Lahiri, Jhumpa
The Namesake (2003)
Rating:- **
There is nothing wrong with the subject material, and there is a long list
of respectable novels, especially American, which centre on the immigrant
experience. What is lacking here is insight that takes the reader from the
particular to the general and back; which makes sense of experience rather
than just relating it; which transcends the mundane and lifts it to the spiritual.
SRG
Laird, Nick
Utterly Monkey (2005)
Rating:- **
This is not going to win any prizes (Perhaps a recommendation in itself?)
but it's a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of evenings. Thought at first
it was going to be hard-edged, as one of the novel's strands is Irish (Protestant)
terrorism and the brutality amongst that community. However Laird (who comes
from County Tyrone) and obviously knows what he is talking about, whilst writing
about violence and intimidation, thankfully doesn't wallow in it. Indeed throughout
the book there is a soft centre and the reader 'knows' that everything's going
to turn out alright. The other major strand of the story is the hero's life
as a corporate lawyer. Something else, according to the blurb, that Laird
has dipped his toe into. Probably not for long though as Laird clearly hated
it and shows the lawyer clan to be a load of dysfunctional egomaniacs with
no saving graces. The lack of any attempt at balance here made this theme
more unsatisfactory than the Irish one. Overall though, quite enjoyable. SJG
Quite good but overdoes the put-down of the office culture and the stupidity
of the Northern Irish. The humour is laid on with a trowel and ceases to be
funny. In other words, he tries too hard with some basically promising ideas.
SRG
Lambert, Constant
Music Ho! (A Study of Music in Decline) (1934)
Rating:- ****
This is an engaging and witty book. Recommended! I wish I had enough musical
know-how to tell when he is being serious and when taking the piss. Question:
What is the connection of this with Dance to the Music of Time'? Answer:
Constant L. is the model (probably the one closest to the original) for Hugh
Moreland tho' Moreland never experienced anything as exotic as an affair with
Margot Fonteyn. But the book is not about affairs but Modern Music. It was
written in the early 30s and to a non-musical reader is amusing in
several ways as it seems that everything had got about as Modern as could be.
Stravinsky, Schoenberg, plus Joyce and Lawrence on the literary side. It is
intriguing to come across the fictional Moreland's prejudices:
Lambert: "Balakireff's Thamar' is a more closely knit and
convincing piece of construction than any of Brahms' symphonies" "...
drab shades and muddy impastos of Brahms."
Moreland: "I should not go anywhere near the Albert Hall if I were you
Edgar. It would be too great a risk. Someone might seize you and compel you to
listen to Brahms. In fact from the way you have been talking tonight you would
probably enter of your own free will. I would not trust you an inch where
Brahms is concerned, Edgar. Not an inch."
Moreland or Lambert? "The artist who is one of a group writes for that
group alone, whereas the artist who expresses personal experience may in the
end reach universal experience."
Lambert can be read about in Andrew Motion's biog The Lamberts. George,
Constance and Kit' (of the Who). MP
Intelligent and artistic music criticism. It surprised me how un-dated this
treatment was, apart from referring to some composers who have sunk without
trace. He uses comparisons with the other arts to get across his points on
music without resorting to technical detail, and some of these are
spectacularly apt. His analysis that Schoenberg has plunged down a cul-de-sac
has proved to be prophetic. I don't share his admiration of Sibelius but am
prepared to believe that he has been an important figure for composers since
Lambert's book - Britten, Tippett, Messien. SRG
Lanchester, John
Mr Phillips (2000)
Rating:- **
"... most men are at their most attractive when at work, their
attention directed outside themselves, with chores to perform and decisions to
make, all unlike the sulking, shifting tyrants of the domestic stage, wanting
everything their own way and locked in a battle to the death to get it."
"Sunday has a particular stalled feeling, which Mr Phillips is
surprised to find has survived the instigation of Sunday trading and the
arrival of Sunday football, and still clings to the day, an immovable, heavy,
gravitational tug of Sunday depressiveness."
There's quite a lot more like that and I was hoping that the author could
keep it up. Not to be. By page 50 the best observations have been used up and
he falls back on thinking mainly about sex (Yawn!), doing stupid mental
calculations on the probability of this or that happening (Yawn!) and spicing
up the day's activities with some 'exciting' things like a bank robbery
(Yawn!). It's not really a long novel but it just drifts pointlessly for the
last two-thirds. Great shame because at the start, this had the potential to be
a worthy successor to 'Diary of a Nobody'. SJG
Oh dear. Is it our age that makes us so sick of sex being abused by authors? Mr
Phillips is 50. He has a good marriage with no coldness. Is this 'reality' of
50-year-olds being constantly obsessed by sex a figment of younger authors'
imagination? SRG
Landes, David
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998)
Rating:- **
A mighty tome; 600-odd pages packed with detail and argument: 70 pages of
bibliography: footnotes and 40+ pages of additional notes. I hoped to learn
something about the wealth and poverty of nations, but I'm not sure that I did.
It's written by a historian so not surprisingly what we get is history; the
history of expansion, imperialism etc. I accept that we need to be aware of
history but should it be given the main and virtually sole role? Better perhaps
for this book to have been written by an economist or even, if there are any
left, a sociologist. The book was produced in the 1990s and is most certainly a
child of its time - right-wing, live-to-work not work-to-live, free-trade,
capitalism is wonderful. Anything smacking of socialism, political correctness
etc gets smacked down; unacceptable' historians have demeaning quotes
lifted from their works to which Landes adds some contemptuous comment: "economic
historians' ... leap to judgement often beggars credulity."
A frustrating book. I found it easy enough to read in terms of prose style,
though objected to the frequent flippant remarks which invite the reader to
agree with prejudiced, opinionated professorial views on "outsiders"
(anyone who isn't WASP American). However, the work as a scholarly thesis on
wealth and poverty falls far short of what was needed to do the job:
i) There is no attempt to define "wealth" or "poverty".
This allows the author to make unwarranted assumptions about the nature of
progress (his model is totally linear and built to justify a ranking of nations
with US at the top).
ii) He allows the thumbnail sketches of each country's history from his
"ranking" perspective to dictate likely explanations for their
present position. This leads to circular argument ie "These are the things
that make country X different from the United States. Ergo, these are the
things that keep country X in relative poverty". He needed first to define
the conditions for development of wealth and then go in search of those
conditions in what is known of societies' and regions' history. If he had done
this he would have had his work cut out to explain the economic development of
even one nation let alone most of the world. I think he would have surprised
himself, too, that the US may have factors lurking within it that could turn
the tables economically.
iii) He ignores the dimension of "wealth for whom" except when he
wants to swipe at Middle-eastern oil sheikhs.
iv) "Awkward" cases got left out. I missed Israel and South Africa in
his tour of the globe. SRG
Landesman, Peter
Blood Acre (1999)
Rating:- ***
American thriller which is very noir and very much in the mould of Jerome
Charyn's superb ‘Isaac Quartet'. Not up to that standard but very good
nevertheless. It's an even bleaker New York than Charyn's and bleaker than ‘Bladerunner',
with its backdrop of winter storms, religious groups and recent immigrants
barely surviving on the lowest rung of the social ladder. The writing is good
and evocative but perhaps a mite too much for this genre; it could do with a
little paring down. The plot, as one tends to expect with these things, borders
a lot of the time on the incomprehensible. A second read may help to straighten
things out, but I doubt it, as I think that there would still be numerous
characters whose function is unclear. Still, this doesn't worry me when I read
Chandler so I suppose it shouldn't here. Apart from the above carping, it's a
pretty good example of one of my favourite genres. SJG
It keeps up the tension by never telling you enough. You read on to try and
gain enough information to make sense of the narrative and are still only
partially successful. Very noir but good. SRG
Lansdale, Joe R.
Rumble Tumble (1998)
Rating:- **
American thriller out of the Elmore Leonard school with an extra dash of humour
thrown in.
