The Times - UK (2022-05-28)

the times | Saturday May 28 2022 saturday review 9

amid lanes whose speeding vehicles make

them impossible to cross. Shipwrecked in

the midst of the city, Maitland’s thirsty

mind expands to encompass all things in

this succinct, mischievous novel from a

man who “always suspected that eternity

would look like Milton Keynes”. SI

A Bend in the River VS Naipaul 1979

“The world is what it is,” begins VS

Naipaul’s great novel of postcolonial

Africa, “men who are nothing, who allow

themselves to become nothing, have no

place in it.” Not one of Naipaul’s contem-

poraries could summon up this tone:

unsentimental, unillusioned, tragic. Nor

could they summon the ambition: over

decades an African state (possibly based

on the Congo) collapses into war. A Bend in

the River is his masterpiece. JM

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams 1979

Don’t Panic! Earth may have been demol-

ished to make way for an intergalactic

space bypass, but The Hitchhiker’s Guide to

the Galaxy will tell you what to do about

Vogons, dolphins, towels and, well, life, the

universe and everything. Marvin the

Paranoid Android spoke for millions of

miserable teenagers reading alone in their

rooms: “Do you want me to sit in a corner

and rust, or just fall apart where I’m

standing?” LF

Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess 1980

This epic is memorable for many reasons

— not least its opening sentence: “It was

the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday,

and I was in bed with my catamite when

Ali announced that the archbishop had

come to see me.” The life story of the writer

Kenneth Toomey is also a globe-trotting

history of the 20th century and a profound

exploration of the nature of evil. MS

The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett

1983

In a distant and second-hand set of dimen-

sions the star turtle Great A’Tuin swims

through space carrying on its back four

enormous elephants who support the Disc

and a vast unwashed cast of wizards,

witches, watchmen, werewolves, trolls,

dwarfs, gnomes, golems, orangutan

librarians and Death. It’s tricky to pick just

one of Terry Pratchett’s more than

40 Discworld books, but The Colour of

Magic kicked off the series in rollicking

style. Ook. LF

Money Martin Amis 1984

One of the funniest novels of the past 70

years is driven at breakneck speed by the

twangy voice of Martin Amis’s gluttonous

money-man antihero John Self. He stum-

bles between London and New York trying

to make a film, but the fun is all in Self’s

appalling behaviour, depicted with such

verve and delight that Money would be

cancelled now if anyone still read it. Which

is one reason why you should. JS

Riders Jilly Cooper 1985

Thomas Hardy added Wessex to the

English county map; Jilly Cooper, Rut-

shire, where breeches are tight, busts are

huge and kisses are as passionate as vacu-

um cleaners. For girls who had outgrown

Pony Club stories, Rupert Campbell-Black

was the sneering public schoolboy we

weren’t supposed to fancy but did —

desperately. LF

The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood

1985

In the most devastating feminist parable,

Margaret Atwood imagines a future where

disenfranchised women are held captive

as reproductive slaves. This multi-award-

winning novel continues to reveal nasty

truths not only about patriarchy but race

and politics in contemporary America.

MK

Live Flesh Ruth Rendell 1986

This superb novel explores the weird tri-

angular relationship that springs up

between Victor, a rapist just released

from jail; David, the policeman he sort-of-

accidentally shot ten years ago, who is in a

wheelchair; and Clare, David’s girlfriend,

who — on one occasion — ends up in bed

with Victor. A gripping study in madness

and the banality of evil, it is a great exam-

ple of Ruth Rendell’s ability to provoke

horrid laughter. MS

A Perfect Spy John le Carré 1986

John le Carré may have written better

thrillers than A Perfect Spy, but it is his

great novel. Ostensibly it’s about espio-

nage, as MI6’s Magnus Pym reviews his

life while being hunted as a double agent.

But le Carré draws deeply on his own

rackety early years, like Pym’s, over-

shadowed by a father who was a con

man. JO

Moon Tiger Penelope Lively 1987

Claudia Hampton is one of

modern fiction’s best narrators:

owlish, sexy and acidly clever. As

she lies dying in a hospital bed at

the fag end of the 20th century, she

tells the nurses she is writing one last

book, a history of the world “from the

mud to the stars”. But really, it’s just an ex-

cuse to tell the reader her life story, from a

passionate love affair in wartorn Cairo to

reluctant motherhood and fame. This

novel won her the Booker prize. SG

The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie

1988

I bought this in 1992 in solidarity after Sal-

man Rushdie’s fatwa, and loved it so much

I read it twice. It tells — in ripe style — of

two men who fall to earth after their plane

explodes, and become an angel and a devil.

A terrific novel, but also an emblem of

literature’s right to say whatever it wants

to, as loud as it likes. JS

The Swimming-Pool Library

Alan Hollinghurst 1988

The elegiac tale of young William Beck-

with’s unlikely friendship with the elderly

Lord Nantwich in pre-Aids London is

nothing less than a defiant culmination of

all the gay literature that had come before.

