I hardly need to say this, but a new Ishiguro novel is a huge deal. It’s been over ten years since his last novel, with only a brilliant collection of short stories in-between to tide us over. The Buried Giant is set some time after the death of the great King Arthur, in the midst of the dark ages, and this strange cultural gap allows him to play with reality and legend in a fluid way. There is a peace of sorts between the two […]
Mel Brooks famously said that “by using the medium of comedy, we can try to rob Hitler of his posthumous power and myths.” But what if someone could ride an ironic wave to the top?
Making Hitler an object of fun is no new idea, as Chaplin’s famous The Great Dictator took pointed shots at the man while he was still alive, and 1967 saw the aforementioned Mel Brooks’ seminal The Producers, which not only gave Hitler a daft platform but an impressive singing voice. The glorious Monty Python team wrote and performed a sketch where Hitler hides behind the pseudonym Mr Hilter, and comedian Richard Herring performed a set about his attempts to reclaim the iconic moustache for the […]
An unusual and unreliable narrator leads this moving and inventive novel about dementia, the past and old age.
Maud lives in a constant state of befuddlement. Undrunk cups of tea litter her halls; she navigates her way through life with little scraps of paper; she forgets what she’s doing sometimes; and her daughter seems permanently exasperated with her. At 82 years old and suffering with the beginning stages of dementia, she only has three real constants – that she could probably do with another slice of toast, that she’d quite like to know the best place to plant marrows, and that her best […]
A snapshot of a family unit in crisis, a peek behind the Ikea curtain and the idea of pristine Scandinavian life.
Max and Katriina Paul have been married for over thirty years and have settled into some semblance of a comfortable routine. Professor of sociology and one-time media darling on the subject of sex, Max, spends his evenings trawling forums looking for his name; while his wife is entirely wrapped up in her work, filled with a fervent self-belief. Their daughters Helen and Eva couldn’t be more different; with Helen being quietly married with two children of her own, and Eva in-between careers, relationships and more […]