Hux

Leaving Las Vegas (1990) John O'Brien Took a while to get into this. The book is separated into four sections: Cherries, Bars, Lemons, Plums (casino, you see). I struggled to find anything very compelling in the first three. Cherries focuses on the female protagonist, Sera, and her work as a Las Vegas prostitute, going from one trick to the other, opening with her especially brutal anal rape by three teenage boys. After this, she simply goes back to work like it's nothing more than an occupational hazard (which it probably is). What follows is more random men, more blow jobs, and more bleakness. It was mildly diverting but never that interesting to read. Bars, meanwhile, switches to our male protagonist, Ben, an alcoholic who has recently lost his job. He lives in L.A. and frequents bars and strip clubs, drinking himself sober, and planning a last big trip to Vegas where, somehow, he will find a way to let his life come to an end (this is very evidently his desired outcome). This section was probably the least interesting to me, full of medicated boozing and self-pity. I understand it's purpose and what it means to the outcome of the novel, but I just didn't find the cycle of bars, booze, and planning for his Vegas trip to be especially entertaining. It was all very banal. I will, however, compliment O'Brien on his ability to write a convincing drunk. There are no slurring words, no comedic gibberish or puerile humour, just a man who drinks, relentlessly, but remains present, almost articulate, until he loses himself and blacks out. His alcoholism is so advanced that being drunk is no longer even possible (or the purpose). After this is the short section (Lemons) that focuses on Sera's pimp Al, a man who regularly beats, rapes, and abuses her. This too wasn't very interesting to me. Then comes, what is, by far the best part of the novel (Plums). This is where Sera and Ben meet. He hires her, but, due to a staggering inability to keep it up, gets only a brief blow-job and mostly just some company. The two seem to be kindred spirits and deliberately seek each other out again the next day. He pays for her time but they become a form of comfort for one another, sharing their bed without sex, looking forward to each other's presence at the end of the day until he, without meaning to, finds himself moving into her apartment. She knows she can't help him with his alcoholism; he knows she has to go out to have sex for money. They accept each other for who and what they are, and the book becomes genuinely tender and perversely romantic. You could even be tempted to imagine a happy ending for these two. But no... that would not be the right way to end this thing. That would have been a pathetic lie. And when you take into account O' Brien's own life and alcoholism... it makes sense that such an ending would be asking too much. The book reminded me a lot of City of Night by Rechy but without the same high quality of writing or the originality. It never quite reached those heights. And however great the final section is, I found the first three parts a little too dull to ignore. In many ways, the book, like Ben, was almost saved at the very end. Almost. 7/10

Precious Bane (1927) Mary Webb There's a scene in Blackadder where he writes a novel designed to appeal to the masses. He describes it as: a giant rollercoaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century, with some hot gypsies thrown in. Anyway, that popped into my head as I was reading this frothing hotbed of pulsating romantic peasant life during the sexy Napoleonic wars. Pwhoar!! The book takes place in rural Shropshire and is full of rustic landscapes, bread and wine, pastoral innocence and peasant hardship and charm. I'm reliably informed that this genre was often referred to as loam and lovechild (which is rather apt), because it's a book which celebrates the earthy traditions of farming life, passionate, desolate emotions, and the fruity lusts of the heart (and there might actually be a lovechild thrown in too). Ultimately, it's historical romance but with a touch of literary fiction. Prue Sarn is a heroic and romantic figure, a hearty woman with curves and desires. Everything about her is spirited and pure, a woman who works hard in the fields, who speaks her mind, yet enjoys being distracted by various romantic thoughts. Prue, however, has a hare lip and is considered unattractive by her rural community but this only affords her more opportunities to enjoy her romantic fantasies, to escape into the possibility of finding a strong and worthy man. Meanwhile her brother, Gideon, has become the leader of the farm after their father's death (suspicious) and is obsessed with making money and acquiring power. After their mother dies (also suspicious with some implication that he may have been involved in both deaths), this obsession intensifies. And while the book is supposedly romantic, the truth is, the man that Prue meets (Kester) only really turns up in the middle of the book, disappears to London, then returns at the very end. But it's still quite a sweet story. And it plays into those heaving bosom/wild man of the moors love-tropes that appeal to certain readers *cough-women-cough*. But hey, it's gotta be better than those angry sex werewolves that they read about these days. As such, the romance stuff didn't really appeal to me that much. But I did like Prue, the environment, the obsessive desire for success which propels Gideon (his precious bane), and even the curious and often distracting dialect (it took a while to even grasp which part of the country this