Joseph Zizza
There is an awful temptation to overrate this book. It has all the qualities of a literary novel, especially the penetrating psychological insight. It is extremely well-written, closely and carefully plotted and you feel that you come to know Tom Ripley. All of that is very laudable. It also features some cutting observations of the manners and mores of the upper-class Americans in Europe in the 50???s. Ultimately, however, it is about a con man and murderer, and although it has a commentary to make about the culture and morality of the time, it has limited ???literary merit???. I will read more Highsmith, but I rate her as an accomplished and exceptional crime writer, but not as one who transcends the form and becomes a literary novelist.
I found this curiously unsatisfying. While it was clearly attempting to work on more than one level, the only level which came across effectively for me was the obvious one of description of a period in Italian history and the way life was for the people in this poor mountainous southern area of Italy. I was not swept away by the imagery and the emotional drama, and was left with a strangely unaffecting depiction of a way of life, which was sad and despairing but somehow lacked resonance as being about real people. I did find the tone to be downbeat and hopeless???and effectively so???but did not feel engaged or moved.
A continuation of the enjoyment of the Dance To The Music Of Time series. This one is perhaps a bit less enjoyable, as the novelty has worn off, but the style is very enjoyable, there are penetrating insights and amusing anecdotes and descriptions, which very occasionally were a trifle tiresome. Perhaps too much of this kind of thing in a short period was inadvisable. Need to space them out over a longer time frame, mirroring the sequence???s stretch over time
A strange mixture of Kafka, Dostoyevsky and Camus. I guess influenced by Dostoyevsky and Kafka, and influencing Camus, who was of course, influenced himself by Kafka and Dostoyevsky. The use of stream of consciousness as a tool is extensive, but different in that it does not necessarily reveal truth, as the characters lie to themselves and deceive themselves, or at least the main character does. He has a tremendous impact on people due ton his odd and self-dramatising behaviour. But his constant changing of his own story of himself makes it difficult to know what to think, which I believe is Hamsun???s point. Entertaining, with the added bit of knowing that it is not as straightforward as it seems.
Started off very promisingly, with a chapter about a woodworm telling the true story of Noah???s Ark, with criticism of humans and myths about Noah and all our preconceived notions about our superiority. Then it deteriorated. Some chapters were interesting, but ultimately foundered on their own cleverness. The point is made and brought home in the first few pages, but Barnes insists on carrying on with the clever ???joke??? for another 25 pages. Some were tedious from the outset, with the cleverness far too unsubstantial to sustain a 30 plus page point that didn???t justify one page. Certainly he can write, and switch genres, styles, centuries, viewpoints and characters with ease. But does he have anything to say that goes beyond ???Look at how clever I am??? and
???aren???t I iconoclastic and irreverent????. Worth a look at a later effort.
I thought this was a near masterpiece. Short, with few wasted words, but a strong and well-delivered message about the absence of innocence (or common guilt, perhaps) in any of us, told from the point of view of an unsympathetic and self-loathing (while still vain and self-admiring) narrator who speaks to an unseen listener, who can therefore be any of us. His tale is stark but somehow very real and believable, and resonated as a reflection of contemporary times despite being over 50 years old. Camus had the ability to be philosophical without using overtly philosophical methods, and I f=ind that very attractive. The character is real, feels like flesh and blood, but is also a symbol and a mouthpiece. Powerful and economical and impressive.
This book surprised me. I liked it far more than I expected to. I???ve been putting off reading the whole Dance To The Music Of Time for almost 20 years, and now I???m sorry I didn???t start sooner. A light and pleasurable read, describing several episodes in the late schooling of a British lad in the post WWI time period, it depicts without strain or apparent effort, a background and a sense of the society of the time. His ability to explore in depth a simple set of events in order to elucidate character, relationships, the societal milieu and mores, is striking. A very entertaining and enjoyable read, but not purely fluff and insignificance, as the psychological insights are acute and revealing, and the picture of an age that emerges is unlike any I have gotten from any writer other than Proust. I look forward to the next volume.
I found this most disappointing. It was worthy and well-intentioned, but dull, reasonably predictable and not engaging. Some of main character Henry Soames actions are so stupid as to lose sympathy, and other characters are sketches rather than people. The story arc was hard to believe, and the pacing was off, with too much emphasis on some sections and not enough on others. It had the feel of having been rushed and not cafrefully edited. Fell very short of Gardner???s other novels, such as Sunlight Dialogues, Grendel and The Wreckage Of Agathon.
