Good to be God by Tibor Fischer

Good to be God is the latest novel of Tibor Fischer, one of my favourite authors, a British novelist and short story writer of Hungarian origin. The main character is Tyndale a broke, middle aged lighting bulbs salesman who after meeting again his childhood pal Nelson who is in the handcuffs business and travels often, decides to fly to Miami, Florida instead of his friend. After spending time and having fun in a Miami hotel with policemen who are there for some symposium he decides to stay for good and empties his friend's company credit card. Tyndale wants to impersonate God, to fool those who deserve it and take some of their money and to get rich. This novel is full of colourful characters like Sixto the Cuban landlord and the boss of Tyndale, who works for him as a drug dealer, Napalm the ugly but friendly and ungrateful roommate, Dishonest Dave the Haitian shopowner who attracts mugging and who's motto is "We fully intend to rip you off", DJ Gamay and DJ Muscat who are replaced as DJ-s by a monkey and who think that Tyndale can get them into a multinational crime organisation, Hierophant the reverend of the Church of Heavily Armed Christ and former marine whose congregation consist  of less then a dozen of members. Here at the  Church of Heavily Armed Christ Tyndale becomes the right hand of Hierophant and  replaces him when the marine reverend has to tend to his terminally ill mother. Tyndale by trying to become a deity tries to fix the problem of the parish members from cats gone astray to saving a girl from his abusive lover. In fact by trying to become God, Tyndale tries to do and does  good things even if it's in an unorthodox way. The title of the novel could have been Good to be Good because even if some of the motives of Tyndale are selfish or wrong, he recognizes the goodness in folks and wants to help them doing the good thing. This is true in the case of Gulin, the Turkish immigrant woman, but also when he sees that the Fixico sisters are brainwashing people with their prosperity religion and works against them and topples them not even taking the credit for it. The novel ends in an optimist way: Tyndale is not rich as he expected in the beginnings, but gets a second chance in life by the side of Gulin.
This is not the best novel of Tibor Fischer like Thought Gang or Under the Frog , but I have liked it. It's funny, of black humor, though even so you can find lines which hold truth on religion, society and life. I recommend reading it. Tibor Fischer's novels remind me in a slight way of  Rejtő Jenő black humored writings and underworld characters.

" I had some dealings with the union reps at work and they were all, almost without exception, the most greedy, self centered and vile types you were likely to come across. You should see their expenses. Beware talk of brotherhood and justice. Whereas those, like the Hierophant who trumpet the stand-on-your-own-to-feet  creed are the most likely to give you a hand..."

Support Tibor Fischer´s next book at unbound.co.uk - crowd funded publishing!

Shannon's way by A. J. Cronin

In this novel Cronin  tells again the story of a doctor. It is a tale of love, research, religious views, personal tragedies and betrayel. The writer narrating in  first person  makes us acquainted with Robert Shannon a young Catholic doctor in the after-war England. He works as an university research physician but in the meantime he does his own study on an epidemy in the laboratory of his own workplace. Soon he has to leave his job because he is in conflict with the leading professor who can't stand him and wants Shannon to focus on the lab's priority.  Due to this he has to endure hardships and struggles to find a job. He fells in love with Jean Law, but her parents are against this relationship because he is a Roman Catholic and do not share his view on religion. Shannon sais: "Religion is a private affair. We can't help what creed we're born into. It's quite possibile for two people to be tolerant of each other's belief." But her father denies it saying that "She can never commingle with the waters of Babylon". Cronin's novels shows us a world where personal, family or group interests are the most important. The death of the patient is overlooked. The nurse who caused the death by a stupid mistake keeps his job while Shannon is layed off by a commission just because he did experiments in an unused room thus misusing the taxpayers' money. But there are good people like the marginalized professor Challis who supports him even getting him a doctor job  having at his disposal  a good lab for his research. Some novels of A. J. Cronin  do not have a happy ending, I only disclose for the reader that this book has an  open ending with hope in the future. I enjoyed and liked this novel and give it five stars. Found out the ending reading this book!
Check Shannon's Way at Amazon.

