Smith vs. Smith

Ali Smith and Zadie Smith are great young British authors. I thoroughly enjoyed A. Smith's Hotel World. Her latest, The Accidental, is not bad, either.

Just finished reading Z. Smith's third novel, On Beauty. Once again, brilliant observations on people, very nice twists in the story. More fun than "The Autograph Man", but maybe not as captivating as "White Teeth". With White Teeth, Smith really kept the reader wondering what could happen next.. a bit like you would wonder what an unpredictable friend would do next. On Beauty is mainly about academics and they are maybe not unpredictable enough.

Penguin published two of Smith's short stories in a small volume. I'd be looking forward for her to publish a collection of interlinked short stories.

More Japanese authors

Murakami's 'Kafka on the Shore' is probably my favourite among his books. Interesting stories, no pretense. Of course some real literary critics will say it is shallow, but then again what is not? Joyce is too commonplace, B"oll too obvious, Joseph Conrad utterly trivial but tries to hide it by using difficult language etc etc etc.

Kafka's short story 'Penal colony' was mentioned in Murakami's book. Not too bad, my favourite is The Rider on the Coal Bucket.

Shusaku Endo's Silence is actually a great book. Seemingly religious, it makes good reading for people who are not religious at all.

Brooklyn (and other) follies

In some other blog article I mentioned that Paul Auster's Red Notebook is full of strange coincidences. Auster's latest book combines stunning coincidences with plausible and interesting characters. Say, there's a talented scholar who cannot finish his doctoral thesis and ends up in a bookstore in Brooklyn. The owner of the bookstore is X, the uncle of the scholar is Y, they meet a jewellery maker Z etc. Umm.. that's of course how we meet people in real life but Auster has a great gift to make the stories really interesting.

The scholar tells his uncle an interesting story about Kafka, among other things. Kafka apparently wrote a series of letters from a doll to a girl who had lost one.

Is there something that could be added? In a rather different kind of book, "Home at the End of the World" by Michael Cunningham, the main character adapts in many different environments. His girl friend at one point asks him "is there any place where you could not be?" and answers herself "yes.. a place without people. You need people."

Are there books about coincidences and adaptation with a main character that would rather not meet people? Maybe Kundera's Immortality.

Shalimar

Is Salman Rushdie's new book any good? Yes. Some parts of it read like action thrillers (written by someone with perfect command of the English language). Some parts of it have amazing historical depth: Rushdie points out that our failures to adjust our policies after the cold war actually made Al Qaeda possible. Some parts are just preposterous and ride on forced allegories. Why do we need the Ukrainian lady, introduced on page 1, in the book?

Memorable characters in the book: colonel Hammir, who suffers from too vivid and good memory.