“The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are trying to get somewhere but things keep going wrong? You get on the wrong train, get off and go back in the other direction but it takes you somewhere…
“The Anatomy of Prose” by Marjorie Boulton
This is a rigorous 1950s analysis of prose, seeking to classify different elements of prose as you would classify insects or flowers. From the broad divisions of types of prose (narrative, argumentative, dramatic, informative, contemplative), Boulton proceeds to smaller divisions…
Still reading…
Despite appearances, I have not been promoting myself 24 hours a day 🙂 I finished The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and have started Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. Just don’t seem to have any spare time to do…
“Amsterdam” by Ian McEwan
This was a good, quick read. An interesting story that explores several moral issues such as euthanasia and privacy rights. Another theme is the yearning for greatness and the sacrifices involved, often in vain. For example, Clive is a famous…
“An Artist of the Floating World” by Kazuo Ishiguro
An elderly, celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, is living in retirement in Japan just after the end of World War Two. His daughter is having trouble in her marriage negotiations for reasons he can’t understand: gradually he realises it’s because he…
Extract from Susan Sontag’s diary
“X” is when you feel yourself an object, not a subject. when you want to please and impress people, either by saying what they want to hear, or by shocking them, or by boasting + name-dropping, or by being very…
“The Question of Bruno” by Aleksandar Hemon
The writing grabbed me from page one: there is a real rhythm to it, and the description is beautiful. The first story in the collection is the sort of “lazy childhood summer holiday” tale that you expect to be idyllic,…
“Prisons we choose to live inside” by Doris Lessing
"Of course, there are original minds, people who do take their own line, who do not fall victim to the need to say, or do, what everyone else does. But they are few. Very few. On them depends the health,…
Food crisis
Wonderful article in the December New Internationalist about the global food crisis. As the magazine points out, we hear a lot about the financial crisis, but comparatively little about the food crisis which pushed 100 million people into situations of…