Articles about novels

A Children’s Bible – Lydia Millet

One of the blurbs describe this as a “funny dystopia” and I can see why, though I feel that would be a misleading way to describe the book. The setup is not dystopian – it seems to be the present day, with a large group of families taking an extended holiday in a country house. Maybe the children would consider it a dystopia though – the adults seem to be various combinations of stupid, selfish and feckless. They seem a bit cartoonish and unrealistic to me, but maybe I’m just lucky to have mostly avoided such people in my life.

Continue reading
This review is about , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy

The War is Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, which disrupts the Peace of Russian high society in Moscow, Petersburg and various country estates. We follow several aristocratic families as the war begins, gets worse, turns around and finally ends. Lots of characters, but mostly in the upper classes so everything is viewed through that lens.

Continue reading
This review is about , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

The Anomaly – Hervé Le Tellier

This speculative fiction is set in the present day just as we know it now. One day, an inexplicable and apparently impossible event happens; this novel is about how this affects the people involved, but also governments, media and everyone else. I thought it was all handled plausibly, which is essential in this kind of story. I could nitpick a few plot points, and especially the response to the final twist, but still I enjoyed this book. I could definitely see a sequel or even a multi-season TV show.

Continue reading
This review is about , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

Making Money – Terry Pratchett

Brilliant. This book took me some time to finish: many times I found myself re-reading sentences just because they were so clever and funny. I had several chuckles on each page, to the amusement of my family.

Continue reading
This review is about , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

The Night of All Souls – Philippa Swan

Several different narratives, two interwoven tales of deception and intrigue, and a few good tips on landscape architecture. Maybe overcooked in parts but overall a fun read.

Continue reading
This review is about , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

Human Croquet – Kate Atkinson

Book cover of Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson

This story has a dizzying start: it takes “begin at the beginning” to the extreme, and starts off at the Big Bang with an apparently omniscient narrator. Soon it settles down into a family saga where the narrative moves between a present and various times in the past. The characters are lively and well-drawn but mostly pretty stereotyped. And there is a good amount of mysterious goings-on and dramatic irony.

Continue reading
This review is about , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

Pond – Claire-Louise Bennett

“I only wish you could just spend five minutes beneath my skin and feel what it’s like. Feel the savage swarming magic I feel.”

Continue reading
This review is about , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter — Mario Vargas Llosa

La Habanera dances in the streets
And like every night
Pedro Comacho sells peanuts
Outside the Tropicana Club

Continue reading
This review is about , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

No One Is Talking About This — Patricia Lockwood

No One is Talking About This

The first half of the book is dizzying — stupid — hilarious — it’s a series of seemingly random impressions, vignettes, observations and ideas of a narrator who is an Internet celebrity and is steeped in Internet culture.

Continue reading
This review is about , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov

Book cover: The Annotated Lolita. This is a boring clip art image since I read an ebook and so have no nice photo of my own.

This is the fictional autobiography of one Humbert Humbert, written in his jail cell near the end of his life. He is very erudite and quite engaging despite being unhealthily obsessed with young girls. He falls in love with the title character (his landlady’s young daughter) and ends up taking her on an extended road trip across the USA. They purport to be father and daughter but are actually lovers. At the beginning Lolita seems reasonably willing to go along with everything, but Humbert gradually reveals how controlling he is and how unhappy Lolita really is. He slowly loses his grip and eventually loses Lolita, and commits the crime that finally lands him in jail. The writing throughout is clever, inventive and endlessly rewarding to read, despite the bleak and tawdry subject matter.

Continue reading
This review is about , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment