Anna Richards / Features / Untitled Books

What I'm reading: Rabbit, Run, The Gargoyle, and The Most of S.J. Perelman

Anna Richards

Author of the debut novel Little Gods.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

I had an early and not altogether comfortable experience with Updike, trying, as a 17 year old student, to get through Couples with any emotional idealism I possessed intact. About a month ago, I saw this on a bookshop table and realised it was time to try again. Here's to second chances, with an author if not a title. This is one of those books where the occasional sentence stops you in your tracks with its beauty and ability to cut to the heart, of a character, of the reader, of everything. The car was "a sheath for the knife of himself" strikes me as one of the most compact, elegant and brutal character descriptions I've come across. Now for Rabbit at Rest ...

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

I'm about 40 pages in, so can only say that so far this has had the effect of making my skin crawl and my eyebrows forget they have a "down" setting (if you've read the account of the narrator's accident and subsequent treatment, you'll know what I mean). It's vivid, compulsive and not at all easy, a lot of heat but little warmth. I can't imagine where it's going to take me once the sculptress arrives, but am looking forward to finding out.

The Most of S.J. Perelman by S.J. Perelman

Along with James Thurber, Perelman has to be my favourite pick-me-up. You can dip into this collection at any point and come away with your head higher and shoulders lower. It seems particularly right at the moment, given the 1930s theme party the bankers are throwing us.

Tuesday, 7 April, 2009