Books I Read January 10th, 2021

Hell of a first week, amiright? Given the demonstrated weakness of our institutions and national character is is fortunate for all of us that the man attempting sedition is of the basest idiocy and most contemptible character, or we really might be in trouble! I don't imagine many people reading my blog voted for Trump, but if you did, may you carry the shame and ignominy of your reprehensible foolishness until they lay your cold corpse in the unforgiving soil. If you ever read a book of mine, I dunno, Low Town or the Builders or whatever, and you thought – wow, that Warden is a cool guy, he's tough and wins fights and whatnot, let me clarify that the Warden would fucking hate Trump and everything he stands for and anyone who stood with him. Ditto the Captain, M from City Dreaming, everyone I ever wrote except for some of the villains and mostly even they were too intelligent or principled to throw their lot in with the obese ochre-colored conman that has been, appallingly, the supreme executive of my nation for the last 4 years. Fuck you.

So far in January I read the following books.

Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry – Two aging criminals wait for someone in a grimy port terminal in southern Spain, recollect their wasted, tragic, sometimes beautiful lives in what begins looking like a fiercely nasty crime novel but ends up becoming something sadder and more plaintive. I've been a big fan of Barry's nostalgia-filled noir since I picked up the magnificent City of Bohane on a lark some years; frankly, I'm pleased to see the rest of the world catch up.

Staying On by Paul Scott – An epilogue of sorts to Scott's masterful, very long Raj Quartet, dealing with the decline of British rule in India, and the corruption and decay of the English culture on the sub-continent. It presents the story an elderly ex-military couple, two minor characters who have chosen to 'Stay On' in post-colonial India rather than return to the homeland, of their sad history and the experience of living on past one's time. Scott's focus on the forgotten players in world history makes for fascinating reading, and his oblique characterization is masterfully subtle if occasionally so dark that it makes for difficult reading.

Three Sumers by Margarita Liberacki – A trio of sisters from the rural elite enter womanhood in pre-War Greece. Largely due to NYRB Classics I find I've read quite a lot of books this broad sub genre, and so this might have suffered a bit by comparison (I'd prefer Joan Chase) but this was bucolic and charming and not un-erotic and worth your time.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Other Stories by Maxim Osipov – Short stories searching for the soul of Post-Soviet Russia. I enjoyed the focus on parts of Russian society outside of the Moscow/St. Petersburg elite, but for whatever reason these didn't really kick my head open. I gather this is Russians' most highly prized writer of short fiction so that might well be my fault but what can I tell you, it's also my blog.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl – The rare circumstance in which the movie is much better.

Crackpot Palace by Jeffrey Ford – Surreal literary horror. Sort of like a New Jersey Catholic Etgar Keret, but with more stabbings. If that doesn't get you going I don't know what to say.

Sunflower by Gyula Krudy – Melancholic Dual-Monarchy romance of the highest order. Krudy's Hungary is a land of moonlit trysts between faithless cads and cruel women, densely populated by the ghosts of old lovers, where death and love are so deeply intertwined as to be indistinguishable. Nimbly skirting parody, elegantly written and often laugh out loud funny, one of my favorite things I've read in a long time, strong rec.

The Spider's Palace and Other Stories by Richard Hughes – I couldn't really figure out if these collection of modern fairy tales were supposed to be for children, and not in a good way.