Skip to main content

We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice.


A quick meeting is usually a good meeting. St Johns Park, New Town, April 2011.

A trip away does not stop the run of books. Mixed fortunes in my selections this week.

The first, Double Indemnity is considered a genre – crime – classic by James M. Cain. The film is probably better known than the book, but both are excellent. A brief but complex novel captures beautifully the tale of ordinary-guy-gone-wrong-at-the-hands-of-a-woman.

It’s a gripping read, and (if you’re lucky enough to have the luxury), the kind of novel that you could pick up and finish in one sitting. Highly recommended.

Decidedly not recommended is James Buchan’s Heart's Journey in Winter. Another genre novel (spies, Cold War and whatnot), it’s a dull read, poorly told. I can’t summon up the effort to say any more about it…

Comments

Hi! Kris...
Thanks, for the recommendations...
Oh! yes, Cain's "Double Indemnity" a classic book and a film that fit neatly into the "film noir" style.

I wonder if author James Buchan, is related to author John Buchan, he Of "The 39 Steps" fame?
Nice photograph and amusing quote too!
Thanks, for sharing!
DeeDee ;-D
Kris McCracken said…
DeeDee, if he is related, sadly he did not inherit the literary genes!
smudgeon said…
That door looks like it would lead to the kind of meeting room you would be taken to in Soviet Russia if you had an uncle who defected...
Kris McCracken said…
Except that in Soviet Russia, they would allow you one last smoke before stepping through that door!

Have you read Darkness at Noon? Absolutely the best novel of ever read that explores the minutiae of the Stalinist purges of the late-30s from the perspective of the traitor/victim. This door would not be out of place…
Roddy said…
Looks like a football clubroom.
You will just have to attend the more upmarket meetings.
Sue said…
I would hope they'd have cake!
Roddy said…
Yeah Kris and Sue, cake is mandatory.
Kris McCracken said…
Roddy, it is a Playgroup building!

Sue, cake is out of the question in times of fiscal austerity.

Popular posts from this blog

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...