This is actually the second book I've read this year by an author I've had the pleasure of meeting. Admittedly they were at completely different stages of their careers – the first a Booker Prize winner with a rich legacy of work, the second a debut novelist writing for a small independent publisher. But he was a very nice young chap (indeed, I imagine he's a little younger than me), very funny and charming and slightly awkwardly eccentric in a very English kind of way. But then I like that, so I'm certainly not registering this as a complaint. Anyway, having heard him talk about both his book and the process of writing it, getting it published and then promoting it, I was certainly interested enough to want to read it – and I don't think I was the only one who walked away thinking that.
Cult Fiction – I do like the title – by Ardie Collins is a satirical look at religion. The quote before the story starts is from Douglas Adams and the influence of the eternal hitchhiker is very obvious throughout the book in its style. The surreal streak, the asides, the talking directly to the reader is clearly the product of a rich history of English eccentricity, no doubt taking in other standards such as Monty Python and Terry Pratchett. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it does appeal to me and I enjoyed it. It wasn't just a cheap, quickly abandoned gimmick, and the references to prior events and the clever ending show that there was a plot and not just a series of random interconected thoughts that somehow ended up in story form.
Indeed, it's message is very much like Life of Brian. Basically, it pokes fun at the problems with organised religion, interpretation of events and how things develop in completely different ways to how they were intended. Poor Stephen, the hero of our tale loses his home and his faith (the two are connected) and while trying to figure things out, inadvertently ends up starting a cult. The willingness of people to follow anyone is highlighted as the aptly named Brian hijacks the group and essentially starts telling people what to do – think "Yes, we're all individuals" and you get the gist of it. It's not wholly original, but it is fun, entertaining, nicely plotted and puts its point across well so it works for me.
Book number: 90
Title: Cult Fiction
Author: Ardie Collins
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Grounds for divorce
For a long time during this challenge I've had some ideas of things I wanted to read and was definitely going to pick up during its course. Other slots were empty, left to whims and new discoveries and maybe even just a little bit of what I fancied. With Pulitzer Prize winners, despite having a few ideas, hardly any were pre-planned and certainly none were really set in stone as must-reads. In the latest instance, I didn't even know the book I'd picked up was a winner until I saw it on the blurb – I'd only picked up whilst charity shop browsing, an admittedly pretty regular occurence.
Anyway, Edith Wharton won the one of the very early prizes for the Age of Innocence, as I discovered during the aforementioned browsing session, and, as I could only assume that the fates were guiding me at this point in time, I proceeded to purchase it and then to read it. Maybe it was the fact I've been busy and distracted, leading to a fairly disjointed reading, but I can't say I particularly connected with it.
That's not to say it wasn't well written, more that it wasn't really my cup of tea. I had reasonably high hopes, being that it's a bit of a relationship kitchen-sink drama and I like that kind of thing, but I never quite got into it properly. The characters are well-drawn enough and all have their flaws and if you're not supposed to necessarily like them, perhaps there should have been more of a connection than what I managed. As a snapshot of the period it is interesting in terms of how divorce is regarded, and obviously this is a million miles away from today, but that is hardly a reason to dislike it. Suspension of disbelief can be achieved by far more fantastic and far-fetched things and I can hardly claim this to be a failing on the part of the book. I just didn't ever really get onboard with it. Maybe, to couch it in relationship terms, we just never sparked the way I thought we might.
Book number: 89
Title: The Age of Innocence
Author: Edith Wharton
Category: Pulitzer prize winners
Anyway, Edith Wharton won the one of the very early prizes for the Age of Innocence, as I discovered during the aforementioned browsing session, and, as I could only assume that the fates were guiding me at this point in time, I proceeded to purchase it and then to read it. Maybe it was the fact I've been busy and distracted, leading to a fairly disjointed reading, but I can't say I particularly connected with it.
That's not to say it wasn't well written, more that it wasn't really my cup of tea. I had reasonably high hopes, being that it's a bit of a relationship kitchen-sink drama and I like that kind of thing, but I never quite got into it properly. The characters are well-drawn enough and all have their flaws and if you're not supposed to necessarily like them, perhaps there should have been more of a connection than what I managed. As a snapshot of the period it is interesting in terms of how divorce is regarded, and obviously this is a million miles away from today, but that is hardly a reason to dislike it. Suspension of disbelief can be achieved by far more fantastic and far-fetched things and I can hardly claim this to be a failing on the part of the book. I just didn't ever really get onboard with it. Maybe, to couch it in relationship terms, we just never sparked the way I thought we might.