was supposed to be). Prue has a way of speaking, and narrating, which is very distinct and interesting, and occasionally quite funny: "Christmas went by us and naught stirred the quiet, unless you count killing the pig." I can't say that I enjoyed the book in its entirety, several chapters being rather bogged down in farming detail and trips to the market, but Prue definitely made up for that and had a noticeable impact. In fact, she might even be my favourite female character of all-time (relegating poor Fanny Price from 'Of Human Bondage' into second place). She is quite remarkable and intriguing as a character, full of zest and passionate feeling. Really did kind of adore her. It's a fascinating look at a period of time which was simple yet hard. A worthwhile read. That all being said there was a little too much dialogue for my tastes and probably too much melodrama. I would recommend it but be aware that some of it will probably drag. Oh, and the ending is magnificent and unapologetically offers you the ending you desperately wanted -- a heaving chest full of breathlessness and windswept embraces. 7/10

Lucky Per (1904) Henrik Pontoppidan Peter Andreas Sidenius (Per) is raised by a very religious mother and father (a pastor) and has several siblings. Per almost immediately rejects his father's worldview and deliberately isolates himself as an outsider from his family. When he is older, he moves to Copenhagen to become an engineer and continues to keep his family at arm's length. From this point on, Per has a series of love affairs and seems to fall in love with every woman he meets. Meanwhile he has great ambitions for new canal and harbour constructions which will make his name. He meets the Salomon family, progressives who will sponsor him, and falls in love, first with the younger daughter Nanny, before switching to the older daughter Jakobe. He cheats on her and continues flirting with other women, including Nanny, then later calls off the engagement (only after leaving her with child). After this he marries Inger and has three children and his life goes off the rails. These details aren't hugely important. The novel is about life, ambition, and (I think) the ever growing influence of liberalism in the west. That god shaped hole which no-one ever bothered to fill. It has to be said, Per is not a very likeable character. At no point did I fully understand his dislike of his own family. They're not exactly monsters or anything and yet he is determined to loathe them. Similarly, he falls in love with a woman right up until the moment... he meets another one. He's so capricious and self-absorbed that he cannot seem to help himself. Even when he does successfully ingratiate himself to people, he makes the encounters unnecessarily uncomfortable and awkward, his personality so guarded and superior that it's hard for anyone to like him. My favourite part of the book was his courtship of Jakobe when his behaviour and demeanour simultaneously make her feel repulsed yet attracted. When he has a goal, he comes to life but once he achieves it, he loses interest. At no point did I really sympathise with Per. I understood his ambition and desire to make an impact on the world, but I was bewildered by his general attitude and emotional despondency (his anti-social nature was either innate or created by his continuing desire to clash wit his father's religious worldview). He often comes across as dull and slightly morose which is an issue when you're the protagonist. Ultimately, he's a bit of a bore. I thought Jakobe was significantly more interesting and she does (thankfully) get her own arc separate from Per. That she's Jewish also plays its part in giving contrast to Per's simplistic atheism. Pontoppidan appears to be strongly criticising the liberalism that was flourishing at the time, demonstrating that it was, by its very nature, likely to promote spiritual decay, avarice, and mercurial selfishness. Per is so utterly lost in this regard and gradually does that thing that most people do -- becomes more conservative (even embracing an aspect of his father's influence). Even 125 years ago, people were pointing out the flaws in a godless society obsessed with individualist priorities and a lack of consideration for the stabilising factors of consistency and structure (perhaps being an engineer was meant as a joke here). Per wants everything he sees but to no avail, and slowly becomes disillusioned with his own position until he recognises the wisdom (if not the truth) of the religious outlook he previously rejected but without ever ceasing to be an atheist. He appears to abandon his new family for fear of inflicting the same relationship onto his children that he had with his own father (which made little sense to me). It's all very tragic and heartbreaking. And yet I always saw these wounds as self-inflicted. Per is a fascinating character, very real, but ultimately a fool. He has allowed the idealism of his youth to blind him to the comfort offered by the contentment of tradition and norm. It's slightly annoying to witness. Especially when you consider that we still live like this today, still keep chasing individual (and transient) happiness at the expense of anything truly significant. That god shaped hole just keeps getting bigger. The ending is very sad. But what else could it be? The book is an absolute masterpiece, a profound, thoughtful, and realistic portrayal of the human condition and its inevitable lack of meaning. But as much as I recognise this, the fact remains there were large portions of the book that dragged, were overwritten, and were difficult to engage with or enjoy. Despite its obvious greatness, it never truly grabbed me. I liked it a lot but never quite fell in love. I kept waiting for each chapter to be the one to finally suck me in but it never quite happened. Nonetheless, I found it fascinating and impressive. The book explores ideas that are universally understood, and it reiterates the confusion and emptiness at the heart of being alive, of being human. I could explain this further but it's probably easier just to let Per tell you himself: 8/10

