Billed as an adventure history of Paris, I picked up and finished reading this entertaining love story of Paris by a Francophile. Many good yarns, particularly about De Gaulle and the many failed assassination attempts on him, none more extraordinary than the hundred to three hundred people apparently wounded in a hail of bullets aimed at De Gaulle inside Notre Dame Cathedral while he remained standing erect at the altar. Having learned that the failed assassination attempt on Francois Mitterand was actually organised by Mitterand himself there is more than a little suggestion that De Gaulle was somehow implicit in this failed attempt. The odd thing is that no one seems to know, and there is no record of the people who were arrested at the time. Perhaps they disappeared. There was some necessity to remove several of the most dangerous of those in Paris left behind by the Nazis at the Liberation, particularly the Milice (the military Police who collaborated so enthusiastically with the SS.) A little too, on the recently deposed mini-man Sarkozy.

Another interesting novel from the very readable Geoff Dyer. This one mimics Women in Love, two males in love with two girls in Paris, one male fails the test and goes off to live in London. One scene of sodomy from Lady Chatterley and several quotes from Hemmingway, but still many fine scenes of first love and first time in a Paris of exiles.

Or Jeff in Brixton. I attempted this novel, which is not bad at all, set in South London, but the whole depressing world of bad drugs, bad teeth, bad sex and bad weather reminded me of what a depressing scene London can be. Of course Dyer is from Oxford which accounts for the slightly smug aspect of his writing. Inverted snobbery seems the Oxford vice, even if they aren’t all inverts. But The Missing of The Somme is a most brilliant book. And Steve Martin believes that Out of Sheer Rage is one of the best novels ever. By the way the difference between Oxford and Cambridge is that Cambridge people are good at business and comfortable with being successful whereas Oxfordians have to apologise for success and pretend not to be supremely self-interested. And this is what I wrote about Geoff Dyer in 2001 when I read this one.

He is such an odd fish. In the midst of an entirely boring exposition of what appears to be an entirely boring film by Tartovsky his footnotes get out of hand, even intruding into his main text, so that we get fascinating glimpses of Geoff Dyer, who is of course the real subject of this book. His odd fishiness is partly due to his upbringing, trips to America and some quite interesting experiences with hallucinogenics.  His work swings wildly from utterly fascinating to utterly puzzling (like Jeff in Venice.) He seems to me sometimes best as an essayist, but I would also give him great credit for inventing form. He seems brilliant at this. And he is also very good at diagnosing the meaning behind images, see above.

Interviews with Terry Southern, whom I knew a little in New York, and Bret Easton Ellis, the more thoughtful of the two, plus a nice piece by Geoff Dyer on the photographs of Prabuddha Dasgupta.

I think Mailer has too much ego to be a great novelist. He has all the skills but lacks the “negative capability” which allows any character room other than Mailer himself. He is always at your elbow, sweating and drinking, and boasting of his sexual prowess and his ability to stab women literally in the front and back. This 1962/63 novel was written and published in monthly chapters in Esquire, so at least there is some excuse for the lack of editing, and the flying by the seat of the pants writing, but the anger is never very far below the surface, and the cocksure quality of the man who kills his wife, and goes on to fuck two other ladies and screw with the rest of the world, this arrogance never reaches its natural conclusion, which is what it is crying out for. The wages of sin is death, though not here, just a long series of discussions about the devil and god. It is more fun than I make it sound, but it still is flawed work.

A very beautiful book. A meditation on death, well bereavement, and a reminder of the importance of life, every second, every moment with lovers and children. A very finely written tale of a partially crippled man whose far from perfect wife is suddenly killed in their own house by a falling tree and the widowers attempts to come back to life. His wife appears to him from time to time but not in a creepy way, as bit by bit he learns to put aside his grief and open himself to a possible future. This roman a clef is told very simply and effectively with many wise observations from other characters, who tread gingerly around the whole question of grief. A good book puts you into a mood, a contemplative mood, where you experience the sufferings and joys of being human. And this is a very good book. She is indeed a very fine writer.

I also picked up this First Edition Elmore Leonard which I re-read with great delight. This may well be his best book, certainly he is at the peak of his powers in this 1989 novel.

I picked this first edition (1973) up at a book sale, and a first edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. At the checkout I was amazed to find they charged by the book, three bucks for each hardback. The novel itself seems no better to me than when I found it disappointing in the Seventies. Somewhat like Our Man In Havana, the lead character Fortnum is a drunken honorary consul kidnapped mistakenly for the American Ambassador. Farce leads to tragedy with the usual marital betrayals, in this case the half-English Doctor narrating is betraying the Hon Con (with his ex-hooker wife). Dr. Plarr spends hours talking about God to the defrocked Priest who leads the revolutionary cell. It’s all somehow vaguely silly, and indeed the twist of the end seems false to me, and without tension. It’s the fault of all the damn Catholic discussions. Can’t you just tell a story? Must God come in too. He always ruins everything….

It’s rare for me to read a novel twice within two months but I did this, because I have become addicted to Justified, the brilliant TV series, which I somehow missed first time round, and even missed the fact that it is based on an Elmore Leonard short story, and that he is an Executive Producer. When I noticed that what seems to be Tim Olyphant is on the cover of the book I had to read it again, now with the images of the people from the series in my mind. Leonard often mentions how his characters resemble real actors as a shortcut to describing people in his novels. Anyway I loved it even more.