"Bill Early Bird drove an old Ford pickup that looked as if it had
been in a meteor shower. It had grey filler plastered all over it and what
wasn't filler was blue paint and not very good blue paint at that. The tires
were so thin on tread you could almost see the air inside." is a
typical example. There's a fair number of interesting' characters (including
a rather nice midget with an attitude), but they're not developed and the
whole thing reads like a synopsis for a Hollywood action movie. As well as
eight collections of short stories, this would appear to be Lansdale's 14th
novel. After that number you would expect either something rather special
or alternatively something formulaic, and I'm afraid the tendency is towards
the latter. There's a lot of fish in this very productive (American thriller/detective)
ocean and you have to be a bit special to stand out - this doesn't, even if
it's quite a reasonable way of spending five or six hours. SJG
A good enough' crime thriller. The characters were just a bit too flip'
and mouthy and guns were relied as a substitute for wits. This may be more
realistic in this day and age but is a lot more boring. The raison d'être
for the violence was the rescue of the hero's girlfriend's daughter from drugs
and prostitution. The characters met along the way joined the crusade for
their own reasons, being cavalier about their own chances of survival. The
end was achieved at some cost but turned out to matter less than the fact
that the characters might otherwise have been bored. Credulity took a bit
of stretching here! SRG
Lansens, Lori
The Girls (2005)
Rating:- *
Narrated by a pair of 29-year-old twins, Rose and Ruby who live in south-western
Ontario, the novel's ‘unique selling point' is that they have been joined
at the head since birth, (making them apparently craniopagus twins.) Unfortunately
the book's ‘unique selling point' is about its only selling point. We really
know the important things about the girls (their personalities and differences,
how they cope with different physical and emotional situations, the main characters
in their lives, etc) within a very few pages. And then, although we meet a
few new characters and situations, very little changes. This is largely due
to a lack of imaginative development on the part of Ms Lansens, together with
some very average writing. Indeed there are pages and pages of irrelevant
and uninteresting waffle. Thankfully she avoids the most obvious sentimental
traps of reuniting the twins with their mother, or one of the twins with her
child, but this is one of this book's few saving graces. SJG
While I read this I was continually wrestling with the question of why it
seemed dishonest for an author to narrate as if she were a conjoined twin
and present the book as an autobiography. It made me feel uncomfortable, particularly
in any emotive sections, as if I were being manipulated for base reasons.
Was this just me? I remembered that I had thought ‘The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time' was wonderful and anyway all authors create characters
and speak through them. The author kindly put her finger on the issue when
giving an account of how the narrator's twin's childhood essay told from the
viewpoint of a Native Canadian Indian was viewed by her teacher: "..our
English teacher gave her a D and wrote in red pen saying Rose was a good writer
but that she should stick to things she knows. And then she wrote, It's not
a good idea to cross racial boundaries when you are writing. Especially don't
do it when you are writing in the first-person voice. You could offend and
upset many people who have more right to tell a certain story than you do."
Bingo. ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' works because
it is not an autobiography but a first-person account of an adventure within
the life of an autistic character. The author successfully got into the skin
of his character, but the character's disability was not the reason for him
telling the story - he was not trying to educate us about autism even though
the insight we get into his thought-processes achieves this secondary effect.
The deception practised by Lansens lies in her construction of the whole motherhood
and apple pie environment of these conjoined twins. How cosy to believe that
such unfortunates are adopted by such paragons of liberal Canada and nurtured
with such self-restraint on the part of their neighbourhood and the media.
The only time they are exploited is when they visit Slovenia, the homeland
of their adoptive father- comfortably distant from Canada. The biggest exploitation
has been perpetrated by Lansens who has used the ‘ooh, aah' factor to interest
us in the book and then given us a sugared myth. SRG
Lasdum, James
The Horned Man (2001)
Rating: ***
Beware of poets who turn their hand to novel writing. They are usually so
concerned agonising over what the next word should be, that they forget that a
novel needs a structure. Can't really say that this is a criticism of this
particular poet-turned-novelist. What he seems to have taken from modern poetry
and put into this novel is incomprehensibility. After finishing I thought it
was all about paranoia and mental breakdown, but when I read the page-long
precis produced by the publisher, it seems that I am wrong as it is an
"excursion into the ... contemporary struggle between the forces of desire
and the forces of repression ...". Although it could well be that they
were just having a guess. During the book there are lots of mysterious things
going on, but don't expect all the loose ends to be tied up in the last 20 pages
- poets don't do that sort of thing. For the record the narrator is an
obnoxious self-orientated Brit who lectures in a USA college on Gender Studies,
spends a lot of his time enforcing political correctness, visiting
psychiatrists and whingeing about his wife, who got out while the going was
good. I hope a lot of this stuff here is supposed to be deeply ironic. I'm sure
it is, but I just have a sneaking feeling that the author quite admires the
narrator. Overall there are parts of this novel which are intriguing but it
just left me with a feeling of ‘What was that all about?' Hope SRG can
enlighten me. SJG
Whilst not endorsing the blurb of "brilliant" and
"stunning", I do think it was very good. The structure is given by
the ‘logic' of insanity and it is about the quote from the Apocrypha: "If
you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you
do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy
you." The narrator experiences reality slipping about under and around
him. He attempts to impose sense on it by denying to himself some cues from
other people, while giving exaggerated importance to others. He can only bring
coherence to this fractured picture by attributing the things that happen, to a
mysterious other who has a malevolent desire to persecute him. The reader is
given some clues to the narrator's real situation in the fate of his father
(death from a brain tumour) and the crippling migraines he himself suffers. The
only quibble I have with the précis at the start is its suggestion that the
book is more than a psychological portrait and is about forces of desire and
repression on a societal level. The narrator's full madness is brought on, in
true Freudian fashion, by the conscious discovery of his wife's infidelity -
something he had blocked out before. Thus the horn (of the cuckold). SRG
Latham, Emma
Murder without Icing
Rating:- ***
(Detective story.) She writes about Wall St. insurance broker and the set ups
he insures. The stresses and jealousies within various groupings from
architectural/building business and ice hockey team. Ironic and lots of
incidental info. BP
Lawrence, D.H.
Letters of (1950)
Rating:- ****
Possibly and by some said to be the best way of getting on to his wavelength and
see him at his most likeable. There is a great immediacy in his escape'
to Italy with Frieda. Though looking down his nose at England and saying that
he couldn't stand Bennett's resignation he was still desperate to get hold of
the English newspapers. Despite the self-justifying refrain which sometimes
takes over there is a wonderful sense of life'. MP
Lawrence, D.H.
Odour of Chrysanthemums & England My England (1922)
Rating:- ****
The first is story of death of miner husband in pit accident. First of all
tension as he doesn't come home when expected. Goes past the time when he might
have stopped at the pub first and ends when they bring home his body. It is
superb and immediately puts him a Division ahead of Arnold Bennett. The second
is good example of DHL whipping up the Lawrence-view of everyone else and
preaching away in what sometimes descends to a peevish whine. It is an
outstanding story if you can get past this and ends with truly remarkable
description of the protagonist dying in the 14-18 war. MP
Lawrence, D.H.
The Rainbow (1915)
Rating:- *****
The first half of this seemed fairly familiar - the second was wholly unknown
territory. Conclusion: Had read it before and stopped half-way. Experience
possibly like jacking it in halfway up Everest - oxygen supplies failing, lack
of energy at unusual altitude, comrades abandoned you at 20,000 feet or 200
pages or whatever. However tho' senses (smell, hearing, sight) as 7th decade
approaches, fade, the ability to stay with D.H. Lawrence seems to have increased.
(Tho' did have several days off at rest camp in the middle.) It is possible to
see this writer as the antithesis of the mot juste' men like Flaubert
and Joyce. They would, it seems, pore over their texts making endless
adjustments. Our man would be a total contrast. The narrative would come in a
great torrent of words (verbiage if you don't like it!). He gets hold of a word
like fecund which somehow stands for him as the essence of the emotion he is
trying to convey and uses it over and over in the course of one page or
passage. Not so much the mot juste' as the mot inéscapable'.
"He felt rich and abundant in himself. Everything he did was a voluptuous
pleasure to him - either to ride on horseback, or to walk, or to lie in the
sun, or to drink in a public house. He had no use for people, nor for words. He
had an amused pleasure in everything, a great sense of the voluptuous
richness in himself, and the fecundity of the universal night he inhabited. The
puppet shapes of people, their wood-mechanical voices, he was remote from
them." Chap XV The Bitterness of Ecstasy. p500 (Prepare for lots more
fecundity.)
It is said that if he didn't like what he'd written he was more likely to write
it all again in another creative outpouring than to cross bits out and correct
things. He gets hold of fecundity' and bounces it around shaking it in
the face of the reader. One of the great things about a classic is that
reviewers have (it is hoped) calmed down. Back of Penguin is this helpful
comment: (he) "develops his awareness of the struggle of the individual
human consciousness to confront an unknowable, infinite reality beyond the
commonplace social self." This seems to define The Rainbow' very
convincingly. Lawrence is fatally easy to make fun of, if you take, as I have
done, an odd scrap of his text. But generally if you follow the flow, the surge
of his creative genius, you are carried along with him. The tensions between
Ursula and Anton Strebensky are remarkable. He is a truly great' writer.
Some Faulkner-like problems, though? A genius with no talent? No. A genius with
talent but not always in harmony with the genius. Five stars in anyone's
language. MP
Lawrence, D.H.
The Short Novels Vol. 2: St. Mawr (1925), The Virgin and the Gypsy (1930),
The Man who Died (1928)
Rating:- *
Long time since I've read any Lawrence. Grew to dislike his novels but admired
the short stories, which is the opposite to my normal tastes. Thought I'd
try this compendium to see what the half-way stage was like. The longest story
here, ‘St. Mawr', is fairly abysmal with lots of Lawrence's more tedious trademarks.
