Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
A particular welcome to ID061182, who dipped a tentative toe into the water expecting it to be chewed off by trolls, but instead found a warm reception for all three recommended books, but particularly for this perceptive reflection on Christos Tsiolkas’s Barracuda:
This is a far more powerful book than The Slap. It charts Danny’s miserable school days as a scholarship boy in a private school, his ambition to be an Olympic swimmer, his failure, his shame, and his disintegration and alienation of his family and friends. Perhaps my abiding memory, however, will be all the smells in the novel - Danny is obsessed with his body, and particularly his own and other people’s bodily odours. Ripe!
PatLux was first in line in the welcoming committee - not surprisingly, as it turns out it was she who persuaded ID061182 to join. She was followed by Isabelle Leinster, jmschrei , Vogelmonade and AggieH.
AggieH wrote:
Interesting point about smells in Barracuda. Only now that you say it, yes, it’s notable. It’s not typically a sense that is prevalent in or conveyed well in fictional everyday life, despite its constant and often evocative presence in real everyday life. Mixed opinions about Christos Tsiolkas kept him off my TBR. Then I heard him on this Guardian podcast and was gripped by his storytelling ability on air. He got me engrossed in a podcast about sport, for pity’s sake.
You can read the full discussion here
Over on GuardianWitness, ID5097862 was playing with the idea of a long read:
The Giraffe's Neck
Great novel, bought it at King Cross station, very funny . great insight into post Iron Curtain East Germany and a teacher's disdain for her pupils.
judgeDAmNation was facing a familiar dilemma:
I’m about ten pages from the end of my book, so another “What to read next?” crisis is impending - torn between JG Ballard, Anthony Trollope, the new Stephen King, and whatever else is crammed into my work locker...
The local library belatedly helped goodyorkshirelass out of the same problem:
My “What to read next?” dilemma has just been resolved by an email from my local library. Reserved Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread two long, sodding months ago. Dear god, hope it lives up to expectations.
Good choice, wrote Della49:
You’ve got something to look forward to! Anne Tyler is a great storyteller, and I would rate this one as one of her very best. 2/3 into the novel you may think she kind of loses the plot, but actually she doesn’t and it all comes together in the end.
One of the great features of Tips, Links and Suggestions is its capacity to keep the conversation going around books that might otherwise seem to have had their time in the sun. One such is Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which Katrin3 revealed had recently been trashed in a Danish newspaper, and which inspired two separate discussions, both of which converged on the central character of Dorrigo Evans.
mtilse initiated both discussions, with a reading in progress. At first s/he wondered if Dorrigo might be too good to be true, prompting this response from SydneyH:
He is based on a real-life Australian war hero, affectionately known as ‘Weary Dunlop’. He had to contend with some pretty shocking conditions, such as having to amputate limbs without anaesthetic. So, hard as it is to believe, Evans isn’t too good to be true.
Later mtilse decided that, far from being too good, Evans was actually unpleasant:
The real surprise for me was the fiery heart of the story, Dorrigo Evans. I didn’t really like him. Well what’s the harm in that, you’ll say. Unlikeable protagonists can be fun. Sadly it wasn’t that sort of unlikeability for me.
Back to GuardianWitness and a train journey gave EveMaria a chance to catch up:
Poldark (on the train)
The first of a set of 12 by Winston Graham- loving the BBC adaption, so am catching up before the next series!
Finally, Waskindleuser asked for some advice
Can someone recommend a good book regarding “Philosophy on Literature”? Thanks.
Suggestions so far include the following (though this one could run and run):
SnowyJohn: “The Oxford Very Short Introduction to Literary Theory might be a good place to start (Jonathan Culler), because it covers briefly pre-modern ideas about what literature is as well as later philosophers’ opinions. Something like Terry Eagleton’s An Introduction to Literary Theory.”
SydneyH : “Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement, or the work of Walter Pater, both of which consider the nature of beauty (but aren’t good books, especially Kant’s). If you’re interested more in a readable book about literature, I’d suggest Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel, or J.M. Coetzee’s collected essays.”
And that’s all for this week. If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.
And, as always, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see us covering beyond TLS, do let us know.
