Twist - Colum McCann (2025)

 

Rating: Excellent

Twist can be added to the list of narratives that use Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness (1899) as a template, which also includes Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) and Robert Silverberg’s novel, Downward to the Earth (1970). McCann actually directly references both Coppola and Conrad in the narrative, but it is the story of John Conway, a brooding and mysterious character who leads the crew of the Georges Lecointe, a ship dedicated to repairing the fibre-optic deep-sea cables that carry over 90% of the world’s internet traffic, that acts as the main reference point to Conrad’s novella. Anthony Fennell, a writer and journalist, who has his own array of damages and dysfunctions (alcoholism, familial estrangement), is tasked with buddying up to Conway and joining the repair crew as they embark on the difficult mission to fix broken cables off the coast of West Africa. Fennell is a compelling narrator, as he ponders his own broken life, the psychologically dark depths of Conway’s salty persona and the improbable world of cable repair, which takes heroic levels of skill and determination to achieve. That aspect of the novel, the technical details of the cables, their purpose and fragility, is fascinating and strangely compelling. McCann fully utilises the thematic and metaphorical links between the cables and the manner in which humans communicate. Conway is directly involved in keeping the cables functioning, the very cables which, ironically, carry all the dark and toxic gossip about his partner, Zenele, an actress who is starring in a controversial adaptation of Beckett’s classic absurdist play, Waiting for Godot (1953); yet Conway himself is a closed book, much to the frustration of Fennell, who aims to pry open all of his secrets and motivations.

McCann reveals himself as a great stylist, his prose is cinematic and, at times, profound and beautiful. Some readers may find his stylistic flourishes pretentious, but couched within the novel’s wider themes, McCann gets away with his sometimes unrelentingly vivid descriptive prose. As Twist progresses the tension is ratcheted up, Conway goes without sleep in order to find and repair the offending cables. Fennell roams the ship, observing and fretting about his life and his semi-estranged son. However, curiously, once the situation with Conway becomes that of a man gone AWOL, the novel loses some of that tension, to its slight detriment. As Fennell begins to find out more of Conway’s activities and whereabouts the writing becomes more like reportage. There’s a section in second person, which works quite well in allowing both Fennell and the reader to see the world through Conway’s eyes. Still, Conway’s ultimate motivations are opaque, leaving the reader guessing at his end game, although given the general thematic thrust of the novel, it’s surely not much a leap to understand the root causes of his disillusionment. At this stage Fennell becomes the more interesting character, even though Conway still dominates. Still, Twist is, overall, a satisfying and unique novel. It does encourage reflection regarding the current state the world finds itself in, in regard to the environment, the ills of the web and pressures brought to bear on individuals and cultures due to the web’s overwhelming sway over humanity. A great novel for book clubs, as it encourages discussion regarding both its themes and its prose. Most of my book clubbers' found Twist to be an intriguing and well written novel, and they can be harsh in their judgements, McCann, it seems, passed the book club test.

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - Samuel R. Delany (1984)

 

Rating: Admirable

Samuel R. Delany is unlike most other science fiction writers, not only is his densely descriptive writing style highly erudite, but his work is conceptually sophisticated and quite often oblique. His themes explore gender norms, sexuality, sociology and cultural mores, especially relating to social politics and government bureaucracy. Delany has more in common with Ursula Le Guin than the likes of most other science fiction authors, particularly from the era in which he produced the majority of his published work, the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand takes place in a distant future in which humanity is spread across some 6000 planets. There are alien species, but only one shares humanity’s ability to harness faster than light travel, a xenophobic race known as XLv. Sounds simple enough, but Delany adds in two competing quasi-religious factions, the Family and the Sygn, both of which become only marginally understood as the novel progresses. One of the handful of main protagonists is Rat Korga, a gangly misfit who voluntarily undergoes a process called Radical Anxiety Termination, in which his brain is permanently altered to take away all mental suffering, but he effectively becomes a slave on a desert planet which is eventually destroyed in mysterious circumstances. The first section of the novel is taken up with his story, told in third person, until the narrative switches to first person, told from the perspective of the other principal protagonist, Marq Dyeth on the plant Velm.

The novel is an intense exercise in comprehensive and detailed world building in which the reader is totally thrown in the deep end. There’s very little in the way of background information regarding the Family or The Sygn, how humanity came to be spread across the stars, the nature of their space travel, but most significantly, the culture and society of Velm in which humans live alongside the Evelm, a reptilian species with a multitude of forms and social norms, including ‘dragons’ that live in the north of the planet. We get to know Marq Dyeth quite well, however her (Marq is actually a male, but it seems that everyone on the planet is referred to as a female, but at other times as a male, depending on sexual preferences…) interactions with her family and the Evelm are exceedingly complex. The array of cultural and societal norms is bewilderingly detailed and is explored comprehensibly throughout the latter half of the novel. It’s very easy to get lost and overwhelmed by such world building, as such it is both the novel’s strength and its weakness. The best way to approach Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is to just go with it and enjoy some of the novel’s more manifest joys, such as the literary elements, like the poetry recited at a social gathering, from where the title of the novel is taken, or Rat Korga’s experience with information cubes that transfer their data directly into the brain (many of which are great literary epics that sound fascinating - of course Delany goes into them in detail). There’s also the dragon hunting undertaken by Rat Korga and Marq Dyeth on Velm, which is unlike any hunting practice that you could reasonably consider. Delany also explores an internet like technology called the General Information Service, which reminds you that the novel was written and published during the early years of the Cyberpunk genre.

Samuel R. Delany, contemplating being oblique

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand demands a great deal from the reader, to the extent that it would simply be too frustrating for many readers; the XLv race is barely explored in the end, despite its obvious promise; there are just too many long detailed passages describing social customs and there's also the matter of confusing gender pronouns and a plot in which not much really happens in terms of action or typical plot devices that move the narrative forward in a dramatic fashion. Also, the novel was meant to be the first in a diptych, but the second novel, The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities has never been completed, meaning that there is a number of loose ends that are never resolved, as they were no-doubt going to be explored further in the second novel. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is fascinating, beautiful, frustrating and even maddening. I really don’t know whether I fully enjoyed it, but three weeks after finishing it I’m still thinking about it, so I’d say it’s worth reading, but be prepared to be both bewildered and challenged.

