Hops: Two for the Price of One!

I’m going to try something a little different this Friday and am going to deal with both the Literary Book Blog Hop from the Blue Bookcase and the Book Blogger Hop from Crazy for Books in the same post.

Turning to the Literary Book Blog Hop first, this week’s question is:

“Can literature be funny?  What is your favourite humorous literary book?”

I was a little non-plussed when I read this question.  My immediate response was to slap my forehead and shout, “Well, yeah!  Of course!” at the computer screen.  A roll-call of names such as Saki, Wodehouse, Sharpe, Swift, Twain, Sedaris, Adams leap from brain to fingers to blog post draft without so much as a furrowed brow or a single hum or ha.

Then I jotted down the name of Terry Pratchett and it suddenly dawned on me that the question isn’t about humour after all.  It’s about what counts as literature.  Terry Pratchett has sold millions of copies of his books.  They have made millions of people laugh.  They are, without doubt, funny.  They are also cleverly funny, sometimes even just plain clever.  But are they “literary”?  Probably not, although I think they have literary merit.  I suspect, however, that most people would not term his books as “literature”.  Part of this may be genre snobbery.  Or just maybe, we like our “literature”, our “classics” to be serious.  To wear, metaphorically, spectacles and an academic gown.  To deal with BIG issues in a grown-up way.  Maybe we are a little bit too snobby to allow that humour can be literary.

If so, of course, the question makes absolute sense.  Can deep and meaningful literature really be funny?  Can it make us laugh?  On this basis, we have to discount all of the authors referred to above together with all authors who set out to be funny.  Evelyn Waugh?  Sorry, not literature.  Laurence Sterne?  Sorry, Penguin Classics shouldn’t have included Tristram Shandy in their list.  Shakespeare?  Should have stuck to histories and tragedies?  Oscar Wilde?  Pah!  Voltaire?  Shouldn’t have bothered with Candide, which even made my cynical and sullen 16-year old self laugh.  I could go on. And on.  And on.  All of these authors are, without doubt, “literary”.  And deliberately funny.  So I have to conclude that, as I thought, literature can be funny.

There is a point to the question, though.  I think that, because we associate being funny with being happy, with being light-hearted, we may find it more difficult to apply our judgment to the issue of whether humorous books are also “literary”.  To try and illustrate this and provoke some thought, I list below three authors that I find very funny.  I personally think they are “literary” but others may disagree:

1.         Jasper Fforde.  Both the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crimes series are funny.  They are also very clever.  To be fair, some of the plotting doesn’t stand up to a good prodding and some of the internal logic is weak but they are nicely written and they also deal with interesting issues of identity, time and space and the nature of literature.  But they are set in an alternative reality.  They verge on being genre fiction.  Are they “literary”?  I think so but many wouldn’t.  If you have read him, what do you think?

2.         Roald Dahl. Forget his children’s books.  They are funny and clever and classics but they don’t have a bearing on this discussion. Instead, I present you with My Uncle Oswald.  If you haven’t read this yet, for the love of God (or Richard Dawkins or whoever else you choose to revere) get hold of a copy quickly.  In this book, the title character discovers the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world and, with the aid of a female friend, makes his fortune by stealing the semen of Europe’s artistic and social elite and selling it to women.  Is it “literary”?  I’m not too sure but do think it is very well written.

3.         Kingsley Amis.  Lucky Jim, the story of provincial university lecturer Jim Dixon, is the book that made his name in the ‘60s.  It is very funny and biting.  Is it “literary”?  Definitely.  But is there really that much of a difference between this and the others?

Turning to the Book Blogger Hop, this week’s question is:

“Who’s your all-time favourite book villain?”

So many too choose from.  Sauron?  Voldemort? Bill Sykes? Cardinal Richelieu?  Iago?  Blofeld?  Moriarty?  Bertie’s Aunt Agatha?  Steerpike?

It’s an almost impossible task to select one prime nasty.  One of the hallmarks of much good writing is that the villains are usually not pure black archetypes of evil.  There is usually some grey about them, some hint that there badness is not absolute.  Often their counterpoint hero is not totally good either and, in some extreme cases, it can even be difficult to spot who wears the white hat and who wears the black.  I can’t help thinking that for this particular accolade, we are looking for someone really dreadful, a monstrous character who thoroughly deserves a good hissing.  And so, please give up some boos for:

Cthulhu from the Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft.  He’s the high priest of the Great Old Ones.  He’s a cosmic presence.  He’s the focus of doomsday cults.  A statue of him is described as having "represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind."

To top it all, he is coming to eat the world’s soul.  Not nice.  Not nice at all.  In fact, I bet Voldemort would pee his pants at the mere sight of Cthulhu.

