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Yes, I noticed the Bullingdon reference (thanks to the copious explanatory notes at the back of my edition).

The book actually reminded me of Grand Budapest Hotel (the film). I didn't like that either!

I'm happier with Orwell in the 30s. From a pretty similar social background to Waugh but looking a different way.

Another great favourite. In a way they're like two sides of the same coin. I've read just everything by both of them. Probably the two greatest writers of English prose in their century.

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I'm not really a reader of 'literature' as such so quality of prose does not register (consciously, at least). I'm afraid I read fiction for the story lines, characterisation and the social angles.

You'll not be surprised that both 'The Waves' and 'Ulysses' utterly defeated me!

Orwell was the first 'literature'-type writer who grabbed me. Going through most of his books (including the Penguin volumes of his letters and reviews) between the ages of 15-18 probably had more influence on my view of the world than anything else.

Edited by A Lark Ascending
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Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. Granted, this is a very light-weight book, so light, I need to tie it down so it doesn't float away when I read it. Given that, I still find this one of the most enjoyable Waugh novels to read, it has that uniquely English humor that reigned in pre-WWII England, and in this aspect, lies its genius.

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Just finished that myself a couple of hours back.

Didn't care for it at all. Privilege making fun of the world of privilege he was happily luxuriating in.

I can understand what you're saying, not just about this book, but about Waugh in general. His unpleasant personality and snooty misanthropy, do tend to bleed into his novels.

20th century literary masterpiece as far as I'm concerned, and my favourite book by Waugh. Yes, he was a very unpleasant character - I've read a biography - but he produced books of superlative literary merit. There's a very serious and tragic undertone to Decline - I'd call it a satirical tragicomedy. And, Bev, if it hadn't been for the opening passage of this book, I wouldn't have realised the significance of our leaders' Bullingdon Club membership when the media got on to it a few years ago. :smirk:

I'd agree on the "very serious and tragic undertone to Decline", as it shows people adrift in the world and society that is "indifferent" -- though the good does win out, and even Grimes gets out alive. Speaking of Grimes, he has one of my all-time favorite lines: "I can’t quite explain it, but I don’t believe one can ever be unhappy for long provided one does just exactly what one wants to and when one wants to. The last chap who put me on my feet said I was ‘singularly in harmony with the primitive promptings of humanity.’" This line alone, made the book for me.

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Orwell was the first 'literature'-type writer who grabbed me.

Me too! First read 1984 at the age of 16 and am still fascinated by it.

Joyce has always been my literary lodestar: "Dubliners," "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "Ulysses." Never got far with "Finnegan's Wake" though.

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KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST - Adam Hochschild

Decided to read some history related to the African fiction I've mostly been reading. This is a horrifying account of the brutal exploitation of Congo-Central Africa resources and people by King Leopold and his minions. Leopold pretty much owned it and ran it as his personal fiefdom. Forced labor, mutilation, murder--all part of Leopold's system for extracting the maximum amount of ivory and rubber. A chapter on Conrad, who spent 6 months there, whose Kurtz expressed the state of things, "The horror! The horror"!

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KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST - Adam Hochschild

Decided to read some history related to the African fiction I've mostly been reading. This is a horrifying account of the brutal exploitation of Congo-Central Africa resources and people by King Leopold and his minions. Leopold pretty much owned it and ran it as his personal fiefdom. Forced labor, mutilation, murder--all part of Leopold's system for extracting the maximum amount of ivory and rubber. A chapter on Conrad, who spent 6 months there, whose Kurtz expressed the state of things, "The horror! The horror"!

An excellent book. I found it very informative.

I just finished this:

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and started this:

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In the middle of a few books, which always makes me a bit edgy, so I am trying to wrap at least one up tonight. I'm about halfway done with both Williams' !Click Song and Wideman's Philadelphia Fire. Of the two, I like !Click Song a bit better, but neither of these is going to become a perennial favorite or anything like that.

After I wrap these two up, I'll probably read Stoppard's Travesties, in honor of just having seen it (in Montreal no less!). And perhaps move on to The Real Thing and Night and Day. I find Stoppard is an acquired taste, but I acquired that taste a while back and think he is probably the most interesting playwright of our time. I'm still waiting to see if New York or Chicago will be staging his latest play, The Hard Problem, anytime soon.

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In the middle of a few books, which always makes me a bit edgy, so I am trying to wrap at least one up tonight. I'm about halfway done with both Williams' !Click Song and Wideman's Philadelphia Fire. Of the two, I like !Click Song a bit better, but neither of these is going to become a perennial favorite or anything like that.

In the end I really disliked Philadelphia Fire. It was such an unstructured novel with Wideman going in 3 or 4 directions and not resolving anything. While it may have been inspired by Invisible Man, it ultimately felt to me like one of those saggy postmodern novels without an ending. It could have been quite something if he had just picked one thread and saw it through, but jumping around so much was just annoying and (to me) pointless.

I'll be going through Travesties tonight and seeing what references I missed in the staged production, which was quite enjoyable.

I should be wrapping up !Click Song shortly and probably start Vasily Aksyonov's The Burn over the weekend. Next week I hope to launch into Of Human Bondage.

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Second and third in Hill's detective series. Enjoyed the first but was horrified to find a lovely main character killed off! Read 'The Pure in Heart' very quickly last week...to find the mystery spilled over into the third book so had to jump there.

Very enjoyable books in a well worn genre - murder and abduction in a lovely imaginary place in England, drawing on the leafy suburbs and the more disadvantaged estates. Serrailler is a nicely buttoned up, emotionally inhibited main character.

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KARL MARX: A NINETEENTH CENTURY LIFE - Jonathan Sperber

Read a chapter here and there while following more literary lines, satisfying an historical/biographical interest in Marx. Came away from this very even-handed work with not much regard for Marx as a person or, surprisingly, as a contemporary political thinker (he was often wrong on such key developments as Indian uprising, Italian unification, and the Franco-Prussian war, just to cite some examples). He was a formidable theoretician though.

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THE MIMIC MEN - 1967 - V.S. Naipul

A difficult book, mostly due to the quite unpleasant first-person narrator, "Ralph" SIngh, a self-styled dandy, which here I suppose means snob, dilettante, and monumentally disaffected person. I suppose he can be considered something of an existentialist anti-hero. I would not e surprised to find that this novel served as Naipul's apologia pro vita sua in breaking with Trinidad and becoming an English ex-pat. If the lead character is a bit hard to tolerate, the writing itself is marvelous.

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Teacher, intellectual and l'honnete homme, Oidili, contests personally and politically with corrupt and rapacious government minister, M.A. Manga, for personal and political integrity. Predecessor (1967) to "Anthills of the Savannah," which also concerns itself with fighting corrupt power. Achebe's innate geniality, reasonableness and personable literary style make it a good read but perhaps keeps it from the ranks of the strongest political novels.

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GUERRILLAS - V.S. Naipaul - 1975

Jane, something of a thrill-seeker from England, and Roche, her lover, a white South African who had been tortured by the regime, come out to an unnamed Caribbean island (modeled on Trinidad), where they hook up with an erstwhile revolutionary, Jimmy Ahmed. You know something bad is going to happen--and it does. The tension in the book remains palpable from the start. As in much of Naipaul, there is hardly room for a smile (after those early novels); it's all deadly earnest (literally). But beautifully crafted.

Edited by Leeway
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