Living for Disco

I’ve decided to stop browsing through my copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, as they really have no tact. Surely the vignettes are supposed to provide a short review of the book, telling you why you should read it, not give you the plot rundown in 50 words or less. Now I know exactly what happens in A Clockwork Orange, I’ve lost all desire to read it.

The only reason that it doesn’t give the plot for The Book of Disquiet is because there isn’t one. Nothing happens. Occasionally he cries and gnashes his teeth, and finds himself paralysed by metaphysical contradictions, but that’s it so far. It’s the kind of book that you need to dip in and out of if you want a taste of the, albeit beautifully written, existential ponderings of a man who feels his life has amounted to nothing. It’s most definitely a toilet book, in my opinion.

You know what though? That doesn’t do it justice. I found myself relating to alot of what he says, and marvelling at the beautiful way he has of saying it. His internal, fantasy life is so rich, that you can’t really say that he feels his life amounts to nothing – it’s just his physical existence that doesn’t do much for him. So, I can recommend it – just not all at once, which is why the book belongs in the loo.

Anyway, I decided to move onto Mrs Dalloway, which was interesting. I’ve never read any Virginia Woolf before – I always found the idea of her intimidating. Once I got used to her stream of consciousness style of writing I enjoyed it. The narrative skips from character to character, perching on one for a while, then moving on as if blown onwards by a sudden breeze. I read like I eat – with a tendency to gobble the food in record time without really stopping to taste it. I had to really concentrate on the prose in this book – every word seems to be there for a specific purpose, which can’t be said of alot of books I’ve read. Much of the pleasure comes from how she’s strung the words together, rather than the story they have to tell.

And then, once that was bagged, I started reading Candide, by Voltaire. Mercy! Voltaire! How cerebral! I was encouraged by the fact that it’s astonishingly slim – you could get through it in about 3 hours. It’s also excellent – a stinging satire on the idea of fate, and the belief held by many that everything happens for the best. It’s so irreverant. I love it. So, I won’t be astonishing party-goers with the phrase ‘Voltaire is so overrated’ tripping from my lips after all. How horribly disappointing.

Anyway, sorry if this post is on the dull side. I’ll try and make the reviews more exciting – perhaps I will inject some drama into them next time (well! I was reading Voltaire, and what do you think happened? Jellyfish invaded the earth! Anyway, I managed to finish….)

Years ago, I worked for a small travel agency. It was my second job in London. I hadn’t meant to move on from my first job so very quickly, but they made me redundant after three months, and so I had little say in the matter.

The place was in Putney – a hideous journey from where I lived, way across the other side of the city. We worked in a small office for a man who, when he interviewed me, didn’t let me get a word in edgeways and had breath so toxic that it made paint bubble on the walls.

One of our colleagues was a compulsive liar, who ironically ended up engaged to, and eventually estranged from another compulsive liar, who convinced her that he was a Harrier pilot. He’d call her up to tell her that he was off on missions, and that if he didn’t come back to remember that he loved her. She uncovered his duplicity when she spoke to his mother for the first time and found out that he was actually a cashier at the local branch of the Halifax Building Society.

Anyway, there were three of us there that were roughly sane and worth socialising with, or so we felt. One of them is still a very good friend now – one of my bridesmaids in fact. The other I lost touch with after she married a guy who didn’t like me, and whom I thought was an idiot, not least because just before the wedding he cheated on her with a winsome cello player who happened to be his secretary.

Before our estrangement, however, I went round there for dinner one evening. We talked a lot about books, because we all loved to read. I remember recommending a book to my friend’s fiancé, and he immediately dismissed it because, I kid you not, it was too modern. He said that there were just too many wonderful books written by people born before the turn of the 20th Century to bother with anything written by anyone born more lately than that.

Of course this sparked a rather passionate debate. I thought that he was missing out on some classics in the making, as well as many other books that are simply enjoyable. He thought all these Johnny-come-latelys were merely standing on the shoulders of giants, and were therefore not worth spending the time on.

It’s ironic therefore that the book he thrust up on me, and insisted I read was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who was born in 1918. “Read that”, he said “and tell me I’m wrong about your modern fluff. Read some classics, for god’s sake, you uneducated buffoon. Don’t you know that pain, injustice and drudgery are the cornerstones of great literature? ” I asked him if he’d ever read any Jane Austen, but he seemed to think that beneath him too. I still wonder if he ever got any enjoyment out of reading, or whether he was just a masochist. He probably used to beat himself round the head every day with Finnegans Wake for chuckles.

