Books
It's almost unthinkable to compare a Calvin & Hobbs cartoon to Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Although both have great merit in their own way (and, being a philistine, I'm a fan of the former if not the latter), they simply do not enter each other's sphere. In the same way, Salt and Saffron cannot approach The God of Small Things. Just because both books exist in that deeply seductive and endlessly intriguing exotic realm of fiction from "elsewhere" (i.e. anywhere that isn't bordering Yorkshire), that suffuses the longing imagination with half-forgotten spices experienced previously in take-aways, the colourless British system of judgement and assimilation embarks on its demeaning and reductive process of comparison...kind of like Salman Rushdie...almost like The God of Small Things...a sort of multi-cultural Nancy-Mitford...when, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't....
Books: Up in Arms
You know how there are some authors that you're not a fan of? I mean, not authors that you dislike, just authors that you never really got round to reading – you always meant to, and people around you seemed to enjoy their work, but you just never managed it? Well, it's a bit like that with Pratchett and me – the fact that a lot of people are fans has not escaped my attention, and I always kept meaning to give it a go, but something always got in the way and so…...