If Sinclair's known at all in the United States, it's probably for his wonderful book reviews in the TLS. You can buy his first novel, which is also very wonderful. "Downriver" is still in print, sort of. We don't have an equivalent of this guy. It's a shame. I mean, we sort of do in Thomas Pynchon, but Pynchon's not producing much. Although there are persistent rumors. Not that Sinclair is like Pynchon, but he is as singular as Pynchon, and as polymathically obsessed. It's an incredibly hard read. It's Joycean in its complexity. The first time I went through it I enjoyed it but I didn't get it, so now I'm taking advantage of enforced down time in the hotel rooms of America. Also it's good on jet lag. I had food poisoning in New York, and it was even good on food poisoning. And then, this is what I picked up the other day: "The Death of Hitler," by Ada Petrova and Peter Watson. I'm kind of a death of Hitler buff. This book is based on a bunch of rather amazing stuff that they found on the shelves of the KGB, including the top of the Fuhrer's skull, his personal photograph album. The pictures from his personal photograph album are mind-blowing. There's a very real possibility that the Russians had a mole in the bunker. Given all the mythology that's grown up around the last days in the bunker, this is pretty amazing stuff. Still, I'm reading it with a bit of a grain of salt -- it's sort of like who killed Kennedy stuff. Jack Womack's new book, "Let's Put the Future Behind Us," which is not science fiction but a book about life in Russia a couple of years ago based on his experiences there, is also very good. |