There is always one book that you possess that, for some reason, you never get round to reading. In spite of the book bobbing up periodically like some form of literary flotsam and in spite of reading a few pages it soon submerges and is forgotten.
The particular volume in my case is Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” which I bought, not because it won the Man Booker Prize but rather because I thought it was one of those well meaning books which seek to bring mathematics nearer to the ordinary person by making abstruse concepts understandable.
Martel’s book is not that sort of book. It is a tricky novel – in the sense that it plays with concepts of narrative and plays games with the reader. There are multiple narrators and enough casual information about zoos and zoo keeping to keep a dilettante like me happy but, at the end of the novel – yes I did get through it after the last surfacing because, after all, this is the summer and I have the time and the inclination – I was left wondering about its basic worth.
It has 100 chapters, all of which are relatively short and the central conceit is interesting enough: how do you survive in a lifeboat with a 450 pound Royal Bengal tiger after the ship in which you have been travelling with your family and the remains of a sold off zoo mysteriously sinks.
I think that the extract from the Financial Times review is one which sums up my response to the novel: “Absurd, macabre, unreliable and sad, deeply sensual in its evoking of smells and sights, the whole trip and the narrator’s insanely curious voice suggest Joseph Conrad and Salman Rusahdie hallucinating together over the meaning of “The Old Man and the Sea” and “Gulliver’s Travels.” I would only add that Golding’s “Pincher Martin” should be somewhere in that mix and you have a good guide to the novel.
Whether this novel is any more than a dazzling jeu d’esprit I am not convinced, but at least I am glad that I have got this particular irritation out of the way and the novel safely read!
On a more practical level Stewart has asked me to give him the recipe for Toni’s Mum’s Gazpacho Soup for 4 persons, so here it is:
Ingredients
2 peeled cucumbers
1 red pepper
½ green pepper
½ onion
2 cloves of garlic
4 ripe tomatoes
4 slices of bread
Salt (a little to taste)
Olive oil (a little to taste)
Vinegar (to taste)
A tumbler of water
Method
Chop all the ingredients and place in a liquidizer. Liquidize. The addition of salt, olive oil and vinegar should be sparing and keep checking by taste that the mixture is as you want it. Remember (as Toni told me to add) you can always add more salt etc you can’t take it away. He also added in a phrase which I now regret having introduced him to, “Less is more!” The soup should be served very cold with ice cubes floating in the serving dish.
I had this soup this lunchtime and it was utterly delicious and there is still some left for dinner!
After a cloudy start to the morning it developed into one of those energy draining days where the only thing you want to do is sip ice cold gazpacho!
Tomorrow my education in actually appreciating Rose wine begins with a meeting of the Sitges Wine Tasting Group. I am going to take decent bottles of red and white just in case!
The particular volume in my case is Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” which I bought, not because it won the Man Booker Prize but rather because I thought it was one of those well meaning books which seek to bring mathematics nearer to the ordinary person by making abstruse concepts understandable.
Martel’s book is not that sort of book. It is a tricky novel – in the sense that it plays with concepts of narrative and plays games with the reader. There are multiple narrators and enough casual information about zoos and zoo keeping to keep a dilettante like me happy but, at the end of the novel – yes I did get through it after the last surfacing because, after all, this is the summer and I have the time and the inclination – I was left wondering about its basic worth.
It has 100 chapters, all of which are relatively short and the central conceit is interesting enough: how do you survive in a lifeboat with a 450 pound Royal Bengal tiger after the ship in which you have been travelling with your family and the remains of a sold off zoo mysteriously sinks.
I think that the extract from the Financial Times review is one which sums up my response to the novel: “Absurd, macabre, unreliable and sad, deeply sensual in its evoking of smells and sights, the whole trip and the narrator’s insanely curious voice suggest Joseph Conrad and Salman Rusahdie hallucinating together over the meaning of “The Old Man and the Sea” and “Gulliver’s Travels.” I would only add that Golding’s “Pincher Martin” should be somewhere in that mix and you have a good guide to the novel.
Whether this novel is any more than a dazzling jeu d’esprit I am not convinced, but at least I am glad that I have got this particular irritation out of the way and the novel safely read!
On a more practical level Stewart has asked me to give him the recipe for Toni’s Mum’s Gazpacho Soup for 4 persons, so here it is:
Ingredients
2 peeled cucumbers
1 red pepper
½ green pepper
½ onion
2 cloves of garlic
4 ripe tomatoes
4 slices of bread
Salt (a little to taste)
Olive oil (a little to taste)
Vinegar (to taste)
A tumbler of water
Method
Chop all the ingredients and place in a liquidizer. Liquidize. The addition of salt, olive oil and vinegar should be sparing and keep checking by taste that the mixture is as you want it. Remember (as Toni told me to add) you can always add more salt etc you can’t take it away. He also added in a phrase which I now regret having introduced him to, “Less is more!” The soup should be served very cold with ice cubes floating in the serving dish.
I had this soup this lunchtime and it was utterly delicious and there is still some left for dinner!
After a cloudy start to the morning it developed into one of those energy draining days where the only thing you want to do is sip ice cold gazpacho!
Tomorrow my education in actually appreciating Rose wine begins with a meeting of the Sitges Wine Tasting Group. I am going to take decent bottles of red and white just in case!
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