Reading

“Rushing to Paradise” by J.G. Ballard

I read “Crash” a while back. Everything that happened in the book from beginning to end was completely unbelievable, but still I quite liked it. It was somehow compelling, like the car crashes it described. The characters were unreal, human…
Read more

“Afterwards” by Rachel Seiffert

The style of writing is very conversational. No beauty, not even many full sentences. The sort of writing with not many verbs. Just reportage,and not always very grammatical, like you were hearing someone tell you it on the phone. That…
Read more

“Complicity” by Iain Banks

I was attracted by the political element of the story, and also the fact that parts of it are written in second person, an interesting idea that I am exploring at the moment in my own writing. Unfortunately I found…
Read more

“Identity” by Milan Kundera

Warning: this review gives away the ending. There’s something intensely dissatisfying about stories that end “but it was all a dream and then she woke up.” Logically, I suppose there shouldn’t be. We accept that a story is made up,…
Read more

“Miracles” by C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis sets out to prove by logical argument that miracles are possible. The clear-headed writing style helps to draw you in, he anticipates a lot of the criticisms people will have, and I just like the attempt to argue…
Read more

Edward Said – On Late Style

It’s good that Edward Said got far enough with the writing of this book to allow it to be published posthumously. It’s sad, though, that he was not able to finish it himself. The editors spliced together notes, lectures and…
Read more

“The Undiscovered Self” by Carl Jung

Writing in 1957, Jung is very concerned with the Cold War, Communism and the threat of nuclear disaster. However, his points seem very salient in 2008 as well. He is alarmed about ‘mass-mindedness’ — the reduction of individuals to anonymous,…
Read more