More Chopin, Arguing With Len And I'm With Team Fyodor

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So it appears that yet again I begin this blog the day after a terrorist atrocity. Yet again the world turns digitally medieval. Yet again for what it's worth my sympathies goes out to the injured and dead in these London attacks (bar three). But yet again I say this. No one should change their lives for fear. For fear would mean that the terrorists will win. I intend to go out to Cardiff Bay today. Am not going to alter my plans. Not at all.

So I will continue in this blog to chat on the books I've read yesterday. Terrorists remember don't like people who read avidly. They don't like books outside of their own sphere. And when we're talking about Islamic terrorists they wouldn't like Kate Chopin. She is first a woman, then a woman with a voice of her own and a woman who would not have believed that her place is in the home serving a man.

The Awakenings and other stories have now been finished. As I explained yesterday this has come as an unexpected surprise. The stories were a fascinating read. They were all best described as a slow burn. You wonder what's going on in the beginning and then you find yourself being drawn into the tale she's telling. Will look forward to reading her again.

Kindle do a series called Kindle Singles. Short fiction/non fiction on various subjects. When I first bought it one of these ebooks I bought was James Bond : My Long And Eventful Search For His Father. Essentially this was focusing on the battle which eventually involved in the (for want of a better word) "rebel" James Bond film Never Say Never Again.

Before this book I've read three Len Deighton novels. The Ipcress File, SS-GB and XPD. In all cases I had the same view. If Len and Deighton were an ice dance couple then they would score largely on the technical but not as well on artistic impression. His characters leave me cold. As I remember reading James Bond as a teenager Ian Fleming was much better in engaging your emotions. And of course nobody does the crime novel better than John Le Carre.

This book doesn't change my view of him one iota. It was rubbish. It's biggest problem was that it was just too short. It needed a lot more detail. Also his conclusion at the very end is just useless. I won't tell you what it is but let's just say that it doesn't matter what TV/Film does to change an iconic character (eg Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Inspector Morse) it's parent is the author who created it in the first place.

The novel I'm currently reading is House Of The Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky published in 1860. It reminded me of why I'm with Team Fyodor and not Team Chekov. You find yourself interested in the people and their lives in the Siberian prison camp they're living in. With Dostoevsky I find myself wanting to go on rather than swiping the page at a sense of reader duty.

Until the next time.

On Enjoying Italian Crime with Camilleri, Shruggable Neutrality on Chekhov and A Little Bit Of Chopin

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Have finished The Montalbano Mysteries by Andrea Camilleri . An omnibus of the first three novels of the eponymous Sicilian detective. Well I loved it. Everything you'd want from a crime genre is here. A hero you'd root for, a sense of place, characters well drawn, a good plot. I finished the book wishing that I was a brilliant Italian detective with a love of food living near the coast who could take a swim everyday should he wish it.

And the thing about this omnibus was....I didn't get to feel it was an omnibus. There was no sense of a hard slog. I just moved from one novel to the next with ease and was only disappointed when they were all finished. Don't know when I'll next get round to reading a Camilleri novel but I do know I'll be looking forward to it.

Which is more than I can say for Anton Chekhov.

You may remember sometime back I suggested that for some writers a reader can be in literary Switzerland. In that he (or she) didn't dislike a writer but at the same time could not understand the mantle of greatness that is thrust upon them. The main author I used for this was F Scott Fitzgerald but I included Chekhov in this as well.

Having now read The Duel And Other Stories I now realise that my views on Chekhov are slightly different. I'm still neutral but I finished each story thinking "Is that all there is"?

NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS. And even when it does it seems to resolve itself quickly and for the most part quietly enough. Leaving aside the duel of the main story the only real action seems to involve people flouncing off or acting in a turn of the century huff at something or another....and that's just the men.

So clearly I just don't understand why he gets the high literary reputation that he has. There are two conclusions to this. The first is that I'm the bookish equivalent of the little boy pointing out that king has no clothes. Suddenly I'm viewed as the most perceptive reader ever. Fame at last.

The second is more simple. That I'm an idiot who has not grasped the nuances of the Russian master. Either is possible.

Which leads me to the third book I'm reading now The Awakening and other stories by Kate Chopin. When I started to read the title story was thinking "This is like Chekhov. Nothing much is happening". But what Chopin does is to lead you slowly through the issues faced by the main character. This is interesting stuff. I think the phrase is "a slow burn". Must admit am impressed.

Until the next time.