I adore that book. It was the first thing I’d ever read by Le Carré, and it blew me away.
The flashbacks are important. The whole book is a meditation on how the past haunts the present. It also shows just how petty spycraft during the Cold War was. Le Carré didn’t do much of that in real life, but apparently spooks from that time generally agree he got the psychology right.
None of which will help you if it’s not working for you. If you’re not feeling it, I’d say stop and find something else – it’s a bad fit. I loathe loads of well-respected best sellers, so I can relate.
I can’t count the number of times I have tried and failed to read Gravity’s Rainbow or infinite Jest and been rebuffed. Even as audio books, my mind wanders away from the narratives.
I would like this book (and most of pynchon) a lot more if I weren’t so damn depressed. I’m just never in the right frame of mind for his books.
I finally read Robinson Crusoe sometime this summer, for reals. I tried to read it at least three times but never finished. It’s not that the book didn’t interest me, but that I was distracted and put off by the format. No chapters at all, and wildly inconsistent spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation. It was basically formatted like a 300 page comment on a right wing news site, and like many comments on right wing news sites, was ridiculously pro colonialism. I’m not sure if it was actually in favor of colonialism or making fun of colonialists, but I chose to believe the latter over the former.
Currently reading this new sci-fi by Sue Burke called “Semiosis” – it’s interesting, and fun (first of a series, i guess). Human settlers on a new planet come to realize that the intelligent life on the planet is NOT the other alien animal life they find, but the PLANTS.
Just finished “John Cleese: Professor At Large.” Being a really smart celebrity, Cleese was invited by Cornell University to be a visiting professor to come by two weeks a year for a few years and give lectures and interview people. The book is a collection of the transcripts of these talks. They’re all fascinating, with topics like religion, screenwriting (with William Goldman), and so on. It’s witty, but not out and out funny.
I’m beginning to think I just don’t really like Iain Banks. I’m reading Excession, and I like the ships talking to each other. But the rest of it reads like satire, and isn’t funny enough to pull it off.
I’m not a huge fan either. I’ve read The Wasp Factory, which was supposed to have been so brilliant, but it was only meh. It was weird, but not in a good or compelling way, more like in an “I can do without reading this” way. So I never read anything else by him again.
So my above 2 reads are kind of on hold while I share something MrsTobinL brought home from the library.
I was all ‘wait what?’ on the description. I am just over halfway through now and it is a riot and apparently the 3rd book in a series.
It’s actually Consider Phlebas that lead me to the “satire that just isn’t quite sharp enough” conclusion. I really liked Player of Games, though, which is why I"m reading Excession.
I haven’t read Ken MacLeod yet! I’ll add him to an upcoming “white guy” slot in my rotation.
I’ve long been fascinated with this series since reading and re-reading Volume 8, featuring Kamus of Kadizhar!, in my youth. Until now, only ever found one other volume.
Just read both tonight. Fantastic stories. I will admit, the Wayward Children series (which Absent Dream) is a part of, is one of my current addictions. I definitely reccomend it. Start with Every Heart A Doorway and find yourself lost.
Still reading, still engaged (a ripping yarn that feels realistic), but it seems more and more like an ad campaign for the Mexican-American War and the takeover of Hawaii.
Well, I stuck with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and it did get better once I was able to figure out who all the charters were. Maybe I need to read more of his books and in order. That might help.
I suppose I’ll have to read it again now that I know who everyone is.
Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or five hundred miles of sea-coast, with several good harbors; with fine forests in the north; the waters filled with fish, and the plains covered with thousands of herds of cattle; blessed with a climate
than which there can be no better in the world; free from all manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil in which corn yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are ready to say. Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a country? The Americans (as those from the United States are called) and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious and effective than the Mexicans; yet their children are brought up Mexicans in most respects, and if the ``California fever’’ (laziness) spares the first generation, it is likely to attack the second.
