“The Spy Who Came In From The Cold” by John Le Carré (Feb 7, 2024)

 We had a huge turnout – eleven people, possibly a record! – at Nice Guys to talk about our book this month, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carré. It was a very nice evening to be sitting out the front chatting although it did get a bit noisy with the ambient noise from the street and eleven chatting mouths.

Me, I didn't care for the book very much. I thought the characters all felt like paper cut outs, not fully fleshed people. There was very little interaction with the sole female character and the whole story just seemed to be telegraphed well in advance. I thought that there were some nice bits of writing and in particular there were long stretches of dialogue during the trial toward the end of the book which I thought were really nicely done.

As we discussed the book, I started to get a different perspective on the book, that it was written during a very different time when the cold war was still very real, the wall was yet to come down and the role of spies would have been much more important and held a lot more intrigue.

It was interesting to consider the book in the light of Stasiland by Anna Funder which we read some time ago. The picture it painted was of a much more sympathetic East Germany dominated by the government's iron-fisted need to monitor the population's every thought and movement. Le Carré's spies seem utterly self-involved, monitoring each other for little other reason than that was they were doing to us.

We made a remarkably quick choice for the next book which is Western Lane by Chetna Maroo. See you at Nice Guys on March 6.

“The Lover” by Marguerite Duras (Dec 6, 2023)

While I guess it's to be expected at the end of the year and getting towards the festive season, there were only two of us who had read the The Lover by Marguerite Duras (and Richard hadn't finished it).

I found it a complicated and uncomfortable book to read because it really is dealing with the sexual relationship with a young girl (early teenager) and the older man, a son of a rich Chinese businessman. While the book is said to be largely autobiographical, it's difficult to step back from the subject matter and discern whether this really is an abusive relationship or not; the author doesn't paint it as such from her point of view, in fact the person who seems to being abused is the businessman's son.

It prompted a lot of discussion about Grace Tame and whether her abuser would have portrayed himself as the abused party in that "relationship."

Our next book is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carré. See you at Nice Guys on Feb 7.

“Lathe Of Heaven” by Ursula Le Guin (Nov 1, 2023)

 We had a good roll up to Nice Guys and talked about this month's book, The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin. We felt that the book was good, with the sort of middle third of the book really crackling along and very tense. Towards the end of the book it becomes a bit confusing and almost incoherent as the different threads of the dreams seem to become ever more convoluted.

One of the things that Mark has said in the past is that a good story has character development and while one of the main protagonists, Haber, does develop from being power hungry to being blindly obsessed with changing the world to his whim, there's not much change in the other characters.

While it's nominally a sci fi story, I felt as though there were elements of horror that came in as the reader wonders what else is going to go wrong. That's not a bad thing, it certainly built tension.

Our next book is The Lover by Marguerite Duras. Look forward to seeing everyone at Nice Guys for our last book group meeting of the year on Dec 6 at 8:00.

“Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan (Oct 4, 2023)

While Claire Keegan's book Small Things Like These may only be a short book – 128 pages – it really packs a punch. It's the story of a man, Bill Furlong, who is born illegitimately in Ireland but through the kindness of his mother's employer navigates his childhood and becomes a coal deliveryman. While delivering coal to the Magdalen laundry, he meets a girl locked in a shed who has recently given birth but who hasn't been able to see her child. Initially he is reluctant to become involved but finds himself back to try to help the girl.

One of the things I loved about the book was not just how it was written but how much wasn't written. Once the girl is with Furlong, the story ends but we've had so much detail about the repercussions about what might happen going up against the powerful catholic church that we know that there's a whole other tale to be told. And there's no need to tell it – this isn't a Disney movie – and we can let our minds spiral off through all sorts of permutations and wonder what might have happened.

We really enjoyed the story and it led to a lot of discussion about the church and social mores.

Our next book is The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin. See you at Nice Guys on Nov 1!

“If This Is A Man” by Primo Levi (September 6, 2023)

It was a really lively discussion about a book that most people seemed to really enjoy (for some version of “enjoy”). Very challenging reading about the author’s experience in a concentration camp during world war 2 under German control. I was taken aback by the way that the prisoners were so systematically dehumanised and treated so callously. We spoke a lot about how Levi really only managed to survive by luck when so many of his contemporaries died, how the inmates had to follow not the explicit rules of the camp but enter into the whole bartering and trading system that the camp really ran on in order to have any chance of survival. The writing in the book always felt immediate but the subject matter was described in a detached way which I think allowed the book to be read, it would have been too much otherwise.

A really powerful book – recommended.

Our next book is “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan. See you at Nice Guys on Oct 4!

“House of God” by Samuel Shem (August 2, 2023)

 While I thought a lot of the plot development was formulaic and predictable, the insight into what happens inside the medical system was really compelling. I thought it was diverting and very enjoyable but many others found it laugh-out-loud funny.

“Heaven” by Seiko Kawakami (June 7, 2023)

 I found this a very moving book describing bullying in a Japanese school and its impact. Others thought it was trite.