Tag: books

I’ve been reading lots more of those books!

Pirate Enlightenment – David Graeber

RIP to David Graeber, who died in 2020 just before the release of his incredible collaboration with David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, possibly my favourite ever book. Pirate Enlightenment feels very much like a chapter cut from that book – and make no mistake, it was nice to have more of anything, but its something of an extended digression and the evidence base is fairly weak even in the context of the miracles Dawn of Everything managed to produce from weak evidence.

The Time of Contempt – Andrzej Sapkowski

If Blood of Elves didn’t have a climax, this one is ‘Ooops – all climax’. I very much enjoyed Geralt’s Penn and Teller-esque lawyer friends in this one, and otherwise it’s all about the bloody farce at the mages’ gathering that takes up the entire middle of the book.

Baptism of Fire – Andrzej Sapkowski

Sapkowski has officially lost control of how to structure a novel at this point, and worse still his main characters are bogged down in an interminable trek through featureless swamps and forests. Eventually, with a chapter to go, Sapkowski snaps and teleports everyone into a more interesting setting, but all pretence that this is not one long shaggy dog story that started with Blood of Elves is gone.

HMS Surprise – Patrick O’Brien

O’Brien swings for the car park here, with lavish (and only slightly racist) depictions of Company-era India as a backdrop to Maturin’s pursuit of the hateful Diana Villiers.

The Mauritius Command – Patrick O’Brien

This one feels like a nice gentle comedown after the chaos of Surprise. Aubrey and Maturin doing normal things together, playing to their strengths, often funny, often thrilling. O’Brien repeats the trick of having a French commander who we never see or meet but who regardless dominates Aubrey’s monologues. It’s a good trick!

Welcome to Dorley Hall – Alyson Greaves

A black comedy experiment in how insane a setting and plot can be before the audience fails to have their hearts warmed by a plucky, struggling protagonist and a secondary cast with hearts of gold; playing on the same pitch as Dear Evan Hansen, somehow.

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

Somehow I had never read this excellent monk-bothering murder mystery. Wasn’t expecting Baskerville (yes) to be quite so much of a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but I greatly appreciated it. The book that made me look up the most Wikipedia articles about various heresies since Books of Jacob.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant – Seth Dickinson

This was apparently expanded from a short story and it feels it, with the different acts swinging wildly in pace from breakneck to painfully slow. None of that really matters though because Baru is a delight to hang out with, the archetypical “going to change the system from the inside” who is just a little bit too thrilled to be good at her job.

It’s been a good season for churning through books, ever since I picked up a new e-reader I’ve just been reading harder and faster than I was previously. Here’s some mini-reviews:

The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann

Like all good books it comes with a postscript advising you to read it twice before forming an opinion. I haven’t read it twice so I’m not sure I should form an opinion yet, but I have, and it’s that this is a good book and the doings of dopey engineer-philosopher Hans Castorp will stay with me for a long.

The Empusium – Olga Tokarczuk

I wasn’t convinced this was specifically riffing on The Magic Mountain until Tokarczuk put in a joke about erotically borrowing someone’s pencil, at which point it was undeniable. A wonderful bit of charged, nasty feminist writing about how men would be happy fucking the dirt if they could get away with it.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brien

Boats boats boats boats boats, and more boats. O’Brien elevates what could be a standard bit of naval tosh with his totally idiosyncratic ability to pick scenes and perspectives.

Post-Captain – Patrick O’Brien

I confess I was not particularly charmed by the Jane Eyre parody, other than in the mere fact of it. That aside, and ignoring that someone has glued an extra ending onto a book that already has several, an enjoyable second outing for the Anti-Napoleon lads.

Sword of Destiny – Andrzej Sapkowski

Absolutely godawful, a charmless collection of shorts that somehow has none of the positive qualities of The Last Wish. Cannot work out from Wikipedia or the sub-Wikipedia collection of citations on the matter if these particular stories were written before the ones in that collection, but in any case they aren’t good. The eponymous ‘Sword of Destiny’ is the worst, with an incredibly irritating depiction of later protagonist Ciri.

Blood of Elves – Andrzej Sapkowski

Better, thank God. Sapkowski eschews the short stories to tell a longer narrative, albeit a little too long as it doesn’t end when the book does. A good read despite that though.

Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard

Another instance of Bernhard making real figures and real life into the subject of a harrowing, delirious first-person rant. Very much in the vein of The Loser, although not quite as electric as that book in the depths of obsession and self-loathing. I laughed out loud when, mere pages before the end and in the midst of an emotional breakdown over the death of his friend, Bernhard (the protagonist and author) goes on a wild tangent about actors conspiring with audiences to ruin his plays.

Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste – Carl Wilson

A fun read with an appropriate amount of insight; as a dabbling poptimist of many years the ideas weren’t particularly new to me but the history of Celine and her endearingly weird phenomenon were.

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea – Yukio Mishima

Bleak stuff from Mr Mishima, as you’d expect, but the tight and beautiful prose is a stark contrast to the slightly distracted, oddly curtailed The Decay of the Angel. That book ends up being something of a counterpart to this one, the bright-eyed sociopathy of boat enthusiast Noboru being the closest thing to a hope for the future a Mishima protagonist can offer, where Tōru in Decay is an infinite disappointment to the ailing Honda.