Reading books

I finished the Amalgamation Polka. It was good, and I do like that Pynchon style, but it left me strangely unmoved in the long run. I imagine I'll read his next book, though.

Currently I am reading the rather more memorable 'Ulrich Haarbürste's novel of Roy Orbison in clingfilm'. This is the gently charming tale of Ulrich Haarbürste who lives in Düsseldorf with his terrapin Jetta, and who likes very much to wrap Roy Orbison (preferably fully clothed) in clingfilm. I saw it mentioned on the Guardian books page and ordered it with some trepidation, because once from the same source I ordered what sounded like an interesting thriller which just happened to have a lesbian heroine, and when it arrived it turned out to be a "thriller" of another kind in a series devoted to lesbian porn. (It was objectionable on two grounds 1) it was grossly anatomical in places and 2) lesbian porn ought to have few or no men in it and this had loads, but I had stupidly written my name at once in all the books in that amazon parcel so I couldn't really give it to Oxfam because if I did one of my students was pretty much bound to buy it.) I warmly recommend Ulrich Haarbürste's rather touching story, as he finds himself with ever more complex yet convincing reasons why Roy Orbison needs to be wrapped in clingfilm, and only avoids the terrible fate of wrapping Jim Morrison in clingfilm through the kindly interventions of Yul Brynner. By page 47 I stopped counting how many times Roy Orbison had been completely wrapped in clingfilm -- it was 14 that far. Saddest are the times when Roy Orbison needs only partially wrapping in clingfilm, which leaves our hero anxious and ill at ease.

Of course now I've written this the second half of the book will be disgustingly perverted...