Catch-up 2009
Nov. 28th, 2010 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselI've got seriously behind due to exams and other distractions, so here's an extra-long catch-up.
Sep 2009
Endymion Spring - Matthew Skelton - Puffin, 2006
* * * *
A good 'un, this, albeit in a rather similar setting to the first few chapters of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. In the library of an Oxford college, a twelve year old boy called Blake discovers a strange book called Endymion Spring. The story of the book - and the people who are after it - makes for a superior young adult adventure with a good sense of menace. The settings of mediaeval Mainz and modern day Oxford are nicely done and unlike many other heroes of his ilk, Blake has the right combination of childishness and maturity for his age. It's a shame, however, that the storyline hinges on a tiresome relationship cliché that has little to do with the main plot.
Nov 2009
Things Can Only Get Better - John O'Farrell - Black Swan, 1999
* * * *
Having been sniffy about a previous book of O'Farrell's, it's good to be nice about this one. It depicts his spectacularly unsuccessful years as a Labour Party activist during the Thatcher era. His cynical and self-deprecating eye is ideally suited to this tale of progression from youthful idealism to middle-aged, middle-class conformity, which recapitulates in miniature the story of British politics from the passionate if misdirected dramas of the 1970s to the timid and stultifying managerialism of the present day.
Dec 2009
Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett - Corgi, 2009
* * * *
It is a melancholy thought that at some point, Pratchett's post-cortical atrophy will start to affect his books. Fortunately there is no sign of it here, even though this is the first that he has had to dictate. Whilst the plot is not one of his best, the characters are unusually strong and engaging. Mr Nutt, a well-spoken goblin with a dark secret, Glenda Sugarbean, the sensible cook who provides the backbone of the book, and the Posh-and-Becks analogues Juliet Stollop and Trevor Likely, all linger pleasingly in the mind. It is a shame that Ridcully and the wizards do not feature more prominently and the plot misses the open satirical goal of the commercialisation of the Beautiful Game in favour of the less-relevant issue of football hooligans and their underlying tribalism, but I liked the send-up of the fashion industry (particularly the notion that a model for dwarf mail would have to wear a long hairy beard), and the inevitable climatic match - with guest appearances from Rincewind and the Librarian - is funny and satisfying.
Jan 2010
The Best of Gene Wolfe - Gene Wolfe - Tor, 2009
* * * *
This short story collection was self-selected by the author, and my response to it is much the same as to his output as a whole. All the stories are beautifully written, but while some are stunningly good and clearly deserve their place (The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and its variants, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Forlesen, The Eyeflash Miracles, And When They Appear), there are others whose inclusion is a mystery to me (Hour of Trust, Bed and Breakfast, Has Anybody seen Junie Moon?, The Cabin on the Coast). It is interesting to see how many SF tropes Wolfe anticipated in his early stories - human cloning, alternative realities, steampunk - a characteristic that is sadly not shared by his later ones which are based on slighter ideas.
Jan 2010
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Oxford World's Classics, 2008
* * * *
Widely regarded as an American classic and with good reason. Beautifully written, it manages to compress a portrait of the New York 1920s demi-monde, an array of interesting amoral characters and a love story with a dramatic climax into a mere 144 pages. The brevity makes the motivations and opinions of the characters (including the narrator) marvellously ambiguous - and the unknowability of people even by themselves is, I think, the book's main point - but also means that it cannot say anything more profound about the human condition. Not that it needs to. I am surprised that no one has tried to film it in the past few years.
Feb 2010
Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirlees - Wildside Press, no date given
* * * *
I have commented before that fantasies involving fairy magic tend not to work because of the lack of rules. Well, Hope Mirlees has proved me wrong. She has done it by the clever trick of keeping the fairies and their world off-stage and focusing on the consequences of their proximity to Lud-in-the-Mist, a conventional mediaeval town of prosperous burghers. By emphasising the solidity and normality of the land of Dorimare and its inhabitants, the irruptions of fairy magic become an effective Freudian metaphor for the intrusion of subconscious irrationality into human thinking and decision-making. Which makes it an interesting companion piece to the almost exactly contemporaneous The Great Gatsby. And I have to say that the book's euphonious and evocative title is possibly my favourite ever.
