P.G. Wodehouse's "The Crime Wave at Blandings"

PG Wodehouse's first crime novel or short story?  Well, not exactly.  But what it is (again and again) is Wodehouse's genius in conveying a small world and expanding that world to the reader in such a hysterical manner.  I started reading this book on the plane trip to Los Angeles, and now just finished reading it.  Even in my jet-lag position, I can see his world makes some sort of sense.  But Wodehouse is such a brilliant writer.  His sentence structures are incredible, and the way he just piles one narrative after another - really he must be the original figure for the screw-ball comedy.  Boris Vian loved his work, and so do I!

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"Paris Trance (A Romance)" a novel by Geoff Dyer

My favorite type of novel is one that is about mood and has very little narration or story.  "Paris Trance (A Romance)" fits that category perfectly.   Two couples who are best friends and then eventually they separate, especially one of the male characters - who ends up drifting off to London to ...do nothing.   The one consistent aspect of this book is characters who do nothing except exist.   Paris is the perfect background to this type of world where one travels from sex to love to eating to eventually nothing. 

In many ways "Paris Trance" is very much like a French new wave film.   Charming, but a  sadness takes over the (non)narrative.   Also it deals with the nature of change, and when and if changes happen.  This is my second Geoff Dyer book.  The first one I read was his essays on jazz figures "But Beautiful."   Both books reflect on a time that is perfect, but there is a mood shifter around the corner...

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