We Want What You Have

In a time of nonsense politics and the economics of greed, suspicion and envy then the slogan 'We Want What You Have' makes perfect sense. The British - or to be more exact the South Eastern English - are inordinately fond of owning their own property but wanting more. In many places in the world it's still more common to rent, particularly for young professionals living in the city. Home for them is more about family than bricks and mortar. When you add the toxic house price inflation of some parts of London into an already confused set of cultural aspirations it's not surprising there is tension.
John Lanchester's Capital brilliantly captures all the social threads and uniquely enables you to identify with every single family or individual ...with one exception. No, not the rich spoilt City worker. It's the poor footballer from Senegal who gets injured, plus his minder, that I struggled to find engaging. No wonder their characters more or less got dropped from the successful TV adaptation. They just didn't add anything other than be an obvious example of contrasting poverty and wealth. The rest of the inhabitants and workers in Pepys Road all resonated with warmth and cynical humour. Lanchester has a lot to teach us about ourselves and our values but he avoids being preachy or having a closed mindset - which is why everyone gets an equal grilling of tough love.

A Herd of Independent Minds

To quote Robert Wyatt quoting Noam Chomsky quoting Harold Rosenberg the trivialisation of personal experience in mass media leads intellectuals unwittingly into a conformity of herd-like behaviour both in politics and the arts. I think its simpler and more fundamental than that - we are social animals influenced by the behaviour of others, whether we admire them or not. What's worse, in my view, is that we like to categorise people of independent minds into groups and movements. It's one of the laziest tropes of literary, artistic and musical criticism and it drives me bonkers.I probably belong to the bonkers group.
So then, what is the Bloomsbury Group? An independently minded lady called Vanessa Bell fancied a change and moved house to Bloomsbury. She went with her sister Virginia Woolf (left) and often invited people round to tea. That's about it really.
I'd rather it was called the Charleston group because there is something hugely evocative about the farmhouse where Vanessa and Duncan Grant and others lived during the War years. The painted walls, furniture, garden and every aspect of their daily lives danced with an open minded cosmopolitan optimism. Frances Spalding's biographical gazetteer of The Bloomsbury Group personalities (of which there are many and various) is a good primer but don't be deceived. These people may have known each other, met and loved each other but they are not a hive mind.

Strange new books

If you're an inveterate science fiction reader you will find this book neither strange nor new. But good science fiction isn't about space opera ray guns and planetary travel. Good science fiction is just fiction about people but gives you an otherworldly perspective on the strangeness of human civilisation and puts your perception of the here and now in a totally different light.

Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things does exactly that.

It takes a fairly routine one dimensional story about a Christian missionary and makes it poignant by wrapping it around a story of isolation from your species and your family. It preaches tolerance and acceptance of all that is foreign and alien at a time when we need to be firmly reminded of what it means to be a citizen of somewhere and everywhere. It's not about Scottish independence by an adopted Scottish author. It's not about Brexit. It's about the practicalities of helping fellow creatures not to die.

A different story every two hours

There are several David Mitchells. One David Mitchell has lived in several countries. This David Mitchell has written several stories. One of these stories includes 6 other stories which used to be 7 and probably started out as seventy short stories. Several of the 6 stories in this book make reference to other stories he has written. Welcome to the bewildering world(s) of The Bone Clocks - a beautiful metaphor for our bodies' transformation over time.
They made a successful film of the unfilmable Cloud Atlas with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. In many ways the narrative running through The Bone Clocks is more consistent and less confusing but Mitchell certainly packs a lot of invention, characters and different scenarios in which gives his books an epic multi-generational feel. My only reservation is that the strength of reader engagement wanes towards the end of the story which is the opposite to most reading experiences. Normally the reader starts out fairly neutral and then gets drawn into the story more avidly towards the resolution of the plot. With David Mitchell's books I've found that I think he is the best writer ever from the get go to about a third in to the book but the engagement declines as the initial characters and stories are resolved and new ones, or reincarnations, continually emerge and it starts to read like a collection of short stories. But maybe that's just my fault for reading last thing at night when I'm fatigued anyway and unable to enjoy making all the connections between different characters and story lines. After all that's what the fans of much more straightforward comic and film franchises enjoy.

Liars

I'd be lying if I gave the impression that I enjoyed every book I read. I quite often sample something just to get out of well worn literary tracks or genres. This can take me into the commercial mainstream and, in this case, to the young adult fiction of E. Lockhart's We Were Liars. So I admit freely I'm not in the target audience but I figure a good book is a good book. Isn't it?

The book hype would have you believe this is not only a good book but an extremely clever book. Shame that the target audience has the attention span of the proverbial gnat as most chapters are about two pages long and don't give any time to really give any narrative or get engaged with the 'rich kid' characters. Even the physical layout of where the action takes place and the family relationships have to be spelt out in pictures at the beginning of the book.

Whilst I'm in moan mode the other thing that bugs me about trying to do a book blog is having to select pictures that can be reproduced without copyright. The publishers are so protective of their property that this normally stops anyone giving them free advertising by showing the book graphics or even the author's mugshot. This can result in some creative lateral thinking to select an image. Not this time. E Lockhart is the pen name of Emily Jenkins.

Le Liseur propose à préposé

The blurb on Jean-Paul Didierlaurent's The Reader on the 6.27 suggests that it is similar in look and feel to the film Amélie. There is innocence and simplicity in the story but not quite the level of subversive personal charm that she possesses. The Reader is more of a narrator than a romantic agent provocateur and the sense of humour is often similarly black but rather more visceral and, on occasion, toilet based. Only the names (like the fact that the main character's name resembles 'ugly puppet') gets a little lost in translation as it has to be pointed out. A joke explained is killed but otherwise it is an amusing and refreshingly skewed view of fragmentary life experiences.

The book is, naturally enough, in praise of reading books but, more unusually, it is also about the potential social bonding that a shared experience of literature can bring. It challenges the normal behaviour on a train where people typically use books or electronic devices to separate themselves from each other and from reality. The book is quite slim - you could just about read it on a long journey - and if you want something to read on a train you could do worse than read this (aloud ideally).

Walking, thinking, writing, rhyming (sometimes)

Poets have a hard time making money. They can give readings, talks, teach, translate or write other stuff. Simon Armitage tried his hand at being a troubadour: a strolling player earning his passage from the generosity of his audience. It was an interesting experiment in striding through the ages as well as the Pennines. With Walking Away, his sequel to Walking Home, he chose the South West Coast Path. I'm not sure the financial jeopardy is sustained as he meets a lot of people who are prepared to tolerate and feed him. Unfortunately I don't think the landscape inspired him as much as it might during the tougher legs but I do know one thing. A poet writes prose beautifully and I can also recommend Armitage as a personable companion who has an eye for acerbic and amusing analysis of the people he meets. All travelogues should be written by poets.