Book number: 89
Title: The Age of Innocence
Author: Edith Wharton
Category: Pulitzer prize winners
London lives
Sometimes it's nice to be ambitious. It's not something I've generally aspired to, indeed, my plans for life, such as they are, are pretty simple and probably not all that interesting. Then again, *I'm* pretty simple and not all that interesting. In fiction, however, ambition can be a very good thing. It's good to aim big, but with the caveat it's only good if you can pull it off. Probably one more reason (and there are many) why I'm not a writer. Anyway, when the blurb is talking up Dickens and Thackerary and Trollope (not that I've ever read any of either of the latter two), it's either setting itself up for a fall or it's something pretty grand in scope.
A Week in December, then, is Sebastian Faulks' state-of-the-nation novel. Set, unsurprisingly, across a week in the lives of a huge cast of Londoners approaching the tail-end of the year, it's aim is nothing short of trying to chronicle a snapshot of how we live now, a decade or so into the 21st century. Having never read any Faulks before, other than when he was writing as Ian Fleming, I had no real idea what to expect, though I know he comes with a big reputation. I also gather this is not particularly like his other works, but I suspect that will be one more discussion to come out at book club later in the week.
First off, I liked it. It took a little to get into it, but then I digested it pretty quickly, which is usually a good sign. It's not perfect and how it is to judged may depend on what you want out of it. As a story, it is interesting exploring the lives of characters and how they interweave, though there is no real central plot as such – the finale of the book is the dinner party which we knew was coming the first chapter. However, the size of the cast and the scope of what the book is trying to do also hinders it in that there are too many characters and not all of them are really developed properly and some remain almost anonymous. That said, John, Gabriel, Jenni and Hassan are all strong characters and their stories are all definitely worth the telling. Faulks is also clearly a skilled enough author to move things along and to tease you with expectations of things to come and to throw you off the scent, which is no bad thing.
The other problem is essentially the aim of the book itself. To chronicle things, the author is passing his own judgement, casting a discerning eye on society and picking out the themes he wants to highlight in today's society – money, religion, alienation, law, love. It is therefore his vehicle or sopabox to draw our attention to these things. Knowing that is the point, some of the dialogue and ideas seem a little odd when coming from the voices of the characters, though this may be unavoidable. So in essence, the scope and aims of the book are at once its strengths and its weaknesses in different ways. As a grand in scope, zeitgeisty book, I think it succeeds pretty well, but there are also certain issues with this and your enjoyment of it may to an extent come from what you want out of it and how you choose to judge it.
Book number: 88
Title: A Week in December
Author: Sebastian Faulks
Category: Book club/recommendations
A Week in December, then, is Sebastian Faulks' state-of-the-nation novel. Set, unsurprisingly, across a week in the lives of a huge cast of Londoners approaching the tail-end of the year, it's aim is nothing short of trying to chronicle a snapshot of how we live now, a decade or so into the 21st century. Having never read any Faulks before, other than when he was writing as Ian Fleming, I had no real idea what to expect, though I know he comes with a big reputation. I also gather this is not particularly like his other works, but I suspect that will be one more discussion to come out at book club later in the week.
First off, I liked it. It took a little to get into it, but then I digested it pretty quickly, which is usually a good sign. It's not perfect and how it is to judged may depend on what you want out of it. As a story, it is interesting exploring the lives of characters and how they interweave, though there is no real central plot as such – the finale of the book is the dinner party which we knew was coming the first chapter. However, the size of the cast and the scope of what the book is trying to do also hinders it in that there are too many characters and not all of them are really developed properly and some remain almost anonymous. That said, John, Gabriel, Jenni and Hassan are all strong characters and their stories are all definitely worth the telling. Faulks is also clearly a skilled enough author to move things along and to tease you with expectations of things to come and to throw you off the scent, which is no bad thing.
The other problem is essentially the aim of the book itself. To chronicle things, the author is passing his own judgement, casting a discerning eye on society and picking out the themes he wants to highlight in today's society – money, religion, alienation, law, love. It is therefore his vehicle or sopabox to draw our attention to these things. Knowing that is the point, some of the dialogue and ideas seem a little odd when coming from the voices of the characters, though this may be unavoidable. So in essence, the scope and aims of the book are at once its strengths and its weaknesses in different ways. As a grand in scope, zeitgeisty book, I think it succeeds pretty well, but there are also certain issues with this and your enjoyment of it may to an extent come from what you want out of it and how you choose to judge it.