We Could Be...Bowie and His Heroes - Tom Hagler (2021)

 

Rating: Admirable

I find it hard to resist a good Bowie book and when We Could Be...was returned across the counter at my library I, predictably, took it home. Since Bowie died, now approaching ten years ago, there have been a multitude of Bowie books, all with their own angles in an attempt to get away from just a straight Bowie biography. This one collates an array of meetings that Bowie had with other significant people in the public sphere, in music, film, art, fashion and politics. It is arranged chronologically, starting with Absolute Beginner: 1947-1969 and ending with The Next Days: 2005-2016. For a hard-core Bowie fan like me the early years were the most interesting, for example I never knew that Bowie hung out with Brian Jones during the Rolling Stone's early years; that Bowie, as Davy Jones, was invited into Paul McCartney's home and they listened to an acetate of one of Bowie's songs; or that Ridley Scott directed the ad for 'Luv ice lollies' that featured Bowie in 1969. As the eras roll on the anecdotes become more familiar, although there are still many nuggets of unknown incidents to be found. The writing style is fairly informal, but good enough to carry the stories of Bowie's interesting meetings with other well known people. There's a smattering of photographs, most well known, among a few that are relatively unseen. Over all it is a handsome, well presented Bowie book.

Bowie and Visconti, circa 1979, getting their facts straight

Tony Visconti, Bowie's friend and significant producer throughout his career, is noted on the cover as being a 'consultant editor'. Apparently, as indicated in the introduction, Hagler managed to get an early draft to Visconti to read and he offered insights and corrections, saying that his input was based on what Bowie had told him directly. This does seem to give particular credence to the veracity of the stories, however, I was disappointed to note some oversights. I know it comes across as churlish to point out mistakes, but in a book like this it has the effect of the reader not being as trusting when it comes to some of the less well known encounters. Firstly, there's the account of the reasonably well known meeting in which Bowie mistook Doug Yule for Lou Reed when he attended a Velvet Underground gig in New York in 1971 (Reed had left the band by that stage). It's a humorous, and true story, however Hagler notes that it was supposedly John Cale who answered the stage door and let Bowie inside. John Cale had long left the band (in late 1968), with Doug Yule becoming his replacement. Cale was certainly not in a version of The Velvet Underground that didn't include Lou Reed. Strangely there is then no mention of Bowie meeting and hanging out with John Cale later in the book, in particular in New York, where he and Cale jammed together, something documented on some rather dodgy bootlegs. It's an odd oversight in the context of the thematic thrust of the book. Another error comes later, regarding Nagisa Oshima, who made the film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983); when shopping around for an actor to play a British POW he saw Bowie in an TV ad for Pepsi, also starring Tina Turner. Except unfortunately this ad didn't appear until 1987, when Bowie advertised Pepsi in a deal to help with the expenses of touring the Glass Spider Tour. I think the actual ad the director would have seen Bowie in was one he did in the early eighties for a brand of Japanese sake, which featured the amazing instrumental Crystal Japan (1980), but not Tina Turner. Finally, in the section covering the 1990s, Hagler notes that Bowie had written the song I'm Afraid of Americans (1995) with Trent Reznor, but the co-writer was Brian Eno. Reznor did a remix or two of the song, toured with Bowie and starred in the video, but there was no co-write. Now I feel really churlish! But, despite being a fine book, these oversights, as a hard core Bowie fan, mean that I question other stories that I've never encountered before, despite Visconti's involvement. Despite this the book is worth a read for Bowie fans overall, regardless of my nit-picking.

A Personal Epilogue

We Could Be... is all about Bowie encounters and what it was like for himself and the significant others he met throughout his life. As a fan I had my own encounter in 1987 in Sydney, where I attended four of the eight Glass Spider shows. I was hanging around the entertainment centre and walked past an area near the backstage. There was a cyclone fence running between the back of the centre and a multi-story car-park. A few people were hanging about and one told me that they knew that Bowie was going to arrive for a sound-check shortly. He did indeed, and the experience of meeting him was surreal. He stood about 30 centimetres away from me on the other side of the fence, wearing a black fedora hat and a suit. He signed a page from a book I'd managed to convince someone to rip out of a Bowie book they had with them (I had nothing with me). I can't remember what I said to him, nor what he said to me, but I remember that it evoked a feeling like you get from having a beer on an empty stomach. I also remember that he was friendly and polite, totally relaxed and his skin was so white that it was almost translucent. It was a thrill to meet him and still feels surreal today, like it happened in another realm, despite the physical evidence of the signed page hanging in a frame on my wall. A great experience - I was among those who met Bowie and I'll always treasure it. That day I also met Carlos Alomar, one of Bowie's great and important collaborators, having played guitar on countless Bowie classics. Now he was a dude, exuding lots of fun and enthusiasm as he jumped around in his black leather stage attire. A great day all round.

I Want Everything - Dominic Amerena (2025)

 

Rating: Excellent

I Want Everything is Dominic Amerena's debut novel, a five year effort, emerging after years of successfully publishing shorter works in various publications around the world. The novel concerns an unnamed protagonist, a would-be writer, struggling to actually get down to the business of writing and producing, in his dramatically uttered words, the ‘great Australian novel’. We first meet him as he’s leaving a Melbourne hospital, a place we find out later he is well acquainted with for reasons that are kept from the reader for quite a while, which ends up adding nicely to the narrative spice. He decides to venture down to the local swimming pool on the way home and spots an elderly woman whom he recognises as the great lost Australian cult author, Brenda Shales, who wrote two books in the 1970's, The Anchoress and The Widowers, before running into legal problems and then disappearing. Our unnamed protagonist weasels his way into Brenda’s life in order to extract her story in an effort to make his mark on the literary scene. Brenda Sales is a fabulous creation, apparently mostly based on Australian writers, Helen Garner and Elizabeth Jolley, she crackles with wily self-awareness and cynical cunning. Believing the protagonist to be her grandchild, Shales acquiesces to recounting both her life-story and the circumstance's that led to her cult literary notoriety. The sections that feature the stories of her past, mostly set in the 1960s and the 1970’s Whitlam era, are perhaps the best in the novel; fascinating and visceral, her life becomes vivid in the mind’s eye of the reader. She's cantankerous, difficult, but ultimately charms both the protagonist and the reader. 

