After completing two books in three months, I somehow got back on tracks again. Not hitting a bad book all month probably helped…
1) One Man's Justice by Akira Yoshimura – 8/10
Review here.
2) Monumental Propaganda by Vladimir Voinovich – 7/10
Review here.
3) Corksucker by Dan Fante –7/10
Review here.
4) Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata – 7/10
Kawabata is a favourite Japanese author of mine, with a very minimalistic approach to prose. So much is unsaid. Snow Country is about the relationship between a Japanese businessman and a
‘hotspring geisha’. You’d need a good knowledge of Japanese culture to understand all the nuances of the book, so instead I settled for expanding the knowledge I did have. All in all, a rather beautiful book.
5) The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuscinski – 7/10
Review here.
6) The Night In Lisbon by Erich Maria Remarque – 8/10
Review Here.
7) Collected Poems by Anna Akhmatova – 8/10
Best poet of her generation? Best Russian poet of the 20th Century? Best female poet of all time? It’s hard to know how high to set the bar when praising Akhmatova, given you are viewing her work through translation. But even someone with a tin ear for poetry like myself can appreciate the genius on display here. A good collection, but perhaps bettered by the Penguin edition of selected poems ISBN 0-14-018617-4
8) Jeeves in the Offing by P.G. Wodehouse – 7/10
My first outing into Jeeves and Wooster, although not my first Wodehouse, and I found myself on pretty familiar, and very comfortable, territory straight away. Tim-nice-but-dim upper class Hooray Henrys, dotty aunts, comic misunderstandings and all the usual fair of the English country house farce. All elevated above the crowd by Wodehouse’s mastery of comic prose.
9) Doruntine by Ismail Kadare – 6/10
Albania’s Ismail Kadare takes us back in history for a medieval horror mystery. Local authorities are baffled when an old woman and her daughter Doruntine fall into a coma and die, after Doruntine has been seemly brought back from her distant marital home by a brother she did not realise had died three years previously. Oooooo spooky.
An unusual, but enjoyable book by Kadare. Many of his works are elegies, but if this was one of them, I was too thick to pick up on it.
10) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett – 7/10
I read this whilst watching the film. Ten minutes of the movie, then 20-30 pages of the book. In retrospect I’m not sure that was a particularly good idea.
The book had a good plot, and great dialogue, let down by the occasional feeling that characters weren’t always acting in a realistic way. Perhaps that’s the book showing it’s age, perhaps I wasn’t suspending belief enough for a mystery story. Still, there’s more than enough here to convince me to read more of Hammett’s work.
11) The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo – 6/10
Covers similar territory as ‘One Man’s Justice’ by Akira Yoshimura but with less conviction. The story is of a Japanese doctor who reluctantly takes part in human vivisection on American prisoners of war. Too much of the book is spent filling in back story and not enough on the aftermath of the operations/killings for the consequences and feelings of the characters to be fully developed. In the end It felt like a missed opportunity.
However, Endo has an excellent reputation, and the quality of prose and dialogue was high enough for me to give him another go.
12) My First Loves by Ivan Klima – 8/10
An excellent collection of short stories by one of my favourite Czech authors. The title gives away the theme of the four stories, all of which are immediately engaging, with the stand out being “The Truth Game”, a contender for my top ten favourite short stories. Quality stuff, from an under appreciated and highly gifted author.
13) Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse – 7/10
More of the same from Wodehouse. The Jeeves and Wooster story lines are pretty much interchangeable, but who cares when you’re having this much fun. A great read and an ideal one if you want to rest the brain between more substantial novels. They do tend to leave you with one nagging question though. How on earth did the British upper classes build an empire if they were this bloody stupid?
And that bring me up to 52 for the year, a good place to stop if it wasn’t for being spurred on by my current read, The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn…mama, that’s a book!
K-S
I didn't even make it through two books. Just hasn't been a good month for it. Reading is going to be a priority in November and December though.
