In which we are enchanted.
Wizard of the Pigeons has been lying in my tbr pile for a while, waiting for a little time and breathing space. I finally found the time and can now report that it is lovely. I think I may have held my breath throughout the last third. Though surely not, as I am still alive. It felt like it, in any case.
In which we exclaim: So short, so short!
I’m not a big fan of short stories in general, but I have just devoured Kate Atkinson’s Not the End of the World, despite thinking after the first couple of stories that «This is the sort of book to dip into, it’s far too rich to do justice to all of it at once.» Well, perhaps I did not do justice to it. I suspect I will have to reread it at some point.
Though they stand perfectly well on their own feet, the stories intertwine, and so to some extent I suppose there is something to be said for reading the whole thing as a book rather than one story at a time. The richness comes from the balance – or, at times, deliberate confusion – between what we would normally recognise as reality and something else, something not quite defined, or indeed, definable. It’s rather refreshing to see an author so cheerfully ignoring the rules of probability and realism within the confines of «contemporary fiction» rather than the genre-specific conventions of «fantasy», for example.
Go read!
In which we want more.
I’ve just read a biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder which was so pointless I can’t be bothered to remember who it was by. Pointless because it told you very, very little you wouldn’t already know if you’ve read «the Little House books». The author spent 200 pages recapping what Laura herself says more than eloquently enough and then about 40, as a sort of afterthought, about what happened next.
Much more satisfying, then, to go back to reading Laura’s own words in West from Home, which I finished today. It contains letters from Laura to her husband written when she travelled to San Francisco to visit their daughter and see the grand exhibition in 1915, and is delightful reading.
In which we finish at last.
I just put down Blue at the Mizzen, which means I am done with this year’s reread of O’Brian. For a few weeks now I’ve really been itching to read other books, but somehow I just can’t stop reading the Aubrey/Maturin books once I’ve started. Oh, I wish there were 20 more, of course, but as there aren’t, I am very happy to be done.
But, if you have not yet read any O’Brian, then shoo. Off with you! Go read Master & Commander. And come back in a few days when I»ll have something else to write about.
I’m still reading O’Brian. I’ve got to The Far Side of the World, now, which is half-way though the canon and is the book Peter Weir has based the upcoming film on. I can see his point about it being filmable, however, considering how much they have reportedly changed the plot, I can’t quite see why they couldn’t just have started at the beginning and changed the plot of Master & Commander in order to make it filmable too. But then I’m not a film maker, maybe I’d see things differently if I were.
In which we’re back to Patrick again.
So, since Christmas, what have I been reading? Well, I’m afraid I started Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels again. It is unfortunate, in a way, because there are 20 of them, and it is quite impossible to stop once one has started. I say 20, I may have to make do with 19 as I seem to have mislaid HMS Surprise (mislaying a Frigate is quite impressive, really). I cannot imagine where it has gone to. It is highly annoying and I am quite put out about it.
Well, so far, then, I have read Master & Commander which is where Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin meet for the first time. It is the year 1800, Jack is in Mahon pining for a ship and Stephen has been left in rather difficult circumstances because the patient he was to accompany to the Mediterranean died mid-voyage and Stephen does not have any money to pay for a passage back home. After a first unfortunate meeting which nearly ends in a duel, Jack, in his joy over having been appointed Commander of the sloop Sophia, invites Stephen to dinner, and on discovering that he is a physician, suggests that he «join the navy», that is, become a naval surgeon. Stephen accepts, and that is the start of the delightful 20 books…
I’ve also finished Post Captain, which is why I’ve discovered that HMS Surprise has gone AWOL, it ought by rights to have been next. As it is, I have skipped on to The Mauritius Command.
I would like to know where the dear ship has gone, though. My flat isn’t that big. How can a novel simply disappear?
