L-Space- The Wooden-Shelf Thing

The Wooden-Shelf Thing

I've been putting this off for too long; another look at what's on my ominous to-read shelf. I previously did this with The Glass Cabinet and The Darkened Wardrobe (I have to have stupid names for these things for some reason). A couple of these books have been on there for a long while now...

Bukowski, Charles- Hot Water Music & The Pleasures of the Damned- Poems, 1951-1993
Though I've finished all of Charles Bukowski's novels, there are still a few other volumes of short stories and magazine articles to read, including the story collection Hot Water Music, which I have in a neat minimal paperback from Ecco Press. There's also the matter of Bukowski's poetry. I'm not normally one for poetry, but it would be a crime to read through the author's bibliography without it, and the large collection I have seems a good introduction to it.

Burgess, Anthony- A Clockwork Orange
An unknown number of years before I began this blog, I read an Anthony Burgess novel named 1985, but it just didn't click with me. As a result I think it put a subconcious block in my head against Burgess, so I've voided him ever since- but I still really wanted to get around to reading A Clockwork Orange someday, and now I've finally got him.

Maugham, W. Somerset- The Explorer, The Narrow Corner & Of Human Bondage
Three more entrants from Maugham's extensive bibliography, including his most famous piece. The other two are much smaller, but no less intriguing books in neat little Penguin paperbacks.

Dawkins, Richard- River Out of Eden
Barrow, John D.- The Book of Universes
Pinker, Steven- How the Mind Works
Three books queued up to scratch my occasional popular science itch, recently neglected in favour of a trip through some classsic gothic horror.

Koestler, Arthur- Darkness at Noon
Zamyatin, Yevgeny- The Dragon and Other Stories
Fairly random off the shelf buys, in great little Penguin paperback editions, bought because they just seemed like interesting Eastern European pieces of intellectualism.

MacDonald, John D.- The Deep Blue Goodbye
Thompson, Jim- The Getaway
As I mentioned during my review of Georges Simenon's The Blue Room, I have two other examples from Orion Press' Crime Masterworks series, and these are they. Again, I ignorantly don't really know anything about them, except I'm very excited to read them.

Auster, Paul- The Brooklyn Follies & Winter Journal
My life will never be completed until I've read and reviewed everything by Paul Auster. I read The Brooklyn Follies as a library book a long while ago pre-blog and now need to read my own copy, while Winter Journal is one of two recent pieces of non-fiction from Auster.

Castaneda, Carlos- The Eagle's Gift & A Separate Reality
Peake, Mervyne- Gormenghast
Examples from two cult-classic series that I can't actually read goddamnit because I didn't realise these weren't the first volumes of the series when I bought them. On the back-burner.

Wyndham, John- Stowaway To Mars & The Kraken Wakes
Asimov, Isaac- Foundation, Foundation and Empire & Second Foundation
Roberts, Keith- Pavane
My current slice of to-read sci-fi. I found the Wyndham books randomly second-hand, and having read and enjoyed Day of the Triffids couldn't resist going back to him. As for Asimov, despite him being one of the most famous science fiction writers of all time, I've only read one short story collection from him. The Foundation series was his magnum opus, so if that doesn't click for me then no Asimov novel will. Pavane, meanwhile, is a book included on Orion Press' Sci-Fi Masterworks label.

Amis, Kingley- Lucky Jim
Vidal, Gore- Messiah
Faulkner, William- The Sound and the Fury
Buchan, John- The Thirty-Nine Steps
Four random genre classics I picked up by author reputation and because I'm a literary snob. Faulkner seems the most interesting, though also potentially off-putting if I don't like the ambition style. The Thirty-Nine Steps, meanwhile, I have in an amazing 60's pulp-style paperback that I will continue to love the design of even if I don't like the book. Gore Vidal's book was here the last time I did this, but a little research makes me optimistic.

Capote, Truman- The Complete Stories
Thompson, Hunter S.- The Rum Diary
London, Jack- The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories
Three classic US authors whom I've already begun following on this blog and am destined to continue until I inevitably get bored of this thing. I've been meaning to read The Rum Diary for a long time, but never ran across a charity bookshop copy, so had to actually buy one at full price from Amazon. That annoyed me.