Honorable mentions are due to Count Dracula, Milton’s Satan and the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Book Blogger Hop: A Night at the Movies

I’m a little bit off the pace this week so my contribution to the Book Blogger Hop, hosted at Crazy for Books, is a touch late.  The question posed this time by Jessica from a Great Read is:

“What book(s) would you like to see turned into a movie?”

In reality, my answer is quite straightforward: none, none, none!  In fact, I would go as far as to say that if any Hollywood producers happen to be reading this (as of course they do) and are considering giving the green light to filming a book I like, please just say no.  Put the book down and focus on something totally different because, in general, I hate film versions of books I have enjoyed.  Although I’m not OCD’ish and am not particularly details-oriented in my everyday life, I don’t cope very well with film adaptations that move away from a faithful reproduction of the original book.   So, really and truly, I don’t want any more movie versions of books.  Too many disappointments , too many shockers.

I know that this sort of defeats the point of the question though so I will try and answer it.  I’d start off by suggesting that the moviemakers go back and try and correct some of their previous excesses.  Maybe they could redo turkeys like Dune, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or even Breakfast at Tiffany’s (not a BAD film, just not a patch on the Capote novel).  And these only touch the surface – Disney’s version of Hunchback of Notre Dame, anyone?

Assuming past grotesqueries have to be left unavenged, however, I would suggest the following two books as suitable candidates:

The Dark is Rising.  I have always felt that Susan Cooper’s  five book sequence is criminally underrated as a piece of children’s literature and a decent film adaptation might help to give it some long overdue recognition.  It is a wonderful saga of confrontation between the Dark and the Light incorporating elements of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Arthurian legend and myth.  A film version of The Dark is Rising, the second in the sequence, has been made but it was sooooooo bad and soooo unfaithful to the book that it should really be buried in a lead-lined casket and consigned to one of the lower circles of Hell.  It deserves so much better.

Feeding Frenzy.  This is a slightly quirky choice but I could see it working as an indie flick, with someone like Paul Giamatti as the lead.  Stuart Stevens came to Europe in the company of a six foot tall fashion assistant called Rat, got hold of a Mustang and attempted to eat in all of the (then) 29 three Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe.....on consecutive nights.  The result?  A kind of Hunter Thompson gonzo trek across the continent. Total chaos, great book, I’d go and see the film.

Book Blogger Hop: Current Reading

It’s time for this week’s Book Blogger Hop, hosted at Crazy for Books.  This week’s question is short and sweet:

"What are you reading now and why are you reading it?"

As usual, given that I have a butterfly mind and a very poor ability to focus and concentrate, I am reading multiple books at the moment.  As I'll be posting separately about each one, I don’t propose to say too much here but hey are:

1.         The American Civil War by John Keegan.  As I mentioned in my aprés-Christmas post, I know very little about the American Civil War but, as I'm interested in history, I wanted to learn more about this period.  Sir John Keegan is one of the UK’s leading military historians and so his new book was a welcome find amongst Santa’s offerings.  Part-way through, this is definitely living up to expectations.

2.         Cabal by Michael Dibdin.  The BBC has recently televised adaptations of the first three books in the Aurelio Zen detective series.  Having read them nearly 20 years ago, I found myself querying the TV version as being both too far removed from the original text and far more light and superficial.  So, I’ve gone back and re-read them.  And I’m correct.  The BBC series was still enjoyable for Sunday evening entertainment but totally misses the serious issues raised by the novels and the complex shades of grey they were written in.  The books are commentaries on modern Italy as much as genre detective stories, whereas the TV series was easy fluff.

3.         Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow. This is the next in my 1,001 Books Challenge and, as I have only just started it, I don’t have anything really to say about it yet.

4.         Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater.  A diary of his cooking year with lots of new recipes, the master of simple but delicious cooking has produced a masterpiece.  I am up to August and really wish I was two stones lighter so I could cook my way through this without guilt or having to buy new trousers.  I f you are interested in food and haven’t yet come across Mr Slater, you are missing out.  Great recipes, drool-inducing writing.

5.         Gumbo Tales by Sara Roahen.  This is a book about the characteristic ingredients and recipes in the cuisine of New Orleans, written by an adoptive New Orleanian(?).  Fascinating and hungry-making writing, it remains incomplete only because my TBR pile keeps intervening.

Hopefully, I will get through all these in the next couple of weeks and can then dig out some new volumes to keep me entertained.

Book Blogger Hop: Books I am anticipating this year

I’m taking part for the first time in the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Crazy for Books.  This week’s question is:

“What book are you most looking forward to seeing published in 2011?  Why are you anticipating that book?”

Talk about a difficult question to answer!  2011, like every other year, looks like throwing up a number of stunning debut novels as well as a solid stream of fantastic new books by established writers.  My ever-expanding virtual TBR list (actually an Amazon wish list) already includes a whole slew of books that are due to be published this year as well as a number of books that were published in the USA last year but will not make it across the Pond for a few months yet.  And it’s still only January!

