A Common Reader . . .

Some reading choices

Its good to know that Canadian author Anne Michaels has a new book, The Winter Vault, published by Bloomsbury tomorrow.  Michaels' last nove, Fugitive Pieces, was published back in 1997 and won Guardian Fiction award and the Orange prize, although since then we have nothing but silence from this reclusive  author. 

Sarah Crown writes in yesterday's Guardian, likens the froth of anticipation that surrounds this publishing event to that that which surrounded the publication of The Little Friend, Donna Tartt's long-awaited follow-up to her hugely successful novel The Secret History. 

In the late 1990s I was a member of a new reading group and Fugitive Pieces was one of our first choices.  The evening we met to consider Michaels' book was the only time we had complete unanimity on the excellence of our chosen read. 

I was also pleased to read that John Waller's book, A Time to Dance, a Time to Die has just been published in paperback.  I reviewed this last summer and was impressed with this acount of the dancing fever that broke out in 16th century Strasbourg. 

While the phenomena is in itself interesting, it is Waller's ability to provide such a penetrating insight into the mindset of the residents which makes the book such a fascinating read.  By the end I had a much clearer insight into how very different the beliefs and culture of that age were from our own. 

 

I am going to France for a few days later in the week and will be taking Margaret Drabble's new volume of memoirs, The Pattern in the Carpet, which she has interleaved around the history of the jigsaw puzzle.  I confess to enjoying jigsaw puzzles myself (but somehow only in the dark winter months), and this combination of history and personal memoir should be an interesting read. 

It may also make me feel less guilty about spending hours and hours on 1000 piece puzzles - if Margaret Drabble isn't ashamed of this pastime then why should I be? 

This and that

Well, having had mixed feelings about Steg Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I picked up the second volume of Larsson's trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire and struggled through 120 pages then gave up. I usually find if its taken me three days to get into a book its not worth struggling with.  I think the problem with these books is the sheer amount of unnecessary detail that Larsson went to to get the storgy going.  He provides you with itemised accouns sheets for companies, inventories of what the main character bought at Ikea, and list of apartments that she viewed:

1 bdrm + living/dining, fantastic loc, nr Sodra Station, 2.7mkr or highest bid.  S/ch 5510 p/m
3 rms + kitchen, park view, Hogalid, 2.9m kr

There is no place for this sort of thing in literature! This 538 page book should have been edited down to about 300, but at the length is it, its just not worth the trouble. 

I'm now going to read David Guterson's The Other.  His 1995 novel Snow Falling on Cedars was widely acclaimed but since then Guterson's work has been mixed to say the least.  I thought Our Lady of the Forest was rather good, but East of the Mountains left me cold. 

I've a pile of other books waiting to be read but am particularly pleased that Granta 105 has arrived.  This "magazine of new writing goes from strenth to strength under its new editor Alex Clarke and this quarter's theme, "Lost and Found" allows a great variety of good writing. 

I am now away for a few days and won't be posting again until the middle of next week - at least I'll have plenty of opportunity for reading while I'm away!

"Readers are seen as losers . . ."

A short report in The Guardian on Saturday on a survey conducted by the National Reading Campaign  tells us that lower income, non-professional families see readers as losers and loners, people who "don't know how to live . . . an alien and  unexciting tribe they seldom meet". 

I think I kind of guessed that already: that uncomprehending look from a distant relative or acquaintance when you begin to talk about a book you read, the sense that by even mentioning that you read a book you irrevocably distance yourself from them. 

The article goes on to say that "reading was seen as isolating, while communal activities such as DVDs or Wii games were valued more".  These people apparently suffer overwhelming anxiety if they enter a bookshop, and the world of books is seen as "intimidating and unwelcoming". 

I find people who don't read at all a bit of an alien species.  What do they do on a train journey? - well, I know the answer to that: they just stare out of the window looking bored or fiddle around with their phones texting friends.  So lacking in inner resources they are dependent on social interaction or gadgets to carry them through life's dull periods.  They never encounter the thoughts and stories of other people and miss out on the inherited myths of people around the world.  This is a sort of poverty, but I seriously doubt that the recommendations of the report will go far to fix the problem:

• better book jacket design
• books available in less elitist environments
• book of the film to be sold in cinemas
• recent books to be made available on the Nintendo DS
• books to be available from vending machines

Anyone who sees all the brightly covered books in a supermarket will feel that the publishing industry has already done it best to make their products attractive.  The vending machine idea is a bit crazy - you need to touch and feel a book, to flick through it, to look at the interior design and typeface in order to feel inspired to an impulse purchase.  The Nintendo DS idea - well, many of the classics are already available in that format but its hard to believe anyone could get very far with them on such a limited screen size.

