What are you reading?

[Neville Chamberlain]

Currently working my way through The Magus by John Fowles. Extremely vivid and compelling story-telling so far, but I've heard it goes a bit off the rails in the second half. Oh well, looking forward to the journey there! My enjoyment of it has also been sullied slightly by the thought of that absolute dreadful boring crap old cunt Michael Caine playing the character of Nicholas Urfe in the (apparently) extremely rubbish film adaptation.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Currently working my way through The Magus by John Fowles. Extremely vivid and compelling story-telling so far, but I've heard it goes a bit off the rails in the second half. Oh well, looking forward to the journey there! My enjoyment of it has also been sullied slightly by the thought of that absolute dreadful boring crap old cunt Michael Caine playing the character of Nicholas Urfe in the (apparently) extremely rubbish film adaptation.

I've been put off reading Fowles ever since I was forced to study The French Lieutenant's Woman for A-Level English, but the subject matter appeals so I'll be interested to hear what you feel about it once you've finished it.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie - Rushdie's attempt at writing a children's book is short (by his standards at least) but very enjoyable as a boy and his father travel to fantastical places and do their best to restore storytelling to the world. It's often very funny, the prose is playful, and the overall idea is a strong one, it might not be the most subtle book every written but given its target audience it's understandable, and either way I've no complaints. 4/5

[kalowski]

I'm reading HHhH by Laurent Binet. This is a remarkable page turner telling the story of Reinhard Heydrich and the final solution. I think it's heading towards an assassination attempt in his life, but my knowledge of WW2 is not as detailed as it should be.
It's a wonderful book. I'm hooked.

[timebug]

I read most of Fowles stuff when it came out; whilst I enjoyed reading them at the time, I always found something slighty 'off' about most of them. Never did re-read any,which in my book, is a sign that I must have found them lacking in some way!

[Artie Fufkin]

Just finished Cynan Jones' first(?) book, The Long Dry. Great stuff. Not much happens in this story set on a farm, but just full of wonderful prose. I'm now just beginning Paul McAuley's Something Coming Through. Aliens are here to help us.
Or are they?
Or ARE they?




Or are they.....?







Are they?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Sunset Park by Paul Auster - Auster's an author I have a lot of time for but stylistically it has to be said that he rarely varies the way he writes, and this particularly reminded me of the prose in his (superb) 4,3,2,1. It's nowhere near as good as that alas, and has a few ideas I can't say I really agree with (combined sorrow over many years weakens a person, it's absolutely fine to date a 16 or 17 year old if you're a decade older) and the way it keeps on telling us that everyone is enamoured with the central character is odd given that he's quite bland and does or says little of interest the majority of the time. There were parts which I enjoyed a lot, the way it deals with the nature of guilt and obsession especially, but this isn't up there with Auster's best by any means. 3.5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks - The first time I've read anything by Faulks, the positive comments on the cover made it sound fascinating but I can't say I agree with them. Told from the perspectives of a young Moroccan teen and an American woman who despite living very different lives become friends, this is an exploration of the ways people see a city, especially one with a complex past such as Paris. I really enjoyed the first two thirds but then felt it became quite unsubtle, with Faulks spelling out certain ideas in an almost patronising manner,

Spoiler alert

especially at the end, and one bit where the American calls herself a "a shallow, self-pitying little bitch" made me wince as it's not true and

[close]

almost feels a bit misogynistic, which was a shame as it's quite fascinating in places. A book I feel frustrated with then, and one which I'm not quite sure what to make of. 3/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Adulterants by Joe Dunthorne - Set around the London riots of 2011 its lead character is something of an immature twat, as he fails to act appropriately given that he's married and about to become a father. It's a very knowing and very funny coming of age years after you really should have type affair,

Spoiler alert

which has a nicely realistic ending

[close]

and a lot of memorable prose. 4/5

[Fr.Bigley]

The Adulterants by Joe Dunthorne - Set around the London riots of 2011 its lead character is something of an immature twat, as he fails to act appropriately given that he's married and about to become a father. It's a very knowing and very funny coming of age years after you really should have type affair,

Spoiler alert

which has a nicely realistic ending

[close]

and a lot of memorable prose. 4/5

Does he get shot in a taxi.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Does he get shot in a taxi.

Ha, but sadly not.

Spoiler alert

Though his wife who leaves him half way through the book decides to stick with her new man even when he finally realises what a twat he's been,

[close]

which I liked a lot.

[Kankurette]

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I like the weird dystopian world but I find his style hard going, although I did enjoy Never Let Me Go.

[Artie Fufkin]

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I like the weird dystopian world but I find his style hard going, although I did enjoy Never Let Me Go.

