Paperback Reader » Classics

Publishing Experience

Paperback Reader — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 16:00:18 +0000

In my last post I may have unintentionally misled some of you in regards to the identity of the publisher playing host to me at the moment. Although Virago and Persephone Books are an imprint and publisher, respectively, that I would love to work for and where most of you thought my placement is, I am actually at Random House HQ in Pimlico. Vintage Books and Vintage Classics are imprints mentioned frequently on Paperback Reader because -as with Virago and Persephone- my preference when it comes to literature is backlist as opposed to frontlist titles especially classics or neglected classics. I am working in the CCV division, which encompasses the literary imprints of Jonathan Cape, The Bodley Head, Yellow Jersey, Square Peg, Harvill Secker, Chatto & Windus, Vintage, Vintage Classics and Pimlico. Working on nine imprints of prize-winning books and authors (and the potential Booker prize-winning C by Tom McCarthy) during one of the busiest times of year -with the upcoming Cheltenham Literary Festival and the publication of the high-profile titles for sale in the lead up to Christmas in full swing- is exciting and enriching.

My first week has flown by in a buzz of activity with every task and day varied, highly-pressured and insightful. A wealth of experience is being had and also fun. I love to be busy and thrive on it and there is so much to see, learn and do in CCV with never a dull moment. Yes, there are tasks that could be considered mundane and administrative in nature -photocopying and mailing out- but I am truly loving all of the different aspects of the publicity department; I have also designed fliers, made up showcards for book events, sent author mail, sought and compiled reviews, drafted party invite lists, planned other parties and events, data entry and I also putting my book blogging and digital experience to good use.

Of course I love being surrounded by the books and some of my favourite authors’ work -Rushdie, García Márquez, Morrison, Coetzee, Murakami are all published there- but publishing is a business and although a passion for the product is tantamount an understanding of how publishing works is an essential requirement for working in the industry. My brief time so far in Random House is providing me with that crucial insight.

I will, however, share some of the bookish joys here on my site. On Thursday I had a lunch consisting of several recipes from Nigella Lawson’s new cookbook, Kitchen; the RH canteen cooked up a storm to celebrate the premiere of Nigella Kitchen premiering that night on BBC2. I can testify that the Pappardelle with Butternut Squash and Blue Cheese and the Panzanella (bread salad) are both completely and utterly delectable.

Lunch on Friday was spent with my mentor, Lisa, who kindly offered me anything on her Vintage Classics shelves after we discussed our shared love for classics; a spare five minutes later that afternoon and some exercise of restraint on my part resulted in the conservative pile above.

I’ve been wanting to read Yukio Mishima for some time but Simon of Savidge Reads convinced me to start with The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, which I thought back to when perusing some Mishima books on the shelves.

I mentioned a couple of months ago that it was the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks this year, which meant that I had to read it; Lisa gave me the fiftieth-anniversary edition (click on the title link to see the cover) and I plan on reading it next.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood was my first Atwood novel and remains a favourite. Vintage Classics are reissuing it with a striking new red and white cover for its twenty-fifth anniversary (click on the title link to see the cover), The Handmaid’s Tale is as pertinent in its dystopian vision of the subjugation of women as it was when first published. My copy of the book is one I loaned and never received back so I could not resist owning it again especially with its new jacket design, which I love.

Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is the favourite book of one of my closest friends, consequently one that has been on my wishlist for some time. I couldn’t resist taking a copy of this when I saw it especially as I was meeting the same friend for dinner that night (she is currently based in the US so it was great to see her); we discussed the Soviet novel a little over dinner and she then told me that it took her a month to read, which she had neglected to mention before.

Speaking of Russian literature, Lisa gave me an amazingly beautiful hardback edition of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, a new translation -the first since the 1958 original- to celebrate Harvill Secker’s Centennial (the bookbag I brought the books home in also commemorates the imprint’s landmark). I read Doctor Zhivago years ago for a Slavonic literature course at university and would love to reread it one day especially in this lovely snowflake copy and its new translation.

Coincidentally I am at present reading a Vintage Classics book -as you can see on the right-hand side of the post- for the Riverside Readers. The lovely Polly of Novel Insights chose On the Beach by Nevil Shute as this month’s book; I am particularly thankful to her as I was supposed to read this for a Writing the Disaster module at uni several years ago and didn’t.

