In an act of further smugness, I can cheerfully report that The Kindly Ones has now also been knocked off - in fact this was last week, but I've been busy.
I'm less convinced by this volume, though it is clearly aiming for 'significance' and seriousness as it takes us into the war. Schematically I found it a bit annoying, with the long Proustian childhood sequence and the obvious attempted parallel between the outbreak of the first and second wars, down to recurring characters in each. In theory this is fine, I just thought it was a bit clumsily done. Elsewhere, it pretty much meanders around, with some goodish unrelated scenes - Widmers again doing good work - and it ends pretty well, in a very Powellian twist where random acquaintance suddenly resolve the issue whereas figures well known to the narrator had proved their uselessness. It's all a bit familiar and even the plot twists are not as exciting as one feels they ought to be.
Much more surprising is the news that Keanu Reeves went on record last week saying he had just finished Proust. Do you think he'd be up for Powell?
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Time to start afresh...
I have been a bad, bad, boy regarding Mr Powell... Having started volume one, I never even finished it, let alone got as far as the dizzying heights of Mr Garrood. Anyway, as of tomorrow, I shall be at home in Co Durham almost permanently until the Autumn, in an attempt to find some peace and quiet in which to write up the D.Phil.
And so, I promise to start again, and to catch up... It's not as if I will have anything else to do!
And so, I promise to start again, and to catch up... It's not as if I will have anything else to do!
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Mollified
I've been prompted into updating on my recent progress. I knocked off Molly's almost two weeks ago but have sadly been reading nothing more exciting than a huge stack of UCAS forms since then (unless you count Titus Groan, the first of the Gormenghast books, which is, frankly, a bit of a drag). Well, I concur entirely with M. Garrood on this one - ALM was superb. Utterly delectable, and I hope the rest of the series continues as such. The character development of Jenkins is welcome, albeit offset by the appalingly sparse description of his new token female - honestly, if his fascination with Widmers, Quiggin, Erridge et al doesn't scream closet homo I don't know what does.
The undercurrent of political tension in Europe, and the suggestions of appeasement are curious - most certainly background music to the main dance at the moment, and one wonders how aware/bovvered the Upper Middle Classes really were of events cross channel. It's tempting, in an age of 24 hour news channels, for us to disregard the characters' relative indifference to Hitler as not being particularly credible - particularly when compared the constant barrage of outrage against Mugabe/China/Dubya/villain-of-the-week that El's employers espouse. For Powell's set there were clearly far more important matters to consider at the time, such as the three or four social events per day to drop in on and those coincidental bumpings-in-to at the Albert Memorial or in Chelsea apartments. In the next, bleaker, volume and thereon the seriousness of the situation seems desitined to bite them on the backsides. For now though - the dance is on!
P.S. Irittatingly, given we are now playing with the Experimental Law Variation of 3 volumes per 2 months, I am on an enforced sin-binning whilst volumes 5-9 lie gift-wrapped beneath a Christmas tree chez mes parentals. Chaps - please keep a seat for me at Casanova's Chinese Restaurant but go ahead and order, I'll be with you as soon as I am able.
The undercurrent of political tension in Europe, and the suggestions of appeasement are curious - most certainly background music to the main dance at the moment, and one wonders how aware/bovvered the Upper Middle Classes really were of events cross channel. It's tempting, in an age of 24 hour news channels, for us to disregard the characters' relative indifference to Hitler as not being particularly credible - particularly when compared the constant barrage of outrage against Mugabe/China/Dubya/villain-of-the-week that El's employers espouse. For Powell's set there were clearly far more important matters to consider at the time, such as the three or four social events per day to drop in on and those coincidental bumpings-in-to at the Albert Memorial or in Chelsea apartments. In the next, bleaker, volume and thereon the seriousness of the situation seems desitined to bite them on the backsides. For now though - the dance is on!
P.S. Irittatingly, given we are now playing with the Experimental Law Variation of 3 volumes per 2 months, I am on an enforced sin-binning whilst volumes 5-9 lie gift-wrapped beneath a Christmas tree chez mes parentals. Chaps - please keep a seat for me at Casanova's Chinese Restaurant but go ahead and order, I'll be with you as soon as I am able.
Wednesday 10 December 2008
That's better
I'm glad we upped the pace. Casanova's Chinese restaurant was good, in many ways I think the best of the lot (I feel I have said this before), but wouldn't have worked so well if I hadn't read it in such close proximity to the previous book.