I can't help but think back to the Mechanics Institutes of the 19th century.  Wikipedia tells us that  "small tradesmen and workers could not afford subscription libraries, so for their benefit, benevolent groups and individuals created "mechanics' institutes" that contained inspirational and vocational reading matter, for a small rental fee. Later popular non-fiction and fiction books were added to these collections. The first known library of this type was the Birmingham Artisans' Library, formed in 1823".

In those days, reading was seen as the way to "better yourself", to climb up out of poverty and to make material improvements to the life of you and your family.  We live in a different place these days, and having started to write on this theme, I'm going to close now otherwise a few thousand words will follow on what has gone wrong and how to fix it. 

False starts and disappointments

I started to read the much-reviewed novel The Kindly Ones last week and have found it such heavy going.  I know its a good, maybe a great book, but with its endless paragraphs and its over-detailed descriptions of military negotiations its just so hard to get through its nearly 1000 pages. 

I gave up on it for a few days, but know I have to come back to it for its unique perspective on what it was like to be a full-blown Nazi taking part in the invasion of Poland and the Ukraine.  Long books are not a problem to me, but I find I just have to get into that state of mind where I plough through it, picking it up at any spare moment, and setting myself targets (100 pages a day?).  It sounds like hard work but the satisfaction is there - a sense of learning something unique about the human condition, which all great literature brings with it. 

On another topic, its so tempting to accept review copies of books from publishers or, more recently, the Amazon Vine programme.  What avid reader can resist those mysterious parcels that turn up unexpectedly with the morning post?  But so often they are a disappointment.  I am someone who carefully selects his reading material, sometimes agonising over which book to read next. Sometimes I embark on a review copy with a feeling of "work" rather than fulfilment and I think I'm gong to have to consider whether to ignore these tempting gifts in future. 

This week I interrupted The Kindly Ones to read Robert Wilson's The Ignorance of Blood, the fourth novel in a quartet featuring the detective Javier Falcon of Seville.  I read 100 pages (my usual "fair test" allotment!), and then dropped it.  Far too many characters, far too "technical" a detective novel (such complex plotting just puts me off), and a main character with whom I failed to generate any interest or empathy.  It just didn't interest me.  I enjoy crime novels but this one left me cold. 

I travelled to London this week, which takes about an hour and a half on the train, and by the time I got there I was tempted to put this in a bin rather than cart it around all day.  I had Waterstones vouchers to spend so bought The Genius of Photography (which accompanies a BBC series), and then made up the amount I had to spend by an impulse buy of Lee Child's latest Jack Reacher thriller, Nothing to Lose. 

I am not ashamed to say I am a great fan of Lee Child.  Ex Military Policeman Jack Reacher has totally unbelievable adventures in which solves complex criminal conspiracies and escapes from impossible situations to fight another day.  He does it with style and panache, and is above all never boring.  A total waste of time, yes, but when The Kindly Ones is on the go, a very welcome break.  My penance will be return to the agonies of death and destruction in World War II.  Perhaps I'll read something pastoral and peaceful after this - Lark Rise to Candleford (but not). 

Reading and to be read

 We are visiting Rye and the Romney Marsh in the next couple of days, and I hope to be able to make some progress with Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada.  I started it on Tuesday and have still only read about a third of it.  Its not that I don't like it: in fact I'm enjoying it very much and find myself reading a page or two then pausing to absorb what I've read. 

The book is interesting because its gives a street-level picture of what it was like to live in Germany in the early days of the war.  This is not the story of great men and women whether heroes or villains who are commemorated in biographies.  Fallada's cast of characters are factory workers, retired clerks, minor officials, widows and grieving parents.  It is all very believable and makes for fascinating reading.

I expect I'll follow this with a quite different take on the Nazi regime by reading The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell, who in this much reviewed new novel follows the course of a participant in the atrocities perpetrated across Europe.

