Writer's Block

   Amazon.co.uk - Where Eagles Dare

 

It’s hard not to picture Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in their respective roles for this epic novel. What you realise quickly is that the novel was closely adhered to by the director and that (ultimately) is why the movie was so compelling. The novel is just as taut and very compactly written.

 

I’ve read no more MacLean than this and find his style to be some sort of amalgam of Frederick Forsythe, with its attention to detail, and Thomas Harris, with his powerful driven narrative, but perhaps a touch less sophisticated than either. That’s not a criticism: I am less familiar with his writing, and I shall be reading more of MacLean.

 

The skill of a great thriller writer is to have a credible, compelling, believable plot that is coherently told. If you can weave into that characters that are equally exciting or absorbing, you are in business. MacLean has both elements in balance, and like a good magician he shows us bits of the plotline before concealing it again only to reveal it elsewhere, like a concealed dove. Tall odds, towering odds, face the protagonists, and yet they are both lucky and resourceful in a way you are willing to accept.

 

With a script like this, you really do need Richard Burton to deliver it. Grandiose writing and a masterful thriller that properly chews the mouthful it has bitten off.

 

After two or three weeks offline, I'm finally re-connected and I have moved city to St Albans. I have a small army of book reviews marching on my time and I need to catch up on both these and a lot of articles pestering to be written. Watch this space for regular updates. Mark

 

If Shakespeare was a genius then why is he so dead?

And what use is Nietzsche when he's staler than bread?

It's no coincidence I'm sure -

Mozart, Auden, Dali, Moore -

That within our creature lies a certain flaw.

Human Frailty. Doctors await the Cure.

 

Hard Candy - my film review on Rotten Tomatoes. Yuk. If you've seen this you'll know it turns any man's stomach!

 

Ps. I am catching up today!

The Reader - my film review on Rotten Tomatoes. This one does not measure up to the fantastic book. It's my recommendation that you read it and see this on TV some other day. If you see the film first, you may never pick up a superior work of literature and that would be a great pity!

Slumdog Millionaire - my review on Rotten Tomatoes. RT is a very good guide to what the film going public thinks of current movies if you want to work out whether you'll get your money's worth!

 

 

I went into a bookshop two years ago and the owner recommended this. When I heard the film was coming out I decided to read it before it opened. And what a book. I was slightly wary of a German academic novelist, but that is profoundly unjustified because The Reader is written stylishly but simply. It is a very direct, first person account from an adolescent boy of his feelings and relationship with a woman who has a Nazi past. The first half of the book is a love story in one way or another. The second half is in effect a tragedy. The personalisation of the deeper politics is what perhaps beguiles the critics, because it confounds the analysis and you simply ask yourself: what should I think? How would I feel? What would I have done in his position - in her position? And its not easy to answer. A very moving book, that will stay with you for a long, long, time and one of the best I've read for many years. I'm hoping the film will capture some of that intimacy and the power of the narrative.

 

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James - this is my Amazon.co.uk book review.

The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams - my review for Amazon.co.uk. The BBC should really release the televised version on DVD.

This is my Amazon review of No Sleep for the Dead by Adrian Magson. It is the third and best in the series of crime novels I discovered by accident. The readibility of these is absolutely first class and it is also very rewarding to see how he grows as a writer from a first novel onwards. By this novel, he's got it all very well worked out indeed. Highly recommended. More about the series can be read here on the Adrian Magson website.