So a pine tree becomes: " A passionless, non-phallic column, rising
in the shadows of the pre-sexual world, before the hot-blooded ithyphallic
column ever erected itself." This comes from a section at the end
which seems to be appropriated from another novel. The rest concerns a small
group of obnoxious people and the eponymous horse which goes around doing
harm to its various owners. It's presumably another one of Lawrence's sexual
symbols but the author says it is a manifestation of evil and has it treading
on a snake! However towards the end he forgets about the horse altogether.
Most unsatisfactory. Mostly ‘The Virgin and the Gypsy' is an improvement although
the central theme - a young vicar's daughter obsessed with a gypsy - is typically
Lawrention and not my cup of tea. "Like a mysterious early flower,
she was full out, like a snowdrop which spreads its three white wings in a
flight into the waking sleep of its brief blossoming. The waking sleep of
her full-opened virginity, entranced like a snowdrop in the sunshine, was
upon her." However the ‘virgin' lives with a fairly atrocious family
and they are quite fun. Unfortunately there is a climactic ending which is
totally ludicrous. The last story, ‘The Man who Died', is less than 50 pages
long but even so I was unable to finish it. A Lawrention take on the rising
of Jesus after the crucifixion, complete with the symbolism of a rooster!
It adds nothing to the original story and was totally pointless. It's been
a long time since I'd read Lawrence and hopefully, on this showing, it'll
be a long time before I have to pick him up again. SJG
I found these embarrassing in their heavy-handed sexual symbolism. It was
as if Lawrence had discovered sex. I am not sure how he imagined he had come
into the world. I read through to the end of the last story and wonder why
there was not a blasphemy charge. Jesus, weary of a life in which he gave
too much of himself and offered only a sexless love (deemed inferior by Lawrence)
decides he has paid the price by almost dying on the cross. He comes from
the tomb and, after rejecting the overtures of Mary Magdalene etc, ends up
discovering sex in the temple of Isis. A truly awful joke in which he says
"I am risen." SRG
Lawrence, T.E
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (privately published 1926)
Rating:- ****
First read in 1962 and my copy has since been on the shelf. Must have found
it a difficult read then because it's not just a record of gung-ho adventures
as Lawrence joins the Arabs to rid them of their Turkish overlords. He doesn't
hesitate to add in his philosophies, thoughts and emotions to the extent that
there is a tendency to ramble. Neither is the main narrative that clear with
its myriad of characters and places. Publication of this work clearly had
an effect. Churchill wrote that "It ranks with the greatest books ever written
in the English language" and my father - no great reader - fell under its
spell. It does, I suppose, present a more acceptable face of WWI, away from
the horrors of trench warfare in France. For me, as well, the book had an
aura even though I drifted through some sections. Arguably, its main strength
was its sense of place with some wonderful descriptions of the terrain. I
was led onto this re-read after coming across James Nicholson's 'The Hejaz
railway' and in turn SPOW will probably move me to find some biography of
Lawrence as reports I vaguely remember suggest that some of SPOW is less than
the whole truth. Nevertheless, for reasons I can't put my finger on, a remarkable
and effective read. SJG
I also read this as a teenager. The sense of place endures. This time round
I was alive to more of the detail. While still somewhat confused by the exact
movements in the action (sketch maps would have helped), I was interested
in the philosophy and what comes across of Lawrence's own personality and
motives. He was certainly one of the pioneers of the 'new' imperial approach
of meeting 'other races' on their own terms. His adoption of Arab dress was
seen by many at the time as 'going native' in the sense of slumming it in
cultural terms while to us today it seems merely common sense. I'd like now
to read a historical account of what he achieved in objective terms in the
context of British war strategy. I suspect it was limited to keeping some
Turkish forces busy and keeping most Arabs from aiding them. His own dream
of helping the Arabs to free themselves and gain their own self-rule embittered
him because he could see that the Allied powers would not let it happen, whatever
might have been promised to secure Arab interests to the Allied cause. However,
he also shows us the internecine hatred and rivalry amongst the Arabs that
would have made the establishment of an Arab state at this time impossible.
Lawrence's espousal of the Arab cause becomes less of a passionate personal
mission towards the end of the book, perhaps from battle-weariness, but perhaps
after the death of his Arab lover(?) S.A. to whom the book is dedicated in
an introductory poem. SRG
Lawson, Mary
Crow Lake (2002)
Rating:- ***
Tale of a parentless family trying to cope with life in the harsh environment
of northern Ontario. Wasn't expecting much of this as, with the emphasis on
children bringing up children, it could so easily deteriorate into some sort
of Canadian version of the Waltons. However although the novel is not without
its sentimentalism, Lawson manages to keep it under control through some reasonable
writing. Characterisation, dialogue and sense of place are all more than adequate
and she manages to produce a satisfying ending. Competent and enjoyable. SJG
I found it painful to read because of the amount of unhappiness in it. However,
the extremity of the circumstances both in terms of the terrain/climate and
the human tragedies is well conveyed. The real tragedy in the book turns out
to be capable of remedy. SRG
Leavis, F.R.
New Bearings in English Poetry (1932)
Rating:- *****
Very old bearings by now of course but it remains a classic in my view.
His later bitterness has not yet come home to roost. The book is a salute to
the originality of T.S. Eliot. Leavis acknowledges his great debt to him. But
the integrity of FRL is apparent in that he is already prepared to have a go at
Eliot where he sees any weaknesses. There is no subservience. They ended as
enemies largely over Eliot's remarks in a letter to The Times on Lawrence's
death but Leavis' debt remained. He liked to speak of "creative
quarrelling" and certainly got the quarrelling part achieved. This book
makes all the poetry he quotes come alive even if its aliveness' is how
it manages to be not all that good, ie he arouses in the reader a sense of what
vitality is and where it can be found. A good sort of book to read when looking
after grandchildren as it is episodic and can be read in small doses without
losing the thread. It also helps if you have already had some familiarity with
it. The drawback to Leavis' view is that while he saw Eliot as the new bearer,
he seemed in fact to be the end of the line as the great Doctor thought very
little of Auden (undergraduate brilliance never matured) or Dylan Thomas and it
would have been very dangerous to have even mentioned Larkin's name to him.
Perhaps Ted Hughes or Seamus Heaney would have set something vibrating. Robert
Lowell would certainly have got some recognition. It can be too hard to please
(Yes? or No?) MP
Read on MP's recommendation. Don't take to lit. crit. and found a lot of this
too much like hard work. Virtually skipped the stuff on Ezra Pound and Gerald
Manley Hopkins with which I have no familiarity. More at home with T.S. Eliot
and found that chapter interesting. Generally found Leavis' tone too
authoritative, and brooking no argument, which made me want to disagree with
him. It didn't help when he kicked my favourite poet, Robert Browning, into
touch: "But so inferior a mind and spirit as Browning's could not
provide the impulse to bring back into poetry the adult intelligence." Also
there's lots of stuff which goes something like ‘it is obvious to anybody that
...' or ‘this passage is so straight-forward that it needs no explanation'.
Well, I'm afraid it does to me, tush. Having said that, it's nice to read a
critic who dismisses about 95% of everything - we need more like him. It's just
that I can't breathe in this rarified atmosphere. Shame he didn't live to put
the knife into that toad, Ted Hughes. SJG
I flicked through, dwelling mainly on T.S. Eliot. I quite liked one of his
ideas, which takes about a paragraph to express, explaining what makes a great
poet (summing up the hidden currents and pointers of the language of his time).
However, my main problem is a general one with criticism of poetry (and music
for that matter). If the poem does not 'speak' to the reader after the reader's
own (educated) efforts, then there's no point. Great poets cannot be argued
into existence. T.S. Eliot remains for me the poet of the shabby bed-sit, the
nouveau riche and the religious lost soul. Here he is great. As long as that
touches chords in people, it is great. Perhaps there will come a time when it
won't. SRG
Le Carré, John
Our Game (1995)
Rating:- **
Latest and similar to many others. The background detail (in this case about
the ex-Soviet republic in the Caucasian Mountains) is as usual excellent.
