Reading is Sexy

by Andrey Kurkov

Andrey Kurkov has done it again and this time with the General’s Thumb…. Lieutenant Viktor Slutsky is appointed to the case when a General and Presidential Adviser’s body turns up hanging from an advertising balloon. Meanwhile, KGB Officer Nik Tsensky is assigned to a secret mission in Kiev. Whilst both are on different assignments, an overlap between the cases results in one pursuing the other; thereby both become involved in a battle between the Russian and Ukrainian secret services.

Kurkov creates a gripping and non-stop world involving, a hit-man with a drink and drugs problem as well as the ability to communicate in sign language.  Watch out for a hearse, a tortoise called ‘Nina’, a back firing automatic pistol and an intimidation technique involving throwing kilos of fish over a fence.

This is a great read and I would recommend it highly, in spite of the fact that the ending didn’t quite live up to its action-packed promise as I had hoped and expected.

By Esther Freud

Recently turned 17, Lara Gold is taken on a holiday to Italy by her father- a man she barely knows. Save a few visits at his apartment, she has never spent much quality time with him.

Lambert (the father) and Lara arrive at his friend, Caroline’s villa in a little village in Italy. After a few days spent swimming and sunning, the 3 of them are invited to the Willoughby’s for a meal, where Lara meets the beautiful and delicate Kip. Kip, their youngest and only son has 5 older sisters. Lara, as expected, is drawn to Kip and he, inexplicably and endearingly to her. The Willoughby’s at first glance seem like a family that have way too many entanglements, too many skeletons that have not been successfully kept in the closet. It feels like, if we were to dig deep, we would find scandals of incest and vendetta. As it is, they are a family with more money than sense.

Lara’s attraction to them leads to her losing her virginity to Kip, getting raped by the husband of Kip’s pregnant older sister and discovering that her father is in midst of an affair with a married woman (not a Willoughby and not with Caroline). Lara’s way of dealing with the rape is to stay away from the Willoughby’s and try to forget what happened, not saying a word to anybody about it. Whilst I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like, the fact that Lara just gets on with it frustrates me. The only positive thing that comes out of this trip is that Lara and her father manage to forge a closer relationship.

The author, every so often, cuts back to narrating incidents from Lara’s trip to India with her mother. These little stories are funny and interesting and work as a nice break from the unnecessarily complicated and tiresome lives of the Willoughby’s.

I read this book from start to finish one Sunday afternoon. Lara is an easily likeable character, although at times I did forget that she is only 17. The book is well-written and keeps you hooked, if only to make sure that Lara comes out ok in the end.

By Zoe Heller

For all intents and purposes, Audrey Howard wanted a way out of her seemingly dreary and lonely life. When she met American Joel Litvinoff, they hit it off in an uncomfortable and awkward way. Audrey doesn’t think twice about it when Joel, wanting to shock and take some of the power back in their union, suggests that he marry her and take her away with him to the US.

40 years later, Audrey Litvinoff, wife of well known and unpopular attorney, Joel Litvinoff, mother of 3 grown children, remains an unlikeable character. She is mean, self-absorbed, disrespectful and downright rude. By her own admission she feels no particular maternal feelings to either of her daughters, who are going through difficult times. Any love that Audrey has is toward her adopted son, who is hopelessly and desperately addicted to drugs; A habit that, she is blindly supporting. It could be argued that these awful characteristics of Audrey’s stem from deep-seated insecurities, as is usually the case. True or not, Audrey makes it very difficult to see any good in her. To her credit, she couldn’t give a toss.

When Joel collapses at the start of a court session, and goes into a coma, secrets from his past emerge. Audrey and her little family are forced to come to terms with it, and I found myself backing Audrey to “win” as it were. She doesn’t change in any way. Faced with her husband’s mortality, she doesn’t become any less pig headed but she had my full support.

It is for this reason I enjoy reading Zoe Heller’s work. The characters can be terrible and do silly and stupid things and you might hate them with all your being. Then something changes, and whilst no deed has been undone, she quietly changes the readers’ mind, without us noticing it and you get to the end, ever so slightly puzzled and think, “That was clever, how did she do that?” 

By Jenny Diski

My only reason for purchasing this book was because I’d heard Jenny Diski described as “old eccentric woman who didn’t give a rat’s arse about a thing” by a friend of mine who had been to a talk by this author. Quite frankly, the only redeeming feature about getting old is that one day it will be my turn to choose to be an “old eccentric woman who didn’t give a rat’s arse about a thing”!

Anyway, so as I said, it was for this reason that I wanted to read a book of Ms.Diski’s. ‘After These Things’ may have been the only book avalable in the store I went to as I cant think of any reason why I would’ve picked this book over any other of her books.

This is based on the story from the book of Genesis. Were I knowledgeable enough about the Bible and its stories to draw comparisons and parallels and comment on the choice, I would. But, seeing as I’m not, I’m going to judge this book solely on its narrative and characters.

Abraham and Sarah have Isaac and Ismael. A lot of inbreeding, treachery and deaths later the book ends with Abraham and Sarah’s grandson, Jacob’s generation. The charatcers are weak and at no point do you feel anything for any of them. The narrative is ok- if it weren’t for my need to finish every book that I start, I would’ve given up. The end is abrupt and I was thankful for it!

By Fynn

“The diffrense[sic] from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is in the inside and most of a person is on the outside.”

From the mouths of babes! as they say. These are the words of six-year old Anna – vivacious, flamboyant, uncomplicated, precocious, annoying (at times) but ultimately, adorable. She knows a secret. As incredibly young as she is, she knows absolutely the purpose of our existence.

