Of all of the canon of English Literature, there can't be many more high profile authors or works that I've managed to get this far in my life without having properly encountered than that of the works of Jane Austen. I recently made this confession to a Professor of English at Oxford University who specialised in Austen and I figured that if anyone was ever going persuade me to pick something up, it was probably her.
In my defence, it's not a matter of not wanting to, though it's not my usual cup of tea, merely being regularly distracted by things I have a greater inclination to pick up, though I had every intention of getting there one day. With a pre-20th century category to fill and plenty of big names to try, it was now or never. And as she said (and as I had been told before) that if you read just one, read Emma, who was I to disagree?
On the whole I liked it, probably more than I was expecting to. It was clever, subtle and the devil was very much in the details. The sly observations, the manners and quiet comedy of the social situations, manipulations and characters were surprisingly captivating. It gave an interesting insight into the time it was written, which is definitely not one I know much about. The nuances of class, of gender, of polite society all came through strongly and were, for me, the best part of the book.
I can't say I could really connect with any of the characters, being that they were too far removed from my own personal experiences and, perhaps due to the reserve and manners of the time, often too lacking in any real personality. Our heroine, however, is well-fleshed out. Smart and likeable, she is also not without flaws, which make her much more interesting to my mind. Meddlesome, lacking self-awareness and not half as good a judge of people as she thinks she is, she has all the arrogance of youth. Furthermore, she doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes, repeatedly trying and failing to matchmake successfully, which is the central theme of the novel. I was initially slightly ambiguous about the ending – I expected it to be happy as that was my preconception of Austen's work, but I wasn't sure it was deserved due to the overall course of the novel not really leading that way. However, the fact that Emma seems to have learned from her mistakes finally and followed her heart, I can't disagree with and maybe I'm just in the right frame of mind for a nice, romantic, happy ending.
Book number: 49
Title: Emma
Author: Jane Austen
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Good knight
So the title may be as old as the proverbial hills, but that's never stopped me from using old (and bad) puns before. And there's something comforting about knowing what you're getting – nothing new, but something that is tried, trusted and works well. I'm sure everybody also has their book equivalents too, something well-loved and may not alwasy make any claims to high art, but that is fun and enjoyable and takes you away to a better place in a flight of pure escapism. Some people might dub such works guilty pleasures, but I see no reason to be guilty – read what you like, if you enjoy it and don't let anybody tell you not to. If you're not enjoying it, find something that you do.
I can safely say that I feel pretty much like that towards David Eddings' books. When it comes down to it, they're cracking straight-up vanilla fantasy fare. Eminently readable, very satisfying, not too taxing on the old grey matter, and spinning a good yarn – what more could one ask for? Having loved the Elenium trilogy, I picked up Domes of Fire, the first of the sequel trilogy, the Tamuli. It picks up a few years down the line from the first series and like a favourite old sweater, it was a warm and comfortable fit.
The cast of characters – and like most self-respecting adventuresome fare, it has a decent size cast – were all back, not to mention introducing some fresh faces. I like pretty much all of them and it's nice that they're not simply two-dimensional. Sparhawk is an excellent hero, as he's got a developed personality, well-rounded character, a host of different allegiances and commitments and while he's good, he's not infallible. The plot built up nicely for the next one, and the story was also self-contained within the book too, and I will no doubt pick that up in due course. Any excuse to go frolicking with the trolls again.
Book number: 48
Title: Domes of Fire
Author: David Eddings
Category: Charlotte's choice
I can safely say that I feel pretty much like that towards David Eddings' books. When it comes down to it, they're cracking straight-up vanilla fantasy fare. Eminently readable, very satisfying, not too taxing on the old grey matter, and spinning a good yarn – what more could one ask for? Having loved the Elenium trilogy, I picked up Domes of Fire, the first of the sequel trilogy, the Tamuli. It picks up a few years down the line from the first series and like a favourite old sweater, it was a warm and comfortable fit.