I Want Everything is also a satire about writers, their struggles for inspiration, their hubris, and more seriously, the ethics surrounding writing. The main theme at play is literary fraud, principally the fraud the protagonist is attempting to perpetuate by passing himself off as someone else in order to insert himself into Brenda Shales’ story. But Amerena also explores the moral issues around how writers obtain inspiration for the material they need to feed on, like literary vampires, in order to produce their work. The protagonist’s partner, Ruth, a dedicated writer, is ruthless (no pun intended) when it comes to fuelling her drive to write, including withdrawing emotionally from the protagonist as the novel progresses. In one of the novel’s great scenes Ruth and the protagonist are at a dinner party with fellow writers, one of which reacts with jealous horror regarding Ruth’s recent essay publication and success, breaking glasses and even crying pathetically at the dinner-table at one stage. In terms of poking fun at writers’ egos, it is darkly humorous stuff, particularly when we find out that what Ruth has written is considered to be ‘mother-boarding’, which, in the context of the novel, is a term used to describe demonising your mother in writing. Amerena’s writing pops with confident verve, sometimes bordering on pretension, but he manages to get away with it by being fleet-footed in terms of pacing and sheer chutzpah. It also helps that the novel features a satisfying twist that makes you revise everything you’ve read and adds layers to the narrative you didn’t know were there. A book club read, one in which not everyone was enamoured with, however I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent debut and hope that there’s more to come in the future.

City - Clifford D. Simak (1952, complete edition - 1988)

 

Rating: Excellent

This 1988 edition of City (pictured above) contains a ninth tale, not included in earlier editions of this remarkable book, and an author's forward. Known as a 'fix-up' book, containing stories published separately between 1944-1951, it was then published in 1952 with interlinking tales that explain how the stories are fragments of a greater narrative. The ninth story, or Epilog, was first published separately in 1973. This edition begins with the rather sobering words: "City was written out of disillusion." Simak had lived through WWII and had despaired at its devastation. City is a rumination on what the future could hold for humanity, however Simak's visions of the future are unlike any other typical dystopias or utopias encountered in science fiction. The interlinked tales are woven together with brief extrapolations regarding their veracity and origins, how they came to be part of 'Doggish lore', for in City dogs are intelligent and can speak, having been given that capacity by the Webster family, who feature from the very first tale. Not only are there talking dogs, but there are also robots, in particular the servant robot, Jenkins, who features throughout the book. Robots, talking dogs and the future of humanity? You might consider that you'd know how the tales found in City will play out, but, once again, Simak produced work that defies typical science fiction tropes. Simak's writing is a curious blend of fable, fantasy, science fiction and folklore. It's a bit baggy and, indeed, shaggy, but is irrepressibly endearing because of these very tendencies.

Clifford D Simak, contemplating the future of humanity.

Within these tales humanity's future is marked by both stasis and expansion, some humans who have settled away from cities (as most of humanity end up doing, despite the title) find themselves becoming agoraphobic and in later stories many end up in virtual reality suspended animation. Some, whilst exploring a highly improbable conception of Jupiter, find escape into ecstasies of alien existence. Others are beginning humanity's exploration of the stars and disappear for good, others still become human mutant outliers, experts in logic, theory and their practical applications. Their impact on ants turns out to be significant, but no spoilers here. However it is the dogs that are at the heart of these tales, after all, they inherit the Earth and ponder the past via their Doggish fables of times long gone. They develop a sophisticated society over the eons, with the aid of the robots, the faithful servants of both humans and dogs. There's just enough weirdness and intrigue to keep the reader engaged, but Simak is careful not to reveal too much, keeping you wanting more. Probably my favourite parts of City involves the concept of 'cobblies', entities who live in other parallel worlds, with some of them slipping through to Earth, with unintended consequences. I'm surprised that City has never been made into a television series, or at least a movie, it would make an excellent visual narrative, but I could not find any mention of it ever being optioned in any way. Although eight of the nine stories here were written and published during WWII, they have aged well, perhaps because the notion that humanity is inherently fatally flawed is still persuasive. Also the concepts involved and the style in which they are presented are remarkably contemporary. Fortunately when I found my copy of City in a kooky second hand book store (Bella's Second Hand Book Store), I also bought six other Simak books, so I'm looking forward to more Simak thrills to come.

 

Two beautiful editions of City

There Are Rivers in the Sky - Elif Shafak (2024)

 

Rating: Excellent

Elif Shafak is a significant author, activist, academic and speaker on the world stage. Shafak is of Turkish descent and lives in exile from Turkey due to persecution over alleged charges of 'insulting Turkishness' and spurious accusations of plagiarism. There Are Rivers in the Sky is an epic and complex novel that ties together three seperate narrative strands; Arthur Smyth, a brilliant savant (based on real Victorian Assyriologist, George Smyth) who emerges from poverty during the Victoria era to unlock the mysteries of the Assyrian clay tablets, notably The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100-1200 BCE), a Yazidi girl called Narin and her family in 2014 and Zaleekhah Clarke, who lives in London circa 2018. It all begins, however, with one drop of water falling into the hair of Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, which then goes on to cycle through the skies and water-ways of the world to later interact with all three main protagonists. It's heady stuff at times, with deep themes of symbolic connection weaving throughout the novel. Zaleekhah is a hydrologist at the crossroads of life and via her story we learn more about the ways of rivers and river systems, which often provide handy metaphors for human psychology. As with most novels that interweave multiple narrative strands, there's some that pale next to others that are more immediate, or much more interesting. Narin's story is initially slight, especially in comparison to Arthur's story, which is fascinating, vivid and compelling. Zaleekhah's story sits somewhere in-between, with her marital crisis dominating initially. Yet as the novel progresses Narin's story comes more to the fore and plays out under the menacing cloud of the emergence of ISIS and the multitude of crimes they committed in the name of righteous belief. It makes for powerful and tragic reading and becomes the focal point that ties together the other two strands.

