rebness

One day of sunshine and it's TOO HOT. But I have gazpacho, so all is right with the world. It can be books update time now?

The Monk by Matthew Lewis
Finally finished this book. What a melodramatic, crazy novel! Lewis seemed to throw in every Gothic cliché he could muster. No wonder Jane Austen parodied it in Northanger Abbey, but it was still a fun read nonetheless.

Red Dog by Louis de Bernieres
Red Dog was at times too anthromorphic for me, but then the style of this book is supposed to echo the outlandish accounts the Australians interviewed by the author took when describing the animal. I started and finished reading this book on the train to Leeds and was horrified when tears started trailing down my face, to the consternation of the person sat next to me.

My brother Paul said this book is a testament ‘to the fact that no matter how nice you are, someone out there will try and f*ck it up for you.’ I rather agree.

Atonement by Ian McEwan
I’ve resisted this novel for some time and only picked it up because it was £2 in a charity shop. I read it, enjoyed it and then put it away. Except I keep thinking about it and the more I do, the more I feel it was an excellent read and certainly one of the best books I have read in a long while. I want to discuss this further, as well as the film, which I saw immediately after finishing...

I’m such a sucker for Doomed Romances. Wuthering Heights, Shadow of the Wind and now this. However, unlike the first two novels, I was really happy when the lovers were reunited. At the time, I thought it was a bit incredible that Robbie had survived and now everything was going to be fine, but yay! Love had won out.

I also really dislike fictional accounts of the world wars, because they seem to revel in describing the sheer horror of the battlefield (“McManus turned and smiled. Suddenly, a stray bullet entered into his head, sending his eyeballs spattering out and coating his companions in exploded brain”) and the ridiculous amount of carnage and death across Europe.* It’s just too raw, too real, too close to home. This one was no different, so I ended up skipping whole paragraphs during Robbie’s Undeserved Penance.

And then, after all that horror, that ending. I re-read it because I was so taken aback that it had all been YET MORE LIES THANKS BRIONY YOU ASSHAT. I was devastated, but I really feel that it was more dramatic and affecting in the film, probably because film allowed visual markers to be put in place. And also because James McAvoy is so handsome. Ahem.

I keep thinking back to that part of the film where Robbie encounters that old French movie playing on an abandoned cinema screen and hangs his head in grief, silhouetted by the screen. It’s just such a powerful scene and saddens me every time I think of it.

I know that this film came in for a lot of criticism (by British audiences, at least) and that some felt it didn’t deserve the Best Picture BAFTA, but I disagree. I thought it was wonderful and Keira Knightley even managed to put away the pouting to deliver a great performance.

*Caveat: I have not read American or Asian or Africa or Australian fiction about the wars, so I am not ignoring your contributions to the struggle, kthnx. If you have any recommendations of books I should read on that subject, tell me!

In summary, I love both book and film. Huzzah!

Young Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore
Praise has been lavished upon Sebag-Montefiore’s strengths as a biographer, but I find him too preoccupied with the military side of Stalin than what actually made him tick. The portrait is of a foxy, ruthless individual with Serious Issues. I thought it an interesting and enlightening read, but I can’t help but prefer the more narrative biographical style of Antonia Fraser.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
In this book, Leo Demidov, an unswervingly loyal cop in Soviet Russia, is sent to silence a family who believe their son was murdered after he is found on train tracks in Moscow. He’s told to ignore the case, but when he finds himself at the centre of a KGB investigation, things turn. Read rather as pulp fiction, given its share of foreshadowing and conspiracy and femme fatales, but I enjoyed it immensely. I also loved the character of Raisa, Leo’s wife. In fact, although there are inevitable clichés in this novel, the characterisation is so strong that it overcomes its failings. Horribly, the story is based on a real case.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzsakis
Re-read: halfway through. Do you ever feel that you can only read certain books at certain times of the year or in certain places? This novel starts off with a rain-lashed Greek café at a port and for some reason, I feel I only really appreciate it when reading when in Greece. In September or October, when the weather turns. Maybe I’ll put it aside until I’m next there.

ETA: failing at HTML and even Rich text, as usual.