Although I am trying to buy fewer books, it was too much for me to pass up a nice Vintage Classic edition of Gulliver's Travels. Not only was it a work of pre-20th literature, it was also a brand new book for a pound. Like a lot of people, I only really knew the story of our hero's trip to Lilliput and a bit about Brobdingnag, though I did know he ventures to many other strange and wonderful places. Including, er, Japan.
Turns out, it is actually a very interesting satire on the human condition and the world in which we live, as relevant today, 300 years on, as it was when it was written. While the two most famous parts deal more with the grotesqueries of the human body in all its imperfection and in relating size to status and making comparisons, it was actually the last of the four books, his voyage to the Houyhnhnhms, that I found most interesting and was the most cutting.
In this last part, Gulliver lives with the Houyhnhnms, effectively horses that are rational, intelligent creatures who operate on a purely sensible level, with none of the foibles of men, as portrayed by the savage and idiotic Yahoos. Skewering everything from the law to government to irrationality to – slightly bizarrely – redheads (I'd love to know if that was a barb aimed at someone in particular), the story makes a mockery of everything in our society. It also deals with militaristic and imperial ambitions and the (mis)treatment of native populations. Gulliver argues in favour of Britain creating colonies at the end, though it is hard to tell if Swift is serious in this (I'm inclined to think so) or if he is merely lampooning something else. It took me a while to get into it, but it certainly saved the best till last and left me with much to ponder.
Book number: 15
Title: Gulliver's Travels
Author: Jonathan Swift
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Sequelly good
Basically, having loved the first Nursery Crimes story, the second – The Fourth Bear – was pressed on me in short order. I must confess that I didn't protest too much. I even understood the title references first time with this one. I devoured this one equally quickly, mostly because it was, well, equally brilliant.
Everything that made The Big Over Easy so entertaining was still there – the characters, the word play, the daft scenarios, the parodies and references, the plot, et cetera. Oh, and it was still very funny. Genuinely laugh out loud funny too. A different tack in terms of plot but it is still the plot that lifts this above what it could have been in the sense that it was carefully plotted, full of twists and turns and was very clever in spite of being very silly. It wasn't just a collection of gags and set pieces, it was far more than that.
The characters were also still interesting, even if there was perhaps less development of them than in the first. It was nice to see Ashley get some more airtime though and the supporting cast remained as wonderfully eccentric and amusing as before. I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck into Fforde's other books and to seeing him speak next week. Just a shame the third and final Nursery Crimes book isn't due for another year.
Book number: 14
Title: The Fourth Bear
Author: Jasper Fforde
Category: Crime
Everything that made The Big Over Easy so entertaining was still there – the characters, the word play, the daft scenarios, the parodies and references, the plot, et cetera. Oh, and it was still very funny. Genuinely laugh out loud funny too. A different tack in terms of plot but it is still the plot that lifts this above what it could have been in the sense that it was carefully plotted, full of twists and turns and was very clever in spite of being very silly. It wasn't just a collection of gags and set pieces, it was far more than that.
The characters were also still interesting, even if there was perhaps less development of them than in the first. It was nice to see Ashley get some more airtime though and the supporting cast remained as wonderfully eccentric and amusing as before. I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck into Fforde's other books and to seeing him speak next week. Just a shame the third and final Nursery Crimes book isn't due for another year.
Book number: 14
Title: The Fourth Bear
Author: Jasper Fforde
Category: Crime
Thursday, 17 February 2011
To conquer: become
I wasn't sure about whether I was going to like February's book club choice, Emma Donoghue's Room. Probably not something I would have picked up by myself and I confess to being sceptical about it. In terms of the subject matter, the narration and, most heinous of all, a comparison to The Lovely Bones on the front cover. Also, something about the concept didn't quite sit right with me. It still doesn't and smacks faintly of cashing in, but at least it was done well and that charge is probably not a fair one. I'm also not sure I wanted to read any more about the Josef Fritzl case, which I ended up doing in passing, but that's probably my own fault. In some ways no story can really deal with the blunt facts of the case or can blur their awful edges; in other ways it's probably a book that needed to be written by someone. Just perhaps not quite so soon.
