I have to confess that when it comes to fiction, I don't exactly go for the literary classics. All that education, and she goes for the chick-lit from the airport book shop, I hear you exclaim! In my defence, I like to read heavy and challenging books about politics and history. But not on the beach, and not when I run the risk of being interrupted on every page by my supposedly sleeping companion.
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The worst book I read was Joanna Trollope's Friday Nights.I did not see the point of it. I think she was trying to emulate Virginia Woolf, in trying to examine the lives of several women, and how those lives changed when one man passed briefly through their lives. And I can see the attraction of that. But nothing happened, at all.
That would not have been so bad if I had been able to empathise with the characters. But they were portrayed so superficially, so I just didn't care. I am sure that she thought there was some great literary concept in have allusions to this rather mysterious, elusive man who just seems to drift around the novel like a cypher, even though he is supposed to a sexy and dynamic entrepreneur. If I had been at home, I would not have bothered finishing it; indeed, I wouldn't even have bought it but for the 2-for-1 offer in WH Smiths.
The second most inconsequential book was Penny Vincenzi's Wicked Pleasures. A veritable doorstep of a book, and, in fairness, one that was a page-turner. I can't say that there was any literary merit to it, and I don't suppose that she intended it to have. It's a saga of a family, stretching over several decades. In many ways it was dire: one part of the family were super-rich hereditary bankers from New York and the Hamptons, the other part were some minor English aristocracy. So these people floated through life inventing problems for themselves - there were some token archetypal working class people, too. None of the characters was particularly well-rounded, and, again, I didn't care about any of them. I would have liked to have said that it was a biting commentary on the spiritual and intellectual vacuity of these people, but, sadly, the writer gave the distinct impression she thought they were wonderful simply on account of being rich and/or titled. I wouldn't have minded if they did anything exciting and glamorous, but it seemed that their lives were just an expensive version of the average suburbanite's. And it was rather badly edited. I could tolerate one mention to 'public hair' but two was silly. And in case you are thinking there was lots of sex, there was, some, at least, but it was decidedly lacking in erotica - if you're going to buy downmarket fiction, the least you should expect is graphic sex.
But I did read two decent books and hopefully, I shall write about them soon.
