The traveling library has been out of action for months and when you take a look at our sagging bookshelves you will understand why we sometimes order books on Kindle. I far prefer to hold a real book in my hands, to know where I am in the tale, to flick back at will. If it is a hardback with good quality paper and a suitable/clever cover (ever the picky illustrator) then so much the better. But our shelves are laden to the point of sagging, so when we are to read a book chosen by one of our reading group and know nothing about it we resort to Kindle. I think it lessens my enjoyment. In December we discussed Walter Kempowski's, 'All for Nothing', a bleak tale about everyday Germans in the 2nd World War. It engendered a good discussion but was a depressing book to read in troubled times.
It was followed in January by Daniel Kehlmann's 'Tyll', a book of magical realism mixing folktale, wonderful imagery and historical figures, all set in a romp through the thirty years war. Does that sound a hotch-potch? Yes, it is, but delightfully so.
I had recently read Muriel Spark's 'Symposium' but completely forgotten what it was about. After watching a programme about her on Sky Arts I picked the book up again. What a tricky character she was, and yes, you can see it in her writing. The book is quite wicked, she obviously had a lot of fun writing it. It is set around the members of a dinner party, and what a bunch they are. Biting satire. This writer can bump people off without a care!
I used to love Margaret Atwood's writing, especially her poetry but am left absolutely cold by her more recent work. 'The Testaments' is a follow-on to 'The Handmaid's Tale', written after a gap of thirty-five years. (I read it in a good quality hardback but even that didn't help!) I found it mannered and clunky. It actually made me cross. In her acknowledgement Atwood states that no event was allowed into the book that does not have a precedent in history and while this is always clear it feels very heavy-handed. It is coming up for discussion with my women's lit group later this month and I'm interested to find out what others think of it.
I'm still on the look-out for a REALLY FUNNY BOOK!
Hello!
ReplyDeleteWe are devotees of Muriel Spark but for the life of us cannot recall if we have read 'Symposium' or not. We shall revisit and see.
We have never got along with Margaret Atwood. So we no longer try. There are so many good books to read that one really cannot persevere with some writers is our view.
Lockdown has enabled us to consume the complete works of Barbra Pym. Loved them.
How interesting that your club chose a book by Walter Kempowski. He is my favourite contemporary German author; I grew up with many of the sayings (that probably will have been hard to translate into English) from his books, not knowing they were from a source outside my family; my Mum and Dad used them so often that I had no reason to doubt they were "ours", until much later when I read the books and came across them.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, I was lucky to meet Mr Kempowski in person, when he was invited for a reading at a nearby town. He was the most gentle man - a true gentleman - you can imagine. Although he is no longer with us, his work is well worth reading; not-so-long ago history mirrored in the lives of ordinary people.
Would you accept clever over really funny? May I suggest Craig Brown's "Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret"? Granted I'm on the other side of the pond, but I thought it was both insightful and just the right bit of sweetly snarky.
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ReplyDeleteCanon-printers worden over het algemeen gebruikt in grote kantoren en organisaties omdat deze printers het meest geavanceerd zijn en beschikken over een goed uitgeruste technologie. Het lijdt geen twijfel dat de Canon-printer verbluffende services levert, maar soms maakt een gebruiker zich zorgen wanneer de Canon-printer vanwege technische problemen weigert af te drukken.
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