On the plus side, I did like it, if that's the right word for it. I didn't love it and it probably hasn't changed my life, but I certainly won't suggest that people avoid it like the plague. The stand-out feature of the book is the narration, all told from the perspective of five-year old Jack. It's well done and very well maintained. I worried about it, and initially it did alternate between being interesting to being annoying, but ultimately it was endearing and rewarding. It's certainly like little else I've read and he had a believable voice. Or at least as believable as I can envisage a five-year old who's never been outside of his prison cell, the eponymous room. Which is certainly an achievement.
As for the story itself, I wasn't quite sure where it was going to go – whether it would simply sit there, as it were, or whether it would go elsewhere. It turned out to be the latter, which was probably important in achieving the book's aim of dealing with the aftermath of the situation just as much as the reality of being trapped. And because it made me think and feel and imagine it achieved it, though at the same time I'm not sure I ever really could imagine it, as if it were me. At times it did feel a bit too much like I was looking in, as a reader rather than being absorbed into the fabric of the book.
It will be talked about and it will win prizes and will provoke a good discussion. The narration is well constructed, interesting and probably the best thing about the book. I feel the book would be a lot less without it – just another melodramatic tale of woe, which is what I feared it might be.
Book number: 13
Title: Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Category: Book club choices/recommendations
On the plus side, I did like it, if that's the right word for it. I didn't love it and it probably hasn't changed my life, but I certainly won't suggest that people avoid it like the plague. The stand-out feature of the book is the narration, all told from the perspective of five-year old Jack. It's well done and very well maintained. I worried about it, and initially it did alternate between being interesting to being annoying, but ultimately it was endearing and rewarding. It's certainly like little else I've read and he had a believable voice. Or at least as believable as I can envisage a five-year old who's never been outside of his prison cell, the eponymous room. Which is certainly an achievement.
As for the story itself, I wasn't quite sure where it was going to go – whether it would simply sit there, as it were, or whether it would go elsewhere. It turned out to be the latter, which was probably important in achieving the book's aim of dealing with the aftermath of the situation just as much as the reality of being trapped. And because it made me think and feel and imagine it achieved it, though at the same time I'm not sure I ever really could imagine it, as if it were me. At times it did feel a bit too much like I was looking in, as a reader rather than being absorbed into the fabric of the book.
It will be talked about and it will win prizes and will provoke a good discussion. The narration is well constructed, interesting and probably the best thing about the book. I feel the book would be a lot less without it – just another melodramatic tale of woe, which is what I feared it might be.
Book number: 13
Title: Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Category: Book club choices/recommendations
Bruce and Sheila
I'm not quite sure if there's such a thing as the Great Australian Novel, but if there is, Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda richly realised is probably in with a good shout. Epic, in the right way, in terms of scope and intensity, it certainly ticked the box marked 'ambition'. The central characters were and the supporting cast retained all the quirks and grotesqueries you would hope for from such an ensemble.
Best of all though is the narrative. Clearly a master of his craft, Carey's writing is effortless. It's not short and sharp like Hemingway or Coetzee, neither is it rambling and descriptive like Fitzgerald or Dickens, but it's infinitely readable. In a pick-it-up-and-be-enthralled kind of way. I've also read his True History of the Kelly Gang and that was equally readable. It works in a smooth, effortless sort of way, nothing abrupt and nothing that requires too much concentration, yet above all it seamlessly maintains the suspension of disbelief and fully absorbs you into whatever it is you're reading. And you can't ask for a lot more than that.
Which certainly helps because a story about a Victorian clergyman and an orphaned glass manufacturer probably wouldn't be my first choice of reading material. Yet the characters are riveting, despite, or rather because of their faults, their gambling, their mutual outsiderness. And the story has everything, putting the reader through a range of emotions in a wonderfully subtle understated way, concluding with a fitting ending. Bleedin' marvellous, cobber.
