photo: it is spring in Nelson

Briefly, a few books I’ve read and liked recently (I won’t mention the ones I didn’t enjoy). These books have in common that they are well-written and I bought them all at the used book fair in June, where I return them after reading.

Ian McEwan. The Children Act. A fairly short book that plunges the reader into the mind of a female judge who makes decisions about minors in family disputes. One particular case seeps into her personal life. A book that touches our humanity and helps us understand the decision-making process in these delicate cases.

Jonathan Franzen. Purity*. A young woman searches for her father; an East German man living in South America has a rather questionable past; a journalist has a complicated love life, all against a backdrop of reflections on traditional media and Internet activists. Over five hundred pages of pleasant-to-read writing, which could nonetheless have used a slight editing.

Julian Barnes. Elizabeth Finch. The most French of British authors plays along with philosophy, through Elizabeth Finch, an academic (inspired by Anita Brookner), who gets in legal trouble (one can guess which newspaper Julian Barnes is drawing on) after a lecture for the London Book Reviews. The narrator is one of her students, who speaks about this woman with affection and respect, but also about Julian the Apostate, a Roman Emperor who ruled from 361 to 363 and turned away from Christianity for the gods of paganism. Elizabeth Finch’s student and friend philosophises at length in a very French way on this theme and wonders what might have happened a few centuries later if Julian had ruled for thirty years instead of three.

Russell Banks. Foregone*. I haven’t finished this book yet, but Russell Banks’ writing already charms me, as does the story of a Canadian-American filmmaker on the brink of death, who has accepted to answer questions about his life in a documentary before the curtain falls. He fled the United States to escape the Vietnam War, and it is from Montreal that he dives into his memories of New England.

*The English title was kept in the French version.