Review of "Headlong" by Michael Frayn

I'd never read any Michael Frayn before, though I really enjoyed Copenhagen, and I feel that I've heard him on Radio 4, in the days when I used to listen to Radio 4.

This is a really well-written book about fraud and confidence trickery in the world of art. The main character and first-person narrator is a philosophy lecturer transitioning to art historian - his wife is an actual art historian, and the dynamic involved in that is less explored than it might have been. There's lots of brilliantly well observed stuff about city people with "places in the country" and how they are received by the rural people, and about dodgy money and family inheritances. There's some great historical context about the period of Breughel's life, and about the context in which he was painting, and about how fragmentary knowledge about art and works can be.

But I can't entirely say I enjoyed it, because of the all-pervading sense of dread that hangs over it. The first-person narrator is increasingly stupid as he gets deeper into the opportunity that he thinks has opened up before him, and it feels a bit like watching a slow-motion car crash - the reader can't help but know this is going to end badly, and there enough clues sprinkled through the text that it will too. So it's a bit miserable, because the narrator - unlike most of the other characters - is quite sympathetic.

Review of King Richard

A film about the father of Serena and Venus Williams (and about them too), and how we drives and manages their career.

I'm not usually a big fan of sports films. They are usually variations on the "determination will win through in the end" theme, and this one was sort of like that, but it did have some interesting twists - particularly the title character's wish for his girls to have more than one focus - education as well as tennis. It didn't soft-pedal the relationship difficulties in the household. It didn't make much of the racism that they faced - most of that is in reported speech, whereas we actually see Richard beaten up by young black criminal men.

Anyway, I enjoyed it more than I expected to, even though it was long - two and a half hours.

Watched on Netflix.

Review of "Runaway" by Alice Munro

A collection of short stories, each of which is amazing, emotionally demanding...hard to read them one after another, you need time to get over each of them. Like Greek tragedies, but also like real life in the way that they don't have a neat, complete arc. Sometimes it feels like too much happens in each of them, but it doesn't detract. I will definitely read more of Alice Munro.

Review of "Death in Ecstasy" by Ngaio Marsh

I'd never read any Ngaio Marsh before - I didn't even know who she was, or even that she was a woman. I picked this up from a book drop somewhere. I started off not liking it much. Its cast of posh Londoners put me in mind of Raymond Chandler's comment about country house murder mysteries. There are some gay (should that be "homosexual"?) characters who are depicted with contempt and revulsion. 

But it sort of grew on me. The setting - a weird neo-pagan cult in London, with a grifter "priest" and gullible toff congregation - was interesting, and the place descriptions were evocative. And though the few working-class characters are dreary stereotypes, the toffs are not at all sympathetic - they are stupid, duplicitous, drug addicts and drug pushers. It's sort of interesting to see the slightly impoverished lives that even moderately well-off people lived in London at that time, despite the presence of either personal or shared "service flat" servants.

Anyway, I ended up enjoying it more than I'd expected.