The October Reading List

As I write this, it is still October 30 and a bit early to be posting a monthly book list. I've started writing the post any way; the only thing that might change between now and then is that I may or may not finish the book I'm reading now. Of course, this can all be edited before posting

When I last posted here I was reading a book by Arab Israeli author Sayed Kashua - Second Person Singular. That novel uses Tolstoy's novella, The Kreutzer Sonata as a major plot device and frankly, I was more impressed by Kashua's novel than Tolstoy's novella.

During the first week of October, I was finally able to finish reading all of Agatha Christies mystery novels. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went from there to read Anthony Burgess' The Enderby Quartet which I was able to read because I had discovered a website which had books still under copyright available for free download......like a virtual public library. It was this website that enabled me to download a number of books by Arthur C. Clarke in addition to the above mentioned novel by Sayed Kashua.

Thanks to that website, I've been able to download quite a few relatively recent books. One of those newly published books was To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876 by Bret Baier and Catherine Whitney. This book on U.S. Grant brought me back to Project Gutenberg to download Grant's two volume memoir. There was a break between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of the memoirs, due to my being unable to transfer Vol. 2 to my Kindle from my P.C. while my P.C. was in the shop.

Postern of Fate                    Agatha Christie
Curtain - Poirot's last case  Agatha Christie
Sleeping Murder                Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot And The Greenshore Folly
Inside Mr Enderby            Anthony Burgess
Enderby Outside               Anthony Burgess
The Clockwork Testament  Anthony Burgess
Enderbys Dark Lady           Anthony Burgess
Childhood's End                 Arthur C. Clarke
Rendezvous With Rama     Arthur C Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey     Arthur C. Clarke
2010: Odyssey Two           Arthur C. Clarke
The Kreutzer Sonata          Leo Tolstoy
Second Person Singular     Sayed Kashua
To Rescue the Republic     Bret Baier
Personal Memoirs Vol. 1    U.S.Grant
Dubliners                           James Joyce
Personal Memoirs Vol. 2    U.S.Grant

Childhood Zen

Last week, while reading The Enderby Quartet , I thought that when I had finished those four books, I'd go on to Anthony Burgess' first published work, The Malayan Trilogy. However, when I neared the end of the final book in the quartet ( Endeby's Dark Lady, or No End to Enderby ) I decided to take a slight detour. The final book in the series began to take on elements of science fiction, which put in my mind a desire to read a bit of real sci-fi.

I picked two sci-fi novels by Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End and Rendezvous With Rama . I had read these two before, but after nearly 50 years, it was time for a re-read.

When I was first introduced to Childhood's End by word of mouth, I had misheard the title. I was very interested in Eastern Religions at the time and understood the title to be Childhood Zen. That seems to be all I could remember about the book. I remembered that the plot centered around humanity's first encounter with an alien race, but that was all I could recall. Everything in the novel was new to me. It was as if I was reading it for the first time. This made me wonder if my "memory" of having read the book 50 years ago might really have been a false memory.

Childhood's End was published in 1953. Most of the events in the story take place in the 21st Century, fairly close to the present day. Setting aside to encounter with the aliens, it's interesting how Clarke saw our time from 1953. At one point, one of the characters uses a camera with film. Of course, Clarke could not have foreseen digital cameras. Another interesting point is Clarke's discussion of the word "nigger". He predicted that in the 21 Century, that word would have lost all it's destructiveness.... it would be looked upon as just another neutral word. No one would be upset hearing it. We know that isn't the case in today's world. We must all refer to it as the "N-word". Writers who used the word in earlier times are threatened with "cancellation".

Rendezvous With Rama was slightly more familiar to me. Of course, most was forgotten, but certain bits were still in my memory.

Now that I've finished those two ebooks, I'm trying to decide whether I'll go back to Burgess with the The Malayan Trilogy or stick with Clarke for a few more (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example). That decision can wait for a bit.

The Enderby Quartet

On October 5, I finally finished reading the last of Agatha Christie's mystery novels. I can't say I've read everything Christie wrote: the list does contain a few of her short story collections in addition to the novels, though there are a few more short stories I'm not going to read at this time. It's taken me since May 29th to read the 73 ebooks I've read.

Also, I haven't read any of the novels Christie published under the nom de plume Mary Westmacott.

Even while reading the Christie novels, my mind was on which direction I would go when I finished with Agatha Christie. In April of this year, my reading consisted of dystopian novels. One book which, naturally enough, made the list was A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I thought I'd look into whatever other books I could find by Burgess, and read something written by him when I'd finished with Christie.

One group of novels written by Burgess which has received high praise is the, so-called Enderby Quartet, a set of four comic novels: Inside Mr Enderby, - Enderby Outside, -The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End, and Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End to Enderby. I found a website that allowed me to download several of Burgess' works and began reading the quartet.

As I write this, I've finished the first three novels in the series and have started # 4.

After reading the first two, it struck me odd that those books should be considered two, rather than one novel. I later came to find out that Burgess had originally planned these two to actually be just one novel. However, while working on what was to become Inside Enderby Burgess was told by a number of doctors that he would not be expected to live much longer. Burgess published the 1st "half" of the novel, not expecting to finish the 2nd "half". As it turned out, the doctors were wrong and Burgess lived for several more years.

Burgess' writing style with the quartet reminds me of William S. Burroughs, although I'd consider Burgess to be the superior writer.

In the first novel, the character Enderby uses an expression which I found confusing. When upset, Enderby would often say "for cough". It wasn't until after I had begun reading the 2nd novel that I realized that this was Burgess' response to censorship of the time. "For cough" was actually "fuck off" in much the same way Norman Mailer used "fuggin" in The Naked and the Dead. Apparently, literary censorhip had lightened up by the time of the 2nd novel. Although Enderby would continued to say "for cough", other characters in Enderby Outside say "fuck off" and "motherfucker".

In the third novel of the series, The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End Burgess seemed to predict the future that we're living in today.....politically correct pronouns and further censorship of words.

In the introduction of the final novel, Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End to Enderby Burgess explains that, although he had killed off Enderby in the 3rd novel, fans of the series convinced him to bring Enderby back to life. I haven't gotten far enough into the last book to see just how Burgess managed to do that.