Kategori: Authors

Not the End of the World

Mirthful

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!

West from Home

Mirthful

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.

Aubrey/Maturin

Mirthful

In which we finish at last.

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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.

Gosh. Time flies.

Mirthful 1 Comment

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.

Master & Commander

Mirthful

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?

Jane Austen – a biography

Mirthful

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.

Ki and Vandien quartet

Mirthful

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!

Bears and monkeys? What next?

Mirthful

I have been immersing myself in Natural History, as Stephen would call it. Being an old-fashioned kind of girl, I don’t know what they call it nowadays. Anyway, as I said, immersing myself… I borrowed A Primate’s Memoirs from my father, he’d just finished reading it and it seemed like just the thing for me to sink my teeth into. Robert Sapolsky has spent years immemorial – or a lot, in any case – in Kenya observing baboons and doing research on their behaviour and how their stress-levels, and hence potential stress-related diseases, relate to who they are (e.g. which rank in the flock) and how they live. All of this could be interesting enough, but in addition the author is blessed with a splendid dry humour which has me chortling (and on the bus, too, what will people think). In fact, even the acknowledgements section is worth reading, or you may miss gems such as this: «Finally, a number of humans, and a number of baboons, represent composites of a few members of a species. This was done to keep down the cast of characters (…) I, to the best of my knowledge, am not a composite.»

I also fell upon the latest package from The English Bookclub with glee, it contained the new hardback Stephen Fry book, Rescuing the Spectacled Bear. The book is Stephen’s diary from the production of a programme to be aired (which has been aired?) on BBC, all about – you guessed it – the spectacled bear. You know how Paddington comes from Peru? This is not Bond’s poetic lisence, there are bears in Peru, and they have these odd pale markings round their eyes, hence the spectacle part. And since Peru isn’t exactly the most affluent country in the world, and since the ecological systems they have in their care are so immensly diverse that it goes beyond belief (83 out of the worlds 120 defined habitats, from rain forest to the driest desert in the world), you can imagine that the amount of attention the poor bears are getting, conservation-wise, is pretty minute. Which problem Stephen and the producer, Nick Green, amongst others, are now trying to remedy. You can learn more about the project at the Bear Rescue site – a charity has been set up and the proceeds from the book go to establishing safe habitats for the bears and other such useful measures. As for the book, well an evening with Stephen is always a pleasure, and the only objection I have to the book at all is that it was way too short. So what are you waiting for? Go out and buy yourself a copy (or click here to buy from amazon). While you’re at it, buy one for someone for Christmas, too. They’ll enjoy it, and so will the bears.

Babyville

Mirthful

In which we are reminded of candyfloss.

I picked up Jane Green’s Babyville in a charity shop in Glasgow and read it last week. It’s very much the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from Green, not great literature, but highly enjoyable candy for the brain. And everyone lived happily ever after. My main objection, in fact, was stylistic more than anything. The book is more a collection of three rather long short stories than a novel. It’s divided into three sections and each section centres on a different protagonist. The three are linked in various ways, and the stories intersect, but not quite enough for my liking. I’m not a great fan of short stories. What I like is nice loooong novels. With short stories I tend to find that just as I’m really getting interested in the characters the story ends. And that’s the sort of reaction I had to Babyville, too. Just as I was starting to feel personally involved with the ups and downs of one person, I was suddenly required to start all over again with a different person. I might have minded less if I’d been prepared, so consider yourself forewarned.

Garman og Worse

Mirthful

In Norwegian this time (the classics, not the post).

I recently bought Alexander Kielland’s collected works, and last week I reread Garman & Worse and Skipper Worse. I first read them both about ten years ago, and didn’t remember much beyond the fact that I thought they were wonderful, especially G&W. I thought they were pretty wonderful this time around, too. Lovely, evocative stories of an unnamed town in western Norway and the decline of the family business that has been the cornerstone of the community, how it affects the family and how it affects everyone in the town, directly or indirectly. Both times I’ve read the books in the order they were written (published), but chronologically, Skipper Worse comes first. This is slightly frustrating, as by the end of Garman & Worse you really want to know more about the characters, and therefore start Skipper Worse thinking you really couldn’t care less for all these «old» events. However, Kielland manages to engage quickly enough.

The nice thing about the collected works (apart from the fact that they look really good on the shelf in their leather half bindings) is that I can now read some more of Kielland’s work.