Temptations by Douglas Kennedy: A Book Review

I still have to figure out what the impact is of adding on to a previous post (Book Club post) and therefore I decided  to create a separate post for Book Reviews in the mean time, just in case things don't work out.

This week I read my first book by Dougals Kennedy and he is definately one of my to 10 favourites.The book title is:


......It starts off with the main character, a writer (how apt), reminiscing about how after years of producing unbuyable work, hits it big when one of his novels which becomes a comedy hit is bought. Fames goes to his head and all sorts of disasters happen as a result of bad decisions, including losing his family and newly acquired fortune along the way. Which should really leave you thinking what a loser but the master in Kennedy has you thinking: he does not deserve this, of course if  man has worked so hard for this good fortune it's understandable if he doesn't stay with his nagging wife even if she did slog for him for more than a decade of her life and so what if the billionaires wife fancied him_ that billionaire had no right to get vindictive none the less, as for that live in girlfriend, she is worse than helll and so on you unknowingly keep rooting for him right to the end. Things you wouldn't accept in your own life he gets entitled to.

Surprisingly there are life lessons in here. First line reads :
"I've always wanted to be rich, that might be crass but its a true confession".
In the end he gives a wonderful analogy using the Big Bad Woolf to represent that fact that we need the perpetual state of crises our lives in order to see the possibilities and possibly significance. And so do not be surprised when you do reach your goal to find that it is not all as you had hoped.

My favorite quote he used comes from Emily Dickson whom I absolutely love:
dominion lasts until obtained-
possession just as long-
but these- endowing as they flit
eternally belong.......Emily D.

It is such craft and a gift to be able to write the way Kennedy does. He seduces you with his words and with each scene where something terrible happens you think no I can't go on but just to hear how he disentangles you are drawn back to the pages. In the course of reading this book I actually went searching for qualifications which have literature as a  major. He made me fall in love with the English language.

But above all, what stood out for me was his pace, it lacked all those filling the gaps passages that writers adopt when they try to add pages but have nothing to say. It is consistant from beginning to end, racy but comfortable, sort of like travelling at 120km/h on the highway. It takes you where you need to be at just the right time. Never leaves you wondering but has just enough information that you never think, let's get on with it already.

I want to add The Independent News review of this book so that if interested, you can get a professional opinion, they put it so much better. :(    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts

It is the most wonderful piece of work and I was told that this is nothing compared to his Pursuit of Happiness which I haven't read as yet.
To explore the contents of this book before rushing to the bookshelf, visit this link with a chapter or two:
Temptations: First Chapter or Two

The Book Club

 I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.  

~Anna Quindlen,"Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

Well blimey, I've taken the proverbial plunge and started blogging, committing myself to this business of writing that I do so admire and fawn over every time I come across a piece of good writing. Of course i could never be so delusional as to profess myself worthy of being compared to any of the prolific writers who grace my favorite author's list. That being said i keep in mind always that Vincent v Gogh is reported to have once said, "if a small voice says you not a painter then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced".And while pondering this piece of advise I thought: well I can put pen to paper, I can spell, I have a bearable if not just above mediocre command of the grammatical nuances of the English language, enough to fly under the Thesaurus (and....I was tempted to say  The King's English) radar_ergo, I am a writer( be it as an amatuer, newbie, wannabie.... ) whatever adjective is used -predictive or attributive, it bears no relevance. Except of course to the hardened, seasoned, professional, "submit a book a week" writers who may have a different opinion, an antithesis to my statement of "no relevance".


And as I write this I'm thinking someone may need to keep the smelling salts handy because this is the most that I have put, of my mind on paper and I happen to have a disconcerting and at the best of times perplexing relationship with my mind. And as a result of never quite knowing what I am subjecting myself to when I let it run free, I am almost convinced that after clicking publish on this page, there is a chance that I might be left devoid of my senses for a little while. 
I'm sure you, the reader, will agree that writing is a process akin to giving birth which any self respecting child bearer will tell you is not a task you engage in looking or feeling your sexy best and neither does your disposition improve during the course of delivery but you hope and believe that the end result will have been worthwhile. From personal experience and third party evidence and testimony, I am inclined to believe that the results do indeed supersede all expectations. This is what I hope will be birthed out of my writing career which I am attempting to ...... conceive (for lack of a better word).


