Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan

As always, Ian McEwan writes supremely well, the book is enjoyable and easily readable, but I was again somewhat disappointed. I still think his last truly great book was Atonement. His books used to surprise and make us shudder inside, we felt like we found something hidden and scarily true about our human nature; these last books are just nice.

À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur, by Marcel Proust

How wonderful to reread Proust, and how beautiful it is in French. After the wonderful start with Du côté de chez Swann, it's in the second book that the work really takes off - we meet Saint-Loup, Madame de Villeparisis, Bergotte, Elstir and, last but not least, Albertine. I never get tired o reading it, and when I pick it up to read a few pages, I never put it down before reading some 20 or 30. The pages about his renunciation to Gilberte are still the best I've read about the end of a love (or a friendship, or a relationship); the ones about his relations with Saint-Loup and Bloch the best meditation about friendship; and the development of his love for Albertine, from the initial vague and mostly imagined figure among the bouquet of the young girls n bloom, is simply perfect. As is the description of Balbec and its summer society.

I already have Le côté de Guermantes waiting, but will take a pause - great pleasures must be savored slowly.

Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh

I had seen this book mentioned several times over the years, the last time was in Patrick Leigh Fermor's biography. I didn't read much by Waugh - actually I can only remember The Loved One, a funny satire I read long ago - so I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a bitter funny book, witty and cruel, but also very moving, about a generation who didn't know what to believe or what values to uphold - sound familiar? Yes, actually I think it could be written today, about the present younger generation - they, too, believe they are a sort of Bright Young People but are mostly clueless.