Gatiss, Mark- The Vesuvias Club/ The Devil in Amber
This was on the last list I did too, I just can't bring myself to start it. The problem is even though I respect Mark Gattis' TV work in general (well, Sherlock anyway) I'm just severely paranoid that a modern piece of spy fiction genre fiction by a very modern TV comedy/children's sci-fi actor could possibly be any good. I think Douglas Adams warped my standards a long time ago, to be honest. I'll start it soon, but if it doesn't hit quickly it's getting abandoned.

Gide, Andre- The Immoralist
Houellebecq, Michel- Atomised
More (presumably) existential French literature; one a novella from 1902, the other a novel from 1998. Should be interesting, if nothing else.

Steinbeck, John- Of Mice and Men
I haven't read this book for about thirteen years, and it's one of the most important in terms of my own literary development, so I was very happy to find a copy recently.

Rubin, Jay- Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words
This book was on the last list too, but that's just because I've been saving it is the last piece of Murakami-related writing available to me at the moment.

Pratchett, Terry & Kidby, Paul- The Pratchett Portfolio
Pratchett, Terry & Baxter, Stephen- The Long War
Pratchett, Terry, Stewart, Ian & Cohen, Jack- The Science of the Discworld IV- Judgement Day
Because, of course, I can never get enough Terry Pratchett books. The Pratchett Portfolio is a very small volume of art that I'll look at fairly soon. The Long War is the sequel to The Long Earth, which I very much enjoyed and shall likely continue to do so. Science of the Discworld IV is from a spin-off series I've not properly explored, but will have to in order to cover the whole Discworld series eventually (the year 3010, I'm predicting).

And last and probably least...

Martin, George R.R.- A Song of Ice and Fire- A Dance with Dragons 2: After the Feast
The only book to remain on every single one of these lists, meaning it's been waiting on the pile for almost two years. Every day I flirt with giving the entire Song of Ice and Fire series to Oxfam Bookshop, but I never actually get around to it. Still, in all likelihood, I'll probably never read this, the final volume available yet, because George R.R. Martin writes like a severely concussed Tolkien and I'm just not interested in that. The Dan Brown of fantasy, no matter how brilliant the detached TV show genuinely is.

Georges Simenon- The Blue Room

The Blue Room

Orion Publishing Crime Masterworks

Georges Simenon

1955

I went into The Blue Room almost completely blindly, aside from the publishing line. Orion Publishing's Crime Masterworks series first caught my attention as an offshoot of their Sci-Fi Masterworks books, a numbered collection of purportedly the greatest science fiction novels of all time, through which I first read Richard Keyes' Flowers for Algenon  and Kurt Vonneguts The Sirens of Titan. Later, through the crime series, I read James M. Cain's Double Indemnity and immediately knew that if crime could be this good I needed more of it.

When I randomly found The Blue Room and two other crime books from the series, I snapped them up. Now, after reading this one example from Georges Simenon's extensive bibliography, it's clear that although I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as Double Indemnity it's opened my eyes to the wider possibilities of the genre. While Paul Auster's New York Trilogy redefined the possibilities of a postmodern private eye, the image of a classic early century gumshoe is probably overbearing when it comes to other varied styles of crime fiction.

What should've registered with me in the first place was that Georges Simenon is French, and while I don't like to generalise an entire nation's literature, I think it's safe to say that many twentieth century French novels hold Sartre-built existentialism at their core. Simenon uses the experiences of his densely-layered characters to explore the gamut of human emotion from romance to tragedy, surrounding it with a very precisely constructed crime story relying on tension created by the narrator's drip-feeding the reader crucial information, as the story is told through a series of interspersed flashbacks.