The cast of characters – and like most self-respecting adventuresome fare, it has a decent size cast – were all back, not to mention introducing some fresh faces. I like pretty much all of them and it's nice that they're not simply two-dimensional. Sparhawk is an excellent hero, as he's got a developed personality, well-rounded character, a host of different allegiances and commitments and while he's good, he's not infallible. The plot built up nicely for the next one, and the story was also self-contained within the book too, and I will no doubt pick that up in due course. Any excuse to go frolicking with the trolls again.
Book number: 48
Title: Domes of Fire
Author: David Eddings
Category: Charlotte's choice
Twenty-twenty
The 1920s is a decade full of rich imagery, ideas and history. The Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, the post-Great War lost generation, whatever you want to call it. A time of high society, lavish parties, changing tastes and mores, laxer morals, economic prosperity, consumer culture, popular culture and in some ways the first 'modern' decade. (What do I mean by the last point? I don't really know, a bit of all the above, but it sounds good so I'll forgive myself). It's a period that I've become really interested in lately and despite the parallels with the 80s, I doubt that after another half century that decade will be looked back on quite so fondly.
Anyway, the 20s is the period of Aldous Huxley's debut novel, Crome Yellow. Best known for Brave New World and his later more politicised and dystopian works, his earlier writings were concerned with the society he found himself in, sending it up. Think Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, or to a lesser extent F. Scott Fitzgerald's canon. Having studied Brave New World a scary number of years ago at school and really enjoyed it, I was all set for something good.
I was, however, disappointed to be honest. It just didn't sparkle the way I had hoped it would. Some of the set pieces were amusing, but none of the characters really grabbed me and not a lot happened. Not that much needed to happen (and this isn't generally a complaint you'll here mee make, there are plenty of books I love where not much 'happens'), but it left me wondering slightly what might have been rather than what actually was. Sure, the characters have obvious and necessary flaws and it pokes fun various things, but either it was too subtle for me to grasp or perhaps a little too blunt. It wasn't bad, the writing is undoubtedly good, it just passed me by without leaving much of an impression. Maybe I missed something, and maybe I had high expectations that could only leave me heading for a fall, but it wasn't the book I was hoping for.
Book number: 47
Title: Crome Yellow
Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Books with colours in the title
Anyway, the 20s is the period of Aldous Huxley's debut novel, Crome Yellow. Best known for Brave New World and his later more politicised and dystopian works, his earlier writings were concerned with the society he found himself in, sending it up. Think Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, or to a lesser extent F. Scott Fitzgerald's canon. Having studied Brave New World a scary number of years ago at school and really enjoyed it, I was all set for something good.
I was, however, disappointed to be honest. It just didn't sparkle the way I had hoped it would. Some of the set pieces were amusing, but none of the characters really grabbed me and not a lot happened. Not that much needed to happen (and this isn't generally a complaint you'll here mee make, there are plenty of books I love where not much 'happens'), but it left me wondering slightly what might have been rather than what actually was. Sure, the characters have obvious and necessary flaws and it pokes fun various things, but either it was too subtle for me to grasp or perhaps a little too blunt. It wasn't bad, the writing is undoubtedly good, it just passed me by without leaving much of an impression. Maybe I missed something, and maybe I had high expectations that could only leave me heading for a fall, but it wasn't the book I was hoping for.
Book number: 47
Title: Crome Yellow
Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Books with colours in the title
Sunday, 12 June 2011
For duck's sake
I can only apologise for the title of this post, but there was never going to be any other way to introduce Jim Dodge's Fup – a wonderful fable about two men and a duck. No, really. Jake – 99, convinced of his immortality, an alcoholic gambler; Tiny – meticulous, good-natured and obviously huge; and Fup – an enormous female mallard with the loyalty and spirit of a dog. And together they live out a strange yet harmonious existence. People are recommending me books and I do listen and try and take it onboard, there are simply too many books. When they're thrust at you, however, it's harder to turn them down (thanks, Vik), and as there are not enough book club months left to fill the remaining slots, I can tuck this one away happily.
It's a very funny book, particularly Jake for his grouchiness, but also the general way the characters all play off each other. And though the book is slim, they are beautifully drawn and have memorable personalities. I liked the artwork too, especially as I've been thinking recently about how it can really enhance a book, and in this case the style matches the tone.