 

Lamassu statues at Nineveh

Shafak's writing is sophisticated, erudite and complex, but it is also totally readable. Although thematically and symbolically dense the novel is generous with its ability to allow the reader to connect the narrative dots. Shafak has also created fully developed characters who connect with the reader; I found myself becoming anxious regarding Arthur's fate, such is the precariousness of his early life. As Arthur progresses, from the life of a street urchin, to work as an apprentice at publisher's Bradley and Even's, who end up publishing Charles Dickens (who turns up a couple of times, much to Arthur's amazement) and then to The British Museum, which houses the huge Lamassu statues from ancient Nineveh, to work at translating the masses of clay tablets from Assyria, to expeditions to the middle east, you are fully invested as a reader. As the novel progresses both Zaleekhah and Narin's stories become more realised, before entwining in both tragedy and hope. Along the way Shafak manages to explore inequality, colonisation, identity, religion, ethnicity and cultural memory that sits within those who are exiled from their homeland. There Are Rivers in the Sky has its flaws, notably it is perhaps overly long (a common flaw for modern literature, or is it?) and displays some bagginess within its pages, which are overflowing with maximalist thematic and informational overload. Still, such concerns are minor compared to the novel's shear scope, its audacity and the emotional impact of its denouement as the three narrative strands come together powerfully. There Are Rivers in the Sky is a perfect novel for book clubs, inviting analysis, discussion and appreciation. My three book clubs revelled in the novel's multifaceted themes and genuinely connected with many of the characters. Apparently, as revealed in an interview, Shafak is a metalhead and listens as she writes, which sounds like an intense way to create such a work of complexity and insight. She points out that metal is full of raw emotion, energy and even harmony, which could easily describe this remarkable novel. Totally recommended if you are after something thematically challenging to read.

A Lamassu at The British Museum

Einstein's Monsters - Martin Amis (1987)

 

Rating: Admirable

Martin Amis is not known for his short stories, with only two collections published in his lifetime, Einstein's Monsters and Heavy Water and Other Stories (1998), among some later omnibus publications of collected stories which included the two volumes and some other strays. Einstein’s Monsters was apparently put together when Amis realised that the short stories he had been writing were centred around the theme of nuclear weapons. Einstein's Monsters begins with an essay called Thinkability, in which Amis outlines the true horror of the threat of nuclear weapons and the annihilation they could potentially unleash. It makes for harrowing reading and despite being written and published during the height of the Cold War, the essay is still chillingly relevant. Amis bemoans the terrible irony of the need for nuclear weapons because of the existence of those very same nuclear weapons. After this short essay the first story, Bujak and the Strong force, Or God’s Dice, provides a very decent beginning, with a Polish protagonist whose strength is such that it metaphorically mirrors the strong nuclear force. It brings him a great deal of trouble, of course, and things don’t go well for his loved ones because of it. It’s a fine, if flawed tale. Insight at Flame Lake uses contrasting diary entries to tell the story of the impact of a schizophrenic boy on his host family. The boy’s father had worked with nuclear weapons before committing suicide. Ultimately it’s a rather heavy-handed allegory for the travails of having nuclear weapons around.

Martin Amis, contemplating Einstein's Monsters

The Time Disease is entertaining but doesn’t quite suit being shoehorned into a collection of nuclear themed stories. It’s futuristic in nature, featuring people who are terrified of time and its deleterious effects on aging, in this case they are aging in reverse. As with all of these stories it features enough of that trademark Amis erudite flair and biting wit to make it worth reading. The actual writing is quite brilliant, but the overall effect is diminished by the shape of the plot. The Little Puppy That Could continues in this fashion. Set in a post nuclear apocalyptic future, things are so bad that a huge, deformed malevolent dog is menacing the ill and deformed residents of a dilapidated village. Their ploy is to offer up weekly sacrifices. Meanwhile a little puppy (who doesn’t appear to be normal himself) with great persistence worms his way into the heart of a little girl. Most of the villagers are scared of the poor little puppy, due to the giant deformed canine that menaces them on a weekly basis. It’s a bit long and grotesque, but does create a nice amount of tension, particularly in the last third of the story. The story has classical mythological allusions within its twisted narrative, but it doesn’t provoke enough motivation to do the research to understand them, at least in my case. The final story, The Immortals, is one of the finer to be found within this slender collection. It recounts the life of an immortal as he traverses the gulfs of time that encompass the history of the planet. There are some great lines, included references to decades long recreational habits and how various epochs compared in terms of boredom and danger. Turns out that ultimately the future involves the imposition of nuclear warfare and the last of humanity in New Zealand who dream that they are indeed immortal. It’s clever all right, but other than its often-brilliant prose it doesn't work quite as well as you want it to. Based on Einstein’s Monster’s, Amis wasn’t really a natural short story writer and it is probably not a coincidence that he didn’t produce many throughout his otherwise brilliant career. This collection is vaguely disappointing, but even acknowledged geniuses have lapses and in the scheme of things these stories are still worth reading just to bask in the glory of Amis’s brilliant prose style.

Show Don't Tell - Curtis Sittenfeld (2025)

 

Rating: Admirable

Curtis Sittenfeld has a great reputation for her dark wit, sardonic humour and putting a contemporary spin on old problems, such as the war of the sexes, power imbalances and complex moral situations. My prior experience with Sittenfeld was via Rodham (2020), a clever and entertaining alternate history of the life of Hilary Rodham, if she had not married Bill Clinton. Show Don’t Tell is a collection of short stories and typically for such collections some stories are better than others. Beginning with the better material, the eponymous story starts off the collection, following a young student, Ruthy, who is awaiting news about the annual grants awarded to creative writing students, referred to as the 'Peaslee’s'. It features a middle-aged student, a smoker, who is a general annoyance to Ruthy, a visiting Bukowski type of writer who dispenses writerly wisdom, a White Noise (Don DeLillo, 1985) namecheck and other various descriptions of college life (this is set in America). It’s a fine story about not being too precious and checking your privilege, which is a common theme throughout the collection. The Marriage Clock involves a buttoned-up Christian author of a best-selling marriage guide and a studio rep who can’t help but desire him, but in doing so reveals that his marriage is far from ideal; ultimately it’s quite clever and well written. A For Alone deals with a married conceptual artist who undertakes a project that involves testing the infamous 'Mike Pence rule', that posits that married men should not be alone with single woman. Of course it goes pair-shaped in the most entertaining manner possible. The Hug is my favourite and perhaps the best story here; a couple, Daphne and Rob, argue about whether Daphne can hug a former partner who is travelling through town and wants to meet up. Not only is it in the midst of the pandemic, but it’s also her ex, and Rob doesn’t like it. The ending is deftly handled - poignant, telling and relatable.

