For a self-imposed challenge I’ve decided not to buy any more books this year. Instead I’ll be trawling through my dusty bookshelves to read the countless unread books that I already own. First up is Graham Greene’s 1955 novel The Quiet American. Set in Vietnam, it follows the uneasy relationship between Thomas Fowler, an ageing and boozy English reporter, and Alden Pyle, a young and idealistic American. The unease between them is provided by Phuong, the lover of Fowler, who the younger man falls for. The book begins with the death of Pyle, and Fowler remembers the preceding months in flashback. How Pyle makes a bid for Phuong, how Fowler deceives them into thinking that his wife in England will divorce him and how Pyle goes on to heroically save the older man’s life. The Quiet American draws to a close with Fowler discovering Pyle’s secret terrorist activities, and deciding if his decision to act on impulse and stop him is a worthy decision or a personal one.
At first I was nervous about reading this novel. Sometimes my history is sketchy, and I wanted to avoid having to revise the history of Vietnam in order to enjoy the book. This isn’t really necessary and The Quiet American has aged very well, with its setting easily reset in any contemporary war zone. Unfortunately any reader will find the background events of conflict and cruelty familiar. This is the enduring, and perhaps ironic, strength of the book. Fowler is also a recognisably flawed hero, and it takes only a small amount of effort to remove any images of the two cinema personifications of him, namely Michael Caine and Michael Redgrave, from the mind. Greene’s writing style always fascinates. It’s a quiet novel; very brief and often understated. It was like listening to a very faint but still compelling voice. I had to concentrate on it and move as close as I could, but the prose was far superior than anything I’ve read in a long time. It’s a masterful work.
If I was forced to make a criticism at all I would probably opt for questioning the portrayal of Phuong, who comes across very much as the unequal side of the love triangle. She’s a too passive character, and we learn little about her other than her quaint confusion between England and America (she asks Fowler if there are skyscrapers in London – remember it’s only 1955) and the novel very much rests on the Fowler vs Pyle fulcrum. There’s some great tension in their encounters. Where the novel also falls down is, oddly, during one of its strongest passages. Stranded after curfew when their car runs out of petrol, the two men seek sanctuary in a lookout tower. Fearing for their lives, they embark on a thorough, lucid and well-reasoned political debate when in reality they’d probably do no more than whisper “shit!” at their dangerous predicament. Greene can create scene and atmosphere perfectly but, like Fowler, he appears numb to the life threatening dangers of the war zone. Such is life.
I’m struggling with Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn. The novel is perfect for holiday reading, and last Sunday I breezed through a couple of hundred pages as we sat by the swimming pool during our trial day at the local sports club. No sports for me, just lazing and reading. However, One Good Turn isn’t suitable for ordinary life, for which I mean overcast days and work. It isn’t gripping enough for quickly snatched lunch breaks and bedside reading. If I’m too tired and too distracted Kate Atkinson isn’t good enough for me. Sigh.
Perhaps my problem is that I need to keep away from the three for two tables. Writing about books means sharing the experience of them, and there might be no point in sharing the experience of popular books. I don’t mean being deliberately obscure, but finding a comfortable middle ground; sharing books that others may have heard of and who may be looking for some thoughts before they take the plunge. Bestseller lists or three for twos might not be supplying the best titles?
In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren’t enough euros to go round. “The entire EU is short on coins.”
And I say, “Really?” because there are plenty of them in Germany. I’m never asked for exact change in Spain or Holland or Italy, so I think the real problem lies with the Parisian casiers, who are, in a word, lazy.
When you are Engulfed in Flames is my introduction to the writing of David Sedaris. This is a collection of loosely connected autobiographical pieces, and the writing has a neat line in self deprecating humour and is full of excellent observations on the everday; it’s the kind of writing I suspect we all aspire to. It’s also the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the pages of the New Yorker, prose that’s as well crafted and nourishing as a good and wholesome meal.