However with the end of the Cold War, the author really is flailing about in
search of a decent plot. (Lack of sub-plots here is notable.) At 400 pages it's
150 too long. Le Carré is by no stretch of the imagination a great author -
just a producer of first-rate page-turners. However when (as here) he runs out
of ideas, there is little reason to recommend. Rather read A Perfect
Spy': his masterpiece. SJG
In its defence, I do think he succeeds in portraying the spy as necessarily a
being in search of a soul, forever destined to search in vain. SRG
Le Carré, John
The Night Manager
Rating:- **
Usual spy stuff. This one takes an ex-SAS bloke (one of the right sort and all
that) who has become a hotel manager. He is persuaded to work for intelligence
to nail an arms/drugs baron. A good read, though cynical in that the forces of
good are only to be found on the individual level and the political/high
espionage sphere is as corrupt as the drugs/arms barons. As usual, short on
psychology and long on the tendency to see individuals as architectural
constructs with immutable characteristics. However the main character's
motivation is adequately explained in terms of his experiences in life and need
to punish himself. SRG
Fairly second-rate Le Carré. Although Smiley' trilogy is good, A
Perfect Spy' is his only quality book. Trouble is all his characters are
visitors from another planet - they eat and talk, but have few other human
characteristics. He could over the last twenty years have developed to give a
kind of Dickensian feel. But, no. There is no development (literary,
intellectual whatever) over the novels. His style is interesting but spread too
thinly over the ten or so novels that he has written. Not particularly
recommended - I even thought of packing in half-way through. SJG
Le Carré, John
Single and Single (1999)
Rating:- **
Thought that at one stage I was in for one of Le Carré's better efforts, but in
the end there's nothing special here. For the first 50 pages or so the writing
seemed a lot more sparky and interesting than is the norm, but by mid-book that
had all gone. All the other omens were good too. Writing about Georgian
wheeler-dealers is a reasonably natural extension of Cold War spy material. He
was avoiding writing about women or relationships between the sexes; topics
where he seems completely at sea in other novels. But best of all he was back
to the theme of son and errant father which had produced his one excellent
book, A Perfect Spy'. So the potential was there. It's just that after
a 100 pages he seemed to take his foot off the accelerator, put the car into neutral
and just coast. The end result was a professionally told genre novel, but
nothing more than that. SJG
He tried to propel the plot along through the psychology of Oliver Single, the
son, who has not shaken off his fear/admiration for a father he has, however,
betrayed to H.M. Customs because of shady dealings. Psychology is not Le
Carré's strong point, however, so the plot creaks. It is particularly puzzling
that the baddies' do not resort to the quick fix of execution at the
end. There is also cheating' on the technical background to the shady
dealings with the excuse that the protagonists are just the financiers. I
didn't believe it. SRG
Le Carré, John
The Constant Gardener (2001)
Rating:- **
His 18th and, to my surprise, I've read about three-quarters of them. This will
probably be my last though. Not that this is a bad Le Carré, indeed it is one
of his better ones. Not that the plot - corruption in the English
establishment, international drug companies and East African governments - is
bad, indeed it is one of his best, although perhaps there is a little too much
research. And one can't really complain about the writing - it's just the
journeyman stuff one would expect from a best-selling page-turner. No, my
problem is the characterisation. Le Carré has never been able to ‘write' women,
but now, I must admit, the men are no better.. He seems to have half-a-dozen
stock types which he continually re-cycles. I've met them all before. Different
names, different places, same people. Time to draw stumps. Enough. SJG
Do they still exist, these grown-up children, fumbling through the corridors of
power? They're all a bit too facile to be believed. I found this a page-turner
to fill in an idle hour or so and it was OK. In spite of the subject matter,
not much of a footprint remains. SRG
Lee, Chang-Rae
Native Speaker (1995)
Rating:- ****
Strange book about a Chinese detective in New York. Filed under crime in
Waterstones but not so. Rather about relationships and coming to terms with
life etc. Not a masterpiece but it has a certain quality which I can't put my
finger on. Worth a try as it's a lot superior to most modern novels. SJG
I think it's better than that. On reflection, SJG agrees. It goes to the
essence of identity in a very light-handed way, exploring it through the
ironies of an undercover role and the effect of different styles of grief on a
marriage. Language is a constantly worked thread giving coherence to the very
subtle ideas. Also charming and haunting! SRG
I know that accusations have been floated around about being too easily pleased
but have to confess that also thought this book had a lot going for it. Agree
that it's not a crime or thriller genre novel but a serious mainstream one. I'm
not altogether sure that pleasure was what I got from it. It was
extremely disturbing and disquieting and didn't always feel like picking it up
again. But you don't have to a Korean immigrant spy yourself to feel the
creeping sense of unease and dislocation which haunts this book. A lot of the
relationships are understated and implied but he gets across a completely
convincing sense of the realness of all the crises the protagonist goes
through. Was impressed but it didn't add anything positive mentally. Rather
depressing. MP
Re-read for a Reading Group. Much above general Reading Group material, but I
would say that as I'm the person responsible for getting it on the Group list
in the first place. Generally speaking the majority of Group members aren't too
keen on my recommendations (M.Amis, W.Gibson etc) so will be interested to see
how this goes down. Was a bit worried myself as nearly every time I re-read
something I'd thought highly of, it goes down in my estimation. Also note that
MP had found it very depressing. Anyway to my relief found it every bit as good
second time around - could hardly fault it - writing, structure, insights,
ideas all excellent. Almost a ‘five-star' read but it could have done with some
lighter touches, some humour in parts to give it a broader wash. Note that the
blurb says: "... a beautifully written, wise and compassionate novel about
the immigrant experience, about love, loyalty and the languages that define
us." I think that's a pretty good summary. Highly recommended. SJG
Lee, Chang-Rae
A Gesture Life (1999)
Rating:- ***
Second novel after excellent first, 'Native Speaker'. Story once again deals
with issues of exile and identity as elderly Korean/Japanese man looks back on
his life in USA. Intertwined with this are his memories of serving in the
Japanese army in WWII. The 'hero' makes "a whole life out of gestures
and politeness" but at the same time has to deal with the horrors
experienced in the army, and come to terms with his failed relationship with
his adopted daughter. There are most certainly echoes here of Ishiguro's wonderful
'Artist of the Floating World' and while Lee's novel is excellently done, I
must say that I preferred Ishiguro's take on the situation. Perhaps because I
found the central character here a little less interesting, perhaps because I
found the war scenes a little too dehumanising, or perhaps just I'd read
Ishiguro first and hence it was more of a novelty. Probably being a little too
hard as this is most certainly a serious, admirable piece of writing.
"It seems difficult enough to consider one's own triumphs and failures
with perfect veracity, for it's no secret that the past proves a most unstable
mirror, typically too severe and flattering all at once, and never as
truth-reflecting as people would like to believe." SJG
This is more 'straightforward' than 'Native Speaker'. It is brave in that it
inevitably humanises a member of the Japanese war machine which is still
demonised - or at least shows that individuals within it might have been just
as traumatised by it as its victims. The 'hero' finds his own synthesis at the
cost of his deeper emotional life, and this is heroic in the circumstances,
while being very Japanese in its low-key nature. SRG
Lee, Chang-Rae
Aloft
(2004)
Rating:- ***
This is a fine novel in many respects: it's well-written, thoughtful and
observant. However when compared to the author's previous works (the excellent ‘Native
Speaker' and the slightly less satisfying ‘A Gesture Life'), it is a
disappointment. Those novels took inspiration from Lee's Eastern heritage and
were concerned with identity. This provided them with a ‘unique selling point',
although I accept that the use of the word ‘unique' is stretching things a bit.
Nevertheless they opened up the world of the Oriental mind and were, for me,
illuminating and fascinating. In this novel we have as narrator a fairly
bog-standard middle-class middle-aged American male and even though he had in
the past been married to a now long-dead Korean, that aspect barely intrudes on
the storyline. The novel deals with the narrator's immediate family (a daughter
with cancer, a son bankrupting the family business and a father unhappily
living in an old folks home) together with spouses/partners and a few close
friends. We are now in the territory of Updike, Bellow and Roth, and compared to
these towering figures Lee doesn't quite cut the mustard. The writing isn't as
sharp as theirs, the observations not quite so perceptive. When set against,
say, Roth's ‘American Pastoral' there is only one winner. Still it's an
admirable book and very readable. I just hope that in future he goes down the
line opened up with ‘Native Speaker'. SJG
His narrator strikes the same tone as in Mordecai Richler's ‘Barney's Version'
but is not quite rounded/humorous enough. His thesis is fair enough - about the
emptiness of cutting yourself off from the trouble that is part of any
emotional life worth having. I found his long sentences, full of parentheses
and sub-ordinate clauses, a bit annoying, but that may be my fault for going
too fast. Worthwhile. SRG
Lee, Harper
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Rating:- ***
Another re-read from my teenage years. Remember then being underwhelmed by it and
I am not surprised as it is not exactly ‘modern' or ‘innovative' which were my
prime concerns in those days. Second-time around I quite enjoyed it and most
certainly respected it. The feel of being in the Deep South in the 1930s, the
child's eye-view on that society and the way it handles the injustices done to
the black population are all superbly handled. At times the author walks a
tightrope and could easily fall off into sentimental Waltons' country but she
mostly manages to keep her balance. (In particular though, some of the
characters are a little too perfect and unaffected by the society in which they
live.) One can see why this ranks alongside Steinbeck's ‘Grapes of Wrath'
although it is far less rich than that book. Here Lee sets out with fairly
modest ambitions and clearly succeeds. SJG
The book is well structured, and the narration by a child helps the author to
explain things without patronising the reader. Atticus (the lawyer) manages to
hate the sin but love the sinner, but the narrator isn't able to achieve this
approach and the reader certainly isn't. The only way to present such a
Christ-like figure without being mawkish is by assuming the perspective of a
child worshipping her father. If the narrator had been adult, the adulation
would have weakened the whole message of the book. SRG
Le Fanu, Sheridan
The Watcher (date not known but written before 'Uncle Silas')
Rating:- **
Actually 'The Watcher' is just one of the six gothic short stories collected
here. As I've said before I'm not particularly a fan of ghost stories, but
I've a lot of time for Le Fanu when he stretches out to novel length as in
the superb 'The Rose and the Key'. The best of these short stories are when
the length is greater than 30 pages; the three here below that limit are of
little consequence. Of the others I find that they work best when I treat
the ghost/macabre element as merely a facet of mental illness. What Le Fanu
is really good at (and there are a couple of instances here) is portraying
sparky young women, who don't faint or shriek at the drop of a handkerchief,
but who are able to deal intelligently, courageously and rationally with the
macabre situations in which they are placed, usually by mature, and seemingly
responsible, males, who it usually turns out are after the young women's money.
