Books I've been reading

Reread this wonderful novel by Pearl Buck. She said she thought out the sentences in Chinese and then translated them into English. The sentences are also strongly influenced by the King James' Bible. A definite must-read.

And I've been reading shameless chick lit. Really bottom feeding. Reading about a book a day.

Most recent novel I read was 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. Has anyone else here read this? I've got to say, I really wasn't very impressed with it. It had the potential to be fascinating, but it wasn't.

I'm nearing the end of the "Python Years" volume of Michael Palin's diaries which I've enjoyed greatly.

Palin is so often saddled with the "Mr Nice Guy" label that it comes as a relief to learn that he does occasionally get angry about things. He's not a saint- although he does come over as a decent man- and this makes him all the more likeable.

This was a stroll down memory lane for me. Palin is an acute social observer and I've been reliving life in London in the 1970's: IRA bombs, power cuts, strikes.

Fascinating to observe the interplay of strong personalities in the Python team, and there are also revealing encounters with other showbiz personalities such as Harold Pinter, Mick Jagger and Ron Wood.

He hated Andy Warhol's Studio 54- and you can quite see why.

Funniest story in the book must be Palin's account of his experience of hosting Saturday Night Live on US TV. His opening monologue had him dancing with two cats down his trousers, one of whom freaks out under the studio lights and shits all over him: all this before an audience of millions on live TV.

Highly recommended.

Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef wrote:Most recent novel I read was 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. Has anyone else here read this? I've got to say, I really wasn't very impressed with it. It had the potential to be fascinating, but it wasn't.

What was it about? Was it about Kevin? Sounds pretty dull already

Nah Ville Sky Chick wrote:

Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef wrote:Most recent novel I read was 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. Has anyone else here read this? I've got to say, I really wasn't very impressed with it. It had the potential to be fascinating, but it wasn't.

What was it about? Was it about Kevin? Sounds pretty dull already

We had it in the shop for a while , we only sold one copy. It had reasonable reviews . From what I remember it was about a 15 year old boy who was in prison for murdering some of his class mates . It takes the form of letters from his his mother to her ex husband which try to examine what went wrong and why. I did not exactly read it all . I only skimmed bits her and there so I may not be 100% correct .

Nah Ville Sky Chick wrote:

Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef wrote:Most recent novel I read was 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. Has anyone else here read this? I've got to say, I really wasn't very impressed with it. It had the potential to be fascinating, but it wasn't.

What was it about? Was it about Kevin? Sounds pretty dull already

Basically, it's a mother's account of her relationship with her family and her son Kevin. Kevin goes into school and kills a load of students. I didn't like the novel because Kevin seemed pretty much pure 'evil' from day one, even as a baby he was a shit. Something his father hadn't noticed (or chose not to see). It was pretty absurd, at one point I thought it was venturing towards being a supernatural thriller or something. It almost would have made more sense if the kid was actually the devil or something... that would have been crap, but probably would have made more sense! There was certainly some interesting things in it, such as how much you could trust the mother's account, how much was it her fault, etc.

It could have been good. Are people born bad, or is their surroundings? etc etc etc. Instead it was just reactionary.

It's seems to have done very well commercially and is now being made into a movie.

London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 by Barry Miles

David Haslam on a roll call of happenings and stunts that challenged mainstream attitudes

The Guardian, Saturday 10 April 2010

The history of anti-establishment activity and artistic endeavour in London since the second world war is contentious and patchily documented. No single volume with an individual perspective can incorporate all there is to say on the subject, but Barry Miles delivers as accessible a survey as you're likely to find.

His method is anecdotal rather than analytical, giving due weight to events such as the Oz trial and the seminal 1965 poetry reading at the Albert Hall, but always looking for less celebrated moments that capture the flavour of an era; Derek Jarman winning the Alternative Miss World title in 1975 wearing a silver diamante dress accessorised with snorkelling flippers, for example.

Miles is good at describing a character's contribution to the world of art and ideas, often doing so by placing them in particular locations and explaining how this fits their personal story. He takes us to coffee bars, communes and bookshops, and key sites from the Roundhouse to the Groucho Club, starting at the Colony Room where Francis Bacon hung out, a bit aloof and a bit drunk. "It's a place where you feel you can lose your inhibitions," Bacon used to say.

The book's cast is huge; Brion Gysin, Gilbert and George, the Beatles, Mary Quant, Colin MacInnes, George Melly and JG Ballard make appearances, as do scores of others, many under the influence of alcohol, LSD, alienation, extreme egotism, revolutionary fervour, or a cocktail of several of these. Some of their activities made little impact but are still worth recalling, such as the Exploding Galaxy commune questioning traditional notions of clothing. Its spokesman explained that a surreal attitude to dressing-up was a way to see "one's own life transformed as part of the life that gives meaning and makes history"; he'd say stuff like that while wearing a cushion as a hat.

