Two months is a long blogging holiday to take, even by my standards. In theory I should have had lots of time to do things like blogging because I’ve only been working part-time, but this hasn’t been the case. The time has been sucked away by very important things like job applications, preparing for job interviews, going to job interviews, and watching countless episodes of Pointless.
I have read several books too, although perhaps not as many as I’d have liked. Here are my brief (and possibly distorted by the passage of time) thoughts on some of them.
Ali Smith – There but for the
I really liked this. The use of language was extremely clever. Some of the characters’ expressions have stuck firmly in my head. My other lasting impression, though, is that although it was a stunning book in many ways, it was primarily ideas-driven, and so I felt a detached admiration rather than any real engagement. I also remember feeling confused when I finished it, so perhaps the detachment came from having found it too cryptic.
Kazuo Ishiguro – A Pale View of Hills
Another elliptical novel. A very slight book in which the last few pages threw doubt over everything I had just read, in a delicious and disturbing way (it reminded me of Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger in that sense). I’m not sure if Ishiguro quite nailed it with this novel, in the way that he did with The Remains of the Day and the The Unconsoled (which I must re-read soon). Saying that, the mood that Pale View created and left me with was strong and unique.
Hilary Mantel – Giving Up The Ghost: a memoir
An unusual, visceral, sharp and insightful book, written with inventive use of language and imagery. Mantel’s story begins as she and her husband are selling their house, Owl Cottage, and in the process will be saying goodbye to its resident ghost. She looks back to infanthood and childhood, remembering herself as a young girl and using the present tense; and then moves through her often painful and challenging experiences of adulthood. It concludes with an especially moving exploration of the ghosts of unborn children. I liked the book very much, but I think it suffered a little from what Mantel explains as ‘learned secrecy’ (“Once you have learned the habits of secrecy, they aren’t so easy to give up.”) She recalls events such as her battle with illness with candour and fullness; but other things are consciously skipped over, creating a sense of unevenness.
Haruki Murakami – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
In a sporadic diary form, Murakami writes about the build-ups to marathons and triathlons he is going to be taking part in; about his reasons for running; and about how it relates to the process of writing novels. It’s not a memoir, but there are bits about his life connected to running (he gave up running a bar to concentrate on writing, and took up running at around the same time). I devoured it in a few days, but I downloaded the book because I recently started running, and was very interested in what he had to say about being a writer who runs. I’m not sure what anyone who isn’t interested in running would get out of reading it, as I’m not sure it is a remarkable piece of writing in itself. There were moments when I struggled to relate to it, whilst being impressed/concerned by his capacity for self-discipline and perseverance. For example, he once ran an ultramarathon of 62 miles in one day, and a marathon in the blazing heat of Greece.
At the moment I’m reading My Antonia by Willa Cather, which I’m really enjoying. I’ve never read anything by her before. My resolution not to buy new books has been forgotten, but I blame the Kindle for this. I’ve grown to love it. It’s just too easy to buy new ebooks for it, though. One of them is a new short story called I’m Starved for You by Margaret Atwood, which I’m looking forward to.
