Books - Comments by carey jeggs

Books - Comments by carey jeggs

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Member	Item		Review/Comment
carey jeggs 17th Feb 2022		Book Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho (2011)	Why does Ellis have the Crystals singing Be My Baby, the Ronettes singing Then He Kissed Me and the Lovin' Spoonful singing Cherish? Are these Bateman's errors on account of him being an unreliable narrator or not being a sixties person?
carey jeggs 22nd May 2019		Book Owen Jones - The Establishment (2015)	It would have been more honest if,in the subtitle,'we' had been substituted for 'they'.
carey jeggs 22nd May 2019		Book Elleston Trevor - The Pillars Of Midnight (1959)	Probably the only novel ever to have been dedicated to Reg Varney.
carey jeggs 27th Aug 2018		Book Ian Fleming - Live And Let Die (1964)	The most notoriously racist of the Bond novels although,to be fair,Fleming gives his black characters plenty of agency.There's a lot of sexism as well but the most interesting feature is the ageism expressed through Bond's and Leiter's visit to St.Petersburg Fla. e.g.'It's a terrifying sight,all these old people with their spectacles and hearing-aids and clicking false teeth.' 'There's practically no crime,except cheating at bridge and Canasta.' plus the reference to Sidewalk Davenports. This uncharitableness about old people in Florida resurfaced in the seventies with the Jimmy Buffett song Migration.As Buffett is now seventy-two and the Icy Blast should have started to blow it might be a case of Not So Bloody Clever Now,Are We?
carey jeggs 24th Jul 2018		Book A. E. Van Vogt - The War Against The Rull (1999)	Seems like a nice boy.Mark Rogers's cover design is beyond parody.
carey jeggs 20th Jul 2018		Book Owen Jones - The Establishment (2015)	'Our generation's Orwell' And there are people who say that Russell Brand isn't funny.
carey jeggs 18th Jul 2018		Book Charles L. Harness - The Paradox Men (1976)	I tried to re-read this recently but got bored and gave up halfway through.I prefer Van Vogt for this sort of thing. One thing it does have going for it though is my favourite name for a fictional spaceship. M.John Harrison came close with Heartless Bastard but Harness just beats that with Toynbee Twenty-Two. Toynbee Twenty-Two.Its five year mission: to spread sanctimoniousness throughout the Galaxy.
carey jeggs 18th Jul 2018		Book Fritz Spiegl - A Small Book Of Grave Humour (1982)	Did the dedication say 'Tomb it may concern'?
carey jeggs 11th Jun 2018		Book Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Land That Time Forgot. (1975)	Why is Benny out of Crossroads on the cover?
carey jeggs 19th Jan 2018		Book Charles Lamb - Selected Prose (1985)	Lamb,in Hazlitt's portrait,looking like Gareth Thomas in Blake's Seven.
carey jeggs 20th Dec 2017		Book A. E. Van Vogt - The Voyage Of The Space Beagle (1976)	That Bruce Pennington painting also appeared on the cover of the NEL edition of Brian Aldiss's Equator.
carey jeggs 19th Nov 2017		Book John Norman - Tarnsman Of Gor (1966)	Thomas M.Disch wrote a short story called Planet Of The Rapes which was intended as a parody of the Gor books.Unfortunately it turned into what it took off from.
carey jeggs 18th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - Jack Of Shadows (1972)	How did Zelazny get away with it? The only good thing about this is the introduction of cigarette smoking into Sword & Sorcery fantasy. I can't improve on Kingsley Amis's assessment of Zelazny as a purveyor of magic-without-rules who out-Moorcocks Moorcock.
carey jeggs 18th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - Doorways In The Sand (1977)	Unsympathetic and annoying eternal student protagonist who climbs buildings and has a lovable old uncle who gives money to the IRA,which we're meant to think is cute.
carey jeggs 18th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - To Die In Italbar (1974)	His least favourite of his own books but,considering how many stinkers he wrote,I don't know why he should single it out.
carey jeggs 18th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - Isle Of The Dead (1969)	Educational.Tells you more than you ever wanted to know about meerschaum pipes.
carey jeggs 18th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - Creatures Of Light And Darkness (1970)	Incomprehensible;although,inexplicably,I've read this pile of tripe twice.
carey jeggs 18th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - This Immortal (1968)	Contains a piece of useful advice.Apparently blood is very nourishing once you learn to keep it down.
carey jeggs 18th Aug 2017		Book Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine (1979)	I found this so morally repellent I gave it up.I got as far as the 'hero' mutilating a little girl,with a pair of scissors.This was presented as just a bit of amusing collateral damage in his quest for selfhood.Ian Brady might have enjoyed it.
carey jeggs 16th Sep 2016		Book H. H. Munro - The Complete Saki (1982)	Now who's being Saki?
carey jeggs 9th Sep 2016		Book H. H. Munro - The Complete Saki (1982)	Whoever that is on the cover it certainly isn't Saki.
carey jeggs 22nd Mar 2016		Book Ian Fleming - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (2004)	I've only just got that.At first I thought you were referring to Donald Duck,who was famously banned in China for not wearing trousers.
carey jeggs 20th Mar 2016		Book Ian Fleming - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (2004)	That skier appears not to be wearing trousers.
carey jeggs 10th Mar 2016		Book Patricia Lee Holt - George Washington Had No Middle Name (1992)	I think I've read an explanation of how that myth arose but I can't remember how it went. I don't think not having a middle name is particularly noteworthy;after all Christ didn't have one in spite of sometimes being referred to as Jesus H Christ.
carey jeggs 9th Mar 2016		Book Patricia Lee Holt - George Washington Had No Middle Name (1992)	Any mention of his wooden teeth?
carey jeggs 1st Mar 2016		Book Joel Whitburn - Top Adult Songs 1961-2006 (2007)	It makes a change to see 'adult' used properly,as opposed to its modern weaselly usage which tends to mean childishly lewd.
carey jeggs 23rd Feb 2016		Book Georges Bataille - Story Of The Eye (1982)	I used to be a structuralist but now I'm not Saussure.
carey jeggs 22nd Feb 2016		Book Go Girl Boyfriend 1969 - Proprietors City Magazines	Is that a waxwork of Scott Walker?
carey jeggs 9th Feb 2016		Book Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly (1999)	Contains my favourite set piece in a Dick novel,the stoner argument about the missing gears on the bicycle.It's ten-speed so somebody must have stolen three of them. Sorry.That was of course a comment and not a review.I've not quite got the hang of this yet.
carey jeggs 9th Feb 2016		Book Poul Anderson - The Byworlder (1974)	It must be nearly forty years since I read it and I can only remember one thing about it.It's set sometime in what was then the future but is probably round about now and there's a scene in an amusement arcade where there is an animated display of hairy miniature figures protesting and waving signs,taking their clothes off and rolling around in mud.The tableau is entitled Grandad's World and the young people in the story laugh at it with scorn. Anderson was of a conservative disposition and seems to have been trying to exact some kind of posthumous revenge against tendencies he disliked.

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