Tag Archive: Vintage Books


Ben Okri’s magical world of street spirits

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August 16, 2020

THE FAMISHED ROAD by Ben Okri (Vintage Books, 1991)

famished-2In the foreword to the 25th anniversary edition of this mind-expanding Booker-prize winning novel, Ben Okri explains his creative purpose: “All things to do with spirit compel art beyond the rim of possibilities. The visible must be used to invoke the invisible. This compels our art to go beyond itself and find a new language for impossibility.”

In interviews, Okri speaks of telling secret stories that help adjust our “mental land” and shift the consciousness of readers in subtle ways. In the story itself, the Nigerian-born author writes: “When you can see everything from an unimaginable point of view, you might begin to understand”. Continue reading →

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Sapiens: An alternative history of humankind

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October 29, 2017

SAPIENS by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage Books, 2014)

41mjx6yzfel-_sx324_bo1204203200_History is full of big mistakes and there’s a common notion that we should study it to avoid repeating the errors of the past.

However, Yuval Noah Harari explains one of the key problems with taking lessons from previous cultures and generations is that “History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic”.

Such a view could give credence to the belief that “History is just one damn thing after another”.

Harari’s populist approach to the subject is a breath of fresh air. He has been criticized for his lack of scholarly rigor but his non-elitist position is that historians cannot and should not assume an objective, dispassionate position. Continue reading →

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Donna Tartt’s worst novel

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February 6, 2016

THE LITTLE FRIEND by Donna Tartt (Vintage Book, 2002)

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A creepy cover but, like the novel itself, I have no idea what it is meant to signify,

“The only thing keeping this book together is the binding” quipped one reviewer on Good Reads. It’s an exaggeration but I understand where this reader is coming from.

Donna Tartt’s second novel begins,like her first and third, with a violent death. The sister of a dead boy, Harriet,  vows to find out what happened. She’s a gutsy, unconventional young woman and the strength of this character raises hopes that this might be a tight and nail-biting murder mystery or at least a gothic melodrama of sorts.

It is neither.

The main failing is that the tightness and control displayed so brilliantly in The Secret History is absent. Instead, the looseness that made the conclusion of The Goldfinch such a disappointment is all too present.

When Donna Tartt is writing about domestic dramas she is good at exposing “the tiny flaws and snags in the thread of reality” and creates tension in the most mundane of family situations. When she tries to write about characters from the wrong side of the tracks the credibility factor begins to falter. Drug dealers and violent delinquents are not her forte. Long passages here try desperately to create a Dickensian sweep involving good vs evil; right vs wrong but end up being merely sprawling and unfocused.

It picks up briefly towards the end with a couple of good action sequences but by then I’d ceased caring.

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LEARNING FROM WILE E.COYOTE’S MISTAKES

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January 11, 2012

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With the elected philistines (Labour and Conservative) planning to close down at least 10% of  libraries in Britain as part of spending cuts, the book/manifesto ‘Stop What You’re Doing And Read This’  published by Vintage Books can be regarded either as timely or too late.

It is not directly linked to the proposed closures but it is implicitly linked to the issue.

The book serves as an antidote to the general apathy towards books and reading as studies suggest the levels of literacy are falling at an alarming rate.

While I’m sure the texting skills of teenagers are far superior to mine, the ability to write coherent sentences in plain English is plunging. Continue reading →

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