Quite frankly, I cannot in good faith pick just one book to mention (or, at any rate, the time it would take me to decide would mean this post would not be written until the Book Blog Hop had finished for this week).  So I am going to pick two novels and one non-fiction book.  Yes, I know it says one book – I happily admit to being a big, fat (well, not so fat any more – I’ve lost 14 lbs since Christmas Eve) cheat.  I’m sure no-one will mind too much.

Fiction

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.  This debut novel, to be published in the UK in September, tells the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of Patroclus, the best friend and, according to some sources, lover of Achilles.  The story starts when the heroes meet as boys on the island of Phthia after Patroclus is forced into exile there, having accidentally killed his friend, Clysonymus.  It will take the two princes to the battlefield of Troy and, in the end, to the death of Patroclus at the hands of Hector, son of King Priam.  I’ve always thought Patroclus to be a bit of a berk.  Having persuaded the sulking Achilles to lend him his armour, Patroclus comes over all big time Charlie, charging all the way up to the gates of Troy where he gets a (rather unfair) smack on the head from the god, Apollo, before being sliced up by Hector.  Paddy, Paddy, Paddy.  You really should have remembered something – YOU WEREN’T DIPPED IN THE STYX LIKE YOUR MATE ACHILLES!!!  YOU’RE NOT INVULNERABLE!!!  Whoops, too late.

Anyway, enough rant.  I love the Iliad and the stories of the Greek heroes so I am looking forward to this retelling from a different perspective.  I used to read Mary Renault’s books when I was younger and I wonder whether this will be similar or more “literary”.  Miller’s agent, Julie Barer said this about Miller on the Ploughshares Blog:

“The last time I fell in love with a book out of the blue was The Song of Achilles, a debut novel by Madeline Miller which tells the story of the Illiad and the Achilles legend from the point of view of Patroclus as Achilles' lover. I have always been a fan of Greek mythology and so the query letter caught my eye. I brought the novel home and read it in one sitting without a break (I'm a big on snacking when I read at home and I know I'm falling in love with something when I won't even stop for food). From page one I was completely absorbed by the world she had created, and the way she had seamlessly married Greek legend and mythology with a heart wrenching love story. The minute I finished it I knew I had to represent it, and I couldn't wait to tell every editor I knew about it. You can't manufacture that feeling, no matter how much you might want to love something, and sometimes it's even hard to say why you love this book and not that one. We often use the phrase 'I just didn't fall in love' when rejecting something, and I don't know if authors realize how much we really mean just that.”

Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka.  Another debut novel, to be published in the UK in June, this was featured in Waterstones' 11, their list of the best eleven first novels of 2011.  The Chinaman of the title is not a gentleman from the Far East.  It is a type of spin bowling in cricket.  The book’s protagonist is a retired cricket writer who spends the last months of his life being unpleasant to his family and tracking down a spin bowler who has disappeared and who he considers to be an unsung genius.  The novel is not just about cricket but also about modern Sri Lanka and has been described as “one of the most imaginative works of contemporary Sri Lankan fiction”.

I like cricket and am intrigued by its popularity in South Asia and so I am very much looking forward to this one, especially given the previews it has been receiving.

Non-fiction

Civilisation: the West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson.  Whenever I open a newspaper these days, there seems to be another article or opinion piece warning that the West is going to be overtaken economically and politically by the rising superpowers of China and India.  There is also a growing sub-genre of books dealing with the same themes.  Niall Ferguson, one of the UK’s leading historians, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and the William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School, will enter the fray in March with his new book.

With impeccable timing (as with an earlier book, the Ascent of Money), Ferguson takes us back to 1411 when what would become the West looked backward and impoverished, compared to the flourishing civilisations of the Ottomans, the Aztecs and Incas and Ming China.  He argues that, at this point in time, the notion that the West would come to dominate the world for the next 500 years or so would have been seen as laughable.  And yet, that’s exactly what happened.

Ferguson has identified what he believes are six “killer apps” that the West developed and that the Rest lacked.  His central argument is that it was these things – competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic – that allowed the West to get ahead.  He examines whether the West has lost its monopoly (or at least advantage) in these areas and, if so, whether this heralds the end of Western ascendancy.

Ferguson is a great historian and has developed an engaging writing style and an interesting way of looking at history.  His recent books have been accompanied by big-budget documentary series on British TV which are a joy to watch.  I didn’t buy the Ascent of Money until after the TV series and this slightly spoilt it for me so I am going to make sure I get this one as soon as it is published.

I have pre-ordered all three of these to be sure of getting them hot off the presses and posts will follow.