bookmark of the week

My nephew kindly keeps buying me bookmarks and this one comes from the roman baths at Caerleon in Wales. The bookmark shows a line drawing of the remains of the amphitheatre and a Roman solider. A fine addition to the collection.

Catching up

The week ahead is going to be one where hopefully I crank out some reviews.Got a lot to catch up on with 12 books having been read since the last review went up on the blog.

Going to start Monday, unless something goes wrong.

Breakfast of Champions - post II

As Trout gets closer to meeting Hoover the sense of impending doom is stoked up by Vonnegut. The stupidity of truck companies named after immovable objects like pyramids and the yearning that those he hitchhikes with have for some knowledge that somewhere someone is happy is pitiful.

What makes something bad almost inevitable is the state that Hoover starts to get himself into finding the ‘bad chemicals’ in his brain make him lose his grip on reality.

There is a great line in a discussion between Dwayne Hoover and his mistress Francine that shows just how difficult it must have been for someone who feels that the consumerism and hollow society around them is killing them:

“We could go to some other city,” said Francine.
“”They’re all like here. They’re all the same,” said Dwayne.

She then suggests he meets someone different, someone like Trout, without of course understanding that the consequences could be quite serious for someone on the edge of their sanity.

More next week...

Breakfast of Champions - post I

It took me a criminally long time, well after Slaughterhouse 5 and the Jail Bird, to finally 'get' Vonnegut and now having understood it, then it is simply a race against time to read as much of his work as I can afford to acquire.

The combination of humour, sci-fi but also a very strong but subtle commentary on world affairs is done in such a way that it feels as if once you appreciate it you have somehow landed membership of one of the coolest clubs around.

What adds to the experience here are the author illustrations. Little line sketches in pen that actually connect with the text in a way illustrations often fail to do. They add to the sense of disconnection between ordinary things and completely strange reactions they cause.

At the centre this is a story of two men who are travelling to meet each other and have an impact on each other's lives. One is a lonely science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the other is millionaire businessman Wayne Hoobler. The influence of Trout on Hoobler is going to come at a time when the businessman has already lost his grip on reality.

But of course the point here is a wider one about what is reality anyway in a country where odd things seem to be hard wired into the norm.

That is the gift of Vonnegut because he gets you to see things with a different eye. As you laugh you also start to think.

More soon...

The Russian Interpreter - post III

Whatever story has been spun on Manning becomes largely irelevant as he finds himself in prison enjoying some of the confusion and misery inflicted by the Soviet state on millions of its own people. Did the book that was handed out by the Englishman contain a microdot or royalties for a censored Russian writer? Whatever the truth is never really established with the money being far too much to fully cover the writer and royalties explanation.

After a spell in prison Manning is whisked straight to the airport to be sent home. As he sits on the plane about to leave Proctor-Gould comes stumbling up the aisle and as he sits down next to him as they take off and Moscow dissapears below the lies, confusion and deceit starts all over again.

A review will follow soon...

The Russian Interpreter - post II

With Manning now working for Proctor-Gould the student finds himself taken further away from his studies and he is introduced to the mysterious and flirtatious Raya who seduces Manning but only to get to Proctor-Gould. That leaves Manning, who works for Proctor-Gould as a translator in the odd position of having to translate love messages between the pair.

But Raya becomes a problem stealing the belongings from Proctor-Gould's hotel room and stumbling across a secret that involves the books that the English businessman hands out to Russian friends. In that collection of books there is something important enough for the businessman to resort to breaking and entering and to lie to his friend Manning.

As Raya is exposed as a thief and exits stage left the spotlight falls on the two friends and their relationships becomes clouded by the distrust that seems to pollute the Russian atmosphere. Is Proctor-Gould some sort of spy and why does he keep lying to Manning? Is it to protect his friend or implicate him further?

More tomorrow...

The Russian Interpreter - post I

At the heart of this story there are two characters. Manning is a student studying for his PhD and Proctor-Gould is some sort of cultural enterepeneur who has a passion for Russia.

The story starts with Proctor-Gould looking for Manning and in the time it takesfor that to happen you are filled in on the students life. He is frustrated by his studies, bored with Russia to the extent he dreams of getting away and keeps friendships with his minder at the university Sasha and a friend Katya who seems to be a victim of the regime.

But this is clearly not Stalinist times as there are references to the country no longer having a cult of personality so yu are left to assume it must be 1970s or 1980s because it is still cearly in the period of the cold war.

One slight problem from the start is that this feels like so many other books set in Russia and as a result it is quite hard to take it seriously. It feels like a parody without intentionally meaning to be one.

More tomorrow...

bookmark of the week

I am waiting to scan this but I have picked up a couple of magnetic bookmarks at Waterstones promoting Beatrix Potter's books. The clever thing about the bookmarks, which promote books including the Squirrel nutkin, is that they have an illustration of the cover on the front, details about publication and the story on the back and then further details of Potters life on the inside. Packed with information and very well done.

