The three books I have been reading, the Asher finished last night, one of those books you could call High Octane because the violence and the battles and the sci-fi are always ramping up the tension. Readable, though, very readable, though nothing much to write about here, except that the language of porn appears to creep into the book - the arch villainess and evil ruler of this dsytopian earth hears that one of her senior staff likes to to have three men at once because she says she "likes all her holes filled at once". It's a strange unappealing misfire, a cliche in itself.
MY Father's Tears has some outstanding writing, and also some duds. It must have been released after John Updike's death - I'm sure he would have spotted the repetition of "seemed to know the ropes" about two separate groups of tourists in Spanish Prelude to a Second Marriage, only a few pages apart, you would have thought an editor would to. The Varieties of Religious Experience, doesn't quite work either, it's a little too obvious, but I can see that he had to find some response to 9/11, and parts of it are fine. It opens well with Dan Kellog's revalation that "There is no God", the opening words of the story, but doesn't add anything that Updike hasn't more fully explored elsewhere in The Beauty of Lilies, or A Month of Sundays, or Marry me - the list goes on, the list of Updike's attempts to reconcile belief and the intellectual imperative of atheism. But Delicate Wives is a perfectly formed story. I'm about half way through, but have been knocked off kilter by the Varieties of Religious Experience, and Spanish Prelude - somehow it diminishes the book as a whole to have not so good stories, which is crazy - although maybe not, it makes you start each new story with a little quiver of fear that it may not be up to much.
Murakami's book I bough while walking in the Brecon beacons in a rare moment of 3G access to download it. I'm glad I did - his I was going to say "flat laconic style" fits this kind of autobiography, but it's not flat, it's not laconic - it is just so well written in a Murakami way that it gives the appearance of flat laconocism (whatever that is, use your imagination) while flexing and pushing ideas and images out from the prose.
Carl Hiaasen is a rocking read, the synopsis in the Guardian's recommended summer reads sums it up well - disgraced cop, beauteous coroner, monkey fired from the set of the Pirates of the Carribean for unsavoury behaviour. The rest is plot, guts, guns and fat hot Florida.
Lauren Buekes is another great find, after her free book Moxyland, started buying her books, weird crime/sci-fi , post cyber punk mayhem, witty and funny and disturbing in equal measure.
Well at least I've written something to day.
No comments:
Post a Comment