James Metcalf on the fictionality of the latest archaeological page-turners
Stephen Puddicombe looks at the unusual appeal of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Ciaran Rafferty investigates the science of book classification
Anything by the late Michael Chricton is compulsively readable, action-packed and well put together. It may not be Tolstoy, but the style is at least more interesting than Dan Brown's. State of Fear certainly challenges many of our assumptions about Global Warming (or should I say the Theory of Global Warming)and the scientific community in general.
It is interesting to confront the novel to films such as The Day After Tomorrow and Al ‘America’s Ex Next President’ Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Chricton’s comprehensive bibliography and interesting appendix will leave you with a newfound skepticism for rising sea levels and media-induced hysteria.
His other so-called techno-thrillers include Next a story about a genetically modified talking monkey raising ethical questions regarding the ownership of our gene pool. Prey on the other hand deals with nanotechnologies gone out of hand, while Airframe is a more typical thriller investigating an airplane crash. They’re not strictly literature but they’re real page turners, and they’re just damn good.
Companion films: The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004), An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
If you like your thrillers of a more literary variety, I highly recommend Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series, starting with Case Histories, followed in 2007 by One Good Turn and finally this year's When Will There Be Good News? Atkinson’s humour and masterful narration is sure to captivate your attention within the first few paragraphs and surprise you at every turn.
Both One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News? are set in Edinburgh (the first one during the Fringe festival!) and include the explosive cocktail Jackson Brodie/ DI Louise Monroe, which readers--including myself--have come to know and love.
York-born Atkinson has a literary style which succeeds where most novelists fail: her writing is seamless streaming in and out of her character’s thoughts, memories and desires. Plus, her dry humour and snappy dialogue have the making of a Hollywood scenario combined with the intelligence of modern classic. What’s more, you feel particularly cultured when you recognize the various literary allusions without prompt.
Companion film: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black, 2005)
Into the Wild by John Krakauer
You’re not going away this summer? Stuck working in York or interning in London? You’ve always wanted to give up on the consumerist lifestyle burn your money and backpack around the world? This book is for you.
The book that preceded the Into The Wild film (Sean Penn, 2007), is a journalistic account of what happened to Christopher McCandles pieced together beautifully by Krakauer from interviews with those who met Chris during his travels. It’s hard to put down and even harder to resist the Jack London-inspired call of the wild bathed in the cold majesty of Alaska.
Companion Film: Into the Wild (Sean Penn, 2007)
Lulluby by Chuck Palahniuk.
Palahniuk owes his fame primarily to Fight Club which was adapted into the now cult-film directed by David Fincher (1999) with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. Fight Club is no easy read and is perhaps not the best place to start with Palahniuk whose style thrives upon deconstruction and refrains, and whose novels are as ever difficult to place genre-wise.
Lulluby is in many ways more accessible with its intriguing tale of a song which kills, and a narrator on a mission to stop the massacre by destroying all existing printed copies of the songs. The narrative grows stranger and stranger as the novel develops and Palahniuk's mastery is very clear: achieving an impressive degree of verisimiltude in a novel that would otherwise be labelled 'fantasy.' Those wishing to continue down the enthralling Palahniuk-route are encouraged to read Diary an even weirder novel dealing with an artist stuck on a claustrophobic island working a hopeless job to support her family after her husband kills himself.
Companion film: Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
You must log in to submit a comment.
