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Here are the books i am currently reading;

 

Solar by Ian McEwan

The Feast of July by H E Bates

Omensetter's Luck by William Gaddis

In The Thirties by Edward Upward (first of a trilogy)

Carrington; A Life of Dora Carrington by Gretchen Gerzina

The Guermantes Way by Proust (vol 3 of In Search of LosTime)

Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg

 

A mixed bunch I think; I aim to read about a hundred books this year, but my tbr list is ever growing

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Solar by Ian McEwan

 

This is the first McEwan I have read (not sure how I’ve avoided him up till now, because I have a few on my shelf waiting to be read). It was a fairly easy read, but I admit I wasn’t impressed, even though McEwan writes well. It is supposed to be satire and comedy and I know the protagonist, Michael Beard is not supposed to be likeable (that bit is successful), but for me the whole did not work.

 

The novel is in three sections set in 2000, 2005 and 2009 seeing Beard move from 53 to 62; from the demise of his fifth marriage to an ending that is pretty much left open. The climate change part is pretty much incidental and rests on Beard (a Nobel laureate) developing/nicking a way of mimicking photosynthesis to generate power. Most of the novel revolves around Beard’s complex and convoluted love life and there is no getting away from it as you spend a great deal of time in Beard’s head. He has no real care for the women he uses, is incapable of being faithful, knows no boundaries to his appetites and is thoroughly self centred. As an aside, Beard is in his 50s, overweight and seems to be infernally attractive to women, much younger women. This may be authorial or more likely male wish fulfilment (mind you, it’s not a phenomenon I’ve noticed!)

 

On completing the book, it just felt very slight and self indulgent with little point. I’m sure there are men like Beard around (too many of them) whose only real sorrow is getting caught, but in the context of this novel, it just didn’t work. The small glimmer of redemption for Beard, his young daughter and her unconditional love for him, also fell flat because it felt like an afterthought. On reflection maybe the book would have been better without the three time sections and without some of the background of climate change. It felt like McEwan really wanted to write about Beard’s sex life and his relationships with women and didn’t weave in the other strands. It was just frustrating, irritating and left me cold.

4 out of 10

Starting G by John Berger

Edited by Books do furnish a room
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The only Ian McEwan I have read so far was Amsterdam and that failed to impress me as well. It hasn't put me off reading more by him but your review is making me wonder if Solar is worth the effort as I thought it was meant to be one of his better books.

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I have read quite a few Ian McEwan books, and the only one I really thought was good was The Cement Garden. In general I have been quite underwhelmed by the rest of his writing. I read The Cement Garden when I was quite young, though, so I don't know if I would have found it as powerful if I had read it when I was a bit older.

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McEwan does write well and I wil read more at some point; this one just irritated me!

 

In the Thirties by Edward Upward

 

I first came across Edward Upward’s writing in the late 70s. He was a contemporary and friend of Isherwood (in particular), Auden and Spender. Like many intellectuals of the thirties he was attracted by the rise of communism; Upward actually joined the communist party in the thirties. He left in 1948 (it wasn’t revolutionary enough!), but remained active in left wing politics; campaigning for CND, the anti apartheid movement, against the Vietnam War and so on. His opposition to war was particularly vehement. Upward became and remained a Marxist. I was reminded of him on his death in 2009 at the age of 105. The excellent essay by Christopher Hitchens in Arguably also sparked my interest. Hence my reading of this trilogy; In the Thirties being the first volume.

 

I hadn’t realised how influential Upward was; Isherwood called him “the judge before whom all my work must stand trial”. Upward appears in some of Isherwood’s work as the character Allen Chalmers. At times Upward has also written some of his short stories as Allen Chalmers. In this novel the character of Richard Marple is based on Isherwood.

 

In the Thirties is really a historical novel; written in the 1960s. Many of those who flirted with communism in the 1960s, with hindsight blamed youthful naivety and denied their youthful enthusiasms. Upward tries (and succeeds) in getting rid of hindsight, writing in the present tense in an attempt to recreate the feel of the times. Alan Sebrill is a would be poet from lower middle class origins who has to teach to earn a living. The novel describes his struggles to write poetry, his attraction to communism and his eventual joining of the party. His very clumsy courtship of Elsie is painful and hilarious at the same time. The school descriptions are stilted at times, but Alan’s struggles with having to administer corporal punishment and his vividly described eventual rejection of it are powerful. This is not an autobiography (Upward was very clear on this), but it has autobiographical elements and I suspect the descriptions of teaching are from Upward’s own experience as he was a teacher his entire working career. There is also a sense of menace in the scenes where the Communist Party members are coming across Mosley’s Blackshirts and the descriptions of a Mosley speech and the fascist meeting are fascinating. The novel runs from the early 1930s to the start of war.

