A Legacy of Spies - John le Carré

 

And after complaining about Jonathan Coe, Ali Smith and Ian McEwan for their attempts to either bring their sagas full circle, or to write omni-comprehensive books to capture decades' worth of British history, here comes le Carré and swiftly succeeds where so many of my favourite contemporary British authors failed. 

Granted, it may be an easy exercise for a brilliant writer to play on his readers' nostalgia, to largely repeat plot devices that worked for literally dozens of his novels before, and to essentially spend half of his time making reference to his previous novels. 

Yet, this is a superb way to settle the unanswered questions from The Spy Who Came from the Cold and to add another further layer to George Smiley while painting him as considerably less unblemished than in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Seventh Function of Language - Laurent Binet

 

Having read Perspective(s), and having found it a fairly pleasant easy read, I decided to read The Seventh Function of Language because it is meant to be Binet's "magnum opus". 

I do realize it sounds ever so slightly stereotypical, but this pseudo-intellectual French novel is pompous, vainglorious, pretentious and, ultimately, plain bad. 

It's probably written so that people who like to think of themselves as erudite can giggle as they sip their port in front of their fireplace because they've just read a name that they recognize and can feel all smug about it (you've heard of Derrida, then?!? Bravo!). 

Also, my heartfelt congratulations to the author for the plain characterization of every single French intellectual of the second half of the 20th century. Over hundreds of pages I didn't manage to learn anything new about this people (and I don't know much about them, to be frank) as they are portrayed with less depth than what one would find in A Very Short Introduction to Literary Theory by Oxford University Press. 

No matter how trite is to read of Foucault as "the great bald man", it pales in comparison to the references to Camille Paglia (like her or not, she may deserve something more than just being referred to as "Cruella DeVil") or the cameo of a certain Judith - who doesn't have a second name, unfortunately, but is generally referred to as "the lesbian" (unfortunately there can't be any doubt as to who said Judith is, and I think labelling one of the greatest living American thinkers by her sexuality is something that no remotely intelligent people to the left of Trump can do). 

So to conclude: well done Binet, you've managed to stir in me the same hatred for a book that I felt for The Da Vinci Code. 

Red Pill - Hari Kunzru

 

For once, I actually picked up a hard copy book from the Southwark Library (mostly out of surprise for seeing a couple of Kunzru titles in a library that is otherwise not crazily well-stocked, and that's obviously an understatement). 

Unfortunately this was my least-favourite Hari Kunzru novel. The dystopian present setting plus mental breakdown reminded me a bit too much of a relatively disappointing Paul Auster novel. 

I also thought that the autobiographical writing was one of the great problems with wanna-be writers, but ultimately there are too many aspects of Red Pill that appear too reflective of Kunrzu's life. I just hope for his own sake he's a bit happier than this literary alter-ego of his. 

The Lock-Up - John Banville

 

Why did I read another John Banville detective story after being recently bitterly disappointed by a John Banville detective story? Chiefly because I think John Banville is one of the greatest contemporary writers and wanted to give him another chance, and because I am almost out of readable titles from the Southwark eLibrary. 

Sadly, if at all possible, I enjoyed The Lock-Up even less than I enjoyed Snow. The reason for that is essentially that, in this one, in addition to the eternally meddling Catholic church (duh) the reader also gets a wonderful peek into the world of former German Nazis and their dodgy collaborations with a state of Israel in its infancy. 

And as a matter of fact, a couple of weeks after finishing this book I don't remember much about it, other than the general feeling of "duh-ness"...

My Name Is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout

 

Out of the - now limited - range of titles that the Southwark eLibrary offers these days, there are a few Lucy Barton books. I have tried not to read them in too quick a succession, and it's largely proved the be the right call. 

While Strout remains a great story-teller, the feelings she leaves me with are always the same (even when her plots are different). The problem is that after a while the returns diminish, and the above-mentioned feelings get diluted. I was mind-blown by Strout's prose the first time I read one of her books, now I just read them as a pleasant intermission between books that I find either more engaging or more substantial. 

I also have to admit that one of the reasons why I didn't particularly enjoy this book is my inability to understand a character who has such a troubled relationship with her mom because, like all good Italian kids, I love my mamma. 

Perspective(s) - Laurent Binet

My boss gave me this book as she believes I can read French well and easily. That's a lie, at least partially. It had been years since I had last read anything more than a page in the language, and being able to read a whole book was a great ego-boost. Sure, being familiar with the setting helped, but I’m still rather happy to have read a whole novel in my (non-existing) fourth language.

Before moving on to what I liked about it, let me mention two things that I wasn’t entirely sold on, in the most classic of “feedback sandwiches”.

1. The premise: I cannot suspend my belief enough to buy into the author finding these letters in an antiques shop. They wouldn’t be just “yellowed” with time, they would be falling to pieces. They also wouldn’t offer so complete an account (also: what conspirators save their entire correspondence?!?). I do realize it’s a bit unfair of me to compare a good book like this one to one of the greatest works of the 20th century, but in Il Nome della Rosa Umberto Eco frames everything so much better, openly admitting that he had to do a lot of further research and put in much guesswork in order to fill the huge gaps left by the sources he had stumbled upon.

2. Anachronisms: a lot of things went over my head because my French is what it is, but at times I felt like 16th century Italians wouldn’t really talk/write like that. Often this was just a feeling of mine, but at times it felt more tangible (like when Maria writes that she wouldn’t want to run away from Florence like a “bohémienne”)

Having said that, I loved the characterization of Vasari. I find him unlikeable, but he steals the show. And the many snide comments about other artists perfectly highlight how he (and his biases – positive and negative) influenced the way in which I, and the world in general, think about the art of the period. Michelangelo is the one I could have done without, as I think it’s a bit of an easy escamotage to have the most known name in the story act as the Deus ex machina pretty much raiding Florence from Rome.

The book’s biggest success for me is the way in which it made me long for Florence. It perfectly captures the spirit of the city (and often of the time) in what is probably the most sincere declaration of literary love for the Italian Renaissance that I’ve come across since reading Ali Smith’s How To Be Both almost a decade ago.