Dissatisfaction Guaranteed

Either restlessness, intolerance, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has overtaken me in the past few weeks. Barely have I begun a book than I have discarded it as tedious, unneccesarily prolix, or just unexciting. Half-hearted apologies then for more inadequate reviews of books I haven’t read.

Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson.

For this one, I plead mitigating circumstances. I lent this book, along with Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct, to a friend whose daughter is just developing the linguistic skills at least partially explained in this book. All the same, it was no loss. I’d reached page 100 and was getting bored.


American Mischief, by Alan Lelchuk

I've only got myself to blame this time. I’d read a positive report of this book in a review of Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons. The reviewer claimed that Wolfe’s book comes off second best. If true, I’ve been saved from reading two annoying books. I put this one down around page 60.


To the Finland Station, by Edmund Wilson

Not the first time I’ve picked up this book only to put it down again after the first chapter on Michelet and Renan. No doubt of great educational value, but written in such a dry and didactic style that it fails to inspire: it feels like it must be “improving” literature precisely because there is so little pleasure involved in reading it.


Kung Fu Cult Masters, by Leon Hunt

I’ve only read the introduction, on the train this morning, and it’s full of all the old film studies jargon about orientalism and ‘the body as metaphor’ that I thought I’d seen the back of when I finished my Master’s. I’m assured that it gets better as it goes on, however, and there’s more action in the main body of the text, sorry, film, no text.

On a lighter, and non-book note, this also arrived in the post today:

Glitter

Yes, that Glitter. The Mariah Carey movie. It's been impossible to get hold of for ages, otherwise I'd have got it much sooner. Either it was withdrawn from distribution after the farcical reaction it received, or else it was being so widely appreciated for its camp meretriciousness that production couldn't keep up. My brother assures me it is not “bad in a good way,” only “bad in a bad way.” I shall find out this weekend and report back.