OpinionsLtd is in two minds about Penguin's collected Can Themba, Requiem for Sophiatown with "roughly half" of the stories falling flat. "But when I imagined apartheid government demolition crews wrecking Themba's Sophiatown while he wrote," OL continues, the book took on a "sense of panic".
"Themba's occasional descriptions of Sophiatown's destruction seem distant until you notice the urgency in his style. Did he write with the sounds of bulldozers tearing down his favourite shebeen in the background? I don't know. But he eventually made me hear them."
It was the story "Marta", with its observation "S'funny how a drunk woman's child never falls", which grabbed OL, who confesses "after that line, the story had me to the end".
"I was reeling during the drunken development of African identity in 'The Bottom of the Bottle'. 'Ten to Ten' enters the enormous shoes of a giant, black police officer. In the all-dialogue story, 'The Fugitives', the characters shout, whisper, yell and laugh out of the page without the help of a narrator. The most well-known story in the collection, 'The Suit', is a masterful story about infidelity that refuses to take sides. Each time I read it, I have a new opinion."
That's enough for me to make up my mind about Can Themba. One for the to-read pile.
Stpauli, meanwhile, has taken on an entire box-set. Yes, of course, it's the Hunger Games. "Everyone probably knows the basic set-up by now," she sighs, but the "gladiatorial plot", "constant peril" and the "sadistic ruses of the Gamemakers devised to make the contest more exciting" certainly make The Hunger Games a "gripping read". But it's the wider issues which really catch stpauli's interest:
"… The Hunger Games trilogy is also a clever and revealing satire on media manipulation and the nature of celebrity. Not only are the tributes assigned stylists and media coaches, they're also fully aware that their survival depends at least in part on the way the public perceives them. The contrast between life in the districts, where malnutrition and starvation are common and technology barely exists for most of the people, and the privileged life of decadent excess in the Capitol, is also cleverly portrayed."
By the time stpauli has reached book three, Katniss's ordeals and her role as a pawn have become "rather wearing". But despite doubts over the quality of Suzanne Collins's prose, the ingenious plotting and thought-provoking subject matter are enough to see stpauli saluting their "well-deserved" popularity.
One more for the to-read … or is that three?
No further guilt this week, for me at least: bilberry has been enjoying one which I have mentally stashed away for the to-read pile when I am old and grey. Only so many Dickens left, you see, and I want a nice, big pile to work through along with all that Thackeray I never seem to have time for … but back to Our Mutual Friend. Bilberry has read it before, of course, "but this won't be the last time", as on each rereading "Different characters come to the fore".
"Whereas as a young reader I probably skipped through the passages describing the Veneerings et al, and their political doings, this time I was horribly gripped by the toadying and the slipping and sliding downwards. I might have felt before that they were too unreal, but now I know better."
The central romance was at once less romantic but "the more fascinating as a result" – perhaps review is turning towards memoir here – the "unsympathetic" male lead is "only redeemed by disfigurement and injury" and, of course, there's the river, "giving life just as it takes it, bringing people together, separating them forever, both good and evil, but mostly the latter". It's far too late for me to come to this as any kind of "young reader", alas, but I'm looking forward to my pipe and slippers already.
That's it for this week: if I've mentioned your review, please write to me at richard.lea@guardian.co.uk and I'll send you something excellent from our cupboards.