The Foundation Pit (1930) Andrei Platonov This is my favourite Laszlo Krasznahorkai novel which is strange because he didn't write it. But it seemed like a good place to start this review because it really did feel like one of his novels; full of bleak landscapes, beaten souls, and a relentless sorrow as characters try to find meaning in a meaningless and desolate world. In this case, a group of Soviet workers tasked with building a great construction which will house the proletariat. But as they begin the work, only barely making minor inroads on the site (the foundation pit never becoming more than that), they begin to wonder what any of it amounts to. It's all very draining, debilitating, a book burdened by the weight of darkness and disappointment embodied by the socialist experiment. Platonov is evidently less than impressed by the utopia that was promised but equally, he clearly can't entirely give up believing that it's out there somewhere. There are several characters in the book but I think the first one we're introduced to is the one which represents Platonov. That character is Voshchev. He works slower than the others but only, we are told, because he is exhausted by a search for truth. And so into this black wasteland we are dropped, surrounded by failure and the dread. The book is all bureaucracy and ideology. It doesn't take much to grasp what the pit represents. And through dense language and often beautifully poetic prose, Platonov satirises the bright shining future that awaits, while each of the workers - whether adhering to the socialist narrative or questioning it -- are at war with one another and the reward of their pointless labour. The whole thing is monstrously bleak yet peppered with a strange exquisite beauty. The mowed wilderness smelled of grass that had died and the dampness of bared places, making more palpable the general sorrow of life and the vain melancholy of meaninglessness Nice! And almost unapologetically apocalyptic (hence the strong feeling of Krasznahorkai). It also reminded me a lot of the Slynx by Tolstaya, in fact these two books are almost the same story, the same things being satirised. Then, just to really hammer it home, we have the Kafkasesque and absurd to further oppress the reader into dejection. At one point (it's hard to tell because I was slightly lost in the muddy quagmire of coffins, misery and hardship), there was an anthropomorphised bear who engages in labour alongside the other workers. He's just there, labouring away, and occasionally roaring at people. The book is so horrifically real and placed in traditional labour, hard graft, but somehow manages to be dreamlike and bizarre at the same time, a slew of madness and heartache, hallucinatory and sick. It's all slightly deranging. This is a book I wold definitely recommend but I would suggest reading it slowly and deliberately. It isn't easy and can feel very headache inducing. But it feels worth it (again reminding me of Krasznahorkai). Platonov is a man who can see the limits of collectivisation and yet wants to believe it will bring a glorious future, like he's satirising his own position in order to keep believing it. It's unquestionably a great work but not always easy to read. It deserves time and appreciation. I kinda loved it. But also didn't. Make of that what you will. 7/10

American Dad (1981) Tama Janowitz. This novel opens with our 10-year-old protagonist, Earl Przepasniak, telling us that his father accidentally maimed himself with a chainsaw and, several years prior to that, accidentally murdered his mother. Look, any book that starts with such a high octane revelation ought to be a clue to the fact that what you're about to read is something very dull. You can't open your book with the exciting parts then say... now sit there and wait until we get to that part. Because sure enough, with those monumental declarations dispensed with we are then treated to several pages of horrifically boring stuff about Earl and his brother Bobo going on a trip with their father to the seaside. They eat sandwiches and go fishing. For many many pages. Then have some more sandwiches. Then go for a walk. Then have more sandwiches. After this we essentially get a soap opera of a novel where Earl tells us how his mother and father got divorced, how this traumatised the family, how they both used he and his brother, Bobo, as pawns in their fight. This very dull stuff continues all the way to the halfway point (when dad finally kills mum... and all you had to do was read all this dull daytime crap to get there). After this, in part two, we jump ahead to when Earl is at college, falling for a girl called Maggie. His father is occasionally allowed furlough from prison but hasn't fully forgiven Earl for speaking against him at his trial. Earl then goes to London and meets another girl called Emily. This part of the book was mildly more engaging to me, with occasional wafts of Holden Caulfield and the intriguing experiences of starting out in life. But it still wasn't very good. Then we finally get to the chainsaw incident. Yipeee! Gotta say, this was very dull. It's pacing was genuinely atrocious and the characters were bland and forgettable (poet mum was potentially the most interesting but she doesn't last). I'm reliably informed this is also supposed to be funny. Hmmm no. I can only describe it as bubble gum soap opera divorce porn. Not for me. 3/10

