Summer reading: a book is a mirror …
"A modern master at the height of his powers", "astonishing technical virtuosity", "comes alive in his hands", "a delight" ... blah blah fucking blah.
Don't bother with the drivel recommended in the Guardian's Summer Reading collection. There are too few surprises (though Robert Crumb is an honourable exception!). And if I needed any prompting (which I didn't really) I shall now consign anything written by Nadeem Aslam and James Wood to the slop bucket. Look at what they recommend!
Summer reading? I've just picked up, again, Gert Hofmann's Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl. It really is the sweetest, lightest, funniest, most movingest book there is. I bought it in May 2004. It's still not out in paperback. It's still not out in paperback.
I thought that Robert Macfarlane’s choices looked interesting too: the 370 page poem “written whilst walking through London”, in particular, was something I’d missed compeletely and will now seek out.
Yes, perhaps. But given Macfarlane’s other choices and his conservative opinions in the TLS and elsewhere, I reckon Borodale is probably a mate and this is a gesture of friendship and an exception. I’m suspicious.
BTW, Josipovici’s novel “Moo Pak” is also “written whilst walking through London”, but it’s only 150 pages, so probably doesn’t count.
Oh. I hadn’t even begun to suspect the usual back scratching.
Thanks for the hint on Moo Pak. Even bettter, Carcanet have money off online orders and no postage charges cf Amazon’s extra charge for this hard to find item.
Sandra, thanks for the reminder about Carcanet. “Moo Pak” is one of my favourite novels as you might know.
Steve
I don’t think you are right about Wood. He gave Enduring Love the harshest possible review in the Guardian — compared it with Sid Field’s popular guides on how to write Hollywood thrillers. And his review of Saturday in the New Republic was pretty mixed, and very skeptical about the thriller elements.
In what way am I wrong? Wood recommended the book in the Guardian’s pages. End. Of. Story.