Monday, 5 March 2018

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle, Jake Arnott, The Fatal Tree, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime And Punishment, Guillem Balague, Brave New World: Inside Pochettino's Spurs, Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, Elizabeth Gee Nash, The Hansa , Jo Nesbo, The Son, Richard Ford, The Sportswrite


'The Sportswriter' was yet another mid 20th Century book by a white, middle-aged East Coast man about an introspective, prosperous white, middle-aged East Coast professional man and his (ahem) struggles. I should be the core constituency for this sort of stuff, but it just leaves me cold. Nothing seems to happen and I struggle to feel any sympathy for the protagonist. My heart plunged when I got to the end and realised it was part 1 of a trilogy.
'The Son' was Nesbo by numbers - grisly deaths in the seedier parts of Norway and a police procedural with dysfunctional detectives. Still enjoyed it, but they're just being churned out like episodes of Midsomer now. 'The Snowman' has been made into a film starring Michael Fassbender. It's meant to be terrible, but it might be ok for an evening's viewing, even for the mountain scenery alone.
'The Hansa' was a history of the Hanseatic League - I picked it up as Mum and Dad are going on a tour of the Baltic soon and I thought it might be a good pop history for Mum, but it was a wee bit too dry  - pages of extracts from Herring Inventories and medieval Flemish exchange rates.
'White Teeth' was on the 100 essential novels, which surprised me as I hadn’t realised quite how highly it was rated in the US. It's a love letter to London though, Dickens for the 20th Century.
'A Man Called Ove' was lovely and life-affirming, reminded me of Harold Fry. There were some sniffy reviews from critics who are expecting bleak existential angst from Scandinavian authors. It's not too sugar-coated though, it has its fair share of tragedy and rage against the failings of the Swedish social democrat model. It's the story of Ove, who tries his best to maintain his principles and values in a society that is changing, corrupt and doesn’t share his beliefs. The cast are there to reinforce his prejudices - the muslim wife, the husband who cannot repair anything, the cyclists who leaves his bike in a restricted area. . .
'Brave New World' was an indulgence - it was never going to share revelations about THFC, but if you read between the lines there were a few interesting comments about current players. What a time to be a Spurs fan. We're in the CL and outplaying Real, Juventus and Man Utd while Arsenal are imploding with their fans calling for Wenger to go. It won't last, so right now I'm just enjoying the moment.
'Crime and Punishment' was slogged through. I'm not clever enough to understand all the philosophising about guilt and its effect on the human psyche

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