Patrimony – Philip Roth

I’ve traded a copy of Dubliners, Pride and Prejudice and Our Man in Havana (of which I had more than one, otherwise I would have never parted with it!) for a copy of this autobiographical work by Roth that had clearly been in contact with quite a lot of water. I did it because Simon, the legendary owner of LSE’s second-hand bookshop Alpha Books recommended this, and he was right.

Patrimony reminded me in many ways, and for obvious reasons, of Alan Bennett’s A Life Like Other People’s, but this book being written by a Jewish author and dealing with his relation with his dad in the American suburbs definitely gives it an edge over Bennett’s memoirs.

The book alternates between the drama of losing a father, the meaning (and emotional and physical cost) of suffering and undergoing surgery, growing old as a son as one’s father grows even older, and finding a way to settle the score on a number of decisions that marked Roth’s own upbringing.

This is a work of genius and brilliance, and something that appears remarkably honest (including Roth’s own admission of thinking of his father’s death in literary and editorial terms from the beginning of his ordeal).

Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

A 30p investment at the Barbican library worth – at the very least – every penny!

Jokes aside, Cloud Atlas was a rather enjoyable read, but also a very uneven one. Some of its chapters were brilliant (Timothy Cavendish and his misadventures in the nursing home, Massa Ewing sailing in the Pacific and facing death, Robert Frobisher writing the Cloud Atlas Sextet), while others were, well, not so brilliant.

Luisa Rey’s story reads like little more than a Tom Clancy novel (if you are looking for Californian greed and corporate aggression I think you are much better off opening a token Ellroy novel), the interview to Sonmi-451 would probably leave Vonnegut of Dick rather unimpressed, and I’m not exactly sure of where I stand on Sloosha Crossing as, despite me being a pseudo-bilingual (if not trilingual) reader, I really struggled with the imagined dialect of the future…

It is a best-seller after all, but one that I’m really glad to have read (although it’s not going to enter my list of favourite books anytime soon).

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every second-hand bookshop, book-swap shelf and charity website will throw copies of Pride and Prejudice at you for no more than 50p.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is kind of a big deal – I mean, after all she is on the 10£ note.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Pride and Prejudice is for a lot of its readers one of the greatest books ever written, that its reflections on marriage, love and class are deep and still really quite current.

For me, though, it is a truth personally acknowledged that this book has very few surprises and that is ultimately, well, fairly boring. And I apologize for this opinion of mine to all its admirers.