I've spent the last month finally getting around to several books that have been on my reading list for as long as 3 decades which I just never got around to.
Book 27: Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
I enjoyed this. Definitely dated as all hell but still razor sharp wit at times and the jammy life of academia and lust that Jim leads frequently brought a smile to my face as it reminded me all too often of a few people who've been in and out of my life. It's not all light, mind. The subplot of a lead character with a suicidal (albeit probably not with full intent), history keeps the novel grounded.
Book 28: Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs
Probably one that is on every sixth former's reading list passed me by at the time and that's probably a shame as I suspect I would have found more in it at that age than I did now. Although I finished it and read quite a lot of the supplementary material at the end, my continued reaction throughout large swathes of it was, 'I'm too old for this shit'. Would I try more Burroughs?, yes. Would I persevere to finish them if they were similar to this?, not even close.
Book 29: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Watching the movie with my dad as a close to double figures aged boy is one of my fondest memories (probably due to how inappropriate it seems now), and indeed it has gone on to be one of my favourite films. It was several years later in my teens that I realised it was based on Kesey's novel and I vowed to read it but again, never did. I'm so glad I finally have though. This was by far my favourite of these mid-20th Century classics and one of my favourites of the year so far.
The very unreliable narration from the Chief's point of view was spectacular and there were enough difference's from the movie to allow both works to continue as stand alone pieces without feeling the urge to have them compete for which is 'best', a lazy critique that I try to avoid at all costs.
Like Plath's
The Bell Jar that I read a while back, the modern mind boggles at the techniques implemented in the treatment of mental illness in the not too distant past. Just as in Plath's book, the fine line the human mind balances on that can make even recognising who is and isn't mentally healthy is illustrated wonderfully in Kesey's book.
Dark matter is rarely this entertaining.
Book 30 was going to be
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer but after 4 days and what my Kindle tells me was 15% of the book read, I felt absolutely no desire to continue at this point in time. My mind was constantly drifting from the words on the page and whilst it's one I'd like to return to due to having enjoyed several of Mailer's works in the past, it wasn't working for me right now. So, onto something more contemporary...
Book 30: A Visit from The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
This was a whole lot of fun. I knew it had received several critical plaudits but the reader reviews seem far from unified. I'm definitely in the, 'It's a real page-turner, unputdownable!' column. Having read little past the review headlines however, I had no idea it is made up of 13 vignette style short stories connected by a group of characters that exist in the sphere of influence of a record producer, Bennie.
It's funny, it's modern, it's relatable, (although probably in an, 'I've seen too many '80s American movies' kind of way). The connectivity of the cast can at times seem a little contrived but that would be my only negative report, otherwise I loved every word of it.
The book wouldn't load on my Paperwhite model, hence the iPad photo, (I mainly read it on my phone which wasn't nearly as dire an experience as I thought it might be), and I suspect this technical failure was due to the penultimate chapter which, in a very postmodern way, is presented as a series of 70-odd PowerPoint slides! I instantly thought that this was little more than a gimmick and so close to the end of the book, worried that it may ruin an otherwise capital novel upto this point. I was wrong. Egan so skillfully presents a really moving diary in this chapter from a young girl's point of view as she documents her brother's fascination with pauses in music and the relationship she has with her parents, especially their annoying habits.
Like a great album, the sequencing of the chapters seems perfect to me but I guess technically they can be read in any order as the narration jumps across time and place throughout and one chapter doesn't lead to the other, the overall significance tying them all together as a novel only becoming apparent the further through them you read. With that in mind, if anyone is interested in reading the PowerPoint chapter,
Great Rock and Roll Pauses By Alison Blake, Egan hosts it on her
website, in full colour and even featuring embedded music where appropriate. Try it, it's great fun.
