Get Hold Of A Sportful Malice Formulated By Michiel Heyns Available As Readable Copy

won this book as a Goodreads First reads giveaway,

I must say, I was very intrigued by the back of the book and was looking forward to reading it, I can also admit that the more I read the more I was brought into the story and felt the compelling need to read it especially in the last two "chapters" as it seems.


Although I tend to dislike first person narratives and/or letter formed novels, this book is fantastically written in that it isn't boring, long and winded or filled with too much personal reflection.
On the contrary, I found the main character a great story teller, the stories themselves compelling with many moments where I was either cringing, smiling, having a short laugh and even bursts of shock.
The images were very clear to my mind and I had no difficulty whatsoever following the plot although I must admit a lot of the English by the character Cedric wasn't always as easy to figure out.


All in all, it is a book that certainly deserves a read, A worthwhile, pleasant surprise, with twists through and through, ending in a humourous unfortunate affair, Awardwinning novelist Michiel Heyns is back with a darkly comic tale,

When a young South African literary scholar, Michael Marcussi, is offered, via a Facebook contact, a house in the Tuscan village of Gianocini, he accepts with alacrity: this is just the space and quiet he needs to complete his study of Literary Representations of Tuscany.


But even before he has boarded his plane at Stansted Airport, things start vexing him: an obnoxious old man jumps the boarding queue, and Michael is given the evil eye by a belligerent bovver boy covered in tattoos.
Nor is this to be his last meeting with these objectionable characters: they turn up in unexpected places, first in Florence and then in Gianocini itself, with a frequency that cannot be purely coincidental.


In the meantime Michael is pursuing his own extracurricular agenda, through the streets of Florence and the passages of the Uffizi, then through the medieval alleys of Gianocini, only to find himself the object of mysterious designs and the subject of some very disturbing paintings.


Add to this the innocent but curious Wouter, the startlingly rude upperclass harridan, Sophronia, the beautiful but supercilious Paolo and a dog called Thanatos: the Tuscan sun never shone on a more bizarre mix.


After the sophisticated comedy of The Typewriters Tale and Invisible Furies, and the poignant ironies of Lost Ground, Michiel Heyns here returns to the broader comedy of The Reluctant Passenger, in a scintillating tale of love, revenge and trippa.
And Heyn's does it again! Sad to report I have now read ALL of his books, Thoroughly enjoyed this one, again, had a little twist in the tale which one wasn't expecting, Really enjoy his writing style, I have received a complimentary copy of this book through Goodreads, courtesy of Jonathan Ball Publishers, as a new release, Consequently, I am pleased to share my review of “A Sportful Malice” by author Michiel Heyns,

A young South African is on his way to Tuscany from London to work on his academic writings, He leaves behind a lover with whom he shares his doings on a daily basis, which provides the “epistolary” structure of the book, As it turns out, there is no short supply of incidents to write about, as Michael Marcucci seems destined to run into peculiar characters and curious coincidences.
In the fictional little village of Gianocini, he hopes to find the ideal setting in which to continue his work on “Tuscan appropriations, ” However, apart from numerous distractions and hostile locals, Michael finds that he is in for much more appropriations than he could have imagined,

The reader is slowly introduced to the main character through biographical snippets portraying his traits and quirks, Simultaneously, the story line becomes tangible in an equally sluggish manner, This unhurried pace continues for more than half of the books, but turns out to be quite fitting in a way, As Michael says himself: “Well, I was going to say to cut a long story short, but why Let the long story be as long as it has to be.
. . ” Besides, this compulsive need for comprehensive narratives and sharing more information than necessary seems to be the inspiration for this particular story, Which brings us to the whole phenomena of Facebook and virtual socializing, where Heyns philosophy surrounding the matter is exposingly accurate and amusingly spoton.


Although there is an apt kind of mystery surrounding the main character, the other characters are described in delightful and lifelike detail, from Cedrics odd tattoos to Paolos sublime belly button.
An aspect of this tale that was unusual, but oddly pleasing is that it does not feel like I was manipulated or led to “like” the protagonist.
I found it quite a refreshing approach not needing to root for the “good guy, ”

The extensive vocabulary is at times simply beguiling and at times a bit overbearing, which I thought was not entirely appropriate for a lettertype novel.
Nevertheless, it gave me great satisfaction to read a novel that provides a rewarding challenge to ones word range, As a South African myself, I found this book to provide an appealing blend of local and foreign as well as naiveté and wisdom, humour and horror and the modern and the old.


The unfurling of the plot provided me with just enough information to lead me to wild speculation throughout, but did not become predictable or boring.
I stayed absorbed in the tale until the very end, Its hard to put my finger on it, but there is something about the writing style that feels typically South African, albeit a bit oldergeneration.
Perhaps it is the dry cynicism or the meticulousness in narration, but some of the dialogue feels like it is straight out of my own dads mouth.


Despite being a slow story, this one made me laugh out loud several times, provided an intriguing setting, plenty of mystery and even a serving of food for thought.
Just a quick niggle: I HATE rating books, It's silly. It's giving somebody marks for creative endeavour which I find is simply a matter of the subjective taste of the moment, But I haven't found a way to write a review without rating the book first,

Anyway.
What a splendid book! I love bits of sentences that read like this they're a little like chiaroscuro paintings of youths with tattoos and face furniture: "'I reckon he was a right real cunt' he commented, with his customary penchant for the mot juste .
. . "
The story is written in epistolary form, albeit email, One can't help feeling that the recipient is kind of ungrateful, I would have been SO content with someone so cogently communicative! Of course, the protagonist gets payback in a satisfying and not too dreadful way keeping the book comical rather than black, even though the laissezfaire attitude of the conspirators is a bit hard to swallow.
The story is set in a village in Italy and gets on at a cracking pace, told in beautiful and amusing language, Buy it, it's great fun,
Michiel Heyns is a South African novelist, translator and literary critic, Until, he was Professor of English Literature at the University of Stellenbosch when the success of his first novel allowed him to become a full time writer.
As an academic he is best known for his work onth andth century literature, especially his acclaimed study, Expulsion and the Nineteenth Century Novel: The Scapegoat in English Realist Fiction Oxford University Press,.
Inhe made his debut as a novelist with the comic coming of age story, The Childrens Day, This was followed by another novel of high comedy, The Reluctant Passengerwhich has since been translated into French, His subsequent novels have moved away from the South Afri Michiel Heyns is a South African novelist, translator and literary critic, Until, he was Professor of English Literature at the University of Stellenbosch when the success of his first novel allowed him to become a full time writer.
As an academic he is best known for his work onth andth

century literature, especially his acclaimed study, Expulsion and the Nineteenth Century Novel: The Scapegoat in English Realist Fiction Oxford University Press,.
Inhe made his debut as a novelist with the comic coming of age story, The Children's Day, This was followed by another novel of high comedy, The Reluctant Passengerwhich has since been translated into French, His subsequent novels have moved away from the South African milieu: The Typewriter's Tale, which focuses on Theodora Bosanquet, the amanuensis of Henry James, was followed by Bodies Politic, which deals with the English suffrage movement of the turn of theth century.
He is also the award winning translator of Tom Dreyer and Marlene van Niekerk most famously of her The Way of the Women, and continues to write widely as a literary critic and reviewer.
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