Two slim volumes

 I promised myself that one thing I would do during the time I have myeloma (and to be honest, while I also have retirement to help me) was to read a lot of the books about which I had said earlier "I'd like to read that later when I have a bit more time"

Now having spent 20-odd years with the fastest reader I have ever met (200 pages an hour, I shit you not) and having watched Cro devour and spit out books as though they were Ramadan dates, I have some catching up to do. There are more books on the shelf opposite me than I could ever read in my entire life, so I am going to have to be a little bit organised.

So, like the Gilbert and Sullivan character whose name escapes me, "I've got a little list". I have been looking at books or hearing about books that other people recommend and I am going to get through some of them. And I have read the first one (Hurrah!). It is, admittedly, a slim volume but you have to start somewhere. 

My friend Andy in Cambridge recommended 'The Lion and the Unicorn' (above), by George Orwell. In case you didn't know (risk of mansplaining here, I know) Orwell was a fine journalist, and I suppose a polemicist?, as well as the author of 1984. The Lion and the Unicorn starts with the words 'As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me' because he wrote it in 1941, when Britain was at risk of defeat and the future was completely uncertain (with neither Russia nor the US yet involved in the war on Britain's side). He goes on to talk about the kind of social revolution that he thinks the country needs in order to first survive and then win. He also talks at length about the nature of the national character, which is very interesting, and about the way that class prejudice has spavined so many national endeavours. 

The analysis of what the British people are like is very interesting, whether you agree or not. He does see a huge mistrust of 'intellectuals' and 'high culture', which he finds distinguishes Britain from its continental neighbours. He also says at one point that, essentially, you do not have to have a bloody revolution because the people will eventually get the government that they genuinely want. This doesn't mean necessarily one that all are happy with, but he does still believe that totalitarian command and control would never wash here. Maybe that is a good news story. But we can still do chaos as well as anyone else. 

The second slim volume in the picture above is a little black volume called 'Death', by Julian Barnes, which I picked up at the same time. It is perfectly OK, because he writes well, but a little too tricksy for my tastes. I think death requires a certain degree of sincerity, but you will still enjoy it should you choose to read it. I will certainly pass both books on to people who are interested. 

So the reading journey begins (and that is one bit of life that I am happy to call a journey) and I have the entire wall of books in that photo to choose perhaps the next stop on the journey.