semioticghosts @ 5:12pm: final lot of reviews for 2009
Number 16, Desmond Bagley’s “Juggernaut”, was forgettable. I have really liked some of his thrillers in the past, but despite its solid premise of driving an oversized rig through an African country breaking out into civil war promises a lot, it fails to deliver.
I’ve had a bought of thriller-reading this year, partly because I needed things to easily sustain what little attention I had to spare. Thus the Dick Francis Ominbus containing “Flying Finish” and “Hot Money”. Flying Finish stars an amateur jockey and pilot who tuns his hand to becoming a bloodstock agent and gets into hair-raising international difficulties as a result. A competent, entertaining Francis, nothing special. Hot Money is different, with the characters more developed and the plot centring on a millionaire, his avaricious family and his estranged jockey son, to whom he turns when his life is in danger. Warmly recommended.
The Tesseract was Alex Garland’s second noel after The Beach. It was very good – I wish there had been more of it, as there are many strands which are left almost bare. I realise this was probably his intention, but I wanted to know more about the story, so was not as drawn in as I could have been.
Boiling a frog is another one of Christopher Brookmyre’s Jack Parlabane novels. Jack doesn’t disappoint as the cynical hack who exposes high-class political scandals and then ends up face first in whatever ordure he’s dug up.
Martin Suter’s “Der Letzte Weynfeldt” was an excellent German crime novel, whose hero, a late middle aged bachelor, is an art expert who becomes entangled with a younger woman of possibly questionable motives. The plot develops from there, and characterisations are excellent.
Jose Saramago’s “The Double” mostly confused me, but was excellently written, if entirely lacking in paragraphs. It won the Nobel Prize for literature and thus had to be hard work. I did enjoy it, and it was not at all predictable, either, it’s just not an easy read, and probably did not benefit from being consumed in fits and starts while on the train.
23 was James Patterson’s “when the Wind Blows”, not to be mistaken for the animated feature about nuclear war. Apparently, this one was an international bestseller, but I don’t quite see why. There were some lovely ideas involved in the plot about genetic manipulation and inter-species breeding, namely humans and birds, but the rest was fairly dull, including most of the characters.
24 was The Way of a Pilgrim, the classic of orthodox spirituality I came across in J.D. Salinger’s books, as the Glass family read it. It’s a pilgrim’s thoughtful and reflective journey across most of a continent, where he meet who he needs to meet, things go wrong, things go well and a gentle tale gradually unfolds.
25 was J.G. Ballard’s excellent “Super-Cannes”. Put a bunch of high flying executives, scientists, inventors and generally driven people into a select luxury community, the aptly named Eden-Olympia, and see what happens as competition, pressure, greed and boredom increase…
26, J.R. Ward’s Mondspur was a translation into German, and, as such, fairly terrible in places. The character names are SO bad they are good again, in a certain toe-curling way. All that said, there is good plot in here, too, and as a teen, I suspect I'd have loved it. Pleasantly angsty.
27. The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea was a good children’s fantasy novel, fairly reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’s “The Magician’s Nephew”, but making use of specifically Irish mythology. I enjoyed the use of mythology, a topic I’m very fond of any time, but was surprised at how the modern-day child protagonist accepted a lot of the events as unquestioningly, whereas my sense of wonder would have been tickled. That said, it was an enjoyable read and I am passing it on to another bookcrosser I only know via RABCKs, as this might be up her street, too.
28. Memoirs of a Geisha, was interesting, but marred by the fact that I never really got to like (or dislike) the heroine, I would have been much more interested in the lies of her nemesis, or her mentor. It remained an enjoyable read though.
29 & 30 were re-reads – all I could face over Christmas, as my antennae for underlying family tensions is now so oversensitive that it pings when the affected parties haven’t started being bothered yet. Manda Scott’s Dreaming the Hound and Dreaming the Bull fit the bill, as I loe the way she contstructs characters, and the tale, which seated in almost unrelentingly grim historical fact (and conjecture), is a total page turner nonetheless. (I say nonetheless, because I norlaly get enough grimness in my everyday work.)
It remains to be seen whether I read any more now the doctorate is over and I have a lengthy train journey again. I’ve just had to pay National Express East Anglia two grand for the privilege of being allowed to do so in the next twelve months. Sheesh. I know it doesn’t compare to what some of you spend, but it’s still a bit steep for a 40 mile round trip five days a week.
Happy Hogmanay, everybody.
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powerful
contemplative
happy