Never Let Me Go was one of those books I was desperate to like. And after reading it, I thought I did. And I told a few people how great it was, and also bought it for someone as a birthday gift. But in retrospect I was bigging it up to myself, I think. And I agree with your sentiments here.
I bet the person I bought it for think's I'm a right prick.

[sevendaughters]

I like Joe Dunthorne's pieces in LRB. He inspired me to by Michael Kolhaas by Heinrich von Kleist, and it was as good as he says.

Currently on The Honourable Schoolboy as I plough through the Smiley novels of le Carre. Can see why the BBC skipped this one but I'm enjoying it, even though it is much more shaggy dog.

[Pink Gregory]

Inching my way through a book of Chekhov plays.  Enjoyable enough, definitely shores up my hunch that "Russians being sad" is a pecadillo of minem

[kalowski]

I like Joe Dunthorne's pieces in LRB. He inspired me to by Michael Kolhaas by Heinrich von Kleist, and it was as good as he says.

Currently on The Honourable Schoolboy as I plough through the Smiley novels of le Carre. Can see why the BBC skipped this one but I'm enjoying it, even though it is much more shaggy dog.

I think because their budget didn't stretch to Cambodia.

[Kankurette]

Never Let Me Go was one of those books I was desperate to like. And after reading it, I thought I did. And I told a few people how great it was, and also bought it for someone as a birthday gift. But in retrospect I was bigging it up to myself, I think. And I agree with your sentiments here.
I bet the person I bought it for think's I'm a right prick.

Have you seen the movie? That was why I read the book.

[Artie Fufkin]

^no^
*heads over to imdb*
Wow! I was totally unaware of this.
Will check it out.

[turnstyle]

A Bright Moon for Fools - Jasper Gibson

I didn't know anything about this book. Picked it up at a charity shop a couple of years ago, for fifty pence, swayed almost entirely by a Palin quote on the cover - 'Very funny, very unpleasant and very moving'. Yep, fuckit, that'll do, ring me up please old lady with a name badge on upside down.

Finally got round to reading it in the last few weeks after stumbling across it in a forgotten box.

Short synopsis for you. 58 year old bloke down on his luck wants to travel to Venezuela to pay tribute to his deceased wife, ends up stealing money from a romantic interest to fund it, pursued by murderous step-son of romantic interest, japes occur.

Reading around the internet, a lot of people were really turned off this book by the main character, who is a bit of/a massive bellend, depending on your tolerance for bellends. I'm not against an unsympathetic protagonist - I don't need to relate to a character to enjoy a story, so I felt like the main character, Harry Christmas, was a good one. As the story goes on you get to see a few more layers to him, and it's clear the writer really wanted you to soften on him as the book went on, and want him to succeed (especially in the last few chapters).

One of the saving graces for Harry, is that the antagonist, the man who chases him across Venezuela with the intent of killing him, is a genuine deranged psychopath, and elicits no sympathy from the reader whatsoever. He makes Harry look like Charlie Bucket. Another criticism of the book I have read is that there are depictions of

Spoiler alert

rape and animal torture

[close]

that are handled insensitively, but to my mind they are handled in this cold, uncaring manner as that's exactly how the antagonist himself sees them. It would be weird to stop the novel mid-flow and dissect these moments morally. It's the sudden and unflinching acts with no remorse that makes them so shocking.

I enjoyed the cat and mouse chase across Venezuela, the ever escalating situations that the protagonist finds himself in, and it was genuinely funny in places too. There's a few big suspension of disbelief moments in it, but I mean, it's a fiction novel, so fair enough I reckon.

[Neomod]

Not so much reading as looking. Just arrived today.



In lieu of my annual visit to chez Serge.

[purlieu]

If anyone else has read the series - how do Brandon Sanderson's co-written books (The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light) compare? I know he had trouble writing Mat and that makes me a bit cagey about them as Mat is my favourite character, along with Nynaeve.

Once you get used to Sanderson's version of Mat - and it'll take you a book - then the last three are fine. They're not up there with Jordan's work, but the plotting is pretty much how he planned it (albeit maybe lacking some editing - it was meant to be one book!) so it's the conclusion the series was intended to have.

[Small Man Big Horse]

A Bright Moon for Fools - Jasper Gibson

I didn't know anything about this book. Picked it up at a charity shop a couple of years ago, for fifty pence, swayed almost entirely by a Palin quote on the cover - 'Very funny, very unpleasant and very moving'. Yep, fuckit, that'll do, ring me up please old lady with a name badge on upside down.

Finally got round to reading it in the last few weeks after stumbling across it in a forgotten box.

Short synopsis for you. 58 year old bloke down on his luck wants to travel to Venezuela to pay tribute to his deceased wife, ends up stealing money from a romantic interest to fund it, pursued by murderous step-son of romantic interest, japes occur.

