Chekov - With Friends (Short Story)

Chekov is as great as anyone. Without sentiment, but not ugly. Loving in fact. I read this story on the train, and read it on the way home again. A lawyer visits some old friends from university, out of duty, there might be a chance for him to stay and settle with the girl they always said he'd marry. He doesn't. He criticises them fairly, and leaves early one morning in the end. Lives come up so large in these few words. Nothing is stupidly, discussions are interesting, unforced and without editorial take. I love the way Chekov tells a life, a story. I could read this one again right now.

The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing ABANDONED; Ubik - Philip K Dick - ABANDONED; Capital - John Lancaster ABANDONED WITH FEELING

The Golden Notebook - I wanted to like this book out of fondness for Helena Michaelson, a lovely and super bright person. I did enjoy it at first, but in the end the intellectual discussion of political activism and gender wore me down. A bit too heavy going for the prize.

Ubik - I love the way the door charges five cents to open and the guy with no money has to wheedle his way out of the apartment. But the sci-fi element stopped me both caring and concentrating enough on the characters, and meant after a certain point I didn't care enough about what felt like a coming reveal showing that the highest levels of power and business were implicated in the ruthless use and abuse of the little guy. The sci-fi transposition didn't seem to make this clearer or more meaningful for me.

Capital - complete load of fucking arse. Lazy journalisty take on London's variety. Heard it all before, felt like the author knew he was dragging it out, completely love free and pointless book.

Stoner by John Williams

The story of a professor who marries unhappily, this should be miserable, but is in fact the opposite. It is one of the most tender books I've ever read, the object of that tenderness the sweet, stoical Stoner, who is touched by literature and taken from his farmer destiny into something else, a la Jude the Obscure, and marries into a lonely coupling which he perseveres with through a meaningful affair. It runs from the early years of Stoners life to his death. It is the essential story and at the end Stoner literally lays down the book of his life, the same tone of the ending to the Book of Good Skills I always dreamed of. Almost the same ending in fact. Stoner's book is an academic study. Work, the steady digging of academia, is valued. The "ivory tower" as criticism is viewed through a wiser prism, romance is questioned but love is valued, beauty is held dear, but the valuing of "genius" and the artist as something outside of normal humanity is handled wearily. Nothing in it is untrue. I loved this book. In fact I not only loved this book I felt rescued from it, having been unable to finish a novel in three goes, which in itself is worth a think about, this book made me feel like literature has something for me still, can take me closer to the divinity within me. This book enriched my soul and in doing so reminded me of its existence.