I have read some of the western world’s greatest literature in English.
My reading from the Middle and Far East has been more restricted relying on philoreligious books like Lao Tsu’s jingly aphoristic brain teasers together with various books of fairy tales ranging from 1001 Nights to the Old Testament and The Koran.
The rest of the East, as long as you count Russia (Old Style) as part of Asia is solidly represented by the usual nineteenth century bricks masquerading as novels and so on.
Africa is rather woefully underrepresented in my library with a few volumes of Achebe and Soyinka, a couple of books of African Poetry and does Doris Lessing count as real African?
America, of course is much better represented with volumes from countries throughout the continent and Australasia is lumped in with the West.
From Conrad to Confucius; Dante to Defoe; Hegel to Heller and Belloc to Blyton I have read voraciously and indiscriminately. From delicious lows like the ‘Lucky Star’ novels that Isaac Asimov wrote shamelessly for easy money under a pseudonym to mind altering highs like ‘The Magic Mountain’ by Thomas Mann, I have gobbled up book after book.
So why can’t I remember them? I look at the covers of some books and I know that I have read them; sometimes I can remember the enjoyment I got from the reading. But I also know that if I had to give a one line summary of the book as the final question in ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ I would be leaving the studio without the six figure sum in my bank account. I am in a similar situation to Woody Allen when he said, “I took a speed-reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
Deathless prose that will live for ever as a shining example of human intellectual achievement and philosophical thought has obviously gone into my eyes and straight out through my ears. To give an example: ‘Dead Souls’ by Gogol – it’s about serfs. Thank you Woody Allen!
If ‘Dead Souls’ is, at it were, dead for me. Why is it that literature of a somewhat lower order should be bright and shining in the forefront of my memory?
All of this cogitation is as a result of one of my pupils brining in a book which he forced his parents to buy for him in the Book Fair that was a part of our notorious Culture Week (when things Welsh were forced upon the innocent consciousnesses of my hapless group of pupils.)
The boy bought with his eyes rather than his understanding of English so that, at present, he has managed to work his way through the first three line paragraph and is totally exhausted. He has therefore given me the book to read and has allowed me to keep it for the weekend. As a rather touching final comment he opined that, as I only had the novel for the weekend, he would not expect me to read much more than a few chapters! Bless!
The book itself has a striking cover by Bob Lea. It represents an old fashioned sailing ship with timbers made from what looks like charcoal sailing through a churning blood red sea. The filling sails look like lizard skin and the rigging is peopled by silhouettes of mariners. The only figure delineated with any clarity is standing clutching the bowsprit wearing a tricorn hat, holding a lantern which illuminates his billowing cape which looks like a veined butterfly wing. Crimson lightening streaks through a dark blue sky to add a final grotesque touch of horror.
My reading from the Middle and Far East has been more restricted relying on philoreligious books like Lao Tsu’s jingly aphoristic brain teasers together with various books of fairy tales ranging from 1001 Nights to the Old Testament and The Koran.
The rest of the East, as long as you count Russia (Old Style) as part of Asia is solidly represented by the usual nineteenth century bricks masquerading as novels and so on.
Africa is rather woefully underrepresented in my library with a few volumes of Achebe and Soyinka, a couple of books of African Poetry and does Doris Lessing count as real African?
America, of course is much better represented with volumes from countries throughout the continent and Australasia is lumped in with the West.
From Conrad to Confucius; Dante to Defoe; Hegel to Heller and Belloc to Blyton I have read voraciously and indiscriminately. From delicious lows like the ‘Lucky Star’ novels that Isaac Asimov wrote shamelessly for easy money under a pseudonym to mind altering highs like ‘The Magic Mountain’ by Thomas Mann, I have gobbled up book after book.
So why can’t I remember them? I look at the covers of some books and I know that I have read them; sometimes I can remember the enjoyment I got from the reading. But I also know that if I had to give a one line summary of the book as the final question in ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ I would be leaving the studio without the six figure sum in my bank account. I am in a similar situation to Woody Allen when he said, “I took a speed-reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
Deathless prose that will live for ever as a shining example of human intellectual achievement and philosophical thought has obviously gone into my eyes and straight out through my ears. To give an example: ‘Dead Souls’ by Gogol – it’s about serfs. Thank you Woody Allen!
