"...seeming to know him, or at least to recognise his face, from where or from when they would surely recall if only they could concentrate hard enough. But they couldn't. No one can, in this world that Godley wrought. Something keeps getting in the way, keeps turning their thoughts aside, keeps blunting them, or absorbing them altogether, and soon something else comes along to engage their ever-waning attention."
pickI read this too late for the book club meeting for which it was selected, and although I can't claim to understand it, I did enjoy it. I think Banville is saying something about the nature of truth, creation of reality, the author/story relationship, and perhaps the short attention spans and anti-intellectualism of our times. A lot of it is over my head, but I like how he portrays the characters.
pickSome of the language rubbed me the wrong way but overall there was something about this book.
pick3⭐️ An autobio, this presents a balance between life and death. The title caught my interest, and I selected this for my bookclub. As usual, I wouldn‘t know about this author if not for NYRB Classics collection. This publisher really pushes me to explore more ✌🏻
bailedI should have liked this because it was compared to Cormac McCarthy. Tom Rourke is nothing like Billy Parham or John Cole. It doesn't have that lovely poetic description of the wilderness, the earnest respect for animals, the yearning for the girls they love.
The book is described as being funny. Where?
It may have been the narrator. He sounded like a killer from a horror film, but I am just not in a hurry to get the print version to see.
https://youtu.be/ZakTsw5MTzM
Introduction
Mystery guest
The Pornographer by John McGahern
A welcome interruption
The Pornographer by John McGahern (continued)
Hope Never Knew Horizon by Douglas Bruton
pickI was fascinated by the blurb and I've really got absorbed in reading it.
Great second person plural narrator which made it feel as though the whole town were observing.
I loved how the seasons turn and the years progressed yet everything pottered on.
I'll keep thinking about this one.
And hopefully he'll write more as this was a debut.
pickOne way out of a miserable life of pain, debt, and loneliness is a fairy tale—barflies like to hear one, hunters want to write one, and Tom and Polly drive the plot of their own as the Bonnie and Clyde of 1890s Montana. To Tom and Polly, pursuing a life of escape, beyond the usual conventions and logic, is a noble no-brainer, given that all stories and all roads, even the ones by a beautiful coastline, must end.