Incidentally one of the stories here is a mini-version of 'Uncle Silas'. It
is excellently done and easily the strongest thing here. SJG
Even the worst have something to recommend them and he is certainly honing
skills in suspense and mystery. SRG
Le Fanu, Sheridan
Carmilla (1871)
Rating:- ***
Le Fanu is only really known nowadays as the author of ‘Uncle Silas' (made
into a film) and for collections of short ghost stories. His longer novels
are difficult to obtain. Having in the distant past read about five I would
say that they are of variable quality, although the best, for example the
superb ‘The Rose and the Key', are worth searching out. ‘Carmilla' seems to
be typical of what contemporary publishers (this edition 2003) feel is marketable
at present. A novella set at the traditional site of an old remote castle
in eastern Europe. Teenage girl comes into contact with a vampire and things
get worse until somebody comes along with a wooden stake. It's atmospheric
and quite nice to read as a period piece but its literary merits are modest.
Of greater interest is that it was written twenty years before Bram Stoker's
‘Dracula', and that vampires are supposed to rise from the graves of suicides.
Passing the condition on through a nip on the neck seems to have been a later
addition to the mythology, which is fortunate for the heroine here. SJG
The heroine is here the target of a chilling kind of courtship whose passionate
language and caresses are not far from the blatantly lesbian. Queen Victoria
would not have been amused unless she was as innocent of their import as the
heroine. SRG
Le Guin, Ursula
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
Rating:- *
Quite like my Science Fiction from time to time, particularly the way it uses
future scenarios to comment on present-day society/technology. However some
of what I would call the more hard-core stuff, leaves me cold. Le Guin had
been recommended to me quite enthusiastically, but I'm afraid I'm oblivious
to its merits. Take some of a paragraph from the first page: "It starts
on the 44th diurnal of the Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation
Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of
spring in Year One. It is always Year One here. Only the dating of every past
and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards from
the Unitary Now." After several pages like this my eyes glaze over and
my brain ceases to function, in no small part because she is continually inventing
new words. It may well have improved later but there was no way I was going
to get beyond the first chapter. SJG
Lennon, J. Robert
The Funnies (1999)
Rating:- ***
Classified in the Humour section of the local library but am afraid, like for
most of the books in that category, I was unable to raise a smile never mind a
laugh. It is interesting to note that books that are genuinely funny like ‘Pickwick
Papers' or Mordecai Richler's ‘Barney's Version' are never to be found on
shelves marked Humour. Putting that all to one side this isn't that bad, being
firmly in Anne Tyler territory. There's a lot of stuff on the profession of
drawing a daily cartoon, like ‘Peanuts', for the newspapers, and modern family
problems caused by a domineering father and differences between siblings. These
are quite nicely observed and give a bitter-sweet quality. The writing
occasionally hits the nail on the head: "Mike was the kind of bad
driver who believes with all his heart that he is the only good driver on the
road. This particular driver goes fast because he thinks he can do so safely,
and does not use turn signals because they are irrelevant and inefficient.
Those driving slowly are doing so because they don't trust their own abilities,
which are scant." But generally it's fairly flat and uninteresting
which means that the book lacks the necessary spark. You feel that Lennon needs
a couple more goes to hone his skills. SJG
The narrator, second son Tim, comes across as a believable character and his
relationships with siblings are well done. I felt that the book was straining
towards a portrayal of catharsis as the narrator comes to terms with the family
as real in comparison with the comic strip. However, this doesn't come across
as clearly as it might, making the ending a bit of a damp squib. Another nice
observation: "I didn't understand teenagers at all any more. Where my
generation had embraced irony with a taste for its novelty and its shock value
with adults, these kids breathed it like pure oxygen, taking more power from it
than I had ever thought possible, and crushed earnestness like it was so many
soft drink cans. When they seemed sincere, they were really taking irony a step
further, mocking the very concept of speaking one's mind." SRG
Lennon, J. Robert
On the Night Plain (2001)
Rating:- ****
When I commented on his earlier ‘The Funnies' I said that it had potential but
that he still needed to hone his skills. Well, Lennon certainly has done that.
This is an excellent book that must certainly end on the short list for my Book
of the Year. Totally different in subject material from ‘TF', it tells the
story of one of six brothers eking out an existence on a mid-West sheep farm
post-WWII. The family is beset by a number of tragedies (as Lennon says, like a
bush that has been pruned back too far) but the overall effect is not too
depressing. I can do no better than to quote from the blurb where the
Publishers Weekly states: " A terse and haunting story that speaks of inescapable
bonds of blood, the ineluctable hold of the land, and the healing powers of
work and solitude." The writing is fine, the characters excellent and the
sense of place superb. Thoroughly recommended. SJG
There is nothing noble about the main character, Grant, and he absorbs what life
throws at him and endures. The book ‘covers' his whole life but is sparingly
written and the impression is space and sameness in the same way his life would
have appeared to Grant. There is dialogue and there are relationships. Much is
left unsaid. Only Grant's thoughts are given to us. The author does not
interpret or explain. The result is powerful, rich and absorbing. Incidentally
the title comes from a Terry Riley work for string quartet called ‘Cadenza on a
Night Plain' which the author listened to while writing. A candidate for a
Music & Book Club. SRG
Lennon, J.Robert
The Light of Falling Stars (1997)
Rating:- **
After the excellent 'On the Night Plain' thought I'd dig into Lennon's back
catalogue. Had previously also read 'The Funnies' which was good but not great,
but this, his first novel, is quite disappointing. It is quite clearly an Anne
Tyler clone, but Tyler has an ability to create characters with life and
warmth, to tell tales that involve the reader, that Lennon isn't able to master
at this stage of his career. In this book a plane crashes in the first sentence
and then we explore the lives of half a dozen or so people who have been
affected by this tragedy. It is of course essential to feel some sympathy and
understanding for these characters if the book is to work. I felt little. It's
not a bad book, but to achieve success in this genre requires subtlety, an
appreciation of the nuances and great craftsmanship. Pym and Tyler have it, but
at this time Lennon was still learning his trade. This he clearly did as the
later 'OTNP' shows. SJG
There are glimpses of his talent in the mutual understanding/self-awareness of
the characters as they face up to changed circumstances. He is able very well
to portray shifts of feeling. The task he had set himself, following up a
number of characters, was a bit over-ambitious and spread his talents too
thinly. Still a good book if not as good as 'OTNP'. SRG
Lennon, J.Robert
Mailman (2003)
Rating:- ****
Another powerful portrait of one character to follow the excellent 'On the
Night Plain'. Told in the third person, usually referring to the main
character, Albert Lippincott just by his profession, 'Mailman', the perspective
is always the central character's rather than the author's. Mailman's
57-year-old-life has reached a crisis point and various parts of it have
started to unravel, taking the reader progressively deeper into his past, his
personality and the people he is linked to. This is done with consummate skill,
engaging interest, sympathy and humour. Mailman is a mess, a non-hero if ever
there was one with his routine obsessions, gauche social errors and failures
with women. However, he is doing what we all have to, finding his way through
the jungle that is life. J. Robert Lennon has no allusions about the quality of
modern American life either and paints it as it is, sharpened by contrast to
life in Kazakhstan where Mailman spends a disastrous week having joined the
Peace Corps. The end is ambiguous, but satisfying. Having taken too many pain
relievers he has hallucinations involving a conversation about success with
someone he knew on his mail-round. "Your life is successful if each day
is fully lived ... What is it, then, to live fully? ... Can you, say, climb a mountain
and write a string quartet, and cure a disease, and have hot sex, all in one
day? What can be expected of a single person any way? You did what you were
capable of doing, and then some. You lived as fully as it was possible to for
you to live. You loved badly, but you loved intensely. You left no emotional
stone unturned. There are people broken by the absence of love. You were broken
by an excess of it. You shielded your heart from nothing." SRG
Can't say that I feel as strongly in favour of this as SRG. Certainly didn't
enjoy it as much as 'On the Night Plain', which had a much more laidback style.
