October, 2019 (Readings) "October country...that country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts."

Started October with David Mamet's ON DIRECTING FILM.

Straightforward, concise, candid.

One film buffs would definitely enjoy.

(If you guessed Ray Bradbury is the source for this month's thread title, you'd be absolutely right.)

>1 CliffBurns:, reminds me of a good one I read recently, Kurosawa's Something Like an Autobiography.

I'll try to lay my hands on the Kurosawa book. Another cinema-related memoir of note is Ingmar Bergman's THE MAGIC LANTERN.

Finished THE GAMES, a near future SF novel by Ted Kosmatka.

In future Olympic Games the athletes are drug-free but there's one event where countries of the world can manipulate non-human DNA, creating monsters to fight in an arena.

Not a bad concept but the writing was uniformly bland and the whole thing felt at least 100 pages too long.

A far better work on the same subject was a short story that appeared in Omni Magazine years ago, called "The Mickey Mouse Olympics" by Tom Sullivan:

http://www.williamflew.com/omni9a.html

>4 CliffBurns: I picked up a copy of Kosmatka's The Flicker Men for DKK 5 at a con a couple of weeks ago. I've liked what little of his short fiction I've read, but I must admit none of his novels really sounded interesting enough to try.

Becoming – Michelle Obama
Audiobook narrated by the author.
5*****

Michelle Obama’s memoir / autobiography takes her from her childhood through college, her first years as an attorney, meeting Barack and their time in the White House as President and First Lady. Through her words I felt that I really got to know this remarkable woman. She is smart, dedicated, authentic, compassionate, principled and tireless. She’s open and honest about her experiences and reminds us that she is still a work in progress … “becoming” the best version of herself she can be, helping her husband and children become their best selves, encouraging others to strive and achieve.

She narrates the audiobook herself and does a fantastic job. I can’t imagine that anyone else could have done it better.

THE DINNER by Herman Koch.

Agreeable thriller, built around a restaurant meeting between two brothers and their wives. Details emerge, the plot thickens.

A good read but the writing seemed stilted at times, something I chalked up to the translator (the book was originally written in Dutch).

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE--affable memoir by Python Eric Idle.

His younger years were quite sad and tragic (losing his father Christmas Eve, the horrible boarding school ordeal) but Idle perseveres and succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. Lots of name-dropping and some bitchy observations--a great time-waster for a lazy, rainy afternoon.

Our Man In Havana – Graham Greene
Book on CD performed by Jeremy Northam
4****

Jim Wormold is not very successful as a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana. His chief accomplishment is his lovely daughter, Milly, who attend a private Catholic school and has developed expensive tastes and attracted the romantic attention of Police Captain Segura. He happens to meet Hawthorne, a man who is a British intelligence agent, and who recruits him to spy for the mother country. It comes with a reasonable salary, as well as an expense account, and the promise of more as Wormold signs up additional local sources / agents. Before long Wormold is inventing a string of sources, sending amateur sketches of a nefarious weapon (really vacuum cleaner parts), and finding his life really in danger.

This delightful send-up of espionage / spy thrillers was published in 1958, just a few months before Castro’s successful revolution and takeover in January 1959. Greene gives us a wonderful supporting cast of shady characters, corrupt police officials, and clueless bureaucrats, a nice romantic twist and a not-to-be-believed ending. Great fun, though the British humor is a bit dry. I've never seen the movie but kept picturing Sir Alec Guinness in the lead role.

Jeremy Northam does a fine job performing the audio version. He was able to give the many characters sufficiently unique voices so I could keep the story straight. He was a little less successful differentiating between Milly and Beatrice, but they don’t have many scenes together so that wasn’t a major problem.

APATHY AND OTHER SMALL VICTORIES by Paul Neilan.

Amusing short novel--I have a soft spot for narratives involving complete losers.

Not perfect but a pleasant afternoon diversion, distracting me from a nasty head cold (which has now migrated to my chest).

Vinegar Girl– Anne Tyler
Digital audio performed by Kirstin Potter
3***

This re-imagining of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Tyler gives us a Kate who is a modern day woman, with a job she likes (though she seems to always be in trouble with the parents of the toddlers she cares for), dedicated (though a bit resentful) to helping her widowed father run the household, uninterested in romance and intolerant of her younger sister Bunny’s obsessions with flirting and collecting young (and not-so-young) men’s hearts. Their hapless father is a university professor consumed by his research. He’s had the good fortune to find an excellent and talented graduate research assistant, but Pyotr’s visa is about to expire and he’ll be deported if he can’t find a way to stay in the US. So Dr Battista hatches a plan to have Kate marry Pyotr so he gets a green card.

