more drivel about books

I seem to be revisiting my late teens, at least in terms of my reading. I’ve just re-read Vonnegut’s Gallapagos (a fantastic book, in the literal and the vernacular sense) and I’m also getting through Gogol’s Dead Souls and have a few more of Nabakov’s novels lined up. I think I might draw the line at Anthony Burgess, though.

Nostalgic re-visits aside, I’ve just been through a copulation-laden and genitally-focussed trinity of books: two by Will Self (Cock and Bull, and Naked Ape) and Charles’s Bukowski’s “Women”). All very good reads — funny, sharp, thought-provoking and titillating. Even the chimps’ incessant mating ends up titillating a little which is, perhaps, worrying. I’ve never read Self’s stuff, though often seen him expostulating on BBC arts programmes and thought him interesting and entertaining.