That's a wrap!

The challenge ended February 29th. I sincerely hope you all had a good time with it, that it wasn't one of those challenge that left you weighed with guilt at the end because you hadn't finished all the books you wanted to. :P Remember to submit your list of completed books here (or on any post you like, all come to me in e-mail) so that I can know which authors I should send on vacation and which should remain on the list for the next challenge round later this year in September 2008. Thanks to those who did, so far. Feel free to still post reviews or challenge summaries on this blog, provided that they cover books you completed before February 29th.

Thanks for the interest -- see you in six months!

Here's a nice treat to go out on. The Quarterly Conversation Spring issue features the article Over and Under in which the contributors submit their choice of overrated and underrated novels. Richard Grayson recommended the two John Galsworthy Forsyte sagas for the "underrated" category. Of our members, Becky read the Forsyte trilogies and Geranium Cat tried The Country House.

Olivia Manning - The Balkan Trilogy

I have just discovered that The Balkan Trilogy is being broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as Fortunes of War. Today was the third in a series of three programmes, two programmes allotted to each book in the trilogy. It seems that Olivia Manning is no longer an outmoded author. The dramatisation is good, with Joanna Lumley taking the part of Harriet, looking back on events and Honeysuckle Weeks as young Harriet. Both are just right for the part.

I’ve read the first two books The Great Fortune and The Spoilt City, but not yet read the third book Friends and Heroes. I am waiting for it to be delivered, so in the meantime this is just perfect. I’ll be able to listen to it in the next two episodes before I get to the book.

Rodoreda short story

There's a short story by Merce Rodoreda here.

50 underrated novels

The Guardian's Observer does like its lists, and it brings another one with a list of 50 underrated novels compiled from selected "celebrated writers". None of our noble selections were included -- Elizabeth Bowen is mentioned-- but on a first browse I spotted some eye-catching suggestions.

Elizabeth Taylor received 3 mentions: Angel, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont and Blaming -- woo, go Virago! -- suggested by Charlotte Mendelson, Jane Rogers and Jenny Diski respectively. This proves that they are all in sync with many litbloggers. I never knew that the name belonged to anyone other than the Hollywood actress before I started reading book blogs. At first I wondered a) since when did Taylor write novels and b) why would anyone care enough to waste time reading them. It took me a while to figure out there were two very different persons. ;)

I have The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso, recommended by a Nicola Barker, which I got because I wanted more translated literature and decided to browse the Verba Mundi backlist. I only had a vague idea of what it was about but Barker's description sounds promising.

It would be a crass understatement to say that this book is a challenging read; it's totally and unapologetically psychotic. It's also insanely gothic, brilliantly engaging, exquisitely written, filthy, sick, terrifying, supremely perplexing, and somehow connives to make the brave reader feel like a tiny, sleeping gnat being sucked down a fabulously kaleidoscopic dream plughole.

Who doesn't like dream plugholes? (Does anyone recognise any of the "celebrated writers" yet? I don't.)

Here's one author I recognise. John Banville recommends Langrishe, Go Down by Aidan Higgins, describing it as a "elegiac, bittersweet" book that "probably did not suit the mad mood of the [60s]". Based on my small sampling of 60s fiction I'd have to agree that "bittersweet" was not the predominant tone, so the contrast alone makes it worth a look. A.S. Byatt (to whom The Observer unfortunately gives the first name "As") gives heady praise to a collection of Ford Madox Ford novels called Parade's End -- that Amazon edition is published by Carcanet who also offers two Djuna Barnes books -- ranking it above Howard's End and Mrs Dalloway. I am both pleased that one of my absolute favourite writers likes Ford, for I hold The Good Soldier as about the closest one can get to a perfect novel, and that she considers his other work worth pursuing. Based on the Broadview edition I read the introduction gave the impression that The Good Soldier was the only interesting thing Ford ever wrote.

I don't expect that I'll ever read an Ian Rankin book, but his very concise description of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg piqued my interest in his taste.

Barmy and scary and predating Jekyll and Hyde. And written by a shepherd who barely read any books. A Scottish classic, a world classic, yet hardly anyone, writers excepted, has actually read it.

Besides who can resist reading about someone's hopefully spicy account of his sins? I did like that one James Hogg poem I read in The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien. More importantly there's a NYRB classic edition (an Outmoded favourite) which boasts a detail from a William Blake painting. Sold!

Malcolm Lowry

Although it was a recent TLS Commentary article on one of George Bernard Shaw's drafts, The Household of Joseph, that sparked the idea of this challenge, Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) was one of the first authors that came to mind when I thought of a list. I'd never heard of him before I read a 1966 Paris Review issue in which Conrad Knickerbocker, a reputable critic deceased by the time of publication, did a piece in which he interviewed Lowry's friends and family in England to put together a disjointed image of his life. It was a boozy, intriguing and occasionally confusing read, not least because I had no idea who anyone in the piece was except Dylan Thomas. Diverting enough to keep my interest to the end but not at all intended to get newcomers interested in Lowry's fiction -- it was written for readers who already knew what was what.

Ellis Sharp at The Sharp Side was the blogger who got me actively interested in Lowry's fiction. It's clear that he's something of a favourite of his. Read his take on Lunar Caustic, a novella, and the novel popularly considered Lowry's best, Under the Volcano, which includes commentary on one of his lesser known works, as well as related books.

Other interesting links:

Through a glass darkly - A Guardian article by John Hartley Williams in which focuses primarily on Under the Volcano as well as Lowry's other works, including his poetry, with a biographical approach.

More than most writers, the circumstances of Malcolm Lowry's death are peculiarly relevant to a consideration of his work, since excess of every kind was both his method and his subject.

Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano - A site on his works that I somehow missed the first time around. It includes chapter summaries and a historical overview of the major work, along with a selected bibliography of his fiction and of criticism on his works, and information on a documentary.

Excerpt from Dark as the Grave - Two paragraphs from the novel, Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid. (via Wikipedia)

ArtandCulture artist - Read a bit on the similarities between Under the Volcano and Don Quixote.

Malcolm Lowry and the Northern Tradition - An essay by Hallvard Dahlie. He argues how novelists like Lowry's in their fiction depict

the various ways in which Canada is being transformed from fact into imagination. These novelists have taken the "facts" about Canada - its geography, history, and culture - and created out of them a distinctive mythology which is unmistakably connected to the northern, the frontier, the paradisaical aspects of Canada, and have forged in a relatively short period of time both a tradition and a fictional mode which are significantly different from any earlier movements in our literature.

The Political Strand in Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano - An essay by Tom Middlebro'. In the second paragraph alone we have mentions of Thomas Mann, Faust, St. Augustine, Nietzsche, Schoenberg and Joseph Goebbels.

There are probably more Lowry articles on the Studies in Canadian Literature site but its search feature is broken. Curious as to why Lowry's on a Can Lit site? You silly, I thought everyone knew that Lowry spent the best years of his life in and set "much of his later fiction" in British Columbia.

Further thoughts on the Malcolm Lowry connection - Graham Collier, "Britain's most original jazz talent", writes an intriguing piece on how Lowry's fictions have influenced his compositions.

And if you need any ideas as to where to go next after reading his entire oeuvre here's a handy Literature-Map guide.