Diogo Jota https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c5y7p6pw5gyt

Sweet Days of Discipline (1989) Fleur Jaeggy Despite being a rather lightweight offering, this is actually a very beautifully written piece of work. There is little plot to discuss, merely the reminiscing of what I assume to be a middle-aged woman (it doesn't specify) about her time in an all-girls boarding school in Switzerland. Similarly, I also assume this is a very biographical tale regarding a particular portion of her young life. We get little in terms of background, little in terms of character development, and instead, the young narrator simply plunges us into the world with the opening words: 'at fourteen I was a boarder in a school in the Appenzell.' From this point on we settle into the environment and allow Jaeggy to delicately describe her surroundings, her teachers, the pupils, her room mate (a German girl whose name she can't even remember). But specifically, she focuses on the arrival of a new girl called Frederique. She becomes enamoured with this girl and must, in her own words, conquer her. Despite acknowledging a sexual component, an admiration for her body and beauty, there was, it seemed to me, an innocence to this crush which never entirely spilled over into anything too Sapphic. Their relationship maintains a degree of platonic respect and detachment, of sincere admiration. But it also maintains something casual about it. She even begins to give her attention to a different girl, Micheline, towards the end. And, once school is over, when she has lost touch with Frederique, she has also lost a certain amount of the romance which had developed in youth. A few years later, after they have all left the school, she meets her again, one last time, living in temporary poverty, a ghost of her previous self, no longer living up to the expectations of her past mystery and charm. Like I said, the story itself is very basic, lightweight. What brought it to life was Jaeggy's writing, a strange combination of sparse, blunt sentences followed by expansive and creative lyricism. There are times when the words melt into your eyes and flow with a quiet beauty and purpose, often containing little aphorisms and turns of phrase such as: 'Farewells have distant ancestors and the hills and fields cover them with chaff and dust.' There is romance throughout the book. But also a bleakness, a darkness. Maybe it's a simple story about letting go of the past. I don't know. All I know is that the writing was great. This is how short novels should be written. Strangely affecting without being needlessly intense. 7/10

The Witnesses Are Gone (2009) Joel Lane This was an interesting one. Many things that I liked but quite a few things that I didn't. The story concerns Martin Swann, a middle-aged man who, for some reason, doesn't quite seem to grasp that he's a middle-aged man. He has recently bought a new house in Birmingham and in the shed he finds some video tapes and watches them. It appears to be a film by obscure French film maker named Jean Rien and the contents are disturbing yet intriguing. Martin begins to obsess over them a little, seeking out information about the reclusive film maker, the meaning of these films. He meets an expert who advises him that Rien doesn't really exist, he is a myth, a fiction, and the films Martin saw were probably just fakes made by others who have elaborated upon the myth. But then Martin hears about the possibility of seeing some of Rien's films in Paris so goes with the intention of learning more; but instead he is dragged away from what turns out to be a porn cinema by a man claiming he can find him the real films. What Martin actually finds is heroin. After this, he goes to Scotland with his girlfriend to investigate rumours about a place where Rien filmed, then, after tragedy, he goes to Mexico in search of the film maker and meets another fan of his work, a woman named Eleanor. His search never seems to come to an end, only takes him deeper into madness. So... I really enjoyed this. I thought it was very effectively eerie. There is an oddness to it, an uncomfortable disquiet, which trembles all through the piece with a slight nausea. It does a good job of keeping Martin perpetually on edge, disturbed, anxious. He sinks deeper into the mystery of the films and the film maker but never really discovers anything more than further confusion and, increasingly, a greater degree of darkness and personal horror. The book reminded me a little of House and Leaves but more so Paradise Rot (in the way that it brought the mundane and the supernatural together plus a strong use of the concept of decay). The climax in Mexico with Eleanor is nightmarish. The downside: the book, and specifically Martin (but more accurately Lane himself it seems) espouse a tedious amount of 6th form politics. Sure, it's set just before the Iraq war but there's so much bedwettery here, performative left-wingism, and right-on opinions; he references leaflet campaigns against cartoon fascism and war and offers endless (albeit forgiveable) mentions of all the groovy, university educated tastes he has in book, films, and music. It's just so tiresome. Especially for a man plumped up by the banality of middle-age. He lays it on a little too thick. Then we have the use of heroin. I suspect this may have more to do with the narrative than its random appearances suggests (chasing death amid a desire for greater meaning). The notion of death being relentlessly present and hovering around us at all times with his companion, nothingness, hidden (we think, or hope) in the occasional piece of art is an unpleasant but profound thought. Very good but flawed. 7/10

