I seem to be choosing books by big name authors just now and in this respect I am currently trying to read Hemingway's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls'. Not as good as the Metallica song of the same name, but once I get a few other things out of the way, I can hopefully dedicate more time to it. Another problem that I have to put to the back of my mind is that Orwell condemned Hemingway for romanticising the Spanish Civil War and I am a big Orwell fan. On the other hand, many authors have taken war as a backdrop to a story and to be fair I don't believe that Hemingway was trying to document the war per se.
Raymond Chandler's 'Farewell My Lovely' was throughly enjoyable noir fiction and I look forward to reading more of his books, all of which are within a few feet of me as I write this, in beautiful hardback collected editions. Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Unconsoled' was a mind bending book, similar in style to your average David Lynch film. It was a wonderful, beautifully written book up until page 400 when I got fed up with the characters and the lack of direction. The last 100 pages resulted in a lacklustre conclusion. Not one I would recommend, especially if you value your reading time.
Stephen King's 'On Writing' was a nice short read but not as good as his earlier non fiction work, 'Danse Macabre' which was essentially King's critique on the horror genre. I passed this book onto another friend who is both a King fan and an aspiring writer so I hope she will draw some inspiration from it.
Roddy Doyle's 'The Van' is a nice interlude until I tackle something big. I decided to read it after my friend recommended it, but also because it features on the Waterstones 100 best book of the Century list. I know lists are subjective but this one really got me started on reading some fantastic books, turning a summer job in my local library into a career path, for better or worse. Doyle's book will be no. 79 from that list for me. Sitting on my pile of potential reads are Graham Greene's 'Our Man in Havana', 'Gormenghast', a John Le Carre book, 'Invisible Monsters' by Chuck Palahniuk and Kafka's 'The Castle'. Having read 'The Trial' I feel like I am incomplete until I have read 'The Castle'. I may even re-read James Ellroy's 'The Big Nowhere', after coming across page 13 where we meet Dudley Smith for the first time: "Call me Dudley. I'm older than you but you're better looking".
Well hello Carsteb,
ReplyDeletean interesting read and a lovely nod in my direction. I'm really looking forward to reading 'On Writing'. It has been a while since I have regularly read King and I miss that. I will need to read 'Christine' soon as I nabbed it from the staffroom where they have a book swap initiative going on.
It's hard not to get stuck in your ways with reading and I'm always impressed with the wide variety of texts that you are willing to embrace. I have a lovely set of Hemingway and I'm yet to read most of them - there just doesn't seem to be enough time.
I went through a period of rather enjoying Doyle, 'The Van' is part of his fantastic trilogy - loved 'The Giggler Treatment' (as did my S1 class!) as well but when I came across 'Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha!" and 'A Star Called Henry' he lost me... we can't all be perfect though!
Enjoying rereading the Adrian Mole books once again, cheesy but I get a lot of enjoyment out of them! Did I tell you that I have organised a staff Book Group? We have had our first meeting, we read 'The White Woman on the Green Bicylce' by Monique Roffey. Next week we are meeting to discuss 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' - you can imagine who that inspired suggestion came from!
Enjoying reading your blogs! :)
Kate
update: Hemingway was a disappointing read and I eventually moved onto Kafka.
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