Demob Happy

The fantastic Mr Fox
As probably Paul Theroux’s best-known fiction work I’ve long wanted to read ‘Mosquito Coast’, and not just because I am a fan of his grumpy brand of travel writing. A 1980s feature film adaptation - starring Harrison Ford and River Phoenix - left a indelible mark on me, perhaps because, as a [...]

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Season of bad will
7/10
I borrowed ‘A Season In The West’ on the recommendation of my mother-in-law [insert predictable joke here], who suggested I might find in it interesting parallels with Rose Tremain’s ‘The Road Home‘ which deals with similar themes. Both books concentrate on the migrant experience of London life, ‘The Road Home’ reflecting the [...]

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Wildly overrated
4/10
‘Into the Wild‘ is an apaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling true story about Christopher McCandless, a middle-class graduate who dropped out and hit the road in search of “ultimate freedom” in Alaska. Sean Penn’s treatment of the story is an embarassingly self-righteous and romanticised interpretation that says much more about the [...]

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On the other hand ….
7/10
The Left Hand of God analyses the socio-political conditions that have led to the religious right’s rise to prominence in the US and the way the Republicans have manipulated a culture of fear to serve the interests of corporate America. Braver still, it tries to envisage an alternative left wing politics [...]

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