What's more though, is that it has a heart too, shown in the affections between our unlikely trio. Fable is probably the right word too, for it couldn't be said to be 'real' in any way, yet the feelings and interactions are real enough. An enormously uplifting book, too, containing happiness and sadness and hope. It's Jonathan Livingston Seagull reimagined by Irvine Welsh – a moral tale with soul, inhabited by wonderfully distinct and exaggerated creations, with a rich seam of humour running throughout. All in less than a hundred pages.
Book number: 46
Title: Fup
Author: Jim Dodge
Category: Book club/recommendations
It's a very funny book, particularly Jake for his grouchiness, but also the general way the characters all play off each other. And though the book is slim, they are beautifully drawn and have memorable personalities. I liked the artwork too, especially as I've been thinking recently about how it can really enhance a book, and in this case the style matches the tone.
What's more though, is that it has a heart too, shown in the affections between our unlikely trio. Fable is probably the right word too, for it couldn't be said to be 'real' in any way, yet the feelings and interactions are real enough. An enormously uplifting book, too, containing happiness and sadness and hope. It's Jonathan Livingston Seagull reimagined by Irvine Welsh – a moral tale with soul, inhabited by wonderfully distinct and exaggerated creations, with a rich seam of humour running throughout. All in less than a hundred pages.
Book number: 46
Title: Fup
Author: Jim Dodge
Category: Book club/recommendations
Lust for life
Bless the library system. In my bid to stop squandering (well, spending, I don't consider money on books to be badly spent) so much of my money on reading material, I've been trying to use the library more – and generally succeeding. They have for the most part had what I wanted and random browsing has also turned up some things that I wasn't looking for and you can't say fairer than that. It was rifling through the returns shelf for something I was looking for that made me stumble across The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The name rang a bell somewhere so I picked it up – Pulitzer winner, looked interesting, job done.
It wasn't quite what I expected either. Judging a book by the blurb can be a fruitless exercise. In hindsight it bears a resemblance to what is written, at the same time it doesn't quite capture it for me. For a start, it's been a while since I've picked up something written with such zest and energy, both of which were pretty boundless, flowing out from the pages. The writing zips along, interspersed with dialect and punctuated where necessary with footnotes predominantly to cover the references to Dominican history, which I was completely ignorant of. The narration was definitely what set the book apart and made it a lot fresher than it could otherwise have been.
Told from multiple viewpoints from members of the same family (plus our narrator, who is close to, but not of, the family) over various periods of time, I suppose the scope, the history, the culture that shows through would make it a contender for a 'Great Dominican Novel' – I certainly have a feel for it, though it's hard to draw too many conclusions from a single experience. And I liked most of the stories too, the only one which I struggled to get on with was Abelard. The rest – Lola, Beli, Yunior and particularly Oscar (who I couldn't help but sympathise with) – were all interesting and distinctive. I liked the curse and counter-curse elements too, they helped tie the separate stories together and certainly held up their end of the bargain in the form of the ending, which I guess I didn't see coming.
Book number: 45
Title: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Author: Junot Díaz
Category: Pulitzer Prize winners
It wasn't quite what I expected either. Judging a book by the blurb can be a fruitless exercise. In hindsight it bears a resemblance to what is written, at the same time it doesn't quite capture it for me. For a start, it's been a while since I've picked up something written with such zest and energy, both of which were pretty boundless, flowing out from the pages. The writing zips along, interspersed with dialect and punctuated where necessary with footnotes predominantly to cover the references to Dominican history, which I was completely ignorant of. The narration was definitely what set the book apart and made it a lot fresher than it could otherwise have been.
Told from multiple viewpoints from members of the same family (plus our narrator, who is close to, but not of, the family) over various periods of time, I suppose the scope, the history, the culture that shows through would make it a contender for a 'Great Dominican Novel' – I certainly have a feel for it, though it's hard to draw too many conclusions from a single experience. And I liked most of the stories too, the only one which I struggled to get on with was Abelard. The rest – Lola, Beli, Yunior and particularly Oscar (who I couldn't help but sympathise with) – were all interesting and distinctive. I liked the curse and counter-curse elements too, they helped tie the separate stories together and certainly held up their end of the bargain in the form of the ending, which I guess I didn't see coming.
