Cycling, cinema, lots of books.

I cycled home from school yesterday because I sensed that Spring had arrived. It was still pretty cold on the knuckles, but I wasn’t far off. Beautiful day. And I went to a film called ‘An Education,’ about an intelligent and precocious schoolgirl who has an affair with an older man. I agreed with my landlady’s verdict: “Elle a perdu un homme, c’est pas le fin du monde, quoi.”

Reading List

The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

Continuing my foray into American Lit, everything I read by Roth makes me like him more. This one has some interesting takes on perspective: he gets behind everyone’s face, under everyone’s skin. I should take a star away for his persistent writing-about-and-perhaps-exclusively-for-academics but I can’t. I also can’t reveal the plot because there are excellent twists.

Score: Five Stains

The Children’s Book, by A.S. Byatt

Possession is to A.S. Byatt what Midnight’s Children is to Rushdie, the big prize-winner that lends a flavour to all subsequent work but can never be topped. I’m not sure this one was worth all the hours the author clearly spent at the V&A researching it. Fewer glazed pot and fabric and Morris wallpaper descriptions and a tighter plot might have helped. Also, at the end of any novel containing the words, ‘1890,’ ‘Edwardian,’ ‘Golden summers,’ ‘cricket on the lawn’ in the blurb, you just know every young male character bought it in the trenches before you open the cover...

Score: 3 stars

The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon

This one’s a cracker, Italo Calvino’s ‘If on a winter’s night a traveller,’ as written by Hunter S. Thompson. Mysterious, deep yet light, and terribly accomplished. I will remember and recommend and re-read.

Score: 49 stars, look out for the best renaissance tragedy plot ever



Entre Les Murs, by François Bégaudeau

Great French semi-autobiography which became a film, English title: ‘The Class,’ about teaching French in a collège in the 19e. I loved this because of the snippets I recognised from my own staff room:

‘Personne sait faire le recto-verso sur la photocopieuse?’
‘Non, mais ‘y a des gateaux secs si t’en veux.’

Inspiring, authentic, a colloquial classic.

Score: cinq étoiles, moi j'sais pas

The photocopier was broken yesterday, stretching our creativity to the limit and singling out the lazy worksheet-centred teachers from the improv. masters. A little spot of pendule filled the gap nicely.

The above are overdue at the library so I'm heading up there this afternoon. I have done many more interesting things but will have to leave them for another time.