cmssrc SEOUEL JOHN UPDIKE
The Widows of Eastwick
(Hamish Hamilton) 000
For almost half a century, novelist, poet and New Yorker writer John Updike has chronicled the concerns, thoughts and sexual foibles of the American middle class. Not always successfully though, as can be forgiven amidst a career which embraces almost two dozen novels and in the region of 30 books of poetry, short prose and essays, but certainly the five-part Rabbit series (two of which gathered the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) and The Witches of Eastwick lie amongst a selection of greats he has delivered. This, the three-decades on sequel doesn’t quite match
The Witches’ glory.
Alexandra, Jane and Sukie, the coven who magically rustled up three perfect husbands and went off to live happily ever after at the end of the first book, have now grown old and widowed. On the very first page, consideration of ‘the faint but undeniable risk of flight in a time of rising fuel costs, airline bankruptcy, suicidal terrorists, and accumulating metal fatigue’ hint that these characters will now re-evaluate the new world around them with
the wisdom of experience.
Yet what follows is a nostalgia trip, a yearning for days when the devilish Darryl Van Horne erotically awakened these one-time divorcees in the Rhode Island town of Eastwick. In the hope of recapturing a sense of past glories, the trio return there, and more over-enthusiastically written sexual endeavours follow. Updike’s writing is crisp, his musings on regret, friendship and mortality coherent, yet this is still a book - even in its most erotic sections - which merely meanders with a sense of retirement
home urgency. (David Pollock)
COMEDY HISTORY JIM HOLT Stop Me If You’ve Heard This (Profile) 0..
If there is one art form often deemed to be beyond analysis. it's comedy. You hear. see or read something funny and then you laugh. End of. Right? Anyone who seeks to go beneath the skin of stand-up and explain the mechanics only succeeds in killing the JOKE}. Yet everyone from Sigmund Freud to Jimmy Carr have made written attempts to demystify the purSLiit and practice of mirth-making. and in this slight tome. New Yorker writer Jim Holt dips into the history and phiIOSOphy of ]()k€S. A true exploration of comedic evolution would Surely merit a fair wad more than the photo— reliant 126 pages here.
but Holt clearly has fun in
skimming breezin over the witty paths trodden from the anoient Greeks
through to philosophers SUCh as Wittgenstein and on to the locker room testing of Brooklyn cabbies. It's possible to reach the end of this with barely a smile cracking on your face but it's more likely that your mind gets tickled in some unexpected areas.
(Brian Donaldson)
POETRY COLLECTlON LAURA DOCKRILL Mistakes in the Background lHarperCollrnsi 00
The emergence of a sassy-tongued poet who can relate to the yoof should be a good thing. And Laura Dockrill. aka MC Dockers. truly does seem to be articulating. in her unaffected. unchecked. stream of consciousness way. the OXIstence of the Facebook generation. In the past. this collection of babblrngs and childish scribblings would have remained hidden in a shoebox under a bed. But now it's published as
30 VIII LIST 30 Oct—iii Nov 2008
a land pink hook and podcast tie-in with free wrapping paper and stickers. so painfully twee. lo-li indie and zeitgeist-focuseti that absorbing it for more than ten minutes at a time may make your head hurt.
like comedian Josie Long's more ramifling musings illustrated in the style of the Purple Ron/ire cartoons. it's got a girlish. daydr‘earny quality. but you Just know the talented Dockriil has been over-indulged by hesotted editors who reckon they've landed 'the next big thing'. lJay Richardson
\r‘JAR'I le1' DRAMA ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
La‘s Orchestra Saves the World tPolygon) 0.00
When a master of stop/telling such as Alexander McCall Smith puts pen to paper. we have come to expect great things. And he doesn't disappoint with this latest stand-alone title. a warm and captivating tale of strength. p; ssron and friendship set in wartime Britain. Following an education at Cambridge and a young riiar‘riage. La Stone moves to a sleepy Suffolk village to escape painful memories in London yust as war is declared on Na/i
Iu’x Orchestra
.Mri'cx tlic Her/t1
Germany. 'l'mes are so tough that she sets up an orchestra for the 'lt’télfi‘fétleS of the surrounding areas !.". an effort to i:oost morale among both civilians and soldiers. developing extreriieiy c ose l:onds in the process.
McCall Smith captures these characters and the era beautifully. out perhaps rnost zrnpressiye is heroine I a with her love of music and tIlt‘.v'/£t‘i.”(}l'll‘{} spirit i<(}(;-t)'lltt us hooked front star". to finish. Yet another literary tr‘iuriiph to add to the fist. l ,arnilla Pia:
[‘XISH NllA'. 'A'tf DAG SOLSTAD Novel 11, Book 18 .Harvill Seckeri 0..
The only three—time \‘JlllliOl’ of the Norwegian Literary Critics Award. Dag Solstao follows up 2006's much praised Shyness and Urge/3t with this sophisticated. sortietirnes (:latistr'opholiic. rer)r'esentation of a lllltf—
life (:rasis coining to an extreme end. The plot of Novel .7 l. Book .78 is often. as ti'icomr>r‘ortiisingly opagiie as its titie. out through the course of 2CD pages of existentra‘ sou searc'r‘ing. more i'ttroduceo to BjOI'l‘ Hansen. an Osio bureaucrat '.'.r"‘o ieaxes ltorne in pursuit of has iov 1'." and. 1.1 years ate-'1 is forced to con‘ront his arena'aient attitude to‘.'.'a"ds life once their
relationship ends.
fig
as ’
Bjorn's middle-aged rnus;ngs are iaid hare in detailed. suffocating prose that s drained of ernotioria. stimulus. so it's hard to er'ioathise ‘.'.'itl‘. l‘is act ons. Novel ll. Book 18 may he a skilful exploration of one man's it turn from indifference to detm'miriatlon. but it's also a hook that fades front memory soon after the last page has been turned. iYasniin Sulaimanl
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 CRIME PAPERBACKS Natasha Cooper A Poisoned Mind The ninth in the Trish Maguire series with two literally explosive plots running side by side. Pocket.
Lee Weeks The Trafficked Dubbed the female James Paterson, this one features kidnapped kids in Hong Kong and burnt corpses in London. Avon. Xavier Marie Bonnot The First Fingerprint A French mystery merging history. man and murder with bits of Shamanism and cannibalism chucked in for very good measure. Ouercus. David Stone The Orpheus Deception International espionage, state- sponsored cover-ups and lots of chasing about with ‘the cleaner‘. Micah Dalton. Penguin. Gavin Esler A Scandalous Man The Newsnight guy with a Michael Dobbs- esque thriller with Iashings of scandal. politics, sex and intrigue of a general, as well as specific. nature. Harper.