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A book blog by Books Do Furnish a Room 2011


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Just finished Essays on the Pleasures of Death by Ellie Ragland

Interesting, though difficult, analysis of the links between Frued and Lacan and how Lacan developed Freud's thought. There are some interesting lines of thought. A challenge to Chomsky's language theories which I didn't find wholly convincing. The concept of the "Death Drive" which Frued mentions but does not adequately develop is followed up here.

There is an excellent anlysis of the impasse between wanting and being leading to an examination of how pornography uses words that depersonalize, but body parts are personalized.

On the whole a difficult but rewarding read.

7 and a half out of 10

Starting Bright Young People by D J Taylor

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The Imposter by Damon Galgut

A well written novel about modern South Africa. Adam Napier loses his job and home. He moves to a run down house in the country owned by his brother to clean it up and write poetry. He runs across someone he was at school with. Adam doesn't remember him but Canning remembers Adam with great affection. Canning has inherited his father's estate and Adam spends weekends there with Canning and his wife. Canning intends to turn it into a golf course.

At times this is rather bleak and has a touch of the noir about it; none of the characters are particularly likeable and it is difficult to care about what happens to them. It's a good story about the oddities of memory, how the past can haunt the present, disillusionment (the old regime has gone but some of the old problems remain) friendship and betrayal. Add a spot of organised crime and gardening and it makes for a pretty good mix. I thought the last chapter was unnecessary but others may disagree. The title does sum up the novel; people are not always what or who they seem.

7 and a half out of 10

Starting 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

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Under the Frangipani by Mia Couto

A good dose of magic realism African style, set in post colonial Mozambique. A police inspector is sent to investigate a murder at a remote fort used as a hospital/refuge. Whilst he is there he is also inhabited by the shade/ghost of a worker buried under the frangipani tree in the fort (unknown to him). The residents of the fort are a group of older people waiting for death, their nurse, an elderly witch and the wife of the deceased (who ran the fort). They all readily confess to the crime. There is magic, talking animals, the dead are all around and the whole story is rather surreal and chronology is pleasingly loose. It is a pleasing mix of thriller and parable which explores the spirit world and old beliefs and traditions. There is a message to the old colonial masters in the frontnote; "You will never rule this land". Short, sharp and remarkable.

8 out of 10

Starting The Rock Pool by Cyril Connolly

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The Rock Pool by Cyril Connolly

An interesting novel with some rather unlikeable characters. It is set in the south of France in the 1930s in the fictional Trou-sur-mer (based on Cagnes). Living there are a bunch of disparate and rather bohemian characters of varying nationalities. They are all fairly dissolute and for the time was considered shocking. It was initially published in France because no publisher in England would touch it. It was not published in Britain until 1947. The descriptions of lesbians and homosexuals as functioning members of society and living openly with human strengths and weaknesses were unacceptable to the English publishers who looked at it in the 1930s. The Narrator, Naylor was a particular type of Englishman, public school and Oxbridge, a little money, no real occupation and no real purpose. He is also rather unpleasant. He sees Trou-sur-mere as a rock pool whose inhabitants he can study. Inevitably he becomes part of the "pool" and the story charts his decline.

Connolly took his characters from real life and in the early 1930s he and his wife had lived and travelled in the south of France. The origin for the Naylor character was apparently killed in the war flying for the RAF. Racasse, the artist, survived and Connolly had a picture of Connolly and his wife painted by the artist the character is based on. The Rock Pool is basically an attack on the English social system and charts the downfall of some of the "bright young things" of the late 20s. Naylor is a passive character and Peter Quennell has likened him to Frederic in Flaubert's Sentimental Education.

There are some marvellous comic moments and the middle class Englishman is shown up for what he is. There is also the sense of of something coming to an end, no more innocence. A brief book, an easy read, but don't expect to like the characters.

7 out of 10

starting As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

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Bright Young People by D J Taylor

An interesting book about the 1920s bright young things. Full of upper class aesthetes and their hangers on, it charts the parties, frivolities, attempts at doing a proper job, attempts at literature, hedonism, excess and general silliness of this group. You sense the lack of direction, too young for the war and therefore lacking a certain cachet. Some names stand out, as they went on to greater things; Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, Cecil Beaton, Nancy Mitford to name a few. Others had less spectacular careers. Yet more were casualties, Elizabeth Ponsonby and Brenda Dean Paul.

