An audio book. Short stories. I listened while doing other things so my notes are confused, and the audio book didn't show a list of titles.
In Lizard Killer, a boy (whose family has moved to Africa from the UK so that his father can become prof) sees his mother being intimate with another man. The boy kills lizards.
An American ex child actor, now divorced, wanders the beach each day looking for Christopher Isherwood.
Because of epilepsy, a man has had his celebral hemispheres separated. His old friend stays with him, with his unsuitable wife. His previous lover was much nicer. He finds the wife dead. Suicide? The previous lover breaks the news to his friend that she's about to marry someone else. Apparently the man killed his friend's wife (tying to be helpful) using only one side of his body, the other side unaware. His friend saw him murdering.
The narrator is a boarding school boy who's joined the school opera choir because local girls allegedly join it to meet boys. He meets Alison and feels pressure to lie about the nature of their relationship. He has the chance to be alone with her one evening. He falls asleep (and equally unexpectedly Alison just waits!) as they start cuddling while in the next rooms his friends get much further. He walks her to the bus stop. He doesn't like "the idolatry of masturbation" that school life enforces.
I'm 4 stories in, and I'm not yet convinced.
In "The care and attention of swimming pools" the narrator takes his job seriously and gets his comeuppance
A diplomat is about to leave Doala in Africa. He learns he has gonnorrhea. He's offered farewell sex with a wife. Before it gets too serious he rejects her, for moral reasons, he says, but he's in pain. She's angry and upset.
"Gifts". He lands in Nice. 18, a student. He's short of money, works out schemes to keep himself and his clothes clean. On the night his landlady becomes a widow, money arrives from England and a girl shows him her tits, so he's happy.
A shy boy in France, soon to return to England is given a chance to have sex with a fat easy old lay. He's grateful, and so is she. She holds him after.
A aircraft-carrier pilot dislikes some of his colleagues. On shore leave he meets a woman with low self-esteem because of her napalmed back. Back on the ship he sabotages so that a heartless pilot dies on take-off
Bat-girl - 1st person. She's from Lancashire. In a stall of a travelling circus in a body stocking she lets a bat crawl over her. In Oxford, a student's fixated, shyly asking her out. She visits his rooms. Her minder attacks the student.
Weekly a boy temporarily living abroad eats at the house of a family with 3 daughters. He tells a friend he rather likes them. The friend says he's slept with them all. The boy has more luck later.
A minor diplomat, about to leave a hot country is stranded at a hotel because of a coup. He meets a woman, an air hostess. He sees her at the pool with a foreign man. He wants to show off but diving, he bellyflops. Besides (we only now learn) he's fat and balding. She's concerned, checks that she's ok. He boasts about his status. They sleep together. She remarks it's amazing how people from such different layers of society can get on so well. Next day at the airport she acts like they're a couple. He's worried that he'll be found out. He's relieved when he's called away.
Cheryl marries vice-president Lamar. His work suffers. She's flirty with the narrator. She leaves Lamar, taking his car. She's with another man.
The male manager of company dealing in cork resigns because he's falling in love with the female owner. They meet each Xmas for sex. The story is punctuated with documentary paragraphs about cork. At the end she hears that he died of alcoholism, unmarried.
A meta-story, where the author restarts a piece, explaining how/whether the characters match reality. The main character and a woman are together in a house with Frank, his old brother. The main character pretends to go away for a while, but instead spies on Frank and the woman. They're having an affair. He kills Frank. At the end we're told that Frank and the woman are living together somewhere.
"The diary of Natalie X" - An avant-garde French film is remade in LA. Multiple-voices. Goes on far too long.
Wittgenstein is the PoV, suicide the theme. He gives money to a poet who had trained to be a pharmicist only so he can get drugs. He kills himself in the war. Wittgenstein's impressed by his pianist brother's willpower to carry on though losing an arm.
There are first person and third person stories, set in Africa, America, France, England, etc. The voices are convincing (though so far always articulate, and usually judging others by their physical attraction). When faced with a pivotal moment, characters tend to retreat even though it's the opportunity they've been waiting for. Plots sometimes sound like an add-on, trying to turn a monologue into a shaped story. Sometimes it's as if he didn't want to waste some research. I sometimes prefer the research to the story. Cleanliness, attractiveness (even if not pretty/handsome), teeth clashing when kissing, and hairy female armpits recur.
There are sections I liked. In the end I think I preferred the book to any particular story - there was sufficient variety of settings, and the most common scenario (student-age boy, directionless, in a foriegn country, shy with women) is one I easily fall for.
Other reviews
- Vanessa Thorpe (When you pick up a William Boyd short story, you can be sure of three things. First, that you will hear a narrative voice which is the clear expression of the modern literary mind; second, that this same voice will also be a distillation of the greatest writing in the fairly short history of the short story; third, you can rest assured you are in safe hands. ... Passive or accidental observers, whether the neglected infant in 'Killing Lizards' or the confused youths in 'Hardly Ever' and the title story of the collection, 'Dream Lover', are crucial to what Boyd does.)
