LETSBuzz Book Club 29th June 2003
Follow up to White Teeth, enjoyed by pretty much everyone in the group. The story of Alex-Li, who collects autographs for a living and what happens to him and his immediate circle of friends when the rarest and most coveted autograph in his area of interest becomes available to him. There's a lot of other ideas in the book about Jewishness, goyishness, religion in general, body language and much more but it came over to Andrew as a lot of icing without very much cake and although it's quite an easy read and he kept on turning the pages, occasionally wondering why he didn't care more about the characters.
Andrew
Commercially a huge success so anyone in marketing will tell you that having Billy Connolly's famous psychoanalyst wife write his biography was a great idea. Andrew wished someone else had written it because it comes across as a 300-page press release. Of course he's been successful but it's written as if he's never done anything wrong in his life, Andrew felt that she was being protective of him, still showing only the stage persona which most of us know anyway. All the relationships described seem to be from the view of the bad they've done to poor Billy and how well he's done to put this behind him and be such a likeable rogue and "the funniest man on the planet".
Many people don't get a chance to put their case (a lot of them are dead) but a more dispassionate biographer would have dug around to find someone with something more interesting to say than "gosh, he's my bestest friend and he's really, really funny". It's just not very well written, the alarm bells ring when you find that he can do too many things "brilliantly" (cooking) or has a "you're all idiots if you do that" view on the things he can't do (skiing, the internet) and the Celebrity Insight bits at the front of each chapter are nauseating.
Best seller though, so what does this reviewer know?
Andrew
Andrew is a big fan of Penelope Lively's earlier books but had said that some of her later work implied she was going a bit soft. This, however, seemed to Andrew to be a return to form and he really enjoyed it. A widower finds a photograph of his ex-wife amongst some old papers which turns his, and in turn, their circle of friends' lives if not upside down then at least at right angles for a while. The skill in the writing, for Andrew, is how she portrays this group of people, now all in their 60s and how they're all past their salad days, though many are still happy and fulfilled which makes the whole thing quite sad and reflective. Recommended.
Andrew
A simple, though very nicely packaged and presented, collection of facts, tables and references that we all sort of know but don't, were told or have read once in some other book or magazine or on the net and thought "gosh, how interesting" but have subsequently forgotten. Handy to have it all in one volume for when one may need to refer occasionally to settle a dispute. Entertaining, humourous in its randomness and useful (Andrew had referred to it twice in the time he'd had it). The group could easily put together (at least the ideas) for volume two between us, using our various areas of specialisation or interest. People with ready access to publishing outlets will be similarly inspired and there will be imitations.
Andrew
Somewhat sprawling novel set in London in the late 1960s. Post graduate student interested in the occult, psychedelia, drugs and all the sex he can lay his hands on gets involved with an occult organisation which gets more alarming as he seems to be identified as some kind of chosen one.
It's in the form of a diary written by the central character, which he has been instructed to keep for this organisation. The tone of the book changes as this process occurs, starting out with little asides about the era (which now seem quite funny in view of the reverence that it's held in popular culture "No one's really releasing any good music these days"). Ends up quite shocking, the death of one of the main characters is totally devoid of any lightness, which it may have been tempting to use. It would have been easy (well, easier) to make the book more of a romp and the fact that it isn't one is to its credit.
Cautiously recommended (it's too long, by about 100 pages) but not for the faint hearted.
Andrew
Doreen was sure that she hadn't previously read this but found that one incident in the book (and quite late on, too) reminded her that she had, but had forgotten huge tracts of it, which is probably a bad sign. Not that funny, for David Lodge and definitely not as good as "Thinks".
Doreen
Didn't pass the 60 page test. Doreen couldn't get interested in the two narrators, beyond dismissing them as idiots. Andrew & Bob's enthusiasm for this indicates that it's a boys' book.
Doreen
Very enjoyable but horribly familiar from Doreen's time being active in the (then) Ecology Party. The author captures the feel of the time very well, it's all very funny and he comes across as a nice chap. Considering what he witnessed first hand, it must have been very tempting to dish dirt and tell tales but it's to his credit that he resists this.
Doreen
All the exhaustive research that some us saw Ms Proulx spending months doing in that TV documentary is in this book, however fleetingly, so Bob won't like it. Doreen fascinated by and started to mark all the weird names that she uses for the characters, but somehow they do seem real, perhaps culled from telephone directories.
Set in the Texas panhandle the book details the everyday lives of the people living and working there, some amazing stories and extraordinary facts. The basic story concerns Bob Dollar, sent from the big city to find potential sites for a feed-lot. Uncharacteristically for this author, it's very funny. Lots of dialogue and the voices of the various characters are very clearly heard. The actual story is a bit incidental to all the research and it wraps up perhaps a bit too quickly in a fairy tale ending. Even so, it's very entertaining and recommended.
Doreen
Gill loved this book but couldn't quite say why, given her usual aversion to depictions of modern life and as she struggled to understand a lot of the details of the characters' relationships with drugs and religion. Gill also loved and agreed with a lot of the author's observations about modern urban life.
Gill
Easy and quick to read. Liked the fact that the characters were older and had a life of experience to form them but disliked the fact that they were so middle class and that there was so much about writers writing books and publishing (yawn..)
Gill
About Victorian Ireland from the mid 19th Century until about 1920, a well written, good old tale of a land-owning family through five generations. Lots about copper and tin mining. The book illustrates well how little this wealthy family understand the lot of the peasant tenants and workers, or their resentment towards them. Quite a tragic yarn with lots of early deaths.
Gill
The frames have gone all funny by click to make it good.