 

Upward has been criticised for a lack of humour, stilted dialogue and for not criticising the Communist Party. The charge about the dialogue is partly correct, some of it is heavy going, but Upward is trying to capture the debates and arguments of the time. There is humour, but it is very dry and Upward leaves it very much up to the reader to see it. The disruption of the fascist meeting has some very comic elements; but it is a serious situation, written seriously. The comedic elements just fit naturally in and don’t need to be emphasized. Upward, by the time he wrote the novel was well aware of the problems with Soviet Communism and Stalin, but he is trying to write as though he did not to capture the feel of the times and in this he succeeds. There are some interesting descriptions of ordinary working people who joined the party and this is one of the novel’s strengths.

 

This realist type writing is very different to Upward’s shorter fiction which is much more dreamlike, dystopian and a more magic realist quality (especially the stories concerning the imaginary village of Mortmere). In his review Isherwood called this a masterpiece; I wouldn’t go that far, but it is a fascinating period piece and explains the world and thought processes of part of 1930s Britain.

 

8 out of 10

 

Starting the second in the trilogy; The Rotten Elements

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The Feast of July by H E Bates

This certainly is not the world of Pop Larkin; this is a much different, bleaker England of the late nineteenth century. It is set in the Midlands (July feasts were a tradition in Midlands towns and cities)in the fictional area of Evensford. The heroine is called Bella (thankfully no vampires or werewolves here) and she is seduced by a more experienced man whilst she is working in a hotel/bar. She is pregnant and abandoned and goes in search of her seducer. It is winter and attempts to walk to the town she thinks he comes from. On the journey she loses the baby and almost dies. She is taken in by the Wainwright family who nurse her back to health. Each of their three sons, Jed, Con and Matty fall in love with her and she with each of them; in different ways. She seems to have picked Con, but the feast of July comes round and her seducer reappears with calamitous consequences. The ending is very ambiguous and it isn't clear exactly what has happened.

Bates tells his story well and his descriptions of the countryside in its seasons are excellent. Also very telling are his descriptions of poverty and brief feast and plenty. The hard winter months when there is little food and little work in the shoemaking industry (central to the wainwright family income). The Wainwrights are on the cusp between town and country and work on the land at the busier times of year. Death and disease are never far away.

Comparisons have been drawn with Hardy and Tess of the D'Urbevilles; although there are no rakish aristocrats. It is more the Hardy of Jude the Obscure and the Woodlanders; however Hardy's endings were always much clearer than this. There are other comparisons the can be made; Faulkner, the dickens of Hard Times and Elizabeth Gaskell possibly. It is also worth noting that the really strong characters are the female ones; Mrs Wainwright and Bella, who are practical, clear-sighted and realistic; although Bella can appear indecisive on the surface. Her inability initially to decide between the brothers is more about her experience and understanding of men. The male characters are easily led, emotional and weak willed.

A good tale, rather bleak, with an open ending (with clues). On the whole my Larkin related reluctance to read this was misplaced.

8 out of 10

Starting The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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The only books by H.E Bates I've read are the Larkin ones (which I must admit I enjoyed thoroughly) but I have started reading 'The Purple Plain' on two occasions. I'm not sure why I stopped because I was enjoying it. This has reminded me to give him another go as I like his writing and the time periods he writes about.

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Feast of july was the first Bates i've read and I will read more.

 

Proust; vol 3 of In Search of Lost Time; The Guermantes Way

Still dazzlingly written but with a focus on Parisian society and the salon system. Our narrator has grown up a little and appears to have developed into a serial stalker with a princess obsession. Albertine and Swann crop up again and we see more of Saint-Loup. We also see the profound effect the Dreyfuss affair is having on French society. A good working knowledge of the Dreyfuss affair is a pre-requisite for reading this volume, especially as much of it centres on Parisian society.

