Porridge Is Toast

I like porridge for breakfast. Porridge is supposed to be very good for you; apparently it helps to reduce cholesterol in the bloodstream. However, this probably only works if you make it with water and salt. I make mine with milk, and I only add a tiny dash of salt. Then – shock horror - I go and spoil it all by pouring cream on it before I eat it. This, I suppose, cancels out any goodness it might have otherwise have provided.

In the meantime, I'm a big fan of the writer David Mitchell. I really rated his Cloud Atlas and thought it definitely should have won the Booker in 2004 when it lost out to Hollinghurst's terminally dull writing-for-writing's-sake Line of Beauty. However, there is something about Mitchell's most recent novel Black Swan Green that left me feeling rather uncomfortable, and vaguely cheated. Yes, it is a beautifully told story in many ways; and yes, it's beguiling, funny and keenly observed for the most part. But there's something rather cynical about both its setting and its voice. For example, how closely timed was it to coincide with the evocation of memories that the general media would inevitably inspire in respect of the twentieth anniversary of the Falklands War? And for that matter, did we really need a whole chapter that was basically a de facto history lesson? This was expositive to say the least, albeit perhaps in the loosest sense. And then there was the curious episode of the exotically mad woman in the vicarage. Amusing and well-drawn maybe, but what did it do to move the story forward? I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised because Mitchell does have a propensity for this sort of thing (I'm thinking of the novel-within-the-novel in the middle of number9dream), but it still doesn't make it palatable.

And the voice – a very convincing thirteen year old boy, I admit – but it seemed to be cosily playing up to the successes of both DBC Pierre and Mark Haddon. Am I being overly cynical myself, perhaps? I won't even start on the sentimentality of the novel either – in that respect it was almost as bad as Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.

Nevertheless, I found it hugely enjoyable and I'm glad I read the book. I just feel that a very good novel that could have been so good for me - and could have improved my life - was slightly spoiled by a bit of over-indulgence on behalf of its creator. A bit like putting cream on your porridge, I suppose.