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Down but not out

Hermy

At the start of last year, I was dealing with depression and, unable for much of my usual routine, I got back into reading. This was great, not just because it got me through a difficult time, but also because it’s been so long since I’ve read with any real intent. So below is a list of the 24 books I managed to get through in the past year.

Voyeur - Francesca Reece: Not the greatest book I’ve ever read but a good story nonetheless and it was the one that got the ball rolling so a big thumbs-up for that.

Nora - Nuala O’Connor: I really liked this book – a wonderful imaging of the life of Nora Barnacle, wife and muse of James Joyce.

Atomised - Michel Houellebecq: I remember this book being controversial when it was published but I’m not sure what all the fuss was about – for me it was a real page turner.

The Valley of the Squinting Windows - Brindley MacNamara: A book I’ve been wanting to read for the longest time. Heavy going – the author didn’t hold back.

Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger: Picked this up in a charity shop out of curiosity given the authors more famous work. It didn’t do much for me to be honest.

Atonement - Ian McEwan: This is a wonderful book – McEwan is a very fine writer.

The Grass Arena - John Healy: Another one I picked up in a charity shop. A brutally honest account of life on the streets of London in the 60’s and 70’s.

Ulysses and Us - Declan Kiberd: Having listened to a number of Kiberd’s talks on YouTube I had hoped to get more from this book but a lot of it went over my head. I need to re-read it.

Ravelstein - Saul Bellow: Bellow’s final novel and viewed by many as his finest but it didn’t do it for me. I much preferred Mr Sammler’s Planet.

Strumpet City - James Plunkett: Another one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years. A good story though it does tend towards the sentimental.

Mefisto - John Banville: One of Banville’s earlier novels, a strange, dark tale which I only realised I had previously read about half way through, having no recollection of the first part of the book. But no bad thing – I could reread Banville every day.

The Arms Crisis of 1970 - Michael Henry: This is a brilliant work and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in modern Irish history. The author’s ability to present so much detail without the reader ever feeling swamped by it all is masterful.

A Bit on the Side - William Trevor: This was my first encounter with one of Trevor’s short story collections and it’s as good as anything I’ve ever read. The opening story in particular, Sitting with the Dead, has stayed with me.

Wunderland - Caitriona Lally: A curious tale, a bit like the one about the dog in the night!

The Country Girls - Edna O’Brien: Sixty years on from its publication it seems tame now but I can see why this would have raised more than a few eyebrows in the past.

Last Stories - William Trevor: As with A Bit on the Side just beautiful, beautiful writing.

Beckett before Beckett - Brigitte Le Juez: Another one that mostly went over my head but it was on sale and I’m fascinated by the man so it was worth a go. The book deals with Beckett’s time as a lecturer in Trinity College using the recently discovered notes of one of his students as source material.

Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years - Sue Townsend: Having read the original diary many years ago this was a trip down memory lane, and a very funny one to boot.

Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea - Patrick Freyne: Strangely my recollection of this book is vague because I did like it.

How To Be Right - James O’Brien: For me James is one of the good guys, swimming against the tide of lies, fake news and bullshit that passes for public discourse these days. Good book.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies - John Boyne: Boyne is a good story teller but perhaps a bad novelist. Each of the innumerable episodes make for good yarns in themselves but when combined the story becomes utterly contrived and farcical. And don’t get me started on the plot holes – there are several and they are gaping!

We Don’t Know Ourselves - Fintan O’Toole: I like Fintan so I hoped to like this book and it didn’t disappoint. An insightful and very readable account of some of the highs and lows of the last sixty years in Ireland.

Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality - Helen Joyce: It not often that I make a point of reading a book I know I’m not going to like. The last one I can think of was The Alchemist which was tripe. In fairness this book was an interesting read but, as I posted in Black Sheep’s reading log, it was spoiled by its one-sidedness. Anyone looking to get an insight into the many and varied issues surrounding transgenderism might be better served by looking elsewhere.

Poguemahone - Pat McCabe: An extraordinary book by one of my favourite authors. Six hundred pages of free verse hailed by some as this century’s Ulysses. Definitely one to read aloud for the fully immersive experience.

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Hermy

Innocent Blood - P.D. James: Not my usually thing but this crime thriller which I've seen mentioned numerous times in the This Week I are mostly reading thread was a very entertaining page turner and well worth a read if you stumble upon it.

