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Apr 2020
12:55pm, 23 Apr 2020
9,279 posts
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PaulaMc
I’m struggling with Hilary Mantel. I recall that I read the two previous books on holiday when I could totally immerse myself in them which I really can’t do at the moment. I’m going to have to come back to her when I’m in a better place (both mentally and geographically).
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Apr 2020
1:42pm, 23 Apr 2020
44,826 posts
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McGoohan
I can see that. I bought Liebling this as she devoured the first two. She is showing no inclination to read it as yet.
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Apr 2020
8:22pm, 23 Apr 2020
33,658 posts
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Night-owl
Paula yore not alone a few people on twitter have said the same.
I left my phone at home today otherwise would have posted in my lunch break
Bint picked a book for me
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.
It was a double whammy, A book group book and a book written by someone from Japan
I started it OK and liked it, then I stalled and wasn't feeling it some of the characters I didn't warm to
I had been struggling to get into my reading since beginning of March, I know I'm not alone. And it was only in the last few days I've started to get back into it.
Now Nana is a cat and is narrator of this book, and male despite the name. A stray. Satoru befriends him and after an accident takes him home. Nana is named because it comes from the Japanese for 7. And Nana's tail is shaped like a 7
Nana and Satoru are on a road trip visiting friends from the past we are told Satoru is looking for a new owner for his cat we are not told why but I soon guessed why. Some clues along the way until we are told.
As we visit each group of friends we go back in time and see how they met
Its a lovely story and a book I will probably keep the book. I loved both Satori and Nana.
A nice easy story while not exciting with thrills and spills. It is very heartwarming.
Glad I read it. Thank you Bint
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Apr 2020
8:42pm, 23 Apr 2020
10,433 posts
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Little Nemo
I should finish T7DOEH tonight. It's very twisty-turny so I'll be interested if I have the same reaction as McG at the ending.
I've nearly finished the audio book of Bring Up The Bodies so I might start the 3rd part afterwards. But like others I'm finding it difficult to really concentrate and I miss being able to read on my commute. So I might read something easier instead.
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Apr 2020
8:46pm, 23 Apr 2020
16,305 posts
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Bazoaxe
Bint chose me a cracker. Loved it. the Light between the Oceans.
I lighthouse keepers wife just lost their third baby on a remote island. Then a boat washes up with a dead captain and a live baby. Keep the baby, bry the body and set the boat adrift. Who is going to know and what harm an it do ?
The guilt though gnaws at the lighthouse keeper and when on a shore visit they find out the story and who the mother is. In an effort to reassure the grieving mother, some clues are given and suddenly everyones lives are turned inside out.
My only grip is I would have liked to hear more about how the child grew up back with its real mother.
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Apr 2020
9:35pm, 23 Apr 2020
19,653 posts
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Columba
Finished A Pair of Blue Eyes this evening. As expected, tragic end (Hardy doesn't usually do happy endings, I don't think) though a different end from what I expected. On the way, lots of amazing similes / metaphors; and lots of observations about character, especially the different way men and women have of approaching situations, - a lot of this probably dependent on the subservient role women played at that time. Thank you, Bint, I enjoyed it. Been having a WhatsApp conversation with Younger Daughter about Virginia Woolf, and have decided to re-read To The Lighthouse while I wait for Decisions about the May book.
