Reviews by Kenny_Shovel

History of the Black Loyalists during and after the American war of Independence. No one comes out of this looking too clever.

K-S

Can you make a difference in a corrupt society, and do the people even care if you try? Achebe dissects post-colonial Nigeria with his usual skill

K-S

More of the same from Wodehouse. The Jeeves and Wooster story lines are pretty much interchangeable, but who cares when you’re having this much fun. A great read and an ideal one if you want to rest the brain between more substantial novels. They do tend to leave you with one nagging question though. How on earth did the British upper classes build an empire if they were this bloody stupid?

K-S

An excellent collection of short stories by one of my favourite Czech authors. The title gives away the theme of the four stories, all of which are immediately engaging, with the stand out being “The Truth Game”, a contender for my top ten favourite short stories. Quality stuff, from an under appreciated and highly gifted author.

K-S

Covers similar territory as ‘One Man’s Justice’ by Akira Yoshimura but with less conviction. The story is of a Japanese doctor who reluctantly takes part in human vivisection on American prisoners of war. Too much of the book is spent filling in back story and not enough on the aftermath of the operations/killings for the consequences and feelings of the characters to be fully developed. In the end It felt like a missed opportunity.
However, Endo has an excellent reputation, and the quality of prose and dialogue was high enough for me to give him another go.

K-S

I read this whilst watching the film. Ten minutes of the movie, then 20-30 pages of the book. In retrospect I’m not sure that was a particularly good idea.

The book had a good plot, and great dialogue, let down by the occasional feeling that characters weren’t always acting in a realistic way. Perhaps that’s the book showing it’s age, perhaps I wasn’t suspending belief enough for a mystery story. Still, there’s more than enough here to convince me to read more of Hammett’s work.

K-S

Albania’s Ismail Kadare takes us back in history for a medieval horror mystery. Local authorities are baffled when an old woman and her daughter Doruntine fall into a coma and die, after Doruntine has been seemly brought back from her distant marital home by a brother she did not realise had died three years previously. Oooooo spooky.
An unusual, but enjoyable book by Kadare. Many of his works are elegies, but if this was one of them, I was too thick to pick up on it.

K-S

My first outing into Jeeves and Wooster, although not my first Wodehouse, and I found myself on pretty familiar, and very comfortable, territory straight away. Tim-nice-but-dim upper class Hooray Henrys, dotty aunts, comic misunderstandings and all the usual fair of the English country house farce. All elevated above the crowd by Wodehouse’s mastery of comic prose.

K-S

Best poet of her generation? Best Russian poet of the 20th Century? Best female poet of all time? It’s hard to know how high to set the bar when praising Akhmatova, given you are viewing her work through translation. But even someone with a tin ear for poetry like myself can appreciate the genius on display here. A good collection, but perhaps bettered by the Penguin edition of selected poems ISBN 0-14-018617-4

K-S

Kawabata is a favourite Japanese author of mine, with a very minimalistic approach to prose. So much is unsaid. Snow Country is about the relationship between a Japanese businessman and a ‘hotspring geisha’. You’d need a good knowledge of Japanese culture to understand all the nuances of the book, so instead I settled for expanding the knowledge I did have. All in all, a rather beautiful book.

K-S