I felt that Lennon seemed to have been influenced by the 'dazzling style' that
recently seems to have to the fore of American literature (eg Franzen's 'The
Corrections', Foer's 'Everything is Illuminated' etc). As I've said before I
find this 'style' too exhausting for comfortable reading. Also I've recently
read Ford's 'Independence Day' which has got certain similarities with this
book and, although I'm not a particular fan of Ford, I do feel that his novel
comes off better in most aspects. That said one must admire Lennon. Excluding
his first novel, the later three are considerably different yet each are
clearly the work of a skilled craftsman, who needs to be thought of with great
respect. It will be fascinating to see where he goes from here, hopefully away
from dazzling. SJG
Lent, Jeffrey
Lost Nation (2002)
Rating:- ****
Set on the American/Canadian border in 1836 in a small rural settlement where
men were men and times were tough. Cover blurb mentions David Guterson, William
Faulkner, Charles Frazier and Cormac McCarthy. The first two can be immediately
ignored, but if you crossed the latter pair you wouldn't be far off. The
quality is better than Frazier's ‘
As with so many good modern novels, it's about people finding out who they are
through adversity. Truth to self and the ability to give the same right to
others are the highest virtues. The excess of ‘righteousness' in the American
pioneers is seen as a retrograde force, guaranteeing pack mentality and
mischief. A stimulating and satisfying read. SRG
Leon, Donna
The Death of Faith (1997)
Rating:- ***
Good read. The murky goings-on of Opus Dei added depth and left question marks
that may be picked up in a sequel. The main character, Commissario Brunetti, is
a bit too much of the domesticated animal for a real male, but not too
obviously. His wife is more real! SRG
Leon, Donna
A Venetian Reckoning (1995)
Rating:- ***
Leonard, Elmore
Rum Punch
Rating:- ***
A possibility for our Book &
Good thriller. The main villain is near farcical, being of limited intelligence
and having only survived thus far through his stronger than average sense of
personal danger which enables him to dodge behind minions, or shoot them to
avoid arrest. The FBI are also on the thick side and the sharpest character
turns out to be an air stewardess who is determined to turn the tables on the
gun-smuggler who is using her so that she can finance an early retirement from
a job that bores her. Now there's an idea ... SRG
Leonard, Elmore
Out of Sight (1996)
Rating:- ***
It's certainly a film-in-a-paperback. The scenes cut in and out between the
sets of characters and the story is told through dialogue. The main con'
has a soft centre even though he is a perfect pro, and the main Federal Agent
is a woman who possesses eye-catching beauty and an unerring moral sense while
managing to play games with the big boys. A fairy tale, but a good read.
SRG
Leroy, J.T.
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2001)
Rating:- *
Title comes from Jeremiah: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?", and provides the framework for a nasty little tale
of child abuse. It is written with competence which means that the nastiness
is brought out and made more vivid. I managed 50-odd pages, which gave me
the opportunity to appreciate Leroy's skill, but by that time the unpleasant
bits were coming thick and fast and I didn't want these images in my head,
so packed it in. If he was less skilful I could have probably lived with this
story. Similarly on another topic I can see Leroy being an entertaining writer.
SJG
Lessing, Doris
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Rating:- *
It is no doubt totally unfair to consign this large novel to ‘one star' after
only reading 70-odd pages. It's intelligent, thoughtful and at the time of
publishing seems to have caused a bit of a stir. But it is also exceptionally
dreary. The early ‘60s equivalent of Hampstead types sit around studying their
navels and speak in supposedly profound sentences. You can see clearly where
the dreaded Margaret Drabble came from. By the time I'd got to the second
section where Lessing goes on about the angst of being a writer, and the angst
of being a communist, and the angst of having to associate with men, my eyes
glazed over. No doubt I could read this if forced to, ie if it came up on a
reading group list. (But then again do I want to be part of a reading group
that chose this?) I was fairly underwhelmed by my previous visit to this
novelist (‘The Good Terrorist') but at least that had some forward momentum.
This is just another book from a British author in 1940-60 period which assists
my hypothesis that it was a barren time. No wonder MP admires A.Powell and
E.Waugh so much; they stand out like beacons compared to material like this.
SJG
Lethem, Jonathan
Rating:- ****
"Have you ever felt, in the course of reading a detective novel, a
guilty thrill of relief at having a character murdered before he can step out
of the page and burden you with his actual existence? Detective stories always
have too many characters anyway. And characters mentioned early on but never
sighted, just lingering offstage, take on an awful portentous quality. Better
to have them gone." SJG
The title refers to the group of orphan boys taken up by (and adulating) a
minor hoodlum. The latter's death is what the main character 'investigates' in
his crazy way, using only the echoes of obsession for clues. Very enjoyable
with good balance of plot, character and philosophy. SRG
Lethem, Jonathan
As She climbed across the Table (1997)
Rating:- ***
Got this from library as I assumed it was the successor to the excellent ‘Motherless
Brooklyn', only to find that it had been written before that one and was only now
being published in the UK - presumably because of the success of ‘MB'. Not
quite sure what to make of it, as it's quite bizarre. Sort of science fiction
(with the emphasis most definitely on the science part), sort of a love story
and sort of a satire on academic life in American universities. Add to this two
blind characters who go round synchronising their watches and who reminded me
very much of the artists Gilbert and George, and you've got a mixture that is
very difficult to place in any genre. Nevertheless Lethem holds it all together
very well, and there's a feeling of consistency and unity about the story.
Interesting but try ‘
The author has quite a bit of fun with the difficulties that modern physics
gets into as a result of the way sub-atomic phenomena appear to be influenced
by the fact of observation. This links up with the philosophical notion that reality
only exists in human consciousness - that there is no reality ‘
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude (2003)
Rating:- ***
It seems afraid to leave anything out, and desperately casts about for a way to
bring ‘closure' at the end. The magic ring and the way the main character/narrator
sees everything as having a special purpose for him are strangely childish. The
bullying by the older kids and the placidity of the parents are painful and
engender sympathy for the author/narrator together with a suspicion that he
still harbours anger for the predicament he was forced into. SRG
Lette, Kathy
Mad Cows
Rating:- *
Trendy Australian authoress making wisecracks about sanitary towels and
constipation after just having given birth. Unreadable! (Managed 20 pages.) SJG
Lette, Kathy
Foetal Attraction
Rating:- *
Was forced' to read this as part of Reading Group otherwise wouldn't
have got past first sentence: "My female friends had told me that
giving birth was like shitting a water melon."
Levin, Ira
Compendium consisting of: Rosemary's Baby (1967), The Stepford Wives (1972)
& A Kiss Before Dying (1954)
Rating:- **
Rosemary's Baby' is the most famous and is so close to the film that
anybody could have written the script outline. Difficult to assess the
thriller factor' as I knew the ending, but I think it would be high as
he is continually giving hints without making it obvious. Best of the three and
well-constructed.
The Stepford Wives' is a novella (and also a film) which tells of a
suburb where all the wives start becoming submissive to their husbands -
forgetting about Women's Lib and concentrating on polishing the floor. Great
idea (?!) and a nice ending, but the interesting bit is why this behaviour
happens and he never explains that - bit of a cheat.
A Kiss Before Dying' is much earlier and more traditional. Will young
heiress realise she's marrying a murderer, or will she die like her sister?
Fairly standard stuff and quite clearly written for potential film market. This
type of novel succeeds or fails on suspense factor' (average) and levels
of characterisation (rather poor, only one character interested me).
Overall - OK, but not earth-shattering. SJG
Levy, Andrea
Small Island (2004)
Rating:- ***
This is thin gruel. More ‘popular' fiction than ‘
Lewis, Jeremy
Cyril Connolly: A Life
Rating:- ***
Rating:- **
Lewycka, Marina
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian (2005)
Rating:- ****
The title is an interesting marketing strategy for what is basically a family
saga, although it needs to be said that the text justifies the title. Like
most family sagas this is simply written and leaves little work necessary
by the reader. Nevertheless the voice of the first-person narrator is never
cloying, rarely sentimental and quite vibrant. The story tells of an 84-year-old
Ukrainian immigrant in England who falls for and marries a 36-year-old gold-digger
from his homeland. His two daughters, who were previously at war with each
other, join forces to rid him of this woman. Lewycka intersperses this story
with some back-history and comments on the state of present-day Ukraine. (See
also Andrey Kurkov's ' Death and the Penguin'.) Unlike Andrea Levy's 'Small
Island' this back-history is slipped in unobtrusively and doesn't overshadow
the main thread. This is also a 'feel good' read and as I don't come across
that many, they are generally appreciated when I do. Overall it's light reading
but thoroughly enjoyable and just about scrapes a 'Recommendation'. From the
information given by the publishers one would assume that this is Ms Lewycka's
first work (and as such would make it even more praiseworthy.) However a bit
of detective work shows that she is responsible for a host of other things
with titles like: 'Caring for someone who has had a stroke', 'Caring for someone
with diabetes' etc. Interesting that Penguin did not want this facet of her
work to be presented on the blurb. Another aspect to the marketing strategy.
