By Susan Neiman (2002)
If I described this as an serious academic work of philosophy arguing how the Problem of Evil (is suffering deserved?) did not disappear into theology in the 18th century – you might not think it’s a exactly a page-turner. But it’s gripping!
A brilliant explanation of Kantโs intention, or an even more brilliant novelty. The tragedy of contingency, and the comedy of there being no limits to the number of things that can go wrong.
The Many Lives of Amory Clay by William Boyd (2015)
Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay is rather standard Boyd – which is to say it contains patches of really excellent writing, particularly in the first and last “lives”, and spirals around a few themes which have maybe become a bit too familiar.
The whole construction of the book feels a bit deja vu
By Vladimir Nabokov (1981)
Lectures on Russian Literature by Nabokov is just a joy to read again and again. If you’re at all interested in 19th century Russian Literature this is a delight, and if you’re not, you might well be after reading his hilarious study of Gogol – a lunatic and a genius, in one of the most eccentric works of criticism of all time, which starts with leeches dangling off sick writer’s nose, and then meditates on noses, Russian obsession with noses, Gogol’s desire to become one giant nose, which goes off wondering the streets without his owner’s awareness.
A joy to read again and again
By Camille Paglia (2018)
I completely failed the first time, so I tried again on holiday to get through Provocations by Camille Paglia.
My conclusion: that I am done with Camille Paglia. Her contrarian shtick may have been refreshing fifteen years ago but her act has been stolen by the intellectually vacuous and she’s keen to follow them
By Willem Elsschot (1933)
Cheese is just wonderful. A hapless clerk tries to make it big by becoming the exclusive Edam agent for the whole of Belgium (and the Grand Duchy). Problem is he hates cheese, and business too. Kafka is the obvious comparison, and I’m not sure the fact it’s so funny makes it less of a cheese-nightmare.
By Stella Gibbons (1932)
Cold Comfort Farm is a weird book. Immediately dated but seemingly timelessly funny, and with turns of phrase that are probably immortal now (“something nasty in the woodshed”), a sophisticated society girl takes out to save her romantically doom-laden rustic family in darkest Sussex.
My initial impressions (whoa, this is modernist, unreliable narrator) were somewhat deflated when it turns out that the protagonist basically telling them to buck up and start wearing fashionable clothes is in fact the unironic solution.
But reliably amusing and well-written.
By Ian Dunt (2020)
A real achievement. It’s ambitious – I started off thinking he’d bitten off a bit more than he could chew. It’s both very contemporary – up to the minute even – and a sweeping history of the liberal tradition.
Does a remarkable job considering this scope – even for well-known parts of the story or figures like John Stuart Mill, brings out wonderful details that (I at least) just wasn’t aware of – like he effectively co-wrote much of his work with his partner, then wife, Harriet Taylor, and was dedicated to the rights of women. Not to mention bringing in really interesting guys like Benjamin Constant, who I’d plain never heard of.
By Tim Moore (2004)
I keep returning to Tim Moore, since in theory he’s right up my street, disappearing on ridiculous self-inflicted adventures which just so happen to go wrong in entirely foreseen ways. In this one he walks a donkey along the Santiago de Compostela.
It did have quite a few of the things that frustrate me, including the totally accidental I didn’t intend to turn this into a book because that’s my job wackiness, and his tendency to give up and get his wife to fly over and bail him out, which I swear happens in every book and completely deflates the sense that things are out of control.
Nevertheless, reliably funny, and being forced to get along with his fellow pilgrims stops him sinking into misanthropy which can be a problem in his other books.