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nineveh_ukI had an excellent weekend last week in Ilkley, watching the Saturday of the Lexus Ilkley Open Tennis Tournament (an early grass season event) with my sisters. They are more into tennis than I am, but live sport is always fun to watch, and we had a lovely day of sunshine that wasn't too blistering, and relaxing entertainment, punctuated with occasional bleating of the nearby sheep.
On the train, I read James Lee Burke's Two for Texas a novella that which has been sitting on my shelves for the better part of two decades. TBR piles never do get shorter. It's an early work by Burke, and lacks the depth of his later books, while showing that promise in his fantastic sense of place and descriptions, and ability to draw the reader straight into scene and character. However its compactness as a narrative was a problem for me because it was drawing on a lot of US cultural history/national mythology that I am simply unfamiliar with. I felt like someone reading a short novel about the trial of Anne Boleyn from the POV of a clerk, written for a British audience, while knowing nothing more about Henry VIII than his name. Sam Houston? Never heard of him, but the city must be named after him so presumably he wins something. Santa Anna? A name with no resonance whatsoever. David Bowie? I know he had a knife... But it was engaging nonetheless, and a reminder that I haven't read Burke for a while. It's time to pick some more recent Dave Robicheaux novels off the TBR pile.
On the train, I read James Lee Burke's Two for Texas a novella that which has been sitting on my shelves for the better part of two decades. TBR piles never do get shorter. It's an early work by Burke, and lacks the depth of his later books, while showing that promise in his fantastic sense of place and descriptions, and ability to draw the reader straight into scene and character. However its compactness as a narrative was a problem for me because it was drawing on a lot of US cultural history/national mythology that I am simply unfamiliar with. I felt like someone reading a short novel about the trial of Anne Boleyn from the POV of a clerk, written for a British audience, while knowing nothing more about Henry VIII than his name. Sam Houston? Never heard of him, but the city must be named after him so presumably he wins something. Santa Anna? A name with no resonance whatsoever. David Bowie? I know he had a knife... But it was engaging nonetheless, and a reminder that I haven't read Burke for a while. It's time to pick some more recent Dave Robicheaux novels off the TBR pile.
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Date: 2025-06-22 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-06-26 12:22 pm (UTC)