Time to read...

Let's sit in a comfy chair with a good book for a while.... I intended to write about this a while ago before the virus took hold of my family and we became the infected... the latest to be infected is poor Bronwyn. I can't remember when we were last all healthy. And the weather here is unusually warm and sunny for September - perfect for staying in doors with aches and pains...grrrr. Anyway, back to the comfy chair...and me blathering about books when I have much more important things to do. I think it's called escapism or procrastination...I do both very well.

I recently read "Me Cheeta" (I am actually trying to read a few of the books on the ManBooker list...a good place to start if you're looking for a good book to read). I think it's one of the most entertaining, hysterical, unusual and heartbreaking books that I have read in a long time. It is the autobiography of Cheeta (you'll remember him from the Tarzan films...particularly the Tarzan films of the 30s and 40s with Johnny Weissmuller). Cheeta is 75 now, living in a sanctuary in Palm Springs. He decides to write his autobiography...from his early days in the jungle to his career with MGM and beyond. It is a parody of the celebrity Hollywood autobiography and through Cheeta we are given an hysterical, fly-on-the-wall glimpse of the "Golden Age of Hollywood". It's full of stories, backstage gossip and innuendo about all kinds of Golden-Age Hollywood celebrities, written in Cheeta's inimitable, sage-like, tell it how it is...manner. It is also a loving biography and tribute to Johnny Weissmuller, through the eyes of the one who loved him most. Added to that is Cheeta's irrepressible love for the human species, despite their obvious flaws. In fact, there are a lot of layers to this book. Unfortunately, it didn't make the shortlist.

I also read The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. This was a really good read. I don't think I wrote anything about it and I don't have time now...but it was good. I need to write when the book is fresh in my mind. It's an interesting novel set in England just after the second world war. It is a testament to Water's skills as a storyteller that the protagonist - a middle-aged, somewhat boring village doctor - can both carry the story and that the events that surround him can captivate the reader. And her attention to detail is so good that you can really feel part of the era (in this case the fast-changing post-war era) that she is describing. It's also an interesting psychological thriller, part ghost story. But even when I write all that I realise there is much more. Suffice to say, it is a very good book.

I am now reading "The Children's Book" by A.S. Byatt. It started out a little dry (with me feeling like I should be taking notes in preparation for an English Lit. exam), and it hasn't got any better. I have struggled to get to page 300 because I read a review on Amazon that said it gets better by page 300. I don't think I can do it. I don't like any of the characters at all - they are like cardboard cutouts in literary form (and there are way too many of them). There's so much historical information, a testament to her research I suppose, that I feel like I'm reading a textbook. All in all, I find it really boring. If only I didn't find the writing so dry and all the characters devoid of any wit, passion or interest. It must be me. I mean it has very good reviews and is a "bestseller". It's also shortlisted for the Booker. Obviously, I'm too much of a thick'ed and I shunt try to read clever stuff what is too brainy. That'll learn me!