Sep 2009
Endymion Spring - Matthew Skelton - Puffin, 2006
* * * *
A good 'un, this, albeit in a rather similar setting to the first few chapters of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. In the library of an Oxford college, a twelve year old boy called Blake discovers a strange book called Endymion Spring. The story of the book - and the people who are after it - makes for a superior young adult adventure with a good sense of menace. The settings of mediaeval Mainz and modern day Oxford are nicely done and unlike many other heroes of his ilk, Blake has the right combination of childishness and maturity for his age. It's a shame, however, that the storyline hinges on a tiresome relationship cliché that has little to do with the main plot.
Nov 2009
Things Can Only Get Better - John O'Farrell - Black Swan, 1999
* * * *
Having been sniffy about a previous book of O'Farrell's, it's good to be nice about this one. It depicts his spectacularly unsuccessful years as a Labour Party activist during the Thatcher era. His cynical and self-deprecating eye is ideally suited to this tale of progression from youthful idealism to middle-aged, middle-class conformity, which recapitulates in miniature the story of British politics from the passionate if misdirected dramas of the 1970s to the timid and stultifying managerialism of the present day.
Dec 2009
Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett - Corgi, 2009
* * * *
It is a melancholy thought that at some point, Pratchett's post-cortical atrophy will start to affect his books. Fortunately there is no sign of it here, even though this is the first that he has had to dictate. Whilst the plot is not one of his best, the characters are unusually strong and engaging. Mr Nutt, a well-spoken goblin with a dark secret, Glenda Sugarbean, the sensible cook who provides the backbone of the book, and the Posh-and-Becks analogues Juliet Stollop and Trevor Likely, all linger pleasingly in the mind. It is a shame that Ridcully and the wizards do not feature more prominently and the plot misses the open satirical goal of the commercialisation of the Beautiful Game in favour of the less-relevant issue of football hooligans and their underlying tribalism, but I liked the send-up of the fashion industry (particularly the notion that a model for dwarf mail would have to wear a long hairy beard), and the inevitable climatic match - with guest appearances from Rincewind and the Librarian - is funny and satisfying.
Jan 2010
The Best of Gene Wolfe - Gene Wolfe - Tor, 2009
* * * *
This short story collection was self-selected by the author, and my response to it is much the same as to his output as a whole. All the stories are beautifully written, but while some are stunningly good and clearly deserve their place (The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and its variants, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Forlesen, The Eyeflash Miracles, And When They Appear), there are others whose inclusion is a mystery to me (Hour of Trust, Bed and Breakfast, Has Anybody seen Junie Moon?, The Cabin on the Coast). It is interesting to see how many SF tropes Wolfe anticipated in his early stories - human cloning, alternative realities, steampunk - a characteristic that is sadly not shared by his later ones which are based on slighter ideas.
Jan 2010
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Oxford World's Classics, 2008
* * * *
Widely regarded as an American classic and with good reason. Beautifully written, it manages to compress a portrait of the New York 1920s demi-monde, an array of interesting amoral characters and a love story with a dramatic climax into a mere 144 pages. The brevity makes the motivations and opinions of the characters (including the narrator) marvellously ambiguous - and the unknowability of people even by themselves is, I think, the book's main point - but also means that it cannot say anything more profound about the human condition. Not that it needs to. I am surprised that no one has tried to film it in the past few years.
Feb 2010
Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirlees - Wildside Press, no date given
* * * *
I have commented before that fantasies involving fairy magic tend not to work because of the lack of rules. Well, Hope Mirlees has proved me wrong. She has done it by the clever trick of keeping the fairies and their world off-stage and focusing on the consequences of their proximity to Lud-in-the-Mist, a conventional mediaeval town of prosperous burghers. By emphasising the solidity and normality of the land of Dorimare and its inhabitants, the irruptions of fairy magic become an effective Freudian metaphor for the intrusion of subconscious irrationality into human thinking and decision-making. Which makes it an interesting companion piece to the almost exactly contemporaneous The Great Gatsby. And I have to say that the book's euphonious and evocative title is possibly my favourite ever.