15, WG13, M6, E15 / NG2, F9, D0, NA0, B0, C0

Iain Banks, Espedair Street

Irgendwie dachte ich, es wäre noch nicht so lange her, dass ich dieses Buch über einen schottischen Rockstar und Songwriter in den 70ern zum ersten Mal las, aber tatsächlich ist es fast auf den Tag genau 10 Jahre her - mymy. Auf jeden Fall machte Daniel "Weird" Weirs Geschichte genausoviel Spaß, wenn nicht mehr, und ging mir genauso so nahe. Dies könnte, neben 'Dead Air' sogar mein Lieblingsbuch von ihm sein.
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Maybe I used up allmy dreams in my songs so that I had none left for myself. That would be ironic, almost tragic, because at the time I thought I had perfect control; I thought I was being clever, using my songs, using my dreams, to find out more about myself ... a shame, really, that what I found out just wasn't worth the finding.
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'My heart bleeds for you,' I told him. 'My bladder leaks for you; my pituitary secretes for you.'
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There's this sloth in the jungle walking from one tree to another, and it's mugged by a gang of snails, and when the police ask the sloth if it could identify any of its attackers, it says, 'I don't know; it all happened so quickly...'
And that's the way I feel. Everything seems to take about the right amount of time at the time, but later ... Jeez, where did it all go? You look back, and sometimes you think, Did I really do all that?, and other times you think, Is that all there is? Is that all I managed to get done?
We are never satisfied. Don't even know the meaning of the word.
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We join armies, we enter monasteries or nunneries, we adopt the party line, we believe what we read in ancient books or shit newspapers or what we're told by plastic politicians, and all we're ever trying to do is give somebody else the responsibility for thinking. Let us enter this order, obey that one; never mind we end up being told to massacre or torture or simply believe the most absurd thing we've ever heard; at least it's not all our fault.
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(Iain Banks, Espedair Street, 1987)

139, WG72, F71, E128 / NG67, M68, D11, NA12, C2, B10

Kathy Reichs, Bones to Ashes

Der Anfang mit Tempes Flashback zu ihrer Kindheit und der Sommerfreundin Évangéline hatte mir schon beim ersten Lesen so gefallen, dass mir fast alles daraus im Gedächtnis geblieben war. Den Rest hatte ich schon wieder fast vergessen oder in anderen Bänden verortet, vor allem die schmerzliche Trennung von Ryan, die natürlich nicht von Dauer ist. Weiter bemerkenswert an diesem Band ist noch, dass wir hier endgültig erfahren, wann Tempe geboren wurde. Demnach müsste sie jetzt 62 sein, falls Reichs die Daten nicht doch noch einmal nach unten korrigiert. So wie den Tod ihrer Mutter, die in einem späteren Band plötzlich doch wieder am Leben ist - aber soweit sind wir noch nicht.
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The human brain is, well, mind-blowing. Chemicals. Electricity. Fluid. Cytoplasm. Wire it up right and the thing works. No one really knows how.
But the brain's parts can be like governmental agencies, closing ranks to hoard their special knowledge. Cerebrum. Cerebellum. Frontal lobe. Motor cortex. Sometimes it takes a catalyst to get them to share.

(Kathy Reichs, aus: Bones to Ashes, 2007)

138, WG71, M68, E127 / NG67, F70, D11, NA12, C2, B10

Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

Der letzte richtige Witches-Band in der Discworldserie vor den Tiffany-Aching-Bänden wird wohl auch immer mein Lieblingsband bleiben, auf jeden Fall der meistgelesenste. Mir erscheint er der düsterste zu sein, in dem Granny Weatherwax an ihre Grenzen kommmt, was einiges heißen will.

She distrusted a moon like that. A full moon could only wane, a new moon could only wax, but a half moon, balancing so precariously between light and dark ... well, it could do anything.
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What had she ever earned? The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches they gave you a bigger shovel.
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(Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum, 1998)

136, WG69, M67, E125 / NG67, F69, D11, NA12, C2, B10

Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

Erst nach dem lesen fiel mir ein, mal zu checken, wann und wie oft ich diesen Discworldband schon gelesen haben, nur um festzustellen, dass er offenbar einem 10-Jahresrythmus unterliegt. Ende 2000, kurz nach Weihnachten 2010 und jetzt Weihnachten 2020. Und das völlig unabsichtlich. Vielleicht hat sich diese geniale Analyse von den physikalischen Besonderheiten von Pyramiden im Raumzeitgefüge auch auf die Fähigkeiten des Buches ausgewirkt sich in meinem Bewußtsein bemerkbar zu machen.
Abgesehen davon war es wieder ein pure Wonne zu lesen und ich würde ihn jederzeit unter den Top Five meiner persönlichen Lieblings-Discworldbände einordnen.
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When you die, the first thing you lose is your life. The next thing is your illusions.
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And Dil was realizing that there are few things that so shake belief as seeing, clearly and precisely, the object of that belief. Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed anymore.
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No one is more worried by the actual physical manifestation of a god than his priests; it's like having the auditors in unexpectedly.
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I mean, we think we believe that the gods are wise and just and powerful, but what we really believe is that they are like our father after a long day. And we think we believe the Netherworld is a sort of paradise, but we really believe it's right here and you go to it in your body and I'm in it and I'm never going to get away. Never, ever.
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Teppic knew that Dios had hard words to say about the Ephebians for having gods that looked just like people. If the gods looked just like everyone else, he used to say, how would people know how to treat them?
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(Terry Pratchett, Pyramids, 1988)

132, NG67, F67, E121 / WG65, M65, D11, NA12, C2, B10

Jodie Picoult, The Book of Two Ways

Irgendwie hatte ich noch garnicht mit einem neuen Buch von Picoult gerechnet und war völlig überrascht, als ich auf dieses stieß und feststellen musste, dass es schon im September erschienen ist. Und es faszinierte mich vom Fleck weg, der Themen wegen - Äygypten natürlich vor allem, aber auch Todbegleitung, Paralleluniversen, Flugzeugabsturz - und das erste Kapitel mit der Ankunft der Erzählerin in Kairo nahm mich vollends gefangen. Da war soviel, was ich wiedererkannte und das mich anrührte. Bis etwa zum letzten Drittel interpretierte ich die parallele Konstruktion des Buches als eine Art zwei Leben die parallel liefen (möglicherweise war das auch so von Picoult gedacht) und konnte einfach nicht entscheiden, welches der beiden Leben sich als das unwirkliche, unwahre herausstellen würde, und Picoults Plot Twist kam dann doch sehr überraschend. Ein rundum gelungenes, reiches und vielfältiges Buch, das "Leaving Time" wahrscheinlich den Rang als Lieblingsbuch streitig machen wird.
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Leave everything behind.
For someone who makes a living through death, I haven't given a lot of thought to my own.
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I once read that every story is a love story. Love of a person, a country, a way of life. Which means, of course, that all tragedies are about losing what you love.
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In every fairy tale, the only way out is to keep running forward. To never look back.
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I know it feels crass to talk about death in such mercenary terms, but that's the very problem with death in the first place. We don't know how to talk about it. We use euphemisms and discuss pearly gates and angels while glossing over the fact that we have to die to get there. We treat it like a mystery, when in fact, it's the one experience all of us are guaranteed to share.
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You can argue that all fear is related to death. Fear of spiders? You're really afraid of being bitten and killed. Fear of heights? Falling to your death. Fear of flying? Crashing. Snakes, fire - you get it. Jerry Seinfeld even says that people are more terrified of public speaking than dying, so if you're asked to give a eulogy, the person inside the coffin is better off than the one giving the talk. Why are people so afraid of dying? Well, that's easy. Because it's hard for us to conceive of a world without us in it.
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Maybe Wyatt is not the only one who's wrong about the point of life. Maybe it's not about accumulating knowledge or accumulating love. Maybe it's just about collecting regrets.
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"No. I think that you can love more than one person in a lifetime. There's the one who teaches you what love is, even if it doesn't last." Wyatt. "And then there's the one who makes you a better human than you were, even as you do the same for him." Brian.
"And then there's the last one," Alberto adds. "The one that you never get enough time with. But who sees you through to the end."
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(Jodi Picoult, The Book of Two Ways, 2020)

130, WG64, M65, E119, C2, B10 / NG66, F65, D11, NA12

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library VIII: Worlds' End

In der gesamten Sandman-Serie geht es um Geschichten, Stories in allen Arten und Formen und in diesem Band scheint alles zu kulminieren. Unzählige Geschichten werden ineinander verschachtelt - wie russische Puppen wie Stephen King in seinem Vorwort bemerkt - bis sie am Ende in eine Geschichte münden, die der erste Erzähler ganz am Anfang in einer Bar erzählt. Aber ist dies auch wirklich der Abschluß?
Selbst nach kanpp 20 Jahren habe ich immer noch nicht genug vom Sandman und irgendwie war diesmal dieser Band an der Reihe. Vielleicht hänge ich auch noch "The Wake" dran, den hab ich auch schon länger nicht mehr gelesen ...
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These are great stories, and we're all lucky to have them. To read Now, and maybe again 'Then', later on, when we need what only a good story has the power to do: to take us away to worlds that never existed, in the company of people we wish we were ... or thank God we aren't.

(Stephen King, aus dem Vorwort zu Neil Gaimans Worlds' End, the Sandman Library VIII, 1994)

129, NG66, M64, E118, NA12 / WG63, F65, D11, C1, B9

Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

Ja, ganz entfernt erinnerte es mich an Agatha Crhistie. Und ein bißchen an Midsomer Murders, immerhin gibt es hier auch die standardmäßigen drei Leichen. Aber das wars auch schon wirklich, spätestens nach dem ersten Drittel hatte mich das Buch mit seinem ungewöhnlichem Ermittlerteam und der guten Mischung von Humor und Wehmut überzeugt. Besonders die Tagebuchpassagen von Joyce sind einfach nur schön. Wenn es tatsächlich eine Fortsetzung geben sollte, dann hoffe ich, dass er sie genauso gut hinkriegt.

After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever takes your fancy. No one tells you off, except for your doctors and your children.
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Memory was the bogeyman that stalked Coopers Chase. Forgetfulness, absentmindedness, muddling up names.
What did I come in here for? The grandchildren would giggle at you. The sons and daughters would joke too, but keep a watchful eye. Every so often you would wake at night in cold dread. Of all the things to lose, to lose one's mind? Let them take a leg or a lung, let them take anything before they take that. Before you became 'Poor Rosemary', or 'Poor Frank', catching the last glimpses of the sun and seeing them for what they were. Before they were no more trips, no more games, no more Murder Clubs. Before there was no more you.
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Every time you like the look of someone you swipe their picture to the right (or to the left, I can't remember). Meanwhile, somewhere nearby they are scrolling through pictures too and if they like the look of you they also swipe to the right (or left) and the two of you are a match.
Honestly, it breaks your heart to scroll through. It's reminded me of those photos of lost cats you see on lamp posts. It's all that hope, I think.

(Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club, 2020)