Book number: 88
Title: A Week in December
Author: Sebastian Faulks
Category: Book club/recommendations
Saturday, 12 November 2011
All's fair-y in love and war
One thing that my book club has taught me is not to judge a book by its blurb. So many times has the promise of the words failed to deliver in an expected way. Not always badly, mind, but quite often the books have not been what I was expecting. And we always tend to talk about the cover too – whether we like it, whether it suits the book, potentially the different versions for some books. Now both of these things are obvious marketing tools which do have some value and will make me potentially have a look as to whether I want to read it. But of anything that is likely to make me want to read something, a recommendation probably tops the list. This could be from a friend, or, in a less personal way, a quote or recommendation on the book from someone I like and trust.
I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman and a quote on the back, plus an introduction from the author was enough to make me pick up Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York. A quick look read of the blurb and in this case I was instantly sold. And in this case, not mis-sold. A very funny, manic caper throughout New York with a whole bunch of different fairies was exactly what I was after and also what I got. Drug-addled old women who think they're Greek warlords, the New York Dolls, quests for impossibly rare flowers, productions of Shakespeare and mischievous, drunken, sexy Scottish fairies – what's not to like?
Millar is obviously a fine comic writer, devising likeable and amusing characters and knowing how to get the best out of them throughout the romp and numerous farcical situations. Yet more than that were some of the wryly observations, using the fairies poking fun at how humans do things as vehicle to do this. The ethnic and racial harmony elements to it did not exactly say anything new, but did highlight the silliness of such things and set in New York, the melting pot to end all melting pots, it seemed fitting.
Perhaps most surprising of all though was the tender handling of Kerry's Crohn's disease – a horrible, really debliating condition and one close to my heart as a good friend of mine suffers from it. I'm far from an expert on it, but I figure that any methods of informing people about it can only be a good thing. It's not something I'd heard of beforehand and the senstivie handling of it gave the story it's most human aspect. And it had the hard-fought, deserved happy ending that you'd want from such a comic tale. So long as I didn't think about their reputation or the potential for disaster, I'd jump at the chance to spend a night out drinking with Heather and Morag and to wish to spend time with their creations is perhaps as high a compliment as you can pay an author.
Book number: 87
Title: The Good Fairies of New York
Author: Martin Millar
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman and a quote on the back, plus an introduction from the author was enough to make me pick up Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York. A quick look read of the blurb and in this case I was instantly sold. And in this case, not mis-sold. A very funny, manic caper throughout New York with a whole bunch of different fairies was exactly what I was after and also what I got. Drug-addled old women who think they're Greek warlords, the New York Dolls, quests for impossibly rare flowers, productions of Shakespeare and mischievous, drunken, sexy Scottish fairies – what's not to like?
Millar is obviously a fine comic writer, devising likeable and amusing characters and knowing how to get the best out of them throughout the romp and numerous farcical situations. Yet more than that were some of the wryly observations, using the fairies poking fun at how humans do things as vehicle to do this. The ethnic and racial harmony elements to it did not exactly say anything new, but did highlight the silliness of such things and set in New York, the melting pot to end all melting pots, it seemed fitting.
Perhaps most surprising of all though was the tender handling of Kerry's Crohn's disease – a horrible, really debliating condition and one close to my heart as a good friend of mine suffers from it. I'm far from an expert on it, but I figure that any methods of informing people about it can only be a good thing. It's not something I'd heard of beforehand and the senstivie handling of it gave the story it's most human aspect. And it had the hard-fought, deserved happy ending that you'd want from such a comic tale. So long as I didn't think about their reputation or the potential for disaster, I'd jump at the chance to spend a night out drinking with Heather and Morag and to wish to spend time with their creations is perhaps as high a compliment as you can pay an author.
Book number: 87
Title: The Good Fairies of New York
Author: Martin Millar
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
Sweet Jane
Slowly over the course of the year I've ticked of one or two canonical works that I'd never previously read, generally of the pre-20th century variety. The kind that people with degrees in English Lit have probably all read and some people assume that everyone, particularly someone such as mysef who reads a lot, must at some point in their life have read. Or at least know the story of.
Having finished reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, a book I feel definitely fits into that previosuly described category, I was discussing what I thought of it with my housemate. I really enjoyed it and one of the things I said was that it probably had such an impact because I had no idea about the story, indeed knew next to nothing about it beyond the names Jane Eyre (well, duh) and Mr Rochester. She was surprised, but having never read it, nor seen any version of it, I also wasn't sure how much even some classic works like that have really leaked into popular culture in terms of people actually knowing the plot. Certainly the odd reference can be made, but I do think it's very different to those of films and TV programmes, where even people unfamiliar with the work will probably get the link.
