2003 Reading List |
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This is
a fantastic story. Both in the sense that it is implausible
and beyond
belief, and because it is wonderful, thought-provoking, gripping,
scary,
funny, curious. This is Pi's story, a boy emigrating from India to Canada, who is shipwrecked with several animals from his father's zoo, including a full grown tiger. Pi amazes us with his ingenuity and his determination to live. Over the course of his 7 months at sea his body and mind become more and more detached. Pi's experience becomes progressively more incredible, until he reaches land. Once back in civilization, his experiences are challenged by investigators from the shipping company, with a truly surprising result. This is a fantastic novel. December
2003
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What a fantastic
Edward Burtynsky photograph on the cover of this issue. I'm
sure this is the same photographer who
has a similar large scale photograph of the Inco nickel tailings
displayed in the Air Canada lounge at Pearson International.
They're both amazing shots. The theme of this Granta is climate change, and how it's pretty much a given that substantial warming has taken place, that we are to blame and that we'd better do something about it. The concept is explored in a series of travelogues, which are mostly engaging. Wayne Maclennan's retelling of his two man rowing expedtion from Seattle to Juneau is probably the best, but it has little to do with climate change. "The Greenland Pump" is full of colourful, interesing characters, and makes a pretty good case that ocean currents they are a changin'. Just why this is happening is anybody's guess though. The worst of the lot is Maarten't Hart's "Midsummer in April" which mixes religious overtones to the environmental alarm bells. It just doesn't work for me. As often happens, Granta's theme peters out about two thirds of the way through the volume. No problem this time. There's some great stuff in the eclectic last third; James Hamilton-Paterson's reminiscences and exploration of the issue of our sensitivity to animal suffering ("Do Fish Feel Pain?"), Jon McGregor's tale of getting the crap kicked out of you for a sin you never committed ("The First Punch") and three dispatches from the war in Iraq. Christopher de Bellaigue's "Loot" looks at the ransacking of the Baghdad museum, and James Meek plays Michael Herr by following grunts in their drive to Baghdad ("With the Invaders"). The final piece, by Nuha al-Radi feels like a last minute addition which wasn't worth the effort. November
2003
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In 1993, Caryl
Phillips had a peice published in Granta's last selection of "young
British novelists". That introduction alone was worth the
price of the book. This time, it's hard to know which of the
writers will prove to be the ones that you keep coming back to.
There are many engaging stories here; I found Alan
Warner's "The Costa Pool Bums" and Peter Ho Davies' "The Leading Men"
to be particularly so. On the other hand, I couldn't connect
with Sarah Waters' "Helen and Julia", Toby Litt's "The Hare", Nicola
Barker's "The Balance", Susan Elderkin's "The Clangers", or A.L.
Kennedy's "Room 536", or Philip Hensher's "In Time of War". When I step back and look at the stories, there really are quite a lot of duds for a collection of the supposed best. There are more winners than losers, but the balance is quite close. And there isn't really anything that speaks to me as cogently as Caryl Philips did, 10 years ago. November
2003
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Pagels takes us on a
whirlwind tour
of writing and thinking which took place in the century after Jesus'
death. Whirlwind being the operative word....Pagels crams so
many references and quotes into the text that it's very hard to
understand exactly what her point is. Much better is this
brief Pagels
essay, which covers the same ground in a much more direct
manner. It's a thesis that I find very intuitively appealing. The stories that have come to be collected in the New Testament are only a few of the many, often conflicting, interpretations of the meaning of Jesus's life and death. The stories which survived did so because they were endorsed by certain influential leaders for political reasons. The version of Christianity which survived was chosen because it was the version which had the greatest chance of ensuring the survival of any form of Christianity. This proposition may be a tautology, but it does seem to fit with the facts. Equally interesting is that some of the Christian beliefs that were discarded are actually more plausible because they are less fantastic. Pagels refers to the Gospel of "Thomas" which reads more like a self-help book than the divine word of God. Thomas urges Christians to find the sacred within themselves, rather than looking for a saviour to deliver it to them. October
2003
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Pfitz
is the name
of the main character, but it is also a sound that makes you think of
something insubstantial. That's what this book is. October
2003
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A
fantastic opening chapter, but it's straight down a slippery scaly fin
from there. Fishy. November
2003
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T.C.
Boyle is a master of the short story. This collection sizzles
with imagination. November
2003
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I'm
told that this is great imaginative fantasy fiction. I'm just
not interested in that sort
of writing anymore. I quit after a hundred pages or so. November
2003
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Pales
in comparison to Pears' "An Instance of the Fingerpost". November
2003
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Nearly
as good as Veronica. A return to form by Christopher. November
2003
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Comments on the rest of these books
are on the way. |
