2,083

Following on from the last post, I now have 2,083 books – another package from Amazon dropped through the letterbox today.

And, joy of joys, it’s "The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth" by Malcolm Pryce. This is the third novel by Pryce set in an Aberystwyth that hails from some parallel universe to our own. Reading the books is like reading Raymond Chandler crossed with The League of Gentlemen – noir, bizarre, and laugh-out-loud funny. The synopsis of this book will give you an idea:

There was nothing unusual about the barrel-organ man who walked into private detective Louie Knight’s office. Apart from the fact that he had lost his memory. And his monkey was a former astronaut on the Welsh Space Programme. And he carried a suitcase that he was too terrified to open. And he wanted a murder investigated. The only thing unusual about that was, it took place a hundred years ago. And he needed it solved by the following week. Louie was too smart to take a case like that but also too broke to turn it down. Soon he is lost in a labyrinth of intrigue and terror, tormented at every turn by a gallery of mad nuns, gangsters and waifs and haunted by the loss of his girlfriend, Myfanwy, who disappeared one day after being fed drugged raspberry ripple…

Pryce has a knack of writing sentences that become instant aphorisms, or that immediately conjure up strangeness – like looking at life in a mirror that ever-so-slightly distorts – or putting your foot down expecting a step that isn’t there… Examples from the first few pages in the book:

"…there’s nothing lonelier than the bought smile of a harlot."

"She was a small monkey, and very old, with fur turning white around the muzzle and deep sad dark eyes, like two wishing wells that hadn’t seen a penny in years."

"I wouldn’t go so far as to say she smiled – she was a capuchin monkey and they generally keep their cards close to their chest – but a look of heightened interest was evident."

  Oooh, I think I’m going to like this novel as much as the first two…