My interest in this period of history is around the question, "What makes people behave like this?"  Sometimes fiction helps to provide answers, and certainly supplements the history books I have read on the period.  

Other books on my to be read pile are:

Nothing To Be Frightened Of, by Julian Barnes
The Tale, by Joseph Conrad, and for light relief,
The Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri

Goodbye 2008

I began this book blog in April. Although its not my first attempt at book-blogging I think I've enjoyed this one more than the others and in terms of hits it exceeds all the previous versions - for which I thank Mark Thwaite of Brit Lit Blogs for including me in illustrious company.  Having said that, I write reviews mainly for my own satisfaction as a way of making my reading slightly less "here today, gone tomorrow" - I wish I had a list of all the books I'd read before 2008 with a summary of what they were about and what I thought of them! 

Christmas brought me a few books, most of which I'd asked for (or in some cases bought for myself and put by the tree in a parcel addressed To Tom from Tom (no book-lover can totally rely on relatives getting it 100% right can they?).

I read the Scott Fitzgerald stories over Christmas and enjoyed them greatly - they will be the subject of my next post.  The Third Reich book is the third in a series and I confess to flagging a little as I approach "At War".  However no doubt RichardJ  Evans's elegant prose and meticulous history will soon engross me again.  Corvus is fun and is worth a review (to follow).

The heaviest book I got for Christmas weighed over 6lbs - Phaidon's Italian recipe book Silver Spoon

As for the last year, I think my concentration on European literature from the early 20th century has thrown up some gems.  There are so many I could choose as "best of" I wouldn't know where to start.   However, I think the book I enjoyed the most and which has stuck in my memory more than any others  must be a more recent novel, The Shoe Tester of Frankfurt by Wilhelm Genazino.  It sheer quirkiness is beguiling, but also the subtle statements it makes about life.  As I write this, I also know that many people would hate it, or see it as utterly pointless, but for me it was a gem which I've re-read twice already. 

I wish all readers and fellow book-bloggers, particularly those who are on Brit Lit Blogs, a very happy new year. 

My problems with big books for Christmas

 I love getting at least one really heavy book at Christmas (heavy in terms of kilograms as much in content).  I rather like
long books - heck, I've read Robert Musil's Man Without Qualities with its 1100 pages and I am no stranger to 19th century books where the readers of that era seemed to have little to do all day other than turn the pages of some heroic work by what we now see as classic authors.

In 2006 I requested Mao, The Unknown Story for Christmas - what an excellent book (I am sure) but one I never managed to read.  Sometimes the phrase "too much information" crosses your mind as you struggle through the first 200 pages.  This book to my mind was the result of an author's passion for her subject and sorely needed an editor's pen to bring her ambition down to size.  Alas I never finished it. 

In 2007 my Christmas book was Orlando Figes, The Whisperers.  This is history at its best - well researched, and beautifully written and illustrated.  But again I found myself faltering after a couple of hundred pages.  In some ways its similar to the Mao book, just a bit too much detail and has the perennial problem with books about Russia - the names are so hard to follow.  Typical paragraphs begin:

Elizaveta Delibash was born in 1928 in Minusink, Siberra.  Her father Aleksandr Iosilevich was the son of a Leningrad printer, a veteran Bolshhevik  and Cheka official and the partner of Eisaveta Drabkina, until he fell in love with Nina Delibash, the daughter of a minor Georgian official.

Liudmilla Konstantinova, the mother of Natalia and Elenas was a graduate of the Smolny Institute for Noblewomen of St Petersburg. . .

It all reads a little like a telephone directory and once again I'm left feeling, "too much information".  But what an epic story - to falter part-way through this one makes you feel guilty, as though you're abandoning these poor families to their fate as they are shunted off to staravation in Siberia.  I've got to come back to this one sometime, when I have a couple of weeks to spare.

 This year its my "big book at Christmas" is going to be Richard J Evans, The Third Reich At War.

I think I'll fare a bit better at this one as I've already read the first two books in the trilogy and found them totally absorbing.  I think the difference is something about the many threads which Evans follows and manages to bind together.  Although ostensibly about one topic, the topic itself is so vast and has so many aspects that it holds the reader's interest through the seven or eight hundred pages. I just hope that next year I'm not updating this posting with another confession of aborted reading.