I hope to be able to share more books with you next week. In the meantime feel free to ask me any questions you may have about my placement or Random House in general.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Paperback Reader — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:55:45 +0000

You may have noticed that my blogging has been somewhat sporadic of late. This has been for a myriad of reasons; I have been busier than normal with several projects and a busy calendar, which is going to become even more chaotic over the coming months. However, I have also been a bit of a malcontent when it comes to blogging. I doubt that it is anything more sinister than being slightly overwhelmed by a backlog of reviews and a lack of inspiration and motivation to catch up but I have been struggling a little in finding the joy I once did in my book blog.

So, changes are afoot at Paperback Reader. Nothing ominous or shocking, don’t worry. I love my website and I don’t intend to stop posting but I do need to recapture the passion I use to have for blogging. To begin with I want to return to my roots, as it were, and read from my own collection more. I have a strong background in English literature and I have a deep desire to read some classics (inspired, in part, by The Classics Blogger Directory that Amanda of The Zen Leaf has generously implemented). I will still read modern fiction but I am craving those older books (some no older than earlier this century and others several centuries old) that have been languishing on my shelves whilst I succumbed to the temptation of review copies and recently-published titles.

Becoming caught up in new titles has been an unexpected by-product of book blogging and it is something I have enjoyed; discovering new-to-me authors and following literary prizes and the organic buzz of the blogosphere has been fun but I miss my pre-blogging reading. I used to have the freedom to pick up books on a whim from my bookshelves and I am desperate for that level of choice once more. I am fifty pages from the end of my current read (a reread, no less, which I also rarely have time for anymore) and have absolutely no plans after that. I have freed myself from any thoughts of “Oh, I must read that Booker longlisted title or such-and-such a title for this deadline or that” and succumbing entirely to whim. I have many, many books on my bookshelves -classics, prize-winners, hyped books, cult classics, off-the-beaten track titles- that have been sidelined for too long and it’s time I return to the stacks. I intend no disparagement of new titles but there are books I own (some for several years) that are established classics and have stood the test of time; I feel less inclined to run the risk of newer fiction that I do for books that I trust are beloved by fellow bibliophiles for a reason. That’s not to say that I won’t be rushing to read the new Michael Cunningham/Haruki Murakami/Jeffrey Eugenides novels as I will but they are favourite writers and I know they will be worth the reading time.

Life is too short to not read the books I have been wanting to for years. Although I have been interspersing those reads with more recent ones, finding a balance on my blog between old and new, it has been more of juggling-act than reading for sheer pleasure. I’m sure I am not alone in feeling the need to immerse myself in quality literature, good stories and comfort reading without any pressure and the added insurance that it’s a book I am likely to love or escape in.

Creativity and inspiration will, I hope, return to my blog and I have some ideas for new features and the revival of old favourites to regale you with. I don’t foresee the shift in focus in Paperback Reader being too perceptible really to anyone except me but it’s important to me that you understand why I am going to be reading more for me than any outside influence. My posting style won’t change -although it will hopefully become regular again- but it should reflect the enthusiasm and enjoyment I have for reading and writing.

It is time to dust off some neglected books on my bookshelves* and blow away the cobwebs.

*a new bookcase has been built this weekend that I will be sure to share with you soon.

Quicksand

Paperback Reader — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:15:00 +0000

Today I would like to welcome The Classics Circuit to my blog as one of the stops in the Harlem Renaissance Tour. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement of literary and artistic expression during the 1920s and 30s that sprang up amongst the African American population of Harlem, New York. I studied the period of “awakening” a little whilst at University and discovered Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay; Nella Larsen’s novels, Quicksand and Passing, were (and remain) critically acclaimed and significant novels of the movement. I have had Passing on my wish-list for some time but as it was a popular choice for the tour and as the volume I have contains both of the short works, I decided to review her first novel, Quicksand; I shall post my thoughts on Passing later in the tour.

***warning: this review contains spoilers in last paragraph***

Loosely autobiographical, Quicksand tells the story of Helga Crane, a young mulatto (mixed race) woman whose Danish immigrant mother is dead and whose father abandoned her and her mother, when Helga was a baby. Helga has “no people”; she was uncomfortable with her resentful white stepfather and step-siblings; her uncle Peter who rescued her as a child and sent her to school, disowns her as he has taken a wife who will not accept being aunt to a girl of another race; her Danish aunt and uncle, whom she later lives with in Copenhagen, use her to elevate their social status, as she is unique and exotic amongst their society. Before Helga goes to Denmark she lives in Harlem where her friends are focused -often hypocritically- on the “race question”; Helga does not identify with this group, with this race, until she is later racially alone in Copenhagen (the quotes below demonstrate this shift in perception). Quicksand is about Helga never fitting in or belonging, from the Naxos school where she teaches in the novel’s opening to the small Alabama town where her husband is Preacher, in its close.

Helga is not a sympathetic character and is quite unpleasant; she is impulsive and often takes offense to people in frustrating ways. What I became to understand though was that Helga’s transitory shifts in emotion, often of anger and irritation, are representative of a woman guided by her passions. Quicksand is regarded as the first novel to give a voice to the sexual desires of a black women but this theme of the novel was too subtle for me -probably by today’s standards- yet the passionate reactions, if viewed as representative of her sexual desire and discontent, can be charted throughout the novel. Other symbolism that stood out to me was Helga’s desire early on to wear bright colours, to complement her skin, but she was told it was unbecoming for a black woman; later, in Denmark, Helga is encouraged by her Aunt Katrina to wear colourful dresses and at first Helga rails against it as she has been conditioned to dress and behave appropriately. It is Helga’s defiance against any categorisation, as a woman or as a person of colour, that makes Quicksand a revolutionary novel of its time; she seeks fulfillment from each of the communities and roles that she moves through, finding none. Furthermore, there are some very interesting passages on race, miscegenation and eugenics that are insightful and challenging to read; in both its treatment of sexuality and race, the text reminds me of some of the short stories and novella, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin.

Helga’s finding -and then losing- of religion and her subsequent hasty marriage and new-found motherhood in the last chapters didn’t originally work for me in relation to the other defined sections of the novel -Naxos; Chicago; Harlem; Copenhagen; Harlem- but the ending resonated. In Quicksand’s close, Helga lies ill after the birth and death of her fourth child, planning her escape from this imprisoning life, but the novel suddenly ends with the pregnancy of her fifth child; it was in the closing lines that Quicksand truly became a novel about the women question as much as it was about the race one.

Outside, rain had begun to fall. She walked bare-headed, bitter with self-reproach. But she rejoiced too. She didn’t, in spite of her racial markings, belong to these dark segregated people. She was different. She felt it. It wasn’t merely a matter of color. It was something broader, deeper, that made folk kin.

Helga Crane didn’t, however, think often of America, excepting in unfavorable contrast to Denmark. For she had resolved never to return to the existence of ignominy which the New World of opportunity and promise forced upon Negroes. How stupid she had been ever to have thought that she could marry and perhaps have children in a land where every dark child was handicapped at the start by the shroud of color! She saw, suddenly, the giving birth to little, helpless, unprotesting Negro children as a sin, an unforgivable outrage. More black folk to suffer indignities. More dark bodies for mobs to lynch. No, Helga Crane didn’t think often of America. It was too humiliating, too disturbing.

To the Lighthouse

Paperback Reader — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:30:00 +0000

I meant nothing by The Lighthouse. One has to have
a central line down the middle of the book to
hold the design together. I saw that all
sorts of feelings would accrue to this but I
refused to think them out, and trusted that people
would make it the deposit of their emotions – which they
have done, one thinking it means one thing another another.
I can’t manage Symbolism except in this vague, generalized way.

So said Virginia Woolf of her novel To the Lighthouse. “[O]ne thinking it means one thing another another” is the essence of the Woolf in Winter read-alongs, where we read a Woolf novel (or two, or three, or all four) and “make it the deposit of [our] emotions”. To say what Woolf means is reductive, I find, and I approach her emotionally; I savour her beautiful prose and I connect to the words, the representative -as opposed to symbolic- images and the tone. I don’t read Woolf to understand but to appreciate; her books are not the type that are easy to review and I’m not going to attempt to but give my impressions instead.

