Coming off a literary high - please help

[CoteDAzur]

I just read Cloud Atlas and This Thing Of Darkness in quick succession, both epic, fantastic books of great scope and vision.

Now I don't now what to do with myself. Read another book, but what? What can I read now that won't be a huge disappointment after these two wonderful books that I have just finished?

That's the one Jajas! Well worth a read. It can be hard going in places, but is somehow lacking in the emotion that so often goes with Holocaust memoirs that it is refreshing and deeply disturbing at the same time.

I've just finished Dorian Grey. I knew the basics of the story but was pretty surprised by where it went at times. A pleasure to read. Read it at the same time as someone at work and we had good fun guessing where it was going. Lots of good old fashioned tropes in it but a few surprises too.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an interesting read. VERRRRRRRRRRY dry in places but that is the age of it (getting one with footnotes is good). It really is to American capitalism (and anti-monarchism) what the Manifesto is to Communism.

I found 'we need to talk about Kevin' absolutely compelling. There's no way I could watch the film, despite adoring Tilda Swinton, due to the content. Shocking but amazing.

i agree, we need to talk about kevin, is a harrowing, yet truly amazing book, the film misses a lot of the deeper meaning of the book, still good, Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast,

I was thinking about 'Kevin' today...

Just popped into my head.

It still troubles me. The film, and the book differently. But mostly the book.

I'm not at all sure if I like it.

I'm not at all sure if I agree with its underlying premise.

Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure I know what its underlying premise is...

But, 5 full years after reading it, it is still in my head. So, whatever else it is, it is a remarkable, unsettling, epochal piece of work.

But no way would I ever invite Lionel Shriver round for supper.

The woman likes snooker FFS...

Oh.

And Primo Levi.

My favourite.

Not 'If This Is A Man'. This is a fine book, but not his best.

The Periodic Table, and The Wrench.

Beautiful, warm, human pieces. There is a strong sense of a man clinging to those things within himself, defining himself by the medium of work, of being what you do.

And of course, what he was, in the Lager, was the chemist that he was before, and after.

So he survived til the guilt got him.

A fine man and a fine writer.

snooker, but why would any one like snooker? am confused.

Why indeed??

Her next novel, 'The Post Birthday World', was about an affair (or not) with a professional snooker player.

Or so I guess, having tossed it aside half way through.

I didn't get on with, 'Kevin' at all.

Well, I can understand that, Remus.

I found it hard to read.

And I am not even sure that it's any good.

BUT

It remains in my head when so much else (you better believe it) has fled. So, it is surely something.

Just not sure what...

it was a troubling book, but one that to this day stays with me, so well written or not it has staying power, it makes for difficult reading, but worth it, all her other books are rubbish though, am sure she must have a thing for individual sports as one of her earlier novels is about a tennis player.

Just came back to thread.

In answer to your question Cote I have read other books other than Dorothy Dunnett, lots of the ones on this thread.

I just thought I would recommend something to you that I thought you would enjoy and I am sure you would also find it intellectually stimulating as well.

I thought it was boring and badly written and I didn't care about anybody. For me, I have to have at least one character I'm interested in (even if it's a serial killer like The talented Mr Ripley or whomever!) but I had no interest in Kevin and co at all. I found her a 'cold' writer, if that makes sense and therefore I couldn't find anything in the novel to attach myself to, as it were. I suspect this was her intention but, for me, it failed. I felt the same about the script of 'Shallow Grave' and feel the same about a lot of the rubbish that Ian McEwan (sp?) trots out.

At last Remus

We agree.

Let's chase Ian McEwan out of town. With pitchforks, and faggots made of petrol soaked copies of 'Saturday'...

Agree re: WNTTAK. I felt emotionally manipulated by it, and not in a good way. The 'twist' certainly had a visceral impact and was delivered quite skilfully, I thought, though its effect was largely because of the daughter. But it felt a bit, I don't know exactly, easy, if that makes sense. Like some kind of tragedy bingo or top-trumps. It had the same artificial feel to it as Sophie's Choice, IMO, which is another book which, while quite powerful in some ways, feels unpleasantly exploitative and unreal. Like the superficial fantasies of someone not quite up to the task.

Oh, and, thank god. I totally agree about MacEwan. It made me want to cry that everyone thought Atonement was such a good book.

X-post.

Hurray for the IM haters club! :)

I read The Mosquito Coast recently and thought it was excellent

I'll join you too. I've read most of them as there's always so much hype. I find them all so dull though, always waiting for something to happen

Along with the petroleum-soaked Saturdays, we could fashion fashion copies of The Child In Time into spittoons..

Oh. We may run out of copies.

It's ok.

I'm sure Waterstone's (the apostrophe remains in Goth Towers) could furnish us with some volumes by Rushdie and Howard Jacobsen...

Seb Faulks.

A Week In December?

See You Next Tuesday.

On Green Dolphin Street, perhaps...