It's Always More Complicated

What I read

Finished latest Literary Review, read latest Slightly Foxed.

Having lately seen DVD of the movie had some urge to re-read the novel, and it was one of Kobo's deals, so Alisdair Gray's Poor Things (1992) - I recollect quite enjoying this back in the early 90s - since then I am a lot more critical of his historical accuracy (though he does get Victorian divorce law right!) and some of it felt he was really pushing the Early C19th Scottish Gothic Layered Narrative Pastiche - found manuscripts and inserted texts and so on - in ways that were perhaps a leetle more fun for him than the reader....

Lili Anolik, Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. (2019), which I thought did occasional segue from 'dedicated researcher pursuing all leads as far as they will go' to 'creepily obsessed fangirl' (and also does that annoying thing where to big up one's fave, one disses on some other artist in whatever the medium is, in this instance, Joan Didion) but was still very very readable and had a lot of general social history of the time and place going for it.

Simon Brett, The Clutter Corpse (Decluttering Mysteries #1) (2020). I actually started this some while ago and put it aside, returned to it and kept reading, but really, Simon Brett, you are rather phoning it in a bit here, aren't you?

On the go

Recently in Kobo deals was the omnibus of the first 3 volumes of Upton Sinclair's 'Lanny Budd' novels, in which I had been mildly interested, but not at that price for the ebooks. Am stuck in to volume 1 World's End (1940) (which begins in Switzerland in 1913 with Dalcroze, which is rather adorable, even with the HUGE FORESHADOW), which I can see is pretty long in itself, and only the beginning of MASSIVE ROMAN FLEUVE. Not entirely what I would have expected from author of muckraking expose novels. Quite readable though, and more subtle than one might have expected.

Up next

That is going to keep me going for quite some time, and I don't think I will be going straight on to volume 2. Maybe a fluffy novella or two, for balance.