Three Novels

John Le Carre's Silverview, William McIlvanney's  Laidlaw  and  Damon Galgut's The Promise are the three books which I have most recently read or in the case of The Promise, am currently reading.

Dealing firstly with The Promise: This year's Booker Prize winner   which I am finding both difficult and fulfilling to read. Possibly such reading characteristics are normal for Booker prize winners or possibly the older one becomes the more difficult becomes concentrating on a good work of literature; or perhaps in my case, both. There is no doubt but that The Promise is a great work but for me at least best read in twenty or thirty pages at a time. The plot has several threads but key is that of the  African servant girl at a time when apartheid was thankfully coming to an end. The girl says little but is concerned throughout much of the story. 

Full marks to the author Damon Galgut whose prose contains so many thought provoking sentences which probably explains the slow pace of my read. 

Secondly is Laidlaw: This is written as already indicated, by William McIlvanney. The story line concerns a Scottish policeman Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw.  William McIlvanney before his  recent death wrote several Laidlaw novels. 

Ian Rankin who also writes about a  Scottish detective called Jack Rebus, reports that his own detective novels were inspired by McIlvnney's work. Rebus has of course also featured on television and I rather prefer Rankin's works so far to  those of McIlvanney. 

Interestingly but sadly though, McIlvanney died when one of his detective novels was only partially written so Rankin took it upon himself to complete that work  called, The Dark Remains which I shall look forward to reading in due course.

Thirdly is John Le Carre's Silverview: This is John Le Carre's last novel as he  died shortly after taking on Irish nationality which nationality change I believe had some kind of anti-Brexit reason. Whatever the reason the novel itself is as brilliant as ever; indeed Silverview might be Le Carre's best at least for me. I gather that Le Carre's youngest son Nick,  who lives in Cornwall, finished the book, following his father's death.

A sentence on the hardback cover reads:

Silvervew is the mesmerising story of an encounter between innocence and experience and between public duty and private morals...

A riveting read which is rather shorter than most of John le Carre's other novels, including the Smiley spy stories,  which themselves are also excellent.