I generally like Tyler’s novels that focus on relationships rather than plot. But this one felt a little stilted and “not-quite-right” to me. Perhaps it was the constraints of fitting into the Shakespeare tale’s basic premise of a harridan whose father is eager to get rid of her, and who is “tamed” (read beaten and starved into submission) by a handsome, virile man. Clearly that scenario just doesn’t work in today’s “Me-Too” culture. I think she did the best she could within the framework of Shakespeare’s tale, but it just didn’t quite work.

Still, there were some scenes where Tyler’s skill at exploring relationships shown through. And I did like the way that Pyotr was portrayed – not as the bully Petruchio, but more of a gentle, if determined, person. I also liked that Tyler turned Shakespeare’s women around; the original seems to paint younger sister Bianca as the “ideal” woman – pretty, compliant, obedient – and therefore much more desirable than Katherina. Here Bunny is more of an immature flirt, not really desirable, though she MAY grow up eventually.

Kirstin Potter does a fine job narrating the audiobook. She sets a good pace and the characters came to life via her performance.

A slim number of posts this month--are people too busy doing yard work?

I finished IQ, a good crime offering by Joe Ide. Young, smart detective tries to solve the attempted murder of a rap star.

Read it in about 3 sittings.

>12 CliffBurns:, all depends what you think is worth mentioning. Just finished up I Am Legend and Other Stories as a seasonal read. Matheson deserves his place in the history of the horror genre, but I didn't find a lot to love here.

I am a HUGE fan of Matheson's. He and Charles Beaumont were big formative influences on my early writing.

The magic with those two was that the stories were so credible, which made the narratives all the more gripping. It's a lesson I very much took to heart.

A few years back, I wrote a short essay on why I don't find Neil Gaiman's work particularly interesting--to me, he writes fairy tales, most of them quite unbelievable and, therefore, you don't care for and worry about the characters as much. It's all make believe anyway.

Matheson and Beaumont don't give you that emotional safety net. You feel the effects long after you close their books.

>14 CliffBurns:, I did find something to like in the short stories "Prey" and "Dress of White Silk". I can appreciate he's frequently going for mood rather than force of impact.

His and Beaumont's were the best source material for classic "Twilight Zone" episodes.

Rod Serling's offerings were so frequently preachy and maudlin. Beaumont and Matheson were far tougher than that.

I 'lurk' a lot here, interested in posts but often feeling that I am a bit out of my element given the awe inspiring range of reading that 'snobs' do. However I feel inspired this afternoon, having just completed Julian Barnes rather esoteric book 'Flaubert's Parrot'. Earlier in the year after many years of saying I must read 'Madame Bovary' I finally did so and enjoyed what seemed to be a good translation. I liked the complexity of her character and sympathised with her deadly dull life. She is also a breathtaking risk taker, given the period in which she lives. Flaubert's descriptive powers also entranced me. Thus armed I picked up the Barnes book- instant confusion. This is a novel that is not really a novel, despite its fanatical Flaubert fan narrator who occasionally refers to his relationship with his wife. It is a sort of miscellany of Flaubert anecdotes, facts, rumours and references to his friends and lovers. At the end there is a quirky section called 'Examination Paper' which 'sets' questions on the author for imaginary students. Perhaps playfulness is the key to this early work(1984) by a noted literary author in his own right. If anyone knows this work and can cast further light on it I would certainly appreciate it.

The Flight of the Maidens – Jane Gardam
4****

From the book jacket: It is the summer of 1946. A time of clothing coupons and food rations, of postwar deprivations and social readjustment. In this precarious new era, three young women prepare themselves to head off to university and explore the world beyond Yorkshire, England.

My reactions:
I’ve read three of Gardam’s novels before this one, and I rated them all 4****. I made a note to myself immediately on finishing this one with my 4-star rating, but now, a week later, as I sit to write my review I think I may have been over-enthusiastic. I’ll leave my rating at 4 since that was my initial reaction, but perhaps it should really be 3.5***.

What I love about Gardam’s writing is the way she paints her characters and shows us who they are. Hetty (Hester or “Hes-tah”) Fallowes is somewhat bookish and saddled with an overbearing mother. She sympathizes with but doesn’t really understand her father, who suffers from the traumas he witnessed in the trenches during WWI (what we would today recognize as PTSD). Her best friend (since age five) is Una Vane. She had a somewhat privileged upbringing, until her doctor father walked out one morning, and his body was discovered days later at the base of a cliff. He, too, had suffered from his experiences in WW1. The third girl is a recent member of their tight circle of friendship.

