The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler

In all honesty I was biased against this novel before even starting it: after reading quite a lot of Chandler, I had had enough of him and with how cool Marlowe finds himself, but I did like the movie (though many didn't!) and needed something reasonably long and reasonably light to carry with me to the hospital as my wife delivered baby numero dos. Yes, because that happened too...

Unsurprisingly, I didn't particularly like the book, but the setting remains one that I enjoy (though I'd pick an LA novel by Ellroy any day over this one!). The biggest surprises were in the differences with the movie, but I never really got into the plot, and that's partly due to the little time that I have for Marlowe and to the fact that I was quite on the sleep-deprived side of things those days!
 

All in all, though, it was oddly enough the perfect read for uncomfortable nights on uncomfortable hospital chairs!

What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe

One of the many books I snatched from Books for Free in Stratford before it closed (the reserves, unfortunately, are starting to slowly run out…). A few months ago I read – and really enjoyed – The Rotters’ Club, but found this novel to be on another level.

What a Carve Up is a cross between epic family novels (Solomon Gursky Was Here is the first one that comes to mind, because of the nature of the Winshaw family and the mischievousness of some of its older members – often more interesting than their kids), cheesy mysteries (Ten Little Indians) and the most enjoyable and ironic Alan Bennett works.

The constant alternation of styles, narrators and registers is obviously yet again a display of Coe’s considerable talent. And the fact that so much of the novel is set in Northern England is again a welcome departure from London-centred British literature.

Much like in The Rotters’ Club with Malcolm, even in What a Carve Up Coe kills off one of my favourite characters (Fiona) relatively early (I mean, not super-early, but the writing is on the wall from the start, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling too much). Yet I don’t hate him for that. Although I really wish I knew what happened to Phoebe and Graham…

Tender Is the Night - Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Does the fact that a book is majestically written mean that it’s one that I should enjoy reading? Not really. While the prose of Scott Fitzgerald flows, as always, beautifully, I spent most of the time wondering why I should give a toss about the Divers and about the sad realities of their lives.

Truth is, I really don’t care about the unhappiness of boring rich American people in the early 20^th century, in particular when this unhappiness manifests itself in Southern France (a place whose magic appeal I never really appreciated – probably because I grew up on the other side of the Alps) and in Switzerland (same as above, except that I can understand why Southern France might be exciting for a lot of people, Switzerland not so much…)