American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

Firstly a sad note: the Books for Free space in Stratford, which gave me faith in mankind just a week ago, is now about to close down. Needless to say, my faith in mankind is vacillating (probably also because the rules for my application for British naturalization are changing, and that means that I have to again start the process essentially from zero).

Moving on to American Psycho: I was reading this book on the tube and feeling really rather ashamed (not embarrassed, ashamed). One thing is the glorification and  aestheticization of violence, but this is just gratuitous (and fairly disgusting). And when the author isn’t talking about chopped limbs and tortured people, he is talking about matching his Fratelli Rossetti shoes with Ermenegildo Zegna trousers – not exactly the most exciting topic of discussion for a guy who would love to spend his life in jeans and t-shirt. Bateman is meant to be Psycho’s Norman Bates's heir, but falls so very short (and also lacks any kind of self-criticism: how can a guy who despises homeless people so much love Phil Collins, the author of Another Day in Paradise?!?)…

Most of all, I am not quite sure if Ellis meant to highlight the protagonist’s mental self-destruction or if he just has no idea what he is talking about, but reading about the Beatles’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want is just too painful to describe. Because of The Big Chill I often say I’d like that song played at my funeral, but I’d like to think that, no matter how old and senile I will get, I will never think that Lennon and McCartney wrote the song. 

The Music of Chance – Paul Auster

Last Saturday I crossed the Thames and went to Stratford for my Life in the UK test (which I passed, by the way – meaning that there is now nothing stopping me from becoming a British citizen, hopefully). I had to walk through the Shopping Centre on my way and found this wonderful place (https://www.facebook.com/BooksforFreeStratford/) where they give away up to three free books for every visitor – no strings attached and no catches! In terms of maintaining my faith in mankind, this place ranks right up there with Parkrun. Visit it, pick up books, donate books, and prevent them from essentially going to landfill…

Moving on to the actual book, I have now read most of Auster’s works and, as far as absurdist novels go, this is one of my favourites (I liked it a lot more, for instance, than the stories of the New York Trilogy). It’s deeply disturbing and the reader knows from the start that everything is spiralling out of control but doesn’t know how it will all end (Will the wall close in on Nashe like it used to do on Roger Waters and David Gilmour after the first half of The Wall? Will Stone and Flower create a tiny little replica of Nashe and run his life for him through the “City of the World”? Will he get killed as he tries to escape?). Yet, there is always a sense of hope: maybe Nashe’s sister, his daughter, Pozzi, or maybe even Tiffany, the prostitute from Atlantic City, can help the guy survive in one way or another.

The one thing that annoyed me, though, is that I am sure I didn’t manage to pick up on tons of the novel’s insightful remarks and metaphors – the links to the myth of Sisyphus are clear, but there are surely millions more…

Us – David Nicholls

And with this I have now officially read all the books by David Nicholls. Hardly an accomplishment, considering he has written four and that reading them is so effortless. A bit too effortless to be honest…

Us is a great read when you are bored during a long journey between a Northern Italy warm enough to still swim in the Mediterranean in November and a windy and rainy South-East England, but little more than that. Just as One Day and The Understudy, Us is about the dynamics of a mismatched couple – something whose novelty wears off after a (short?) while. And, much like One Day, the book is saved from being excessively trite and banal by a plot twist in the end (in One Day this came with Emma’s bike-ride, in Us with an added piece of information on the life of the couple’s son). I also have the feeling that Nicholls just had a lot of travel notes that he felt like cramming in a book (although at times this are quite interesting – like comparing the glorious Champs-Élysées to the much-less glorious Oxford Street).

While Starter for Ten was at times hilarious, and The Understudy was ultimately quite funny, both Us and One Day appear more ambitious and seem to attempt to tackle deeper issues and problems. To me, however, they fail and end up being fairly entertaining, but not as much as their two predecessors. 

Harriett Said… – Beryl Bainbridge

Another book that my mother bought from Fopp for an offensively low price. Having read a couple of Bainbridge novels already, I was familiar with her love for stories of troubled girls and the differences between reality and their perceptions of it. However, I was fooled by the colorful cover of this edition and approached the novel believing it would have been short (which it was) and sweet (far from it).

Even without taking in consideration the incipit, it’s quite clear that the two main characters of Harriett Said… are trapped in a downward spiral. That said, I was expecting something milder (really bad, but somehow milder) to be at the bottom of that spiral – the actual turn of events over the last few pages caught me completely by surprise.

It’s absolutely remarkable that this novel can still shock and sicken the reader after 50 years. And by the time the reader stops justifying the two main characters saying that they are just two little girls playing around and discovering themselves, it’s too late.  

Capital – John Lanchester

A book that my mom read in translation, than found among the remainders in a London bookshop and bought for me. I rarely read contemporary best-sellers – partly because I enjoy feeling different, partly because when they are good (as in this case) they can be captivating, entertaining, and pleasant enough to read, but very rarely great.

Capital is, much like so many recent British novels, about the lives of a number of urban individuals and families from the most diverse backgrounds and how they are brought together by an event or another. Problem is: Lanchester is not Zadie Smith and his story – for catching that it is – ultimately lacks the kind of irony and acuteness that Smith normally has.

Capital hits all the right notes in a way that is so perfect that it looks staged: of course the reader feels warmed by Freddy Kamo’s enthusiasm, Smitty’s memories of his youth with his grandmother, or Zbigniew/Bogdan’s pursuit of Matya – but it often reads as if Lanchester is only ticking boxes and going through the motions. Also, to make sure that the majority of the readers feels happy by the end, all stories either have positive finales or at least finales with a significant hint of hope (the possibility of a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe and redemption for former City alpha-male), maybe with the sole exception of Smitty’s former assistant (quite a secondary and dislikable figure anyway). However, I do hate siding with the majority on anything (and books in particular!) so I will say that I have been entertained by Capital, but was left with little more than that.

That said, maybe, my impressions would have been different had I read this book as we were house-hunting last year and trying to understand the market value of the places we were looking at…