The book I read.

So determined in fact, that I’m setting out to do so with quite what to write about not in mind.

We’re still on lockdown. I’ve been reading a lot. On Sunday alone I read the whole of Camus’ The Plague. I like to read The Plague around every Easter. Camus and I hold similar views on religion, so it makes sense to revisit that particular novel around the holiest week of the Catholic calendar (I was raised Catholic, but haven’t practiced for over twenty years now). This year’s circumstances gave the reading a different spin to previous attempts.

I’m currently reading Edouard Louis’ much-celebrated The End Of Eddy. I thought that I would fly through it, as it’s such a brief read, however the subject matter demands pause. It’s an impressive piece of work though, and has inspired me to place an order for the rest of Louis’ oeuvre.

The first book I finished in lockdown was Winter In Sokcho, by Korean-French author Elisa Shua Dusapin. It’s a tale which values atmosphere over plot, which, light as it is, tells the story of the relationship between the young half-French, half-Korean receptionist of a run down hotel in the resort town that borders North Korea and the French bande-desinee author that comes to stay. The premise alone captured my interest.

I followed Winter In Sokcho with Philippe Besson’s Lie With Me. Incidentally, this novel was translated from the original French by Molly Ringwald. It’s another slight novel, and one which I initially struggled with. It’s set in the 1980s in provincial France, which is a period and a place that I am ordinarily quite drawn to, but the brief novel really struggles to get going. The last act had me in bits though, so I guess it won in the end.

Here’s a nice article about the role that bookshops have played during lockdown.