Book number: 12
Title: Oscar and Lucinda
Author: Peter Carey
Category: Books that have been sat on my bookshelf for too long
Best of all though is the narrative. Clearly a master of his craft, Carey's writing is effortless. It's not short and sharp like Hemingway or Coetzee, neither is it rambling and descriptive like Fitzgerald or Dickens, but it's infinitely readable. In a pick-it-up-and-be-enthralled kind of way. I've also read his True History of the Kelly Gang and that was equally readable. It works in a smooth, effortless sort of way, nothing abrupt and nothing that requires too much concentration, yet above all it seamlessly maintains the suspension of disbelief and fully absorbs you into whatever it is you're reading. And you can't ask for a lot more than that.
Which certainly helps because a story about a Victorian clergyman and an orphaned glass manufacturer probably wouldn't be my first choice of reading material. Yet the characters are riveting, despite, or rather because of their faults, their gambling, their mutual outsiderness. And the story has everything, putting the reader through a range of emotions in a wonderfully subtle understated way, concluding with a fitting ending. Bleedin' marvellous, cobber.
Book number: 12
Title: Oscar and Lucinda
Author: Peter Carey
Category: Books that have been sat on my bookshelf for too long
Friday, 11 February 2011
A rum owd dew
Ok, so the title perhaps has me going a bit native, pretty accurately, The Ascent of Rum Doodle, is a rum old affair. I was intrigued by it when I read the spine in the library: Vintage Bowman. Vintage who? thought I, picking it up and expecting something to click. W.E. Bowman. Nope. Never heard of 'em. Looks promising. A mountaineering parody, you say? Sounds interesting? A foreword by Bill Bryson? Sold!
Mr Bryson (who I have had the pleasure of meeting, don'tcha know – perhaps I've mentioned it once or twice...) claimed it to be "the funniest book you've never read". He may be right. Comparisons with Three Men in a Boat (indeed, it's actually referenced in the text) and the works of Joseph Heller and Douglas Adams seem far enough. It might even be that 42 was the new 157. It did have me laughing out loud, it's farcical nature working well and it may even have had a nod in either of Monty Python's two mountaineering sketches (climbing the road and the twin peaks of Kilimajaro). Certainly it was silly enough, but it also rang true. And that's what made the difference, the characters and scenarios, however daft, seemed somehow plausible.
And the characters served an admirable purpose. With names that give handy clues to their role – Pong the chef, Prone the (constantly ill) doctor and my personal favourite, Jungle (the perpetually lost) guide, they served the purpose they were designed to. The book had some memorable set pieces - passing champagne down the crevasse, conversations in Yogistani, trying to speak like people are supposed to over the radio – which couldn't fail to raise a smile. Coupled with ongoing in-jokes (anyone for fiancées?, the aforementioned 157 complex) and a perhaps obvious yet somehow fittingly heroic conclusion, Rum Doodle proved to be a very entertaining romp.
Book number: 11
Title: The Ascent of Rum Doodle
Author: W.E. Bowman
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
Mr Bryson (who I have had the pleasure of meeting, don'tcha know – perhaps I've mentioned it once or twice...) claimed it to be "the funniest book you've never read". He may be right. Comparisons with Three Men in a Boat (indeed, it's actually referenced in the text) and the works of Joseph Heller and Douglas Adams seem far enough. It might even be that 42 was the new 157. It did have me laughing out loud, it's farcical nature working well and it may even have had a nod in either of Monty Python's two mountaineering sketches (climbing the road and the twin peaks of Kilimajaro). Certainly it was silly enough, but it also rang true. And that's what made the difference, the characters and scenarios, however daft, seemed somehow plausible.
And the characters served an admirable purpose. With names that give handy clues to their role – Pong the chef, Prone the (constantly ill) doctor and my personal favourite, Jungle (the perpetually lost) guide, they served the purpose they were designed to. The book had some memorable set pieces - passing champagne down the crevasse, conversations in Yogistani, trying to speak like people are supposed to over the radio – which couldn't fail to raise a smile. Coupled with ongoing in-jokes (anyone for fiancées?, the aforementioned 157 complex) and a perhaps obvious yet somehow fittingly heroic conclusion, Rum Doodle proved to be a very entertaining romp.