Starting in medias res, Mrs Ramsay tells her son, James, that they will go to the lighthouse tomorrow if it is fine; a page later Mr Ramsay says that it will not be fine and by the end of the first volume they do not go to the lighthouse; in the third volume, years later, James and his father and his sister take a boat trip to the lighthouse. A basic premise, the lighthouse itself signifies nothing but is representative of so much emotion and history; the first volume, ‘The Window’, is a glimpse into one day of the Ramsays’ lives and those of their guests; the lighthouse is one single memory (of various people) acting as a cohesive idea holding it all together. With its occasional twenty-seven line sentences containing such resonant images of beauty, “so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again”, the stream-of-consciousness ‘The Window’ volume was by far my favourite and a reminder of why I love Woolf.

To the Lighthouse is an elegy to Woolf’s parents and contained in it is such a sense of palpable, heartrending grief and pain. At many points, I found rage in the tone, in the pounding of the waves (the recurrent water imagery of Woolf at play), and the bitterness of the characters. There is a violent potency to the masculinity presented in the novel, a hyper-sexed desire to produce and a fear of barrenness and failure, and the calming, maternal, female influence at its centre; To the Lighthouse is a precursor to Woolf’s feminist polemic, A Room of One’s Own and in it I see a man who is lost without the strength of his wife and the feminist Lily Briscoe who rails against Tansley’s accusation that as a woman she cannot write or paint, both lost without Mrs Ramsay and one finding her way.

I read “The Fisherman and his Wife” by the Brothers Grimm, the story Mrs Ramsay read to James, in an attempt to find some illumination; I wonder if the tale of a bullying, greedy wife who railroads her husband was arbitrarily chosen or is another of Woolf’s representations … can it be reduced to the age-old phrase that behind every great man there is an equally great woman?

Structurally I found the first volume the strongest and I preferred its style; I would have enjoyed To the Lighthouse more -as opposed to enjoying the first volume and appreciating the second and third- if it had all been in the stream-of-consciousness style of the first but, as it was, the technical ‘Time Passes’ stunned me in its beauty and mastery and ‘To the Lighthouse’ resolved the novel for me. It wouldn’t be Woolf though if it was a simply an enjoyable novel, something profound is always at work and I come away wowed. Of the Woolf in Winter choices, To the Lighthouse was the one of the four novels that I hadn’t yet read and had always wanted to; I also intended to read it for my Bucket List and for the Women Unbound challenge. It has been some time since I have read any Virginia Woolf and I have missed her; I am now wondering where to now … do I reread Orlando for the next volume of the Woolf read-along or do I attempt one of the three novels of hers I have not yet read, the early The Voyage Out and Night and Day or the later The Years? Alternatively I could read A Writer’s Diary or the Hermione Lee biography, both of which I have only dipped in and out of so far.

The Woolf in Winter discussion for To the Lighthouse is being hosted by Emily today.

Some favourite passages:

For the great plateful of blue water was before her; the hoary Lighthouse, distant, austere, in the midst; and on the right, as far as the eye could see, fading and falling, in soft low pleats, the green sand dunes with the wild flowing grasses on them, which always seemed to be running away into some moon country, uninhabited of men.

Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, half-way down, in the darkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps a tear formed; a tear fell; the waters swayed this way and that, received it, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad.

It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness made fertile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life – the drawing-room; behind the drawing-room the kitchen; above the kitchen the bedrooms; and beyond them the nurseries; they must be furnished, they must be filled with life.

She praised herself in praising the light, without vanity, for she was stern, she was searching, she was beautiful like that light. It was odd, she thought, how if one was alone, one leant to things, inanimate things; trees, streams, flowers; felt they expressed one; felt they became one; felt they knew one, in a sense were one; felt an irrational tenderness thus (she looked at that long steady light) as for oneself. There rose, and she looked and looked with her needles suspended, there curled up off the floor of the mind, rose from the lake of one’s being, a mist, a bride to meet her lover.

Animal Farm

Paperback Reader — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:51:00 +0000

These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them into rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major’s speech. Instead-she did not know why-they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.

I didn’t read Animal Farm by George Orwell at school nor did I manage to fit the novella into my reading in the ten years since so when Nineteen Eighty-Four was chosen for this month’s book group, and I had an opportunity to re-read it, I seized the opportunity to read Animal Farm at the same time as a companion piece.

