Welcome to this week’s blog, and our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
Let’s start with a big question, posed by Tom Mooney:
How do you guys get along with John Updike?
I tried to read Rabbit, Run a few years ago and gave up after 100 pages. I am now revisiting and have got a little further and it’s certainly not as bad as I remembered... but I can’t say I am all that enthralled. He writes far too many words and, dare I say it, it is a little bit boring.
Shortly afterwards, he returned to say:
Forget it, I’ve ditched it again. I’ll try again in another five years.
Happily, Updike also has fans, like Swelter:
The books were written and, to the extent possible, published in “real time”, that is to say at the Updike was writing the books at the time their action takes place, and that gives them a unique energy that I don’t find in books that look back in time even a few years. Redux is definitely the weakest, and strangest, but it was the sixties, man.
Further encouragement came from julian6:
John Updike I always consider as one of the finest writers I have ever read - in particular the Rabbit series. His sentences are among the most beautiful I know. Infinitely rewarding. I would keep his books and treasure them for all time.
A personal confession: I’ve never read an Updike novel. Sounds like one we should cover on the Reading Group?
Meanwhile, dylan37 has come late to the mighty John le Carré, and enjoyed The Spy Who Came In From The Cold:
Alec Leamas, a dishevelled semi-broken, bitter and failing anti-hero, living a shadowy life in minor chords, a perfect metaphor for the West’s corruption and tricky morality. The language is spare and dark, like the values and reasons behind his predicament, and the omnipresent murky State in control on both sides of a flawed idea. And, of course, remarkably brought to life by the brilliant Richard Burton in the superb film, which captures that lonely grey cold water London of the mid ‘60s. John is not only a master story-teller and beautiful writer, but one of the great commentators on mid-20th century European life and politics.
Another positive report comes from MsCarey, who has been enjoying The Dark Circle by Linda Grant:
By the time I finished... I had changed my mind about the book, upgrading it from good to very good. It’s not perfect but there was loads I liked about it. It’s gutsy and unassuming at the same time, fascinating on the subject of TB, had interesting characters who sidestepped the class trap I thought Grant was going to fall into, and it constantly surprised me in ways both small and large. And comes in at just 306 pages of fairly large typescript. A lot of writers could learn about the potency of brevity from this book.
Here’s a fantastic tip from interwar:
A suggestion for those looking for something they can dip into here and there when they have little time or are not sure where to turn next with their reading: Is That Kafka? 99 Finds, a collection of miscellaneous documents, letters, anecdotes, pictures, and much more edited by Kafka biographer Reiner Stach (trans. by Kurt Beals). For example, what colour were the great man’s eyes? Stach records 4 votes for ‘dark’, 4 for ‘grey’, 3 for ‘blue’ and 3 for ‘brown’. My current bedside book.
Finally, let’s enjoy some Laurie Lee, courtesy of juliewhitney who has been re-reading Cider With Rosie:
I found it truly evocative of what at first glance appears to be a purer age, a tightly-knit community, self-regulating, safe and secure. Lee’s prose is truly delightful. He describes venturing out in the area around his new home:
‘From stone to stone in the trackless yard I sent forth my acorn shell of senses, moving through unfathomable oceans like a South Sea savage island-hopping across the Pacific. Antennae of eyes and nose and grubbing fingers captured a new tuft of grass, a fern, a slug, the skull of a bird, a grotto of bright snails.’
And in the scullery:
‘....thick steam of Mondays edgy with starch; soapsuds boiling, bellying and popping, creaking and whispering, rainbowed with light and winking with a million windows.’
Lovely.
Interesting links about books and reading
- “I am a really good teacher, naked half the time...” Yes, it’s Allen Ginsberg’s lecture notes.
- Sticking with the Beats, this is an old but good site mapping On The Road.
- Enjoy the latest release from Chuck Tingle.
- And while we’re being cheeky, here’s an online version of The Devil’s Dictionary.
If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.
If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading: “shelfies” or all kinds of still lifes with books as protagonists. Now, you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!