Leiselotte Klein, is a Jewish refugee who was taken in by a Quaker family. While Hetty and Una are thin, even skinny, Leiselotte is chubby. She slouches and is always knitting. She knows nothing of what has happened to her family, and while the Quaker couple who have taken her in have provided all they can for her, they have not been warm and loving. Her “foreignness” in this small Yorkshire community sets her apart and she’s remained rather solitary. At least until the three are joined together by the news of their scholarships.

The book opens with the three girls “picnicking” and talking about their recent acceptance at university. All will be setting off for London: Hetty to London to read Literature; Una to Cambridge to study physics; and Leiselotte to Cambridge where she’ll study Modern Languages. But before they go, they’ll have the summer months to grow up a bit.

Gardam changes point of view from chapter to chapter to give each girl a chance in the spotlight. Hetty heads for the Lake District on her own, an attempt to get away from her mother and try to get a head start on the basic reading she is certain her fellow university students have already studied. Una takes a bicycle trip around the countryside in the company of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Leiselotte’s journey is the most wide-ranging and full of surprises. I’m not sure I ever really got to know her in this novel and felt that her story was somewhat tacked onto that of the other girls.

Finished Shaun Hamill's COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS.

Nice mix of Lovecraft, magical realism and dysfunctional family drama.

So many horror offerings these days (fiction and movies) are ugly and blood-splattered; Hamill takes a different tack and delivers a suspenseful page-turner that doesn't revolt or disgust.

Recommended.

The Last Days of Night – Graham Moore
Digital audio performed by Johnathan McClain
4****

Moore’s novel is historical fiction that focuses on the question of genius. In 1888, gas lamps were still the norm. But Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse both were trying to sell the public on the electric light bulb. Young attorney Paul Cravath is hired by Westinghouse to defend – and win – a lawsuit. He’s been sued by Edison over the question of patent law: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?

I was completely captivated by the narrative. The characters fairly leapt off the pages, they were so real and alive. Moore also does a marvelous job of setting the scene; I can easily picture myself at the opera, or looking out at the soft light of gas lamps lighting the streets of New York.

As he explains in the author’s note at the end: “…this novel is intended as a dramatization of history, not a record of it. … The bulk of the events depicted in this book did happen and every major character did exist.” He further explains his sources for much of the dialogue, but states that he did re-order some events for narrative flow, as well as invented some scenarios that may have been plausible but which have not been documented. “This book is a Gordian knot of verifiable truth, educated supposition, dramatic rendering, and total guesswork.”

I was enthralled from beginning to end and may have enjoyed the author’s note even more than the novel. In short it was fascinating, engaging and illuminating. I can hardly wait for my F2F book group discussion.

Johnathan McClain does a marvelous job of narrating the audio book. He sets a good pace and his work interpreting Nikola Tesla’s convoluted speech pattern is priceless.

Just finished Waugh's Scoop, which has not aged well at all. If I'd thought Black Mischief was racist, this one is much worse. It was first published in 1931, and my edition was from 1951, but even the casual racism and racial slurs seem excessive for the period. Especially since Waugh was an educated man - Hertford College, Oxford - but he *was* also a member of the establishment. Scoop is apparently No 75 in the Top 100 best English language novels of the twentieth century, but in this day and age you can't divorce a book's literary merit from its racism. "Best English language novels" should be for everyone, not just for people who have no problem with books which depict black people as inferior and/or subhuman. No art is written in a vacuum, and conversely no art is consumed in a vacuum.

DEATH OF THE BLACK-HAIRED GIRL by Robert Stone.

Fair to middling novel by a great American author. Stone wrote some of my favorite books, including OUTERBRIDGE REACH and DAMASCUS GATE.

This one is second tier, but still worthy.

THE PRICE OF THE HAIRCUT, a collection of short stories by Brock Clarke.

Reminiscent of the work of the great George Saunders--reality just slightly off kilter.

Finished Bleak House, think that might be the best Dickens among what I've read (I've still five to go).

>17 Maura49: Belated welcome to you! I've been off line for a few weeks but it's good to see a new person here.

I am still plowing through the Iliad, I had not realized that it's basically all battle scenes all the time at a certain point. They're kind of fun to read but I can't keep anyone straight. It awes me that people used to learn this stuff by heart and recite it to others.

I visited Ireland, and while there I got to see the small but worthwhile Irish Writers' Museum. I also got to see Sligo, home of Yeats, very briefly. I was very much an awestruck American tourist basically the whole time. Too bad I didn't find bluepiano sitting at a pub somewhere because I think s/he could have brought me back down to earth!

Thank you for the welcome. It sounds as if you were in Dublin. I loved their Writer's Museum which brought home to me just how many great writers Ireland has produced. My father was from County Cork so I have special feelings for the country. My other favourite memory of Dublin was seeing the library in Trinity College and viewing the Book of Kells- beautiful beyond belief.