The ingredients of a good bookshop

one of the joys of browsing bookshops is the opportunity, if the shop is well done, to encounter suggested reads. I'm not talking about the 3 for 2 at the front of Waterstone's but the clever way that some books are put front-facing and how when publishers update their editions they get used in displays.

So it was without difficulty I gravitated to Breakfast of Champions which is part of the Vintage Classics range. A great cover and a crisp and clean design. But so few bookshops seemed to have it opting instead for Slaughterhouse 5 and Cats Cradle at a push. Along with layout, subtle book positioning and choice are the other ingredients of a good bookshop.

Cats Cradle - post III

The feared end of the world comes in the most comical way imaginable with an ice-nine victim sliding down a broken castle parapet into the ocean. But that is the power of Vonnegut because the point he is making is that the end of the world could come as a result of idiocy. In fact it is almost inevitable if you give power hungry amateurs the power to destroy the world then they will potentially do so without even thinking about the consequences.

Although this would have no doubt have been read differently at the height of the cold war when not only was the end of the world possible but also seems likely with Cuba, Kennedy being shot and the Russians up to all sorts. But there is also a flip here about the fact that this is science fiction with the made up religion and the island republic in the Caribbean but at the same time it is satire. What makes it so readable is the humour. Despite the doom and even the death this is all done with a wicked smile. I guess you have that choice of either laughing or smiling and maybe doing the latter is the best thing to do, even in the face of total destruction.

A review will follow soon...

Cats Cradle - post II

Vonnegut starts to leave the original idea of a writer putting together a book about the normal things that were happening on the day the atom bomb was dropped in the second world war and instead starts to weave together a story around ice-nine, the invention of the late Dr felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers' of the atom bomb.

As Vonnegut starts to chase up the leads of the Hoenikker family and starts to pull together the story of the invention of ice-nine there is a distinct gap between the care-free and laid back characters of the 1960s and the sheer horror or the potential invention that could freeze the water on the planet and make the atom bomb look like an very isolated incident. Vonnegut's narrator remains slightly cool with the knowledge and allows coincidences and plot developments to happen around him without too much comment or involvement but you sense that the show down is coming with the Hoenikker children, who each have a chunk of the deadly ice-nine.

More tomorrow...

Cats Cradle - post I

I didn’t really get the humour of Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse 5 partly because it wasn‘t that funny a thing the Dresden bombing.

But you get the humour here and it makes the alien excursions with Slaughterhouse much more understandable. It’s as if the wanderings into the bizarre are a very visible shorthand to remind the reader that not only is this fiction not fact but that reality can be strange anyway. He is challenging the reader to think.

Not only to think but embrace characters that are often unusual being either too tall, too short or too clever.

But underneath it all there is a real sense of the dangers of science. The atom bomb is the most visible example but the idea of Ice-9, a chemical that can freeze water regardless of the conditions and temperature, shows how dangerous science and the ideas of scientists can be in a cold war context.

More soon…

Slaves of Solitude - post V

It is with some relief that the balance of power swings and you sense that it would have been a difficult book to have tried to have got a mass audience for had Roach lost out in her battle. She almost does though as the dual enemies of Vicki the german lodger and Mr Twaites the old bully team up together to make her life uncomfortable.

Vicki even seems to steal her man the lieutenant who Roach has briefly dreamed of escaping with. But as she gets harder things start to go her way. This is when Hamilton is at his best because having had characters like Mr Prest on the fringes he chooses now to bring them in for a brief cameo with important results.

The book ends with hamilton voicing the view that all those caught up in the war deserved to be pitied. Roach has survived the assualt on mediocrity and finds that back in London she sees with fresh eyes and can breathe again. A feeling that many of us can only dream of.

A review will follow soon...

Slaves of Solitude - post IV

There is a brilliant moment when Hamilton has you alongside Miss Roach asking the same questions she does about whether or not she is imagining the hatred of her German friend. is she over reacting? Has she blown petty things out of proportion?

You never feel she has but it hangs in the balance for quite a while and it is not until a catalogue of slights stacks up that you know for sure that Miss Roach is right and the German woman has it in for her.

By then the atmosphere in the kettle drum that is the Rosamund Tea Rooms is causing discomfort and distorting the reality of Roach and the other guests. It questions the assumption that those at home were getting away with out suffering and shows that when liberties are denied you because of fear or rationing the costs can be high.

You are rooting for Roach but fear that she will lose her own war against Germany.

More tomorrow...

Running to spread the gift of reading

After looking round for a while to find a charity that I feel comfortable pounding the streets of London for this July in the London 10k I have settled on Book Aid International.

They provide books to people who couldn’t dream of getting them in sub-Sahara Africa and if you view spreading the gift of reading as a vital activity then this is really a very worthy cause.

If you feel like sponsoring me on my run then please click onto www.bmycharity.com/V2/simonquicke