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.

Old Possum's Book of Cats TS Eliot

Which raises the question - should I be reviewing everything I read to the children. Well I didn't read this to the children, I read it to myself. But it brings the question to mind. I read this as an adult. As myself. It's a delight. An in joke in places, it has the word Chinks in it to mean unironically the Chinese, but there is such joy in it. And a bit of depth too - the cats' third name being the one it calls itself - I liked that. The characters and the stories are tight. I barely knew any of them, though I could still hear the musical versions of Macavity and the Jellicle Cats. I like the storytelling drive. I liked the scourge of the Thames.

Howards End - EM Forster

I love this book. It was such a brilliant English book, about London and the countryside, and class, and the knowingness of the English, and battles between for instance, the artist and the businessman. I liked Leonard's night time wander into Surrey, I liked the search for and belief in the transcendent, the precision with which Forster makes things foolish not laughable, and that any criticism is measured, and directed most at the wilful ignorance of the strong. Mireille told a story today about a mum at the school saying how "her" school run person couldn't walk Noam back basically because she, the mum, didn't think it was a good idead... defensive, entitled, loaded with class prejudice, blind to others... It was nice to see it through a Howards End prism, and illuminating. So Howards End has helped me already... I learnt Only Connect from this book too. I thought it was just a TV programme. It's a whole philosophy - Margaret's desire to be true, join yourself and what you do, empathise, join your understanding with others... remind yourself this is water.
I loved the sister's relationship. When the forces of patriarchal medicine were coming down on Helen I thought about Jess, and felt pretty knotted. Maybe the ending of this book was a bit too melodramatic to transpose into my 21st century consciousness, compared with the early parts, so it perhaps isn't a perfect novel but I found it really rewarding. It seemed like a book a feminist could enjoy too - if I find time I think it would reward a bit of study - some academic takes on it. I'm gonna try the introduction now. But I like this book already without official sanction. x

The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald

I like the description of time and place, the sarcastic family in the dissolute castle, the laundry and the bad medicine. If I knew anything about Novalis the revelation of the poets identity at the end of the book might have given me more wry knowing grin points, but it didn't really matter. The image of the blue flower, sad, unattainable, perfect love, is complete and beautiful. The dialogue - from an age when things were more likely to be left unsaid - is just the sort of finely balanced and nuanced thing I love. I should start getting the evidence out of the book for these reviews - I'm gonna quote - one tiny scene chosen pretty much at random, prisoners are begging for money and the mother throws down her purse. Three brothers discuss it:
."They will cut each others' throats for it" said Karl.
"No. I am sure they have a system of distribution," saids Erasmus.
"Very probably the youngest will get least" said the Bernard.
A subtle delight. Likewise the description of the characters internal worlds - "Doctor Ebhard, perhaps relieved to have something definite to say had forbidden dancing absolutely" and the authorial asides - his real motive was one of the strongest known to humanity, the need to torment himself.
I'm going to read The Offshore next - Fitzgerald on the Thames. Sounds brilliant. Well I might read something else first, but this is an acute, sympathetic writer, whose warmth made me feel good.

Champagne by Chekov (short story)

Champagne Chekov

This is a devastating Chekov short story. It's about a man working as a signalman in the middle of the Russian steppes. He isn't happy. Chekov describes his wife looking at him with the love that comes from her having no opportunity and no income. i.e. desperation. It is pretty brutal. He is visited by a vibrant sexy widower and gets drunk. This isn't a chance for redemption, only a way of allowing the man to carry his previous fuck ups into a different, not better future. The story fits in tidily the history and environment around this man, perhaps it's only source of comfort is the perfection of the writing craft itself. Even in passing the description of a slightly thick person enjoying the feeling of being miserable as he trudges down the railway line, as it gives him a weight he can't otherwise access... it's so precise it is perfect. Anyway, I love Chekov. I don't really like the look of this Ford chooses Chekov anthology, and Ford's introduction struck me when I read it as being something like " I don't know much about Chekov but I'm such a great Chekovian writer myself I've picked this lot." Arrogant pish. But who cares about the packaging really, this story shines out. x

So 1Q84. When I saw someone else reading this in a café in the South Bank somewhere, I had to fight the urge to go up and talk to them about it. I felt liked I'd seen a fellow traveller in a strange city and I wanted to know if they were enjoying it, if they were getting it, what they liked and hated. I did like it, because at times it built this world with two moons and religion and the Tokyo freeways into something very solid, then at other times it seemed to be driven by the intellect of murakami, and so I felt distanced from it. One occasion when the book did me feel a bit silly was when 500 pages or so in I realised it's Books 1 and 2 of a trilogy. so I've still not finished with these two worlds. Anyway, I'll come back to this when I read part 3. It's time better spent than reading about football I guess.

So far, it's the story of two people, Aomame and Tengo, and their movement back towards each other.  The chapters alternate between the two lovers, who come to be moving in parallel but connected worlds - 1984 and 1Q84. It seems a book that allows Murakami to revisit a lot of the things that he is interested in - physical endurance, cults, and the world changing power of love. Because it writes about writing and fiction I think Murakami himself is very present in the book, and whether the interesting things he has to say justifies the egotism in this approach is a bit of a moot point. In places the writing is strangely clichéd, and I found the lesbian sex and violence both a bit kind of... unrealised, or corny. Yet at times it was brilliant. so here I sit - torn. I don't recommend it, but I want to talk to people that have read it, because the frustrations and delights I met on the way gave me something I haven't experienced before.