Book number: 45
Title: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Author: Junot Díaz
Category: Pulitzer Prize winners
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Selective memory
Maybe it was a bit silly to use one of my choices on a book that I'd only vaguely heard of and knew nothing about. Then again, how often do you get to meet a Booker Prize-winning author and hear her talk? And excellent one it was too, along the lines of 'A life in reading'. What more could a bibliophile ask for?
So in what can only be described as a mad week on all kinds of levels, I managed to find time to squeeze in Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger. Having figured it might make sense to familiarise myself with her writing beforehand, I plumped for the prize winner and what is considered to be one of her best. I wasn't disappointed, even I had to rush to finish it before work (stupid sleep patterns have some advantages I suppose). And it was a good choice for the talk too, for it felt at least partially autobiographical and covered many of the themes she spoke of – love, life, history and, above all, memory.
Memory is a strange concept. Looking back on things it is easy to distort them in our minds, and for many people who witnessed or were present at events to come away from them with such different perspectives and even remembrances of what actually happened or was said. The mind plays tricks, y'know. Moon Tiger is narrated by Claudia, a successful writer and journalist, now at the end of her life in hosptial, looking back and reflecting on her life. It draws together the many strands of her life, the important people – family, friends, loved ones – and weaves them together in no particular order. Just as memory is wont to do.
I get a stronger sense of place than of person from it. Maybe it's that I couldn't quite relate to any of the characters – not that I really see that as a problem or has ever stopped me liking a book – maybe it's more that I never quite connected with them. However, in terms of some of the settings, the beach scenes with her brother, the exotic, sultry feel of Cairo, even the worn, comfortable sense of the hospital room, something about these lingers still. Memories, it would appear, even other people's, can still be vivid and tangible and that is perhaps not an easy thing to realise.
Book number: 44
Title: Moon Tiger
Author: Penelope Lively
Category: Chris' choice
So in what can only be described as a mad week on all kinds of levels, I managed to find time to squeeze in Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger. Having figured it might make sense to familiarise myself with her writing beforehand, I plumped for the prize winner and what is considered to be one of her best. I wasn't disappointed, even I had to rush to finish it before work (stupid sleep patterns have some advantages I suppose). And it was a good choice for the talk too, for it felt at least partially autobiographical and covered many of the themes she spoke of – love, life, history and, above all, memory.
Memory is a strange concept. Looking back on things it is easy to distort them in our minds, and for many people who witnessed or were present at events to come away from them with such different perspectives and even remembrances of what actually happened or was said. The mind plays tricks, y'know. Moon Tiger is narrated by Claudia, a successful writer and journalist, now at the end of her life in hosptial, looking back and reflecting on her life. It draws together the many strands of her life, the important people – family, friends, loved ones – and weaves them together in no particular order. Just as memory is wont to do.
I get a stronger sense of place than of person from it. Maybe it's that I couldn't quite relate to any of the characters – not that I really see that as a problem or has ever stopped me liking a book – maybe it's more that I never quite connected with them. However, in terms of some of the settings, the beach scenes with her brother, the exotic, sultry feel of Cairo, even the worn, comfortable sense of the hospital room, something about these lingers still. Memories, it would appear, even other people's, can still be vivid and tangible and that is perhaps not an easy thing to realise.
Book number: 44
Title: Moon Tiger
Author: Penelope Lively
Category: Chris' choice
In sickness and in health
If I started the year with a bit of a rant about how crap life is for my generation (my generation – who am I, Pete Townshend?) and how we're being shafted every which way (Oxford housing market, I'm looking at you), then I've just picked up a continuation on theme. If Jilted Generation was the angry teenage rebel, Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land is the more measured, reasoned, but no less impassioned older brother.
The last book published by the prominent historian before his death last year, it is both a reflection on how we live today, our culture and the cancer of consumption and selfishness that is eating away at society. It asks why we only seek a bigger life, rather than a better one, and why we no longer care for each other. Drawing upon years of history, learning lessons from the past, it demonstrates that how we live now is not alwasy how we have lived, that things were different and that they can be again. The problem is that we have forgotten how to ask the right questions, and even when we do, we no longer know how to answer them.
