Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
First up, two reviews of Graham Greene’s Our Man In Havana. It’s pleased paulburns:
A delightful satire on the British Secret Service, with which Greene was intimately acquainted. A true balance of wit, humour, seriousness, tragedy and crime which was a worthy inspiration to John le Carré, and not a trace of froth and bubble. Captures Cuba just before the fall of Batista as well as the movie Godfather II. He also knows how to end a book properly. Greene at his best.
And Gretsch83 had interesting tactics for approaching the novel:
With a miniature whisky bottle and copy of Buena Vista Social Club by my side, I’ve been reading Our Man In Havana. It matches a dry wit to occasional flashes of real jeopardy, and what a shame Greene felt the need to dismiss this as one of his “entertainments” as it’s a better written work of literature than the majority of serious presentations.
Perhaps Graham Greene would approve. But then again: only miniature?
Elsewhere, PlumedCrest100 is approaching the end of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall:
It is quite easy to feel as if you are walking around Henry’s court listening to the whispers of the sharp-elbowed courtiers when truly engrossed in the book because of Mantel’s careful rendering of the times and Cromwell’s world. I particularly like her portrayal of Catherine of Aragon, it is easy to forget that she was a woman with a cultivated mind who acted with a good measure of dignity whilst her husband degraded her.
Mantel’s depiction of Thomas More is also interesting, she seems to show him and Cromwell as two sides of the same coin, equal in viciousness, zeal and devotion to the king. Though of course, More’s devotion to Henry falters because of the strength of his belief.
Wolf Hall was also in the headlines again last week, but a more “hidden gem” attracted the attention of originalabsence: Adam Thorpe’s “superlative” Nineteen Twenty-One:
I’m only on page 39 but it looks the great WWI aftermath novel. The art and craft is exquisite. Why this novelist and poet isn’t rated perhaps the UK’s finest, most subtle literary talent I’ve no idea.
This post was followed by a recommendation for Thorpe’s Still from MissBurgundy:
Still is very long, stream of consciousness, based on an impossible premise. I’m sure many people gave up on it as it was available in every good charity shop in the 1990s, and can often be found today. I thought it was a work of genius.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway didn’t quite grab Veufveuve:
I admired this book, for its technique and innovativeness, but I found I couldn’t love it. I think that despite the immense interiority - the book is nothing but interiority - I still felt that I was on the outside looking in, watching each character as they move about, and never really knowing them (this is especially true of Clarissa Dalloway herself). It feels alienated and alienating. Perhaps that is the point?
There were no such doubts about Coast to Coast by Jan Morris from Vesca:
Originally written in the 50s (although my version has definitely been updated some time in the 60s) this is Morris in America. Or rather, the United States of America.
And that’s why I love Jan Morris. I love the way she makes me think about the complexity and diversity and history and sheer vastness of a place that popular culture likes to reduce to pizza and presidential elections and Hollywood movies: Key West, barges on the Mississippi, uranium prospectors (yes, you read that right), why residents in Washington didn’t get to vote, local newspapers, and all.
Finally, Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run has been speaking to vermontlogger:
Enjoying listening to this on CD. It’s read by Bruce himself, with feeling and character, and it’s impressive, both as a life story and as a piece of writing – direct, robust, unpretentious, articulate, and highly self-aware. A very cool guy.
I don’t think anyone could argue with that.
Interesting links about books and reading
- Millennials don’t like ebooks as much as paper books either.
- When Agatha Christie covers were actually quite frightening.
- Five early reviews of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint.
- Book critic Bradley Babendir has an interesting explanation for why so many reviews are so boringly positive.
If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the brown button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.
If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading: “shelfies”, or all kinds of still lives with books as protagonists. Now you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!
