Coming up for Air – George Orwell

Despite really liking 1984 (I was about to write “enjoying”, then realized it wasn’t the best of terms for the book!) I’ve never really been a fan of Orwell. Honestly, I’ve only read this book because a few weeks ago I picked up Penguin’s complete Orwell novels.

Turns out, I really did like Coming up for Air too. After the first few pages on the dullness of the main character’s life I thought I was in for another Keep the Aspidistra Flying (and that would have been a big, big disappointment), but I was wrong and this book is quite a lot more than that. The bleakness of the setting actually reminded me of Graham Greene’s It’s a Battlefield, and the novel is overall remarkably insightful in its observation on the impending Second World War.

I enjoyed both the flash-backs and the present-day narration, but the one issue I had was with the main character’s disillusion with the present and his attempts to go back to the good old values of early 20^th century rural England, because more often than not that’s the kind of person that would very much like to see me leaving the country. 

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

With my wife and baby daughter gone for six weeks (!!) I decided this period was my best chance to read the thickest book I had on my shelves.

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most gripping books I’ve ever read – parts of it reminded me of Stevenson, others of Verne, and I suspect quite a few would have reminded me of Hugo (this remains only a suspicion because, erm, I’ve never actually read any Hugo). The vendetta is at times a bit too prolonged, and I would honestly differentiate between the degree of guilt of Fernando, Danglars, Villefort and Caderousse, but I don’t really hold Dantès responsible for the death of young Edourad de Villefort (much like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dantès plays no role in the outcome of this subplot).

However, for spellbinding that the book is, I really don’t think this is great literature. It’s honestly just a bit too easy to read and to follow (the only intimidating thing being the thickness of it in the end), I never got even remotely confused by the plot or by the characters in it. As one of my colleagues rightfully said, it’s probably just a book that used to be low-brow and that is now considered to be high-brow because of the passage of time and historical setting.