Erudite, erotic and very funny, this aston-

ishing debut felt like an instant classic and

so it has triumphantly proved. MS

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro 1989

I read this as a student and couldn’t

believe the guy who had written it was

born in Nagasaki. How did he know? It was

basically a tragic Right Ho, Jeeves. It made

no sense that the author was not born into

this world, as Wodehouse was. But then

you go back and read the far more “Japa-

nese” A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of

the Floating World and you see how The

Remains of the Day, his tale of an emotion-

ally buttoned-up butler, evolves from

them. This was the best of Kazuo Ishiguro

and bears endless rereading. GC

Restoration Rose Tremain 1989

The rollicking spirit of Restoration En-

gland is conjured up with panache in the

drunken, fornicating form of Robert Me-

rivel. This priapic physician becomes a

favourite of Charles II after curing one

of his ailing spaniels. He is knighted

and married off to the king’s No 2

mistress. But Merivel has no wish to

be a cuckold, not even to a king. RM

WORKING TITLE FILMS/ALAMY; BBC; ALAMY

Marvin the

Paranoid

Android

spoke for

millions of

miserable

teenagers

reading

alone in

their rooms

The Buddha of Suburbia

Hanif Kureishi 1990

Hanif Kureishi is a prophet. The Buddha of

Suburbia dealt with the issues of mixed-

race relationships, difficult Indian fathers

and ethnic identity, decades before such

interests became mainstream. The book

almost feels as fresh in the 21st century as

it did in the 20th. It is also very funny. SS

Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992

How can a novel be so sad and so funny? In

Never Mind, the first of the five-volume,

autobiographical “Melrosiad”, we meet

five-year-old Patrick Melrose, living in

what should be an idyllic home in the

south of France. But his upper-class father

is cruel and a child-rapist, his mother is

there but alcoholically absent. His life is

warped — and drink and drugs, despite his

furious efforts, turn out not to be the

answer. Yes, it’s grim but it’s made bearable

by Edward St Aubyn’s wit. RM

A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993

One of the longest novels in English,

at 1,500 pages, this epic set in 1951

was a sensation on publication. The

Mrs Bennetesque Rupa Mehra is

keen on an advantageous mar-

riage for her daughter, Lata. But

Lata falls in love with a Muslim boy,

throwing her mother’s schemes

awry. The book offers a snapshot of

post-Partition India, with violence and

religious tension simmering in the back-

ground, and Lata, shimmering and opti-

mistic, in the foreground. AS

Original Sin PD James 1994

Someone is bumping off the staff of the

Peverell Press, a venerable publishing

house. The managing director has not

only been poisoned with carbon monoxide

but also had the head of the office mascot

— a stuffed snake called Hissing Sid —

rammed in his mouth. The policeman-

poet Adam Dalgliesh interviews the

shell-shocked survivors with a mixture of

sympathy and steel. The result is a won-

derfully atmospheric whodunnit. MS

Bridget Jones’s Diary Helen Fielding

1996

Nine stone 3, alcohol units 14, cigarettes

22, calories 5,424, copies sold worldwide

15,000,000. Bridget was the Nineties

everywoman, Lizzie Bennet with a fag and

a hangover. Bridget “Mrs Ironknickers”

Jones started life as a column in The Inde-

pendent, railing against smug marrieds,

turkey curry buffets and “emotional

f***wits”. Through a haze of £3.69 spark-

ling wine from Norway, readers pro-

nounced Bridget’s diary v v v good. LF

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s

Stone JK Rowling 1997

Are you Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Huffle-

puff or Slytherin? Wizard or Muggle?

Team Dumbledore or Team Volde... sorry,

He Who Must Not Be Named. How we

loved Harry Potter, the spectacled orphan

with a lightning-shaped scar. All together

now: Expelliarmus! LF

Disgrace JM Coetzee 1999

There was nothing wrong with this year’s

Booker winner, Damon Galgut’s South

Africa-set The Promise. But I couldn’t help

thinking how much better JM Coetzee

would have done it. Coetzee’s novels are of

and often in South Africa, but they’re

never just about South Africa, any more

than Kafka’s are about Prague. In

Disgrace, a man is stripped to bare

bones and attempts to grow flesh

again. The genius is almost too

much to bear. GC

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back pages Above: Mark

Rylance and Claire Foy.

Left: Ian McKellen and

Elijah Wood. Below:

Maggie Smith. Far left:

Keira Knightley. Right:

Alec Guinness. Below left:

Renée Zellweger. Below

right: Elisabeth Moss

The Fellowship

of the Ring

Wolf Hall

The Prime of

Miss Jean Brodie

The Handmaid’s

Tale

Our Man

in Havana