The New Read.

Just a quick note about my new reading matter – JP Donleavy’s A Fairytale of New York (I gather The Pogues got the title for their near-legendary Christmas song from it, so I suppose I sort of got the title of my own story, A Fairytale of Philadelphia, from the same source, albeit second hand.)

I read the first chapter tonight and was much impressed. His observation of the New York docks was extremely keen, and his further observation of lowbrow New Yorkers highly amusing. But here’s what’s odd:

I picked the book up because I’d heard of JP Donleavy, was aware of his reputation, but had never read anything he'd written. But when I mentioned it to Mel she’d never heard of him, even though she’s got a Masters degree in English Literature. Makes you wonder about the standard of tertiary education, doesn’t it? (But then I did anyway, so nothing new there.)