The book doesn't always flow and tends to concentrate on a small number of the group. Brian Howard, Evelyn Waugh and Elizabeth Ponsonby are prominent. There are lives cut short by the next war and quite a few lives wasted. There is an intersting analysis of the direction taken politically in the 1930s. Some like Diana Guiness (nee Mitford and soon to be Mosley) became fascists others like Tom Driberg and Brian Howard moved to the left.

If, like me, you are fascinated by this period of history and the "Bright Young Things" then this book is a good starting point.

7 and a half out of 10

Following this theme; Starting Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure by Marie-Jacqueline Lancaster

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As I lay Dying

I suspect you either love Faulkner or hate him. The novel is described as stream of consciousness, but I am not so sure; it read very easily. The story revolves around the death of Addie Bundren and is written in multiple narrator form (including the deceased). As she is dying, one son is making the coffin outside the bedroom window (no doubt a great comfort). Addie has made her husband promise to have her buried in a local town and the book revolves around the journey. As Addie dies there are also floods making the journey more difficult.

Pretty much everything that can go wrong does go wrong and the whole journey is a catalogue of disasters. Tragedy and comedy mix well here and this a wonderful book. The multiple narrators do add a great deal to the story as the reader approaches it from various angles. Happy families this is not and the story is a simple one. However I loved it and read over half of it in one sitting.

Nine out of ten

Starting Bloomsday by David Lentz

Edited by Books do furnish a room
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It is worth reading Ooshie.

 

Just finished Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa lahiri

A mixed buch of stories; some better than others. They centre on Indians in exile, usually in the US and issues relating to homesickness, alienation, getting used to a new culture, misunderstaning and the strange intricacies of relationships. Some of the stories are very good, others much less memorable. I liked the first and last stories especially; about married couples negotiating the rapids of married life with varying success. I struggled to be held by some of the stories, hence the score. On the whole though an enjoyable read; not sure how it won the Pulitzer Prize though.

6 and a half out of 10

Starting Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig

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Finished Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig

Nine excellent and rather unsettling short stories. Difficult to pin down; there are strong shades of Kafka here. The narrators are all men and very few people in the stories are named. The stories are about identity and its loss. They appear mundane and everyday, but there are very many layers of meaning.

 

In "Then a Door Opens and Swings Shut" a man is visiting an old schoolfriend when a woman motions him into her house. Inside the house there are hundreds of dolls in different shades of repair and neatness. The woman brings down a doll that looks exactly like him and has his name and says she has been waiting for him ... Not a horror story, but very creepy.

 

In "The Beginning of Something" a man looks out of the window and realises he is in an unfamiliar country, looking in the mirror he does not recognize the person he sees there. He then wakes up relieved, but discovers the dream has come true. This one was scary, more for what was not said.

 

The last story, "You Don't Know Them, They're Strangers", is the most unsettling. A man returns home after an evening with the neighbours and notes the name on his door is different; his flat is familiar, but different. He goes to his office, it is in an area he has never visited before with people he does not know. They know him and he knows the job, returning home the name on the door has changed again, but the flat is still his; the pace of change quickens.

 

This collection is well worth reading. I must admit I had not heard of Alois Hotschnig before picking up this book. He has won literary awards in his native Austria and international honours like the Italo-Svevo award. I will look for more!

9 out of 10

Starting another collection of short stories "The Start of the End of it All" by Carol Emshwiller

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The Standing Pool by Adam Thorpe

I had some problems deciding how I felt about this one, possibly because the author didn't really make his mind up what it was.

It is the story of a family (the Mallinsons) who decide to take a six month sabbatical in France. Nick is a 50 something university lecturer with a wife (Sarah) 20 years younger (an ex-pupil) and three young girls. They are liberal, tolerant and care about the environment). They rent a remote cottage from the Sandlers who are not liberal or tolerant and very un-pc. The house is sort of looked after by Jean-Luc a single thirty something who lives with his mother in the nearby village and talks to his dead uncle Fernand.

