3 minute read
Gleaner August 2023
from Gleaner August 2023
by Gleebooks
Reid all about it
Mid-year reading 2023 part one: fiction.
This Bird Has Flown
Susanna Hoffs
Based on the author’s favourite novel –Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre – this is a charming, (very) spicy-sweet, gently funny, joyful debut. Featuring Jane Smart, a 33 year-old, single, one-hit wonder musician, sent by her manager from California to London, to rediscover her musical muse after a decade-long hiatus.
She also finds a life-changing relationship with elegant, handsome Tom Hardy, an Oxford professor of literature. This pitch-perfect novel is no surprise. As co-founder and lead singer of 1980s pop group the Bangles, we already knew Susanna Hoffs could write.
PS. The title comes from The Beatles’ Norwegian Wood. The chapter headings are some of her favourite song titles. See how many you know.
The Good Soldier Svejk
Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923)
“And so, they’ve killed our Ferdinand,” said the charwoman to Mr. Svejk who had left military service … and now lived by selling dogs – ugly mongrel monstrosities whose pedigrees he forged. “Which Ferdinand, Mrs. Muller? I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Prusa’s chemist and once by mistake drank a bottle of hair oil. The other is Ferdinand Kokoska who collects dog manure. Neither is any loss.”
“Oh no, sir, it’s His Imperial Highness, the Archduke Ferdinand, from Konopiste, the fat, churchy one.’”
After recently binge watching 1917, the latest version of All Quiet on the Western Front and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, I thought it was also time to revisit – after three decades – Jaroslav Hasek’s unfinished (and probably unfinishable) comic, anti-war masterpiece The recounting of the enthusiastic, simple soldier Svejks’ military
escapades broadens into a satire on the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire. Published between 1921-23, the author planned six volumes with three completed.
As proof that one literary masterpiece may inspire another, Joseph Heller said that reading Hasek led him to write Catch-22
“And so, they’ve killed our Ferdinand,” said the charwoman to Mr. Svejk who had left military service … and now lived by selling dogs – ugly mongrel monstrosities whose pedigrees he forged. “Which Ferdinand, Mrs. Muller? I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Prusa’s chemist and once by mistake drank a bottle of hair oil. The other is Ferdinand Kokoska who collects dog manure. Neither is any loss.”
The Cthulhu Casebooks
James Lovegrove
Prolific author Lovegrove crafts three enjoyable Holmesian pastiches covering the years 1880 to 1910.
Including Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows, Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities, and Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea Devils, these see Conan Doyle’s famous detective –aided by the faithful Watson – confront H.P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones: ancient, pitiless beings from a universe of eldritch horror, who wreak havoc on hapless humans.
And lastly, I re-read two contenders for the title of The Great American Novel:
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing in particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
– Herman Melville (1819-1891)
– Moby Dick or, The Whale (1851) And:
“You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.”
– Mark Twain (1835-1910) – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
After several readings of both over the decades, I still can’t decide which one wins the laurel. You decide.
Next Month: Non-Fiction.