The satirical allegory of Communism and the scathing attack on Stalin in literary form is an intelligently crafted piece; it is also blackly humorous in parts, which I did not expect. Like Nineteen Eighty-Four it is dystopian fiction at its finest but I would say that Animal Farm is better done. Where Nineteen Eighty-Four is terrifying in its nighmarish future imaginings, the totalitarianism of Animal Farm is brutal in its portrayed corruption of the greedy, myopic leaders of Animal Farm, the pigs.

The Manor Farm run by the cruel farmer Jones is subject to rebellion when the farmland animals rise up against their dictator. Upon the success of their revolt, the farm is renamed Animal Farm and the animals live in harmony for a little while working the farm under the leadership of two of the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon (Trotsky and Stalin, respectively) but with the philosophy that all animals are equal. Napoleon overthrows Snowball with the help of the army of dogs that he has raised from pups and quickly becomes tyrant of the farm. Napoleon has the support of the other pigs, notably Squealer who acts as propagandist and manipulator; Squealer’s twisting of the truth are the parts that I found most alarming and yet conversely also the most amusing as he is a typical political spin-doctor.

This is an intensely clever novella and I am glad that I finally read it. Until now I knew the premise of Animal Farm and its cultural significance but did not fully appreciate its historical -as well as literary- importance. This is a skillful and powerful political satire and I urge you to read it if you have not already.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Paperback Reader — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:30:00 +0000

I was in a bookshop with Simon T of Stuck in a Book last month and one of us picked up or pointed out the newly reissued, latest dust-jacket art of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. I commented that I read it about a decade ago but that it was fairly fresh in my mind. The following evening, at book group, it was suggested as November’s book. I decided to reread it for the less salient details but I found that the majority of it had remained with me.

Tonight is our book group meeting but due to a sudden family event I am unable to attend; instead, I am scheduling this post to publish whilst the others will be discussing the book. I look forward to reading what the others think and how the discussion went from tomorrow onwards. For most of us it was a reread so it will be an interesting dynamic. I didn’t think that Nineteen Eighty-Four suffered any reading it second-time-around although I did find the first half of the third section quite dry although Room 101 was just as effective (albeit without the shock-factor).

I love Dystopian literature and the Orwellian model is the father of the Science Fiction sub-genre; I recall it as the first Dystopian novel that I read and it still resonates, especially as it has been immersed into popular culture and contemporary vernacular (which we should just call everydayspeak and have done with it). Orwell’s nightmarish vision of the futuristic totalitarian government, the oligarchical inner party of Big Brother with their oxymoronic party slogans, may be outdated in the age of technology but its claustrophobic society of surveillance, where not only Big Brother via the telescreens but everyone else is watching you and waiting to betray you by accusing you of thoughtcrime, is still effective and disturbing.

Winston Smith, protagonist of Nineteen Eighteen-Four, is a member of the outer party who perpetuates party propaganda by altering historical documents so that the past becomes fiction. Meanwhile Winston is in inner turmoil, rebelling against Big Brother without actually doing anything until he meets Julia. Winston is not an orthodox party member, devoted to Big Brother; nor is he an acute threat to Big Brother. His passivity infuriates me but what could he have done? Was Julia right when she asked him if it mattered the evidence that he found -but destroyed- as what could he have done with it anyway? His helplessness is well-evoked and it is that which makes Nineteen Eighty-Four so powerful and terrifying: the inability to act against a totalitarian regime even if you wanted to.

I was struck whilst reading this time by the portrayal of women in the novel, or more strictly their treatment by Big Brother. Women are denied their femininity, they are made to dress asexually and forbidden to wear make-up or fragrance; males and females are sexually repressed with relationships between party members outlawed. Julia regales in her sexuality, she is proud to enjoy sex and embraces the opportunity to be free and wear what she likes beyond the view of the telescreens. Feminism is freedom of choice, not what you wear or how you look.

I enjoyed rereading this classic; it was a welcome revisit and one that reminded me how good a book Nineteen Eighty-Four is. Tomorrow I will have a follow-up post on Orwell.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Paperback Reader — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:25:00 +0000

Recently amongst the blogosphere I have noticed mention of Science Fiction and Fantasy (in relation to a Science Fiction challenge mainly but also in general comments) and I am given the impression -and not for the first time, I hasten to add- that Science Fiction and Fantasy are the bad words of Genre and must be uttered in hushed tones or prefixed with “I don’t normally read Science Fiction/Fantasy/Delete where appropriate…” Sci-fi/Fantasy have a preconceived reputation of being geeky, perhaps, and that is undeservedly so; some great literature falls under their category.

