Sunday Times Combined Metros 9 - 14/11/2018 07:00:01 PM - Plate:
Review
Sunday Times
Page 9 November 18, 2018
Book Bites
Mirror Cracked ★★★
Raashida Khan, Kwarts, R250
Azraa Hassim has
the perfect life: a
successful career,
a loving husband
and two wonderful
daughters. Her entire
identity, however, is
put to question when
one of her children is
diagnosed with a terminal illness. At
the same time her husband’s secrets
come out of the closet. Khan has
created a narrative that bluntly tackles
subjects that are often considered
taboo in Muslim society. The book’s
strength lies in the conversations that
it ignites after the final page is read. ●
LS .
Tiah Beautement @ms_tiahmarie
The Break Line ★★★
James Brabazon, Penguin Books,
R229
“Legally sane
psychopath”
Max McLean is
suave and armed.
He is an asset to
the espionage
ecosystem that
he’s a member of —
the elite intelligence
operation referred
to as The Unknown. But to err is human
and when McLean cocks up an
assassination assignment, he’s given
one last task to prove himself. [Insert
docket with TOP SECRET printed in
big, fat, red letters here.] The gist of
the mission is to travel to Sierra Leone
to finish an operation which a former
colleague of his — “the bravest man I
know” — was unable to complete. He’s
so traumatised by what he witnessed
that he’s been institutionalised. It’s a
thrilling read and Brabazon revels in his
depictions of the atrocities McLean
happens upon (spoiler: it’s pretty sif),
but the military references and lingo
went straight over this peacenik’s
head. ● LS . Mila de Villiers @mila_se_kind
The Baghdad Clock ★★★★
Shahad Al Rawi, translated by Luke
Leafgren, One World, R285
Imagine living under
constant threat of
disappearing. Set
against a backdrop of
war and despair, the
story starts in 1991
when two girls form a
lasting friendship in a
bomb shelter in
Baghdad. As they
grow up through two wars and
unrelenting sanctions, we see the
disintegration of their neighbourhood
through their eyes and in their dreams.
Nadia and the unnamed narrator try
their best to go to school, apply for
university, write scented love letters
and live their lives, but it’s not easy
when your foundation is crumbling
away. Shortlisted for the International
Prize for Arabic Fiction, The Baghdad
Clock is a deeply personal story that
aims to capture and preserve the
history of a neighbourhood. ● LS .
Anna Stroud @annawriter_
‘FAME WENT TO MY BALLS’
Eric Idle’s ‘sortabiography’ is funny, clever and moving — but watch out for earworms ,
’I
honestly think
there are more
hours of
documentary about
Python than there
are hours of Python,”
writes Eric Idle. “So, to the
mass of mangled memories
do I now add my own muddled,
prejudiced, and deeply cynical
account of what I think might
have happened? Of course.”
In what he calls a “sortabiography”, Idle
looks back over his 75 years, beginning with
his dreadful childhood and ending with his
comfortable life in California now, with a
great many mad antics in between.
The book should come with a warning
sticker: beware earworms.
If one of the best ways to appreciate life is
to have had an unhappy childhood, he says,
then he was very fortunate. He was just three
when his father was killed. Having survived
the war as a rear gunner on a bomber, Ernest
Idle was killed in a road accident hitching
home for Christmas after being demobbed.
Idle’s mother sank into a depression and he
was looked after by his grandparents. Then,
when he was seven, he was sent away to a
Dickensian school for orphans.
Beaten and bullied for 12 years, he
developed a sharp tongue and an ever
sharper sense of the ridiculous. “Humour is a
good defence against bullying. It’s hard to hit
a smaller boy when you are laughing.”
It was a scholarship to Cambridge that
saved Idle’s life. It was there he started
writing comedy sketches and joined the
famed Footlights Club. It was a springboard
to what would eventually become Monty
Python’s Flying Circus.
“George Harrison once said to me, ‘If we’d
known we were going to be the Beatles we
would have tried harder.’ I think the same
could be said of Monty Python. How on Earth
could we possibly know we would become
them?”
There is much about the early days of
Python that will delight fans, such as the
Q&A
KHUSTA
JACK
What book changed your life?
The Struggle is My Life by Nelson Mandela.
I read it when I was at school before I became
politically involved in the struggle.
Who is your favourite fictional hero?
I loved the animals in the African traditional
stories, especially uMvundla, the Hare.
What phrase do you most overuse?
“That’s life.” I think what I am saying is accept
your situation and work from there.
You’re hosting a literary dinner with three
writers. Who’s invited?
9 LifeStyle 18•11•2018
DESIGN
BOOKS
MOVIES
TELEVISION
writes Michele Magwood
Picture: Mathew Imaging/WireImage
genesis of some of their best-loved sketches.
Idle wrote the “Nudge nudge” routine when
he was barely out of university and it is said
that Elvis loved it so much he called everyone
“squire”. The character of Brian from The Life
of Brian was originally going to be the 13th
disciple. “He was given the job of trying to
book a table for the Last Supper: ‘No we can’t
Zakes Mda, the late Chris van Wyk and Peter
Mtuze.
What books are you embarrassed not to have
read yet?
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
What novel would you give children to
introduce them to literature?
My kids enjoyed Holes by Louis Sachar when
they were young teens.
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as
a gift?
Xhosa Poets and Poetry by Jeff Opland, a
collection of Xhosa literature. My
children gave it to me as a Christmas
present last year.
What is the last thing that you read
that made you laugh out loud?
Parts of the book Shirley, Goodness
Sunday Times
Always Look on
the Bright Side
of Life ★★★★
Eric Idle,
Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, R330
do a table for thirteen. I can give you one of six,
and then another for seven over by the
window.’” The film would never
have been made were it not for ex-
Beatle Harrison footing the bill.
Asked why he had mortgaged his
baronial home to finance the film,
he said: “Because I wanted to see
the movie.”
Idle name-drops with a front-
end loader in this memoir:
partying with Paul Simon, Andy
Warhol, Billy Connolly, Prince
Charles, Keith Moon, but you
forgive him for it because it’s
always such a hoot. He had very
close friendships with Harrison
and Robin Williams, and his notes
on their passing are deeply
moving.
Idle might have scores to settle
— he hints at a few of them — but
he’s not doing it here. Instead this
is an account of a life very well
lived. He fesses up to some pretty
bad behaviour in the early years
— “In my case, fame went to my
balls” — and his chronic infidelity
led to the collapse of his first
marriage. He’s been married to
his second wife, Tania, for 41
years now and is a devoted father.
What strikes the reader is how
hard he has worked, and still does.
Even now he is busy writing the film
version of his hit musical Spamalot.
He comes across as a genial, still
mischievous old cove, and this book is nothing
like the “muddled, prejudiced, and deeply
cynical account of what I think might have
happened” he promises. He may have written
the immortal lines “Life’s a piece of shit/when
you look at it”, but Eric Idle’s life has been
anything but. ● LS . @michelemagwood
and Mercy by Chris van Wyk — his life and
how he portrayed it was poignant and funny.
What keeps you awake at night?
A fear of losing our freedom, and my children
having to fight for emancipation all over
again.
What books are on your bedside table?
The Broken River Tent by Mphuthumi Ntabeni
and Still Grazing by Hugh Masekela.
If you could tell your younger self anything,
what would it be?
There is no substitute for hard work. Being
humble is always safe. It is cheaper to
keep yourself out of trouble than to get
out of trouble. ●
LS .
To Survive and Succeed: From Farm
Boy to Businessman by Khusta Jack is
published by Kwela, R280