The April 2024 Reading List

 The latest list:

Spiral (Ring 2)  by Koji Suzuki
Replay  by Ken Grimwood
Loop (Ring 3)  by Koji Suzuki
Past Master  by R. A. Lafferty
Utopia  by Thomas More
The Double  by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Small House at Allington  by Anthony Trollope

The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope

 

In April of 2021 I set out on a quest to read strictly dystopian novels during that month. As a result, I read 15 novels with a dystopian theme. I had previously read a few of the books that would make my list, but most were new to me (though not exactly new books). The last book in that series was first published in six installments in Blackwood's Magazine in 1881–82 - The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope . That book turned out to be one of my favorites in the dystopian series.

Reading a Wikipedia article on The Fixed Period, I learned that this was Trollope's only Sci-Fi/futuristic novel. He is best remembered today for two six book series of novels - the Chronicles of Barsetshire and the Palliser novels (AKA - the Parliamentary novels ). In May of that year, I began reading Chronicles of Barsetshire. After reading the 4th novel in the series, I decided to take a break from Trollope. I began reading the entire collection of Agatha Christie's mystery novels and soon forgot about Trollope.

He was forgotten until his books were mentioned by John Podhoretz on the Commentary Magazine podcast recently. Podhoretz highly recommended Trollope's Palliser novels and I felt I needed to finish the last two books in Chronicles of Barsetshire before I could read something different by Trollope.

I started book five - The Small House at Allington. I'm glad I did. This one is my favorite (so far) of Trollope's novels.

Generally, I'm not one for spoilers but I want to compare parts of The Small House at Allington with an earlier novel in the series, Doctor Thorne . In the earlier novel, a Mr. Moffat breaks off his engagement to Miss Augusta Gresham because he had found a more "advantageous match." To avenge his sister, Frank Gresham and one of his friends horsewhip Moffat within an inch of his life. Most of the characters in the novel appear to be OK with the beating, as does Trollope, for that matter. In The Small House at Allington, after Adolphus Crosbie jilts Lily Dale in order to marry Alexandrina de Courcy, Crosbie is simply given a black eye by John Eames.

In his autobiography, Trollope is amazed by the number of letters he'd received from readers of the installments of The Small House at Allington who loved Lily Dale (who he considered a prig) and wished that Trollope would have Lily and John Eames marry. Trollope did not unite the two. Several of the characters from The Small House at Allington return in The Last Chronicle of Barset. Judging by Trollope's comments, I would be very surprised to see the couple marry in the final book.

Past Master by R.A.Lafferty

 

Being forever on the lookout for reading material, when a friend told me of his recent discovery of Sci-fi writer R. A. Lafferty, I immediately did a web search for the writer. After compiling a list of his Sci-fi books found at wikipedia, I went to my go-to page for free ebooks and downloaded 20 novels and short-story collections. The question now was, where do I begin? His first novel, Past Master was nominated for the 1968 Nebula Award and the 1969 Hugo Award, so that seemed as good a place as any as a place to start.

The story is set in the year 2535 on the utopian Earth colony, Astrobe. The leaders of Astrobe view life on the planet as less than perfect, and to bring their world in line with their utopian dreams, they send a man to Earth to travel back in time and bring Saint Thomas More into the future to rule over Astrobe. The leaders do this on the mistaken belief that More's book, Utopia was not satire, but a "how-to" manual.

Once on the planet, Thomas More travels about the world and experiences adventures of a very unusual nature. I would describe his wanderings as Don Quixote or Candide in Outer Space - with a bit of sixties psychedelia thrown in for good measure.

There were times when I found it difficult to keep up, but my review is positive, for the most part.

After reading Past Master, I downloaded a recent translation of More's Utopia, which will be the next book on my list.

The Ring Series by Koji Suzuki - Book Three - "Loop".

 

Having finished books 1 and 2 in Koji Suzuki's Ring series, rather than go immediately to book 3, I took a detour with Ken Grimwood's Replay. In my earlier post on the Ring series I said that there will be more to follow once I'd read the remaining books. That time has come.