Elegant and spare, yet full of humanity and passion for our species, it reaches out across the world, not just Europe and North America, but to the rest of the globe that is being affected by the Westernisation of life and the ills that come associated. I want to do something about it all. I want to make a difference. I agree with an awful lot of what has been put forward. What worries me is perhaps not even that I can't, it's that even having read this, I still don't know how and it saddens me deeply. I wonder if I am alone?
Book number: 43
Title: Ill Fares the Land
Author: Tony Judt
Category: Non-fiction
The last book published by the prominent historian before his death last year, it is both a reflection on how we live today, our culture and the cancer of consumption and selfishness that is eating away at society. It asks why we only seek a bigger life, rather than a better one, and why we no longer care for each other. Drawing upon years of history, learning lessons from the past, it demonstrates that how we live now is not alwasy how we have lived, that things were different and that they can be again. The problem is that we have forgotten how to ask the right questions, and even when we do, we no longer know how to answer them.
Elegant and spare, yet full of humanity and passion for our species, it reaches out across the world, not just Europe and North America, but to the rest of the globe that is being affected by the Westernisation of life and the ills that come associated. I want to do something about it all. I want to make a difference. I agree with an awful lot of what has been put forward. What worries me is perhaps not even that I can't, it's that even having read this, I still don't know how and it saddens me deeply. I wonder if I am alone?
Book number: 43
Title: Ill Fares the Land
Author: Tony Judt
Category: Non-fiction
Sunday, 5 June 2011
I fought the law
So far the biggest thing I have tackled this year, and not to be confused with a doorstop, is Charles Dickens' mammoth novel, Bleak House. Like many pre-20th century works considered to be part of the canon, it's one that I'm not familiar with. Indeed, my knowledge of pre-20th century literature is pretty poor, probably through both a personal ambivalence towards some of what I've read and an inability to connect with it, and the lack of a classical education in English literature. I have actually read a few of Dickens' works – and largely enjoyed them – so I figured that I'd give another one a spin and Bleak House was suggested to me as one his finest.
Undoubtedly Dickens is a fine writer, though I can appreciate his style isn't for everyone. That said, I don't know how anyone can fail to be impressed by the detail and ability to bring people and places to life in his vivid descriptions. Be they the city of London, that he shows up in all its many faces – rich surface and poverty-stricken underbelly, or the many, many characters he breathed life into. Bleak House does both, picking the law and court proceedings as the centre to hang his novel on, and creating a quite impressively large cast of memorable characters to fill it with. It's definitely the characters that stand out for me, so often richly drawn, larger than life, whether grotesque and cruel, or tender-hearted and loving. The full range of human experience is portrayed, often comically exaggerated. His names are also wonderfully suggestive of each character's personality, including Skimpole, Smallweed and Dedlock to name but three.
I must confess that it took quite a while to get into, so I'm pleased that I tend to persevere with books (indeed, I'm stubborn enough to finish everything I start as a matter of principle), and while sometimes they don't improve, I know that it can sometimes take a while to get into things and I'm prepared to give them a chance. And weighing in at nearly 900 pages, this was clearly one that was going to demand a lot of time. Fortunately it was worth it. Once I had begun to get my head around the huge cast, the numerous plots and subplots, the language and the legal aspects, the story came to life very nicely. Interspersed with humour, it tells tales of intrigue, murder, social conditions (at the top and bottom of the Victorian ladder) and love. Oh, and spontaneous human combustion. So when you put it like that, I suppose you could ask what else could you really ask for from a novel? I won't be reading him monthly, but I did enjoy it and will undoubtedly pick up another Dickens at some point down the line. And I'm certainly curious to check out the BBC series adaptation of a few years ago. Another one for 'the list', I suppose.