Reading around the internet, a lot of people were really turned off this book by the main character, who is a bit of/a massive bellend, depending on your tolerance for bellends. I'm not against an unsympathetic protagonist - I don't need to relate to a character to enjoy a story, so I felt like the main character, Harry Christmas, was a good one. As the story goes on you get to see a few more layers to him, and it's clear the writer really wanted you to soften on him as the book went on, and want him to succeed (especially in the last few chapters).

One of the saving graces for Harry, is that the antagonist, the man who chases him across Venezuela with the intent of killing him, is a genuine deranged psychopath, and elicits no sympathy from the reader whatsoever. He makes Harry look like Charlie Bucket. Another criticism of the book I have read is that there are depictions of

Spoiler alert

rape and animal torture

[close]

that are handled insensitively, but to my mind they are handled in this cold, uncaring manner as that's exactly how the antagonist himself sees them. It would be weird to stop the novel mid-flow and dissect these moments morally. It's the sudden and unflinching acts with no remorse that makes them so shocking.

I enjoyed the cat and mouse chase across Venezuela, the ever escalating situations that the protagonist finds himself in, and it was genuinely funny in places too. There's a few big suspension of disbelief moments in it, but I mean, it's a fiction novel, so fair enough I reckon.

I read that a few years ago in pretty much the same circumstances, a random charity shop buy because of Palin's quote, and I liked it a lot too, it's not one of my favourite ever reads but I thought it was quite memorable, to the extent that every so often I've googled to see if he's written another. For a long while he hadn't, but his second book finally came out in January, and it's something I'm hoping I'll be able to either pick up in a charity shop or for only a few quid on Amazon when it's been out for a bit longer.

[AliasTheCat]

I'm reading The Emigrants by W G Sebald, the last of his novels I have left to read having devoured all the others at various points over the last year. They really are all astonishingly beautiful things, but this one feels like his most "personal", giving much more (presumably slightly fictionalised) detail into his own background than his other novels, though it shares the same sort of wry melancholy that appeals to me very much.

[Glebe]

Actually reading The Hobbit again. Mock me if you will, but I find it wonderfully comforting stuff.

[buttgammon]

Just finishing War and War by László Krasznahorkai. I've been very slowly working through his stuff over the last year (i.e. reading three of his earlier novels months apart) and this might be my favourite so far. The other two that I read concerned communities and groups of people, but this one is more focused, following the protagonist in Hungary and then New York, with confusing interpellations from a manuscript he's obsessively trying to copy.

One thing I have to mention is the format: it's divided into chapters and sub-chapters, each of which is numbered and consists of a single long sentence. There's something almost hypnotic about the way they unfold, and it doesn't exactly make it an easy read (I've had to re-read whole pages many times), but it's hauntingly beautiful at times too.

[turnstyle]

Actually reading The Hobbit again. Mock me if you will, but I find it wonderfully comforting stuff.

I keep meaning to read this again. I have my Dad's original copy from when he was a boy and want to give it a read through.

Interestingly, my Dad went to school in Oxford, and Tolkien actually visited his class one time and read some of the Hobbit to them, which still blows my mind. Would have been in the late fifties I would guess.

And yes, I have checked his copy of the book, and no, it's not signed damnit!

[AliasTheCat]

Just finishing War and War by László Krasznahorkai. I've been very slowly working through his stuff over the last year (i.e. reading three of his earlier novels months apart) and this might be my favourite so far. The other two that I read concerned communities and groups of people, but this one is more focused, following the protagonist in Hungary and then New York, with confusing interpellations from a manuscript he's obsessively trying to copy.

One thing I have to mention is the format: it's divided into chapters and sub-chapters, each of which is numbered and consists of a single long sentence. There's something almost hypnotic about the way they unfold, and it doesn't exactly make it an easy read (I've had to re-read whole pages many times), but it's hauntingly beautiful at times too.

I've only read Satantango, but I really liked it. Should definitely give some others by him a go.

[buttgammon]

I've only read Satantango, but I really liked it. Should definitely give some others by him a go.

Definitely! The Melancholy of Resistance is the other one I've read, and that was also good.

[Artie Fufkin]

Actually reading The Hobbit again. Mock me if you will, but I find it wonderfully comforting stuff.

Ha! Ha! Whatta prick!

[Glebe]

Interestingly, my Dad went to school in Oxford, and Tolkien actually visited his class one time and read some of the Hobbit to them, which still blows my mind. Would have been in the late fifties I would guess.

Crikey!

Ha! Ha! Whatta prick!

:(

[Artie Fufkin]

:(

You misunderstand, I found your thread amusing, and I saw you in the shower earlier.
Two separate things.