Hermy

The Bee Sting - Paul Murray: I have to say I really enjoyed this book. Yes it was long and the writing wasn't especially special but the story telling was great and that was the books strong point. Like others I would not described this as a funny book though there were one or two funny moments. And after brilliantly building the tension through the final 100 pages or so I found the inconclusive ending to be quite a letdown. Still a great book all the same and I'll definitely be revisiting Skippy Dies in light of it.

Hermy

Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney: Another good book from Rooney, I particularly like the way she places the reader in the room with the characters where you're exposed to all the subtle interactions between them.

Hermy

Prophet Song - Paul Lynch: Last years Booker Prize winner, it only took a few pages to see why the judges favoured this book over the other nominees. The Bee Sting is good but this is on another level entirely. The writing is superb and the story - a dystopian nightmare on a par with McCarthy's The Road - draws you in slowly as one by one, the facets of everyday life are stripped away by tyranny. And setting it in Dublin where I grew up, where the places, people and things are all too familiar, only made it all the more grim. If nothing else this book should be a reminder of the relative luxury of living in a democracy however imperfect it might be.

Hermy

A Murder of Quality - John le Carré: A short book and some welcome light reading after Prophet Song. This is an out an out whodunit and would be unremarkable were it not for my interest in George Smiley.

Hermy

Antarctica - Claire Keegan: Been laid up the past few weeks with a cold and, not being able to do much else, I've been busy with my reading list. And the latest read, the first of Keegan's short story collections, though far short of her best work is nonetheless an interesting mix of themes, characters and settings.

Hermy

Paris: The Secret History - Andrew Hussey: I've been reading this one on and off for as long as I've been keeping this reading log but finally finished it yesterday. And despite taking as long as I did to read it I really enjoyed this potted history of the past thousand years of the City of Light which will serve as a great jumping-off point for anyone looking to delve further into the origins and development, and present state of this great city.

HalloweenJack

I'd second that recommendation, gives you a better of sense of what the city is real about, going much deeper than just detailing dates and major events. I also remember it being a slog but very worthwhile in the end.

Hermy

Malone Dies - Samuel Beckett: The second book in Beckett's trilogy and the only piece of his prose fiction I had left to read. Similar in form to the first part of Molloy in that the title character narrates the story, though in this case, rather than out wandering, that character is confined to a bed in a home anticipating his imminent death. Anyone familiar with Beckett will know it's the usual grim fare though it has it's funny moments too. And as ever there's the sharp contrast between the incredible precision of Beckett's language and the utter unreliability of the narrator which I just love.

Before April 20th 2006 I knew next to nothing about Sam Beckett despite his fame and lasting legacy. On that day, the centenary of his birth, RTE Radio 1 broadcast all 18 hours of Barry McGovern's superb reading (enacting, even) of the Trilogy. Curious, I tuned in in the afternoon and was instantly hooked. Later that night I tuned in again and was mesmerised by The Unnameable. Not long after I bought the box set and have listened to it innumerable times since. I know Beckett isn't for everyone, his writing can be difficult to access at the best of times - and there's an awful lot of it I find completely inaccessible - but despite that there's just something about his work, the searing honesty of it perhaps, that drew me in in '06 and hasn't let me go since.

Hermy

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carré: I took a break from some longer reads during the few days without power and among other things I read this, the third of le Carré's novels to feature George Smiley, though in this one he is mostly lurking in the shadows. As mentioned in HJ's thread it's one I've read before though that was many years ago and I remembered next to nothing of the plot. It's a good read but le Carré's take on the Cold War-era espionage thriller won't be to everyone's taste as his characters exist in a very grim and murky world very much removed from the glitz and glamour of the likes of Mr Bond!

Hermy

Night Boat to Tangier - Kevin Barry: I had to read this months book club choice in a hurry, having mistakenly thought I'd already read it. Consequently, my appreciation for the book was hampered by my haste to read it and it was only in hindsight that I could grasp the quality of the writing. Like a modern day retelling of Waiting for Godot, the story focuses on two men waiting at a Spanish sea port for the daughter of one of them to appear. While they wait we get flashbacks of their lives and some insight into how they came to be where they are. We encounter some very dark themes along the way but there's humour too, albeit that's also generally dark. Night Boat definitely warrants a reread to get a better appreciation of it and I look forward to this and others works by Barry in the year ahead.

