5. 'Another Country' by James Baldwin (1962)

 That's right, I'm now 1/20th of the way into this project, which is further than I ever thought I would get. And if I needed motivation to continue, and after two epics about Egypt that I admired but didn't really enjoy, then this novel was it.

This is my favourite novel of the ones so far, and I think it might be because it is the most straightforwardly written. I think this might be like the time I saw this film 'Kopps' at the Rotterdam Film Festival. The Rotterdam Film Festival, which is up there with the best things that Rotterdam has to offer, is pretty notorious for screening a whole bunch of 'difficult' films and offering few compromises in terms of films with American stars. I would try to see a good 10-12 films most years, and pretty much every one of them would be about some kind of taboo and tend to end with the main character dying or in despair. ANYWAYS, there was a Swedish comedy called Kopps that played one year and I went to see it with my buddies Bart and Sjoerd. I'm not sure I ever laughed so much at a film screening, and the rest of the sold-out audience were in fits of laughter. When I watched it a year later, having downloaded it and had to download some weird English subtitle device because it wasn't available commercially, the film stunk. It was as dumb as can be. Adam Sandler bought the rights to re-make the film in English. That dumb. The point is that the film was clearly such a relief from all the misery and difficult arthouse tendencies of the other films that this film Kopps was as much a relief as anything else, and the point of this point is that I may just love any books that tells a story in a straightforward way because it will be such a relief from all these other difficult Burgess books. Maybe this whole exercise will lead me to love Dean Koontz novels.

I'd like to think, however, that Another Country is actually a great book. And it's definitely not dumb, with lots of complex and conflicted characters, and dealing with issues of race and sexuality as fluid concepts. At times there were a few twists too many in terms of the various characters emotional disintegration, but these are never obvious or cliched.

A really enjoyable, dare I say it, page-turning novel.

Oh, I bought this in Kinsale (a lovely town) at Bookstor (a lovely bookshop). It stocks predominantly new books but, as all bookshops should do, there was a collection of second-hand books available. Hard cover and the sleeve fell apart as I read it, but such a great find.

Here's a little excerpt from the audio book (it's read by some dude from The Wire. Yeah!)

Ranking Burgess' 99 December 2011:

1. Another Country

2. Ancient Evenings

3. After Many A Swan

4. The Alexandria Quartet

5. The Aerodrome

4. 'Ancient Evenings' by Norman Mailer (1983)

The problem with reading these alphabetically, apart from it revealing a slightly disturbing personal fascination of not needing to make decisions, is that there can be a slightly unfortunate pattern of books. In this case, following a quartet of books amounting to 1,000 pages about 20th century Egypt with a 700 page novel about ancient Egypt.

For the first time, I managed to get one of the books from my list from the library, more specifically the John Harvard Library. Libraries rule, kindles drool.

I was slightly anxious about the idea of reading Norman Mailer, having only known him as a cultural commentator. And while I enjoyed his reading of the Ali-Foreman fight in the great documentary When We Were Kings, I've always been a little creeped out of his attitude towards women. Don't know much about it, not for me to judge, just always found him a little arrogant.

However, I have to say that 'Ancient Evenings' is amazingly written, grounding the most ridiculous magical spells with a realism that keeps the characters and their relationships in focus. The first 'book' (the novel is divided into 7 books) is especially enthralling, as we come across a very confused soul seeking a way out a tomb. It's mysterious and fantastical. Unfortunately, while there remains a real poetry in his writing, it becomes a more conventional evening of Menenhetet telling stories from his 4 lives.  I'm afraid I found it pretty difficult to always care sufficiently about any of these characters, though I still enjoyed it more than I had any right to as someone who cares so little about ancient civilisations.

I will say though that I'm not sure I've ever read a book over 600 pages that really needed to be that long, and it feels to me like this is another that fits into that category. It's divided into different sections and focuses on different tales, but by the end Mailer rushes through a few centuries towards the end of the book, and you kind of wish that he would just do this with a couple of the stories.

Lots of people have sex in this book too, though perverts beware, a lot of it is between men and is a little creepy. Mailer seems to have real issues to resolve through these sequences, but I'm too dumb to know what these are. No internet research cheating here!

