Do You Love Literature?

I like it when you are reading a really good book and you are swallowed in by it, its like the rest of life stops, time is meaningless and suddenly you notice as yuo look up that its morning and you have been reading all night. Wonderful.

I'm reading one now, hlama, that makes me feel that way. It's "Behindlings" by a young British novelist, Nicola Barker. I feel that every moment I spend away from it is a deprivation!

Ah - all-nighters - work has put paid to them.

It is wonderful when you have a book that calls insistently.

I'm currently mesmerized in that way by A PERFECT SPY by John Le Carre. He is of course a worlld-class storyteller, and a superb novelist despite being pigeonholed as a spy novelist.

You're right, Larry,

Le Carre just uses the "spy" setting as a backdrop for individuals who are caught up in a world of violence. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was typical of such a situation.

Larry,

Le Carre is great, a few of his works were dramatised here in the UK and appeared on TV a few yearsa go with Alec Guiness playing the part of George Smiley-absolutely riveting stuff.

D'Artagnan, I feel you may need of those 3 worthies the musketeers if you are to make much sense of Ms Barker, its hard work and sometimes I wonder if she is as much in the dark as the reader, stick with it and let me know what you think at the end.

God bless us one and all.

Hiama and Letty--yes, Le Carre is a great writer. If there is a better novelist in Britain today I don't know who it is. Read A PERFECT SPY if you haven't already, because it may be his masterpiece. So far it seems to be.

Thanks Larry, I will and I'll get back with me review for the assembled throng.

<always read that as "assembled thong" and think of wedgies... >

piffka, I know what you are saying when you state fiction as being "off-putting." there is a lot of crap being published. of late, there is a trend toward writing for the women in their late 20s and 30s, neurotic ramblings on life as a modern woman. absolute dribble. all these books are are treatises on the fear they will never find a man, and lo and behold, by the end of the book they are engaged. crap.

i love to read crappy novels, witness Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. What a bunch of bs. I figured this guy could have just masturbated for however long it took him to write this novel he posed as deep literature and the result would have been the same.

however, there is a lot of really great fiction out there, and thank goodness it exists, good fiction has allowed me to make sense of the absurdity of reality, the mundane, the day-to day dribbling of inane, boring, vapid and mindlessness.

pardon my atricious spelling.

hlama, re Nicola Barker: The plot of Behindlings is maybe deceptively simple, but then every once in a while I ask myself, what the heck are these people doing and why are they doing it? But I sense there's an internal logic at work here, and it's seductive. And it's really funny a lot of the time. I just finished the chapter in the pub (Saks)--what a riot!

Gala... you made me laugh several times. Thanks.

I WOULD LIKE to find a novel that kept me so engrossed I stayed up all night, even if I had to pay the consequences the next day. This hasn't happened for quite a while, I thought it was because I had become too old and grumpy.

I do have a book which Squeedleboink recommended to me that I have yet to start, but expect will be good: Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alaisdair Gray. Anybody read it?

I've read Lanark, Piffka, but it was some years ago. Well worth it: Gray is rather fantastic at times, so you have to like (or at least tolerate) that sort of writing. His 1981 Janine is a good one, too...

I went through a period of intense interest in Glaswegian writers, mainly Gray and James Kelman, and am now more into the latter. More gritty realism, at least in his earlier work.

Okie dokie, I will start on it this evening, though I admit, gritty realism is NOT my favorite. A little bit of fantasy is OK -- I like Garcia y Marquez.

Piffka--Kelman for gritty realism; Gray is more fantastic...

I stayed up until all hours rereading THE QUIET AMERICAN last night in one sitting. Had to sleep late this morning, but it was worth it. What a master storyteller Graham Greene was! QUIET is one of his best novels too--absolutely lean and economical, yet filled with evocative decsriptions of Vietnam. It is utterly perfect and infinitely superior to the dismal current movie version starring Michael caine.

Greene bears reading! I read the Quiet American when it was out in paperback...I can still remember reading it in the family den - wonder what year - in that rattan chair with the big cushions. I am guessing '66.

What year was the first edition printed?

The book was part of my clueing in to nuances, questions, about how things are portrayed to the world at large.

What Larry said was quite interesting.

Has anyone seen a film that did justice to the book, in their opinion ?

I suppose its like saying that the film maker's imgination is better then your own.

Well, I have HEARD that "The Bridges of Madison County" was far superior as a film, but, not having read the book, I cannot confirm.

I liked the film, though.

I agree that the film was good, I am in the same position as you regarding the book.

I've heard from others that the book The Godfather was not as good as the films, certainly films 1 and 2 were very very good.

I read Lord of the Rings when i should have been studying at Uni many many many years ago and thought that the first film of the trilogy by Peter Jackson was very good and did the first third of the book justice, haven't caught the twin towers yet.