The writing and descriptions are brilliant; in this part at least, the narrator is irritating and less than likeable. The deconstruction of the salon system is a delight as is the shallowness and self-obsession of its denizens.

I must admit I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first two volumes, but that is a minor quibble. To say much more would be superfluous as so much has been written about Proust. Onward to Sodom and Gomorrah (something I've always wanted to say!).

8 and a half out of 10

Starting volume 4 Sodom and Gomorrah

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Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg

A rather good thriller come buddy novel come "road movie" come description of a descent into despair. Difficult to rate because in patches it was brilliant and in patches very much not; with a strong streak of nihilism running through the middle.

The novel centres on two friends and is set in the mid 1970s.Alex Cutter is a Vietnam veteran who is emotionally and physically scarred; missing part of two limbs and one eye; he is the driving force in the book sometimes malevolent, sometimes tender and touching; mostly out of control. His friend Richard Bone has dropped out of middle class ad man life and now pretty much makes his living as a male gigolo and we mostly follow him through the rollercoaster that is the novel. The gist is that Bone, late one night, witnesses a a body being dumped from a car (at least he realises it was a body when he sees the news). He later sees a picture of a prominent businessman and thinks he may have been the one who dumped the body. Cutter comes up with a get rich quick plan that involves a spot of blackmail.

The crime and the blackmail are the backdrop for the friendship between Cutter and Bone and for Cutter's downward spiral into despair and madness. There is a very large amount of alcohol consumed; and Thornburg describes hangovers with a vividness that can only come from experience! The attempt to make sense and profit out of the murder is shown to be as impossible as the character's attempts to make sense of their lives. There are no easy or neat solutions. The female characters seem to provide a conscience for the male ones; especially Cutter's girlfriend Mo, lost soul though she is. Bone pretty much wanders through the whole thing and at times, I think this weakens the plot and strength of the narrative.

The Vietnam War is there, but not often mentioned. Having said that the wounds inflicted on America by the war (On Cutter) are at its heart.

When Cutter (reluctantly) does talk about the war, he talks about the My Lai massacre and the infamous pictures

"I studied them all right. I went to school at those pictures. And you know what I found out? I found out you have three reactions, Rich,only three. The first one is simple - I hate America. But then you study them some more and you move up a notch. There is no God. Butyou know what you finally say, Rich, after you've studied them all you can? You say - I'm hungry."

This is powerfully good writing; but only in parts. The ending, especially the last sentence is also very powerful; in a more coventional thriller type way.

Brilliant at times; the redneck town at the end is in sharp contrast with Cutter's increasingly manic and reckless decline; juxtaposing two very different Americas.

7 and a half out of 10

 

Starting The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

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Proust; vol 3 of In Search of Lost Time; The Guermantes Way

Still dazzlingly written but with a focus on Parisian society and the salon system. Our narrator has grown up a little and appears to have developed into a serial stalker with a princess obsession. Albertine and Swann crop up again and we see more of Saint-Loup. We also see the profound effect the Dreyfuss affair is having on French society. A good working knowledge of the Dreyfuss affair is a pre-requisite for reading this volume, especially as much of it centres on Parisian society.

The writing and descriptions are brilliant; in this part at least, the narrator is irritating and less than likeable. The deconstruction of the salon system is a delight as is the shallowness and self-obsession of its denizens.

I must admit I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first two volumes, but that is a minor quibble. To say much more would be superfluous as so much has been written about Proust. Onward to Sodom and Gomorrah (something I've always wanted to say!).

8 and a half out of 10

Starting volume 4 Sodom and Gomorrah

 

I had no idea you've already gotten around to reading the first three novels by Proust, I'm impressed! 8,5/10 bodes well :) I hope you continue to enjoy Proust's novels, I'll be waiting for your thoughts on the rest of them!

 

And have a great reading year in 2013! :)

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Thanks Frankie; am enjoying Proust, in a steady and slow sort of way!

 

Carrington by Gretchen Gerzina

Very good biography of one of the more tragic figures on the edges of the Bloomsbury set. Carrington (she didn't like to use her first name) was an artist who studied at the Slade. Carrington's relationship to Bloomsbury was a little ambivalent and she is a complex figure. Her upbringing, which was strict had made her very wary of her sexuality and she had a clear loathing of herself and her femininity much of the time. The love of her life was the eminent writer Lytton Strachey, who was gay.He loved her in return and they kept house together from 1917 until his death in 1932. So close was their bond, that when Carrington did marry, her husband moved in with them.

