reading for pleasure

Alan Davey has some helpful thoughts on summer holiday reading here.

My own holiday reading went like this:

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro
Reading Paul by Michael Gorman (ok, I admit it: theology - but not John Owen)
Home by Marilynne Robinson (started, not finished)

Nocturnes strikes me as the perfect holiday read. Kazuo Ishiguro is a serious - and seriously good - writer. Here, though, he lets his comic side show; I laughed out loud more than once. It's not a heavy book; it's not a demanding read. It's is a collection of 5 short novellas, united loosely around music and (mostly) night-time. But more compactly united by fame and failure, by pretensions and age.

I would guess he enjoyed writing it.

the great books (vi) - home

To begin, a confession: I haven't finished reading this book yet. To continue, a defence: it belongs on this list, without a shadow of a doubt. It won a prize and deserves to have done so.

Some people say Marilynne Robinson's writing is luminous. Home certainly shines. They say it's profound; they're not wrong. This is writing that is simple and clean, not clever and soiled. It makes no pretences and offers no misplaced thrills. It invades the soul with the stealth of a virus but with none of its venom.

A storyline? Well, only being one third of the way through the book I can't say for sure (and wouldn't want to diminish anyone's experience in reading it). But it's ordinary people, set in the town of Gilead (the terrain for an earlier novel, some of whose characters reappear in this). It's the stuff of life and faith, of failure and love.

One reviewer (quoted on the cover) declares all other writing to 'seem jejune for ages afterwards'. I can imagine not wanting to read anything serious for weeks after the last page is turned.

Part of me never wants this book to end. And part of me scarcely wants to go on, for fear of collapse.

marilynne robinson: home (i)

For her, church was an airy white room with tall windows, looking out on God's good world, with God's good sunlight pouring in those windows and falling across the pulpit where her father stood, straight and strong, parsing the broken heart of humankind and praising the loving heart of Christ. That was church.

Marilynne Robinson, Home, p.52 (my emphasis).

the great books (v) - the black cloud

From really good literature (Greene) to a really good story, with lots of science thrown in to boot. I read Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud way back in 1976, during third form at Ysgol Glan-Y-Mor in Pwllheli, in company with a couple of friends (Howard Hughes & Andrew Harangozo). As I recall, we were enthralled by the story - it was, for us, real sci-fi; plenty of science, no fantasy elements.

In the years that followed I read most of what Sir Fred wrote - both on his own and in collaboration with his son, Geoffrey (I mean I read his sci-fi books, not his astronomy papers).

For anyone interested in a plot summary, click here.

I'd love to get hold of a copy just to re-read what first opened my eyes to a new genre of writing (new to me, I mean).

the great books (iv) - a burnt-out case

Having studied a Graham Greene novel at 'A' level (The Power and The Glory), I've always had a fascination with his work, not that I have read that many (5 or 6 novels perhaps).

Joining a book club years ago, I was able to pick-up a hardback copy of A Burnt-Out Case for next-to-nothing (we're probably talking 1981) and have read it through a couple of times, although some of the details escape me and demand another reading.

Querry is the hero - or antihero, perhaps - and his spiritual & moral condition is likened to that of a leper in whom the disease has burnt-out. As ever, Greene shows a deep awareness of human sin and brokenness but, perhaps, less of a sure grasp of the possibilities of redemption. You never leave one of his novels rejoicing but you sense a possibility for hope, albeit often dimly perceived.

But a very worthwhile read, none the less.