Week Forty Eight: Persuader

At the risk of annoying more fans of existing authors, here's another book I really disliked. I kept meaning to read one or two of these, always available at good airports, novels.

It (to me) fetishises masculinity and violence, with a product placement strategy in place for guns, gear and things that appeal to the readers of these kinds of things. It's also obsessed with details, like Tom Clancy was. Probably why fans hated that Tom Cruise played him in the movies because he wasn't tall enough. Of all the characteristics that are at play in this, height is hardly anything that matters by comparison.

It's also a little misogynistic, or maybe the exact opposite of that - Propoandist maybe? Hyperandrocentric? 

Either way it became quite weary with constant escalation and the blatant 'bad guys are evil and hurt people to death, good guys are protectors who defend people, to death' mantra.

I'll give the rest of the series a miss.

Week Forty Seven: Primates of Park Avenue

Another rapid read, this time a thinly disguised anthropology essay masking itself as the new Sex and the City. But where I found the likes of the Eat, Prey, Love and The Goldfinch as vapid 'rich peoples problems' and a waste of time, I found this delightful and witty and surprisingly educational.

Not how the rich set live, but how humans (all of us, east,west and all compass points) and primates are not that dissimilar, no matter what you may think.

Hilarious and touching, bitchy and supportive. Could not put it down. Mostly because this was an audio-book, but you get the metaphor.

Week Forty Six: Zen and the Art of Murder

It seemed like a good premise and it started interestingly, but by about a third of the way through it didn't change pace, or pick up or really grab my attention.

Not that mysterious and not that exciting, apart from confusing bursts of sudden death, it felt a little empty by the end.

Peppered with Buddhist ideas and history, it felt a little shoehorned in and the villains had no real threat or idea as to why and what they were doing.

Not bad exactly but not the gripping exceptional novel that the awards promised.

Maybe it was more exciting in German...

Week Forty Five: A Tale Of Two Cities

Deeply disappointed.

Sometimes you read a classic and understand why it is one, and then there's this.

Misogynistic, racist, imperialistic, florid and overwritten. The unforgettable opening line is instantly undercut by pointless repetition.  The final unforgettable line is undercut before it's delivery by suggesting the quote was purely imagined. 

I did not know that much of Dickens life before I read this, but afterwards I was so disturbed by his female characterisations that I had to look it up. Frankly his personal (and worrying) behaviour towards women had obviously bled through to this and other works.
And before anyone points out that he wrote it 150 odd years ago and times were different, Shakespeare was by far a large superior and predates Dickens, and Jules Verne was a contemporary and is also.

Week Forty Four: No Friend But The Mountains

Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I detest the Australian position on refugees and the practice of imprisonment, dehumanisation of the men, women and children set adrift on the surface of this world.

But it's a hard read, not because of the content, I knew what that was already, but because of the poetry that punctuates events and ideas, it slows the flow and confuses the senses. A large swathe of the book is very Arabic in it's sensibilities, focusing on people, who and why they are that way, and how that leads to the next thing. Same style as Frankenstein in Baghdad, hard to follow if it's not what you're used to.

And the endless switching between reality and surreality, makes it hard to distinguish sometimes and harder to pin down the facts.

But beautiful too, painful and flawed, horrific and transcendent in places.

It's a dichotomy, and hard work, but would I recommend it?

Yes.