Hermy

Children of Men - P.D. James: The second of two books by James frequently mentioned elsewhere in the forum, the premise for this dystopian tale is a good one - namely the demise of humanity, not through some cataclysmic event, but rather, slowly and inexorably, as a result of infertility. And many of the themes in the book - migrants, gender, corrupt and dysfunctional political institutions - are very prescient in today's troubled world. However, the descriptive passages go on a bit too much for my liking, interrupting the flow of the book, and the love story is a tired old trope which adds nothing; if anything, it rather takes from the novel in it's predictability. Not a bad book but it could have been so much more if the storytelling had been better.

HalloweenJack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123143674#Comment_123143674

I remember it being quite stark compared to other Barry works. Iirc, there were lots of spaces between the sentences on the pages, which were usually only a few lines. I started reading Beatlebone once I'd finished it and found them quite different. I liked Night Boat more at the time but Beatlebone has stuck in my mind a lot longer.

I agree that it needs a re-read. It was entertaining and handy enough to get through but I can't remember too much of the details, now.

Hermy

A Man in Love - Karl Ove Knaussgaard: The second installment of Knausgaard's six volume autofiction series Min Kamp (My Struggle), I got on a lot better with this one than the first, perhaps because I had an inkling of what to expect. At 650 pages with no chapters and only occasional line breaks, the granular detail, the focus on the banal, peppered with the authors philosophical musings, won't be everyone's cup of tea but I found it strangely compelling.

Hermy

Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis: This book is celebrated as one of the funniest books ever written but if that's the case much of the humour was lost on me. There were certainly some funny moments but nothing laugh-out-loud funny, and while the story telling was by times quite good, it's nothing more than an old fashioned, and rather tedious, Rom-Com as far as I could tell. If it's typical of Amis Senior's output I'll not be delving further into this oeuvre.

Hermy

Unsettled - Rosaleen McDonagh: This months book club choice, a short piece of autobiography, is a very frank account of the authors life as an Irish Traveller living with a disability. It wasn't a book I was expecting much from but it packs quite a punch and is a damning indictment of the Irish State in its failure to care for those on the margins of society.

Hermy

The Elements of Style - William Strunk/ E. B. White: Having injured my back last week I took a break from the weightier tomb that's been occupying my reading for the past while in favour of this featherweight which I first encountered many years go in a local library. Originally privately published in 1919 by Strunk, a professor of English at Cornell University, it was later revised and expanded by his former student White. Now in its fourth edition and with sales in excess of ten million copies I still think there's a lot to learn from this little style guide despite accusations of anachronism. And with it's core tenet to omit needless words this book, along with William Zinsser's On Writing Well, has done a lot to inform my own meagre attempts at writing.

Hermy

Heroic Failure - Fintan O'Toole: Another quick read while I convalesce. Whereas the last book I read on Brexit, Tony Connelly's Brexit and Ireland, was forensic and technical Heroic Failure goes in the other direction entirely. Fintan paints his picture with very broad brush strokes, taking in everything from Agincourt to The Italian Job and The Sex Pistols, with perhaps a bit too much analogy and metaphor. Not a bad book by any means but again it hasn't quite scratched that Brexit itch. By all accounts Tim Shipman has written the definitive story of Brexit so that's where I'm off to next for my Brexit fix.

Hermy

The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa: Although the premise for this dystopian story is a good one - a vague island state where an even vaguer authoritarian regime is gradually disappearing common place items and the memory of them - I did not like this months book club choice. It's a grim read and a prescient one, but with the narrators passive voice and a weak translation the more it went on the less engaged I became with it (perhaps that's the point). And despite it's critical acclaim the end couldn't come soon enough for me.

Hermy

Ducks, Newburyport - Lucy Ellmann: I had two false starts before I got into this book and I'm so glad I persisted with it because I think it's nothing short of a masterpiece. Almost a thousand pages of continuous internal monologue, briefly interrupted here and there by a parallel narrative, reading it one is reminded of Penelope, the last episode of Ulysses, where the thoughts of Molly Bloom come to life. And that's an interesting comparison given Lucy's father is Richard Ellmann who wrote the celebrated literary biography of James Joyce, and one of the reasons the book caught my eye. Set during Trumps first term in office the central character muses on everything around her - family, friends, neighbours, work, school, love, loss, the news, the environment, gun crime, and a host of other issues brought about by this most mendacious of presidencies. (One can only wonder what she's thinking second time around!) Ducks, Newburyport won't be for everyone, especially because of a particular literary device the author uses throughout the book which some readers may find off-putting. But like McCabe's Poguemahone - even more so, in fact - there's a rhythm to this book and once you pick up on it it'll whisk you along all the way to the end.

