Hope you have an excellent time - and also enjoy some peaceful reading. A more than interesting read, almost like a thriller at times. Thoroughly enjoyed the read. Ultramarine by Malcolm Lowry has been occupying proust :. It is - thematically and textually - somewhere between Conrad and Joyce. It is often dismissed as juvenilia, but is a fascinating read, certainly prefiguring his magnum opus, Under The Volcano.
Another interesting aspect - references to Wirral and Liverpool throughout as the narrator travels the seven seas, and remembers his home area. Is Lowry sufficiently appreciated in Wirral? Time for a Lowry revival? What a belting reading experience that was. Pizzolatto, better known as the creator of hit TV show True Detective, has delivered a super piece of modern noir, recalling Lehane, Johnson, Thompson, Willeford et al. Following middle-aged gang member Roy Cady, whose bad day starts when he finds out he has cancer.
It gets worse when he gets wind his boss has put out a hit on him. After a violent episode, Cady takes flight with a young girl caught up in his mess and the pair escape to low-rent motels, seedy bars and the dark backstreets of Galveston.
A real piece of indulgent entertainment. I loved it. A couple drives down an old, almost deserted country road and discovers a mother and daughter still living there across from an apple orchard. Stegner entwines the surprise sweetness of both - expecting bitterness and instead finding small apples that taste like wine and a girl that does not feel even remotely cheated by life.
You dip your hands in the pool to scoop out a drink. Your hands are achingly cold, but the water you swallow is the sweetest you have ever tasted. The features and contexts of each portrait, both familiar and unfamiliar, are described with an enthusiasm that makes you lean in for a closer look. And there is story after story. I think it would still make a great gift this Christmas.