Anyway, to be honest, his description of the book put me off. It just sounded so… grim. This wouldn’t normally stop me reading a book, although anything with the word gulag in it should be approached with extreme caution, and easy access to vodka.

What has stopped me from reading it for the last 10 years is sheer bloody mindedness. I still have the pristine copy he gave me, unopened. I just can’t bear to have to admit that fact to myself that I would like it, because he was so bloody condescending.
And also an idiot.

So here we are, and One Day in the Life is on the list. And I own it. So I guess I will be reading it soon. He did ask me to let him know what I thought of it, so I’ll just have to hope that he stumbles across my review.

I’ve been thinking alot about this project that I’m undertaking – the reading of 1001 books chosen by people of whom I know nothing, based on mysterious criteria.

There are just so many books on the list, and so many wonderful ones that are not on it. In fact, I’m working from the 2008 edition. There are over 200 books from the 2006 edition that have been removed – what about those? According to Peter Ackroyd, ‘it has not suddenly become safe to die without having read Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello’, so presumably I have to include these too. Incidentally, I have read Elizabeth Costello, but there are about another 200 off that list alone that I’ve never even glanced at.

I keep looking at the list and thinking, “Why is Northern Lights/We Need to Talk About Kevin/26a/Sour Sweet not on the list?” and “What on earth were they thinking when they removed Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, but kept Sexing the Cherry?” I loved Oranges – it’s funny, bitter, sad and beautifully written. I loved it so much that I set about reading everything that Jeanette Winterson ever wrote, and let me tell you, I’m so glad I did, because it means that I don’t have to go near Sexing the Cherry at any point during this project. What a pile of over-written, self-indulgent bullshit. That goes for Written on the Body too.

And I’ve been wondering, not all books are written in order to entertain the reader, although that’s usually my reason for reading. I’ve never really liked books that require me to make a concerted effort, although I don’t like ones that insult me with their crappy writing and stereotypical characters either (Dan Brown, I’m talking to you). Reading is an escape for me. I think that Alan Bennett is probably right in that the more you read, the better at it you become and some of the books on the list will have to be left until I’ve settled into this more fully and stretched my mental muscles. Proust, for example. And Dostoevsky.

It’s so exciting though – I feel as if I’m training to climb a mountain, as if I’m embarking on a big wild adventure. Does anyone want to start me off on the foothills with recommendations for what I should read next?

I have always wanted to be well read. I envy those people that seem to be able to pluck a quote or relevant literary reference out of the air. Admittedly these people are mostly characters in old films, who seem to have nothing better to do with their lives than gobble literature voraciously and absorb the life-lessons to be found therein. I keep meaning to read those books that you are supposed to read, but never really got round to it. For example, I had a doorstep sized copy of Don Quixote on my bedside table for two years, and meant to read it. It just always seemed to cumbersome, and there was always something else to read. Like ‘Undead and Unwed’, a trashy vampire comedy romance, that I worked my way through no less than six times in a year, with undiminished enjoyment.

It’s my birthday today, incidentally, and yesterday my best mate gave me a present. It’s a massive tome, entitled ‘1001 books you must read before you die.’ This, coupled with my increasing desire to revisit the blog, gave me an idea for the project on which I am now embarking. I’m not the first person to do this, nor the first to blog about it I expect. However, I will be attempting to work my way through these books, and I will be documenting my progress (alongside other less cerebral commentary).

I’ve already read about 140 of them, and I won’t be rereading these books. It’s something I considered, but as Gordon said, I simply don’t have time. Even if I read 25 books a year I will be half-way through the project in approximately 20 years. It’s not the getting to the end that I am concerned with, however. It’s the journey. I’m going to be reading alot of books that I don’t like, I’m certain. The presence of Michel Houellebecq on the list has already caused me some emotional pain – you see, the rule is, if I’ve started a book but not finished it, I have to read it all the way through. I’m just interested in seeing where this takes me and what I learn. Hopefully some of you may be interested too.

So, there we are. I’m starting with The Book of Disquiet, seeing as I already own it. I bought it on a whim in Borders back in October, because it had a big sticker on it saying “The Greatest Book Ever Written”, or something equally hyperbolous, and I’d never heard of it. I’ll let you know how I get on.

By the way, you can find the list of books that I will be reading over there, on the right, under Bits and Pieces on th epage entitled 1001 Books. The ones I’ve read are in bold.