There has also been of late the Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin controversy where Atwood claims that she doesn’t write Science Fiction and Le Guin disagrees. I love Margaret Atwood’s fiction but if you are writing wonderful fiction then don’t be embarrassed about the genrification of it and call a spade a spade. Don’t hide under the term “Speculative Fiction”, which simply umbrellas Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopian Literature, Alternative History etc. but, at the end of the day, it’s all scientific or fantastical so who needs another term for it, especially one made up to save the face of bookish snobs?

Earlier this year The Guardian published a list of the 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. I was particularly impressed and surprised by how many books I had read in the Science Fiction & Fantasy section and was also surprised at its diverse inclusion of books I consider my favourites and those I had been wanting to read for some time but hadn’t considered to be Science Fiction or Fantasy. I urge you to look at this list and perhaps realise that you enjoy Science Fiction more than you know and have read or want to read more than you think. There are so many classic, popular, and incredibly famous writers and books -Pulitzer, Nobel, and Booker Prize winning titles amongst them- on this list that you may just reconsider not being fond of Science Fiction or Fantasy novels.

It may be idealist of me but I read books that I want to read, whatever their label.

In the list below, the ones scored out are the ones I have read, the ones in green those I own and plan to read soon, and those in amber are the ones I am most wanting to purchase at this given time.

~~The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams~~

Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

~~The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood~~

~~The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood~~

In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster

The Drowned World by JG Ballard

~~Crash by JG Ballard~~

Millennium People by JG Ballard

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks

Weaveworld by Clive Barker

Darkmans by Nicola Barker

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter

Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear

Vathek by William Beckford

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

~~Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury~~

Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite

Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Erewhon by Samuel Butler

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

The Influence by Ramsey Campbell

~~Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll~~

~~Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll~~

~~Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter~~

~~The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter~~

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton

Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney

Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick

Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

The Magus by John Fowles

~~American Gods by Neil Gaiman~~

Red Shift by Alan Garner

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

~~Lord of the Flies by William Golding~~

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Light by M John Harrison

~~The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne~~

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein

~~Dune by Frank L Herbert~~

The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

~~The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg~~

Atomised by Michel Houellebecq

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

~~The Turn of the Screw by Henry James~~

The Children of Men by PD James

After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies

Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

~~The Shining by Stephen King~~

~~The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski~~

Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing

~~The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis~~

~~The Monk by Matthew Lewis~~

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay

The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

~~The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe~~

~~The Road by Cormac McCarthy~~

Ascent by Jed Mercurio

The Scar by China Mieville

Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr

~~Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell~~

Mother London by Michael Moorcock

News from Nowhere by William Morris

~~Beloved by Toni Morrison~~

~~The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami~~

Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov

~~The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger~~

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Vurt by Jeff Noon

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien

The Famished Road by Ben Okri

~~Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell~~

~~Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk~~

Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock

~~Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake~~

The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth

A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys

The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett (in process of reading)

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

~~His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman~~

Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

~~Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling~~

Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

The Female Man by Joanna Russ

Air by Geoff Ryman

~~The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery~~

Blindness by Jose Saramago

How the Dead Live by Will Self

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

~~The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson~~

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Insult by Rupert Thomson

~~The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien~~

~~The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien~~

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser

~~Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner~~

n style="font-size:85%;">~~Affinity by Sarah Waters~~

~~The Time Machine by HG Wells~~

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

The Sword in the Stone by TH White

The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

~~Orlando by Virginia Woolf~~

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

~~The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham~~

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Persuasion

Paperback Reader — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:59:00 +0000

I thought I would share with you in this post an image of my copy of The Complete Novels of Jane Austen. Prompted by Claire at Kiss a Cloud’s post this week on complete novels in the one volume I wanted to show off my Austen and stress that it isn’t too heavy or cumbersome. I do own most, but not all, of Jane Austen’s novels in individual copies but I found it hard to resist owning this edition, and not solely for the front cover.