The momentum behind all this history is the way London is always calling, drawing people to the city from the suburbs, the regions and the world. Miles describes the impact made by the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Gustav Metzger and Vivienne Westwood, all re-energising what Miles calls the "counterculture". Unfortunately he doesn't spend enough time developing an analysis of what he means by "counterculture", or what it is counter to. And surely the story of how music impresario Larry Parnes turned Tommy Hicks into Tommy Steele and Ron Wycherley into Billy Fury belongs in a history of showbiz rather than a history of the cultural underground.

If you're looking to define the counterculture throughout the postwar story – not just the 60s-specific forms of counterculture described well in Jonathon Green's All Dressed Up and elsewhere – then the challenge to mainstream attitudes to sex and sexual relations is crucial. And, indeed, London Calling is brimming with nudity, homosexuality, bondage and – in the case of George Melly – a series of threesomes in various combinations. Throughout, the establishment appears to be exercised more by wayward lifestyles than by leftfield art, but when the two come together there's always trouble. Of the Sex Pistols, one Tory member of the GLC is quoted as saying "Most of the [punk] groups would be vastly improved by sudden death."

Barry Miles was co-founder of Indica, a gallery-bookshop which opened in 1965, and of the underground newspaper International Times. In his introduction he admits that London Calling highlights "people I knew, or whose work I am most familiar with" (for example, William Burroughs, the COUM group of performance artists, John Latham and Leigh Bowery), but whether it's down to a lack of space or lack of personal knowledge, it's a shame his history omits Jamaican sound systems, Hawkwind and Rough Trade Records; novelist Shena Mackay, Virago and the Women's Press; Blow Up, Peter Kennard, casuals, skinheads, and anything south of the river. It's also bizarre that a countercultural history of London doesn't mention the anti-Vietnam war demo outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. Much of the artistic endeavour Miles describes is in some part motivated by a desire for social change, but he is generally reluctant to discuss political activity outside the world of galleries and bookshops.

Even away from the demos and political campaigns, however, the counterculture's battles with the police loom large. It's striking how ill-judged the behaviour of the police is throughout the book, especially in their obsession with "obscenity" and "indecency". They're vindictive (raiding and wrecking the offices of underground magazines), and scandalously corrupt (Miles covers the whole sorry story of the CID's "dirty squad" receiving bribes from Soho pornographers).

What's most important to take from this history, though, is what might be called "the power of the cell"; how a tiny group of disaffected outsiders can create a sensation, or a movement, or even change the world. Important cultural activity invariably begins small-scale, maybe finding a focus in a grotty bar or a club or some barely-selling magazine. Miles describes how the contributors to New Worlds magazine believed that innovative writing was required to deal with the modern world. The editorial board – including Michael Moorcock and JG Ballard – would gather on Thursday evenings at the White Horse in Fetter Lane. Doris Lessing attended one evening, but left unnerved and underwhelmed. She says it wasn't until later that she realised what she'd witnessed: "In that prosaic room, in that very ordinary pub, was going on the most advanced thinking in this country."

Dave Haslam's Not Abba: The Real Story of the 1970s is published by Fourth Estate.

The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness - the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall.

It is a story of incomparable drama. This was the century of Julius Caesar, the gambler whose addiction to glory led him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond; of Cicero, whose defence of freedom would make him a byword for eloquence; of Spartacus, the slave who dared to challenge a superpower; of Cleopatra, the queen who did the same.

Tom Holland brings to life this strange and unsettling civilization, with its extremes of ambition and self-sacrifice, bloodshed and desire. Yet alien as it was, the Republic still holds up a mirror to us. Its citizens were obsessed by celebrity chefs, all-night dancing and exotic pets; they fought elections in law courts and were addicted to spin; they toppled foreign tyrants in the name of self-defence. Two thousand years may have passed, but we remain the Romans' heirs.


Reviews

'The book that really held me, in fact, obsessed me, was Rubicon by Tom Holland. This is narrative history at its best.' Ian McEwan, The Guardian Books of the Year

‘Holland has the rare gift of making deep scholarship accessible and exciting. A brilliant and completely absorbing study.’ A. N. Wilson, author of The Victorians

'This is the most exciting political history I've ever read.' MAIL ON SUNDAY

'Tom Holland's excellent new study of the fall of the Republic…re-evaluating Rome for a new generation.' Robert Harris, SUNDAY TIMES

Most recently I have read Gitta Sereny's 'Cries Unheard: The Story of Mary Bell'.

