E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

I have just completed Philip Roth 's 2010 novel, Nemesis , which seems to me to be a classic of simple diction and classical story-telling, like Hemingway 's Old Man and the Sea - and Roth too deserves the Nobel for this book, which is about as humane, moving, suspenseful, and powerful as literature can get - concerned as it is with mind, body, and soul - ultimately how these inter-act with history, love, and duty - over which hangs death and disease.  Biblical, yet homely and local (Newark), timeless and yet set in a time fraught for Jews and all Americans (1944), focused on a few young Jewish people of decency, and yet widening to embrace all those struck by "bad luck", and those blessed with good fortune, Nemesis amazed me with its efficacy. It is the first novel of this century, in English, that truly made me want to write my own novel.  However, what is doubly impressive is that Roth has pulled off a neat trick - while seemingly straightforward, this is a fic...

Been reading Lucky Jim - at last! - while on vac; I know, I know - but I always preferred to come at Amis Senior via his under-rated poems, which are rather good, really. Aside from noting being a lecturer hasn't changed all that much in 56 years, it is striking (and this is a rather expectable observation, the kind I like to make) how many tropes, themes, phrases, and exact words, seem directly influential on the poems of Larkin , who was, of course, privy to early drafts of the work. Fear and boredom dominate the life of eponymous hero Jim Dixon, as does an interest in pretty "girls" beyond reach. It's a surprisingly romantic, even touching book, as well as being pretty darn funny at times. Required reading, indeed.