Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Surprise! Surprise!
July 24th. 13.15pm
Computer failure of one sort or another at home and at work has led to the long delay in posting a new blog and I've almost forgotten that the real theme is meant to be about losing weight. I have now decided that weight loss is easy if you want to lose weight badly enough but I don't know how badly I want to fight the addictive pleasures of food. I have, in any case, been far too busy eating and reading to bother with weight loss.
The previous lists of detectives is still worrying me as I discover omissions from the previous lists. Why didn't I include Mario Conde (Leonardo Padura)?-because I forgot. There are some I have since discovered such as Cinq-Mars and Espinosa who are now certainly amongst the top twenty. I have also tried to read some of those detective or crime fiction 'classics' which are said to be important in the evolution of the genre though they now seem rather dated and difficult to read. Arsene Lupin is such a one: the hero carries out numerous miraculous exploits without any explanation as to how they were managed . These exploits were obviously imposible but the reader is expected to believe in them. They are a very pale imitation of Sherlock Holmes.
Emile Cinq- Mars is the creation of John Farrow and the stories are set in Montreal, so he's the first Canadian detective I have encountered. Incidentally you cannot count fictional people in your list of ten famous Canadians or Belgians (so Tintin won't count though Herge would) etc.
Espinosa is the only Brazilian detective I know. He works and lives in Copacabana in Rio. Like so many of the fictional detectives his meals are too often ready meals or fast food. Montalban would never eat that food. The latest in the Montalban series was spoilt by his woman being present throughout the Patience of the Spider so he eats far less mouth watering dishes than usuual. Espinosa is the creation of Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza and appears in all four stories I have read so far, of which the first two, December Heat and The Silence of the Rain are the best.
In my search for world wide 'detective' fiction I also came across 'The Coroner's Lunch' and 'The Thirty Three Teeth' by Colin Cotterill who is obvioysly not Laotian though both are set in Laos. They are really quite good but the weakness for me was the inclusion of too much intuition based on the spirits of the Hmong. Are there any Laotian writers of detective fiction? The Laotian hero was the coroner not a detective though he does a lot of detecting in post revolutionary Laos.
Elmore Leonard' s 'Split Images' was a great disappointment after I had raved about 'The Hot Kid' but I have just got hold of 'Up In Honey's Room' which I think is his latest. I don't like the title and almost didn't buy it. Watch this space for my thoughts on it. I was also slightly put off by the title of a book chosen by Nicholas Lezzard as Paperback of the week recently -'Millions of Women Are Waiting To Meet You' but it was incredibly funny.
For a detective who is quite different from the usual, I suggest 'Rough Trade' and 'Dead Horsemeat' by Dominique Manotti. I am not suggesting you should dash out and buy them or log on to Amazon but I'm happy to lend them to friends and family. The food content is quite poor for a French Detective.
Other news:- 1. The weeds on the allotment are taking over. The excessive rain and the summer warmth has led to rapid growth of everything but especially the weeds. The tomatoes have been strickebwith some sort of blight. Can they catch potato blight? The potatoes were very disappointing and although they were obviously 'new' they seemed to be rather old. The raspberries are thriving but will not provide a crop until next year. The Pak Choi has done well but I'm not sure what to do with it. The beetroot are very good but I find that a small amount goes quite a long way. The runners are the best crop of all, closely followed by the cabbages and raddishes. We threw the broad beans out as nobody seemed to like them and the peas were eaten too quickly to ever get them to a cooking pot. I anticipate a good crop of sweetcorn and, next year, good artichokes. So lessons have been learned and next year it will be rather different. Of course as soon as everything has been harvested there will be a need for some serious digging again and the reclamation of the half not yet dug. This should lead to some serious weight loss!
2. Weight Loss-- Nil
Computer failure of one sort or another at home and at work has led to the long delay in posting a new blog and I've almost forgotten that the real theme is meant to be about losing weight. I have now decided that weight loss is easy if you want to lose weight badly enough but I don't know how badly I want to fight the addictive pleasures of food. I have, in any case, been far too busy eating and reading to bother with weight loss.
The previous lists of detectives is still worrying me as I discover omissions from the previous lists. Why didn't I include Mario Conde (Leonardo Padura)?-because I forgot. There are some I have since discovered such as Cinq-Mars and Espinosa who are now certainly amongst the top twenty. I have also tried to read some of those detective or crime fiction 'classics' which are said to be important in the evolution of the genre though they now seem rather dated and difficult to read. Arsene Lupin is such a one: the hero carries out numerous miraculous exploits without any explanation as to how they were managed . These exploits were obviously imposible but the reader is expected to believe in them. They are a very pale imitation of Sherlock Holmes.
Emile Cinq- Mars is the creation of John Farrow and the stories are set in Montreal, so he's the first Canadian detective I have encountered. Incidentally you cannot count fictional people in your list of ten famous Canadians or Belgians (so Tintin won't count though Herge would) etc.
Espinosa is the only Brazilian detective I know. He works and lives in Copacabana in Rio. Like so many of the fictional detectives his meals are too often ready meals or fast food. Montalban would never eat that food. The latest in the Montalban series was spoilt by his woman being present throughout the Patience of the Spider so he eats far less mouth watering dishes than usuual. Espinosa is the creation of Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza and appears in all four stories I have read so far, of which the first two, December Heat and The Silence of the Rain are the best.
In my search for world wide 'detective' fiction I also came across 'The Coroner's Lunch' and 'The Thirty Three Teeth' by Colin Cotterill who is obvioysly not Laotian though both are set in Laos. They are really quite good but the weakness for me was the inclusion of too much intuition based on the spirits of the Hmong. Are there any Laotian writers of detective fiction? The Laotian hero was the coroner not a detective though he does a lot of detecting in post revolutionary Laos.
Elmore Leonard' s 'Split Images' was a great disappointment after I had raved about 'The Hot Kid' but I have just got hold of 'Up In Honey's Room' which I think is his latest. I don't like the title and almost didn't buy it. Watch this space for my thoughts on it. I was also slightly put off by the title of a book chosen by Nicholas Lezzard as Paperback of the week recently -'Millions of Women Are Waiting To Meet You' but it was incredibly funny.
For a detective who is quite different from the usual, I suggest 'Rough Trade' and 'Dead Horsemeat' by Dominique Manotti. I am not suggesting you should dash out and buy them or log on to Amazon but I'm happy to lend them to friends and family. The food content is quite poor for a French Detective.
Other news:- 1. The weeds on the allotment are taking over. The excessive rain and the summer warmth has led to rapid growth of everything but especially the weeds. The tomatoes have been strickebwith some sort of blight. Can they catch potato blight? The potatoes were very disappointing and although they were obviously 'new' they seemed to be rather old. The raspberries are thriving but will not provide a crop until next year. The Pak Choi has done well but I'm not sure what to do with it. The beetroot are very good but I find that a small amount goes quite a long way. The runners are the best crop of all, closely followed by the cabbages and raddishes. We threw the broad beans out as nobody seemed to like them and the peas were eaten too quickly to ever get them to a cooking pot. I anticipate a good crop of sweetcorn and, next year, good artichokes. So lessons have been learned and next year it will be rather different. Of course as soon as everything has been harvested there will be a need for some serious digging again and the reclamation of the half not yet dug. This should lead to some serious weight loss!
2. Weight Loss-- Nil
