The Road Home

This book was pleasant enough. The story of an Eastern European immigrant who comes to London to make a better living for his daughter and mother back in their home country. The story is pretty predictable. There's a lot of nobility going on but it's not so bad. Glowing reviews all over the jacket and inside make me wonder if maybe they're referring to a hardcover version that somehow was mysteriously better than the paperback version I ended up with. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't the "at once timeless and bitingly contemporary" "gem of a novel" that makes "us hear English anew" I was expecting.

Where the Wild Things Are

I went to see this today with Olivia. I think they captured the unease of the book quite well; the perilous sense of danger in the monsters and the loneliness and rage in Max. It's a wonderful film. That being said this is not a child's movie.  The recurring themes are loneliness, anguish at why things have to change and out and out anger. These are all things children feel but not things children like to see necessarily. At the end Olivia said the monsters were Max's story just told in a different way. She said it made her feel uncomfortable (in a bad way). I concur.(but in a good way). Our favorite read aloud books were always funny anyway, George and Martha, Ernest and Celestine and Bread and Jam for Frances got us every time. No disquiet there and doubtless they will never be made into motion pictures for adults. But Liv and I would go see them happily.

Hons and Rebels

I read Jessica Mitford's Hons and Rebels last week and really was interested by the Mitford sisters. One, Unity, was an intimate of Hitlers, another, Diana, married Walter Mosley, a British Fascist, Nancy Mitford was a novelist and Jessica ran off with a Communist to fight in the Spanish Civil War. She later on wrote The American Way of Death exposing the American funeral industry. The book is a rather quick account of their eccentric childhoods, parents and adolescence. I got rather overexcited by the whole thing and ordered the Mitford Sisters which just got here in the mail. It looks rather large and I'm not sure if my interest will be sustained throughout the weight of the book.

Wuthering Low

Seduced by the very cool cover on this new edition I tried to read this again. I still don't like it. Maybe my list of things I will not tolerate in fiction (narrative written in dialect and dream sequences) was born out of this very book. Because after opening with the wild dream sequence with the ghost of Cathy clawing at the windows we get to Joseph speaking the immortal words "Und hah isn't that nowt comed in frough th'field, be this time? What is he abaht? girt eedle seeght!"

Why is this book romantic? Heathcliff is a brutal lout and Cathy is a selfish spoiled snob. OK so it's modern but what is the romance abaht? I could care less about any of them. Girt eedle shite to them!

Why? I Ask

Hmmm. I don't know why I thought this would be any good. It's not.  It's billed as Harry Potter for adults. It plays on the same story of some kid (college age this time) being whisked away into a parallel universe to a wizard school. Every mention or review says 'not for children'. Mostly because there's sex and drugs but I think any self respecting child would put this down for the sheer boredom of it all. He's not a bad writer, just a bad storyteller and if J.K. Rowling is anything, she's a great storyteller. Harry Potter is light on any substance or subtlety other than the traditional Battle between Good and Evil but it's still a great ride. In the future if I want Harry Potter I'll read Harry Potter, if I want HP with subtlety and adult themes I'd read Philip Pullman. If I want Lev Grossman...wait...that does not fit anywhere...not even in any parallel universe.

Grenville and Muriel Spark Fall Down

Finally a stinker from Kate Grenville, although it actually doesn't qualify as a true stinker, more the vaguely unpleasant odor of boredom, I finally put it down and thought as a cleanse I would read the very slim and enticing Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark. Alas, I was meant for more dissappointment (I was avoiding using this word since I never can spell it and rely on spell check to always fix it for me but rather alarmingly for all of us the spellcheck function in Blogger has dissap....wait, can't spell that one either.... vanished.) Anyway dese buks verry baad! Dont reed.

Comic Madame Bovary

After reading Madame Bovary I remembered I had a graphic novel retelling called Gemma Bovery so I pulled that out. I had heard about the writer/illustrator on a Clive James podcast where he sits on a couch with the interviewee smoking and drinking wine. Posy Simmonds was one of his many interviewees. They didn't get as down and dirty and wreathed in smoke clouds as he did with Martin Amis but I still looked up her books after.

The book is still set in France but in modern day with a bored, restless Gemma married to a weak furniture restorer Charles Bovery. She is endlessly recreating their house and her look, she obsessed with her weight. It's all told through the eyes of a local baker and manages to get in quite a few digs at the brits who come and buy cheap places in Normandy but never learn French or integrate into village life. Fun to read after the real stuff.