Wetlands (2008) Charlotte Roche An eighteen-year-old girl named Helen Memel cuts her anus whilst shaving and goes to hospital for an operation. While there she contemplates and reminisces about her sexual experiences, specifically from the point of view of detailing the various bodily fluids she excretes. So here it is, a novel about vaginal discharge. Finally! She spends the whole novel in a hospital bed, recovering, going over her experiences, her desires, her thoughts. We learn that she loves her pussy juices, that her parents divorce is upsetting her, that she often visits female prostitutes, that an old man taught her about shaving her pussy. it's all very standard transgressive stuff. I rather enjoyed the opening third and found it very entertaining. To be honest, the transgressive aspects meant nothing to me and I don't really know why people would consider any of it off putting or disgusting. I had an ex who also liked the taste of her own fluids. And I'm also in full agreement with Helen that women shouldn't wear perfume, they should finger themselves and lightly dab their delicious pungent feminine scent on their necks (far more enticing). But as much as I was enjoying it, there did come a point towards the middle where it felt like we were going in circles. Anal leakage, transparent discharge, crusting blood, tampons being lost up there (also had an ex who did this so I suspect it's not uncommon), and eating pussy when the painters are in. It was entertaining but there came a point where it all just got a little... samey. Then we have the problem of authenticity. I don't believe a word of this book. I suspect Roche included some genuine thoughts and desires but then forced herself to push further into total made-up nonsense. I didn't buy it and felt I was reading a lot of perfomative stuff designed to shock (but without ever really doing so). I feel like it was a mistake to make Helen eighteen; she probably should have been much older given her unrealistic experiences. Had she truly wanted to explore this stuff then a narrative of some sort would have been better too. The book Cows by Matthew Stokoe, for example, has similar bodily functions and disgust but it comes in the form of an actual plot. Here, she just lays in bed thinking about some new way to describe her fanny juice. Great, but it doesn't really add up to much. I've seen some positive reviews of this book which promote the always tedious feminist perspective, nonsense about using blue liquid in tampon adverts to avoid the powerful truth of female bodily existence. Yawn. No, idiot, they use blue liquid because most of us don't want to see blood when we're eating a Greggs sausage roll on the couch at 4pm. It's the same reason toilet roll manufacturers don't make adverts where they show close ups of anuses with massive smears of shhhhhhh on them. It's common decency and nothing to do with hiding the glorious truth of human anatomy. Anyway, this was interesting. I kinda liked it. But the truth is... either I'm immune to transgressive stuff (oh look, more globules of slime are emanating from her swollen orifice) or it just isn't really that transgressive at all. I mean, we live in a world of neo-liberal politics where everyone and every opinion is so insipid and safe. Women eating their own fanny slop just won't cut it. If you truly want to scare the establishment, the normies, the groovy left-wing outsiders... then write a novel about how there are too many darkies in the country and we should send them all back. Yeah, that's what I thought. Too spicy for ya!! Books like this exist precisely because we're so dull, because we crave something dangerous. But the truth is none of you have the balls to truly explore that. So instead, here's a plate of excrement and fanny juice. Bon appetit! 5/10

The Affirmation (1981) Christopher Priest A man named Robert Sinclair, having lost his job and girlfriend, agrees to live, rent free, at the country home of his father's friend in return for renovating the house and gardens. Once there, he struggles to find the motivation but gradually, using a technique which involves visualising the work before doing it, he starts to make some progress. In the meantime, he begins writing an autobiographical novel but isn't initially happy with his first couple of drafts. He realises that he must fictionalise the material to truly tap into the themes he's exploring, to better utilise metaphor and allegory. He does this to such an extent that the book transforms into a fantasy world where London becomes Jethra, England is Faiandland, his lover Gracia becomes Seri, and his sister Felicity becomes Kalia. In this new world, he, still Robert Sinclair, has won the lottery which includes a treatment called Athanasia whereby you essentially become immortal. As the book goes along, the Robert Sinclair inside the fictional world begins to write his own autobiographical novel about a strange world with places called London and characters called Felicity and so on. One world writing about the other and the inverse. I really wanted to like this. I loved The Glamour but honestly, I found this slightly