Doing a little research on Russell, who has kindly consented to be in my Dick. As Steve Martin told him, when we all dined together at Steve’s, he is a remarkable fellow and his book reads very honestly and well. A huge hit too of course. I have it on I Pad and bookshelf.

An extraordinary novel about a man incarcerated in a maximum security prison, how he got there (a fratricide, though it turns out not actually) how he copes with the loss of wife and freedom, how he finds love with a man who escapes by assisting at a Mass when a Cardinal comes in by helicopter. He simply leaves with him. And how eventually he manages to escape the prison to find freedom.

A very fine clean copy First Edition I picked up at Iliad. An almost exquisite short story/novella about a group of people who are all brought into relationships through a toxic pond. Once again the older protagonist Sears seems equally at home in bed with his girlfriend and the janitor. Cheever makes almost no moral judgements about his characters and their habits, which is why his world seems so honest.

I didn’t really mean to re-read this, but I picked it up and was instantly hooked. Perhaps the most fun of all his books. And certainly working on What About Dick? I can see just how much it influenced me, particularly Helena and Beebe. It is a lovely novel and a lovely film, and I think real as opposed to the Downton Abbey soap shite.

On I Pad. Impossible to pick him up without learning something or wanting to quote him on something. This final book is written in his nineties!

I had been meaning to re-read Stevenson’s fine novel and picked this up at Earthlight Books. I was fascinated by Stevenson’s own story, told very succinctly here but the actual novel is printed in Italics which I cannot read! I am unable to read any book that has long passages in italics, particularly books that start with them. I don’t like books that change font, or shape, or turn into screenplays, or cell phone conversations, or even god forbid, texting. I’m not quite sure why I have this prejudice except perhaps I think it is tricksy and showy-offy and unnecessary. It shows us the framework, when I wish to forget the scaffolding and enjoy the building. I shall re read Dr. J and Mr. K, but first I must re-read Nabokov’s quite brilliant lecture on it, where he physically draws the house, and actually makes you see the scaffolding of the novel, which until then has been entirely concealed. So his essay is a revelation of the book, as indeed are all his lectures on books. If you think you are a good reader, read Nabokov’s lectures on literature and think again.

So sure was I that I would enjoy it I managed to buy it twice. The fact is though, I got bored. He is dry and brittle in his writing. I liked the history, but it was the whole theological world of Purgatory that I found, well, nuts. So I threw it. I have a ridiculous prejudice against almost all religious writing, with the possible exception of the Bible, which is only tolerable in the St. James version, thanks to the historical accident of its being translated during Shakespeare’s time, which was, perhaps, the richest period of the English language. Only Churchill has as rich a sense of prose writing. Although of course the Bible is poetry. And metaphor. Like all religion.

I re-read this happily while waiting to attend a college rehearsal of The Birthday Party. I found it downstairs in a Book Fair which was selling paperbacks for a dollar and hard backs for three bucks, so that when I took them three first editions to pay for, they charged me nine dollars. I felt like a small kid who has just won the lottery and is being paid in sugar. One of the books was a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird.

The illustrious Mike Nichols turned me on to Cheever with a fine present of the Collected stories a Christmas or two ago. I never used to like short stories but this changed my mind. I love them, and especially his. Carver is good but Cheever is better. I also like linked stories in the Julian Barnes manner. This first edition I found in Washington and gave to Sophie Winkelman, a very brilliant and intelligent and extremely funny gal (ex-Cambridge Footlights natch) who has become a devoted fan of Cheever. I can’t imagine how I missed him until now, but what fun it is to discover a new writer as one gets older and know there is a whole stack of books to discover ahead of you.

I had an old gag in the UK: “Norman Mailer will be resumed as soon as possible.” This book of short pieces reminds me why. Mailer is a son of a bitch who went crazy with fame and alcohol, but who at heart is a great writer. I was inspired to buy this because of the several bitchy chapters on a disastrous appearance he made with Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett show. He is enough of a good writer to show us that even when defending himself he reveals he was in fact an asshole…. I love many of his early books, and also quite a lot of the journalism (Fire on The Moon and the boxing one) but when he began to refer to himself as Mailer in the third person, and ran for Mayor and thought he could fight everyone, he became a dick. Well we’re all dicks from time to time, and he has left many treasures.

I very much enjoyed Cowboys are my Weakness, but I swiftly tired of this one.

Pulitzer Prize winner. A fine novel recommended by Anne (Mrs M) The memoir of an old pastor, son of an old rather bastardly pastor, written to his young child. Very fine writing. I noted this to send to my kids: I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God’s grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you. …only to discover that my daughter had not only read the book but had written a twelve page paper on it. A fine thing education.

I have been reading this on and off since picking it up in London. Hard to categorise but fascinating in short bursts, like Modrić. (Pointless soccer comparison: don’t go there.) As the blurb says life is made up of humans meeting one another. 101 such encounters here in a circular form, Marilyn Monroe with Frank Lloyd Wright, Tolstoy with Tchaikovsky. All true, and most fascinating.

Tales of Dick Henry, the Short cut man. An ex LA cop whose job is to throw people out of their apartments for non-payment of rent. Hollywood yarns, I picked up on a whim, signed by the author, at Book Soup which seems to be becoming better and better as a bookshop. More books and less high class porn.

The latest in his excellent stories about Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Thai police, which I unashamedly love. This one is the second book in a few weeks to concern itself with the fate of illicit trafficking in human organs, (see Raylan) this time by a pair of sexy Chinese identical twins. Sonchai pops over to Dubai and Hong Kong in the course of unravelling this as usual very gripping tale.