zefrog's reviews
1018 reviews

Even though things are changing, LGBT history(/ies) are generally so well kept into the closet by mainstream society that picking up any history book on the experiences of LGBT people will present the reader with myriad new facts about our past.

This book is no exception. However, structurally, it is rather a mess.

There are many digressions (as intrinsically interesting as they might be) where Bourne strays from the topic at hand (perhaps in an attempt to bolster his wordcount in the face of an unsurprising pausity of material), there are glaring omissions in the telling of some stories (no mention of Casement's black diaries, for example), and, as is perhaps necessary for this type of compendium of historical tidbits gleaned from wider narrative, it feels rather disjointed and bitty.

If the reader is not looking for a rigorous scholarly work (Bourne is not an academic, after all), Fighting Proud remains pleasantly readable and informative. As Bourne explains in his conclusion this is an exercise in visibility in response to the general lack of representation in the commemorative output being churned out for the centenary of WWI.

Having recently seen a play purportedly based on this, I was expecting much more of a narrative (there isn't any, except in the introductory chapters) and certainly nothing so very graphic.

This reads as a badly written, unedited draft collection of vignettes; interesting, I suppose, as a rare example of such writing from its time, but little else.

Like most people, I think, I was very much intrigued by the premise of book, while also harbouring reservations about the potentials offered by such a premise.

Having found an 18th century advert asking for someone to volunteer for an experiment in social deprivation, and a later short report that one such volunteer had been found, with a quick description of his apartments, Nathan had very little to go from to write her novel. This would have been both challenging and freeing, I would expect.

Despite limited "action" the book is very well paced and Nathan makes good use of language to help with her already superb characterisation. The narrative deals mostly with domestic events and intimacy (or lack there of), while the grand conflagrations of French Revolution and the English Radical movement reverberate in the background.

Page 257 includes a quote by John Locke (from his Essay Concerning Human Understanding) that goes: "they err as men do that argue right from wrong principles." There is indeed much of that sort of erring happening throughout the book.

In the end, the author produced a thoroughly compelling and engrossing tale, one that brushes on many themes (ethics, class, patriarchy, mental health, lack of empathy, self-delusion) very relevant to our own time.

All those big themes make this a vastly ambitious book, which, I felt, fell short of fully realising that ambition. As mentioned, Nathan touches on many themes but she seems to constantly shy away from scratching more than their surface. Warlow's experience, in particular, is, by dint of who he is and the way Nathan gives him a voice, very sketchy and could have done with better exposition.

And after much wreckage, the book comes to its nihilistic ending and it feels as if things haven't changed that much by the time we reach that final sentence. I was left wanting a definite conclusion (in the sense of inference) to the book, which feels incomplete; more illustrative than a real attempt to flush new ideas.

Reading this after five months of near complete isolation, following the Coronavirus pandemic, gives the central theme of isolation even more preponderance but, again, the book didn't feel particularly enlightening in that respect either.

Perhaps I am missing the point, after all, or I am simply asking too much. The Warlow Experiment remains a unique and rich piece of writing, that is certainly worth a read.

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I was asked to photograph a showcase event, where Nathan read and was interviewed about the book. This is how a came across it.

Perhaps because it is a first novel, Harmonica's Bridegroom suffered from flaws that a more seasoned author may have avoided.

I was ready to overlook the fact that all the characters, who incidentally are nicely fleshed out, end up discovering that somehow they all knew of each other but the biggest problem of novel is its second part and it's impossibly confused and confusing mix of three or four different timelines. This, in no small way contributes to a screeching slowing the pace of the narrative, which is otherwise momentous enough in the other two parts of the book.

The premise of Binding's effort is that slowly but surely some catastrophic events come to light that explain how and why the lives of his characters have been turned upside down, and risk further upheaval.

I am not a great fan of books where the author dangles the prospect of some big secret to be unveiled, while drop tidbit after tidbit. However, apart from the fact that said events, when finally revealed, don't seem quite as terrible as their aftermath might suggest, I must admit that Binding's way of keeping his cards close to his chest was quite as irksome as it could have been. The pacing of the discovery felt about right.

The writing on whole is quite good despite a few mangled sentences and a tendency on Binding's part to assign an order to his words unusual.

Beyond the story of the feud in a close world that drives the narrative, Binding brings together themes and situations that are similar or related. He could have used it to make some interesting points but he doesn't seem to have pushed his thinking that far and in the end those parallel fall rather flat.

Not a great success as a book but not unpromising either, for a first attempt.

At the back of my copy, there is a quote about the book from someone at The Times. It says: "Witty, well-plotted, vividly written and addictively readable."

I'd that pretty much sums it up. I devoured the book in record time. While I think the plotting could have been a little tighter with a few coups de theatre, I did laugh quite a few times and was thoroughly entertained throughout. Unlike so many stories centred on London, the city felt real and recognisable.

Other than the convoluted magical elements of the plot, which I didn't always find particularly convincing, my only big qualm is that the author doesn't seem overly au fait with the realities of migratory flows on London's transport system. The hero often finds himself in rush hour situations (either in a car or on the tube) on journeys or at times of the day or the week where there would be no such things. But you can have it all.

This is a book I liberated from the bin room of my building (No, sir, I have no shame), having no idea what to expect. I have now ordered copies of all 9 following volumes, so it can't have been that bad...

"I have no idea what I just read and I'm too stunned to try and figure it out"

This was my immediate reaction on finishing this rambling, complex and overwhelming tome. The book has become famous because of the repercussions of its publication for its author. I was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

It turned out to be a fairly slow read presenting the reader with a dense tapestry to try and make sense of, something I didn't feel I was always able to do. I think this was partially due to the style of writing which is often rather opaque and didn't flow very well for me. The first few pages in particular made me wonder if I would not be better off given up there and then. Thankfully things mostly improve as the book progresses and towards the end reading Verses becomes almost enjoyable.

It still remains the case, though, that I am not sure what point Rushdie is trying to make. Very often I felt I was missing the cultural and religious references I was presented with, which probably didn't help with my general lack of appreciation and understanding. Thie book is clearly a critique of religion (and more specifically of Islam, although, with the predominant presence of the Archangel Gabriel in the narrative, we could have hoped for something about Christianity too) but it's not really obvious if the author sees religion as a con or faith as a mental illness, or perhaps both. In any case, I couldn't help but think that he could have been more concise and more explicit in what he was trying to say.

On the whole, it was OK (hence the 2 stars) but I feel most of the substance of Rushdie's thesis passed me by, because of the length and intricacy of the narrative, and the writing. I'll have to see but I don't think the book will stay with me very long.

I can't help but wonder if the fame of the book is not really the result of a massive case of Streisand Effect, and if we would still be bothering with it has the religious zealots not seized on it and made it such a cause célèbre, even if the themes still felt very topical, exactly 30 years after publication.

Sweet story. Pleasant read. The author's focus on details paints a very precise image of Bombay and the setting of the story but it feels that it is sometimes at the cost of not telling the story itself. For me, too many details of the story itself are not present in the book which in the end feels a little superficial.