50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2021, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read. Could everyone embolden their titles and/or authors as well, please, as it makes the books talked about easier to track?

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here and the third one here.

@Saucery

I also love Diana Wynne Jones, and I treated myself to a copy of Reflections a few years ago, maybe I actually need to get round to reading it?

27. Johnny got his Gun - Dalton Trumbo

This is Fiction but based on true events of a Canadian soldier, the book tells the story of Joe Bonham, an American soldier who wakes in a hospital bed after being caught in an explosion. It follows Joe's realisation in stages that he's deaf, blind, lost both his arms and legs, and his face as far as his forehead. Every sense other than his ability to feel is gone. His brain however, is undamaged and he is completely aware.

We follow Joe's life through his memories, his growing realisation of his situation, his horror and utter despair, culminating in his joy at his discovery, and then the Military's response to it.

If you know the song/video to Metallica's 'One' it was based on this story (in fact Metallica got so sick of paying royalties because the video uses excerpts from the film, that they bought the rights to it).

The book (and film), have become notorious for their anti war message. It isn't an easy read, especially when you find yourself wishing for the death of the main character, for nothing else other than to relieve him of his 'life' as it is. If ever I needed anything to reinforce my 'war solves nothing' view, it's this (JMO).

Thank you for that review hushabyelullaby I know of the book from the Metallica video and I think you were brave to read it - it sounds so harrowing I don't think I could face it.

Johnny got his gun was one of my top reads last year, just the thought of it and then the eventual military response. Its stayed with me

@elkiedee it’s a great book to dip in and out of, interspersed with rereading her fiction.

@Hushabyelullaby I read that years ago and watched the film as a teenager (mainly due to the fact I had a huge crush on Donald Sutherland, who plays Jesus in it ). The films Jacob’s Ladder and Source Code borrowed heavily from it, it’s very raw and underrated.

has anyone else read His Bloody Project. I have devoured this in two days : it's pretyy straightforwardly short.

It is part Victorian Penny Dreadful (the bloody stuff of the title is sure gruesome!), part homage to Scottish literature (of which I have read lots but particularly seemed very House With The Green Shutters) and quite like Jane Harris books in terms of unreliable narrators. It also dips into the Victorian obsession with lunacy and physiognomy. Kind of Kate Summerscaley too. But fiction.

Don't skip the Preface! It's part of the book!!

It's very clever, ultimately frustrating in terms of its ending but that is deliberate.

I was wondering what Graeme Macrae Burnet's others are like?

@Piggywaspushed

has anyone else read His Bloody Project. I have devoured this in two days : it's pretyy straightforwardly short.

It is part Victorian Penny Dreadful (the bloody stuff of the title is sure gruesome!), part homage to Scottish literature (of which I have read lots but particularly seemed very House With The Green Shutters) and quite like Jane Harris books in terms of unreliable narrators. It also dips into the Victorian obsession with lunacy and physiognomy. Kind of Kate Summerscaley too. But fiction.

Don't skip the Preface! It's part of the book!!

It's very clever, ultimately frustrating in terms of its ending but that is deliberate.

I was wondering what Graeme Macrae Burnet's others are like?

Yes - loved it.

I haven't got on with his others though.

Oh, high praise if you loved it remus!

It's a few years since I read His Bloody Project but thought it was excellent. Think I have positive reviews of Adele Bedeau here.

Loved it. so much that I've given it as gifts a few times too, Piggy. Very high praise indeed! I read and loved Burial Rights at the same sort of time as it too, so might be worth a try if you haven't read it yet.

Read that. Yes, liked it too.

I do think HBP is very distinctively Scottish.

I don't have enough experience of Scottish novels to have an opinion on that!

Other than a couple of John Buchan novels.

Sparse, terse, grim, dry. Short.

Bit like the people!

Any you'd particularly recommend?

I thought His Bloody Project was brilliant. I am a weirdo who positively likes ambiguous endings though.

Yes, I've read it too, Piggy. I thought it was good (not sure 'enjoyed' is quite the right word). I did buy The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau and The Accident on the A35 off the back of it - those two are linked - and they're interesting and tricksy in their own way but very different. They're like slightly strange Simenon novels in a way, the conceit is that they're translations of unknown novels by a French writer called 'Brunet'.

I'll have to think about that remus. I did love Gillespie and I. House With the Green Shutters is very dour...

There's a book all Scottish schoolkids read but the name escapes me at the mo.

Oh, The Cone Gatherers.

@Piggywaspushed

I'll have to think about that remus. I did love Gillespie and I. House With the Green Shutters is very dour...

There's a book all Scottish schoolkids read but the name escapes me at the mo.

I didn't much care for Gillespie iirc. Will get the sample of Green Shutters, thanks.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I think any author who tackles the death of a child is brave, any author who is also a parent doubly so. I've never lost a child but the physical intimacy and intensity of O'Farrell's writing gave me flashbacks to my husband's death and burial and I found myself reliving it in a way that was emotional but also somehow bearable (mybe because it's over 3 years ago now). I thought it was an extraordinary piece of work.

Thanks for explaining, PT. I don't personally see it as 'brave' to write about a child who died over 400 years ago, but I'm glad you found the book so moving/gratifying. I thought certain passages were strong, but as a whole it didn't work for me (although I'll be the first to admit I'm a heartless, awkward and cantankerous old sod).

I'm so sorry about your husband.

Piggy - Just looked up The Cone Gatherers. Sounds spectacularly bleak. Got the sample.

@Hushabyelullaby thanks for that review - I've added Johnny Got His Gun to my TBR list as it sounds fascinating.

Meanwhile, I'm still plodding on with Middlemarch and am about halfway through (the Masters had helped with this, as our TV now only seems to get golf in the evenings). Those of you that like it - why? Not meant to be goady, I'm just struggling to see the attraction so wonder what I'm missing. I'm not a complete philistine; I've read one book by each of the Brontes plus The Count of Monte Cristi this year, so I can read "old" classics, but for whatever reason, this I've just isn't doing it for me.

What I liked about Middlemarch was how acutely it skewered the self-deception involved in "falling in love" and how you marry an imaginary version of the other person.

But if it's not the right book for you right now, you're not obliged to carry on. You've given it a good old college try.