Ranking Burgess' 99 September 2011:

1. Ancient Evenings

2. After Many A Swan

3. The Alexandria Quartet

4. The Aerodrome

While I had subjective problems with the book, it had passages so amazingly written and inventive that, at the moment, it's number 1. I'm sure Mailer just pooped his pants from the excitement that my approval brings.

3. 'The Alexandria Quartet' by Lawrence Durrell (1957-1960)

Dear Mr. Burgess,

In the lengthy process of reading this book, I contemplated the question of when one reads their longest book? I always envisioned it in my head that it would be before 25, forced at university or in the lost years thereafter. Not me man. I wait until you decide to include a four-part Egyptian epic as one of your favourite books written between 1939-1984. I decided about halfway through that I might need to just put this book as the best because I was so proud of my achievement in completing it, kind of like many contemporary film critics still insist that Birth of a Nation is a must-see simply because they managed to stay awake during its tedious 3 hour duration.

Then I realised the problematic technicality that, while you may be to count it as one novel, the title seems to clearly indicate that it is actually 4 books. 4 books with wussy 200 page lengths. Waaahhh. Damn you, Burgess!

By the time I got to Cleo, the fourth book in the quartet, my keenness to embrace the series of books had faded significantly. If Justine was fun, and Balthazar the best and most innovative of the books, playing like a 200 page twist on what Justine revolved around, Mountolive and Cleo were slightly ridiculous soap operas where characters died or did irrational things that felt slightly out of character. I stopped caring and did not really feel that Cleo provided any more of a conclusion than any of the other books.

It has some neat concepts of what truth and reality are and I don't mean to be dismissive of how this might be significant among literature circles, but again Mr. Burgess, I'm too much of a dummy to be able to appreciate this enough that I just keep thinking he might have been able to do the same in about half the time. I just wonder whether by spinning the truth so many times over 4 books it kind of overdoes it- this may have been impressive in your time, but I understood it and eventually got bored with the concept that the narrator gets stuff wrong.

One of my fascinations creeping in has been the idea of how few of these books have been turned into films, and so far it's pretty clear it's because you seem to favour books with a unique literature sensibility, things that cannot be translated onto the screen. An even bigger fascination is seeing the dreadful attempts to try to make films of these books. And when I say seeing, I mean ignoring. Look at this heap of garbage:



While I'm sorry to report that, despite my pride in reading such a long book, I was a little disappointed- I will say that this film is not indicative of the book at all. I can't even imagine any of the characters in the book fitting into a film.

Anyways Mr. Burgess, I might write a sequel to this review where everything I have said turns out to be untrue maaaaaaaannnnnn. Melt your brains with my uber-sophistication.

Until then though, I'm putting a second-rate Huxley novel above it. Controversial, I know. Am sure the Lawrence Durrell society will come round and beat me soon.

Regards,

A faithful reader

Letter 2: 'After Many A Summer' by Aldous Huxley published in 1939

Dear Mr. Burgess (R.I.P.),

I have always thought that there are certain authors (yourself included) that are so respected that all decent bookshops will carry their books, even minor works. If I am not wrong on this theory, then I was certainly wrong in thinking that Aldous Huxley would be considered one of these authors. If finding a copy of 'The Aerodrome' was tricky, getting hold of 'After Many A Swan' was a truly stressful ordeal. I think I have actually ruined my only enjoyable shopping experience, going into second hand bookshops, by replacing the joy of browsing and discovering books that one had forgotten/didn't know you wanted to read, and replaced this with crushing disappointment at the places not having 1 specific novel.

After going through at least 6 different second hand shops to no avail (one even had a whole Huxley collection of books, but not this one) and reluctantly turning to ordering the book on the internet, my wife visited the Oxfam in Blackheath and found a copy for 99 pence. I would never try to persuade anyone of the benefits of marriage, but I will say that I would never have dared to pursue as nerdy a project as this before being married and I doubt my poor wife would ever have actually helped me to pursue it had she not made an oath.

Anyways, Mr. Burgess, this is not your problem. The book itself was enjoyable and I appreciate you recommending it. As you know, it essentially revolves around a British academic moving to California to look at a rare collection of books owned by extraordinarily wealthy elderly millionaire Jo Stoyte, who has an eclectic variety of staff including two scientists who are attempting to find ways to keep him young.    

