Reading list for September 2006
Currently reading
Orhan Pamuk, Snow - started in English, will finish in German
Recently read
Colin Dexter, The riddle of the third mile
Edward Gibbon, Decline and fall of the Roman Empire - abridged
Gita Mehta, A river sutra
I didn't read much last month, what with all the miles to be travelled, and operas to be heard, and visits to be paid, and a whole season of Six feet under - brilliant: sad, funny, harrowing; highly recommended - to be watched.
Orhan Pamuk may be known to you from newspaper reports last year that he was being prosecuted for telling the truth about events in Turkish history. It is of course the purest of coincidences that the prosecution was dropped on a technicality in the week that the EU was to investigate the Turkish legal system as a preliminary step to membership of the European Union. The novel is interesting, but I suspect that the ending is going to be very nasty indeed for many of the characters. Let us hope that Pamuk himself escapes "punishment" at the hands of those for whom words are more important than the truth.
The name of Colin Dexter will be familiar to fans of English police procedurals, he invented Inspector Morse who is the hero of this book. The story is overly tricky and quite unbelievable, sorry to say. The Morse of the book is even more unpleasant a man than the TV character, John Thaw's portrayal showed us a tormented and unhappy man whereas the book's hero is just a rude bastard.
I'm not sure why I read Gibbon, other than that it's been a presence on my parents' shelves and a name in my ears for forty years. This edition omitted most of the chapters about the rise of Christianity and its part in Rome's decline, which are reputedly among the most interesting parts of the history; what remains is largely a list of betrayals, of metaphorical or literal stabs in the back. Few indeed were the Roman emperors who died in their beds or even on the field of battle.
Gita Mehta's River sutra is a pleasing novel, a collection of tales told by or to a retired civil servant who manages a pilgrimage rest house on the banks of the holy Narmada river in central India. The end of each tale is the beginning of the next, and the whole cycle wraps around to the beginning again. Recommended.
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Labels: reading
posted by Udge @ 22:32
5 Comments:
Udge: Colin Dexter: yes, very good stuff. And Gibbon! You know, I think one has to read the unabrdged for full enjoyment--even just a volume or two. Some sublime writing there--well, you know.
now that's what I call an interesting combination...Gibbon is also here looking over my shoulder but I became afraid of big books...gonna be travelling,too..see you in november...then Im gonna test you orally on the Gibbon...;) so be prepared...
I remember seeing an Inspector Morse show on PBS (that would be the Public Broadcasting System) when flipping through stations. I really enjoyed the Mystery program when they took on Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence short stories (can't remember the name of the book now). I had a hard time getting into the show. Not a fan of Morse.
I don't know if you've ever watched Monk but I did pick up a novel written about the character and this was genuinely funny and enjoyable. It was as though Tony Shaloub was right in front of me, acting everything out.
I really do need to watch Six Feet Under. I've heard so many wonderful things about the show and there's someone I work with telling me at least once a week about how great it is.
The reading that you did do the last month - did you get much of it done on the plane?
I think I will have to get a few volumes of the unabridged Gibbon, because it does sound like his critical view of the rise of Christianity would interest me. (Talking to my sister about books, she said that the church history parts of Eco's "Name of the Rose" had her yawning, for me they were the best bits.)
I don't usually read books on the plane, because I can't concentrate. Magazines, yes.
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