Mary Bell killed two children (aged 2 & 3 I think) when she was 10 years of age. Sereny followed the case from the very beginning (1968) and then in 1995 managed to talk to Mary (living under a new name) at length about her life and the crimes she committed. This is a fascinating book that I highly recommend.

Mary Bell at the age when she committed the crimes:

This is not really a biography of the late Swedish crime writer at all but a bitty, impressionistic overview of his short life and work.

Moderately informative but nothing more.

...has anyone read 'The Road' (by Cormac McCarthy)?

I read it when asked to by my ex-uni tutor. She said her current young students were too timid to venture opinions in class. Because the liklihood of them actually reading The Road was good (it's quite short), she asked if I would read it and then when the time came, sit in on the class and prompt discussion, posing as a mature-aged student.

I raced through it and hated the bleak book...but a closer reading revealed the poetry in the style and some of it's underlying themes, and I changed my opinion. It makes me wonder how much is lost by reading while only half engaged, or (horror-of-all-horrors for the mature-aged) while multitasking

Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef wrote:Most recently I have read Gitta Sereny's 'Cries Unheard: The Story of Mary Bell'.

Mary Bell killed two children (aged 2 & 3 I think) when she was 10 years of age. Sereny followed the case from the very beginning (1968) and then in 1995 managed to talk to Mary (living under a new name) at length about her life and the crimes she committed. This is a fascinating book that I highly recommend.

Mary Bell at the age when she committed the crimes:

I'm currently ready Gitta Sereny's book on Albert Speer (titled 'Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth'). Speer was, amongst other things, Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production. In the part that I have just read, Speer was challenged by Hitler in a staring contest across the table at dinner. Hitler lost. Surreal.

I've been reading some Richard Brautigan novels over the past few days - they're involving and entertaining, some of them
contain some interesting lines of thought. Some friend recommended them to me years ago and now I finally got around to
checking them out. The omnibus edition I bought includes

- A Confederate General from Big Sur: Brautigan's first book, published in 1965, is the best of the bunch, imo. It's a witty
take on the beatniks' ideals, especially the end seems to be meant as a deconstruction of Kerouac. The parallel story about a confed general
in the 1860s doesn't lead anywhere but is still intriguing. I like how the two plots frequently get mixed up and thus the civil war
imagery turns metaphorical.

- Dreaming of Babylon: This was released in 1974, I think. It's a spoof of the classic private eye novels, telling a story that's typical for the genre,
simply overexaggerating the familiar topoi. Many sections had me laughing out loud but the end was very disappointing. Brautigan just seems to
have lost interest in the book at some point.

- The Hawkline Monster: I'm currently reading this and although this was recommended to me I'm yet to be convinced. So far the "Gothic
Western" is the most uninteresting of the bunch as far as I'm concerned. I'll be reporting back after the (hopefully) grand finale.

"Malcolm Blight" by Tim Watson .
This is a book about a revered Australian rules footballer and coach. It is a light read , but fascinating.

On a Shakespeare trip at present and re-reading this:

********************************************************************************

A lot of good Will

Peter Ackroyd's enthusiastic study of the Bard, Shakespeare, joins a crowded field, says Stanley Wells

The Observer, Sunday 11 September 2005



Shakespeare: The Biography
by Peter Ackroyd
Chatto & Windus £25, pp560

Peter Ackroyd tells us that he came to write this biography 'as a Shakespeare enthusiast rather than expert', and the enthusiasm is clear from the enormous amount of reading that he undertook in preparing it, as well as in his evident appreciation of the plays and poems.

He tackles all the significant issues, relating them whenever he can to Shakespeare's artistic life. Was his father a covert Catholic? Ackroyd tends to thinks he was and that this explains the financial difficulties he experienced during his son's early manhood. And perhaps, Ackroyd suggests, this is also why 'the plays of Shakespeare are filled with authoritative males', such as Richard II, Brutus and Antony, 'who have failed'.

Is Shakespeare the 'William Shakeshafte' named in a Catholic will of 1581? Although the will mentions 'players' along with 'instruments and play clothes', it does not necessarily imply that Shakeshafte was a player. Even if he is to be identified with the Warwickshire lad, the will does not provide 'a description of the young Shakespeare as an actor in a Catholic household where he may have been introduced as a schoolmaster'. But Ackroyd leans to the belief that he was, and sees this as an explanation of how he entered the theatrical world, without quite explaining the hiatus in which he returned to Stratford by the time he was 18 to impregnate Anne Hathaway and start a family.

This raises the question of Shakespeare's religious beliefs. Ackroyd says the 'safest and most likely conclusion' is that 'Shakespeare professed no particular faith'. And he sees this reflected in the plays. In the tragedies, 'the religious imperatives of piety and consolation are withheld; these are worlds with no god'. That may be true of King Lear, but what about Hamlet, where Horatio asks that 'flights of angels' shall sing the hero to his rest?

