Kipps by H.G. Wells

I enjoyed Kipps immensely. Wells remains one of my favorite authors ever. Kipps was a lovely social commentary about the absurdity of "society" and money in late Victorian England. It mocked the middle classes who desperately wanted to be part of the society, while at the same time pointing out what idiots most of the society people were. It was all about laughing at tragedy and social awkwardness. Kipps wandering through London famished because he was too embarrassed to go into any of the restaurants because he didn't know what to do or what to order. There was also a most Excellent passage about the EVILS of real estate agents. It was as true a 100 years ago as it is today. The book ended with a happy ending, which was quite unexpected and came about because of trusting the drunken actor.

All in all very fun. Non-science fiction H.G. Wells at his best.

Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood

I haven't been writing about the books for bibliogoth on here as I try to keep discussions to the group. But I realised that I should keep track of them anyway so I'll have a more accurate record of what I've been reading.

Goodbye to Berlin was a little dissapointing. I thought the first page was amazing, one of the best things I'd read in ages. But the middle chapters of character descriptions and interactions just didn't do all that much for me. Isherwood seemed to be covering the basics of the hated by the Nazis, the poor, the Jews, the Queers, and the prostitutes. But they just seeemd to be covered in a very ordinary and not very interesting way. Perhaps it would have been more interesting or dramatic in the mid 30s but nowadays it just seemed rather tame and dull. I wanted more decadance! The last chapter though was very good. I actually got a sense of Berlin in that time, which I felt was lacking from the earlier chapters which could have been almost anywhere.

The politics were interesting from a historical standpoint. The mixture of communists thrown in was something you rarely read about in history books, and the fact that the anti-semitism was so high, and that there was already talk of concentration camps.

But it was a very fast read, two days. Not nearly as good as I was hoping, parts were brilliant, but overall a bit dissapointing.