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Apr 2020
7:00am, 26 Apr 2020
567 posts
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Peregrinator
A Rogue's Life - Wilkie Collins
So go on - have guess how many books Wilkie Collins wrote. Now we know it was at least three - the Woman in white, the Moonstone and A Rogue's Life. Might help to know he lived to age 65 (08.01.1824 – 23.09.1889) and that he had a common-law wife, three children, a mistress 25 years younger than himself, and an opium addiction. Answer: about 35, plus some short stories and a couple of plays. Charles Dickens (no slouch when it came to work or unorthodox domestic arrangements that make Rodrigo Borgia's look the model of transparency and rectitude) thought Wilkie probably overdid things. ARL is from early on (1856) compared with WIW (1860) and the MS (1868). While the MS is said to be the first English Detective Novel, both ARL and the WIW were considered Sensation Novels. These have similar elements to the Gothic Novel (Woman in distress (might be up for romance), an unmentionable secret, co-incidences, a big reveal), but with middle class homes and without the supernatural or macabre bits. Sensation novels jingled and tingled the nerves of our predecessors with their themes of "crime, bigamy, adultery, arson, and arsenic"- and might even be read by women in cheap bindings and railway carriages, causing more than just an attack of the vapours.
he problem with ARL is that it isn't as good a read as the WIW, and the writing and structure less refined: authors do need to improve their work by making mistakes and developing technique. The first half is actually something different - a quite jaunty take on the life of a wastrel who tries a range of jobs to find something that will pay-the-way without too much effort. A bit like the Victorian ancestor of one of Bertie Wooster's less reputable pals from the Drone's club, with a touch of Candide. But all the time he is being tipped, by a series of co-incidences, into a romantic situation, a mysterious secret, some moral and physical danger, a bit more danger, some twists, and a happy ending. There is also a rather nasty anti-Semitic streak in the description one of the characters. As far as I can tell Wilkie wasn't anti-Semitic, it was more that making a dodgy art dealer Jewish was an easy stereotype.
Which makes it hard to recommend reading this, unless you are writing an English degree dissertation on "Sensation novels and the English Detective story". But if you persist against my reasoning, it is quite short and available free on Kindle. By chance, Perigrinette is currently reading WIW as part of a Lock-down literary marathon. Her comment on WIW: "quite good".
A note for our times: one of the characters in ARL walks 10 miles each day as a constitutional - useful evidence for what is reasonable exercise.
But thanks to Bint for picking from the list.
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Apr 2020
7:35am, 26 Apr 2020
17,413 posts
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Serendippily
Thanks I enjoyed that review. And I liked WIW and the moonstone. I probably won’t bother with this one though
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Apr 2020
7:00pm, 26 Apr 2020
10,447 posts
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Little Nemo
Right, finished my book a couple of days ago and I've had time to reflect on it.
It's a hard book to categorise - part Agatha Christie homage, part Groundhog Day style with added body swapping. Once I'd worked out what was happening in the first couple of parts I enjoyed it. It's well-written, the idea was interesting and I had high hopes. But then there seemed to be inconsistencies in its internal logic and I started to lose track of the numerous characters.
By about 150 pages in I was starting to think it might be too much style over substance. It reminded me a bit of Steven Moffat's writing. He's fond of twisty-turny plots and at the beginning they're great fun and add an extra layer to the stories. But the more he writes the more he has to wriggle to make things make sense. And eventually it becomes an over-balanced ridiculous thing that's too clever for its own good.
It picked up between about 200-300 as I decided to ignore the inconsistencies and hope that they resolved themselves and after re-reading a few bits I got the characters straighter in my head. But after this it just seemed to heap twist on twist on twist. Far too many reveals about who had fathered who, multiple murderers and even identity switches. By the end I just didn't care about anything. The final twist was ludicrous and unearned.
It's a shame because I think there is a good book in there but it would take a brutal editor to say "Start again, take out half the twists and remember - LESS IS MORE!!!"
Saying that I would still give the book a 6 because I did enjoy the writing. Some of the different characters the narrator inhabited were good and it had a great pace.
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Apr 2020
5:01pm, 27 Apr 2020
19,667 posts
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Columba
Thank you Nemo, and thank you Peregrinator. I don't think I'll read either of the books, but I did enjoy the reviews.
That "Jewish stereotype without being blatantly anti-Semitic" seems to have been standard fare in the 19th century. I'm sure there are some in Dickens. There's a minor character in Great Expectations, for example.
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Book Group
Dec 2024