May 2018 book review

Welcome to this month’s book and film review, broken into several parts as is the custom imposed on me by my equipment.

Apologies for the paucity of my blogs lately. I have been, shall we say, a little preoccupied. Still recovering physically and emotionally from the threat of spending the rest of my life in prison for crimes I did not commit, and then completing a book on that very subject, I have found little time left over for broadcasting my views to the nation. I still have them, I assure you, and you will hear more, if you are interested. But today, please find May’s book review below. Enjoy.

WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE, by Marcel Proust
A young man in  fin de siecle Paris falls hopelessly in love with a neighbour,  and they have fun for a while, then she tires of him, or is the other way round? Even he isn’t sure. Then his beloved grandmother takes him to spend the summer on the Normandy coast, where he tries to forget his paramour by falling for another young lovely. Does it work? Read on...

A la Recherche continues with this marvellous dissection of the agonies of adolescence, told in Proust’s languid style, its prose shining like a duchess’s tiara. No one has ever written so sublimely on what it is like to be human, and I suspect no one ever will. But if you decide to delve, don’t expect a quick read. You must take your time with Proust. You don’t rush Pell-Mel through a beautiful garden, you wander at your leisure, taking your time to study the flowers, their perfume and the setting as a whole. And feel uplifted by the whole experience. That’s Proust. Go on, treat yourself.

A NECESSARY EVIL, by Amir Mhukerjee
India, 1920. The British Raj is thriving, but there are already murmurs of discontent from the locals. Then the crown prince of a small but wealthy state is murdered before the eyes of a local English detective. Who gains from such an atrocity? That’s our detective’s starting point for an investigation that takes him into the heart of Indian power-politics.

There appears to be an infinite appetite for murder mysteries among the reading public. From Sherlock Holmes through Nordic noir; historical detectives and American gumshoes, the list is long. And now we have Mr. Mhukerjee, with his modern ‘tales from the Raj’. He writes engagingly and uses an interesting added theme: following a war wound, our hero has become an opium addict...

THE INNOCENT MAN, by John Grisham
In 1980s Oklahoma, a young girl is raped and murdered. The police ‘like’ Ron Williamson, a young man who lives nearby: he’s a bit of a weirdo, been charged with rape before (though found not guilty in court) and drinks too much. It’s got to be him, right? It all fits, the police think, and the DA agrees. He is arrested, charged, convicted on the thinnest of evidence and sentenced to death. After 11 years on death row, he is given an appointment to have the needle placed in his arm just 3 weeks away. Almost at the last moment, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project gets to hear about the case and manages to obtain a stay. But can he stop the authorities giving Ron a new date with the executioner?

John Grisham is best known for his fictional courtroom dramas, several of which have been made into highly successful movies. Here he makes his first foray into nonfiction, and produced a book every bit as gripping as any of his novels. His account of a case even more horrific than my own, Grisham has here written one of the most riveting, and disturbing books I have read in years.

THE EMIGRANTS, by W.G. Sebald
Comprising four tales of emigrants in the 20th century, all from Germany to various locations around the world. Why did they leave their homeland, and how did they manage in their adopted country? Read on...

In a recent blog I described Vladimir Nabokov as the writer of some of the most beautiful prose in the history of literature. In Marcel Proust we have another supreme exponent. And here, with ‘Max’ Sebald, we complete our triumvirate. What a wonderful treat for the mind it is to read Herr Sebald! Whether he is talking about a man who made his life as butler to an American playboy, or an artist who has washed up on the grimy streets of Manchester, one finds ones self totally immersed in their worlds, the breath almost taken away by his insight and charm. A.S. Byatt described this book as “strange, beautiful and terribly moving”. Wish I could write reviews like that.
 Unmissable.