The stories in Show Don’t Tell that don’t quite work as well continue the major unifying theme of age-old problems set within modern moral conundrums, such as cancel-culture, the ‘Karen’ phenomenon, our love/hate relationships with corporations, generational change and being called out for privileged behaviour, but without quite the same amount of finesse featured in the ones mentioned above. As with many of the stories, most of the principal protagonists are middle-aged women, or younger women facing the challenges of being young in a complex world. White Women LOL doesn’t quite gel due to its convoluted nature. Creative Differences is better, with a photographer taking a moral stand regarding being featured in an advertisement masquerading as an art project. The Tomorrow Box explores the nature of success, how it can’t always make up for other shortcomings, like acceptance and success with the opposite sex. The Richest Babysitter in the World explores similar ground but is a bit predictable in its denouement. The Patron Saint of Middle Age and Giraffe and Flamingo are both flawed but ultimately admirable stories, exploring white privilege (the former) and bullying (the latter), with varying degree of success. The final story, Lost But Not Forgotten, features a character from Sittenfeld’s first novel – Prep (2005), Lee Fiora, who is now older and attending a school reunion at the school from the novel. Fiora thinks back to a past secret experience whilst forging a new relationship with a former student. It’s interesting and entertaining enough, but, once again, doesn’t quite hit the mark like the superior stories in this collection do. No doubt it would come across better if you’ve read the novel. Sittenfeld is a class writer however, and this collection is a fine example of her snappy and insightful style. It was another book club read and as always with short story collections, it received mixed reviews. However it is worth a read for its insights into our complex moral world and array of middle-aged characters in confused free-fall. 

Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene (1958)

 

Rating: Excellent

Graham Greene was a prolific writer, with many significant novels to his name, such as Brighton Rock (1938), The Quiet American (1955) and the screenplay to The Third Man (1949), a brilliant film that has aged extremely well. Greene also gets a pivotal reference in one of my favourite films, Donny Darko (2001), when a Greene novel that is censored by the high school gives Donny gnostic guidance. Due to his significant cultural presence and the fact that Greene is considered one of the finest novelists of the twentieth century, I've long known about him, but I had never managed to get around to reading his work. Apparently (according to Wikipedia) Greene divided his works into two genres, thrillers, which he referred to as 'entertainments' and the others as 'literary works'. I'm uncertain as how Our Man in Havana should be regarded, being a black comedy of sorts with a light humorous tone; ostensibly it's not a thriller, but I have a feeling that Greene perhaps regarded it as one of his 'entertainments'. The novel is genuinely funny, following the adventures of vacuum cleaner salesman, James Wormold, a world weary man who's wife left him to be the sole parent of his teenage daughter, Milly, who has a extravagant lifestyle to maintain. When Wormold is approached by the mysterious MI6 plant, Hawthorne, to spy for MI6 he reluctantly takes up the offer in order to help cover the cost of his daughter's many worldly desires. There begins a series of tricky situations, faked reports and run-ins with shady characters who threaten his life. Greene himself actually was recruited into the MI6 in 1941, where he encountered information about a character call Garbo, who was based in Portugal and filed fictitious reports in order to gain bonuses and keep his espionage career going. 

Greene, contemplating his 'entertainments'

Published four years before the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took the world to the brink of nuclear war, the novel is eerily prescient. Wormold uses the fittings from one of the vacuum cleaners he sells as inspiration for faked drawings of military structures in the mountainous areas of Cuba, and of course MI6 are very concerned. Wormold nominates a range of informants, some of whom he knows of, but does not know in person. Reality and falsehood collide when weird things start to happen to his informants, leading to some very tricky situations indeed. There's some romance too, when love interest Beatrice Severn is sent from MI6 to assist Wormold. There's also the comedic, yet pathetic character of Dr. Hasselbacher, an elderly German expat who is Wormold's only real friend in Havana. He also has to deal with the sinister threat of Captain Segura, a military thug and the owner of a wallet supposedly made from human skin, who has romantic designs on Milly. Such characters, on paper, could seem like caricatures, however Greene really brings them alive and imbues them with complex motives and human foibles. Greene's prose is concise and snappy, providing a propulsive edge to the narrative. It's a clever and classy novel and one gets the sense that, well, they just don't write them like this any more. If Our Man in Havana is typical of Greene's oeuvre then I'm keen to explore further novels. Greene was certainly prolific, with some 26 novels, numerous short stories, plays and screenplays published. Our Man in Havana was also adapted for a movie in 1959, starring Alec Guinness and Noel Coward and was critically acclaimed at the time, although hasn't had the same afterlife as The Third Man, but if it is any where near as fine as the novel it would be worth watching.

Our Evenings - Alan Hollinghurst (2024)

 

Rating: Excellent

Another book club read, the second by Alan Hollinghurst, with the first being The Stranger's Child (2011), which was the follow-up to the Man Booker Prize winner, The Line of Beauty (2004). I enjoyed Our Evenings a great deal more than The Stranger's Child, which, looking back at my review, I ultimately found 'turgid'. Our Evenings is character driven, told via the first person point of view of David Win, beginning when he is a fourteen-year old student at one of England's well to do private schools; he is also the beneficiary of financial support from Mark Hadlow, the philanthropist plutocrat patriarch, who's son, Giles Hadlow, is Win's frenemy and a future political force in the UK. Win is an outsider, is of mixed race (part Burmese), from a single parent family (his mother, Arvil, has her own significant role in the novel) and is gay. Despite Win's outsider status he thrives at school, at university (Oxford) and despite some setbacks, goes on to become a successful actor. Our Evenings is the story of his life and the story of the changing attitude to homosexual relationships over the decades, as well as the rise of a new era of intolerance as personified by Giles Hadlow, who goes on to be a right-wing Tory politician who campaigns to remove the UK from the European Union (Brexit). There's some serious themes at play, both personal and universal, but the novel proceeds at a languid pace as we follow the episodic narrative of David Win's life, rather than ratcheting up the tension. At first the novel appears too passively reflective, however as Win grows up and faces the challenges of adulthood the narrative becomes absorbing and fascinating. It draws you into Win's world of theatre, love and friendship, all narrated via his wry observational voice.

