The Book Tower

• Patrick McCabe’s Winterwood left me sitting in a stunned silence. Stunned because I didn’t really know what to make of it; the book is well written, dark and very disturbing but I’m not sure what it’s done to me. If anything. It’s still slowly sinking in.
• Possibly because McCabe had left me sitting in a trance, I left it too late to vote in the Seventh Annual Weblog Awards. A shame, because there’s a good few blogs that I’d have voted for.
• To get my strength back I’ve started reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I’m racing through it and will probably feel suitably rejuvenated to give a full review soon.
• Goldfinger by Ian Fleming is proving an easy but enjoyable read. I’d describe this type of book at this time of year as a winter warmer. Bond is portrayed as the killing machine who will ruthlessly dispense with someone who gets in his way. With his bare hands – The original Bond I’ve often heard about. It’s funny, but as I’m reading I don’t think Sean Connery but I think Daniel Craig.
• As I always welcome a complete contrast, I’m enjoying reading the Horrid Henry stories with my daughter. Francesca Simon’s a very witty writer, and Tony Ross is one of the best illustrators around. Contrasts, you can’t beat ‘em.

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Another recent television adaptation has had me rifling through piles of old paperbacks to find the original. This was the BBC’s slick new version of John Wyndham’s short story Random Quest starring Samuel West.

Following an accident during an experiment, a scientist wakes up to find his familiar world a little different. The most startling surprise for him is that he is now a successful author and married to a girl he has never met before called Ottilie. Eventually returned to his own world, he sets about finding his new wife. Even though she appears not to exist in his universe, this doesn’t put him off…

I eventually found my book of John Wyndham short stories called Consider Her Ways and Others, first published in 1961. Random Quest is set in 1954, and the differences that Colin Trafford notices between the two worlds are somewhat quaint:

I added soda to the brandy, and took a welcome drink. It was as I was putting the glass down that I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar….
I used to have a moustache. I came out of the Army with it, but decided to jettison it when I went up to Cambridge. But there it was – a little less luxuriant, perhaps, but resurrected. I put my hand up and felt it. There was no illusion, and it was genuine, too. At almost the same moment I noticed my suit. Now, I used to have a suit pretty much like that, years ago. …
I had a swimming sensation, took another drink of the brandy, and felt, a little unsteadily, for a cigarette. The packet I pulled out of my pocket was unfamiliar – have you ever heard of Player’s ‘Mariner’ cigarettes – No? Neither had I.

In the 2006 version, unexpected military moustaches, Army life, smart suits and cigarettes are all jettisoned. What’s different here is the gleaming white space age apartment and attempts to be futuristic on a low budget. Trafford’s party guests stand around looking like extras from Space 1999. Where the 50s Trafford reads about the new universe in copies of The New Statesman to discover that the Second World War hasn’t taken place, the 21st Centrury Trafford watches BBC News 24 to realise there has been no fall of the Berlin Wall. Condoleeza Rice and Tony Blair receive appropriate namechecks. There’s nothing like a modern pesrpective to sketch out your alternative universe.

What’s striking about Random Quest the short story is what’s ultimately odd about the new television version. Parallel universes are old hat in 2006, but Wyndham’s story must have come across as a very fresh and original premise in 1961. One of the conceits of the new BBC film is that our hero, momentarily trapped in the parallel world as the sci-fi author version of himself, proposes a new book about a scientist – you’ve guessed it – who is catapulted into a parallel universe. Everyone thinks this is a very original idea for a book. In fact, nobody has thought about parallel universes in this world, but perhaps this is an alternative Earth that’s missing Star Trek, Doctor Who, Sliding Doors and countless other film and television science fiction. And, most importantly, what possibly influenced all of the above – John Wyndham.

Footnote: The new version was a disappointment, although Random Quest was previously filmed in 1971 as Quest for Love with Tom Bell and Joan Collins. I haven’t seen this film for years, but putting the seventies production standards aside, I’d imagine it’s still a very enjoyable film.

Continue reading Quest for Wyndham [4]

During her book-reading heyday, my late aunt claimed to read three novels a week. Apparently my grandfather did the same. “He was another great reader”, my aunt would say. After my aunt died I found a photograph of her sitting by the fireplace and reading. She had pinned another, much older, photograph to it of my grandfather. He was also sitting beside a fireplace and reading. Sadly, I have only managed to match this level of dedication to books in periods of unemployment or whenever I find myself on lazy holidays.

In the first half of 2006 my reading reached an all time low of about a novel a month. This I put down to starting a new job and not finding the time (and other excuses), but things picked up to about a book a week in the last half of the year and I am going to attempt to keep up this pace during 2007.

It would be madness to list 52 books that I am planning to read this year, but I have some idea where I’ll be starting.

Book #1

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, perhaps since my last period of unemployment or lazy holiday. So much so that my next post is going to be all about it.

They Won’t Go Away

Books left over from reading challenges:

• A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
• Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
• What Maisie Knew Henry James
• At the Mountains of Madness H.P. Lovecraft
• The Woman in White Wilkie Collins

Sales and Secondhand

I restrained myself in the January sales and only bought two hardbacks. Black Swan Down by David Mitchell and Winterwood by Patrick McCabe. I found Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas both enjoyable and infuriating in equal measures. McCabe I am new to. Best recent finds in charity shops are Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and Goldfinger by Ian Fleming.

Christmas Present

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks, a welcome gift from my family.

Looking Forward To…

New novels are on their way in 2007 from Ian McEwan and Gerard Woodward. On Chesil Beach is McEwan’s latest which I will read as a matter of course, although what I’m really looking forward to is Woodward’s A Curious Earth.

So try to picture me throughout 2007, at least once or twice a week sitting beside my fireplace and reading.

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• The Guardian report today that Doctor Who has nudged The Beano aside as this year’s top-selling annual in the UK. I’ve noticed more annuals in the shops this year and, although my annual reading days are over, they are a welcome alternative to biographies of celebrities I have barely heard of. I remember as I child rushing into department stores to check if the year’s batch of annuals were on the shelves. My favourites were Whizzer and Chips, Buster and Lion. Later I moved onto Marvel annuals and later still 2000 AD. But I still have my Beano Book 1975 somewhere.
• Staying nostalgic, Julian Barnes writes a fantastic account of family life in the Christmas New Yorker. This doesn’t appear to be available in the online edition so, like me, you may have to buy a copy. But it’s worth it, and there’s some excellent fiction in this issue too. In fact I’ve spent most of today reading it.
• Bought a second hand copy of Goldfinger this afternoon. Ian Fleming’s opening reads:

James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.

• What a guy! After downing two double bourbons I’d probably forget where I was and miss my flight.
• Seasonal footnote: to my surprise, I make a mean pot of mulled wine, with our Christmas guests last night waiting in line, drinking and rejoining the queue in an endless loop. I even made a second batch, perhaps with a little less care, but by then our friends formed a merry bunch.

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After overdosing on Golding and Dickens in the last two weeks, I decided to find myself a comfortable read in the run up to Christmas. Tidying up the spare room for our seasonal guests, I discovered a copy of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon which met my requirements exactly.

Continue reading Comfortable Reading [1]