Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
First, an intriguing provocation from pubbore, who has been reading The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville:
I have very little to add to the comment here a couple of weeks ago that it’s ‘batshit crazy’, but while reading it struck me that Miéville might be the closest thing we now have to Umberto Eco, in his unashamedly intellectual approach to fundamentally low-brow subjects.
Let’s welcome holtby26 who has been reading TLS “with great pleasure for ages” but hasn’t contributed until now. This review of Miss Garnet’s Angel by Sally Vickers is a fine start:
Some beautiful and very evocative descriptions of Venice, its churches and religious art. I found I truly cared about Julia Garnet and loved seeing her slowly unfold and blossom, as well as learn to look more honestly at her own life. It could have been very easy for a book about an elderly women going on holiday and experiencing a second chance at life to be sentimental and cliched but I think Sally Vickers managed to almost completely avoid that.
A lovely moment from roadwaterlady taken from An Artist of The Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro:
I sat and read ... and marvelled at the seeming simplicity of story and writing which gives such satisfaction and sets one thinking. At one point Ono sits on a hillside and contemplates his achievements and has a moment of profound happiness that his hard work was not in vain. This was at a time before the war, before he feels he has to apologise for his work at his daughter’s betrothal evening; does he really believe he was wrong? I don’t think so. But I recognised that moment; a moment of pride ... Mostly we remember the mistakes and wish we had not made them.
Here’s a fine weekend, as described by Gretsch83:
Enjoyed a weekend in the country sprinting through the 103 pages of JL Carr’s A Month In The Country. I could get used to these perfectly written short novels you can get through in an afternoon and have no complaints.
Elsewhere, John Preston’s A Very English Scandal has fascinated oonatsat:
The story of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and his dalliances and then bungled attempts at having male model and emotionally troubled former lover Norman Scott bumped off. I know I shouldn’t be shocked at hearing how Thorpe and Bessel sat in the Houses of Parliament and planned the murder of Scott - “it’s no worse than putting a dog down” and “you can throw his body down an abandoned tin mine” - but I am. I wonder sometimes if very much has changed.
Finally, julian6 has been fascinated by The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse:
Its discussion of elitism - its tribulations and rewards does seem astonishingly timely - given how much this topic seems to recur again and again in present day discussions and current affairs. I am only just over half way. The translation must have been an immense task - however it seems to me to come over remarkably well in English. The flow of thought is profoundly impressive. The writing seems to convey a constantly evolving and searching consciousness, turning inwards, losing itself then once again finding an unexpected opening towards the light of some new insight, some unsuspected knowledge. Opening outwards, then obscured by the mist again.
And so we too fade out for the week...
Interesting links about books and reading
- The Times Literary Supplement has produced a list of the best British and Irish novelists today.
- “It is less a correspondence than a story, one co-written by two extraordinary figures.” Robert Zaretsky on the “dazzling” letters of Albert Camus and Maria Casarès.
- In 1995 a film of JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey was made in Iran.
- Another triumph for humanity! Walden pond is being destroyed.
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.
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