There was more than a touch of Haruki Murakami about Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human". Indeed, I ended up wondering how much better a book it might have been had Murakami tackled the narrative. This was because I was never entirely comfortable with my understanding of what was going on - indeed at one point … Continue reading “No Longer Human”
Category: Reading
“What Will Survive of Us”
I really like the way Jacobson writes - which makes it strange that I haven't read more of him. I think that's an error I need to be correcting. "What Will Survive of Us" is no different i.e. it's written very well: not over-blown or harsh, suitably pacy, accessible. [The title, by the way, comes … Continue reading “What Will Survive of Us”
Reading event in July!
“Some Sort of Genius”
Having finally got round to finishing reading it, I can say I really enjoyed Paul O'Keeffe's "Some Sort of Genius: A Life of Wyndham Lewis". It seems to me that O'Keeffe has managed the book's tone and balance really well; navigating between fact and narrative can be difficult when it comes to biography. We are … Continue reading “Some Sort of Genius”
“Being Various”
"Being Various" is a collection of 'New Irish Short Stories' i.e. their authors are all Irish, as are most (but not all) of the stories' locations. By and large it's an interesting and inoffensive compendium; the stories are well-written, and the collection's cover trumpets some 'big names': Sally Rooney, Sinéad Gleeson, Eimear McBride, and Kevin … Continue reading “Being Various”
“A Long Long Way”
Wow. I love the way Sebastian Barry writes, and in The Long Long Way - a story about Irish soldiers fighting in the First World War - he really puts us through the wringer. Some of the imagery (e.g. men in trenches walking over the bloody fragments and broken bones of fallen colleagues) is so … Continue reading “A Long Long Way”
“That They May Face the Rising Sun”
Not very much happens in John McGahern's "That They May Face the Rising Sun" - but don't let that put you off! The novel paints a considered and in-depth picture of slow, rural Irish life which, even though the scale of it is quite narrow, still manages to touch on the universal. If I had … Continue reading “That They May Face the Rising Sun”
“The Tattoo Collector” & “no matter how it ends a bluebird’s song”
I include both these poetry collections in the same post not simply because I finished with both today, but because I couldn't finish reading them... I read Tim Tim Cheng's "The Tattoo Collector" about two months ago. Not being sure about it, I put it to one side and recently came back to it. Whilst … Continue reading “The Tattoo Collector” & “no matter how it ends a bluebird’s song”
“The Brueghel Moon”
A small confession. I had no real idea what was going on in Tamaz Chiladze's "The Brueghel Moon" - though I suspect this says more about me than the book! It was the first time (to the best of my knowledge) that I've read any Georgian fiction, and whether my confusion had anything to do … Continue reading “The Brueghel Moon”
“The Black Snow”
The language in Paul Lynch's "The Black Snow" possesses a kind of sustained lyricism which blends the poetic, the archaic, and the rural vocabulary of old Ireland. If you're not au fait with the language, occasionally you can get lost in it (in the sense of not being quite sure what is being said) and … Continue reading “The Black Snow”
Ian Gouge - Writer 