Book number: 42
Title: Bleak House
Author: Charles Dickens
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Undoubtedly Dickens is a fine writer, though I can appreciate his style isn't for everyone. That said, I don't know how anyone can fail to be impressed by the detail and ability to bring people and places to life in his vivid descriptions. Be they the city of London, that he shows up in all its many faces – rich surface and poverty-stricken underbelly, or the many, many characters he breathed life into. Bleak House does both, picking the law and court proceedings as the centre to hang his novel on, and creating a quite impressively large cast of memorable characters to fill it with. It's definitely the characters that stand out for me, so often richly drawn, larger than life, whether grotesque and cruel, or tender-hearted and loving. The full range of human experience is portrayed, often comically exaggerated. His names are also wonderfully suggestive of each character's personality, including Skimpole, Smallweed and Dedlock to name but three.
I must confess that it took quite a while to get into, so I'm pleased that I tend to persevere with books (indeed, I'm stubborn enough to finish everything I start as a matter of principle), and while sometimes they don't improve, I know that it can sometimes take a while to get into things and I'm prepared to give them a chance. And weighing in at nearly 900 pages, this was clearly one that was going to demand a lot of time. Fortunately it was worth it. Once I had begun to get my head around the huge cast, the numerous plots and subplots, the language and the legal aspects, the story came to life very nicely. Interspersed with humour, it tells tales of intrigue, murder, social conditions (at the top and bottom of the Victorian ladder) and love. Oh, and spontaneous human combustion. So when you put it like that, I suppose you could ask what else could you really ask for from a novel? I won't be reading him monthly, but I did enjoy it and will undoubtedly pick up another Dickens at some point down the line. And I'm certainly curious to check out the BBC series adaptation of a few years ago. Another one for 'the list', I suppose.
Book number: 42
Title: Bleak House
Author: Charles Dickens
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Don't go back to Utah (and waste another year)
If Blood Meridian was the 'real' American West, the blood and the grit, the corruption the depravation and the complete lack of morals in something which could only loosely be described as society, Riders of the Purple Sage is perhaps the opposite – the glorification of the West. Zane Grey's (and no, it's definitely Grey rather than Gray) novel is credited as being the archetypal western, which inspired a lot of the genre.
And while I don't have anything to judge it against really, it wasn't just a caper or a romp, there's a lot more here than just pulp. For a start, it's got several strands of plot which weave around each other before tying at the end. And it's got real feelings and themes too. Honour plays a large part, not just in the sense of chivalry, but in the codes of the land. And intwined with that is religion, which looms large over a lot of the book. Set in Utah against the backdrop of Mormonism, Jane Withersteen's struggle against her religion and upbringing is vaguely reminiscent of a Graham Greene 'lite'.
The plot is also interesting, bringing the characters together and seeing them change and the relationships between them grow. It's also not a straight up happy ending, it *is* largely a happy one and things fall into place, but not in a perfect way – it's better than that – and sacrifices are made. Much like when I read The Maltese Falcon, I knew it was so copied and so important within the genre because it was good and it did a lot of things right. I wasn't blown away by it and I'm going straight out to acquire more, but it was an entertaining read, so that's the main box ticked, and it maybe broadened my horizons in some small way and you can't argue with that either.
Book number: 41
Title: Riders of the Purple Sage
Author: Zane Grey
Category: Books with colours in the title
And while I don't have anything to judge it against really, it wasn't just a caper or a romp, there's a lot more here than just pulp. For a start, it's got several strands of plot which weave around each other before tying at the end. And it's got real feelings and themes too. Honour plays a large part, not just in the sense of chivalry, but in the codes of the land. And intwined with that is religion, which looms large over a lot of the book. Set in Utah against the backdrop of Mormonism, Jane Withersteen's struggle against her religion and upbringing is vaguely reminiscent of a Graham Greene 'lite'.
The plot is also interesting, bringing the characters together and seeing them change and the relationships between them grow. It's also not a straight up happy ending, it *is* largely a happy one and things fall into place, but not in a perfect way – it's better than that – and sacrifices are made. Much like when I read The Maltese Falcon, I knew it was so copied and so important within the genre because it was good and it did a lot of things right. I wasn't blown away by it and I'm going straight out to acquire more, but it was an entertaining read, so that's the main box ticked, and it maybe broadened my horizons in some small way and you can't argue with that either.
Book number: 41
Title: Riders of the Purple Sage
Author: Zane Grey
Category: Books with colours in the title
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