The Suspension of Disbelief

Russia/Ukraine is scary, we have the least competent government anyone can remember, and our lying Prime Minister seems determined and able to cling to power regardless of what comes to light - but I’m still feeling OK. How can that be? I have two really good books on the go, one upstairs, one downstairs, and that makes all the difference.

They’re both fiction, and completely different. By my bed is Jonathan Franzen’s “Crossroads”, a bulky saga set in the nineteen seventies, tracing the complexity and interconnections of a large American family, moving between their various viewpoints. Colm Toibin’s “The Magician” is calmer and more classical, a careful recreation of the life of the novelist Thomas Mann, his family and his writing, and his response to the growing nightmare of nineteen thirties’ Germany. Totally different in style and approach, but with both I am utterly convinced. I become part of these very different worlds, one in the morning, one last thing at night. Libraries are a beautiful thing, and we should treasure them before we lose them.