Carrington had affairs with men and women; this makes her sound promiscuous, but she was not. The centre of her life was Lytton and everything else was secondary, even though their relationship was not a sexual one. She took her own life when he died.

Her art is startlingly good and she has been under appreciated as an srtist over the years. Her relationship with some of the other Bloomsberries (as she called them) was rather up and down; but she was a strong character who could hold her own in most company. D H Lawrence caricatured her in Women In Love (she hated Lawrence because of his homophobia) and Aldous Huxley portrayed her a s a sex therapist in Chrome Yellow.

This is a competent biography; when I have read some biographies I am often relieved to be out of the company of the subject. Not the case with Carrington; I liked her.

8 out of 10

 

Starting Thomas Hardy by Michael Millgate

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The Rotten Elements by Edward Upward

Not at all as good as the first volume in the trilogy. This volume follows our British Communist Party supporting couple, Alan and Elsie Sebrill after the Second World War in the late 1940s. It documents the debates within the BCP about how far to support the post-war Labour Government.

Alan and Elsie become increasingly disillusioned with the Party, feeling it is too revisionist and not sufficiently Marxist-Leninist. We are in pure Life of Brian territory here; the Judean Peoples Front and the Peoples Front of Judea (splitters). There is one moment when Alan is becoming very nervous about falling out with the party and says the word Stalin as a mantra to calm himself down; at once hysterically funny and rather sinister (probably not meant to be either).

This is the far left as I remember it in the late 1970s; quite ridiculous, Spartacists arguing with Maoists, arguing with Militant, arguing with the Socialist Workers Party. Too much doctrine and too little connection with real life!

There is however a very good description of a nervous breakdown as Alan and Elsie do leave the party which has been absolutely central to their lives. Upward here is describing how he felt when he left the party and you can tell it comes from real experience. Because it is a circular and self-contained belief system the logic is difficult to combat. There is a telling description of Alan and Elsie being called to see a senior member of the perty; the argument "two and two make five whatever you say or argue".

This didn't have the historical interest or the power of the first in the trilogy; but Upward still manages to write without hindsight.

6 out of 10

Starting No Home but the Struggle; the last in the trilogy by Upward

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I like the sound of the H E Bates one. :) I read The Triple Echo a few years ago - I seem to remember the ending of that one being unsatisfactory, not due to the ambiguity (I don't mind ambiguous endings at all) but I can't remember why now. I still want to read Love for Lydia at some stage. :)

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My pleasure frankie1

 

Omensetter's Luck by William Gass

 

 

A wonderful postmodern novel set in Gilean, Ohio in the 1890s. Brackett Omensetter arrives in the town with his family. He appears to be at one with the world; I’ve seen the word congruity used to describe his relationship with the world. His wagon is open and rain seems inevitable, but does not come. He moves into a property which is flooded regularly, but while Omensetter is there the land floods around his property, but he remains dry. He disturbs the locals; his landlord, Henry Pimber seems to become envious of Omensetter. The local preacher, Jethro Furber (the central voice in the book) is in some senses Omensetter’s opposite pole. Furber is, in my opinion, one of the great literary creations and as you spend a good deal of the novel inside his head, you get to know him quite well.

 

The novel opens with Israbestis Tott (don’t you live those names) looking back; then Henry Pimber; soon to be deceased; has his say. The bulk of the novel belongs to Furber. It must be said that they are all, to a man, unreliable narrators. They describe Omensetter’s arrival, his effect on the community and especially on Furber, his healing of Henry with a makeshift poultice, Henry’s disappearance, Furber’s successful attempt to turn people against Omensetter, Henry’s death and the loss of Omensetter’s luck. The whole is written in magnificently constructed prose; to put in quotes here would be difficult without putting in most of the book, but here is how Brackett Omensetter is introduced:

 

“Brackett Omensetter was a wide and happy man. He could whistle like the cardinal whistles in the deep snow, or whirr like the shy ‘white rising from its cover, or be the lark a-chuckle at the sky. He knew the earth. He put his hands in water. He smelled the clean fir smell. He listened to the bees. And he laughed his deep, loud, wide happy laugh whenever he could – which was often long and joyfully.”

