One of the mighty frustrations of buying a barrowload of books, as I did the other day (though buying is the wrong word, I suppose, since really they came buckshee), is not having the time available to get stuck into the pile. Time was when I would have dealt with such a situation by getting started on four or five at once thus sating my appetite, getting easily confused in the process. Now wiser, and far less capable of multi-tasking of any variety, two books at a time is all I can reasonably cope with (with room for a bit of poetry here and there on top) and only one of the two can be a novel, otherwise I'll get the plots confused.
The two books I have in play at the moment are simply wonderful, to the point that one rather hopes never to come to the end of either. One is O'Brian's Post Captain which I've been reading for a little over a week and still haven't got halfway with. But this is because - other than the fact I'm very busy with marking - I'm savouring every detail. It's the second, and thickest, in the Aubrey/Maturin series and the one in which the writer, it seems me, makes a declaration of intent. For a good half of the novel we are not actually at sea, or at least, that is, in a ship under Jack's command, and O'Brian is telling us something to the effect that he can do anything with these characters, take them anywhere, an office in the Admiralty, tea in the English countryside, and it will remain utterly, utterly convincing. Was he really there with them? Oddly enough I remember the first time I read it, some years ago, getting quite impatient for Jack to put to sea and for the story to get moving. I suppose I've wisely slowed down since then.
Alan Bennett's Untold Stories is competing with the mighty O'Brian for my attention, and, extraordinarily, sometimes winning. I've seen a number of Bennett's plays and odd pieces on tv (A Private Function would be on my list of top ten favourite movies), though never in the theatre for some reason, and I've read a few, but I've never read anything else by him, and I'm now realising what a mistake that is. The first bit of this collection, Untold Stories itself which begins with an account of Bennett's mother's debilitating depression is a model of what clarity of style and (apparent) simplicity and directness of voice can achieve. Gripping, tender, melancholy, funny, honest, mercilessly observant: good grief this man can write. pardon my italics but such is my enthusiasm.
I'm feeling blessed to have these companions.
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