I finished reading Herta Müller's The Land of Green Plums last weekend. There's a disturbing childlike quality to the writing, which reminded me a little of Unica Zürn's Dark Spring - the sense of pervasive threat, a thread of brutal violence beneath the sometimes fairytale atmosphere. I did find the novel difficult to get into …
Category: reading
the week that was
was rather high on stress and somewhat low on culture. The stress arose from a little spate of domestic/technological crises (yes, they do seem to come in threes), and the mundane but wearying frustrations of earning a wage. Still, I did manage an early-ish morning swim at the lido on Thursday, twenty lengths, beneath a …
The Slap
I've just finished reading The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. And, like his previous novel Dead Europe, I'm quite bowled over by it. I really admire the way he's unafraid to tackle big subjects and modern taboos; how his characters argue and discuss issues many of us struggle with - how should we deal with religious …