As I previously mentioned, I signed up for the Everything Austen challenge, and intended to read Persuasion this summer, the only Jane Austen novel I hadn’t yet read. Reading the blog of Nicola at Vintage Reads over the previous few months had intensified my desire to re-read some beloved Austen anyway and then I started to think that I should read the last unread one. Around this time I also read Simon at Stuck in a Book’s poll post about which was the more loved novel, Pride and Prejudice (my favourite) or Persuasion (as yet unread)? The comments were illuminating -one analogy comparing it to the debate between which was the better of The Godfather and The Godfather II- and then hearing Michelle discuss this as her favourite novel at the first meeting of the Savidge Reads book group, I thought it probable that I was missing out by not having read Persuasion. Part of me had held off because I’ve read everything else by Austen and I tend to ration books by my favourite writers out, especially when they have a closed canon (due to their death) but now my curiosity was piqued – would Persuasion replace Pride & Prejudice as my favourite Austen novel?

The short answer to this is no; Pride and Prejudice will retain its position and always hold a special place in my heart but I did enjoy Persuasion immensely and appreciate its depth of passion and emotion. I read Pride and Prejudice as a hopelessly romantic teenager in the first throes of idealistic infatuation and in my opinion Persuasion is better appreciated by those who have loved and lost, with its powerful evocation of longing that anyone ever separated from the one they love will empathise with. I think that Persuasion is suitable for the more mature Austen fan, for those who have experienced love and not those who have just dreamt of it and gushed at Pride and Prejudice (and drooled over the culturally epic lake scene in the 1996 BBC adaptation).

I am pleased that I read these Austen novels in the order I did as love takes on a different look when you are older and not least when you are in a longterm committed relationship. Persuasion has a more mature outlook because it comes with the maturity brought about from lost love and separation and Anne Elliot is not as juvenile, impetuous nor as feisty as Elizabeth Bennett or Emma Wodehouse; although I still have a devout adoration of those two heroines, I admired Anne’s internalised passion.

Anne Elliot has lost her bloom at the mature age of twenty-seven (!) and has been been pining for eight and a half years for Captain Frederick Wentworth whom her family and her friend, Lady Russell, who took the maternal place of Anne’s own mother who had died, persuaded her was no good match. During the course of the novel, Anne and Captain Frederick become reacquainted through other friends and family and after the emotionally-charged first meeting and misunderstandings (as a result at times of their own and others’ pride and prejudices) they are reunited and live happily ever after. It’s a Jane Austen novel, where they always end in marriage, so I don’t think I am spoiling the end for anyone.

This long passage and exchange about persuasion is the crux of the novel with the same title, embodying its passion, emotional turmoil, and maturity and wisdom of reflection. I think I will end with Jane Austen’s words:

‘To see you.’ cried he, ‘in the midst of those who could not be my well-wishers, to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling, and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to influence you! Even, if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent, to consider what powerful supports would be his! Was it not enough to make the fool of me which I appeared? How could I look on without agony? Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind you, was not the recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her influence, the indelible, immovable impression of what persuasion had once done – was it not all against me?’

‘You should have distinguished,’ replied Anne. ‘You should not have suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different. If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated.’

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Paperback Reader — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:00:00 +0000

In the past I haven’t fared well with D.H. Lawrence. He writes contemptible characters so well that when I was at school I threw Sons and Lovers down in disgust, even though I was close to the end, because I loathed Mrs Morel, Paul’s mother, intensely and I simply couldn’t have her in my life any longer. At University, Women in Love bored me and I only managed to read 2/3 of the novel; Lawrence certainly has me persevering with a book more than any other author, or perhaps it was merely the academic requirement. Women in Love also convinced me that Lawrence was a misogynist.

When Lady Chatterley’s Lover was suggested for last month’s book group, I was far from delighted. I ended up not hating the novel, nor loving it, but I am glad that I read it. If I were to define my reaction towards the novel further, I would say that I am ambivalent. As I said, I am glad that I read it; it’s another Classic down and the illicit furore surrounding this book means that it is one to read. I would even say that at some point in the future, perhaps in my twilight years, I would even re-read it. Lawrence provokes a response in his readers, whether its love or hate or confusion, it is more than some writers achieve. I still think he may be a misogynist though, or maybe a misanthrope … it’s another think I am undecided about.

