Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz


Well, this is the first book I've read of this guy's - quite a prolific (Nobel Prize for Literature winning) author who started writing back in 1928. This one came out in the original Arabic in '57 and was only translated 10 years ago.

To be honest I actually started reading this book to avoid another book I was a few chapters into that started to annoy me.

So far it's a look at a big Egyptian family with all its tangled history, hopes and heartache. Funny though. Not cheap laughs funny, but wry, generous. There is the aging patriach, the doting matriach who has had her edge worn by the heartache of her daughters, the bespectacled son still living at home who teaches by day and immerses himself in classical philosophy and revolutionary politics by night, the various sister in laws, servants, friends of the families; you get the picture.

It will be interesting to see whether the unfoldings of everyday life are the main point of the book or whether it becomes more political, whether the brother finally gets laid, whether I will have to remember the names of lots of political movements that will make my brain hurt and whether any of the gender politics will shit me.

So far it has been a lyrical, warm, ironic tone that I am enjoying. Reminds me of Dostoevsky a bit; featuring privileged, educated young men pondering their fates as intellectuals and moral beings in politically charged times, lots of dialogue and characters that you can almost smell.

If only I had a bath to read it in!

"For truth was a beloved as flirtatious, inaccessible, and coquettish as any human sweetheart. It stirred up doubts and jealousy, awakening a violent desire in people to posses it and to merge with it. Like a human lover, it seemed prone to whims, passions, and disguises. Frequently it appeared cunning, deceitful, harsh, and proud."

In the Half-light by Anthony Lawrence.


I think I've got a bit of a thing for first-time novelists. (But maybe its a fear of committment). This is a book I recently picked up at the local second hand bookshop. (Right opposite the local cocktail bar - I love my area).
Its by an Aussie writer who's apparently had some poetry published but I'd never herad of him. The jacket says he was born in Tamworth, NSW and is an award-winning poet. And in good first-novel style the protaganist is born in a "country town, high in the New Englad Tablelands of New South Wales". The book tells the story of a boy growing into a man, and living with schitzophrenia. But the condition is woven into the tale and delusionsal episodes become lucid and rich prose, that is teetering on the edge of being poety. At times it become almost just a stream of metaphors and images, but manages to get back to thte narrative just in time before you're lost as a reader. I really enjoyed it. The story had sad and melancholgy moments but it felt real, and it showed a life that was a bit complicated and not just a simple story arc*.

* Term learnt from the BTVS script book.

How's that, miss list convenor? :-)

Ok kids this is a virtual book club for all those time-poor lit-geeks and word lovers. Save yourself from actual book club stranger danger! Avoid having to commit time to yet another Tuesday night hobby! Try some transcontinental discourse!

Yes, dust off the cravat and brew yourself a macchiato. Review away. Quote till your nose bleeds. Drop names 'like they drop e's in Surry Hills'*.

Let the games begin!

*the Herd's words not mine. See?? Quoting is good safe fun for all the family.

NB Yes I am lonely.