But anyway, I did go into blind, as it were, and I did like it a lot. It was a really gripping, engaging read and I was perhaps surprised by this and certainly surprised by some of the things that happened. I didn't know anything about the gothic horror elements and I liked those and I liked the life story narration, 'all that David Copperfield crap', to borrow a phrase.
And at the heart of it, a love story and I can certainly be a sucker for those. What was nice about it was that things were not perfect, the characters were not perfect and were never portrayed as such. Indeed, the author went out of her way to emphasise that neither of the couple were particularly physically attractive, but that they just had that spark, that certain something that worked. A tick in a box against a great work is now something I can do, but unlike some where that's about all I can say about it (George Eliot, you may get a second chance, but you'll have to work hard for it), this one was definitely far more rewarding than that.
Book number: 86
Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Brontë
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Having finished reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, a book I feel definitely fits into that previosuly described category, I was discussing what I thought of it with my housemate. I really enjoyed it and one of the things I said was that it probably had such an impact because I had no idea about the story, indeed knew next to nothing about it beyond the names Jane Eyre (well, duh) and Mr Rochester. She was surprised, but having never read it, nor seen any version of it, I also wasn't sure how much even some classic works like that have really leaked into popular culture in terms of people actually knowing the plot. Certainly the odd reference can be made, but I do think it's very different to those of films and TV programmes, where even people unfamiliar with the work will probably get the link.
But anyway, I did go into blind, as it were, and I did like it a lot. It was a really gripping, engaging read and I was perhaps surprised by this and certainly surprised by some of the things that happened. I didn't know anything about the gothic horror elements and I liked those and I liked the life story narration, 'all that David Copperfield crap', to borrow a phrase.
And at the heart of it, a love story and I can certainly be a sucker for those. What was nice about it was that things were not perfect, the characters were not perfect and were never portrayed as such. Indeed, the author went out of her way to emphasise that neither of the couple were particularly physically attractive, but that they just had that spark, that certain something that worked. A tick in a box against a great work is now something I can do, but unlike some where that's about all I can say about it (George Eliot, you may get a second chance, but you'll have to work hard for it), this one was definitely far more rewarding than that.
Book number: 86
Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Brontë
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Cracking the code
And so as the year is drawing to a close, I'm still just about on task and the first of the ten categories is now complete. One of the first to be begun and one it is fair to say I have raced through and had broadened my horizons, the first to be ticked off the list is crime. And back on familiar turf (though could arguably be the familiar Turf), with my first encounter with Morse. And Lewis, of course. I've never read any, nor watched it, though I have seen part of an episode of Lewis being filmed outside the Bodleian at some point.
Anyway, figuring the best place to start may well be the beginning, my first taste of Colin Dexter's creation was his first tale, Last Bus to Woodstock. With most classic detective series, an interesting central character is often what drives the books and allows for the series to develop. Morse himself fits the bill and certainly has a bit of the Holmes in him – enigmatic, slightly detached and with some less than wholly exemplary personal habits. Throw in the straight man sidekick and you have a good dynamic and while so much is owed to Conan Doyle, any resemblance and debts paid are, as far as I'm concerned, no bad thing at all.
The crime itself kept me guessing throughout, didn't seem contrived and although the circumstances and the evidence are very much dated pushing thirty years hence, within the framework of the story it all seemed to fit. And this time, I enjoyed seeing the familiar setting of Oxford, so perhaps it's just the story and the writing of that other one about murder in the City of Dreaming Spires that I took issue with. Clearly now a British institution, it's easy to see why he's such a popular character. I suspect I shall pay him another visit or two in the future.
Book number: 85
Title: Last Bus to Woodstock
Author: Colin Dexter
Category: Crime
Anyway, figuring the best place to start may well be the beginning, my first taste of Colin Dexter's creation was his first tale, Last Bus to Woodstock. With most classic detective series, an interesting central character is often what drives the books and allows for the series to develop. Morse himself fits the bill and certainly has a bit of the Holmes in him – enigmatic, slightly detached and with some less than wholly exemplary personal habits. Throw in the straight man sidekick and you have a good dynamic and while so much is owed to Conan Doyle, any resemblance and debts paid are, as far as I'm concerned, no bad thing at all.
The crime itself kept me guessing throughout, didn't seem contrived and although the circumstances and the evidence are very much dated pushing thirty years hence, within the framework of the story it all seemed to fit. And this time, I enjoyed seeing the familiar setting of Oxford, so perhaps it's just the story and the writing of that other one about murder in the City of Dreaming Spires that I took issue with. Clearly now a British institution, it's easy to see why he's such a popular character. I suspect I shall pay him another visit or two in the future.
Book number: 85
Title: Last Bus to Woodstock
Author: Colin Dexter
Category: Crime
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