Louis de Bernières – Explaining to Humans What They Did
It’s probably true that readers come to expect a certain product from an author, though this may be more true of specific genres like crime fiction and historical romances, built, to a more or lesser extent, on working, known models. Good authors, however, surprise. They are to be identified, as often as not, by the breadth and range of their writing, the diversity of the situations they tackle and the spread of characters they inven...

Twilight of the feet of the Idols
No hero is ever safe from being felled by his/her past. I discovered this when the story broke that Gunther Grass had served in the Waffen-SS. I, and others, had believed him when he claimed that he did not fight in the war, and subsequently found his anti-nazi stance strenghtened by the courage of his convictions. In his old age he admitted that he had lied about it. What a quandry for his supporters. He was, and I suppose still is, despite the evidence of hi...

Nick Hornby’s Slam, Easily Excellent.
Nick Hornby is a remarkable writer, not because he writes well (he does), but because he is easy to read. It is one of the most difficult illusions for an author to master: making the reader believe that writing is easy. In this Nick Hornby is simply inspired. The eye flies over the page, the pages turn quickly and the voices of the characters chatter away in your head like an overheard conversation in a quiet room.
His latest offering, Slam, is ostensibl...

Amelie Nothomb: The Perpetual Introspective Outsider 

Under the most excellent title Le Clézio, le backlash, Adrian Tahourdin writes an article in the Times Literary Supplement on the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In it he refers to the dissenting voices being heard in France regarding this year’s winner. He refers to an article Frédéric-Yves Jeannet wrote in Le Monde, where the latter states that Le Clezio writes about fine sentiments and noble causes, but that...

Life as Remarkable Failure: Tim Winton – An Open Swimmer.

An Open Swimmer, published in 1982, is Tim Winton’s first short novel, and won the Australian /Vogel Award for Best First Novel. To anyone who has read any of his books, this honour will come as no surprise. He is an exceptionally talented writer, with deep insight into the human soul. Since then he has received more accolades; the Miles Franklin Award, twice (Shallows, in 1984 and Cloudstreet, in 1992), the Commonwealth Writers Pr...