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The Foot of Clive, John Berger

Must a book be 'coherent'? Is it not enough to see prose, huge, gazing back at you, as well as #mynhs, a heroic socialist factory worker, an Anglo-Indian clerk trying unsuccessfully to act as the voice of reason, a tramp, religious hypocrisy, crushing Second World War trauma, and something something the death penalty something something modern Britain?

This is a book set in a men's ward at the dawn of the National Health Service (#mynationalhealthservice) where an assortment of men of different ages, backgrounds, and social classes (almost like how Britain is made up of people of different ages, backgrounds and social classes! And attractive nurses) are thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a convicted murderer onto their ward. I cannot stress enough how the convicted murderer plot does not go anywhere! I was expecting something to happen! We build up to his appearance, he is hotly discussed, he is in the curtained bay beside them, we learn that....everyone feels uncomfortable and has conflicting feelings about the nature of retributive justice as a result! And then we go into everyone's conflicting feelings about their terrible 1960s sex lives which is where I have to add a content warning for sexual violence for this book.

Also, there is a Young Person, and He Wants A Different Kind Of Future, What Will He Learn From These Older People? Is it that the tramp represents a kind of freedom from the stifling bourgeouis conventionalism that surrounds him? Should we throw the bosses into the sea? (A genuine question raised by this book when one character goes on holiday with his wife). What are women, actually? Could we relate to them more genuinely in future, or is this asking too much?

Fascinating questions all! And a great look back at the actual Good Old Days of Britain and how much many people living through those idealised times were really not having a good time.

30-second book review: Purple Threads, Jeanine Leane

I can't stress enough how this is a deeply charming and funny memoir of a Wiradjuri girl being brought up by her spirited, independent aunts and grandmother on their hard-won patch of farmland with their beloved flock of black sheep........and ALSO the best piece of Classical reception for Tacitus' Annals I have witnessed in my *life*. Jeanine's aunt recounting how she realised that she could carve out her own place as an indigenous woman by manipulating her miserly, controlling white father and her useless brothers, who were due to inherit all the land, by channelling the Empress Livia at every point (minus the poisoning, I have to be clear, this is a purely white collar set of justified misdemeanours) is one of the best things I have ever read.

I cried with laughter but it was also such a resonant, beautiful, sincere book that is about how extremely fucking difficult it was for Jeanine's family to exist as Wiradjuri women in their land but also how extremely fucking cool they were while doing so. Yes, little Jeanine dresses the sheep as elephants and crosses the Alps as Hannibal in it. Yes, they help their neighbour cover up the justified manslaughter of her abusive husband. And yes, so much of school and the outside world is completely terrible, and it takes all of the beauty of this safe inner world to survive it - a beauty that the author evokes so well. Absolutely read this book (or listen to the audiobook which is how I experienced it), but also: if you are a Classics person you need to read this book immediately right now.

30-second book review: By The Sea, Abdulrazak Gurnah

An elderly man arrives in Britain as a refugee from Zanzibar, initially claiming not to speak a word of English and inwardly quoting Bartleby the Scrivener to himself. His well-meaning caseworker tries to hire another refugee from Zanzibar, someone who fled years ago (in a complicated and roundabout way) to interpret, before realising there's no need; but this sets in motion a meeting between the two men, who know each other, and have been entwined with each other's lives, far more deeply than at first glance.

This book is an an absolute layer cake of narratives that conflict with other narratives, and what's fantastic about it is that it opens as a very political, very generalisable, abstract story which becomes more and more messy and personal the more you read on. I really can't spoil you for the way that the story develops, because it has to be read; it's also just beautifully written. You are constantly wrongfooted about the two main characters, about their weak and strong points, and (for much of the book) about why they actually left, but the puzzle box it sets out has edges sharp enough to draw blood. And you get to wrestle with different interpretations of Bartleby the Scrivener and what he means for the power of the subaltern in the context of a stateless person!

I would really recommend this book but definitely with the content warning that of the many events that are re- and mis-interpreted as part of the unfolding of the past, there is a storyline of a man grooming and abusing a boy, which neither of the main characters really sees clearly and without bias; it's jarring, and by the time I finished the book I realised that how jarring it is is part of the point because so much of the book is about a lack of understanding and perception, and of grace.