IWhat I’m Reading is in support of WWW Wednesday hosted by Sam at Taking On a World of Words. it’s actually a weekly meme but I choose to do it just once a month.
What I just finished reading
I bought Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald in 2021 on the strength of a TV series called Write Around The World in which the actor Richard E Grant visited the cities and landscapes that inspired great writers and their books. Part of the novel was set in the South of France, an area I’ve visited several times so I thought it would be interesting to see it through Fitzgerald’s eyes — he and and his wife Zelda were regular visitors.
Sadly there isn’t as much sense of a location as I was expecting. There are several wealthy visitors and lots of partying but I never felt I was actually there on the French Riviera. It didn’t feature to the extent I was expecting — a few chapters only and then we’re off to Paris.
The book was achingly dull, partly because Fitzgerald’s style was so ponderous. Maybe it was building up to something more interesting than the account of a young and naive who gets drawn into the world ofthe uber glamorous couple Dick and Nicole Diver, But I couldn’t bear any more so abandoned it at the end of part one. I never really understood why The Great Gatsby was rated so highly and Tender is the Night has now confirmed that Fitzgerald is not for me.
What I’m reading now
After Fitzgerald’s turgid prose it was a relief to turn to something far less up itself. The Fall of Light by Niall Williams is an Irish family saga which begins in the years leading to the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. The Foley family, tenant farmers on the estate of an absent landlord, leave their smallholding and travel west in search of a different life. Disaster strikes and they become separated, scattered across the country and overseas. In essence Williams’ novel offers a microcosm of the experiences of the rural Irish and their diaspora in the mid nineteenth century.
I’ve read a later novel by Niall Williams — The History of the Rain — so I know to expect an element of lyricism in the narrative.
What I’ll read next
Always a tough question. I don’t plan what I’ll read next (unless it’s a title chosen by the book club), much preferring to leave the decision to the minutes before I climb into bed. Since I’ve signed up to the #20booksofsummer however, I suspect my next choice will come from the list I drew up last month. The Library Book by Susan Orlean is calling to me but then so is Birnham Wood by Eleanor Catton. I also have a hankering for something that will connect with my Reading Africa projec – so maybe Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo or the Compendium of Short Stories by African women writers that was given to me by a member of our walking group.
If you’ve read any of these, let me know which you’d recommend.
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