Reading etc.

“A Traitor’s Kiss” by Fintan O’Toole [New Year’s Resolution]

I started off enjoying this very much. It’s a biography of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. But then at 22 Sheridan wrote his first play and Fintan, our national cultural commentator, begins analysing the plays and it is tedious. Alas. However, despite what you might have thought (well certainly despite what I thought), Sheridan was quite the politico. I hadn’t realised that he had played such a pivotal role in the Warren Hastings trial or that he was quite so pally with the Prince Regent. Or indeed, that he died in debt with the bailiffs at the door. All very dramatic.

Due to my relentless reading and re-reading of Georgette Heyer, I have developed quite an interest in English history from about 1780-1820 and I have read a certain amount of non-fiction about this era as well. But it’s so complex: the French revolution, Napoleon, the loss of the American colonies, the 1798 rebellion (big in Ireland though less so in England), the dissolution of the Irish parliament and the Act of Union (ditto), not to mention the madness of George III, Fox and Pitt [did you know that Fox was a first cousin of Edward Fitzgerald?] and politics with the beginning of parties. This book doesn’t make it easy to follow even for the interested and somewhat informed reader.

This is quite an old book and I think that the author’s style has improved over the years. I still find him pretty hard going in the newspaper but I read his book “Ship of Fools” a while ago and I found it quite understandable. Some of the sentences in this are so involved that it is difficult to have any idea what the author is on about. His use of pronouns is, frankly, suboptimal.

I was slightly surprised to see the extensive references to Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sheridan’s wife, Elizabeth Linley, famous in her own right had an affair with Lord Edward. Though I had read a biography of him relatively recently, I had no memory of this. However, on looking again at the Lord Edward biography, I saw that it got quite a bit of air time [I think my memory has finally given up]. It was interesting to contrast the attention given to Elizabeth by both authors. Fintan O’Toole gives very little information about Elizabeth and her life before she meets Sheridan but Stella Tillyard, the author of the Lord Edward book gives lots of background. It struck me that Fintan might usefully have filled in readers a bit more about Elizabeth.

However, I must say that I was in the Smock Alley Theatre recently (just restored and re-opened) and was charmed to see copies of old playbills on the wall featuring Thomas Sheridan (father of our hero and manager of the theatre in the 18th century) about whom I would have known almost nothing if I hadn’t read this.

“Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela [New Year’s Resolution]

Interesting enough but a bit one thing happened after another in style. I suppose if you’re reading this, you’re not really here for the quality of the writing.

His first three children get pretty short shrift. His little girl who died at 9 months gets three quarters of a page. The birth of his second son is given a couple of short lines. His first son gets a little bit more of the action. Even by the standards of the 1940s/50s, he doesn’t strike me as a very hands on father. He admits as much. Winnie, his much more famous and clearly more loved, second wife gets a lot more air time but still plays second fiddle to his work in politics.

And there is lots about his work in politics. It’s a long, long book. By page 350 you’re still dealing with internal wrangling in ANC committees and it does strike one that organisational politics are the same everywhere and you need to be a very gifted author with very strong material to make committee wrangling interesting.

That said by about page 500, I was quite enjoying myself. I knew he was in Robben Island for the long haul and the cast of characters for obvious reasons becomes narrower. Also, he does have a quite extraordinary story to tell and when you strip out the ANC/PAC rivalry and have more about him, it becomes a lot more interesting and more human.

When I finally finished it, I did feel a little sad because by the end, I was quite enjoying the company of this rather lovely man.

“The Dinner” by Herman Koch

The narrator of this book is profoundly disturbed and disturbing. I couldn’t really get past that. I didn’t find it particularly engrossing or page turnerish (which I had been promised). It’s the story of two couples who go out to dinner. The men are brothers and their sons (first cousins) have committed a very nasty crime and have not been caught. One of the brothers is a successful politician. All the ingredients are there for a very clever book but for my money, it didn’t deliver at all.

“The Long Song” by Andrea Levy

Someone at work foisted this on me when I mentioned that I had enjoyed “Small Island”. It’s fine and an easy read. But I wasn’t crazy about it. I think it’s a bit overwritten and though lots and lots happens the story is a bit slow to get going. The author has done a lot of research and she is determined to use it all. A mistake, I feel.

My blog was nine yesterday. Which is 205 in human years.