The judas tree by A. J. Cronin

The novel ties you down to finish reading it, but there is  also the urge not reach the end because you sense that it will be a very bad ending. The main figure is never able to tell the truth as it is or to confront it but tries to mend the past wrongdoings by being charitable as money would solve everything. He remains  deeply selfish never really thinking what his role was and that his present good intentions may leed to even worse.
He remains undecided to the end even if he made up his mind, just thinking he might suffer  he changes his intentions. 
The Judas tree is a story of a treason, the main character is David Moray, a doctor who lost his parents in his late childhood and since then he thinks that because of his sufferings he is entitled to better. At the beginning of novel we meet Moray as a successful, rich chemist owner of an enterprise living in his new lavish palace home in Switzerland. Acting as an omen, the treasure of his  garden is a Judas tree. Soon his happy time in Switzerland is overshadowed by the rememberance of his past treason of his youth times. As a young doctor he fell in love with Mary  the daughter of a baker. Mary was  the fiance of  Walter Stoddart, a local rich man's son. But the love between Moray and Mary grew stronger, Mary broke up with the insensitive Walter against the wish of his family and became the fiance of Moray.
Everything looked bright, Moray soon secured a position as a doctor at hospital but he got sick with his lungs and in order to recover due to the chance of a better weather had to embark as a naval doctor on a ship  heading to India.
During his trip he was exchanging letters with Mary and with her brother, his good friend. But soon he grew fond of Doris Holbrook who is travelling with his rich parents involved in medicine business. The parents saw him as a potential  husband for Doris proposing him a good position in the company. He saw this as a good opportunity for richness thinking the misfortunes of his childhood would be repaid.
Dear reader I  stop here narrating, if the description caught your curiosity take up the novel.  Judas Tree at Amazon.

The Spanish Gardener by A. J. Cronin

Harrington Brande an US diplomat is dispatched as a consul in San Jorge, a town in  Spain. He is a rigid, cold, arrogant, extremely pride self-righteous and self-centered person who is unable to comprehend the real needs, yearning of others and is possessed by the outmost envy and jealousy especially if his son shows great affection towards others. He thinks himself as of a person who is entitled to more and who is mistreated, misunderstood by his superiors
This type of personality caused his wife to leave the family, Harrington Brande remaining with his son Nicholas whose health is weak. Towards him shows an almost abnormal paternal love. He sees himself as the only one who can have the love of his son.
Though he loves his son fervently he is not able to comprehend what is best for him. When Nicholas befriends with Jose the young Spanish gardener he is afraid of  losing his son‘s love and treats the gardener badly and with hostility. Harrington is so bedazzled of his own “superior” personality that he is unable to see the real nature behind people. He thinks of  his butler Garcia as of  a loyal servant, ha can’t recognize the charlatan with titles in his  doctor and misunderstands the goodwill of his gardener whom he burdens with hard work out of hatred. Rarely you can read about such a misguided, vengeful character and if you read on you will see that he  is on the road to tragedy, but even so he can not fully grasp  his fate's meaning: sees it as a personal martyrdom.  He is like the turkey bird he reads about at the end,  "by nature a peculiar bird - assertive and self-sufficient - yet because of this inordinate vanity, liable to grave discomfitures ..."
I searched if  "The Spanish Gardener" is available online to read freely, but I have found only "Adventures In Two Worlds" and "Hatters Castle" by A. J. Cronin at Internet Archive site.
The Spanish Gardener at Amazon.
My book's cover is subtitled: "The famous novel from which a famous film was made".
You can watch online The Spanish Gardener at youtube. I need to say the film is different and has another ending.

Three blind mice by Agatha Christie

An entertaining short book around 125 pages in small format, it's easy to read and good for a day when you want to rest or relax and take off your mind of anything pressing.
The crime story starts off with Molly and Giles, a couple who are new to running a small inn in their own house.
They opened it in a harsh winter and their first guests happen to be strange people: Christopher Wren the playful redhead young man from Wales, Mrs. Boyle is accustomed to giving orders and is never satisfied, major Metcalf seems holding back something, the shrewd satyrish alien Mr. Paravicini seems too much interested in women. A snow storm cuts off the inn from the outer world... Dear stumbler I stop here with the details in order to let you discover and enjoy reading the book. Still I only mention that "Three blind mice" was made into a radio play by BBC in 1947 for the 80th birthday of queen Mary, mother of the British king George the VIth. She replied to the question, what kind of play she wants by telling "something by Agatha Christie".
Later Christie turned the book into a play with the title "The Mousetrap" and since it's London premier of 1952 has been the longest running play.
I uploaded the cover of the Hungarian translation of the novel titled "Három vak egér" of course the meaning is the same. Three Blind Mice (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries) at Amazon.

Deaf Sentence by David Lodge

Deaf Sentence the new campus novel of David Lodge makes us acquainted with Desmond Bates a retired university professor of linguistics. The title reminds us of the expression "Death Sentence" and in fact Desmond feels himself sentenced to deafness due to his hearing disability which makes his life hard, it causes friction with his younger wife Fred who is becoming a successfull entrepreneur while her husband have lost interest in daily life.
But the existance of Desmond gets complicated: he gets involded with an american student who even tries to blackmail him into writing her paper on suicide letters, his father dies, his relation with Fred chills.
I can tell David Lodge is one of my favorite authors.
The first book I read from him was Paradise News, a book which made one of my summers happier. Deaf Sentence: A Novel at Amazon.