LETSBuzz Book Club 6th December 1998

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Jean liked this book ... very clever, no horrid nasty bits - but overall it seemed just too, deliberately, coldly clever/analytical/calculating. She doesn't really like McEwan as an author, even when he isn't being horrid.
Jean

I Came, I Saw by Norman Lewis

This is an autobiography of the travel writer, who comes across as a humanist - in complete contrast to McEwan. Jean thought she'd like Lewis. The book itself is presented a bit like a travel story, although not quite finished. It starts with Lewis as a child and takes him through the war - the approach is cynical with a dry sense of humour, but also warm.

Jean recommended this book.There was general agreement that the story would make a good film - Gavin suggested the book might have been written for that purpose.
Jean

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

Not the favourite author of the group, perhaps, but certainly the most frequently recurring name. Another non-recommended McEwan. Doreen said it's a very slight book, which let down her high expectations after Enduring Love.

Doreen described the book as cold - again, it's not creepy or nasty. It's a moral story about making choices between the right and the wrong, ending in a very unpleasant, bizarre, slightly comical way.

One character is a famous, presumably good, composer who talks about the process of music-making. He left Doreen cold (another unfavourable comparison, this time to Grace Notes). You're left wondering whether the music is actually any good - the merit of the music is important in the story, but McEwan doesn't convey that knowledge to the reader.

Doreen reckons that it won the Booker Prize on the Buggin's Turn principle.
Doreen

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

"The First Discworld Book And Also The First And Only Terry Pratchett I'll Read" - Doreen.
"A few good jokes - but what on earth was going on? I had no idea, but everybody else seemed to know. The book was just a sequence of puns and jokes."

Caroline suggested (based on experience) that hospital plus painkillers created the appropriate mood in which to read this book.

Gavin opined that the first three Discworld books weren't very good (Pratchett couldn't write), that the second three were getting better (Pratchett now being taught) and that the seventh was about as good as they get. A tepid sort of recommendation, I think. (Andrew had read Mort, by the same author but not part of Discworld, and liked it. Also a tepid recomendation).

Those who had read this book agreed that it was badly written and had a not very good plot. But a few good one liners.
Doreen

Beyond the Blue Horizons by Penelope Lively

Seán didn't like this book of short stories. He found the people uninteresting, and the stories had little impact. Well written but hum drum. The only story which left much impression was the Christmas Newsletter one. The stories were populated by unexceptional middle-class people living boring, sub-rural lives.
Seán

Grimus by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie's first novel, which starts very promisingly with lots of sparkling word-play, inventiveness and mystery. The novel deals with a group of people who are given the option of immortality, and is the story of a quest (perhaps for death) by one of the immortals. The book continues well enough until the first stage of the quest is attained, and then it's as if Rushdie can't work out what to do with his characters. The second half of the book is dull, a grind, hardly worth bothering with except Seán doesn't like giving up without knowing what happens in the end.

Not recommended.
Seán

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

Not a literary book - a mixture of fiction, auto-biography, musing. Seán was never quite sure at what point fact took over from fiction and vice-versa. An engaging book by an author Seán felt would be great company; a friendly, ironic, likeable, knowledgeable, humane socialist. The book was full of ironic observations and wise-cracks.

The central event of the book, the timequake itself, was the moment (in the near future, as it happens) when time slipped back 10 years and everybody relived the same 10 years without any free will being involved. This allowed Vonnegut to explore the meaning and responsibilities of freewill - and the book suggests, maybe, that too many people in the world spend much of their time on autopilot.

Recommended.
Seán

Three Times Table by Sara Maitland

Caroline loved this book, about three women (grandmother, mother and child) in a house in London. The first chapter started with an obvious plot structure, but soon settled sown. The story features dragons, dinosaurs, and palaeontology - and the ways womens' lives have changed during the century.

By the end of the book all three women have come to life, and Caroline definitely recommends this book.
Caroline

Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry

A hugely enjoyable autobiography, in Fry's inimitable style. Starts off with his schooldays and progresses through his troublesome teens, involving difficulties with his homosexuality, with (somebody else's) credit cards and with the police, and the spell in gaol during which Fry realized he had to change his life. (Although, it seems from the book, he would probably have done this even without the encouragement of custody).

The book was an easy read, enjoyably wandering off topic from time to time then suddenly being wrenched back on-course. A very honest book.

Doreen agreed, and said the reader couldn't help but like Fry.

Recommended by all who had read it.
Andrew

My Year of Meat by Ruth L Ozeki

Based on a very clever premise, the book is effectively vegetarian propaganda. A half-American, half-Japanese woman is taken on by a Japanese television company to assist in the making of a series of programmes (sponsored by a Japanese beef company) intended to increase Japanese consumption of dead cattle. The programmes will show American women cooking (beef) for their husbands.

As the protagonist rises to the rank of Director she starts introducing more radical elements into the programmes, moving from the intended "rednecked cowboys and their wives" to "2 lesbian vegetarians."

Andrew did not feel interested in what happened to the characters, some of whom were caricatures. He concluded "Not bad, half a recommendation."
Andrew

Larry's Party by Carol Shields

"I was amazed that it won the 1998 Orange Prize and was chosen as Book of the Year ten times."

"A book about a totally unremarkable person, Larry, a complete non-entity."

"The end - the dinner party of the title - is completely dull."

Having put us all off the book completely, Andrew then said that he did enjoy the book - it was well-written and a light, easy read. But not, in a fair world, a prize-winner.
Andrew

Angels and Insects by A S Byatt

Two not-very-related books in one, with the first book (the Insects bit of the title) having been made into a film (still called Angels and Insects, however). The action of both books takes place in the last century (words I can only use, with the same meaning, for another year). They were not easy to read, with much detail about Darwinian theory and ants. However, and bearing in mind that she skipped the difficult bits about ants, Gillrecommended the first book.

The second book is about spiritualism, with only a minor link to the first. After a while reading about spiritualism, God and poetry and the muse, Gill slept. There were many difficult to handle references to poets and authors of the time. Half a recommendation.

The books could be read separately, and Andrew agreed that the first bookwas the better of the two.
Gill

Firebird by Janice Graham

The cover says of this book "You will never forget..." and that's absolutely true. It's diabolical crap, it's reached a new level ofawfulness, it's preposterous.

Gavin was not alone in feeling like this about the book, and like everybody else who had read it he can point to many instances of dreadful, appalling writing. Caroline said it's so badly written that it's funny.
Gavin

In the Memory of the Forest by Charles T Powers

Gavin really enjoyed the atmosphere in Powers' first and only novel. It really puts across the flavour of eastern Europe and understands the 'fucked-uped-ness' of it. Powers set up an interesting situation in the village which, in pre-war times, was once full of Jews who had now disappeared - but he didn't really make the most of it.

Strong on atmosphere, weaker on plot. A good book which could have been great. Recommend-ish.
Gavin

Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams

A good step in the right direction but by the end Gavin didn't really care about the characters. The book is set in Dublin and the islands off the west of Ireland, with a story in each place - at first he wondered why both stories were in the same book.

Despite the name, the book was lacking in insight of love.

Doreen had also read it, and agreed. Nothighly recommended by either of them - there was a feeling it was writtento a formula.
Gavin

The frames have gone all funny - click to make it good.