I have read just over a fifth of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize winner, Bring Up The Bodies, and I’m giving up. Life’s too short. Yes the language is beautiful, but it’s not a page-turner. If I want beautiful language I can read poetry. There has to be something in a story other than beautiful language which compels you to read on. Well, I can’t find it in Bring Up The Bodies.
I think I’ll move on to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, either that or the next Shardlake. Which will it be?
You didn’t have to wait too long. I’m one chapter into The Satanic Verses, and I’m hooked. The use of language is, in my opinion, even better than Mantel’s. Also, I want to know what happens next. It’s certainly a page-turner. But what do Kirkus have to say about it? “Whether it all finally holds together or not is almost beside the point: this is an entertainment in the highest sense of that much-exploited word.” It also seems to be well broken up into sections. That will be useful if I need to break off to read the Cardinal Richelieu biography, before settling down to write the next of the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures.
In other news, I have put down a deposit on the Enyaq Coupé. Now I just have to hope that the home charger is fitted by the time that the car arrives. In this freezing weather I’m looking forward to being able to use the phone app to tell the car to warm up before I need to use it. That makes so much more sense than starting a car and leaving it running for ten minutes. It’s also much better for the environment.