too... obvious. A world within a world within a world within a world. Who am I? Am I real? What is real? etc. My main problem with the piece is that I found the fictional world to be slightly dull. As much as Priest does his best to bring it to life, to make it represent an other, it never really captured my imagination, and fundamentally, I just didn't care enough. It all felt redundant and overwrought, pushing the theme of reality and identity a little too hard. Ultimately, the events taking place just didn't excite or entertain me and none of the characters, real or imagined, spoke to me. I was utterly without interest. There's something interesting here but I just don't think he got it quite right -- it was too on the nose for me. I was, of course, reminded of Lanark by Alasdair Gray, another world within a world but that felt eerie and unreal whereas this felt more conventional. I can't put my finger on it, I just know it never really worked for me. However interesting the ideas are, he failed to manifest them in a meaningful way. Where The Glamour is more streamlined and effective, this felt overly convoluted and bloated, a mishmash of sci-fi tropes and concepts, but taking the ultimate route to convenience via the lazy notion of mental illness (this gets overdone in general and Priest unnecessarily plays with it here too). The concept of mental illness leading to another world of truth, of the real, has been done to death in all fields of media (my own particular favourite is Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode 'Normal Again') but it can (as it does here) get bogged down in simplicity. The idea of Athanasia being a symbol of the eternal nature of fantasy, however, was more convincing, but all the other themes (which I'm sure were aplenty) were reduced to triviality by virtue of a dull story. As such, I had no desire to pick them out. The only true moment of intrigue was when Felicity arrived at the house he was renovating and reacted to it as though he had done no work at all (despite his narration telling us he had). This further reiterated that he was, from the very start, a profoundly unreliable narrator. But given the subject matter, did I really need to know this guy was unreliable? Not really. Anyway, I just found this a little off. There are better books about reality and memory, better books about identity. I may go back to this someday but on my first attempt, I found it a little underwhelming. 6/10

Play it as it Lays (1970) Joan Didion This was one of the most mediocre things I've ever read. I can't even begin to express my incredulity that it has so many advocates. The story is very basic, a 31-year-old, small-time actress in Hollywood called Maria who is losing her mind, goes on pointless drives, gets banged by an assortment of men, has an abortion, drinks and uses drugs, frequents casinos, etc. Her life is a sterile nightmare of nothingness and bad choices. And it only seems to get worse. The first problem is that the writing is so unbearably lifeless. There are chapters that are just one paragraph long but even they manage to be uninteresting and void of artistry. She has a style that is just so middling and dull, almost an attempt to mimic Hemingway with its blunt, sparse language, and stilted dialogue tags. I barely found a section that was fun to read, that demonstrated any fluidity or creative endeavour. Bland dialogue followed by mediocre description, short chapters for the modern reader and his short attention span. None of it was engaging. Then we come to the themes of the piece, a glimpse into the shadowy underbelly of 1960s Hollywood (in fact, 1960s western civilisation as a whole would be just as apt). I have two issues here; the first is that Maria, the protagonist, is an unsympathetic character. The book seems to want to promote the cliched feminist narrative that life is somehow being done to her but in reality, it isn't... it is being done by her. All of the nihilism she endures is self-inflicted, a choice she makes amid the comfort of privilege and safety, her world consisting of people who care, of opportunities and happiness, and the profoundly easy to access alternatives that are always available to her. The biggest example being that she laments not having access to her (disabled?) daughter but makes no real effort to rectify this. The issue then is not that she's unsympathetic (many of my favourite characters are) but more so that Didion appears to be pointing to the emptiness offered by western progressive liberalism as an ultimate negative for mankind (and women especially). But the second issue I have is that I don't actually believe for a second that Didion is saying that. I strongly suspect that she adores and endorses the vapid existence which 1960s progressivism and sexual liberation foisted onto us. I would put money on it that she regards modern women as the beneficiaries of a great and positive social change, that squirting out the occasional dead foetus before lunch is a big win for the sisterhood. Sure, it may occasionally result in the downside of rampant ennui and misery, and having a human shaped nodule scraped out of your blood soaked vagina but still... we get to have our own credit cards now, ladies, and we can screw random men whenever we want! Success! Yass Kweeen!! I could be wrong with this interpretation but I doubt it. If she is doing a Stendhal (liberalism runs everything) then I would have liked a modicum of light to have been shone on that possibility (perhaps her absent daughter can be viewed this way but this doesn't change the fact that