 

Earth, air and water; Omensetter is a bit of a conundrum; he is on the surface seen as good, moral and a symbol of innocence. Almost a force of nature with his “luck”. However there are a couple of interesting incidents. When the fox is stuck in the well it is Henry Pimber’s instinct to free him. Omensetter refuses to release the fox, saying it is natural to leave him there to starve if fate doesn’t help him out. It never occurs to Omensetter that he might be an instrument of fate. The same situation applies when at the end of the book Omensetter refuses to fetch a doctor to his baby son, who has diphtheria. Omensetter, unlike the rest of the community, does not attend Church on Sunday, preferring to walk with his family. Goodness does not seem to me to be the right word for Omensetter. There is perhaps the beginning of the idea that although this is all about good and evil, life and death, love and hate; these concepts cannot be represented separately. Innocence is ultimately corrupt.

 

Then we come to Furber. Jethro Furber is a tormented, crazed, sex obsessed, unbelieving preacher. His interior monologue is scatological, blasphemous, colourful and full of rhymes and doggerel. Many of these are the sort of playground rhymes that we all learnt at school; but funny for all that. As Omensetter’s life begins to fall apart, Furber moves towards redemption. Furber’s language and metaphors are startling: “The words popped from their rounded cheeks like half-eaten figs”; that from the first page I opened and the first sentence I looked at.

 

Furber does eventually express his unbelief from the pulpit;

 

“We are here – yes- yet we do not belong. This, my friends is the source of all religious feeling. On this truth everything depends. We are here yet we do not belong; and though we need comfort and hope and strength to sustain us, anything that draws us nearer to this life and puts us in desire of it is deeply wrong and greatly deceives us.

 

I ask you now to ask yourselves one simple foolish question – to say: was I born for this? – and I ask you please to face it honestly and answer yea if you can or nay if you must.

 

For this?

 

You rise in the morning, you stretch, you scratch your chest.

 

For this?

 

All night, while you snored, the moon burned as it burned for Jesus or for Caesar.

 

You wash, you dress.

 

For this? .....

 

So you were meant for this? You’ve your eyes, your human consciousness for this?”

 

It is a magnificent tour de force throughout. I do feel I understand something about Furber. In my younger days I was an Anglican priest (Episcopalian in the US); I had been brought up Pentecostal, moved away from fundamentalism at university and became an Anglican. By my late 20s I gradually came to the conclusion I no longer believed in God or the Church; and I was a priest. My house, job and wage all tied up in it. I could have done what many clergy do; decided God was immanent (within) rather than transcendent and the language was symbol and metaphor with no life everlasting (just be nice to each other). The tension created madness in Furber and I recognize that stress and the anguish; I left the church as I could not contemplate living and preaching what I did not believe. Furber ends up defending Omensetter after trying to destroy him and goes on to have a breakdown.

 

The whole book is a delight; it is hard work at times, but well worth the effort; it considers the very basic and important human questions and deals with them in a unique and poetic way. A great American novel.

10 out of 10

 

Starting Our Dancing Days by Lucy English

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The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

 

A deceptively short novella with a minimal story which has an underlying philosophical intensity that belies the simple plot. It is the story of Macabea narrated by the rather mysterious Rodrigo SM; he plays a slightly ambiguous role in the story; his asides are amusing and he appears sympathetic. However I suspect he is a rather unreliable and deliberately male narrator.

 

Macabea has moved to Rio from Northern Brazil and is now alone in the world; strictly brought up by her aunt she is portrayed as one of life’s casualties who is of little consequence. She is poor and lives in a slum sharing a small flat with work colleagues. Rodrigo describes her as undernourished, ugly (with great frequency), dirty, naive, innocent, unfeeling; wretched. Macabea is free in that she doesn’t seem to know how unhappy she is. She briefly has a boyfriend, who treats her cruelly and then leaves her for her friend who has more traditional female charms (according to Rodrigo).

 

The fortune teller at the end of the book tells Macabea she is about to have a wondrous change of fortune; she gets run over by a Mercedes and dies on the street, at last the centre of attention. That’s not a spoiler; Rodrigo tells you what is going to happen early on in the book and maintains an air of smugness with his sympathy throughout.