SJG
Very enjoyable with its mixture of history, family relationships and semi-farcical
goings all told with a light touch and down-to-earth humour. SRG
Linklater, Eric
Rating:- *
Haven't a clue why I chose this to include in my £1/plastic-bagful of books
from the local library. The title gives you the plot. Sailor concerned,
in-between voyages, is a liar or dreamer depending on your take. Writing and
storyline reminded me of something out of a Reader's Digest. Looked Linklater
up in reference books which said something about uneven quality, which is
usually a euphemism for a couple of reasonable books hidden between a load of
trash. This one certainly comes in the latter category and at page 25 I chucked
it in the rubbish bin. SJG
Lipman, Elinor
The Dearly Departed (2001)
Rating:- ***
Small town American comedy in the mould of James Wilcox and Anne Tyler - one
of my favourite genres. Doesn't quite hit the spot like the best of those
two. Mild smiles rather than broad grins, and certainly not the "belly
laughs" suggested by the blurb. She lacks the expertise in the structure
- bringing in far too many characters at the beginning - for this reader's
comfort. The novel improves as she thins down the storyline to a couple of
main strands. It also lacks any quotable phrases/sentences that can usually
be found in Messrs Wilcox and Tyler. Nevertheless an enjoyable read. One wishes
that there were more authors in this genre. SJG
A celebration of small town values with digs at the superficial world of the
big city and the political processes. Light-hearted and pleasant. SRG
Litt, Toby
Corpsing (2000)
Rating:- *
According to the blurb Litt is "one of the foremost young lions of British
hip-lit". Not really sure what hip-lit is, but if this is the best it can
do, its future is bleak. To be fair, in the middle-third Litt calms down a
lot, the book becomes quite readable and some potential is shown. Unfortunately
the other two-thirds can be pretty dire. It's overwritten as the author tries
to show how clever he is. Most of the characters are fairly anonymous except
for the lead/narrator, Conrad. The trouble with him was I was never sure whether
the author thought he was a reasonable bloke going through a rough time, or
whether he was supposed to be an ironic figure. One hopes the latter but I'm
not convinced that was Litt's intention. As for the plot, the least said the
better - more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire. The explanation at the end
must rank as one of the genre's worst. SJG
Much as I get bored of the macho super-heroes of most thrillers, this weak
and rather nasty main character doesn't cut it at all. The author reminds
us of his failings throughout; he is cruelly dismissive of a mother who has
sat by his bedside for several months, he bursts into tears at any time of
enhanced emotion, he salivates over violent images, he assumes that sex is
always necessary and that women know that is their main role in life. To put
this distasteful character at the centre of a plot which is far-fetched in
itself exposes the whole enterprise as worthless. SRG
Littell, Robert
The Company (2002)
Rating:- ***
1281 pages! Actually - the pages small, the writing straightforward, the plot
pacy - it feels like about half that length. The title refers to the CIA,
so here we have a spy novel. Comparisons are made on the blurb to Le Carré
and this is not that far off although the plots here are less Byzantine. About
half a dozen characters carry us from 1950 to 1995 using a number of scenarios
- Berlin, Budapest, Cuba, Afghanistan, Moscow etc - which could almost be
separate books. Probably the best thing here is the way the fictional characters
are mixed with real-life people and events. The CIA doesn't come well out
of the whole thing and neither do most of the US Presidents who are presented
as either self-serving (eg Kennedy) or idiots (eg Reagan with early-stage
Alzheimer's). The Russians are generally presented as more capable and subtle
although having to overcome a basically flawed system. Unfortunately the Soviet
spy mastermind is presented as a paedophile (To ensure that the reader realises
who are the goodies and who the baddies?) which I felt unnecessary. I did
however like the links and comparisons of the spies' worlds to 'Alice in Wonderland'.
Overall it was enjoyable, with Littell managing to keep the interest going
for most of the 1281 pages. SJG
I enjoyed this as an undemanding pot-boiler which had the added bonus of revising
for me the bases of the Cold War and later international relations. The broad
sweep of the book succeeds in showing how intervention by both USSR and USA
in the affairs of other nation states ostensibly in their own interests always
tends to have an eventual backlash effect. It also illustrates how the values
of democracy and the rule of law weaken the hand of enforcement agencies in
the USA and cause the CIA to make unholy alliances with the Mafia and Mossad.
The Alice in Wonderland references, tied into the story by the paedophilic
bed-time reading of the chief KGB character, strengthen the book by emphasising
the game nature of spying. SRG
Lively, Penelope
Photo Call (2002?)
Rating:- ***
Obtained a proof copy of this via the Bradford Library Reading Groups
organisation. The Penguin Group have a web-site which includes a section on
reading groups. They are looking for comments and reviews from ‘average readers'
to post on their site. Must admit I groaned when I saw who the author was,
realising that after reading my comments my fifteen minutes of fame wouldn't
get past the first second. To my surprise, or maybe it was the pressure of the
thought of potential glory, I was pleasantly surprised. Herewith is what I sent
to them. Be interesting to see if they use it and if so how much it gets
corrupted:
Had very low expectations of this. Previous encounter with Ms Lively was 15 years
ago when a lot of fuss was made over ‘Moon Tiger'. Singularly unimpressed then
and had consigned her to the ‘No Need To Bother with Anymore' list of authors.
Didn't help initially that one of the main characters in this new book was that
dreaded icon of modern fiction - the university lecturer. Surprised to say was
proved wrong. Writing, often in short sentences, has a pleasing, and almost
poetical, rhythm. Particularly liked her observations of the characters'
occupations, be it gardening design, computing, researching into the history of
landscapes or just sponging off their spouse. The ‘plot' is slight and
developed using the well-worn device of flashbacks. However by changing these
flashbacks into short visual memories she brings some freshness into this
mechanism. A book of this nature has to stand or fall on the success of its
characters. And while they come from a much over-used area - the contemporary
English middle classes - they are interesting, alive and three-dimensional.
Overall an enjoyable, intelligent and well-written story. It can be recommended
for reading groups being of reasonable length(!), very readable and contains
sufficient ideas, for example about the role of memory and the relationship
between past and present, to give group members plenty of opportunities for discussion.
SJG
It is certainly worth reading. The characters are all caught up in the tracks
of selfishness, as they are forced to review the past. The character at the heart
of the story is dead but ‘comes to life' as she is acknowledged for who she
really was. There is a satisfying symmetry in the way the parts of the story
are constructed. SRG
Llewellyn, Richard
How Green was my Valley (1939)
Rating:- **
Starts off as a load of old baloney. And goes on as one I hear you say? Thought
he was was good at producing narrative incident and keeping the momentum going.
The killing of the rapist/murderer at the instigation of the Minister was good
and the death of the father etc. But the whole thing is completely Unreal. It
is an interesting contrast with Zola who does root his story in believable
actuality though a gruesome one. MP
Lord, Graham
Sorry- We're Going to Have to Let You Go (1999)
Rating:- *
The cover says: "Marvellous satirical tale - Sunday Times", and
indeed that's where I got the recommendation from to read this. No doubt Graham
Lord's partner or mother or something works for the Sunday Times as I can't see
anybody else recommending this piece of drivel. It reads like the book adapted
from a TV film (probably in cartoon form). Very similar to the dreaded Archer -
you need a reading age of about 8 and a sense of humour that is prepared to be
amused by cheap comments and caricatures that would be more at home in a
children's comic. The whole may have improved after the 40 or so pages that I
read, but I doubt it. SJG
Lott, Tim
White City Blue (1999)
Rating:- *
Draw a line joining Martin Amis' ‘
Loudon, Jane
The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827)
Rating:- ****
Let's get the bad news out of the way first of all: the writing's iffy (especially
the dialogue), the characters thin and unbelievable, and the plot silly with
a poor structure. Yet this is one of the most surprising and unbelievable
books that I've ever read. A science fiction tale written in 1827(!) by a
20-year-old who had lost both parents and needed to pay her bills. (She later
went on to be a specialist in horticultural works and sold over twenty thousand
copies of 'The Ladies' Companion to the Flower Garden'.) Here though she is
attempting to cash in on the success of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and
the contemporary London craze for all things Egyptian. Doing this she unconsciously
created one of the first-ever science fiction novels. Because she keeps it
in check the science fiction aspect is not so bad with lots of things (including
houses) moving around on rails, clean fuel and a sort of visual telegraph
system. The Egyptian bit is totally ludicrous with one of the heroes reviving
a 3000-year-old mummy who then accidentally gets catapulted by balloon to
London and goes around appearing at the most opportune and inopportune moments.