Oops. More than a month since I made a report…
As you’ll know if you’ve been reading the diary, I had a bit of a draught period just before Christmas, which was solved by starting a reread of Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon. Unfortunately, Bloom is of the kind to need concentration, which there is little to be had of at my grandparents. So over the Holidays I instead read Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen and Elizabeth Jenkins’ Jane Austen biography. Both are intended to be useful once I get around to writing this thesis thing. The former is a delightful collection of letters to a fictional niece from Weldon’s fictional alter ego. It is, in it’s own way, a novel, but it is also literary critisism. Jenkins’ biography is a decent piece of scholarship, seemingly, the one thing that jarred with me this time around (I can’t remember even noticing last time I read it) was her harping on the class issues – as in how they relate to Austen’s writing but also just in general. It makes the biography seem very dated, much more dated than the novels it deals with, despite being more than a hundred years younger.
In which we thought we were safe.
I saw the fourth book in Megan Lindholm’s (also known as Robin Hobb) Ki and Vandien series in Scotland in September, so I figured I could start on the ones I have and get the fourth. Stupid, stupid. I read the first, started on the second, ordered the fourth from amazon, finished the second, and now I’ve finished the third. And there is no sign of the fourth.
I should have known better. There is a reason, after all, that, while I preordered The Fool’s Errand the last year and The Golden Fool – recently arrived – they are both on my shelf, unread. I am not even taking a peak until the third book comes out. Probable publication: November 2003. I can wait. Just so long as I don’t start the trilogy, I can wait just fine.
Well, back to Ki and Vandien…
In Book 1 – Harpy’s Flight – we meet Ki. Numb to everything but revenge following the death of her husband and children at the hands (claws?) of Harpies. She has a dangerous pass to get through and a few (!) grief issues to work though. Vandien appears on the scene, trying to steal one of her horses in order to get though the same pass. They join forces, somewhat reluctantly on both their parts.
Some summary… I guess a good novel should defy summarising. As usual, Lindholm weaves an enchanting tale, much as Vandien with his story string captivates his audience again and again, she makes the novel hard to put down, and hard to let go of.
Books 2 and 3, The Windsingers and The Limbreth Gate continue the story. We get to know a bit more about the world of Ki and Vandien, and of the various sentient beings who share it with them, however unwillingly. We learn more about Ki’s story, which is not as straightforward as it might seem at first glance. No doubt the fourth book – Luck of the Wheels – will bring more surprises.
Come to think of it, I don’t think amazon has dispatched it yet. Which means I could just cancel the order and get it in town tomorrow. I can deal with a 12-hour wait, but if I have to wait for amazon, it will be at least a week, as I’ll have to find the time to pick it up at the post office. Yes!
In which we are intellectual, possibly.
I found Sylvia Beach’s autobiography (in the Faber&Faber 1st ed.) at a second-hand bookshop last Saturday, so that’s been my main read this week. In case you don’t know who SB is, I’ll enlighten you. She was an American who came over to Paris after WW1 and sort of never left. She started a bookshop called Shakespeare & Company, to provide the French with a place to get hold of contemporary writing in English and to provide a similar service to the English-speaking writers in more or less voluntary exile in Paris at the time – the so-called «Lost Generation», Joyce, Pund, Hemingway and so on. In the process she also managed to publish Joyce’s «unpublishable» Ulysses (it was banned in the States and the UK already, due to some excerpts that had been published in literary magazines), and as such should get a posthumous medal for outstanding services to humanity.
The book is very interesting in its first half, which is properly autobiographical. Unfortunately, by about half-way through it turns into something so much like pure name-dropping that it gets excessively repetitive. The bookshop was the meeting point for so many intellectuals in Paris at the time, and in order to not leave anyone out, SB gives 1-3 pages to each person, which leaves room for little more than a variation on «X is a very good writer/painter/composer and I very much enjoyed his/her work NN. He/she first came to the shop in 19?? and we went to lunch at such’n’such with Y, Z and Joyce.»
To counter all this intellectualism, I spent a couple of very childish hours rereading the five Ole Alexander books by Norwegian children’s book writer Anne-Cath. Vestly. I haven’t read them since I was a kid, in fact, I don’t suppose I’ve ever actually read them, I probably had them read to me. I also remember occasionally listening in when my parents read them to my brother, who would have been 4-ish, so I’d have been 11-ish. Anyway, they made an excellent movie from the first two books about two years ago, and I’ve been eying the books on the shelf occasinally and thinking I’d reread them. So I did. They’re still brilliant, though a mite too much directed at four- to five-year-olds even for me.