Mark Hubbard reports in from the south on a sunny Sunday morning:
Mrs
Hubbard and I buy our books through the same Amazon account so we can read all the books in the single
account on either of our iPads; an exclusive library of our own making. You
might be reading this and thinking what a good idea, although in truth it's
pointless. We both like different fiction, so what it tends to mean is Mrs
Hubbard reads through, at times irritatingly reads out, over a cup of tea, the
one star Amazon reviews of the literary fiction I've just bought, then tells me
how I've wasted our money. Which brings me to UK writer Rachel Joyce's wonderful
novel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which the one star
critics found to be, apparently, depressing. The thing about so many of the one
star reviews, is they tell you more about the reviewer, than the book in
question.
Confession
first: I can’t review this yet. I’ve only started reading it this morning, but I
know I’m going to love this novel. It's
a great concept: retired Harold Fry after an ordinary life, receives a letter
from a dying friend in a hospice and as he goes to post a letter in return, he
can't, and instead keeps walking, post box to post box, the length of England to
her. Already in the first chapter Joyce has in crisp, succinct words created for
me two clearly drawn characters, Harold and his wife, Maureen, writ with a
humour and tangibility which will see them easily through the narrative. So this
novel awaits, an enjoyment of anticipation, a philosophical read. I’ve decided
to make these irregular literary ramblings a regular on my blog, so a review
will no doubt be forthcoming. Note I won’t trap myself inside a timetable,
ramblings will be ‘happenings’, following the ebb and flow of my reading around
the half-life of the day job, and another pointer is whenever you see a book or
film review on this blog, I've liked it, very much. It's not that I'm
undiscerning, it's because my father had the first of his open heart surgeries
when he was younger than I am now, a reminder that life is short, therefore I
don't intend to spend what free time I have, reviewing something I didn't enjoy.
In the absence of a fee, that would be pointless.
So
to a book, Mr CK Stead's Risk, I did read this month, and most unsociably
in the two days Mrs Hubbard and I were away for a weekend and I was supposed to
be sociable in the company of friends. I've written on Mr Stead in my previous ramble, he’s one of my favourites, and Risk didn’t disappoint. Good story
telling, clever allusions, and – spoilers coming - I have a new
fictional hero: Tom Roland. If I was to stab at Tom’s gestation it would be when
researching his earlier novel, My Name
Was Judas, Mr Stead happened upon the Book of Job. First Tom is that
combination that will guarantee a life of dissatisfaction and social
proscription – poet by night, banker by day. He works his corporate half-life,
while plugging away at his love of words in the early hours of the morning;
unpublished for almost all his life, until he’s blown up on a bus in the London
bombings, two days after finally receiving notification of his first placement
of a poem in a major arts magazine. Though as if that’s not enough, turning
expectation back on itself, the bomb doesn’t kill Tom; Mr Stead cruelly keeps
him on a life support of words long enough to realise his dream of leaving the
day job, then in a vividly written scene, kills him again with a heart
attack.
I
have no idea why such a character would resonate with me :)
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