Add to the above a dirty swimming pool, a mud patch which Jean Luc is supposed to be turning into a lawn, a pack of wild boars, uncommunicative locals, a bunch of hunters and Nick's son from his first marraige (a stroppy teenager of 24) and the mix is rather rich.

Actually most of the time nothing happens; there is a beautifully built sense of unease, even menace and the reader becomes aware of lots of possible looming disasters. What also develops is an interesting study of family life and the internal workings of a relationship; along with an examination of the outsider in society. The tentacles of the war still spread throughout the village and its consequences affect the characters in different ways.

In the end Thorpe cannot decide whether this is approaching menace or real horror and there are two endings (sort of). I just wish he had decided one way or the other.

7 out of 10

Starting Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen

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As I lay Dying

I suspect you either love Faulkner or hate him. The novel is described as stream of consciousness, but I am not so sure; it read very easily. The story revolves around the death of Addie Bundren and is written in multiple narrator form (including the deceased). As she is dying, one son is making the coffin outside the bedroom window (no doubt a great comfort). Addie has made her husband promise to have her buried in a local town and the book revolves around the journey. As Addie dies there are also floods making the journey more difficult.

Pretty much everything that can go wrong does go wrong and the whole journey is a catalogue of disasters. Tragedy and comedy mix well here and this a wonderful book. The multiple narrators do add a great deal to the story as the reader approaches it from various angles. Happy families this is not and the story is a simple one. However I loved it and read over half of it in one sitting.

 

This is on one or two of my reading challenges so I was always going to read it, but I knew nothing about the book in itself. It was fascinating to read this review and now I'm looking forward to reading the book at some point! :) Thank you.

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A pleasure Frankie; love that hat!

Duma Key by Stephen King

Too long and completely bonkers. I will admit that King is a good tale teller and the book reads easily, but this is a novella turned into 700 pages!! A mixture of rehashed folklore and Greek myth with a strong dose of Pirates of the Caribbean. Some of it is laugh out loud funny, but not purposely.

 

Edgar Freemantle has an accident, loses an arm and acquires a brain injury. His marraige falls apart and being wealthy moves alone to a Florida Key to paint. Something has awoken and drawn him there; his paintings develop real power. Some of the other characters feel like they have been borrowed from Fitzgerald. King also provides his own spoilers and on at least two occasions he gives away vital plot lines; losing the impact of what is supposed to be a thriller/horror. King has also designed a new way of managing the judicial system; forget the electric chair, death by painting is so much easier!

It's all a bit mad and doesn't have the edge of his early stuff.

4 out of 10

Starting Dissolution ny C J Sansom

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Bloomsday; the Bostoniad by David Lentz

This novel was a delight and I didn't want it to end.

It is of course a modern rendering of Homer's Odyssey and Joyce's Ulysses and is set on June 14 1974 in Boston. The characters are descended from the original characters in Ulysses; the central actors are Rudy Bloom and Thomas Dedalus. The links with Joyce's book are striking, but so are the differences. The story flows through a day when Bloom and Dedalus both lose their jobs and Dedalus finds himself being offered Bloom's old job. They meet at a wake and there follows much eating, drinking, philosophising and wandering through the streets and bars of Boston.

Of course there is much more to it than that, but you should read it. Ulysses is a masterpiece, but I enjoyed reading this book much more than Ulysses. I realised that fairly early in the book, but it took me a while to work out why. I grew to like the characters, to care about them and it was their plain humanity that I loved. I would happily go out for a drink with either or both of them! There are some thought provoking reflections on the meaning of life, love and religion, especially as it is intimated that Bloom may be terminally ill and is thinking about his end.

Mr Lentz has produced a book that works on many different levels; a literary masterpiece with enough references to the the two classics it springs from; certainly. A profound reflection on life and love, especially pertinent as one reaches a certain age; definitely. But there is much more; laugh out loud comic moments, moments of touching tenderness and the language is a delight.

You must read it!

9 out of 10

Starting The Drop Edge of Yonder by Rudolph Wurlitzer

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