How about his sex life? Well, 'there is a tendency ... to associate Shakespeare with lustfulness', and it is clear from his plays 'that he was preoccupied with sexuality in all of its forms'. His writing 'is quick with sexual meanings', he 'had an understanding of devoted male friendships' and actors 'are often possessed by an ambiguous sexuality', but Ackroyd is guarded about applying evidence derived from the writings to Shakespeare's personal conduct.

These and many other matters are treated in a book of close on 600 pages which is given pace by being divided into more than 90 sub-sections. Some of these are essentially discrete essays, informative and well-judged, on topics such as stage conventions, acting styles, music in the theatre, and Shakespeare's appearance. 'He may in later life even have been fat.' Yes, indeed, writers sometimes put on weight as the years pass by.

The opening chapters naturally concentrate on Stratford, which, as Ackroyd says, was to remain 'the centre of his being'. There is a touch of dutifulness about the style here, with flat phrases such as 'It is inevitably the case', 'It is important to note'. It's all earnest. The first (and, by my reckoning, the only) witticism doesn't come until page 457.

Ackroyd gets out of his depth in his treatment of Shakespeare's early theatre career. He has swallowed too credulously the discredited theories of scholars such as Eric Sams about certain early plays - the idea, for instance, that The Troublesome Reign of King John and The Taming of the Shrew are 'without doubt' Shakespeare's early versions of plays that he later reworked, and that he is quoting chunks of Marlowe in what are more probably reconstructed texts patched together by reporters. Although I welcome Ackroyd's emphasis on the fluidity of Elizabethan acting texts, and on Shakespeare as a reviser of his own work, I see no reason to believe that The Comedy of Errors is a revised text, or that in Hamlet 'To be or not to be' is an interpolation.

This is part of an excessive tendency to accept speculation as fact. The statement on the first page that a Stratford resident, William Smith, was Shakespeare's godfather rests on no more evidence than their sharing of one of the commonest of all Elizabethan given names. There is no hard evidence that Shakespeare played most of the roles in his own plays.

And (like all of us), Ackroyd makes occasional slips. Among them are a statement that the current Theatre Royal Drury Lane 'has a maximum capacity of less than 900' (actually 2,205), that printer John Rastell, who died in 1536, nearly 20 years before Shakespeare was born, was the owner in Shakespeare's time of the Mermaid tavern, and that Julius Caesar (rather than Titus Andronicus) is 'Shakespeare's first Roman play'.

Ackroyd's enthusiasms are most apparent in the sub-sections about individual plays, which are well tied in with the overall narrative, relating the works to the career and to the growth of Shakespeare's reputation. He writes in generalised terms, with little attempt at close analysis and with surprisingly little quotation. I'm sorry he finds All's Well That Ends Well 'barren and boring'; in its concern with the relationship between innate and acquired virtue, between human action and superhuman will, it seems to me to be unusually revealing of Shakespeare's preoccupations, and so of great interest to a biographer.

Ackroyd's views can be bleak. 'To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.' Maybe, but if the second part of this sentence is true, how can we be sure of the first? Writing on Shakespeare's last days, he surveys the gossip and speculation about his last illness while wisely refusing to commit himself to any of it. Nor does he have specific views about Shakespeare's bequest to his widow of the second-best bed.

At least six substantial biographical studies of Shakespeare have appeared since 1998. This does not displace any of those but will sit beside them as an alternative, companionable, complementary, though often overlapping, set of views.

· Stanley Wells is chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and editor of The Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Works

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli.

A wonderful book--love and betrayal and war in Vietnam.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

Cutting for Stone -

The story is a riveting saga of twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone, born of a tragic union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.But it's love, not politics -- their passion for the same woman -- that will tear them apart and force Marion to flee his homeland and make his way to America, finding refuge in his work at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him, wreaking havoc and destruction, Marion has to entrust his life to the two men he has trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

I'm halfway through Cutting for Stone and I don't have anything lined up next.

I need recommendations, folks!

Stone Alone by Bill Wyman. I read it several years ago and I decided to take another look.

Doc Watson wrote:Stone Alone by Bill Wyman. I read it several years ago and I decided to take another look.

It's not bad.

Bill- a little older than the other band members- was always the band's archivist. His son helped him transfer all his old scrapbooks of yellowing press clippings etc to his PC. Also, as a general rule, the rhythm section (Bill and Charlie) tended not to reach the same prodigous level of chemical consumption as certain other band members. So, for these reasons, his account of events seems reasonably reliable.

Not bad at all.