In fact, quite a few things become very obvious by reading in close tracking to one another. The structure of the books become a lot clearer, with the dominant characters of the books really assert themselves when you aren't desperately trying to remember who they are. Moreland, the key man in CCR, is easier than most because he appears from nowhere (I had to check in Spurling) and gets a flashback at the beginning before we reconnect with time from ALM (in the intervening period our narrator has got married - we get no description of this passage at all).
It's an altogether bleaker book than the previous ones, ending depressingly and with a nice little twist. I reread the end of ALM and the contrast between them is striking. Because it tracks back at the beginning (brief cameo reappearance of Deacon), we get a much greater sense of a narrative arc, rather than the often fragmented and episodic nature of previous books. This one isn't perfect, but there is a real sense of a story in itself.
It also yielded my favourite line of the saga so far, more for the barb than the writing (Quiggin on Erridge):
He appears to have treated POUM, FAI, CNT, and UGT, as if they were all the same left-wing extension of the Labour Party. ... If you can't tell the difference between a Trotskyite-Communist, an Anarcho-Syndicalist, and a properly paid-up party member, you had better keen away from the barricades.
In fact, quite a few things become very obvious by reading in close tracking to one another. The structure of the books become a lot clearer, with the dominant characters of the books really assert themselves when you aren't desperately trying to remember who they are. Moreland, the key man in CCR, is easier than most because he appears from nowhere (I had to check in Spurling) and gets a flashback at the beginning before we reconnect with time from ALM (in the intervening period our narrator has got married - we get no description of this passage at all).
It's an altogether bleaker book than the previous ones, ending depressingly and with a nice little twist. I reread the end of ALM and the contrast between them is striking. Because it tracks back at the beginning (brief cameo reappearance of Deacon), we get a much greater sense of a narrative arc, rather than the often fragmented and episodic nature of previous books. This one isn't perfect, but there is a real sense of a story in itself.
It also yielded my favourite line of the saga so far, more for the barb than the writing (Quiggin on Erridge):
He appears to have treated POUM, FAI, CNT, and UGT, as if they were all the same left-wing extension of the Labour Party. ... If you can't tell the difference between a Trotskyite-Communist, an Anarcho-Syndicalist, and a properly paid-up party member, you had better keen away from the barricades.
Monday 8 December 2008
Pace duly upped
I glided through At Lady Molly's last week - all rather effortless I thought and I feel we're really getting going - about time! I'm very pleased with the decision to move to three volumes in two months, and have moved straight into Casanova's Chinese Restaurant.
I am hugely gratified to see our narrator actually doing something. Art books have been replaced by film scripts, which looks like proper hack-work, and suggest that our narrator might not be able to prance around thoughtless of money forever. I definitely noted a few choice quotes that I promptly forgot to write down.
There is some real grit in this volume as well, and I think it captures the strange unreality of serious politics in the 1930s, Spain and a European war both get major mentions, though as signs of points of view, not with any urgency attached. The symbolism of the retired general who has read Freud & Jung - and I'm straying into pretension - is here potent, and funny.
In many ways, Widmers and Erridge dominate the book, as poles of aristocratic leftism and middle-class 'getting on'. However, while Widmerpool is clearly ever more memorable and blackly comic in this book, I wonder if he is overplayed here. The situation are becoming a little absurd and straining reality. I'm part of the way into Casanova and he seems to have receded - so much for the better I feel.
Still no female characters of substance.
I am hugely gratified to see our narrator actually doing something. Art books have been replaced by film scripts, which looks like proper hack-work, and suggest that our narrator might not be able to prance around thoughtless of money forever. I definitely noted a few choice quotes that I promptly forgot to write down.
There is some real grit in this volume as well, and I think it captures the strange unreality of serious politics in the 1930s, Spain and a European war both get major mentions, though as signs of points of view, not with any urgency attached. The symbolism of the retired general who has read Freud & Jung - and I'm straying into pretension - is here potent, and funny.
In many ways, Widmers and Erridge dominate the book, as poles of aristocratic leftism and middle-class 'getting on'. However, while Widmerpool is clearly ever more memorable and blackly comic in this book, I wonder if he is overplayed here. The situation are becoming a little absurd and straining reality. I'm part of the way into Casanova and he seems to have receded - so much for the better I feel.
Still no female characters of substance.
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