Books alive

4 Responses to “Books alive”

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• Suze

  9 October 2006 at 12:13 am

  Since you’re asking – Toni Morrison’s novels are so beautiful because they work on such a personal level. beloved is a novel that portrays the workings of grief as much as any other driving force. The bluest eye is a novel that depicts the particular horrors of abuse as much as any other horror. Taken as a whole, though, in her novels you see how some people, by reason of the circumstances of their birth are given unreasonable access to the particular crucibles of grief, abuse, poverty, and disencfranchisement, that mark the marginalised communities of the world. For my money she stands above all comers, for this reason.
• Suze

  9 October 2006 at 12:45 am

  oh and since they were all or mostly authors on the guardian panel I will mention the truly brilliant and therefore completely overlooked Helen De Witt. Outshines the likes of McEwen, grenville etc by many orders of magnitude. The Joyce of our time.
• Glenn Condell

  9 October 2006 at 9:49 am

  It’s a patchy looking list without the Americans. The first two are about as far apart stylistically and thematically as it’s possible to get. Both great books though.

  Funny how Martin Amis’s career echoes his Dad’s – both had a huge initial hit (Money, Lucky Jim) which they tried vainly to match
  thereafter, until in Kingsley’s case he struck gold with the amusingly wicked Old Devils late in life. Martin’s still waiting for his late bookend; his current release (can’t even remember it’s title) seems from the reviews as middling as the rest of his recent output.

  McEwan and Carey are more my speed nowadays, with Americans like Foster Wallace and Easton Ellis. I will have to look de Witt up Suze, never heard of her. I do find men’s writing more congenial generally, as my wife finds women preferable in the main. She just finished Penelope Fitzgerald’s Blue Flower and enjoyed it, so I will have a crack at that too.

  I started Beloved not long after it came out but switched to something else before long. Like Rushdie’s writing for me, somehow claustrophobic.

  So many books, so little time.
• Suze

  9 October 2006 at 10:25 am

  Helen DeWitt has only written one book called “The Last Samurai”. It is a genre- buster and was largely savaged by critics and the panel of the Orange Prize who thought she was just showing off . I think if it had been written by a man it would have been hailed as a masterpiece. Obscure references by a woman is unforgiveable, but quite permissable for the D Foster Wallaces and Neil Stephensons. If you ever read it let me know what you think.

  I have a hilarious book of literary interviews conducted by journo Val Hennessy – I’m afraid the two Amis’ come off very badly. She interviews the younger having been impressed by the Rachel Papers. Her friends warn her that MA is a terrible snob and that he will likely mention he’s been to Oxford within the first few seconds. He greets her at the door with “I was at Oxford with your editor, actually,” and then makes her go out for a bottle of wine despite a conspicuously full wine rack. (is there any worse sin!?). Things only get worse from there. I quite like McEwen, though as a whole, I’m getting tired of middle-aged, middle class navel gazing as a genre- John Banville’s “The sea” is the most recent, and possibly worst,example.