Julian Barnes: Before She Met Me
Stephen Fry: The HippopotamusStephen Fry, whom you might have seen as an actor in the movie Peter's Friend made his debut as a writer with his novel The Liar. The Hippopotamus is his second novel. Thus I expected a cheecky british novel as its predecessors had been. I must admit I was a quite bit disappointed after the first few chapters. The main hero turns out to be a very disagreeable kind of person.
But then I noticed that this book has a structure like a classical crime story. In the end the investigator, who did not get carried away by the stream of events and stayed rational, assembles the occupants of a country house to a meal where he gives the simple solution of the puzzle. This makes it a bit difficult to write more about this novel. I do not want to spoil you the clue. And this is important in this book. You can learn something about yourself and the way you react to a certain phenomenon by reading the book. So simply read it.
Maybe, to evoke a wrong image, I should mention that you will find sex with animals and non-adults in the book.
David Lodge: Small WorldBesides `Changing Places', `The British Museum is Falling Down' and `Small World' this is another novel of David Lodge which treats certain aspects of academic life. It is in a way a sequal to `Changing Places', but the main characters are newly introduced in this novel. In our days we associate with the term `small world' the internet, but back in the seventies it was more associated with a jetset society. As such a jetset society the academic community is described. Academic staff travels from one conference to another round the world just to meet the same people again.
David Lodge formulates this topic in a romantic novel. The young hero chases after his beloved girl around the world. She presents herself in two extremes: on the one hand, she is a highly educated intellectual girl, on the other hand she acts like a whore. Is this still the same person or are these two different girls. The hero is never quite sure. In a way she might represent science or truth as a aloof lover, which is being chased by scientists.
It is not the first time that Lodge adopts a certain literary style in a novel. In his novel `The British Museum is Falling Down' every chapter adots another style of a certain model and in `Changing Places' the last chapter is written as a film script. This leads us to another typical aspect of David Lodge's novels. It is the sudden ends. Some of his novels end quite abruptly; this gives the reader the feeling that life goes on for the characters after the book is finished.
Perhaps I should not forget to mention that the book is quite entertaining and a pleasure to read.
E.T.A. Hoffmann: Die Serapionsbrüder
Gerhard Mensching:
Arno Schmidt: Die Schule der Atheisten