Hammett's stories are almost as good–and as varied–as his novels. Short, to the point, with a hard-nosed and taciturn maoin character who shows no sentiment or sympathy. Much-imitated, but never equalled, Hammett is the best writer of hard-boiled detective fiction ever, including Chandler, MacDonald and the legion of pale photocopies who came after.
I found this a fascinating novel. An insider's view of the hunt for serial killers, the cancer of contemporary life. The strain it puts on the men and women who do it and the damage it does to them (and their families) balanced against the service they do in protecting us from the predators they hunt.
This Robert Crais novel features Joe Pike, a damaged ex-Marine, ex-cop. ex-mercenary. The novel centres on the threat to Larkin Barkley, daughter of a super-rich LA businessman, who has agreed to testify in a government case against drug runners. Pike is hired to protect her and soon realises that someone is leaking her whereabouts to the baddies. He cuts himself and Larkin off from the government, family and legal people who might be the source of the leak. Spending time alone with Larkin taxes the patience of the laconic and spartan Pike, but he eventually understands that she is similarly damaged, and becomes more fiercely protective of her.
Crais has fashioned a familar scenario, then twisted it a few times to make it more interesting, applying his skill at creating tension and suspense to keep the narrative velocity going while exploring the psychology of the protagonist, who has been a minor character in many of his popular Elvis Cole series.
Crais had, to his credit, moved away from Cole as the series grew stale, writing stand alone novels. He has succeeded here in refreshing the series by making his main character a secondary one and putting the enigmatic Pike in the spotlight. Entertaining and fast-paced.
This is a nicely structured and well-reasoned treatise on the work of the great Hank Mobley. Author Derek Ansell doesn't spend much time on Mobley's biography (much of which is unknown or known only through anecdotal testimony), but instead focuses on a mostly chronological walk-through his recorded output and its highlights. He offers passionate arguments about the virtues and value of specific tracks and albums. Although the book is occasionally repetitive, it continually sends the reader back to the music, and I found myself listening to my entire collection of Mobley's work, appreciating it anew and seeking out the few items I am missing from his large discography. This is a long overdue tribute to the fabulous music of a shy and introverted man who was ill-suited to cope with the “business” side of music. I might quibble about a few items I think he over or under-rates, but Derek Ansell has done jazz and Mobley a great service here
How does rubbish like this get so popular and garner so much attention? I realise that the Richard and Judy readers are an undemanding lot whose critical standards are non-existent, but this is just woeful. There is no narrative velocity, the writing is pedestrian, the characters poorly developed and the resolution so wildly improbable and unconvincing that it engenders nothing more than frustration and annoyance that a few hours of my valuable time were wasted on reading it. It might have made a decent 250 page novel, with some judicious editing and a bit of juicing up of the suspense, but as a 400-plus page novel it is overlong, flabby, flaccid and dull.
This is a distressing and disturbing story of two spoiled and ignorant Americans who travel to North Africa while attempting to salvage their marriage. It all goes horribly wrong, costing the man his life and the woman her sanity. I did not enjoy this novel, but felt guilty about not liking it more than I did. I suppose it???s about existential angst and culture clash and the enormity of the African sky, but it seemed to me to be about two people I would not have liked one bit doing incredibly stupid and reckless things and paying a very high price. The writing is excellent, and the descriptions evocative and powerful. But the novel is ultimately about venal, stupid, self-obsessed people behaving badly, and that isn???t interesting or meaningful or eternal or important. If it were an allegory of American involvement in the Middle East (which it is manifestly not, as it dates from 194) then it might be an interesting political commentary. As it is, it???s about spoiled, ignorant and idle fools going places they do not understand and cannot cope with, and losing everything as a consequence. Not fun to read, and no characters to like or care about (although they are well-drawn and realistic, they are also odious and hateful) I disliked this book a lot.
A complete load of crap! About as scary as tangling your foot in a vine, and just as annoying. This pathetic excuse for horror generates most of its effect by the sheer horror of the rubbish that gets published, BOUGHT and then MADE INTO A MOVIE! I enjoyed Scott Smith's A Simple Plan, although I thought it was laboured. This is just painful: a “horror” story about a few spoiled and unlikeable American jerks who go off to a remote place and get trapped by–da-dah–killer plants! the interior monlogues are laughably facile and superficial, and there is about as much excitement as in a large serving of blancmange. A tedious, lame, dull and awful piece of rubbish. I threw the book away!