Love For Books

Suttree’s humanity shows a different side of Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy has always been my sort of writer. Often labelled as the natural successor to William Faulkner, his novels are always rich with stark and violent imagery skilfully deployed to paint a frightening portrait of America.

However, upon reading Suttree I discovered something new in McCarthy’s writing that had previously eluded me. The Road and Blood Meridian are terrible masterpieces, but Suttree is more powerfully human and distinctly more humorous.

There’s something recognisable in Suttree that contrasts to all that is foreign about The Road and Blood Meridian. Of course, McCarthy has a number of other novels in his back-catalogue, but Suttree is generally accepted as his most humorous and the one which comes closest to autobiography.

It’s ill-advised to attempt Suttree without a dictionary to hand unless you are, in fact, Faulkner reincarnate, but the book is in itself is a hugely rewarding experience.

Marquez writes novels you can always take refuge in

We all have an author that we can go back to time and time again when we want a well-crafted story that just can’t fail. For me, that author tends to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Although there are other authors who often impress me more (Nabokov, Faulkner etc.), Marquez has never let me down.

Marquez’s novels and novellas are funny, clever, undemanding, sensitive and rich in terms of language. These are attributes that make his work timeless and the fact that he has written such a healthy collection of books means you can visit something new each time rather than returning to your well-thumbed favourite too often.

I’ve still not got through Marquez’s entire back catalogue and I’ve been reading his work for several years. Eight books in, I’m still not bored.

John Kennedy Toole – still a great loss to fiction

John Kennedy Toole committed suicide after a frustrating struggle to get his novel A Confederacy of Dunces published. It was a real waste because the novel in question is an absolute masterpiece and we have Toole’s mother to thank that it ever made it into print.

Toole’s mother carried on pushing to get his work published for years after his death and as soon as A Confederacy of Dunces was finally published it became an instant classic. Toole’s tragic death makes reading the book a bittersweet experience for his fans.

Rather than dwell on the tragedy, we can be thankful that we’ve Toole’s timeless comic leading character Ignatius J. Reilly to console us.

Lucky us for Lucky Jim

I’ve just finished reading Kingsley Amis’ classic campus comedy Lucky Jim. What is immediately refreshing about this book is that it has such a happy ending. Most classics, modern or otherwise, fall into the category of the fairly bleak – even if they are essentially comic novels.

Not so Lucky Jim. It’s easy to come away from the book with a smile on your face, even if you do have to get through some fairly excruciating scenes on the way.

It’s not difficult to see Kingsley’s influence on his son Martin Amis in the flair of his prose and his knack for rendering unmistakably British characters. This book is definitely worth a read for those who want something light-hearted to go with all the doom and gloom on their book shelves.

Hangover Square – war, alcohol and amateur philosophy

There are plenty of books out there that deal with the Second World War and its aftermath for Britain, but very few actually take a look at the attitudes involved in the run-up to this momentous event in European history.

Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square is perhaps the best example of a novel of this kind, but the great thing about it is that it is not just concerned with the sense of anxiety pervading late 1930s London – it also features a more central storyline that involves madness, sexual politics and a great deal of drinking.

Hamilton’s story concerns George Harvey Bone, who may or may not be schizophrenic. His days are spent among the shallower members of London society in the late and Hamilton uses his experience to satire the lifestyles and opinions of the age.

The result is a wonderful tale, full of artistic flair and blackly comic scenery that also deals with some more weighty issues.

Hamsun – modernising the black-comic psychological novel

I’ve just finished reading Knut Hamsun’s Hunger having been exposed to a little bit of his writing during my MA degree. Hamsun has an incredible talent for squalor and humiliation, the likes of which you sometimes find in the work of such literary greats as Nabokov and Beckett.

It is likely that Hunger actually influenced those authors in style as well as in terms of the psychological themes it portrays. Poverty, creative frustration, anxiety and madness are all touched upon with humour and vividness.

It’s amazing to think that the novel was actually written at the end of the nineteenth century, such is the modernity of its overriding style. Dostoevsky is the real king of this sort of literature by theme, but Hamsun clearly has a claim towards modernising the psychological novel and giving it a new kind of flair.

The vivid prose of Nathanael West

Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust is one of those books that is over a touch too soon. The book is incredibly short, but it feels incredibly important in its commentary of human responses to the American Dream as prescribed by Hollywood.

The vivid images in the novel represent West’s real strength – that of descriptive prose. Riot scenes and cockfights are brought ferociously to life, whilst the thought-processors of the chief characters are rendered much more subtly. These sections feel full of meaning, but West never spoon-feeds us anything, rather letting us decode his material for ourselves.

West’s career was cut short by his untimely death in a car accident, but his influence has continued into the 21st century. If you want a sample of his vivid prose, The Day of the Locust comes highly recommended.

Nabokov is the true master of style and voice

Vladimir Nabokov is most famous for ‘Lolita’ – the book that is widely considered his masterpiece. Other than ‘Lolita’, I’ve sampled two of Nabokov’s novels: ‘Despair’ and ‘Laughter in the Dark’ – both of which were a real pleasure to read.

Although it’s probably fair to say that Nabokov is an acquired taste, he is not terribly difficult to read once you’ve got to grips with his style. Very few authors can match the man for flare, which is incredible considering Nabokov wrote in two different languages – his earlier works being written in Russian and his later works, like ‘Lolita’, in English.

Nabokov is all about rhythm, style and voice. His narrators and protagonists often display very dominant characters that exude the kind of authority only a true master is capable of rendering.

Next for me will probably be ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ or ‘Ada or Ardor’ – two books I’ve been meaning to get around to for a long time now.

Kindle By Amazon

Amazon have launched an e book reader so you can read your books as you go along using a electronic device which has E Ink which makes it easier to read.

they have 2 versions:

Kindle 3G wireless reading device (free 3G & Wi-fi) £149.00
Kindle 3G wireless reading device (Wi-Fi) £109.00

you can buy books for as little as £0.00 and newspaper subscriptions for around £8.99 depending on what newspaper you are subscribing to.

I have never heard of them before but i believe they have been around for a while but i think they have only just become popular due to the I-Pad being launched.

Twilight Series

My friend got me hooked on the first twilight book (named twilight) and i read the book within 3 days and had to buy the rest of the collection.

The books are called:

Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon
Breaking Dawn

The general story is that there is a family of vampires who live in a town called Forks and a girl called Bella moves to live with her dad and falls for one of the Son’s called Edward and finds out his secret.  Bella’s father is friends with a Billy Black who lives in the area of La Push and his Son falls for Bella but further on in the films he turns into half man half warewolf.

The cast are:

Bella Swan – leading lady
Charlie Swan – Bella’s dad

Dr Carlisle Cullen – vampire dad
Esme Cullen – vampire mum
Edward Cullen
Alice Cullen
Emmet Cullen
Jasper Cullen
Rosalie  Cullen

Billy Black – La push father
Jacob Black

if you have not already read them and watched the films i would recommend to men and women to do so..