One of the strengths of Our Evenings is Hollinghurst's elegant style, there are plentiful beautiful passages throughout. The novel rewards close reading, revealing a narrative dense with sophisticated descriptive power. I rarely quote from books, but I just have to share my favourite passage in which Win is enduring a speech from Giles Hadlow: "I blanked out what he said, tipped my head back and gazed up at the great glass dome. Beyond it, in slow transition of dusk, silver planes could be seen escaping, bright in the last sun above the darkening city." It's so evocative and beautiful, but also it shows a character in opposition to the mainstream attitudes as personified by Hadlow, of conservative righteousness and philistinism. This opposition between Win and Hadlow's lives, and what it represents, is not laboured by Hollinghurst, but it is palpably felt throughout the novel, even during lengthy periods in which Hadlow is absent, but not forgotten. Our Evenings is both a very personal exploration of what it meant to be gay and an artist in the era since the middle of last century and an exploration of where we've ended up politically and culturally. It's subtle, clever and close to brilliant. In the great novelistic tradition of showing, but not telling, Hollinghurst sums up the era of the likes of Trump and Boris Johnson (whom Hadlow mostly resembles) with a great scene in which Hadlow, now the Minister for the Arts, leaves early during a performance involving Win in a helicopter, which completely drowns out the performance in a show of ugly egotistical distain. Although some readers may find the novel's slow pace and character driven narrative too much of a slog, Our Evenings really is worth the time and stands as a beautiful, topical and touching literary work.

Dark Magus: The Jekyll and Hyde Life of Miles Davis - Gregory Davis and Les Sussman (2006)

Rating: Mediocre

I absolutely love jazz, but I'm the first to admit that it is not for everyone. I've always advised the jazz novice to begin with Miles Davis, due to the fact that he both excelled at and helped create so many types of jazz that he offers something for everyone. It's just a matter of finding a way in, but if you want to read something to help you try and understand Mile Davis, then unfortunately Dark Magus is not that book. I found my copy in a pretty cool op-shop in Melbourne, it has a great cover and when I opened it the couple of paragraphs I read convinced me to spend all of five dollars to gain access to a family member's thoughts about the great man himself. Gregory Davis is Miles Davis's oldest son and as such he spent a great deal of time with him as his PA, bodyguard and general dogsbody. In the introduction Gregory promises "...not just another chronicle of his life and career..." and also that there are "...no sour grapes to this book..." He then proceeds to give a fairly chronological account of Miles family, his childhood and early years developing his jazz career. To be fair it does contain quite a bit of information that only a close family member would know, which is mostly interesting. As for the sour grapes, well, Gregory does go on to talk about being cut of the will (which is rightly something to be upset about), so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there. Apart from the first six chapters, which covers Miles early years, most of the book does jump around in time and features chapters named after either albums or songs, such as Quiet Nights and Miles Ahead. Miles Davis had a career that was so multifaceted, influential and successful you'd think there would be no end of amazing anecdotes and obscure facts to bring to light. Well, they are there, but are buried within repetitious accounts of Miles moods, his impulsiveness, his women, his drugs and his apparent Jekyll and Hyde duel nature.

Miles Davis, contemplating his moodiness.

I can’t help but feel that Dark Magus is marred by Gregory Davis’s inherent closeness to his subject. It's not a book about Miles the music-maker, rather it is about Miles the moody patriarch. What is missing is some kind of insight into his music-making impulses. Miles seemed to be able to make the intangible tangible in his music, channelling something authentic from within to create some incredible music, perhaps the greatest in jazz, period. Another problem is that there’s not much in the way of revealing insights into his relationships with key musical colleagues, there’s Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie early on and Clark Terry (Bebop trumpeter) writes the foreword, but what about the likes of Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul and Herbie Hancock? Possibly Gregory was not privy to such musical relationships, despite being his eldest son (born in 1945), PA, bodyguard, whilst living with Miles on and off for years. It’s a shame, but I would not recommend Dark Magus to anyone interested in his music. It’s as much Gregory’s story as it is Miles, and that’s fair enough, but Dark Magus seems like a wasted opportunity. Also the quality of writing in Dark Magus is subpar at best and could have done with some judicious editing to improve the constant repetition and the banal style. For insights into Miles Davis the man, it's best to look elsewhere, such as Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, by Ian Carr (1999), which I read in the era before I started writing this blog. Or perhaps Miles: The Autobiography, with Quincey Troupe (1990), which I haven't read, but Miles apparently over-uses the word 'motherfucker' a great deal, which sounds promising to me! 

The Granddaughter - Bernhard Schlink (2024)

 

Rating: Admirable

Bernhard Schlink’s renown outside of Germany is based mostly on The Reader (1995), which is considered to be one of the greatest Holocaust narratives, exploring the struggle for the German people to confront the sins of Nazi Germany. The Granddaughter is a reunification novel, exploring the wider impact of German reunification (1989-90) within the microcosm of two family units, one, a couple living in West Germany and the other who live in a Neo-Nazi community in East Germany. The novel begins in contemporary times with the death of Birgit, an elderly East German who fled the communist East Berlin enclave to be with Kaspar, who had got to know her when visiting East Berlin in the mid 1960’s. Kaspar must not only contend with his wife’s tragic death, but also the private life she kept hidden from him for decades; something that is revealed once he gains access to her unfinished novel and journals. Kaspar is shocked to discover that she had abandoned a baby before she joined Kasper in the West. Kaspar’s subsequent search for his step-granddaughter leads him into the heartland of Neo-Nazi society and allows Schlink a narrative vehicle to explore the divide that lies at the heart of German society, stemming from WWII, the Cold War era and reunification.

Told via simple, yet powerful prose, Schlink focusses mainly on the impact that reunification had on his characters. Kaspar, a native West German, finds his rather naïve and idealistic notions about reunification are challenged by his late wife’s secret struggles and his interactions with his step-granddaughter, Sigrun, who has been indoctrinated with Nazi ideology, which includes an outrageous rewriting of German history. It’s mostly fascinating stuff and makes for perfect book club fodder, with weighty themes that are both historical and contemporary. Obviously Schlink’s aim is to raise awareness of the origins of the rise of the right in Germany. He takes a measured approach, the neo-Nazi characters are not painted as one dimensional right-wing nutjobs, rather their point of view is explored with a degree of humanity, although ultimately their world view is rightly rendered incompatible with objective reality. At times there is a problem with pacing, after a slow first third, in which Kaspar reads a long section of his wife’s writing, therefore revealing their back-story, the rest of the novel is dotted with abrupt decisions and some improbable plot devices (huge loans taken out by a 70-year-old bookseller and a minor’s sudden access to an official means of escape). I don’t normally worry too much about realism in novels, but within a novel of serious themes such oversights stood out, although it is still a minor quibble. Ultimately The Granddaughter is an important novel for our times; and, as previously mentioned, a perfect novel for book club discussion, recommended for all those book clubs out there embarking on their endless search for a decent read.