Anna is a homeless child who is adopted, informally, by Fynn and his family. She is cared for loved and nursed by Fynn, his mother, their neighbours- the working girls, the miners and the public house staff. Her faith in Mister God is, to begin with, endearing and amusing. Her relationship with Fynn- whilst innocent and genuine, has a whiff of something not-quite-right. Its not them, rather it’s this time and age that I’m reading this book that makes it not-quite-right. The physical closeness that Fynn, an early 20s man, and Anna, a 5/6-year old girl, share is puzzling.

The book itself it slim. In fact, to slightly rephrase a quote from ‘Happy Gilmore’, ” I eat books like books these for Breakfast!”. I had appointed myself 2 days to finish reading it and it took me over a month. I think I may have also read 2 other books while I was still in the middle of this one. There were a number of times when I felt like it wasn’t for me and I was ready to give up. Anna is all about Mister God- all about how God is in our middle; I found her simplicity, her explanations quite frustrating. Nothing at all to do with her logic and everything to do with the fact that a 6-year old would have the, call it wisdom, call it bullshit, sense to articulate the way she does.  

There are a few parts of the book that kept me going, that made me want to see this through to the end. One of my favourite parts is when Anna, in the midst of her ‘discovering something new’ phase, would run up to the nearest person, shove a notepad and a pencil in their face and say,”Please write that down big, please.”

I read this book months ago. I couldn’t work out how I felt about it then and I cant work out how I feel about it now. I had hoped that writing about it would make it clearer. But, no. It hasn’t. One thing I will say about it, though, is that it doesn’t leave you.

By Junichiro Tanizaki

Utsugi Tokusuke is a 77-year old man with enough health concerns to pre-occupy him. However, all these concerns pale when compared to his biggest problem- his embarassing and pitiable infactuation with his daughter-in-law, Satsuko.

‘Satsu’, as he would like to call her, is beautiful, of course and a complete and utter bitch. Which only makes the Mad Old Man’s loins burn hotter. I hated her from the start. Its difficult not to- who likes a young, gorgeous thing who toys with the feelings (wrong, yes. dishonourable, yes. creepy, ok that too) of her father-in-law and tries to cause a friction between him and her mother-in-law! The family as a whole are no more dysfunctional than is normal- they’re in there for the long haul but dont get in your face.

The journal spans 5 months of the old man’s life and as the title suggests is written in a diary format. His entries are honest to the point of being cringe-worthy. He paints a picture of himself almost as if he were writing about somebody else. He makes no exuses for his unreasonableness, his stupid, stupid need to please Satsuko- to the extent of spending 3 Million Yen for a ‘Cat’s Eye’ ring, his contempt for his own daughters. He is utterly and completely likeable.

This book is a definite must-read- for its unapologetic honesty, its not-abnormally twisted-ness and its inexplicably endearing protaganist. Utsugi Tokusuke.

By Muriel park

 Lord Lucan, 7th Earl of Lucan murdered the nanny, Sandra Rivett and attempted to bludgeon his wife, Lady Lucan to death. However, Lady Lucan escapes, raises alarm and identifies her ex-husband as the attacker and murderer. Lord Lucan disappeared that night- 7th November 1974 never to be seen again.

Aiding and Abetting is based on hypothesis. Lord “Lucky” Lucan visits psychiatrist, Dr.Hildegard Wolf, 25 years later, to seek help. Unknown to him, another one of Dr.Wolf’s patients has already confessed to being “Lucky” Lucan. Lucan has been on the run since 1974, aided by his friends and contacts in high places. As his friends start give in to old age, Lucan has to find other means of surviving.

Dr.Hildegard Wolf was raised as Beate Pappenheim on a pig farm in Neuremberg. Fed up of being poor, as a student in Munich and not being able to afford anything, she fakes a stigmata and becomes well known  as a healer. Beate goes on the run when she is proved to be a fraud- to London and ends up in Paris, with a new name, a profession and a new personality. Nobody in Dr.Wolf’s world are aware of her past- not even her boyfriend Jean-Pierre. That is, until the Lucans show up.

Despite the fact that Dr.Wolf’s crime is less brutal than Lucan’s crime, it seems much easier to like both the Lucans more than Dr.Wolf. The ever-supportive likeable boyfriend, Jean-Pierre, cuts a slightly pathetic figure.The two stories work well as parallels. This is an easy read - not gripping or thrilling as you might expect from a Muriel Spark.

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By Lee Henshaw

“Like some stoned new Kerouac…” says the review on the cover of the book. And its true in the fact that it is reminiscent of On the Road, but differs greatly in the fact that it is hugely funny, engaging and endearing even.

It was the title of this book that caught my eye. I’m a sucker for titles, as most readers are I imagine.

This book traces the travels of the “three Macc lads” in New York one year, “three Macc lads and a shandy drinker from Cambridge” in Mexico the next year and finally, a trip to Venezuela, this time the “three Macc lads” and girlfriends. 

Liam Kerby is a writer and wants to publish a classic. Liam’s Brother James is a proprietor of a Joinery Company called ‘Peachyface Joiners’. And Ed Lover is smitten with a girl called Ursula Paradise. These are the three Macc lads.

Liam loves his Brother James. Brother James gets mistaken for a woman a lot. And Ed Lover has a great name. From being lumbered with big, ugly Mrs.Buckle in New York to having a piece of luggage ripped open by a couple of pugs in a mate’s girlfriend’s parents’ house in Washington; from drinking tequilas that were 5% alcohol and 100% aphrodisiac to checking for “normal poos” in Mexico- Queerfish is a hilarious read. Characters come and go through out the book but none that really make any lasting impression. Its difficult to decide which one of the Macc lads is my favourite. They’re all adorable  and their shared chemistry enviable yet likeable.

There is an unrelenting passion in Lee Henshaw’s narrative but unlike Kerouac, the shared experience of the 3 adds personality which brings the book to life!

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