As the story begins, in the present Tony Falcone is recounting his extra-marital affair with Andree Despierre, hidden from his family and her husband, formed of scheduled liasons in the blue room of the Hotel des Voyageurs. The bulk of the novel is taken up by these testimonies, introduced by Tony's responses or train of thought, but narrated from the third person. That by itself isn't complicated, but Simenon chooses to switch from present to past incredibly abruptly, causing my first problems as the sudden changes in chronology felt unpleasantly jarring. This continues throughout the book, and does become less confusing as the story is filled out, but was a serious annoyance for at least the first half

Simenon's tight control of his narration, keeping even the slightest details of the crime secretive all the while loading the characters with motive, take time to bare fruit. When this eventually happens and the full extent of the plot is laid out, Simenon's approach comes across very well indeed, giving the reader a sense of satisfaction like filling out the last pieces of a puzzle. My overall outlook on The Blue Room was certainly swung from dissatisfied to happily bemused by the last twenty pages or so, and the credit is all due to Simenon's careful planning of that. In the meantime, he uses Tony and Andree to agonise over the morals of love and infidelity, with the delicacy of a philosopher. His style reminded me of Czech author Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), though unfortunately without the overall same quality of prose. Simenon is good, but not great in this regard, and much of his hard work is undone by his infernal framing issues.

In the end, it becomes a question of whether or not to value the high quality of an ending above the drabness that leads to it. There's no real answer to that, I suppose, just an individual certain feeling dependent on the reader. I know that there were times I found The Blue Room to be a real drag, but that perseverance made it feel worth it to me by partially changing some of the context of what I'd read. That being said, I gave The Blue Room continual chances simply based on the publishers, so maybe I'm not the best example. Whatever the case, The Blue Room was an interesting curio of a book, a memorable experiment in style sure to stick with me, but unlikely to make me seek out any other work from Georges Simenon.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld 23- Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum

Victor Gollancz

Terry Pratchett

1998

Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Jingo - The Last Continent - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations - Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

“I never understood that story, anyway,” said Nanny. “I mean, if I knew I’d got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I’d go into battle wearing very heavy boots—”

I used to love Carpe Jugulum for a while, more so than any other Discworld novel (aside from Small Gods). It was first published during the time I was still frantically reading through Pratchett's back catalogue, and though I'd yet to reach the financial freedom of buying each new hardback on release, each new paperback release was very exciting for this series with a mere twenty-two installments so far. Fast-forward to the present day, and I just don't get particularly excited about new Pratchett books like I once did. His output has massively increased over the past few years as he takes advantage of what might be the end of his writing career, and I've not been able to catch up. These days I actually resent the thought of buying new hardback books, since they take up so much damned space.

Carpe Jugulum, with its typically fantastic illustrated cover by Josh Kirby (one of his final Discworld covers before his death in 2001, sadly), was a big deal to me back in 1999. It would've been an even bigger deal had I realised at the time that this, like The Last Continent prior, was a landmark character book. As Continent was the last proper Rincewind book, Carpe Jugulum (topically 'size the throat') is the final 'proper' novel for an equally important selection of characters; the Witches. The expanded (after the events of Maskerade) coven of Macbeth-inspired ladies had been involved in perhaps the most high-octane adventures in the series, saving the tiny, magic-fueled kingdom of Lancre  (and the world) from false monarchs, evil witches, even more evil elves, and Andrew Lloyd-Webber. For this, their final adventure together, Pratchett serves up their deadliest villains yet; vampires.

The vampires of the Disc are strong, vicious, and with minds of steel. The problems begin when King Verence invites (his first mistake) the Magpyr vampire family of Uberwald to Lancre as guests, and they promptly and efficiently go about taking over the castle through traditional vampire mind control. Not even Granny Weatherwax can fight the unbending power of the vampire mind, leaving the kingdom seemingly powerless to resist. It's a very straightforward plot by the author's standards, which is the key reason that, in hindsight, I don't view the novel as a Discworld classic anymore. The framework is strikingly similar to the earlier Witches book Lords and Ladies, suggesting it's likely that Pratchett's choice to give up on the Witches series-within-a-series was due to his boredom with the characters, resulting in the recycled ambiance.

“I mean, it's one thing saying you've got the best god, but sayin' it's the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week. And they say everyone starts out bad and only gets good by believin' in Om, which is frankly damn nonsense.” 