I had read 'Brave New World' and can understand why it is Huxley's more popular novel, combining explicit social commentary with a gripping narrative. 'After Many A Swan' is a little less of the gripping narrative (though there's an interesting dynamic between some of the characters) and much more of the social commentary. About old age, death, science, capitalism, America- written about in page long paragraphs. Luckily, Huxley writes intelligently and passionately about these topics to keep reader interest, and the themes feel very topical in today's society. In that slightly depressing manner. 

Having said that, while I assume I'm not alone in often visualising film versions of books while reading them, often thinking of how great they would work as films- this is one of the first fiction books that I just gave up that thought. It would be a brutally boring film. So, so boring. Though clearly the dude below disagreed:

It's a little creepy, isn't it, Mr. Burgess? If anything, the still image promoting it is slightly perverted, especially as it really is not something visualised within the book. Anyways, there's a director's cut of this animated feature somewhere else on Youtube, so knock yourself out.

In summary, I deem it BETTER than The Aerodrome. See how exciting this chart idea is Mr. Burgess, as opposed to your boring chronological ordering? Right?

Regards.

Your faithful reader

Letter 1: 'The Aerodrome' by Rex Warner published in 1941

Dear Mr. Burgess (R.I.P.), 

While I do not wish to start on a negative note, I was close to stopping this project on many occasions throughout the purchase and reading phases of this first book. You see, this is not the first time in recent memory that I have made my life more difficult by creating extraordinarily systematic but very stupid projects to expose me to different forms of culture. For example, having felt that I was limiting myself to a ridiculously comprehensive but increasingly antiquated level of knowledge of 90's American alternative rock I decided to listen to all 200 songs on the pitchfork.com's list of best songs from the 60's. In order. For 'fun'. I also attempted to watch all the BFI's Top 100 films but that stopped pretty quickly when I realised I would have to sit through the 4 hours of the silent film Intolerance and that I was not sure I could watch a film by a racist seeking redemption.

Anyways, I persisted because I knew that there must be better things to come, the book was relatively short and most importantly I had already invested  2 hours organising a spreadsheet for this 'forced culture' enterprise (no comic exaggeration, sadly) and ought to complete at least one book, for character building purposes.

Am I glad I persisted and finished the book Anthony? Not really, no- or at least, only in the sense that it will allow me to get to the next book. I would like to think that this may be the oddest of the books in your collection- it certainly has not been considered a modern-day classic, with no local libraries stocking it and none of the big bookshops having any copies. After a long search, the only print I eventually found was a 1944 second hand copy at the amazing Skoob Books for £4.

On the plus side, this meant that it featured an ad for Grey's Cigarettes on the back and the health promises of Mars on the inside back cover (Exhibit A demonstrating how dumb people were then nostalgists amongst you). On the down side, I had to read this thing like a priceless relic, in complete fear of it falling apart from the slightest bend of the page.

Inside back cover

Back cover

While I understand the book itself is old, I don't think that can fully explain the truly unnerving tone Mr. Burgess. Our narrator, within the first 3 chapters (of 20) finds out his parents aren’t his real parents, then that his just-found-out-not-real-dad is a murderer of some dude we don't really know, then he witnesses his just-found-out-not-dad being murdered by the military with no consequence. Our narrator is at most slightly troubled, but not in a way that prevents all sorts of other dramas that subsequently take place over the rest of the novel. I think it's like a Shakespearean tragedy? I fear I may not be intelligent enough to be able to say this. Still, my English graduate wife didn't really argue against this statement, so I'm going with it, and further saying that like Shakespeare, it almost holds together due to having an interesting critique about society alongside all of the (often over the top) drama.

It’s an interesting read and economically written, looking at the military from a very different approach than I had read before- especially interesting due to it being published during the 2nd world war. Your review Mr. Burgess, talks A LOT about all of the meanings that come through the book and says it's like Kafka- which I guess would account for the lack of emotion, if I remember my 'The Trial' lessons from school correctly. I would have preferred the twists and turns a little more subtle, as the bombastic and often unnecessary events are a little distracting and far removed from a more realistic tone that would have focused a little more on the wider points Warner clearly wanted to make.

I’d be a little disappointed if this was in the top half of the books I read Mr. Burgess- I had to at times re-read through pages to ensure that I was right that the various highly dramatic events were just being brushed over. Nevertheless, as it is first, it is at the top.

Ranking Burgess' 99 August 2011:

1. The Aerodrome

Regards,

A faithful reader