The Ring series was originally conceived as a trilogy - with a collection of short stories coming in 1999 to put an end to the series. More than 20 years after the first book in the trilogy was written, 2 more novels were written in 2012 and 2013. I've read the 3rd book making up the original trilogy; the additional books will come later. If Suzuki could wait 20 years, I can put them off for a bit.

Loop begins very differently than the first two. Ring and Spiral have both been described as Japanese horror/mystery novels - and they are that - Loop however, fits more into the Sci -fi genre. No horror at all, as I see it. It is so different that I could not see how the stories could be related - at least until I was 30% into the book. Even when I couldn't find a connection, I was still enthralled; and when I finished reading the book, I was all the more impressed with Suzuki's talent as a writer and storyteller.

As usual, I'm not inclined to give spoilers; I will say that I can highly recommend this trilogy.

Replay by Kim Grimwood

 

One of my sources for book recommendations is the daily podcast at Commentary.org. The podcast is predominantly political, from a conservative point of view although at the end of most podcasts there will be a Commentary Recommends section which will recommend not only books, but movies, and T.V. programs......sometimes even Youtube videos.

So far this year I've read five books recommended by the podcast. In February there were two - The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and Budapest Noir by Kondor Vilmos. In March I read The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin and A Brutal Design by Zachary Solomon. I didn't particularly like The Three-Body Problem, but that's neither here nor there.

Number five is a fantasy novel from 1986 - Replay by Ken Grimwood. The novel tells of a 43 year old man who suddenly dies of a heart attack and awakens in his 18 year old body in his dorm room at Emory University in Atlanta in the year 1963. He begins to relive his life with the memories of his earlier life intact. With his knowledge of "the future" he is able to amass a vast fortune thru gambling on sporting events and surefire stock investments. He lives his "replay" slightly different from the first life, but still dies of a heart attack on the same date.

He finds himself returned to 1963, Emory University but at a slightly later date. This cycle continues for several "replays". Always dying on the same date but awakening at later time than the previous replay.

The novel was a bestseller in Japan. Its time-loop concept has been referenced as a precursor of the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day.

As usual, I won't be giving spoilers.

Sadly, Grimwood died of a heart attack in 2003 at age 59 while working on a sequel to Replay. I've only been able to find one other book by Grimwood - Elise. I wish there were more.

The Ring Series by Koji Suzuki

 

About eight or nine months ago, I came upon a web page giving a list of the 65 Best Japanese Books of All Time. Of course, this list was right in my wheelhouse. I made a copy of the list and downloaded not only the 65 books listed, but anything I could find in English by all the authors named.

I had read a few of the books prior to coming upon the list and a few more since then. One of the books making the list is a Japanese, mystery/horror novel, Ring by Koji Suzuki which I read in March.

Suzuki's Ring series was originally written as a trilogy - Ring (1991), Spiral (1995), Loop (1998). In 1999, a short story collection, Birthday was added to the series. Finally, two additional novels were added - S (2012) and Tide (2013). Unfortunately, Tide has not been translated into English.

As of this writing, I've read the first two books in the series.

I'm not inclined to give spoilers, but I will give the first paragraph of a wikipedia description of Ring:
"This story is set in present-day Tokyo. When four teenagers mysteriously die one night at the same time, Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist and uncle to one of the teens, takes a particular interest in the case and investigates. This leads him to a holiday resort called Hakone Pacific Island, where the four teens stayed one week before their death. There he watches a videotape left behind in their room which contains a series of abstract and realistic images. At the end of the sequence of cryptic and disturbing images, a warning appears: 'The one who saw these images is destined to die in one week at this time. If you do not wish to die, do as will be said from now on. That is—' but the rest is erased by an advertisement. This has a strange mental effect on Kazuyuki, who immediately believes that the tape has now placed its mark on him".

I enjoyed the first novel so much that, of course, I'd go on to book two. After I had finished reading the first book, I thought I had a good idea how book two might progress. I was surprised from the very first page. The events were not going as I had thought. To me, book two (Spiral) is even better than the first. The remaining books in the series will be most definitely put into the queue.

On a side note - several films have been produced based on the novels, in Japanese, Korean and English. I'll look to see if the Japanese and Korean films are available online with English subtitles. I watched the first American film from 2002 and while interesting, it doesn't live up to the first book. The film strays too far for my tastes.

There will be more to follow once I've read the remaining books.