I've been here five weeks, long enough to have worked my way through the best of the left-behind bookshelf. I started with Everything is Illuminated, which was funny when it tried to be funny and sad when it wanted to be sad - an easy enough trick you would've thought, unless you've read White Teeth. Next came Margarete Buber-Neumann's Milena, which promised to evoke the inter-war Prague of Kafka and Karel Čapek, but was dry, clunkily phrased (or translated?) and as reverential as a funeral eulogy. The English Patient, on the other hand, wasn't exactly what I expected - a good thing - not really a love story at all, with haunting prose like Kazuo Ishiguro on one of his good days, and only slightly spoilt by the crappy, predictable ending.
Next up is Rebus. Or maybe, if I'm in the mood, Doris Lessing.
1 comment:
Lessing. Know what you mean. I got into a mini obsession some years ago with her Shikasta stuff. Also really enjoyed The Grass Is Singing, but there are times when I can't seem to struggle through a page. I'm on Obama's Audacity of Hope - as it was leant to me and I would feel churlish not to read it.
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