Booktalk

One of the quirks of my behaviour is that I always have a book that I am 'reading'. Even if said book is gathering dust on the floor a diffident throw's length from my bed, there is always a book that I am 'reading'. After I read the last line, there's a period of reflection that can last between a few days (Catch-22) and a few seconds (the Quiller novels), and then my fingertips start itching for print.

It's this that I failed to take account of on my trip to the Alps. For three weeks I was working a full schedule in a small French town that, inconsideratly, had no engligh-language bookshop. As a result, I read Gridlock (Ben Elton) through twice and Feet of Clay (Terry Pratchett) four times. It wasn't until I got to Geneva that I could resolve this. That was fifteen days ago, and since then, I have read the following books.

The trial and death of Socrates
I felt immensely intelectual reading this on Swiss buses, but the truth is that I chose it because it looked like the most appealing on the hostel bookshelf. It leaves me with the uncomfortable and probably heretical suspicion that Socrates may have been the father of western thought, but he was also a bit of a charlie.

On the Beach by Nevil Chute
In a word, this is "thoughtful". It's well paced and unlike most books there's no schock in it. Actually, it's better to say that the shock starts in chapter one and grows and swells like the tide through the whole book- in that respect, it reminds me of the little Christopher Isherwood I've read. It tells you about a man collecting milk from a dairy, a woman planning her garden, another man at his country club- and all of these people are aware that at some point radioactive fallout is going to start falling from the sky and everyone will die. It's subtle and solid and it made me cry in the Place de Republique.

Grendel by John Gardner
According to About the Author, this was written by a lifetime proffessor in English. Having mixed it up with academics for some time, I could have guessed. Firstly, you're unlikely to enjoy this book unless you're at least on a handshake familiarity with Beowulf. Secondly, you need to be prepared to take in your stride expressions like "Talking, talking, spinning a spell, pale skin of words that closes me in like a coffin". Well, in point of fact, you don't have to take them in your stride. You can do like I did: read on and hope later text explains what on earth it's supposed to mean.
Don't go away thinking I didn't like this book. I really did. Maybe, though, that's because I have an abiding affection for Beowulf. Incidentally, it's my belief that "The Grinch who stole Christmas" is based on the character of Grendel. But with less blood-drinking and arm-rending, of course.

Howards End by E.M. Forster
I really wanted to like this. To like Howards End would reflect well on the quality of my educated tastes. E.M. Forster sounds like someone I'd have liked to have tea with. Unfortunately, the only lasting impression I have from this book is a deep unease over the lack of an apostrophe in the title.


The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
In classic Pratchett style, there is a coronation of the Low King of the Dwarves, and the wonderul Commander Vimes is introduced as an ambassador from a human city trying to secure a favourable trading deal on the produce of the Uberwald fat mines. It's the mix of realism and fantasy that has given Mr Pratchett a very contented bank manager, and like all his novels, there are big themes to make an educated secular liberal like me rub my hands with glee.
It's not, in my opinion, as good as Jingo or Night Watch or Feet of Clay, but this is a bit like saying that India isn't as big as China. It's still big.

The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan-Doyle
When it was newly written, people read this for the murders, the mystery, and the boat-chase (cars not having been invented). To a degree that's still true, but I mostly enjoyed it as a window into a time when it was considered acceptable to describe people as "congenitally savage" and propose marriage on the fourth meeting.

Actually, that's another thing that struck me in Howards End. People were paradoxically easy about getting hitched. At the point in the dramas when I expected a man to ask a woman if she'd care to join him for dinner at this marvellous restaurant he knew, if she didn't have anything else planned, maybe, it was all kneeling and rings. My thought is that you shouldn't ask unless you already know the answer will be yes. I used to think I was old-fashioned in this respect, but apparently not.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
As you probably won't be suprised to hear, I don't think I've ever been in a fight. So it was that I started this horrific and compulsive book. At around eleven, I realised that if I didn't want to spend the dark hours in the off-kilter mindset of Tyler Durden, I'd better finish the book that night. It's been a long time since I saw the film, but it seems fairly faithful to the book- which did, yes, come first.
It's affecting, but to tell ou the truth, I can't think of much else to say about it.

This morning I woke up, looked sadly at the husked Random House on the floor, and chose Notes from a Small Island from my grandfather's Bill Bryson shelf. Some hours later I shook my head, decided that I needed to do things today, and firmly shut the book as the first words of chapter seven jumped and played, trying to keep my attention.

What I haven't mentioned, though, is the book that I'm still reading on and off, and which is probably the most thought provoking. It's about Worldines, Simultaneity, and the Absaloute Elsewhere. It's Taylor and Wheeler's Spacetime Physics. But that is a story for another day.

Song in my head: "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz