Mercury57: Lines of Connection
DiscussieCommonwealth Challenge
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1Mercury57
Hi there, am very interested in this because some of the countries feature in my own challenge - reading from countries crossed by the Equator and the Prime Meridian. I'm hoping we'll be able to share some ideas particularly for the countries which don't have a strong literary tradition
This is the LT thread I'm using to keep track and also to ask for suggestions of books to read
And I'll be also blogging about the experience
here
Looking forward to exchanging ideas with you
Karen
This is the LT thread I'm using to keep track and also to ask for suggestions of books to read
And I'll be also blogging about the experience
here
Looking forward to exchanging ideas with you
Karen
4Mercury57
New purchases this week.....
English Voices - Peter Ackroyd - I'll be reading this for my Reading the Prime Meridian challenge
A Lifetime's Reading: An Introductory Guide to Five Hundred Great Classics of World Literature for a Private Library by Phillip Ward. Have just skimmed the intro and its a bit of an odd book. Ward is a librarian so this is his list of books everyone should read. It's organised by year - you're supposed to read 10 a year....
Two I picked up from a charity shop....at bargain price
Sovereign by C J Sansom. This is the third in the series featuring the lawyer Matthew Shardake. I read the first Dissolution earlier this month and enjoyed it hugely. So I just have to get book 2 now.
Alexandria Quartet - one of the books in Anthony Burgess's Ninety Nine Best Novels
English Voices - Peter Ackroyd - I'll be reading this for my Reading the Prime Meridian challenge
A Lifetime's Reading: An Introductory Guide to Five Hundred Great Classics of World Literature for a Private Library by Phillip Ward. Have just skimmed the intro and its a bit of an odd book. Ward is a librarian so this is his list of books everyone should read. It's organised by year - you're supposed to read 10 a year....
Two I picked up from a charity shop....at bargain price
Sovereign by C J Sansom. This is the third in the series featuring the lawyer Matthew Shardake. I read the first Dissolution earlier this month and enjoyed it hugely. So I just have to get book 2 now.
Alexandria Quartet - one of the books in Anthony Burgess's Ninety Nine Best Novels
5Mercury57
Country: The Congo
The Book: Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
Take a seedy bar in a dilapidated part suburb of an African city; mix in a few odd ball characters and the stage is set for Alain Mabanckou’s effervescent narrative Broken Glass.
The eponymous narrator is a disgraced school teacher. He spends his days soaking up large quantities of red wine at the Credit Gone West bar . Requested by the bar’s proprietor to write the story of the bar and its clients, Broken West finds himself beset by a string of misfortunates with hard luck stories who all want to set the record straight about their downfall. Each tries hard to convince Broken Glass that they are the innocent victims but Broken Glass exposes the delusions at the heart of their tales of woe. Some of the tales and episodes border on the absurd and the fantastical – in one scene two customers engage in a contest to prove who can urinate for the longest time.
Though most of the early part of the book is taken up with the stories related by his fellow patrons, Broken Glass gradually begins to reveal the story of his own misadventure and his growing revulsion towards these downbeats. The tone veers between downright funny and bizarre and then, with a deft touch, to mocking satire on the nature of African politicians, the self-delusion of upstart Congolese men or the mediocrity of authors.
It’s a clever book full of teasing (unattributed) quotations from other texts, from Hamlet to Catcher in the Rye, from One Hundred Years of Solitude to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, slipped into the narrative as if they are the narrator’s own words. It doesn’t take long to discover that Broken Glass takes his task as a writer and curator of the bar’s history very seriously.
even when I’m drunk I hate useless repetition or padding, as used by certain writers known to be first-class drivellers, who serve up the same old stuff in every new book and try to make out they’ve created a new word, my eye ….
This is a short book with a distinctive voice and style in which words, images and literary allusions freewheel with barely a pause or a full stop. It’s stream of consciousness but without any pretensions to grandiose statements about the universe or humanity. I read this book as part of my Reading Along the Equator Challenge. I didn’t learn much about the Congo from it (would love to know what kind of a dish ’bicycle chicken’ is since Broken Glass seems to live on it) but it was enjoyable and memorable nevertheless. Alain Mabanckou is considered one of Africa’s leading living novelists with an impressive list of commendations and awards. I came across him by chance in a library book sale but will now definitely want to read more of his work.
The Book: Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
Take a seedy bar in a dilapidated part suburb of an African city; mix in a few odd ball characters and the stage is set for Alain Mabanckou’s effervescent narrative Broken Glass.
The eponymous narrator is a disgraced school teacher. He spends his days soaking up large quantities of red wine at the Credit Gone West bar . Requested by the bar’s proprietor to write the story of the bar and its clients, Broken West finds himself beset by a string of misfortunates with hard luck stories who all want to set the record straight about their downfall. Each tries hard to convince Broken Glass that they are the innocent victims but Broken Glass exposes the delusions at the heart of their tales of woe. Some of the tales and episodes border on the absurd and the fantastical – in one scene two customers engage in a contest to prove who can urinate for the longest time.
Though most of the early part of the book is taken up with the stories related by his fellow patrons, Broken Glass gradually begins to reveal the story of his own misadventure and his growing revulsion towards these downbeats. The tone veers between downright funny and bizarre and then, with a deft touch, to mocking satire on the nature of African politicians, the self-delusion of upstart Congolese men or the mediocrity of authors.
It’s a clever book full of teasing (unattributed) quotations from other texts, from Hamlet to Catcher in the Rye, from One Hundred Years of Solitude to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, slipped into the narrative as if they are the narrator’s own words. It doesn’t take long to discover that Broken Glass takes his task as a writer and curator of the bar’s history very seriously.
even when I’m drunk I hate useless repetition or padding, as used by certain writers known to be first-class drivellers, who serve up the same old stuff in every new book and try to make out they’ve created a new word, my eye ….
This is a short book with a distinctive voice and style in which words, images and literary allusions freewheel with barely a pause or a full stop. It’s stream of consciousness but without any pretensions to grandiose statements about the universe or humanity. I read this book as part of my Reading Along the Equator Challenge. I didn’t learn much about the Congo from it (would love to know what kind of a dish ’bicycle chicken’ is since Broken Glass seems to live on it) but it was enjoyable and memorable nevertheless. Alain Mabanckou is considered one of Africa’s leading living novelists with an impressive list of commendations and awards. I came across him by chance in a library book sale but will now definitely want to read more of his work.