Maria has agency yet behaves as though she does not). Something to suggest otherwise might have alleviated a sense of Maria's complicity. Ultimately, there is no real nihilism here, only a postmodern impression of it as a performative expression of comfort and boredom; cinematic scenes which can be easily digested and visualised as a substitute to any meaningful prose (of which there is little). Maybe that's deliberate but so what, it still highlights the same problem; namely that it's all very vacuous. Nihilism is not self-inflicted, it is a natural state, devoid of ideology or motivation, independent of circumstance. One does not identify their way into oppression, one does not opt for the role because it happens to be high status, one does not choose nothing. Even Maria acknowledges this when suicide is presented by BZ as a genuine option. No thanks. Why end the game when I'm performatively winning? Now strike a pose. This is not Meursault. This is Jenny from Forest Gump. That all being said, the characters and themes -- and the window into this rancid time period which still sharts its influence onto our society to this day (fudge you, hippies!) -- were not what I found most unpleasant. The bottom line is I really hated her writing as inauthentic and artless. I just found it dull and stale, not remotely engaging. Maybe she's better at non-fiction (dunno) but this was simply awful. I sincerely hated it. 3/10

Therese Desqueyroux (1927) Francois Mauriac It feels like there's a lot of books like this, from this period, by both male and female writers; stories that are essentially an apology for the constraints and chains of marriage. Even when, as I suspect here, the gender seeking liberation from the trap of marriage and societal expectation, is the man, it's harder to sell that to the public (certainly in 1927) so these stories very often focus on the woman. She is therefore the symbol of oppression and wasted potential, of the weight of being forced into a role. But I don't really buy it, and, in fact, get the distinct impression that the outsider here is actually Mauriac and men. Men are the ones trapped by marriage (or the constraints of heterosexuality) but if we package it as the oppression of women, it's easier to digest. But anyway, that's a discussion for another time. The story opens with Therese being acquitted of attempting to poison her husband Bernard (he has even spoken in her defence at the trial). She then travels back to their family home via stagecoach and train and, during this period of travel, she reminisces about her marriage, how it developed, her husband's sister Anna and her fiance Azevedo (there's also a touch of lesbianism thrown in here which seems rather pointed). Therese never comes across as an especially pleasant woman but I think this is a deliberate choice, a clumsy attempt to humanise her beyond mere wife, mother, lover etc. She clearly resents her life, views it as oppressive, limited, and craves a liberation that wouldn't come until the 1960s. I'd like to tell you that I cared but... I didn't. Boo hoo, you have to be a wife and mother when you could be free and single and smoke fancy cigarettes in bohemian establishments. I just have very little sympathy for these kinds of characters, even from this perspective, this era, and view their supposed societal enslavement as somewhat indulgent. Besides which, as mentioned, I don't think she is actually the one craving emancipation here. The writing is adequate but never magnificent. It was a slog in parts and I can't say I enjoyed it very much. Mauriac does apply some innovative techniques for the structure (switching perspectives and tenses) but overall, none of that compensated for the what was, in my opinion, an ultimately dry experience. This book is of its time in various ways. As it goes along, her husband, having previously demanded obedience and for Therese to play the part of the dutiful wife, eventually concludes that she must be allowed her freedom. And so that's where it ends. Another early 20th century novel about poor women and their horrible lives as wives and mothers. Life is hard. If only we could all do whatever we wanted, all the time. Honestly, I read these kinds of books and simply picture men dying in the trenches. I shrug. I don't care. I roll my eyes. Mostly because I don't buy any of it. And as I said at the beginning, this is probably just a thinly veiled opportunity for Mauriac to moan about having to hide his sloppy desire for naked boys. Poor him. Whatever. 4/10

Question 7 (2023) Richard Flanagan Did you enjoy The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut? Do you like novels that feel like AI constructed Wikipedia entries but dumbed down enough to make them very easy to read? Do you like to be spoonfed profound thoughts wrapped up in romantic ideas about life being connected by a magical thread, a profound chain? Then you'll love this. I didn't. I mean, look, it's not terrible and I found it mostly inoffensive and fairly entertaining to read. But this is not literature in any way shape or form. This is a book by committee, a paint-by-numbers exercise in cynically tapping into a desire for meaning and beauty. Firstly, it sells itself as memoir, life-writing, autofiction, but, in truth, it's just standard fiction. Flanagan starts by telling us about his father being a Japanese prisoner of war. Then he moves on to the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Then he goes on a tangent about H.G. Wells falling in love with Rebecca West and writing a book which predicted nuclear weapons. Then back to