MySpace repost: "Ashenden by Maugham"

Oct 24, 2009
Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham

I am told the author's last name is pronounced as a single syllable, "Maum." If anyone knows better, please let me know.

I feel a measure of satisfaction over completing this book, not because it was arduous, or especially hard to come by, or historically revealing, but because I had procrastinated over a year by simply being otherwise occupied. Either work or other activities or other reading got in the way. And I have been looking forward to reading Ashenden since I first read about it. Maugham is a good author. I like his writing style and cadence and word choice(s). Another point of attraction is that my used copy off eBay is from the 1950s! Antique yellowed musty hardbacks carry a certain respectable aire to them, especially when in good condition.

I found Maugham in a collection of critically acclaimed English-language short stories, and looked him up at my local library, finding The Razor's Edge, one of his better known books.

Ashenden isn't too effective as a novel, despite my enthusiastic opinion of his writing style. It has a weak beginning, no climax, and no end. It reads like a collection of short stories, which may or may not have a normal story flow. Unlike 'stream of consciousness' or disjointed rambling books like Max Havelaar, I don't really see a method to the madness. Perhaps that's just my own limitation as a reader, but I am disinclined to think so.

I am currently reading The Horror and Fantasy Tales of Rudyard Kipling, a book I was excited to find at my local library, and which is the subject of my next blog (I am planning to write today).

I recently finished the newest-ish DS9 Relaunch Star Trek book, Soul Key by SD Perry. Star Trek is my light reading to relax between more taxing tomes (hey, that rhymed! Wait, that wasn't a rhyme, that was alliteration: oh, fooey; does it really matter?). I just ordered off Amazon Star Trek: Destiny: Book 1: Gods of Night and Salamanders and Other Wonders by Willy Ley. Their arrival and criticism is forthcoming.

Absolute Friends by John LeCarre

The reason I tagged this book as "U.S. politics" will be clear to anyone who has read the final quarter of this book. Principally, it is not very kind to the American neoconservatives and the Iraq War initiative by the Bush Adminstration. It is also quite critical of conservative media, such as Fox News. With it's British interests, it also says unflattering things of Blair and the Coalition of the Willing and British media.

As such, I realized that may have been why I found the recent LeCarre tome on Goodwill shelves...twice in one week! It may have been distasteful to many conservative American readers, and thus more likely to be discarded. Sad, but to my benefit. LeCarre fans may have been used to the authors' pro-Western stance during his many Cold War novels, and many thus caught off guard. I only speculate.

This is a very very powerful book and I thuroughly enjoyed the experience. I intend to recommend it to friends of discernment.

The only negative I saw is that the book followed very closely the story arch I have seen in other LeCarre books, specifically The Constant Gardener. The ending is different, for sure, but too similar to escape my notice.

Ooh: http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2011/08/legend-of-zeldas-considerably-less.html

JHW: After the recent Adventure

Since my last post I won a job, worked 4 long long weeks, then lost said job, and am positioned to deposit my last paycheck tomorrow.

That's a long story, and a bit of a roller-coaster, because it rarely failed that I was happy with my job on my lunch-break but frustrated to anger at night after work.

Boiled down, the boss threw temper-tantrums and was furthermore impossible to please.

It didn't take me long to realize the character of the boss (chef-owner), so I wasn't suprised or upset when he finally dismissed me. It was sad, but inevitable, following another employee he had terminated the week before. With the previous target gone, I became the new one.

The fact I didn't consider my job worth fighting for doesn't mean that I slacked off. I did an honest and hard-working job until the end, keeping a professional attitude. I actually liked the boss as a person, but he was unreasonably stressful to work for.

Okay, enough prelude, I was a waiter at an Indian restaurant, working for a Hindu man from South India. Tamil, I beleive he said. The city of Che'Nai, however it is spelled.
I feel extremely priveledged to have gotten to work for a restaurant like that. After working in hum-drum American restaurants, it was a treat to be excited about the food I served and atmosphere I worked in. I learned quite a bit, and experienced more Indian cuisine than I ever would have in 30 years otherwise.

Okay, my rambling continues with a book post in just a moment, on Absolute Friends by John LeCarre.