 

This is the first Lispector I have read, and she has a unique style; the prose works well and she creates almost a fairy tale like atmosphere. There are a couple of neat literary devices which link to events and actions and the events of the novel are simple but underlaid with thoughts and reflections on philosophy and writing. It is haunting and I am sure there is a good deal of Lispector in it; a definite city vs country feel; a reflection on the absolute grinding nature of poverty, the problem of identity and how to write about it.

 

I would also tend to agree with those who see this as something of a feminist manifesto. The principal male character, the boyfriend Olimpico, is totally self obsessed and women in his life are extensions of himself. Then there is Rodrigo; he is the one who narrates Macabea’s story and gives us all the information about her. How do we know about her unloveliness and ugliness; Rodrigo tells us. All of our judgements about her come from him; this, Lispector is telling us, is how men judge and value women. It is men who decide what beauty and ugliness is. Macabea’s values and real character are woven into the thread of the narrative, despite the narrator and we are left to judge if she is really ugly and worthless and we are left to think on the injustice of her life.

 

It really is very well constructed and complex and worth reading.

9 out of 10

Starting The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

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No Home but the Struggle by Edward Upward

Last in the trilogy and didn't really live up to the promise of the first. Again it follows Alan Sebrill. now an ex-communist party member and newly retired. This novel revolves around Alan looking back over his childhood and early years and an account of his involvement in CND and the anti Vietnam protests. The thread running through the whole is Alan's struggle to live the poetic life and write poetry and whether he can be a true Marxist and write poetry (!!). Or is there such a thing as Marxist poetry. At times the arguments about poetry are long and interminably boring. However Upward does produce part poems and stanzas that Alan may have written. Alan realises that these poem/lines are truly awful and Upward does a good job of writing bad poetry. He also manages to make Alan's poetry improve over his lifetime. I think it must be quite difficult to write slightly less than bad poetry, but Upward pulls it off.

Upward's long life means he covers a lot of ground. The best parts of the book deal with English Public School life before the First World War. Upward describes the fagging system, the casual violence and beatings, the schoolboy crushes, homosexual liaisons; all you expect of public schools of this time. Upward does this rather well without sensationalism and in a matter of fact way. He has some caustic remarks about the more brutal boys, one he describes as, " ..a crude sensualist, lacking the courage to try to put his desires into practice with anyone except himself". That line did provoke a laugh. Alan's attempts to "woo" girls and lose his virginity are also amusing.

However there is too much interior monologue which goes nowhere in this one.

6 out of 10

Starting another trilogy; Loving by Henry Green

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G by John Berger

Won the Booker prize in the early 70s (not necessarily an auspicious start) and by John Berger; I really wanted to like this. It is the story of G, son of an Italian merchant and his mistress and takes place in before and during the first world war. It is a post-modern novel and its structure isn't conventional. G is essentially a hedonist, a Don Juan (or possibly Casanova) figure. Parts of this are beautifully written, especially the descriptions relating to the early aviators.
G inherits his father's wealth, is seduced by a female relative at 14 and pretty much wanders through life in an amoral way until the redemptive ending when he works for Italy in Trieste in the war. There are similarities with some stream of consciouness novels and I noted flashes of Proustian description, especially in the descriptions of blackberries and the symbolic way particular blackberries represent all blackberries.
However, all the clever (and often very good) tropes and descriptive passages can't hide the fact I found the book unpleasant. The eroticism is not at all convincing; and let's take a closer look at G. He seduces women; always women in reltionships with someone else. Married women, or about to be married, like the chambermaid who is a virgin and is about to get married. They all try to resist him, but he charms them, seduces them and usually ruins their lives. Women find him massively charming and irresisitible and he can do whatever he likes with them and does. Wait a moment; this wasn't written by a bloke was it; no wish fulfilment here then!! There are also drawings and penises, some with smiley faces and vaginas; I remember those from the 1970s on the toilet walls of my school. Despite some flashes of inspiration, this was just a fantasy trip with a bit of redemption at the end. It's a shame because I enjoyed Ways of Seeing.

