Saturday, January 9, 2010

Saturday Morning in the Cloister


This is what a perfect Saturday morning looks like. And it sounds like the classical station here.

After suffering through "London Fields" by Martin Amis (who, as one critic said, "writes better than any 10 other Booker nominees"), it's a relief to sink into something that's just a good story, and doesn't make me need a hot shower every time I put it down.

The problem is that Martin Amis can write. I love his prose. I hated all his characters. He seemed to have a healthy disdain for them as well. We probably spent more time with Keith Talent, his lager-swilling and chain-smoking and women-smacking and sad obsession with darts than any other character. This for seemingly no purpose but to examine all the dirty little corners of his existence so we could hate him as much as Amis does.

But the writing was good, so I couldn't put the damned thing down.

Moving on to Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" is the right palate cleanser. A quiet, sunshine-infused morning with a good yarn, coffee and a cat. And not  a dirty west-London pub in sight.

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