Money: A Suicide Note - Martin Amis (1984)

 

Rating: Sublime

Money is acknowledged as the beginning of a run of brilliant Amis novels that represents his imperial period, that continued with London Fields (1989), the booker Prize shortlisted Time's Arrow (1991) and ending with The Information in 1995. Narrated in first person by main protagonist John Self, the novel follows his trashy, decadent life as he moves back and forth between London and New York while attempting to get a film project off the ground based on an idea drawn from his own life. Money was inspired by Amis' involvement with the screenplay for a stinker of a film called Saturn 3 (1980), starring Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett, which I actually managed to watch last year; it's a truly terrible, yet fascinating folly. One of the characters in Money is based on Kirk Douglas, the fantastically named Lorne Guyland, who is a total prima donna, fretting about getting enough sex scenes with the young leading lady and often ending up naked whilst having long rambling narcissistic conversations with Self. Everything around the supposed film, variously called 'Good Money', then 'Bad Money', is satirically brilliant, from the exorbitant excesses undertaken by Self and his partner Fielding Goodney in the name of tax breaks on expenses, to the actors themselves, including Spunk Davis (who is outraged when he finds out what his surname means in England), Caduta Massi and Butch Beausoleil, two leading ladies with their own neurotic impulses. Of course Amis takes things much further by inserting himself into the novel, not just once, but many times, and as a writer for hire no less, a fixer for the screenplay that Self is distinctly unhappy with. There's even some discussion from Amis (the character) about the nature of the relationship between author and protagonist which is just brilliant. It's the best example of author as character I've ever read. Apparently Kingsley Amis threw his copy of the book across the room, never to be read again, when he reached the part that includes Martin, talk about generational envy.

Amis, contemplating the nature of the self

John Self (who is based on John Barry, the director of Saturn 3) is one of the great anti-hero protagonists, a total hedonistic slob who careers throughout the novel consuming vast amounts of alcohol, drugs, fast food and porn, whilst coming onto any and all women in his vicinity. Amis described Money as a voice novel, rather than a plot driven narrative. Fortunately Self is such a vivid and charismatic character that you can't help but get swept up into his world of dubious logic and decadent self-sabotage. Self's narration of his follies and adventures is unrelentingly hilarious and tragic. It is a difficult thing to write a funny novel, but Money is the funniest I've ever read. It is undoubtably a masterpiece of literary comedy. Money is also exceedingly clever, not just for its biting satirical themes around the film industry, wealth and class, but also for the above mentioned post-modern metafictional techniques. The keys to unlock the novel's multi-layered narrative is the game of tennis played between Goodney and Self in the first third of the novel (Self is literally being played) and the game of chess toward the end between Amis and Self, in which Self thinks that he is winning, before he's brutally taken down by Amis. The relationship between author and protagonist is revealed for what it is, sinister manipulation. The epilogue, printed in italics, appears to be Self free from authorial manipulation, his own 'self', down and out, but with a new found freedom. Essentially Money is a must read novel, a work of genius, with mercilessly satirical prose and irrepressible humour. It certainly was a huge step up from the otherwise excellent Other People (1981) which proceeded Money. Martin Amis, despite John Self's poor opinion of his work and lifestyle, was definitely a genius level novelist. 

Leviathan - Paul Auster (1992)

 

Rating: Excellent

I'd long wanted to read a Paul Auster novel, having seen his books on shelves for many years, without really knowing that much about him, other than he seemed to be a typical 'New York' writer. That phrase could be taken as a compliment, or a put down, in Autser's case it's definitely a compliment, as Leviathan is a cut above the typical narratives about kooky New Yorkers getting into scrapes. The critical opinion of Auster is that he was a significant post-modern author, using multilayered narratives, and typically exploring themes of identity, chance, the nature of truth and identity. His childhood directly influenced his writing, having witnessed a lightening strike that killed a teenager while they were on a school camp, Auster became obsessed with the role of chance in life. Leviathan explores chance through the lives of various characters, most notably the friends, Peter Aaron and Benjamin Sachs, who are both writers (Auster's protagonists are typically writers apparently). Chance events and chance meetings with other characters drives Sachs to take some radical directions in his life, all told from the perspective of the narrator, his friend Aaron. Sachs struggles with self-worth and the nature of purpose, and being a novelist ends up being viewed by him as a trite manner in which to engage with the world, instead Sachs takes a more radical path. Sachs' journey is compelling, maddening and, ultimately, tragic. 

Auster, contemplating the nature of chance

Auster's writing is dense, layered and full of tension and mystery, which makes for compelling reading. This novel really gets under your skin, you begin to live it. The unravelling of the mystery of just how Sachs ends up at the point of his ultimate fate is engaging and fascinating. Auster could really write believable and complex characters, including the female characters, such as Sachs wife, Fanny, who is also a romantic interest for Aaron. Another brilliant female character is Maria Turner, a photographer who is based on French conceptual artist, Sophie Calle. Turner is the fulcrum around which the other characters move through the complex plot, in particular Sachs, who is strongly influenced by Turner's experiments with art, chance and lifestyle. Aaron's narrative voice draws in the reader, like a story-teller around a camp fire, you want to stay with him and be pulled further into the story (or even the fire). The plotting is circular in nature, with Sachs' fate revealed at the beginning, and the path that led him there is then fleshed out by Aaron's musings and investigations. It's like a detective story with political and cultural leanings, piecing together fragments of the complex life of Sachs and his search for meaning within the context of America and its place in the world. The novel's title is a direct reference to Thomas Hobbes exploration of society and the nature of government, Leviathan (1651); some familiarity with its themes would help decipher Auster's Leviathan, although it's not essential. Appropriately the novel begins with a dedication to DonDello, one of the twentieth century's greatest writers, who is also another 'New York' writer who transcends that label. Auster and DeLillo were friends, but on the evidence of this novel, they were certainly also equals. It's such a pity that Auster passed away in 2024, but at least there's his rich body of work, of which I'll be reading more of in the coming years, and so should you.

Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

 

Rating: Excellent

It's been some twenty five years since I last read Arthur C. Clarke's work. As a teenager and beyond I must have read at least a dozen of his novels, but I never got around to reading Childhood's End. Somehow I even missed out on encountering any hint regarding its plot or themes, and for that I am grateful. It has long been regarded as a true science fiction masterpiece, despite many of its tropes becoming science fiction cliches in the ensuing decades. Essentially an alien invasion narrative, Childhood's End begins with the space race, but not that one, instead it begins with an opening chapter that Clarke rewrote in 1990, replacing a competitive cold war race to land on the moon, with a united effort to reach Mars in the twenty-first century; until it is interrupted by the arrival of massive alien spacecraft that hover over the major cities of the world. Sounds familiar? Such a scenario has been played out countless times, particularly in the TV series V (1983, 1984-85) and the godawful movie, Independence Day (1996). Fortunately Clarke's approach is far more subtle, intelligent, philosophical and powerful. The aliens remain hidden for the first third of the novel, instead they direct humanity from behind the scenes into a utopian age in which all suffering ceases and world peace endures. I'd forgotten just how good Clarke's writing was, he was certainly stylistically sound, but more significantly he really knew how to build suspense and create an expectation that the secrets that are bubbling away under the surface would be worth the wait. This is exactly how it played out for me, not knowing the true nature of the aliens, dubbed the 'Overlords' by humanity, the reveal that arrives a third of the way through the novel was impactful and satisfying. 

Arthur C. Clarke - master of suspense

Childhood's End contains themes that Clarke would explore later in his career, but here the notion of a transcendent higher power comes with definite uncertainty as to just how benevolent it really is, unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which there seems to be a no stings attached evolutionary assist from higher powers. The Overlords themselves appear consistently benevolent throughout, however Clarke gives subtle hints as to what is really going on throughout the novel. When an Overlord known as Rashaverak attends a party at the residence of a man called Rupert Boyce and is found to be perusing his large collection of books on the paranormal, you can't help but be intrigued as to what is really going on. Clarke takes his time to let the reader in on the secret, something some modern readers can get impatient about, perhaps confirmed by some of the comments on Goodreads, with a couple of readers remarking that the novel is "tedious to get through". Actually the novel is perfectly paced, with the reveals regarding the Overlord's planet of origin, their ultimate role in Earth's fate and the nature of that fate itself, coming as well timed rewards for a little bit of patience. Childhood's End is an almost perfect science fiction novel and is rightly regarded as Clarke's best, it was also the moment when Clarke broke through as a novelist, both critically and commercially. On completion I was left with feelings of both wonder, and a nameless dread. Despite the unscientific paranormal elements Clarke utilises in the novel, the hard science aspects are sound, and given what we now know about the nature of the universe (that most of what is going on in the cosmos is a total mystery), the notion that we could at some stage be ultimately confronted by the shocking truth of the true nature of existence is not beyond the realms of possibility. 

Stoner - John Williams (1965)

 

Rating: Sublime

Stoner is not the greatest novel ever written, but it is known as the most perfect novel ever written. Williams was an academic and writer who lived a flawed life, published four novels in his lifetime, before dying relatively unknown in 1994. Aside from a few glowing reviews in 1965, Stoner was mostly ignored until the 2000s, when it was republished multiple times. When it was subsequently translated into French it started to sell prolifically in Europe and then became highly regarded by critics, numerous writers and lovers of literary fiction. Set between the early 1900's and the 1950's, it tells the story of a life, that of William Stoner, the son of simple farmers who send him to university to study the latest agricultural techniques in order to take over the farm and make it profitable. Instead Stoner falls in love with English Literature whilst doing a compulsory literature unit. He subsequently begins a lifetime of studying and teaching the subject at the University of Missouri. Stoner is a quiet, shy and thoughtful individual, who finds his place in the world within the confines of university life. It is one of the great university novels, but ultimately it is a novel about stoicism, within work-life and home-life. Stoner marries Edith Bostwick, and immediately it is an unhappy union. Within their marriage Williams explores human psychology at its deepest levels without once examining why the characters behave in the way that they do; Edith is damaged by her parents and she suffers from what looks like post-natal depression, however these are just things that Stoner endures with grim determination. Stoner suffers through poisonous rivalry from the likes of fellow academic, Hollis Lomax, a bitter and cynical cripple who becomes determined to undermine Stoner until the bitter end. Stoner's relationship with his daughter is ruined by Edith and his only chance at romantic happiness is destroyed by convention and the scheming of Lomax. 

So, why is Stoner the perfect novel? Firstly, I must point out that, although the notion of a perfect novel is somewhat problematic, Stoner really is the perfect novel, in my experience at least. Williams' prose is faultless, wasting not a word, a scene or a piece of dialogue, as he tells Stoner's story of sad stoicism. The prose is often exquisitely beautiful, particularly when Stoner is musing over his life, walking the university grounds, or simply sitting at his desk, looking out the window into the somber snow-covered landscape. There are moments of mystical insight and emotional clarity that are almost Zen-like in their poise. All of the characters are totally alive, fully formed and real within the minds eye. The reader can't help but be intensely emotionally involved, as if you are living along-side Stoner, Edith and Katherine Driscoll, Stoner's romantic interest. Stoner's life proceeds in a liner narrative, with no experimental fragmenting of time or perspective, and it is all the more fresher for it, in particular after the dominance of fragmented fiction in the twenty-first century. Despite Stoner's sad and difficult life his story really is beautiful and uplifting, one cannot help but be touched by his struggles and his determination. The end is just as tragic as you'd imagine, however he discovers a deep existential satisfaction to his life, and in this sense Stoner can be seen as an existential novel. Stoner does not go to church, does not turn to God to help in his moments of need, instead he finds meaning in his love of teaching and within the beauty of literature. It's a story for us all, a universal thematic examination of what it means to live a life and to be satisfied in the end despite it all. Along the way Williams provides us with one of the most sublime narratives ever written, it's that good. Whatever you do in life, make sure you read Stoner, it's a masterpiece.