(Indeed the mummy is developed rather nicely as a character and one of the
disappointments of the book is that there isn't more of him (it?).) But what
the book is more often about is a comment on the corrupt politics of the Georgian
era, and this works well despite the fact that Loudon seems quite willing
to regularly change the plot direction in a mere sentence. There's a little
too much of unhappy lovers not getting their act together (even when meeting
in the tunnel between England and Ireland), but given the date I suppose this
is only to be expected. So all in all quite fascinating and worth reading
if it can be found. It's out of print and copies on the net seem to start
at £140. Could well do with a reprint especially as the editor of this 1994
edition seems to have shortened the original by 25%. Grab it if you can find
it. SJG
It does read rather like a child's story (as written by a child, that is)
with too many characters and plot turns which begin to be more than the author
can handle without resorting to ad hoc solutions, (eg two imprisoned characters
'suddenly' - after three months- find a secret way out of their cell.) The
bizarre nature of the book somewhat makes up for this. I did find the prose
over-wordy in places and found my eye slipping paragraphs. An interesting
read but only for the curious. SRG
Loudon, Mary
Secrets and Lives: Middle England Revealed (2000)
Rating:- *
Never confuse reality with art. Art requires creative acts of organising,
interpreting and presenting aspects of reality. Loudon shoves everything down
and repeats it so that the reader can be the one doing the interpreting. I
wanted some insights to be hazarded. SRG
Lownie, Andrew
John Buchan. A Presbyterian Cavalier
Rating:- ***
A really good read about a truly remarkable man. Reading about his oh so serious
life it is his adventure stories which seem out of character. His Presbyterian
Mother whom he was very close to could not read them. After a few pages she
would say "they're beginning to swear already." Presently with a
discouraged sigh, she would lay down the book, remarking "Now he's got
them into a cave, and it's so confusing, I think I'll knit a little."
Lowry, Malcolm
Under the Volcano (1947)
Rating:- **
Remember reading this about fifteen years ago when I was favourably impressed
by it and, at that time, would probably have given it a ‘recommendation'.
This is powerfully written, there is a great sense of place, interesting characterisation
and the images and situations are strongly drawn and stay in one's memory.
Altogether not a book that can be easily dismissed or ignored. But these last
fifteen years have obviously made a great difference to my tastes because
I really struggled this time. In part because I was under pressure to read
other books for reading groups, and this is most certainly not a book to rush
and get impatient with. Secondly it is quite a depressing book and I've enough
potential things to be depressed about without adding another one. Also because
this is one of the heights of ‘modernism' and the writing is often, for want
of a better term, ‘experimental' with lots of symbolism and myth. Fifteen
years on I'm even more in agreement with G.K. Chesterton's "Mankind doesn't
need Art, what he needs is stories." Fourthly there are considerable problems
here. Virtually every chapter has the same tedious structure with involves
some or all the characters going for a walk or a ride (so that Lowry can describe
some scenery) and either ends or starts with them boozing in some cantina.
And there is so much boozing that it becomes extremely tedious. (One might
well suggest that reading this book could be a possible way of curing an alcoholic.)
And the symbolism is laid on with a trowel: the locals are celebrating the
Day of the Dead, every fifth page has vultures floating across it, every ride/walk
is alongside a menacing deep ravine which no doubt will be the recipient of
at least one of our ‘heroes'. All this doesn't leave much room for surprise
in the final chapter. I think that I have probably lost contact with modernism
and will have to refrain from another re-read of my beloved ‘Ulysses' in case
I have similar problems there. SJG
Lurie, Alison
Love and Friendship (1962)
Rating:- **
Perhaps this sort of thing was "shocking" in 1962 as C. Isherwood
says on the dust jacket, but I'm afraid 40 years have dated it. Basically
it's about youngish academic staff at an American university. There's some
college politics and an attempt at a few 'characters', but most of the book
is about an affair between one of the 'wives' and a music lecturer. The writing
is OK, but what a waste for so trivial a subject. SRG
Returning to the blurb again - this is getting to be a bad habit - "Challenges
comparison with Jane Austen ..." immediately puts the novel on the back
foot before you've even opened it. It is very well written and there are similarities
with Miss A. but comparisons are ultimately rather unfair to Ms L. The subject
material is most unfortunate. No doubt new in 1962, nowadays if there's one
thing more tedious than novels about the lives and loves of British academics,
it's novels about the lives and loves of American academics. I've read a few
and even the better writers (eg John Updike) trip up quite badly at this hurdle.
There are one or two minor characters here who are suitably eccentric and
interesting but the main 'leads' are so tedious that you couldn't care less
whether their affairs are successful, traumatic or whatever. SJG
Lurie, Alison
The Last Resort (1998)
Rating:- ***
Always regarded Lurie as a sort of sub-standard Ann Tyler and this novel does
nothing to change my mind. At times you feel you are reading a Tyler work,
the characters are interesting and the writing mildly humorous. At the same
time there are weaknesses that you rarely find with mature Tyler. This book
is really a eulogy to Key West - somewhere it seems that Lurie spends part
of her time. She makes the place seem like some sort of paradise, especially
if you have homosexual tendencies, and I got annoyed by the view through the
rose-tinted spectacles. The plot is trite: ageing famous writer gets depression
so his wife of 25+ years decides to become a lesbian on the side whilst maintaining
the original relationship. It's not quite as bad as that sounds as it's light
reading and many of the characters, though usually two-dimensional, are strongly
drawn and engaging. The reading process is pleasant. It's mainly after you've
finished that you feel that it is rather second-rate. SJG
I got a bit bored/irritated with the author's omniscience. Not only did she
give you the dialogue as spoken, but an unspoken accompaniment in each character's
mind. There were some reflections on ageing which were insightful, but also
opportunities missed and a kind of impression built up that same-sex relationships
are (i) more personally fulfilling and (ii) guarantee immortal life unless
you get AIDS. A light read. SRG
Lydon, Michael
Ray Charles: Man & Music (1997)
Rating:- **
At about 12 years old I moved on from Buddy Holly to Ray Charles and he introduced
me to blues and jazz, which have been my main music interests ever since.
Lots of nostalgia here and some interesting (to me) information such as who
his tenor player was on a particular track etc. But for the non-enthusiast
it's a pretty awful biography; lots of boring details about touring across
the States/world and who was his valet at any particular time. Also lots of
'he'd come a long way from being a penny-less father-less orphan'. Only for
the fan and even then it takes some getting through, especially as Charles
hasn't made any significant musical contribution for the last 25 years. SJG
Lynn, Matthew
Insecurity (1997)
Rating:- **
Poor thriller about machinations in the pharmaceutical industry including a
potential killer virus, counterfeit drugs etc. To call the hero and heroine
two-dimensional would be flattery - absolutely no depth whatsoever and
reminiscent of Jeffrey Archer-type characters. The saving grace for the book is
that in the last half it develops quite a head of steam which it almost manages
to keep going to the (totally expected) end. There are plenty of better
thrillers about than this. SJG
I did get involved in the plot which had some well-crafted twists. However, the
book would have been much better if the author had made a reasoned decision
about the narrator's viewpoint. At the beginning we are in the
thought-processes of someone who is killed within a couple of pages. We then
follow our hero and see things through his eyes. Then it is not long before we
are a fly on the wall during meetings of the baddies. In spite of these
unrealistic opportunities for us to be in possession of the essential
information, it is in fact withheld from us and instead we are asked to believe
in the rather unlikely way the hero and heroine go about obtaining it, suddenly
turning into computer hacking experts when before they were simply a
wet-behind-the-ears Harvard MBA and an academic biochemist. We are also unable
to make our "own" judgements about the characters as to whether they
are trustworthy etc as little is given to us apart from the constant tendency
for the Chairman to whisper, which I took to be meant as a sign of malevolence.
On the other hand, he might simply have developed a sore throat. SRG
Lyons, Arthur
Other People's Money (1989)
Rating:- **
There is no quirk' in this. My previously-read thriller by Donna Leon
adds some interest through her detective's marriage to an English lecturer and
relationship with his children. Arthur Lyons tries to add in a saga about the
bums of a cardboard city. This never works as they don't become personalised.
Indeed there is a suspicion that they are in there just to be knocked down and
to win the vote of Disgusted of L.A.' who believes they should be shot
on sight. SRG