I announced four New Year’s resolutions for 2014 on this blog at the start of the year. Now we’ve reached the halfway point of the year, I thought I’d review how they’re going.
New Year’s resolutions 2014: mid-period review
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Tag Archives: books
The Glass Bead Game
In case anyone was wondering why I list the books, films and music (or recently, podcasts) that I’m interested in at the moment down the right hand side of this blog, it’s not to show off my excellent taste or anything like that. It’s to encourage anyone who’s also interested in any of those things to discuss them with me. So far, this has happened precisely zero times. But I live in hope.
You may have noticed that The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse was my current read for quite a long time, recently. I’ve finally finished it, so now I’m going to post some thoughts on it.
New Year’s resolutions 2014
I didn’t really have any resolutions for 2013, because I was going to be making enough big changes in my life as it was – leaving the Army, travelling to India. I’m making several for 2014 though, and this is what they are:
1. Read and see six Shakespeare plays.
I’m OK with all the big names, like Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, but beyond that my knowledge of Shakespeare is woeful. I need an intensive familiarisation programme, so I’ve decided to challenge myself to learn six more plays in a year, by both reading them, then seeing them performed.
Iain Banks: the other secret Culture novel
*** WARNING: SPOILERS ***
It’s an open secret that Inversions, the SF novel by the late Iain M Banks, is set in the universe of the Culture. The book itself disguises this: the cover omits the “A Culture Novel” strapline of the other books such as Consider Phlebas, the narrative is solely about events on a late medieval world, and there is no explicit mention of Culture society or technology. However, there are enough subtle hints in the narrative for anyone familiar with Banks’s other works to deduce that the two main characters are agents from the Culture, who have infiltrated the pre-industrial society in order to influence it. At one point, one of them tells a child a fairytale about a land where people can fly betweens suns using “ships with invisible sails”; in the Epilogue, the other excuses herself from a dinner citing “special circumstances” (the name of the Culture’s black ops department).
The Raj Quartet covers
The first post in my promised series on Paul Scott is about the Raj Quartet. Not the novels themselves, but their covers. I make no apology for the niche topic. It may be of interest to you if you’re a Scott obsessive, an amateur bibliographer or a book design geek. If you’re none of those things, I won’t be offended if you decide to skip it.
Nobody’s talking about Paul Scott
I want to talk about Paul Scott.
If you’re thinking, “Who’s Paul Scott?” don’t worry. You’re in the typical majority. If I say, as I usually do, “he wrote the Raj Quartet – you know, The Jewel in the Crown,” you might now be experiencing a tiny flicker of recognition. You’ve at least heard of the title, and can guess it’s about British India, but you don’t know any more than that. If you’re a bit older, you might be doing better, remembering the 1984 TV series. But that’s about as far as it goes for most people. Even among the educated and well-read, he’s now faded well into obscurity.
Paul Scott
That seems a shame for someone who was both a Booker Prize winner and the author of an acknowledged masterpiece of historical fiction, the Raj Quartet. Those are the relatively objective claims. Personally, I would add a few more. Firstly, that the Raj Quartet is the definitive literary statement of the final days of British rule in the subcontinent, a time of epochal political and social change, and therefore has lasting significance. Secondly, that he is a writer of astounding psychological insight and depth, on a par with more widely recognised writers of human drama such as D. H. Lawrence. Thirdly, that even his now totally forgotten earlier novels are works of brilliance, worthy of greater attention.
In short, I believe Paul Scott is one of the most under-rated British writers of the 20th century.
Over the next few weeks, therefore, I’ll be writing a few more blog posts about Scott and his works. Please keep reading.