Tuesday, 30 Sep 2008

Location: Mexico

Rather than bore you with travel stories, we´re going to give 10 Word Reviews of various things, mostly books. At this stage we´re reading a lot from the ¨dirty old man genre¨, e.g Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargos Losa, Philip Roth.. And yes we´ll overuse the hyphen to keep to 10 words!

Atonement, Ian McEwan

¨McEwan good storyteller but mediocre writer. Self-righteous, over-written. Irredeemable protagonist¨.

L: 2 B: 2.5 (out of 5)

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

¨Masterful characterisation, always morally problematic, witty, drifts into laboured sex-fest.¨

L: 3, B: 4

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

¨Not reading this is an offence against taste and decency¨.

L: 5, B: 5

Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

¨Brilliantly confusing, Joyce-like penetration of human mind. Concentrate hard friends!¨

L: 4.5, B: 4

The Longest Decade - George Megalogenous

¨Posits Keating, Howard as like-minded economic warriors. Intelligent, accessible analysis¨.

L: 4, B: 4