~Andrea~ Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 So you didn't like it then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted May 13, 2009 Author Share Posted May 13, 2009 I think it's fair to say I won't be venturing back into Brown's ouevre. It stank. In spades. I'm astonished the man is a succesful author. I can believe he might be a screenwriter, but a novelist? That suggests people have read one of his books and then gone and bought another one. Which just baffles me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I think it's fair to say I won't be venturing back into Brown's ouevre. It stank. In spades. I'm astonished the man is a succesful author. I can believe he might be a screenwriter, but a novelist? That suggests people have read one of his books and then gone and bought another one. Which just baffles me. Snap! I read The Da Vinci Code for my reading group a couple of years ago. That was five hours of my life I'll never get back again. Dreadful writing, clunky dialogue and laughable plotting. I also remember hearing Mark Kermode (the film critic) talking about it when he was reviewing the film, complaining about the fact that Brown seemed to have no idea about internal monologue. I hope never to read another Dan Brown book and I desperately hope my reading group don't pick one of the others! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~Andrea~ Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 It doesn't seem fair does it? Based on your comments I had to go and check him out for myself so I had a look at the opening pages of Da Vinci and Angels online. I have to agree: they were awful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted May 20, 2009 Author Share Posted May 20, 2009 So, after the astonishingly awful Angels and Demons I read Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men, which is probably very good. The prose is lovely and sparse, and the lack of moralising is great. But having already seen the Coen brothers film which now appears very literal, but with added pathos and black humour, it seemed a bit redundant. Then I read James Hamilton-Paterson's Cooking With Fernet Branca which is a very entertaining and quite funny satirical trifle taking the wee out of expats in Italy. With some of the most hilarious recipes I've ever encountered. And whilst on the subject of expats in Italy, I'm now reading Jan Morris's Venice, which is, as far as I can tell, a bit like her Trieste book, a meditation about the city. Part history, part reportage, part travel writing. Interesting so far, although whether I'll stay engrossed to the end is not so obvious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weevilcharley Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 I actually really enjoyed both of the Langdon novels, and while the adaptation of the Da Vinci Code was fairly laughable, they made their best out of a bad lot to be fair to them. With Angels they had certainly learnt from their mistakes from Da Vinci in that they cut out the crappy long lectures, added in a few more fast cars, and in general made the whole thing a great deal snappier and sharper, which I really enjoyed. The book really, really isn't terrible if you give Brown a bit of artistic license and remember that he is writing fiction here, and at no point does he ever attempt to claim his tales are true, simply inspired by factual operations, for example la Purga, and the CERN anti-matter tunnel, etc. I do however think the last chapter should be ripped out, screwed up and thrown away because not every book needs to end with a love scene. I'm glad the screenplay cut this out. Despite all of the above however, 'Deception Point' is a decidedly difficult novel to get into.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Well, thank christ for that. I finally finished Jan Morris's Venice. Looking at previous entries, that means it's taken over a month. More than a month, to read a 300 page book? Ouch. Funnily, it's not actually bad. But the complete lack of narrative drive kills it. And the tendency to list items, and the obsession with minutuiae of Venice. Beautiful writing, but utterly turgid, and I'm ecstatic to finally be able to move on to something else. No idea what that will be, yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted July 6, 2009 Author Share Posted July 6, 2009 Well, I just read Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. It's a perfectly fun, entertaining, easy to read novel. But it really isn't Booker winning material. It feels, still, like all those other Novels About India that get wide literary praise in the UK, the kind that tries to describe the whole Indian experience. And it seems remarkably shallow for that. Oddly, perhaps the most interesting element is what seems to be a bit of playing with China, rather than India, and China's move to expel its capitalist overlords to become capitalist itself. Not, ironically, that I've actually seen that mentioned anywhere. Anyway, good enough to read, but not prize-winningly good. Next up, I think, are the Musketeers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 Having read the Musketeers - a much better book than I was anticipating, although it had lots of the aspects of romantic fiction and 19th century fiction that I dislike, and will keep me from reading much more pre-20th century stuff. Now I'm reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point which is fascinating stuff, and which doesn't do that thing that lots of these non-fiction making-a-case books do, of either having an idea which can be expressed in one chapter and then just reiterating the introduction with thousands of examples; or taking an idea and then illustrating it with very thin and flimsy evidence (I've only seen one of those social science things I really hate, where a single piece of research on one person or a group of 8 or whatever, is presented as the key to solving lots of problems). Later today I'm off to Waterstones to go hunting for holiday reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 I read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink last year and found it fascinating. I don't read much non-fiction other than travel literature (and I think some of that could count as fiction!), but I did enjoy Blink a lot, so I might pick up The Tipping Point later in the year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted August 13, 2009 Author Share Posted August 13, 2009 I've just started on Restless by William Boyd, and so far it's properly gripping, good story telling and interesting stuff. Only 40 pages in, so it could turn to useless mush, but right now I'm impressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Morning Andy. How's it going? I've got both Blink and The White Tiger on my TBR mountain. I might start Blink after I finish Imprimatur (which, due to time constraints, is taking me quite a long time!). Anyway. Hope you're well, fella. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickwick Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Am reading The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.It is the second book he has written,the first one being The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(which was very good).This new one is even better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted August 31, 2009 Author Share Posted August 31, 2009 Some cracking holiday reading - Restless was fantastic. Really good, fairly intelligent spy thriller. Quite complex and interesting. Then Good to be God by Tibor Fischer - which was funnyish, but not up to the standard of his first three novels. Much better than Journey to the End of the Room or the risible short stories. Then Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which is really, really sharp apocalyptic SF. And now Moondust by Andrew Smith, which is a truly excellent book, as Smith tries to find the remaining living men who walked on the moon in the Apollo missions. Great stuff for those of us still romantically attached to the idea of space travel as glory, the Tom Wolfe "Right Stuff" attitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 Restless is another book I'll be getting, Andy. It's not often you say something's fantastic! Hope you're alright, fella. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 Then Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which is really, really sharp apocalyptic SF. I don't know if you saw it, but Gyre posted on another thread that Atwood has written something of a sequel to Oryx and Crake, called The Year of the Flood, which is centred around God's Gardeners. I, for one, am looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tikkititi Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 I don't know if you saw it, but Gyre posted on another thread that Atwood has written something of a sequel to Oryx and Crake, called The Year of the Flood, which is centred around God's Gardeners. I, for one, am looking forward to it. Whut? Really? I didn't see that. I loved Oryx and Crake, and considering the ending, a sequel would be veeeeery interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted September 1, 2009 Author Share Posted September 1, 2009 Restless is another book I'll be getting, Andy. It's not often you say something's fantastic! Hope you're alright, fella. All is good. Just back from my travels, so got lots of work to catch up on, but I'll probably post proper reviews of all 4 books when I have time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted September 1, 2009 Author Share Posted September 1, 2009 I don't know if you saw it, but Gyre posted on another thread that Atwood has written something of a sequel to Oryx and Crake, called The Year of the Flood, which is centred around God's Gardeners. I, for one, am looking forward to it. Ooh. Thanks for the pointer. I may well look out for that soon, although I actually like the ambiguity of the ending of Oryx and Crake, so to some extent don't want to know any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted October 16, 2009 Author Share Posted October 16, 2009 So, it's been a while since I was here, and since then I've read Atomised by Michel Houllebecq, which I really wanted to like but, frankly, was just bleak and a bit annoying and a bit like the irritating child in school showing off how much he can talk about sex. I'm sure it's meant to be very clever, but it was like Will Self, all desperate "look how shocking I am" showboating. After that, In The Devil's Garden by Stewart Lee Allen, about foods and sins. Not quite as bonkers or fun as his book about coffee, although probably less historically nonsense, too. Fun enough, but not magnificent. And since then, The Frozen Water Trade by Gavin Weightman which I'm really enjoying at the moment, about how people shipped ice-blocks which were cut in winter in New England, all over the world, and that's how everyone got ice in the 19th century. Particularly intriguing is Britain's refusal to adopt the stuff, which still seems reflected in our pitiful sized fridges and so on. Britain really does hate change and modernity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted November 17, 2009 Author Share Posted November 17, 2009 I realise I haven't posted much here recently. Perhaps that's because I've not read much. Just re-read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which is as good as I remembered and is commented on in the Reading Circle thread. And then The Men Who Stare At Goats, which is lightweight and fluffy, mostly, as reportage goes. Not all that rigorous, but quite fun, and it'll be interesting to see how they made it into a film - which I should enjoy as it has lots of my favourite actors in. And Ewan Macgregor, but no film can be perfect. Next up it's the Troutmans for ii. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Ah, the Troutman thing. I have chuckled at yours and dear ii's banter on the subject - so much so, in fact, that I have it on my list of things to buy at the weekend. I also found Houllebecq quite bleak and nihilistic. I've read both Atomised and Platform. I think, if I'm being honest, they made me feel as though I was being intellectual and deep whilst I was reading them, which I consequently equated with being a c**k of a teenager, thus making me despise my pretentious self. I went on to read Asterix for a while after that, to balance the equation. Note to self: avoid Palahnuik for a while, eh? Hope you're well, Andy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted November 17, 2009 Author Share Posted November 17, 2009 Hahaha! Great description of the Houllebecq. I thought it was trying so hard to be intellectual, whilst also being cleverly nihilistic, and failed to be either, really. I don't mind intellectual, not at all. I like being made to think. And I kept expecting some intellectual conclusion to tie it together. But this was pretension for the sake of it, the kind of thing I might have enjoyed as a snotty, spotty, geeky teenager. But it had no result, no purpose, and as such was really, just a bit rubbish. I'll not go for Platform. I'm still intrigued by Palahniuk, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted November 19, 2009 Author Share Posted November 19, 2009 Haven't started on the Troutmans. Instead I'm reading Kapuscinski's The Shadow Of The Sun, which is a broad memoir of his time in Africa. As anyone who's read my burbling on here before knows, I love Kapuscinski and think he's probably the greatest writer of reportage I've ever encountered. The mix here is great, because although it's written in the 90s, he's generally trying to not write with the prior knowledge of history. It's also great because, well, he just lived through and reported on some amazing times. And it's also great because he really mixes up the stuff between the astonishing (seeing the independence of Uganda, or Zanzibar), with the personal astonishing (getting malaria and TB, or seeing the Serengeti), with what appears to be mundane (just getting to know local families in Dar Es Salaam). And adding comments on what it's like to be a poverty stricken reporter for the Polish news agency when they had no other correspondents in Africa (or anywhere else, I think). Only one slightly grating thing, so far, which is that every so often he does that "Africans think this", "Africans do that" stuff, which I'm sure his editor demanded but does begin to treat the continent as a homogeneous entity. It's not like that marvellous piece in Granta, or anything, but it's just there every now and again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted January 6, 2010 Author Share Posted January 6, 2010 Well, read The Troutmans, which was OK but not magnificent. Then have spent ages ploughing through Jonathan Raban's Hunting Mr Heartbreak, which was a genuinely fascinating travelogue as he spends over a year heading around the USA trying to find himself and the country and a place to locate himself. But, in the end, it just ended up being a bit turgid and fragmented for my taste, and didn't have a great deal of narrative drive. Now, I'm reading Breath by Tim Winton and really enjoying it. It's quite dark in places, as Winton is wont to do, hidden amongst a very light and easy prose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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