Back in pre-history, when I began blogging, it was very cutting edge, I’ll have you know. There was no facebook, no twitter, no tumblr and no youtube. It’s hard to know how we filled the long empty days.

In a nostalgia fueled search, I came across a post from February 2006 which reminded me of how much I enjoyed a blogging community when I started off on 20six (my first platform – now defunct – none of the links on that 2006 post work now). I was quite lonely and far from home with my first baby and 20six became a support community. I remember Mr. Waffle printing off all the comments when the boys were born and bringing them into the hospital. I still follow some of the people I used to read on 20six on other platforms; a lot of them turned up on twitter.

After 20six folded, I stuck with blogging. I did miss the community but I became fascinated with the idea of keeping a record of our lives. And I loved writing text that no one cleared except me. Did you see how I started a sentence with “and” there? Also, because of the whole blogging thing, I got interested in technology and, although I am pretty ignorant by most standards, compared to some other Irish 40 somethings I am quite the technological genius. This may say more about the digital divide than it does about my abilities but there it is. I was in a position to wow the residents’ association by setting up a wordpress.com blog for them. Mind you, they never used it but that is hardly my fault.

So, happy anniversary to me and thank you for reading.

Recently, I ran into a friend who lives abroad and who is a faithful reader of my blog. My own brother when I asked him whether he read it said, “I only look at it for the pictures, really”. [Does this make it the opposite to Playboy?]

I found myself wondering are there more people reading my blog who I know in real life or more people who I wouldn’t recognise if I passed them in the street.

Would you like to identify yourself as known or unknown in the comments? Is this an unashamed plea for comments after a month of blogging? Could be, I suppose.

Are we glad the whole NaBloPoMo is over for another year? All together now, “Oh yes, we are!” Lord, is it pantomime season already?

“Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked” by Derek Landy

More tales of the skeleton detective and his teenage sidekick. You either like this kind of thing, or you don’t. My only regret is that it was an impulse buy in Tesco. I thought that I should wait until I got to a proper bookshop, but I didn’t. I got my comeuppance as I paid €14.50 and it was only €9.99 in Eason’s. And furthermore, herself grabbed it when I came in the door so I might as well have waited.

“Biggles: The Camels are Coming” by Captain W.E. Johns

I saw it in the library. I remembered seeing at home for years a volume entitled “Biggles Flies to Work” but I never read it and I thought, when I saw Biggles in the library, that it was time. It wasn’t really. However appealing Biggles may be to the 13 year old boy, he holds no attractions for the 43 year old woman. Pity but there it is.

“An Unsung Hero” by Michael Smith

This is the story of Tom Crean, a Kerryman who served under both Shackleton and Scott in Antarctica. I read a couple of books about the early exploration of Antarctica in my 20s but haven’t really been back since. The writing in this book is not beautiful; it is alright at best but the story is absolutely terrific.

The author has written in detail about the experiences of Crean who ran away from Kerry at 15 to join the Navy and worked his way, slowly, upwards. Most books on Antarctica focus, understandably, on Scott and the party who went to the Pole. This book focuses on the men who went back. It is packed full of the most extraordinary adventures. Crean was a hero and very phlegmatic to boot. Inevitably information on men, as opposed to officers, is thin on the ground but the author has pulled together every reference to Crean he could find to create a picture of a heroic, tough, self-deprecating man. It’s a really enjoyable read. Thanks to Google maps, I was able to have a good look around some of the terrain he covered and it is utterly breathtaking that they survived at all. If you’re interested in Antarctic exploration (and who isn’t?) then I really recommend this book. I see that he died in the same hospital where I was born. That’s probably the closest I will get to Antarctic exploration.

“Sept Jours Pour Une Eternité” by Marc Levy

Ah now, this is dire. I read it in French and my only comfort is that it’s good for my French. And it took me a long, long time. It’s deathly. God and the Devil send their best agents to fight over San Francisco and the two meet and fall in love. Really, do you need to know anything more? The author clearly has his eye on the film rights.

“The Mystery of Mercy Close” by Marian Keyes

The author’s well publicised bouts of depression inform this book. It is the most depressing example of chick lit you are likely to read. The author saves her skills for writing lovingly of suicide and the romance is, frankly, unconvincing. The love interest is really only there because he has to be. Not one of her best offerings but still a page turner.