My reads, not the books that came out this year…

At the end of the year I tend to look back on the books I’ve read during that time and feel a nice sense of accomplishment. This year I’ve got through some ones that had been sitting in my reading pile for years – I think the longest one had been sitting there unread since 1995!

In this first of two parts are a few impressions of some of my reads as I’m sure others will come up in later posts. I don’t like knowing too much about a book before I read it therefore I’m limiting myself to my impressions of the books so if you like that type of thing you might want to give them ago yourself. The result is there are some spoilers but I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum.

The Good Terrorist – Doris Lessing. I bought this when I was away and it was one of the few English books available in the bookshop. I’d always wanted to read somethings by Nobel Winner Doris Lessing and as an introduction I’m willing to try more. I didn’t know anything about the plot and I never read the back so I just let the story unfold. Told from the view point of Alice and set in Britain in the 1980s this follows the events of a growing group of people who squat in a house in London and Alice’s relationships with them and torn ambitions as she wants to be a free spirit but also look after the house and its inhabitants. At times this can be grim (especially the graphic depictions of the house when they first move in) but is very readable. It’s a clever piece of work as many opinions of the main character are shocking and some of her actions cruel even if she does try and justify them, but there is something engaging in the character that makes you want things to turn out well for her – hence I guess the title.

“There was a certain struggling fury that went with being jobless, and persevering, and being turned down, that was different from simply being jobless.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

Goodbye To Berlin – Christopher Isherwood. I got this in Hay on Wye last year as I wanted to find something new there that I hadn’t got on my Amazon list. Therefore again I didn’t know much about it before I started, other than I love Berlin and thought it would be interesting to see the tail end of the Weimar Republic from an English eye witness. It is a fictionalised account of his life there and it’s not all cabarets and cocktails, even if the musical based on it is called “Cabaret”. Instead it’s an engaging account of the day to day life of a writer and his friends in the shadow of Nazism. The characters he meets are colourful and as they are based on real citizen of Berlin you wonder their fate in the years that followed. There is little plot here really but, as his style is so engrossing and he is an interesting character to follow, I found I’d flown through it.

“I think’, said Sally, ‘it must be marvellous to be a novelist. You’re frightfully dreamy and unpractical and unbusinesslike, and people imagine they can fairly swindle you as much as they want – and then you sit down and write a book about them which fairly shows them what swine they all are, and it’s the most terrific success and you make pots of money.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

The Last Train To Zona Verde – Paul Theroux. I was surprised to learn the travel writer is Louis Theroux’s father, just thought I’d through that in there. This is one of the last travel books by Paul Theroux published in 2013 and in it you see him contemplating the experience of traveling as an older man. The journey is one by public transport from Cape Town up through Namibia and Angola until he’s had enough. It’s a part of the world I don’t know too much about and as I am unlikely to go there myself (although I’ve travelled to some pretty odd locations) I feel I’ve learnt a lot. In the pages of this account I was educated about communities and ways of life in the harsh deserts and poor towns and villages of south east Africa. Theroux’s observations are of real lives, ones that make my own existence look like luxury. There is a wonderful part where the bus he is on breaks down in a small village in south Angola where everyone is stranded for the night. This isn’t on the tourist trail but a clapped out bus full of locals and it’s just a case of make do with everyone else; what’s nice is Theroux doesn’t complain about this but just gets on with it, thriving on the experiences it’s giving him and the chance to meet those he might well not have done if it had not happened.

“Most people come to Africa to see large or outlandish animals in the wild, while some others — “the new gang — the gang of virtue” — make the visit to tell Africans how to improve their lives. And many people do both — animal watching in the early morning, busybodying in the afternoon.”
― Paul Theroux, The Last Train to Zona Verde: Overland from Cape Town to Angola

Claudius The God – Robert Graves. I bought this last year along with I Claudius but only read the first one at the time as I’d enjoyed it so much I wanted to savour the second. Carrying on from the point when Claudius becomes Emperor (if you think that’s a spoiler shame on you) it purports to be his own account of the events that follow up until his death. It’s a very intricate read, but not a hard one as Graves presents this section of ancient history in very accessible text. Admittedly the large chuck at the beginning about Herod is not as compelling as what follows and feels like a hurdle you have to overcome to get to the good bit, but having the experience of reading I Claudius before-hand and roughly knowing what is coming it’s endurable. As plots and counter plots ensue Graves is very good at controlling the story. It’s arguable how much of this is accurate history and how much is creative licence either by Graves or his source texts, but it still is a fascinating slice of Roman history that made me want to learn more.

“On occasions of this sort it was, I must admit, very pleasurable to be a monarch: to be able to get important things done by smothering stupid opposition with a single authoritative word.”
― Robert Graves, Claudius the God

Buy The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing
Buy Goodbye To Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Buy The Last Train To Zona Verde by Paul Theroux
Buy Claudius The God by Robert Graves

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