How to be German (Adam Fletcher)

Adam Fletcher's
How to be German in 50 easy steps

Easily read guide to German foibles that my German friend Lutz gave me and found quite funny. Looking at random entries makes you realise that the English author knows his stuff. Best thing was that I was flicking through it whilst Lutz was opening beer bottles without a bottle opener. In fact managed with a pack of cards. As did Maya. I still struggle with a spoon or lighter which Germans seem to be taught in Kindergarten.

Mr Norris Changes Trains (Christopher Isherwood)

Christopher Isherwood
Mr Norris Changes Trains

Odd little tale of our narrator befriending Mr Norris on the train to Berlin and subsequently helping him out. Gives a picture of between War Berlin and all it's excesses and the parallel rise of the Nazis and subsequent suppression of such like behaviour (at least driving underground) and socialist activists. Read on my way to and in Berlin but doesn't really give a flavour of the place. Snippets about what it was like to be moneyed in the 30s maybe but probably similar to many European large cities. Interesting.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying (George Orwell)

George Orwell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying 

A depressing book about one man's fight against money culture and avoiding selling his soul for it by working at what he's good at in advertising instead working in badly paid and unsatisfying jobs in bookshops. All whilst writing his long epic poem for which he switches between optimism, as he's had one poem publishes, and dire pessimism as he's had lots of other knock backs. Ultimately you feel that his position is pointless as he's both determined to sink into poverty whilst blaming all of his woes including that his girlfriend won't sleep with him on a lack of money. Eventually after nearly drowning in the mud, Orwell's metaphor, he sells his soul to mammon and settles down. You do wonder how long it will last. It's difficult to tell if Orwell supports this hatred of money and how to get it, he did work down and out in London and Paris, or if his view is that the position is pointless and self defeating.

The book has some pretty lazy characterisations, maybe that's from a modern viewpoint, such as a vile characterisation of a Scottish teetotal  miser and an uneducated money grabber who is a dwarf with a horrible description. Also a whiff of homophobia going on about nancy boys. So slightly racist which comes across in the other Orwell book I'm reading the Decline of the English Murder. Nonetheless a good and thought provoking read.

Decline and Fall (Evelyn Waugh)

Evelyn Waugh
Decline and Fall 

A book I borrowed from Bruce not really thinking that I'd enjoy but it's extremely readable and very funny in parts. A lot about ones lot in life related to social class and about our hero who is fairly naive but who takes the batterings of life on the chin and just gets on with it. Some pithy characters and funny scenes. Possibly an influence for Tom Sharp? Good and although I wanted to read more (it's short) a week later I'm not clamouring for further Waugh stories to be brought to me wrapped in Christmas paper. I'll read the next when I chance upon it as I did this one. And much like our hero did.