Her Fearful Symmetry, How Far Can You Go? and Adrian Mole The Prostrate Years

After enjoying her "The Time Traveller's Wife", I was looking forward to reading Audrey Niffenegger's new book "Her Fearful Symmetry" and I was not disappointed. The first half is particularly good as the young twin sisters Julia and Valentina move from Illinois to the apartment next to Highgate Cemetery when this is left to them in a will. The story follows their encounters with the other occupants of the house, and their struggle to become individuals. The cemetery itself plays a significant part as the backdrop to so many chapters. However, once the novel turns into a ghost story it is less effective, as a real sense of place and character becomes subservient to fantasy. But on the whole, a terrific book, very well written and a joy to pick up each day.

David Lodge has always been one of my favourite writers. His four latest novels have been brilliant. So catching up on his earlier work led me to his 1980 Whitbread prizewinning "How far Can You Go?" I was seriously disappointed. The story of the progress of a number of friends from the 1950's to the 70's would have been quite interesting if the book was not dominated by their relationship with the catholic church. There were whole passages that I found quite unreadable as it became a dissertation on the relevance of Catholicism in the second half of the twentieth century. OK, it was probably a worthy and intellectually stimulating criticism of religion, but it was not for me.

I must have read Sue Townsend's "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 when it came out twenty odd years ago. So I thought it might be interesting to see how he was doing at the age of 39, not having read any of the seven intervening books. I have to say I did not feel as though I had missed very much. It is quite light, reasonably entertaining and occasionally funny. But having just read the powerful and dramatic "The Help", I wanted something less intense. But all I got was Adrian's continuing miserable life as prostrate cancer takes it's toll. So not a comedy as such.