I have issues with the novel being about Connie Chatterley (Connie is my sister’s name and I found it so odd reading about Connie, the sexual being) and yet the title referring to her lover, Oliver Mellors, instead. I didn’t find any of the characters sympathetic, likeable, and in the case of Clifford Chatterley, he is another irritating, detestable character in Lawrence’s oeuvre. I didn’t enjoy the novel per se but I did find it engaging and compelling. Moreover, I didn’t find Lady Chatterley’s Lover to be wonderfully written; the sex and discussion of their “crisis” was painful at times to read and it is hopelessly dated. There are far more accomplished writers of the period, namely Virginia Woolf.

It was certainly though-provoking in ways that I didn’t foresee, certainly in regards to my own preconceived notions. This novel is one I will be thinking about for a while, continually attempting to make up my mind about it.

Fahrenheit 451

Paperback Reader — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:13:00 +0000

Last November I visited the TH.2058 installation by Dominique Gonzales-Foerster in the Tate Modern, London.

The concept behind this temporary exhibit was a dystopian post-apocalyptic haven. From the brief (which appeared on the wall before you entered):

It rains incessantly in London – not a day, not an hour without rain, a deluge that has now lasted for years and changed the way people travel, their clothes, leisure activities, imagination and desires. They dream about infinitely dry deserts.

This continual watering has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. As well as erosion and rust, they have started to grow like giant, thirsty tropical plants, to become even more monumental. In order to hold this organic growth in check, it has been decided to store them in the Turbine Hall, surrounded by hundreds of bunks that shelter – day and night – refugees from the rain.

It sounds somewhat like a John Wyndham book, doesn’t it? The rain, of which there was audio, also reminded me of post-nuclear black rain. Dystopian literature lay on the bunkbeds so that voyeurs could participate; the artist’s vision was for people to lie down and read the books (not steal them, as happened). The photograph above is one I took but there were many books (apparently to begin with one on every bunk) including The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells; We by Yevgeny Zamyatin; The Drowned World JG Ballard; Hiroshima mon amour Marguerite Duras; The Man in the High Castle Philip K Dick. A number of these books -or the subsequent movie adaptations- I studied in the Writing the Disaster topic module I completed for my Master’s course, but Fahrenheit 451 was one I hadn’t yet read.

“FAHRENHEIT 451: the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns”.

The above quote appears before the opening line, as a preface and introduction. The opening line reads “It was a pleasure to burn”. Both lines ignite the imagination and desire to read more. Further down the page … “He strode in a swarm of fireflies”. Such poetry in a dystopian future where poetry is forbidden and books burned, incinerated by people themselves in the incinerators that each house contains, or by the subverted firemen who ignite fires rather than put them out. We are given insight into his totalitarian pyromania by the “He” in “a swarm of fireflies”, the fireman with the symbolic 451 on his helmet, Guy Montag, who does not consciously question the burning of books, knowledge, and power, until he meets his neighbour, Clarisse McClellan, whose influence turns his world upside down within a week.

Conceptualised in the years following the A-bombs and written during the early years of the Cold War this Science Fiction classic is an actualised study of nuclear paranoia. Written on a pay type writer in the basement of a UCLA library, Ray Bradbury wrote a novel about his love of books. Completed during the era of McCarthyism, no publisher wanted to take the risk of publishing a book that they thought was about censorship until a visionary editor bought the manuscript for $450 (all that he could afford) to serialise it in his new magazine; the young editor was Hugh Hefner, the magazine was Playboy, and as Bradbury says in his preface to the novel, “The rest is history.”

Fahrenheit 451 is a quick read -172 pages- and I read it overnight, in three sittings, and it is fairly accessible; some of the post-apocalyptic visions confused me and the fourth wall dimension of television -where the “family” appear in your “parlour”- blew my mind but overall it is an enjoyable futuristic study of dystopia that ranks up there with 1984 and Brave New World as a dystopian classic. The crux of the novel is that television has destroyed any interest in reading literature, a concept that is as pertinent -and even prophetic- now as it was almost sixty years ago. This was an enjoyable and rewarding read.

I would also like to leave you with a question: if you were fleeing a burning house but had the chance to save one book, what would it be? Would it be a rare, priceless and irreplacable one; a signed copy; a favourite; a sentimental choice? For me I would hate to lose my collection but material possessions can be replaced and however much I adore my books, sentiment and memory take precendence. I would grab my copy of Toni Morrison’s Love from the shelf, a hardback copy that my boyfriend gave me for our first Christmas the year it was published, and which he beautifully inscribed.