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Been at them over the last week or two -
Hothouse by the East River - I mean this is what I want, cold, strange, spare nightmare farce, but it doesn't seem to quite come off. Feels like I'm reading a 50s absurdist play or something & there's something a bit 'oh ok' about where it goes.
Abbess of Crewe - that's the stuff. I don't really care about Watergate, but power forcing its self-contained system of control, oppression and surveillance into myth & thinking that it's stepping outside timeā¦ I mean I don't know what is going on in this book, so I'm happy and it's a contender for my vote. Will re-read.
A Far Cry from Kensington - This was very likeable and I can see why it gets a radio 4 adaption. But it seems less interesting than Loitering with Intent which iirc has a more satisfying game on Sparky's occult-fraud-art theme in the same milieu.
Just in the middle of The Comforters. No idea why I haven't read this before. I haven't been interested in novels doing meta things in a long time, but damn this just pulls it off.
Not to Disturb next maybe. Earliest one I won't have read, after I finish the comforters. I was thinking about slowly collecting the neat little Polygon hardbacks from a couple of years ago but threw that idea out when I realised I actually like the 70s penguins with slightly tacky photos of faces on the cover, and that was cheapest Not to Disturb option. New English Library feel to them.
― woof, Tuesday, 25 May 2021 12:48 (two years ago) link
only ever tried miss jean brodie, which i could not really get into
picked up copies of The Only Problem (1984) & Reality and Dreams (1996) for cheap at a book sale this weekend
so now own those plus Memento Mori (1959) & Symposium (1990)...
...will try one of that bunch sometime this summer~
― johnny crunch, Monday, 7 June 2021 14:35 (two years ago) link
The Comforters fell apart a bit in the middle; there's some slackening when Caroline and Laurence go for a bit, the meta/madness slips out of focus and the pieces are just moving around.
Not to Disturb - these early 70s ones novellas of the already dead keep doing it for me. I keep seeing this one described as satire or parody,
that it's about servant problem or locked room novels, but as per it seems stranger than that - what I'm actually enjoying is hanging between the style (present-tense, hypnotic) and how uncomfortable the play with predestination makes the whole set-up. Wedding scene is something else again.
Voted for Abbess of Crewe in the end. May take a break, or move on to The Takeover.
― woof, Monday, 7 June 2021 15:04 (two years ago) link