His sixth publication, I’m late to the Sedaris world. His pieces come across as very compact, well-constructed short stories, although this book is officially categorised as autobiography. Sedaris is best when writing about himself and his view of the world; his Greek heritage, upbringing, life as a writer and its odd encounters, addictions, his homosexuality. He also touches on death and all it threatens, a subject he cannot help veering towards. There are also two hilarious accounts of airline travel, where in one he manages to deposit a sucked throat lozenge on a sleeping woman’s lap, and in another he sits beside a weeping, and ultimately irritating, man. The best however is the last section of the book, The Smoking Section, where Sedaris moves to Tokyo for three months in an attempt to give up smoking and to learn Japanese. He only succeeds with one of these goals. This was a highly enjoyable book that I polished off in two days. I look forward to more of his musings.
Unusual for a music autobiography, Alex James hasn’t used a ghost writer for his memoir Bit of a Blur. He has an easy, engaging writing style of his own that strolls through his time as bass player with Blur, living a booze-fuelled hedonistic lifestyle in the 1990s. He’s proud of the achievement of one of the most successful bands of that decade, but he’s also fond of recounting stories of drinking in the Groucho Club and his friendship with Damien Hirst and Keith Allen. James comes across as a pleasant enough chap, but he can’t help also revealing that he’s been incredibly lucky, sailing through his life and grasping all of the amazing opportunities offered to him.
Blur peaked in 1994 and 1995, following the incredibly successful (and also very good) album Parklife with their part in Britpop and the much talked about public battle with Oasis. James talks less about this that you might expect, and most interesting is the few years in the early 90s that Blur spent struggling; a run of very minor hit singles, a poor selling album and a lengthy US tour orchestrated to beat bankruptcy. Here is the seed for what could have been a very good book, although I suspect that James is very much aware that his fellow band members Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon were the talented ones. James was content to get drunk, look pretty and go along for the ride – he’s more at home writing about this than of any enduring artistic legacy.
Bit of a Blur gets the award for most reviewed paperback in British broadsheets this weekend. It’s also one of the best marketed books I’ve seen recently, although it could have been so much better, and I left it knowing little more than I already knew about a band I was so fond of in their heyday. The drinking and sexual exploits I could have done without. A bit of a bore really.
Gordon Burn wrote the much celebrated novel Alma Cogan. It’s a brilliant piece of writing, although deeply disturbing. He’s an extremely talented writer who’s always tempted to blend reality with his fiction. His latest, Born Yesterday, is an attempt to publish a novel featuring a backdrop of topical events. Covering England in 2007, the year of the summer floods, Gordon Brown succeeding Tony Blair and the disappearance of Madeleine Mcann, Burn has attempted to produce a work that lives and breathes a recognisable yet complex and uncertain climate. He succeeds.
Subtitled The News as a Novel, Born Yesterday may be uncomfortable for those expecting a work of fiction. It’s more a work of journalism, but some of the best topical writing I have ever read. Burn has a talent for recognising coincidences and parallels in events that only appear to share time and place in common. He follows several obsessions, primarily the Madeleine Mcann media frenzy and the fate of a handful of Britain’s Prime Ministers. Maggie Thatcher, old yet still stately, spotted walking in a London park with her minders. Tony Blair and his often comical relationship with George Bush, and most of all Gordon Brown – a man who although often labelled as dull proves an excellent candidate for analysis. He really is a fascinating, odd character and Burn writes superbly about him; this is critical of the man but it is also touching. I think Burn has a sneaking admiration for him, although I suspect he would be the first to deny it.
Gordon Burn subtly blends apparent coincidences into his writing where others would appear to be trying too hard to forge connections. He tracks down the soap star who sat in the same London restaurant where Blair and Brown supposedly made their famous deal. Their meeting doesn’t result in any insight into the Blair/Brown relationship, but it offers a wealth of insight with the fresh glimpses of life it reveals. He strips away apocryphal media tales, although managing to convince that things are often linked in the way that the press suggests – they only lack the talent or insight to report it with any justice. And they remain blinkered – Burn allows us to think a little and read around subjects.
Born Yesterday is a book about 2007, published in February 2008. It’s still resonant, although its importance may fade. Or shift – I think it will remain a valuable insight of Britain in this decade. Ditch your tabloids, your broadsheets even. This is the best, most thoughtful, reporting I’ve read of recent history.
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