Hermy

Grand Hotel Abyss - Stuart Jeffries: Been a long time since I started this book on the lives of the Frankfurt School so after finishing Ducks... I got back into it this past week and finished it today. I'm no critical theorist but I do share Adorno and Horkheimer's contempt for the culture industry. However, I think their obsession with it did not serve them well. Habermas seems to have taken a much more reasonable view though his attitude to religion surprised me. Overall a very good read - the biographical and historical information was very accessible but the philosophical stuff was hard going to say the least.

Hermy

I'm a week late wrapping up another year of reading but it couldn't be helped. I read 42 books this time around and a lot of very good books at that. The Secret History, A Ghost in the Throat, They All Love Jack, Normal People, Prophet Song and Ducks, Newburyport were all great reads but Foster is my top pick just for the way that Keegan manages to convey so much with so few words. Worst book was Lucky Jim given it's lauded as one of the funniest books ever written but is nothing of the sort and in the main is a very unremarkable yarn. And special mention to For God's Sake: The Hidden Life of Irish Nuns for giving me an insight I never expected to get.

In the year ahead I'm determined to tackle Joyce which I failed to do this past twelve months, I have to get back into Wolf Hall which is patiently waiting for my return, and I'd also like to tackle some more non-fiction if I can.

Hermy

Topographia Hibernica - Blindboy Boatclub: My first time reading Blindboy, this is his third short story collection and I really liked it. Cruel, funny, bizarre and all written in his own original and distinct voice, I'm eager now to read the first two collections.

Hermy

The Spinning Heart - Donal Ryan: While I'm not generally a fan of multiple narrators this short work, Ryan's first published novel which tells of the aftermath of the 2009 financial crash through the voices of various people in a rural Irish town, was still a good read and established a style that I've become familiar with in his later novels.

HalloweenJack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123376122#Comment_123376122

He's like a more extreme version of the style used by Colin Barrett, John Patrick McHugh and even Kevin Barry.

It is impressive the amount of work he puts in to his craft. He's certainly a student of literature and not someone just writing down whatever comes into his head and getting it out there because of who he is.

Hermy

The Caretaker - Ron Rash: This months book club choice was by an American author I wasn't familiar with. Set in rural North Carolina at the time of the Korean War it tells of a son estranged from his parents by his choice of bride and the sinister lengths they will go to to win him back. It was a good story well told but it's another book that's let down by a less than convincing ending.

Hermy

Beatlebone - Kevin Barry: What a wonderful book! Barry is a great storyteller, he has a brilliant turn of phrase, and the dreamlike quality of this one had me from the first few pages. It's about a man who goes to the west of Ireland to hide out for a while and maybe try to reconnect with his muse, and the strange journey that ensues. I loved it.

Hermy

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce: This is my second time reading Portrait, the first time being about twenty years ago. Back then I remember liking the first couple of chapters but from the retreat onwards - with its seemingly endless sermon on hell - I was lost. This time however I got on much better, and while I still found the sermon a hard slog, the rest of the book was wonderful. I know that lots of people don't get Joyce but the writing in this book is out on its own and demonstrates so clearly why Joyce has the reputation he has. I think it was Banville who said that Beckett took everything out while Joyce put everything in and that's so apparent in this book. Every sentence is so rich and dense and expressive that it's hard to unpack all that he's saying but that doesn't at all detract from the sheer pleasure of savouring this sumptuous literary feast. Already I'm looking forward to rereading it and, like Beckett's Trilogy, it's one I'll probably keep going back to again and again.

Hermy

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell: I loved this months book club choice! It's a fictionalised account of the brief life of the son of William Shakespeare, who some scholars have suggested may have been the inspiration for the Baird's most famous character Hamlet. What I loved was the writing, how intimately it portrayed the story, how balanced every single sentence was, and how that balance fed into the overall structure of the novel and it's wonderful resolve.

Hermy

The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins: My reading has stalled over the last few weeks, in part due to getting bogged down in the last few chapters of this book. I'm much more interested in Dawkins views on religion but nonetheless it was fascinating to see how exhaustively, yet cogently, he can argue a point without losing the reader along the way. Notwithstanding my own limited interest in evolutionary biology, on the whole this was a very, very good book and I look forward to reading more of his better known works.