 And as one who has cheated nature two out  of three times in the birthing exercise, I am a firm exponent for any initiative that will alleviate unwarranted discomfort for those involved by any means necessary, we do after all live in the 21st century. And so to be kind to myself, I am dedicating one of the posts in my blog to BOOK related discussions. I am envisioning that this should serve as a soft landing pad for myself in this writing expedition as well as a safety net against boring my readers with my long winded soliloquies and habitual 2am ramblings which I hope to now and again interject with amusing if not somewhat thought provoking anecdotes. 


For a while now, I've been on a mission to indoctrinate the world, hoping to turn everyone into bookworms (starting with my "little" family). I have had marginal success in the home front, all the occupants  falling within the age group of 2 to 35 years have succumbed with great enthusiasm to this lifestyle (not fad). The challenge still remains in the conversion of the upper echelons. 


One of my favorite quotes is by Edward P. Morgan  

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

And on that premise, I think that as one who loves books with the deepest of passions humanly possible,  its only fitting that this should be my first blogging project. I would love to exchange ideas, experiences and travels (both in mind and body) which have been initiated by encounters with books. In my own life books have been tremendously efficacious in inspiring me to take the bold leap into creative depths from time to time . A good book has the uncanny ability to turn a drab day, life, existence into a kaleidoscope of brilliant color, a splendiferous profusion of  taste, smell and texture. 


My plan for this blog is to create an online book link  library where we can source books as we go along. Should you at anytime come across a great book, please post the title and author details on the comment section  of this blog.
As we get to comfortable, I think it would be a great idea have detailed reviews on specific books and perhaps read them simultaneously. but that's all in the future.


Now for Book talk:

Last December I came across a book written by William Kowalski, I wonder if anyone has come across him. The day I read this book I was up all night reading, falling intermittently into fits of giggles.

There is something about his style that reminds me of conversations I've had with some of my white SA male friends. That is an odd statement I know but there is just something in the way he tells his story that is so incredibly hilarious, very down to earth and yet quietly confident. I think  it's his "familiar" tone that endears him to the reader and if you've ever watched the main character in the movie movie Faith Like Potatoes, I think you'll get a good idea of this personality. 

Here’ a little extract from the book I read titled: Somewhere out there, he writes about a young New Yorker's journey  to finding his natural Mexican mother and the young man is narrating:

“That is, I didn’t know who half of me was, the half that came from my mother, neither for that fact, did grandpa. I was delivered to him in a picnic basket – a fact of which I was always slightly ashamed, until he reminded me that Moses had arrived in a basket and so had numerous other notable people throughout history. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, there was a find tradition associated with baskets. This happened when I was a few weeks old: my arrival I mean. Presumably I was put in that basket by my mother on that strange morning in 1970. I must have known her a short time, but of course I don’t remember anything from those days, and Grandpa never even got a glimpse of her as she dropped me off on the back steps and promptly fled the scene.”

Promptly fled the scene! Someone else may not find this funny but this is my family. This happened to my cousin who was dropped of in just such a manner by his mother at my grans, and only met her in his twenties too. I imagined my own father whom I have never met (except at conception) doing the same thing: skulking around as he went about trying to dispose of me, had he been in such a predicament. It's the first time I've laughed so hard at the deplorably tragic circumstance of my paternity.

I’ve actually just noted that he writes: Grandpa – is that confirmation of my suspicion that he's South African? 

Ok, the end becomes a bit of an anti-climax because it doesn't end in the same explosive manner that it started off in but neither is the end disasterous but is rather predictable. 

I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthly prose.....and I hope to hear from you soonest telling me about your encounters with your latest books!


Please look out for weekly updates of this blog.


Much Love
eFabulosity