Mantel & Self & Eagleton

One of the pleasures of life, which technology has deprived me of, is being able to see what books other folk are reading, as they sit in cafes, or on planes, buses and trains, or waiting in all the waiting rooms of the world, where we seem to spend so much of our time nowadays. Or is that just me?

But nowadays they sit there with their kindles and ipads reading away in secret so no-one knows what on earth they are reading. Most unfair if you ask me. Once or twice my curiosity has got the better of me and I've just gone ahead and asked "what are you reading there". But since the success of Fifty Shades and its various follow ups I've decided it's not such a good idea after all. You just never know what you might find out, or what you might get, a smack in the mouth or the gob, if you are very unlucky. And while I'm here why call this type of rubbish "mummy porn"? It's not porn, it's just crap. So there, that's that sorted.

Can't  remember now where I was going with this post. I've been on the phone and then had to go for a coffee and I've forgotten what its all supposed to be about. Memory is not quite what it used to be. Which reminds me; if you see me repeating myself in this blog, please let me know, as I sometimes forget what I've written about, and it's often not important enough to say it twice. Or maybe it is, which is why you never ever tell me to shut up.

I've just remembered what it was I set out to write about today. And it's to tell you about my own recent and current reading material, which I hope will be of some little interest to you all. And if not, well you can switch off now,  as it were.

I've made a start on Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, which won the Booker prize a few years back. I'm afraid to say I'm making heavy weather of it and I've had to take a break from it. Although I do intend to go back to it, as I'm told the follow-up  Bring up the Bodies is a better read. I reckon I should give it one more chance to impress.

Instead I'm now reading Will Self's book Walking to Hollywood, which  seems to be a mixture of truth and imagination. And he has an abundance of imagination, does old Will.

He does sometimes obscure the border line, between his facts and his fiction, which makes it even more fascinating to read and turns it into a very strange kind of book, disturbing even, and eccentric, as one would expect from Self.

And of course the lesser used bits of the English language get a good airing. He gives an outing to some words which probably did not expect to see the light of day again. Sometimes I think he just likes to show off his erudition, which is vast, needless to say. Its one of those books where a dictionary is essential, which is where my iphone and it's dictionary app comes into it's own. Always knew I would find a use for my iphone.

My bedtime reading is a book by Terry Eagleton called Saints and Scholars, where he imagines a meeting between, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and James Connolly, in a cottage on the West Coast of Ireland. It's a very comic, funny book. I didn't realise that Eagleton had written any novels, but found this one, by chance in the Oxfam shop, next door. Maybe it's his only novel for all I know. I've been to a few lectures of his over the years and he is hugely entertaining and erudite speaker. His novel is the same. I'm making slow progress as I'm reading it in bed and keep falling asleep mid sentence. Nothing wrong with the book, it's just my poor wee brain giving up on me. Or maybe I'm just tired. Anyway its an excellent book to have discovered.

Russell and Wittgenstein are chatting about the latter heading off to Ireland, and Russell says "I must go to bed. Don't kill yourself yet, Wittgenstein." He paused for a moment at the door. "Are you serious about this Ireland business?"  Wittgenstein came towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Death or Connacht," he said hoarsely.

And Wittgenstein did eventually kill himself, though not before Eagleton imagined him to this cottage in Ireland. He got Connolly there by somehome snatching him away from the English firing squad, just before they pulled their triggers.

Will let you know what transpires in Ireland. If I stay awake long enough.