Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This was a short reading interlude to enjoy some fiction, the mark of my holidays beginning!

There are reviews aplenty of this book, the 2002 winner of the Man Booker Prize, and I will add my praise but see no reason to repeat here what many have done so well. The Guardian's reviewer perhaps sums it up best: "The better story has a tiger in it."

I enjoyed the teasing way in which Yann Martel tests our credulity as the story continues. How far will we go with him? This is story in many ways about the power of storytelling, the extent to which we are willing to suspend disbelief for a good story, neatly paralled in the retelling at the end. As the Guardian's reviewer points out, the underlying narrative has the "neatness of fable".

For me, the most poignant moment of the story is the "bungled goodbye" at the end. Of all his interactions with Richard Parker, this one is perhaps the most credible and the least like story, and yet we're wrenched, like Pi, by the way in which this particular story doesn't end as it should. As he says, "What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell...It's important in life to conclude things properly."

Evenor

On arriving at Seymour and Katherine's house the other day I was handed a pile of books - an excellent selection and what a fab way to be greeted! Seymour has picked out some gems for low-key bedtime reading and I will be making my way through them steadily!

The first to be picked from the pile was George Macdonald's 'Evenor'. How could I resist a short story collection so lovingly introduced with quotes from CS Lewis and GK Chesterton?

Evenor contains three stories - the last of his 'Adult Fantasy' I'm told. The first and longest of these is 'The Wise Woman' - really a novella in its own right and definitely my favourite of the three. Like all good allegorical fiction it forces you to consider something that might have become 'ordinary' from another perspective.

It's fascinating to read and see the influences on CS Lewis as well, although Lewis is still as much a genius in my eyes! I didn't find this collection as thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking as my encounters with Lewis' worlds, but it did leave me with a desire to read more by Macdonald. Someone who has played such an important role in British literature, especially the fantasy variety, over the last two centuries, deserves more reading. Onto Phantastes.