The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett

I started reading books by Hammett and by Raymond Chandler because their names were on Pulp Fiction’s poster and I thought it would have been really cool of me to read their works. This particular novel was one I stole from the bookshelf of a hotel in Salvador da Bahia – I was either going to do something innocuous like that or make a scene for the appalling service we received, I opted for the former.

All hard boiled novels are full of dry humour and witty one-liners and this one is no exception, but in The Thin Man Hammett adds the banter of a chirpy married couple. The novel actually reads like a perfect film script, and it’s no wonder that the movie taken from it was such a success. I’m sorry for Sam Spade, but in my opinion Nick Charles kicks his ass.

I wish I was sharp and interesting enough to hang out with Charles and Nora, but I really don’t think I could keep up with their drinking...

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

The book which gave Hemingway his Nobel and for which most people nowadays seem to remember him (sigh!). I am afraid that’s because it’s really a rather easy book, in particular if compared to pretty much all his other works.

Yes, one is bound to empathize with Santiago and with his struggle, but isn’t this metaphor of life just a bit overdone? The perennial fight between man and nature, with man on the losing end but still hoping, is just not particularly attractive to me. The images of the bloody battle between the fisherman and the fish (and later the sharks) are a reflection of the macho Hemingway that I am not particularly fond of. But at least the book is set in romantic Cuba, although if that’s the greatest compliment I can find for a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize (while I can find plenty of praise for a book trashed by critics like Across the River and into the Trees) maybe there is something wrong with me…

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

This is one of the first “real” books I’ve read. I was 14 and I was moving my first tentative steps as a pseudo-intellectual. I picked it pretty much because I had heard of Hemingway, felt that if he was good enough to be a myth for my parents’ generation it was going to be good enough for me.

Fast forward another fourteen years and I now wonder whether this is one of those few books that I should re-read. I liked it back then, but I now wonder whether I liked it because I felt like I had to, or because that’s how I actually felt. I find it hard to believe that I could really understand, even vaguely, the dynamics between Jake and Brett Ashley let alone having actually ever felt any of the feelings and desires they were talking about (despite the fact that, having kissed three girls in middle-school I felt like I was a great expert in the field of women).

One thing that I surely did appreciate was the travelling aspects of the novel, and I think that quite a bit of my love for Paris, and for Spain and its traditions actually come from this book.   

The Quiet American – Graham Greene

The first Graham Greene I’ve read. The one that made me wish I could teach a course based on his writing about the early Cold War. Surely most historians of the Vietnam War probably cringe at the mention of a “Third Force” theory, but the book was written in 1955 and its insight is undeniable.

The book is about rich white Westerners playing god in the rest of the world (something we normally do oh so well…). Despite the fact that it’s clear that neither Fowler nor Pyle will die when they find themselves in the watchtower, those pages remain incredibly gripping and tense. Again, nether one of the two is likable – yet the reader (or, at least, the European leader) wants Fowler not just to survive, but to be happy wherever he is, be it Vietnam or the UK.

I am sure in real life Graham Greene must have been a snobby and stand-offish arrogant bore, but man could he write…

The Fairy Gunmother – Daniel Pennac

I normally don’t like comic novels, or absurd ones. This one is a little different. This one is French.

I think writers can live off of one great idea, in Pennac’s case his great idea is inventing a profession – the professional scapegoat – that is so clearly essential in today’s society that I am actually quite surprised it hasn’t become popular in the real world.

The Fairy Gunmother is about Paris, its multi-ethnic identity (identities?), its ageing autochthon population, and the absurdity of every-day life. The deaths are funny, although, probably, they shouldn’t be. The police investigations are inconclusive, or lead to the wrong conclusion, as they should be.

Not quite a masterpiece, this book remains an excellent read for a lazy afternoon at home.