Monday 21st July, 2008

A long-overdue update! For shame! In my defence (I always end up saying this), I have been quite busy lately with a writing project that I have finally completed. So, what have I been reading?

Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee

I really enjoyed this. To be honest, I was surprised that I did, because apartheid isn't normally a topic that interests me in a novel (to clarify, it's not that I don't care about or am not interested in apartheid itself, rather that it's not the first subject that I look for in a novel), but I liked the fact that the book wasn't overly moral; in many ways, it was the fact that the novel's protagonist was to some extent an antihero that made me enjoy it. It reminded me of Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", but I'm not a hundred percent sure why...perhaps I'll reread the Achebe to try to figure it out. It was a difficult book, and an often unsettling one but in many ways that's right, that's what a novel about apartheid should be I suppose. So, a recommended read - I was disappointed that it didn't scoop the Best of Booker. I loathe Salman Rushdie. I can't read "Midnight's Children". I tried.

Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner

God, I loved this. It was such a perfect read, such wonderful writing and such a compelling character in Edith Hope that I read it in one delicious sitting. I've just been reading the Amazon page, however, and I seem to have interpreted it differently to the other readers on there. Edith's actions at the end of the novel seem to me to suggest that she chooses her life with David despite the scandal and distress it causes over marriage with the loathsome Mr Neville, but other readers seem to have interpreted the ending of "Hotel du Lac" to mean that Edith chooses a single life. Interesting. Anyway, a wonderful, wonderful novel and one that I will cherish for a long time to come.

Unfortunately, I haven't got any further with the other Booker books yet (although I picked up a few in the excellent Black Gull Books of Camden), although from the blurb I can't honestly say that I'm looking forward to Keri Hulme's "The Bone People". Maybe I'll be surprised.

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

I found this book disturbing in the extreme, horrifying, grotesque and yet compulsively readable. I've just said in my review of the Coetzee that I liked the fact that the characters weren't likeable, but the characters of this novel disturbed and disgusted me...they were more the overblown cariacatures of Dickens' Mrs Joe than believable human beings. I think that the novel is a successful achievement of what Banks evidently set out to write, but whilst that makes the novel a success on a stylistic novel, I didn't find it successful on a higher level, the level of meaning if you will. It appealed more to the side of human nature that causes us to gawp at Channel 5 documentaries about children with birth defects ("Half Man, Half Tree"!) than any level of compassion.

On the academic side, I've been reading

"King Lear"

"King Lear" was one of the Shakespeare plays I hadn't read for reasons which I am not entirely sure of - I think that I thought it would be dense, impenetrable and difficult to follow. How wrong I was. Tell me I'm stating the obvious, but there's something about the Shakespeare plays that makes them come alive on the page - even if you haven't seen a production, you can hear it in your head. Shakespeare always writes such wonderful villains - I have a particularly soft spot for Iago...yes, the less said about that the better - and I found Edmund such an interesting character. He differs greatly from Iago though (thank you Captain Obvious for that dazzling insight), I think because Iago is driven by jealousy and perhaps desire, but Edmund just wants power and sees those who stand between him and power as mere obstacles, a desire that is beyond the trappings of human affection.

"Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature" - John F Danby

I found this quite a challenging read in that it asked me to consider things that I had not previously considered about the nature of mankind and what nature really means. I can't honestly say that I followed all of it, but what I did understand was very interesting; I especially liked the way that Danby considered the characters of "Lear" in the context of Shakespeare's other plays, particularly when he was discussing the Machiavel and the killing of kings.

For pure pleasure (not that I don't always read for pleasure), I have been reading

"Whose Body?"
"Clouds of Witness"
"The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club"
"Strong Poison"
"Have His Carcase" - Dorothy Sayers

I had never read any Dorothy Sayers before and picked them upon the recommendation of a friend at work. The Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries are absolutely wonderful; I am in love with Peter Wimsey, of course, but there's so much more to the novels, especially now that Harriet Vane has been introduced and the relationship between Wimsey and Harriet is starting to develop. Just brilliant. I haven't found an author who's made me want to read everything they've ever written in a long time.

As an aside, I met Simon Armitage yesterday. It was fantastic! He read at Latitude (he read my favourite poem, "The Shout") and I was right at the front. Hurrah. I also was right at the front for Adrian Mitchell (whom I also met), Carol Ann Duffy (love her, love her, love her), John Hegley (ditto), Elvis McCormack (thank you thank you thank you for the wonderful epithet, "Sting, where is thy death?") and Luke Wright (so good that I saw him three times and bought the CD). I saw lots of other really good poets perform as well - notwithstanding some really excellent theatre (with the exception of the RSC production which was terrible) and of course some genius bands. I've got to say, the poetry tent at Latitude really did make me think about doing more with my poetry. I currently post it on a really lame poetry site and have one fan. He's very nice, though.