Books I Read May 9th, 2021

Writing this in distant, rural Cornwall, with bread rising and this...

...view behind me.

So, you know it's not all dystopia.

The Blizzard by Vladamir Sorokin – In a post-apocalyptic vision of the Russian Empire circa 1820, a curmudgeonly doctor tries to reach a rural village infected by a zombie plague. Sorokin is fabulously, fabulously weird, and this is a work of fiction which has no real counterpoint in English literature, being at once a genuine work of science fiction and also a bizarre and discomfiting satire. Bleak, but engaging.

Piranesi by Susanna Clark – Best to go into this knowing as little as possible, but do go into it all the same. I tend to get a little too bullish on things right after I've read them, but a week on I would say this is one of the best works of fantasy ever written, a work of great cleverness and enormous beauty, to be set on a shelf with Little, Big, Peace, Ficciones, and maybe nothing else. That rarest of genre works which elevates itself into the ranks of high literature. Sublime.

A Graveyard for Lunatics by Ray Bradbury – Bradbury's youthful surrogate solves a mystery at a movie studio circa 1950. It was a bit mawkish for my tastes, particularly given how much I liked the first of these.

Traveling Light by Tove Jannson – A collection of subtle shorts by my favorite Finn. I liked the eponymous tale in particular, as well as the one about the old woman getting lost in transit.

The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklass Natt och Dag – The tagline says 'the Alienist set in 18th century Stockholm, which pretty much sums it up completely. Then again I don't like anything.

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns – A series of very nasty events befalls a village of horribly unlikable and dreadfully sad people. I love Comyns, but this was so unrelentingly mean it bordered on self-parody.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes – An old man reflects on his life, the suicide of a teenage chum. I appreciate Barnes' talent but find everything he writes a little bit too neat for my tastes.