Book number: 11
Title: The Ascent of Rum Doodle
Author: W.E. Bowman
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
Monday, 7 February 2011
Wolf at the door
As discussed in a previous post, there are certain disadvantages to reading the second book in a series before the first one. As anybody reading this mindless rambling is probably smarter than I am, I won't bother spelling them out. Usually it wouldn't be so bad as I consume books at a pretty high rate and my memory for them (and possibly other things) is often not what I'd like it to be. However, a mere couple of books later and the temptation of the new came in.
I justified buying it because an insane Amazon price of £1.99 simply could not be turned down. I'm trying to avoid using it because our book shops, both chain and independent need the support of the likes of me. I'm also trying to cut down on my addiction and not buy quite so many books because our libraries need the support of the likes of me. But anyway, I sold out and shelled out some pennies to the man. As for the justification for reading it, that's a) because I wanted to and b) because it neatly fits into one of the categories I've not started yet (colours in the title). Not that I'm repeating myself or anything.
So anyway, The Red Wolf Conspiracy. First of, I liked it. I'd probably have liked it more had I read it first, as I did know some things were coming. Equally, I took it as a good sign that I did not know certain things were coming and certainly had little idea how. This strikes me as the mark of a good storyteller.
Whilst it was good in its own right and certainly had an end to the book in itself, at the same time it was also clearly the start of something bigger, very much the opening thrusts to test the defences. The second was more epic (and not just because it was 200 pages longer), but the scale had moved up a level. That said, I like both, epic is grand when it's done well, but equally, smaller scale affairs with well-defined and interesting characters are just as good. This is definitely the former, yet in terms of the setting, the whole thing is pretty much onboard a ship, albeit a pretty darn big one. This gives it the feel of something a little more intimate, the intrigues and secrets and carefully spun threads are all very nicely placed, giving it layers. The ship itself is something I perhaps overlooked in the first one, but the sense of being at sea, of the close quarters and the everyday living I think rings true.
The characters I'd largely met before and perhaps there was little I didn't already know about them, but it was interesting viewing it in more of a prequel way and finding out how they met and became involved. Again, they start off smaller but are clearly being set up and gaining the skills or the fate to determine something bigger as the series moves on. Roll on the third.
Book number: 10
Title: The Red Wolf Conspiracy
Author: Robert V.S. Redick
Category: Books with colours in the title
I justified buying it because an insane Amazon price of £1.99 simply could not be turned down. I'm trying to avoid using it because our book shops, both chain and independent need the support of the likes of me. I'm also trying to cut down on my addiction and not buy quite so many books because our libraries need the support of the likes of me. But anyway, I sold out and shelled out some pennies to the man. As for the justification for reading it, that's a) because I wanted to and b) because it neatly fits into one of the categories I've not started yet (colours in the title). Not that I'm repeating myself or anything.
So anyway, The Red Wolf Conspiracy. First of, I liked it. I'd probably have liked it more had I read it first, as I did know some things were coming. Equally, I took it as a good sign that I did not know certain things were coming and certainly had little idea how. This strikes me as the mark of a good storyteller.
Whilst it was good in its own right and certainly had an end to the book in itself, at the same time it was also clearly the start of something bigger, very much the opening thrusts to test the defences. The second was more epic (and not just because it was 200 pages longer), but the scale had moved up a level. That said, I like both, epic is grand when it's done well, but equally, smaller scale affairs with well-defined and interesting characters are just as good. This is definitely the former, yet in terms of the setting, the whole thing is pretty much onboard a ship, albeit a pretty darn big one. This gives it the feel of something a little more intimate, the intrigues and secrets and carefully spun threads are all very nicely placed, giving it layers. The ship itself is something I perhaps overlooked in the first one, but the sense of being at sea, of the close quarters and the everyday living I think rings true.
The characters I'd largely met before and perhaps there was little I didn't already know about them, but it was interesting viewing it in more of a prequel way and finding out how they met and became involved. Again, they start off smaller but are clearly being set up and gaining the skills or the fate to determine something bigger as the series moves on. Roll on the third.
Book number: 10
Title: The Red Wolf Conspiracy
Author: Robert V.S. Redick
Category: Books with colours in the title
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