June 28, 2011
Book Advice
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When you’re working through a huge back catalogue of books you feel you should have read, you sometimes get to a bit of an impasse.
The difficulty lies in choosing what to read next – whether to go for a classic you feel guilty at having missed out on so far, whether to choose something random that you simply like the look of, or whether to return to something you want to engage with a second time.
Tackling all the classics out there is an endless task, but it is a fulfilling one. Having said that, you have to give yourself a break sometimes and choose something for the sheer pleasure of it to prevent reading from becoming something of a chore.
Follow your instincts and don’t feel guilty about putting things off to give yourself some light entertainment every so often.
June 27, 2011
Authors
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John Fante is not really a household name when it comes to great American literature but he can actually be counted among the most influential writers working in the US in the Twentieth Century.
A number of high profile writers including the likes of Charles Bukowksi have publicly registered their admiration of Fante’s work in the last number of decades and it isn’t hard to see why once you start getting to grips with his back catalogue.
Most famous for the Bandini Quartet, a series of four novels dealing with the trials and tribulations of the Bandini family, Fante is now considered one of the hidden treasures of American literature.
June 27, 2011
Authors
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It’s taken me an awfully long time to get round to reading some John Updike, but I’ve finally started reading Rabbit, Run.
One of the reasons it’s taken me so long is the fact that this is the first novel centring on Harry Angstrom and so I’ll have a number of follow-up reads to get into afterwards.
Oddly, I’ve joined the Rabbit series at 26, the same age as Angstrom is in the first book, which means I’m probably in the ideal position to relate to him. For now, the jury’s out, but we’ll see what the next couple of hundred pages bring.
June 20, 2011
Authors
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John McGahern is perhaps best known for his novels The Dark and Amongst Women, dealing with the harshness of adolescence in rural Ireland. However, I recently discovered an earlier work called The Pornographer which showed more of McGahern’s sense of humour and skill when dealing with a more metropolitan setting.
The story revolves around a writer of erotic fiction and the pregnancy that comes as a result of a relationship that is doomed from the outset. The action takes place alongside the slow decline of the protagonist’s aunt who is dying of cancer.
This book is particularly memorable for its measured sense of realism and the way it resists reducing life experience to a simple moral code. It is a feature of McGahern’s work to avoid preaching and that is something that is very evident in The Pornographer – which, unsurprisingly, was banned in Ireland for its sexual content.
June 6, 2011
Book Reviews
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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.