the ones which don't really have a direct science fiction element, they are often much more subtle and a couple of them reminded me of Virginia Woolf's shorter fiction. All in all a good collection of stimulating short stories. 8 out of 10 Starting Guernica by Dave Boling