4 out of 10
Starting The Centaur by John Updike
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The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

Quirky and rather brief novel which I rather enjoyed. It is part fable with a spot of magic realism, a dash of humour, some nice twists and clever observations of life in the early 1960s.
Dougal Douglas (aka Douglas Dougal) is a Scot who has moved to Peckham. He gets a job in a local textile firm; Meaows, Meade and Grindley, as an "arts man", someone who will observe the workforce and learn how to motivate them. The early days of Human Resources. He has an odd and disturbing effect on those he meets, disturbing equilibriums. Dougal has one shoulder higher than the other and has a bump on either side of his head, under his hair; he tells people that they were horns that he has had removed. Dougal is a shadowy figure, pan like, causing mischief, playing on foibles.
The rest of the characters are well drawn with sharp social satire; from the young thugs, the disillusioned members of the typing pool, the failing to cope director to the ambitious young women.
An unusual social satire with some snappy dialogue and delicious come uppances; a sharp dissection of British life in the early sixties. A little slight but satisfying.

7 and a half out of 10

Starting Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

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Our Dancing Days by Lucy English

Quirky and rather interesting novel set in the 1970s. It tells the story of a group of friends who meet in the 60s in the time of hippies, free love and lots of smoking dope. One of them (Don) is left a crumbling and ramshackle manor house (St Johns) in rural East Anglia. Obviously they start a commune (that was what one did in those days) so they could grow their own food. Initially there is Don, Dee-Dee and Tessa (who tells the story in flashback). They are joined by Jack, who is charismatic and knows it all. A rhythm builds based on the seasons with plenty in the summer and cold and scarcity in the winter.
Into this mix comes Helen and her 5 year old daughter Beauty. Helen doesn't have a clue and Beauty is completely out of control. There follows a cycle of seasons, gardening, fairs and the ups and downs of communal life.
Twenty years later Tessa is an artist and she is commissioned to make some drawings of country houses in East Anglia; one of them being St Johns, now updated, modern and comfortable; owned by a discontented well to do couple. As she sketches she recalls the dissolution of the commune; the intrusion of the practicalities of real life, human frailty, a terrible tragedy and most of all betrayal.
I did enjoy this; it was well written and all of the characters were believeable, not one dimensional. It is a fable telling of loss of innocence and the ending of a dream of community and its replacement with a cynical individualism.

7 and a half out of 10

Starting Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

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Our Dancing Days by Lucy English

Quirky and rather interesting novel set in the 1970s. It tells the story of a group of friends who meet in the 60s in the time of hippies, free love and lots of smoking dope. One of them (Don) is left a crumbling and ramshackle manor house (St Johns) in rural East Anglia. Obviously they start a commune (that was what one did in those days) so they could grow their own food. Initially there is Don, Dee-Dee and Tessa (who tells the story in flashback). They are joined by Jack, who is charismatic and knows it all. A rhythm builds based on the seasons with plenty in the summer and cold and scarcity in the winter.

Into this mix comes Helen and her 5 year old daughter Beauty. Helen doesn't have a clue and Beauty is completely out of control. There follows a cycle of seasons, gardening, fairs and the ups and downs of communal life.

Twenty years later Tessa is an artist and she is commissioned to make some drawings of country houses in East Anglia; one of them being St Johns, now updated, modern and comfortable; owned by a discontented well to do couple. As she sketches she recalls the dissolution of the commune; the intrusion of the practicalities of real life, human frailty, a terrible tragedy and most of all betrayal.

I did enjoy this; it was well written and all of the characters were believeable, not one dimensional. It is a fable telling of loss of innocence and the ending of a dream of community and its replacement with a cynical individualism.

7 and a half out of 10

Starting Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

 Sounds really interesting Books Do.

Will put this one on my wishlist.

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I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by Our Dancing Days and will look out for her other two novels.

 

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

A charming, brief novel set in China during the cultural revolution. Two teenage boys are sent to a peasant village for re-education because of what their parents do. They have the sort of adventures teenage boys have; with an edge because of their situation. They also discover western literature through another boy being re-educated. Balzac, Dumas, Flaubert, Gogol; all nineteenth century authors. They also discover teenage love and obsession. There is a feeling of closeness to the earth and the descriptions of daily life and work are very good.
The story has some good twists and is pleasingly unpredictable. There have been grumbles about the ending, but my problem is not with the ending in itself. The last third of the book does feel very rushed and I felt the book could easily have been twice as long and that would have taken away the rushed feel at the end. I also felt the character of the seamstress was a little thin and did not ring true; it needed more development to explain the way she acted and reacted
A good read, but in this case not quite enough.

7 out of 10

Starting A Smuggler's Bible by Joseph McElroy

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