Literary fiction - any good reads lately?

[JulieBilly]

I have just worked my was through last year's Orange Prize nominees (have a baby, so have been starved of reading time) and have ordered this year's nominees, too.

What else can I read? Any books you have read lately you can recommend?

I don't like chick lit, misery memoirs. Fantasy/scif fi and historical fiction need to be really, very good for me to bother.

tia

Lady - That is why it rings false and unrealistic. They obviously have the same genes as the people they were cloned from so why no instinct for survival?

Well, it's a kind of brainwashing/indoctrination, isn't it? The weight of the societal 'norm' ? the way they're brought up and the things they're told at school ? has made them genuinely think that they're second-class citizens and, for some of them at least, in some twisted way that it's quite an honour, or at least a noble duty, to be destined to become donors.

I haven't read Reamde (? have I spelt that right?) but have loved all Stephenson's others.

I'm currently reading Anne Zouroudi's latest offering, The Bull of Mithros. All of her books are set in Greece but they reflect the real Greece and and village life, not the side that tourists tend to see. Her main character 'Hermes Diaktorous', is a detective in the same mould as Poirot although there is an air of mystery to him.

Lady - I read Never Let Me Go a while ago and it didn't have a truly lasting impression on me, but still, I don't remember any such indoctrination. Just that they don't know what will happen for a long time, and when they learn, they accept it with quite incredible docility.

Hully I complete agree with you about Life of Pi/Jamrach.
Just thought of another: the Accidental by Ali Smith. great book ending a bit ??

I've just started Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallce. It's HUGE! I'm really enjoying it so far - the writing is wonderful.

Has anybody mentioned 'Rebecca' Daphne deMaurier?
I always thought it was a bodice ripper, old fahioned Mills &Boon type thing until I saw the film about a year ago. I am reading it on I-pad ATM and its bloody good.

Cote, for me the sense of nothing much happening is what makes it so creepy. Their awful fates are kind of part of the social fabric and nothing to make much of a fuss about.

It's all very subtle but/and therefore more horrifying, IMO, than if there were overt brainwashing or they were forced into it. The scene (in the film; can't remember if it happens in the book) where they all come back to their cottage and practically queue up to patiently swipe their identity bracelets gave me the bad shivers.

They don't live in the society though, but are segregated from it. So they have little idea about the society's expectations of them.

I haven't seen the film but there is nothing in the book to explain the docility and lethargy seen in these clones. There should at least be some sort of indoctrination in the night a la Brave New World. It just doesn't make sense.

What's with the age thing about library use? OK, I'm rather old (or middle aged at least) now but I've never not used the library. I get quite a lot of new books free now as an amateur reviewer, I buy print books secondhand and I have a Kindle. I occasionally buy new books in print but not that much as I have no storage space for them.

Also, I like most things. If I disliked as many books as Remus I would be very reluctant to spend much money on buying them, and I'd probably only buy books that I found it really really hard to give back to the library.

I'm pulling Remus' leg. Don't worry, it's all very friendly (I'm 41, by the way, and totally in love with my Kindle)

OK, you're forgiven, not that I was offended by the way, just feel sorry for people who don't appreciate libraries (or Kindles) - I will never reject any source of reading material. And I'm only marginally more ancient than you.

I think wider society does have an impact on them and keeps them in their allotted place; for example, the stuff about them receiving cast-off goods from members of 'normal' society. And within their own society their impression of themselves as second-class citizens is constantly reinforced, by both their teachers and others who are in charge of them and by their peer group.

I guess it depends how you read it, but for me the whole point is: the horrifying and frightening thing is that it has been possible to classify a group of people as second-class/only worthy of being used for parts, WITHOUT any need for dramatic indoctrination/brainwashing.

I guess I read it as a sort of warning about apathy and lack of engagement with political, moral and social issues. The suggestion (as I read it) is that, if people don't question the status quo, the horrific things that happen in the book are only a few steps away.

I think with Never Let me Go - it was the otherworldliness of their way of thinking really came through.

The fact that they didn't try to fight their fate was what made it very original and chilling

I'm 42, so completely ancient compared to Cote. :)

'Never Let Me Go' - I just thought it was overly sentimental and bloomin' boring, as was that travesty about the butler which I have forgotten the name of. Yawn. Butler one = JUST GO ON AND TELL HER FOR GAWD'S SAKE. Never Let Me Go = JUST GO ON AND DIE FOR GAWD'S SAKE.

I love beautiful writing (love lots of poetry for example) but in fiction, it's no good writing nicely if you can't a) deliver a plot where something actually happens or b) create characters whom people actually vare about. That's where, 'The English Patient' fell down badly imho - really beautifully written but ultimately BORING and a let down because it never actually GOT anywhere. At least in History books (and even cookery books!) there is generally a final point, other than 'Oooh can't I write prettily and aren't I clever too?' which most modern literary fiction fails to get beyond - it's all just too self conscious imho.

care not vare

Another vote for Cat's Eye & the Robber Bride here - my favourite MA books. Alias Grace is good but chilling & terrifying - frightened the wits out of me, too scared to re-read!

The last literary book I read was The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - a brisk, easy read, liked it a lot. Things on my shelf nagging to be read include Flann o'Brien, Naomi Mitchison, Anjali Joseph & Jhumpa Lahiri....but I have a 6 week old baby so am mostly reading whodunnits, if I read at all...attention span has gone!

I've done Bring up the Bodies already. Very disappointing, it's style over substance.

Really Marshmallow? I quite liked 'Alias Grace' (aprat from the ridiculous ending - she is crap at endings) but I can't think of a single moment in it that I found scary. I haven't read 'The Robber Bride' but I've got really fed up of Atwood right now - she seems to just want to make men look stupid as her main aim and it gets a bit wearisome.

Remus there's a scene towards the end which is really creepy & spooky, in a kind of ghost-story way; if I say any more it'll be a spoiler!

Also I find true-crime or fictionalised versions thereof rather disturbing generally: I found The Suspicions of Mr Whicher very upsetting, for instance.

Haven't read Oryx & Crake or The Flood for similar reasons....there is enough apocalyptic stuff going on in real life for my liking, and I've read The Road, that was quite enough for me...

Debt to pleasure - John Lanchester
Anything at all by Margaret Atwood
Early Jonathon Coe (up ro & including The Closed Circle)
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell, in fact anything by him

When tired I like to read teen lit - Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn by Aidan Chambers has haunted me since I read it the week before giving birth!

Please can you PM me and jog my memory, Marshmallow? I am terrible for reading things too quickly and then forgetting all the details (or indeed everything about them!).

I enjoyed the first half of 'Mr Whicher' but not the second half - don't think she actually had enough material to sustain a full book tbh. I see she's got a new one out. If you enjoyed 'Mr Whicher' you might also like 'Wedlock' by Wendy Moore here. It's not bad - but her book about surgeon John Hunter, called 'The Knife Man' is superb. You might also like Mr Briggs' Hat

'Oryx And Crake' - you're not missing much tbh: it's a bit stupid. 'After The Flood' (is that what it's called?) is better - not great but not bad.

I just discovered William Nicholson " the secret intensity of everyday lives" was the first part of his surrey trilogy.

On the sci-fi front, Sherri Tepper is quite good for something a bit feminist in a male dominated field, 'Grass' or 'A plague of Angels'.

Remus completely agree with the literary ending thing, so frustrating. But i did love cloud atlas.
Someone higher up thread mentioned Robertson Davies who I read about 15 years ago and had totally forgotten about, so thank you... off to download now.