The vampires are interesting creatures though, since Pratchett uses his to satirise the various portrayals of them through the history of pop culture. The parents of the Magpyr's are very traditional figures, with Vlad Magpyr a Bela Lugosi-style Dracula archetype, while the youth are far more inspired by early-to-mid 90's vampire portrayals, with dollops of angst and style in equal measure. Pratchett plays with this very specific generation gap for humour wonderfully, bringing to the forefront of the novel the newest addition to the coven, the very overweight and unconfident Agnes Nitt (originally of Maskerade) to represent everything about humanity that the vampire is not. While the two younger Vampyre's are faintly ridiculous, Count Vlad is not, and the intensity of his battle of wills with Granny Weatherwax provides the real tension behind everything. Pratchett usually tries to keep the full extent of his characters' various powers a mystery, avoiding the temptation for a narrative arms race and ruining the aura, but the events of Carpe Jugulum are an exception to that.

In conclusion then, I find Carpe Jugulum one of the easiest Discworld books to pick up and race through, thanks to the direct plot and immediately recognisable pop culture parodies. As a final Witches book it suffers through a lack of ingenuity compared to, say, Witches Abroad, but makes up for a certain amount of that through the intensity of the action. It's certainly a blockbuster, lacking some finesse but giving Pratchett the chance to give his final words on a segment of horror culture that almost everything has already been said about. When I was sixteen-years-old and constantly watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this was the book for me. It's lost sparkle in the proceeding years, but it's still a fun interrogation of vampire tropes with danger and charm. It's just a shame the next Discworld book, one with very similar themes, won't be getting such a favourable review.

Paul Auster- Hand To Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure

Hand to Mouth- A Chronicle of Early Failure

Picador Press

Paul Auster

1997

Other Paul Auster Reviews- The Invention of Solitude - In The Country of Last Things - Moon Palace - Auggie Wren's Christmas Story - The Art of Hunger - Mr. Vertigo - Timbuktu - The Book of Illusions - Oracle Night - Travels in the Scriptorium - Man in the Dark - Invisible

“But money, of course, is never just money. It's always something else, and it's always something more, and it always has the last word.”

One of the more obscure entries in Paul Auster's bibliography (which after ten years I'm finally getting near to finishing), Hand to Mouth is a prequel to his name-making 1982 debut The Invention of Solitude- the collection of introspective personal memoirs surrounding the death of his father. Again taken with the need to chronicle his own life, this short tome covers the period of Auster's experiences from his latter university days up until his first serious attempts at novel writing, and so mostly consists of self-admittedly overzealous failed writer angst, mixed-up with his memories of some very odd people whom influenced him on the way. It's also a very brief read, as Auster purposefully condenses experiences and descriptions of others that others may have dwelled upon into barely 160-pages.

Auster is super cool.

This brevity is the key to Hand to Mouth's final status as an amusing, but unfortunately irrelevant read- even to someone as fascinated by Auster's long-form prose fiction as I. The appeal of the book was obvious; the chance to perhaps further understand the creative process of a literary hero, but such opportunities seemed few and far between. Though Auster describes the extent of his earlier self's desperation, the introspective self-analysis contains more than a hint of embarrassment at the naivety of youth, and lacks enough detail to suggest important life-points. I get the feeling that Auster wanted to recapture the autobiographical spirit of his predecessors (such as Jack London with John Barleycorn), but was probably too much of a normal person to stand out.

As a result, his exploits meander from slightly interesting, such as his travels to France and Ireland, to generic normality, to absurdity- the latter referring to the time he spent serious time and effort trying to create and have published his own baseball-inspired card game. Auster's baseball fascination nearly always results in easily the worse segments from his fiction, and does so again in this autobiography, where it just seems so stupid and pointless it actually seemed to bring him down in my estimation.

As an Auster devotee (as, I imagine, 95% of the people who read this book will be), I found it amusing and mostly likable enough, but disappointing with that. There are certain aspects which relate to the motivations of characters in his book (particularly the sublime Moon Palace), probably more than I noticed, but not enough for it to seem revelatory. If any non-Auster fans come across Hand to Mouth, I'm sure they'd probably appreciate it as a decent, well-constructed light read also, though little more than that. In essence it's a curio, a self-obsessed long essay that Auster likely never intended to make waves but which he probably felt he needed to write.