The Book Tower

Quite often one book can suggest another. Antonia Fraser’s Must You Go? made several references to Harold Pinter’s long standing friendship with Simon Gray, including Pinter’s reaction to Gray’s death in 2008. Gray’s own volume of memoirs, The Smoking Diaries, makes several references to Pinter, including observations of his own failing health. Ruminations on mortality can be depressing, although Gray successfully manages to invest a degree of warmth and humour into things. The Smoking Diaries reflects upon his own sixty a day habit (halved by the early 2000s when the memoirs were written – he’d already given up on the four bottles of champagne a day), observations of (mostly senile) fellow hotel guests, a troubled relationship with his father and the sorry alcoholism of his younger brother. Even the terror of a panic attack – where Gray rushes from his shed unable to remember his exact age. Whatever he writes about, however troubling, it is always compelling writing.

I’m sorry to say that I followed Simon Gray with two writers who couldn’t be less engaging. The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis is possibly the worst book I have ever picked up. It is pretentious, poorly written, dull and ultimately pointless. Its only achievement is recruiting more manpower for the anti-Amis brigade. Unfortunately things hardly improved with The Ghost by Robert Harris, a book recommended to me and one I was interested in because of the forthcoming Roman Polanski film. Sadly The Ghost is an unconvincing thriller in the Dan Brown mould. It’s predictable, the characters are wooden and the outcome is laughable.

But don’t despair. I’m now into The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris and it’s the best thing I’ve read for ages. A review will follow shortly…