his father. Then back to H. G. Wells. Then he moves on to Leo Szilard, physicist who was influenced by Wells' book and how these ideas are all intrinsically linked, related, informing. And so on and so forth. Like I said, if you've read The Maniac, you'll probably get the gist of what this book is doing (Von Neumann is even brought up at one point for that matter). I just don't like these kinds of books. There is something false and inauthentic about them. I don't mind someone like Seabald going on tangents of personal interest and thought, here and there, but he does it with a certain style, flourish, and fluidity. He is telling a story where the links are natural and small. But these kinds of books (Wikipedia novels I call them) do not have that same level of sincerity or care. Books containing flights of fancy, by definition, ought to feel as though the thoughts came from nowhere, transpired via a process of natural wonder and awe, and were not painstakingly cultivated and mined. Otherwise, the whole thing feels like it was created by an algorithm designed to exploit human sentimentality. It's like Flanagan prompted AI with the words: 'write a book that connects H.G. Wells to Szilard to nuclear power to my father, etc and make it as soppy as possible'. Don't get me wrong, it's mostly fun to read but I just feel so little humanity behind any it (even when you make it about your father and the nightmare of nuclear holocaust). The most fun parts of the novel are unquestionably when he digresses onto the subject of Wells or Szilard, ultimately making his and his father's story somewhat dull by comparison. If anything this book has made me wonder why history hasn't been a little harsher on the obvious sexual predatory instincts of H. G. Wells (but that's a story for another day). Those digressions aside, the book really does hit you over the head with the idea of connection, of life being a rich tapestry where one thread spirals into the next. All things which frankly... are not true. They are a simplification of life which I find maudlin and false. Nonetheless, I did kinda enjoy it. But only in the same way that I ate and enjoyed a cheeseburger meal from McDonald's the other day. Despite the satisfying taste, the umami tang, the salty oil, the refreshing fizz of the overly sweetened coke, I couldn't help but feel that this delicious burger only existed because of the bored, dead-behind-the-eyes mechanical movements of several ennui suffering teenagers. I hate books like this. Sure I enjoyed reading it for the most part. But still... I hate books like this. 6/10

The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) (1913) Alain-Fournier This has been on my radar for many years and I finally got round to it. As is often the case with anything that gets put to one side for a lengthy period, it rarely lives up to the ever increasing expectations. I was, suffice it to say, somewhat underwhelmed. The story is narrated (to begin with) by a 15-year-old boy named Francois) who tells us about meeting the impressive 17-year-old Augustine Meaulnes. We get a lot of rather slow build-up that takes forever to go anywhere. Then one evening, Meaulnes disappears and doesn't come back for several days. On his return he tells Francois about an amazing adventure where he ended up at a strange estate with countless guests in marvellous surroundings and costumes. Here he meets the beautiful and mysterious Yvonne Galaise and quickly becomes enamoured. But when he returns home he can't remember where the estate was and how to get back to it. He dedicates himself (with Francoise's help) to tracking these people down (especially Yvonne) and what follows is a somewhat convoluted narrative involving Meaulnes, the girl, her brother, and his fiance. I could go on but honestly the best part of the book is now very much over (the mysterious estate and the party of guests). This was the only part of the book where I was genuinely intrigued by what was happening, who they were, why they had gathered in such a strange place. It definitely has a magical quality to it, an other worldly aspect, one which gives the book a sincere note of mystery and uncertainty. I was actually hoping the estate would turn out to be something more unnatural and eerie, perhaps ghosts, magical creatures, or a strange cult that barely exists (you can certainly see why this influenced The Magus by Fowles). There is a definite sense of wonderment and excitement about it all, a strange but intriguing mystery. But no, it turns out that it's just an engagement party gone wrong (the brother of Yvonne is marrying a girl called Valentine but she never arrives). Meaulnes has, by virtue of an errant horse, accidentally gatecrashed this engagement party and imbued it with greater mystery and romance than it deserved. From this point on, the rest of the book frankly bored me. It simply goes around in circles. Frantz comes to the village, befriends Meaulnes and Fracois. They try to find Yvonne. They succeed. Meaulnes tries to find Frantz. There's a baby. Francois becomes a school teacher. Yadda yadda yadda. I don't care. I just wasn't engaged with any of it after that, and found a lot of the writing to be unnecessarily flowery and prone to worthless descriptions of the environment. It was rarely fun to read. Fournier tries a little too hard to be melancholy and romantic, to really sell the idea of a doomed romance and a forgotten world and... I dunno... it was just a little relentless in its desire to feel dreamlike and wondrous. It only accomplished this fleetingly. Otherwise, I wasn't impressed. 5/10