brass band street

bienveillantes

The Kindly ones in English got an awful, I mean awful, review in the New York Times Katakani...amazing how slashing she was. hated this book, thought it obscene and derivative of both Genet and Sade...to think I plowed through this book for the last two years...I mean plowed. It was so hard at times, but then some scenes did it for me. yet she may be right about this, being obscene and shocker, not literature, not good....and challenged how the Goncourt could give it the top award...and Le Monde called it a masterpiece and another one called it the next War and Peace.
I mean it is virtually his first novel, well done, but not literary...and it does take from others and who knows may be sensationalist. Who really knows?

McEwan Ian

McEwan what a marvelous writer...see On Chesil Beach...sensitive story, deep and focused...In Between the Sheets a bit outre but still good...Black Dog also focused and deep and intense...now reading Innocent...slow start but gets going...