If ‘Dead Souls’ is, at it were, dead for me. Why is it that literature of a somewhat lower order should be bright and shining in the forefront of my memory?
All of this cogitation is as a result of one of my pupils brining in a book which he forced his parents to buy for him in the Book Fair that was a part of our notorious Culture Week (when things Welsh were forced upon the innocent consciousnesses of my hapless group of pupils.)
The boy bought with his eyes rather than his understanding of English so that, at present, he has managed to work his way through the first three line paragraph and is totally exhausted. He has therefore given me the book to read and has allowed me to keep it for the weekend. As a rather touching final comment he opined that, as I only had the novel for the weekend, he would not expect me to read much more than a few chapters! Bless!
The book itself has a striking cover by Bob Lea. It represents an old fashioned sailing ship with timbers made from what looks like charcoal sailing through a churning blood red sea. The filling sails look like lizard skin and the rigging is peopled by silhouettes of mariners. The only figure delineated with any clarity is standing clutching the bowsprit wearing a tricorn hat, holding a lantern which illuminates his billowing cape which looks like a veined butterfly wing. Crimson lightening streaks through a dark blue sky to add a final grotesque touch of horror.
The final clue to the subject matter of this book is indicated by the ornate skull and crossbones embossed on the top of the cover. But look more closely at the skull and you will discover that the canines are unnaturally extended, justifying the title of this vulgar little rip off, ‘Vampirates – Demons of the Ocean’ by Justin Somper.
Bringing together ideas morphed from inspirations like orphans of Lemony Snicket with a touch of Swallows and Amazons infused with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pirates of the Caribbean and set (apparently) in Waterworld, this book is a masterpiece of unscrupulous popular culture jigsawing!
The book is set is 2505, but there is nothing in the story so far to suggest the far future – presumably this will develop in the rest of the series, as this volume does little more in its 300 pages than set the scene. As the captain’s whisper (don’t ask!) puts it in the last two sentences of the novel, “So it ends. So it begins.” So please, parents, be prepared to fork out a whole series of £5.99s as the series plods its way towards a story.
The front cover of this novel has a quotation from Anthony Horowitz, “Totally original . . . I wish I’d had this idea!” One can’t help feeling that he would have made a better job of it.
No matter what I think of the book as a piece of writing, the idea, as Horowitz says is original and I’m sure it will stay with me, whereas other ideas more profound in the hands of writers more skilled have flitted away from my mind.
Two stories stay with me.
The first is a science fiction story about delusion. The story concerned apparently wealthy, happy people living contented lives surrounded by consumer comforts. In reality they were living lives of squalor in a laboratory like maze having been successfully duped to accept another version of reality to cover their misery. The detail I remember is reading the description of a sumptuous meal and then finding out that the reality was gruel like sludge emerging from a rough pipe into a trough. Title and author have faded into the soft memory where files are unable to be retrieved. Any help will be appreciated, and I am sure that I once caught a glimpse of a film which used this idea, with numbered cardboard boxes taking the place of cookers, fridges, televisions, paintings etc.
The other was a fantasy or science fiction short story about an American youth always surrounded by a cloud of insects - to his continuing annoyance. The crux of this story was that the unassuming adolescent was actually the Lord of the Flies himself! Perhaps it was god’s little joke for the Beelzebub to be reworked as a sneaker wearing non entity and to be unaware of his potential as a Prince of Darkness! Title and author here too have gone. But the idea remains, fresh and pristine.
Perhaps the price for retaining each pushy, flashy and empty literary idea is that a profound and well written one has to be pushed into the twilight world of forgetfulness.
Perhaps maturity is also the time to drag them back where they belong and reinstate them in the forefront of consciousness.
That means that my programme of rereading should start now and will probably take the rest of my life!
Now that is what I call contentment!
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