I enjoyed this short novel. It has physicists and anthrolpologists, blind men, grad students, a psychiatrist, oh and a creature composed of nothingness (entirely made of the absence of anything) that has its own personality and is picky. It is a darkly funny and sarcastic story about love and obsession, while at the same time we are pulled through an academic discussion of what it is to have, and to lack.
Don Norman’s companion book to The Design of Everyday Things (which everyone says is just wonderful, though I personally have not read it) was underwhelming. I thought he was repetitive and reaching for examples. I thought his “future” seems to have happened about three years ago. I thought that his almost total disregard to the internet seems absurd for this decade. And I thought he was at his best when talking about the abstract and not trying to bring in the case studies that again were overused and underinteresting. Not a glowing review, but only because I believe I had such high standards.
I believe this book was the highlight of my summer reading. Aciman, in winning me over with this story, has led me to recently acquire his entire catalog of essays and memoirs, which I look forward to attacking as summer is ending. Short and (extra) sweet, it follows an over-educated 17-year-old seducing and being seduced by his father’s visiting scholar at their summer home in Italy. Coming-of-age stories, when done well, must speak directly to the romantic idealist, and this one succeeds by communicating straight to the heart.
The above paragraph was the short review I published in the Tartan this past August. Nothing has changed, I have fond memories of this story and it is the best fiction I have read this year.
Aiobheann Sweeney’s first novel was something while reading that I didn’t quite know what to do with. But now, months later, I have decided I it is worth some struggle. It is new and it is interesting. It is a story with people who are presented as characters. Events occur, the people take actions and also don’t take action. Later it ends. And then even later, I look back and decide that that was something I enjoyed reading.
Annie Dillard’s newest novel was one I was meant to enjoy, but while I didn’t not enjoy it (feel that praise), it is nothing to write home about. Thus, I will end here.
Murakami’s After Dark worked for me. I feared it going in, as I tend to get really angry at his short stories, as like his novels they are very outlandish, but with out the requirement of holding one’s attention for several hundred pages, I find the short stories too emphemeral. I can’t hold on to them even while reading, let alone after I put the book down.
After Dark, a novella for Murakami at less than two-hundred pages, did keep me (and really, him) linked to the story. But then the shortness of time (it takes place in a single night), and the lack of too much jumping between strange parallel universes (hey, it is still Murakami) kept things tied to reality. No really, it did.
(Oh also, really hate that cover. Wish I would have had the Vintage International paperback to match the rest of my Murakami collection)
McEwan, the oft-called master of macabre’s newest novella, On Chesil Beach, is a return to form, a short and dark novel centered around a young couple’s wedding night. While the action is well-framed and the characters are true to their setting, after a number of longer and intricate novels (like his recently film-adapted Atonement, and Saturday ), I was left seeking details that were never imagined, stories and subplots never written, for this novella. Or maybe that is the goal here, to keep me wanting more.
Unaccustomed Earth Jhumpa Lahiri’s second collection of short stories after her debut Interpreter of Maladies and then her novel The Namesake, is a return to a form that I believe she is more uncomfortable in. While not as striking as her first volume, the first story is a clear stand-out (very much worth reading) and the final three stories form an extended look into the lives of two consistent characters.
Yes, this book is likely not going to revolutionize the way you think about short stories or Indian-American fiction, it is worth reading for its clean and elegent storytelling.
Another graphic novel, that we at Book Group read along with the previously posted Blankets, was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. I frequently accidentally call this graphic novel Fun House. It is an honest mistake I promise.
Comparively, this one is (much) darker, more literary, deals with sexual exploration (in the what-is-my-sexuality-orientation-vein), and of course is set between a funeral home and their own large victorian house. It is strange and morbid, but that I enjoyed. The illustrations however, did not lead me to the same emotional response that Blankets did.
Blankets, a long, quick graphic novel that recounts the Craig Thompson’s own story of first love. While a bit sappy at moments, the story comes across as honest and a plausible look back at growing up. Additionally the novel is very well illustrated. Many of the pages stand on their own, apart from the framework they have been set up in, as pieces of art.
Even at six-hundred pages, it moves quickly, pulling you in right from the start. Oh! And, it has been banned, likely due to its somewhat negative spin on Christianity and its later scenes of, well, young adults being young adults. So. If you are going to read a coming of age story, you might as well read it with pictures.
Natalie Angier’s whirlwind tour through the fundamentals of science (not including Computer Science, must not be real) is a nice—and light— introduction to a selection of the underpinnings of modern scientific thoguht. While, likely not a book to satisfy those looking for technical and mathematical depth—or any math at all—Angier is a talented writer, and her style here, mixing personal anecdotes, metaphors, and interviews with many top scientists makes one of the better popular science introductions around.
Possibly in early January 2007 I was wondering a bookstore (probably Chapters) in downtown Toronto with Arpi, and he pointed out Londonstani, and said a friend was reading it and said it was quite delightful. However even a week later I could only remember that I was recommended to read some book with a pink tiger on the cover.
This pink tiger however, was, of course, only on the british edition and thus it took me quite a few months to figure out what book exactly I was meant to be reading, but I will say — the search was more than worth it.
Gautam Malkani’s debut novel, is honest and british, and has good trying characters that you want to fight for and you want to punch in the face. The dialogue, specifically his ear for slang, is very well captured, and I (obviously) highly recommend this short novel.
Philip Pullman’s second “little book” to accompany His Dark Materials trilogy provides the backstory for Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison. While the story of how these two fellow adventurers meet will be of interest to those who hold the series in a Harry Potter-esque cult status (where every word out of J.K.’s mouth holds biblical worth), the simplicity will leave those who appreciate Pullman’s carefully constructed novels wanting more.
Amy Hempel is a goddess of short stories. This 2006 volume, now out in paperback (and as of this posting only $7 on amazon so go buy it), simply straps her four short story collections into one handy 400-page book.
I can’t recommend this enough. Hempel is a master of her craft, her stories each hold their own with a dark grace, a straight-forward and overly observant voice. She casts reality in a level and layered light, she brings her own humanity into every story, and you read each bracing for the impact of an abundant dose of humanity.
This isn’t quite as good as The Road, but for the creepiest experience of realization of an author’s work ever read this and then immediately see the Coen Brothers film.
Or just read this because I enjoyed it. McCarthy’s graphic landscapes and sharp, concise, nearly trivial (which is what makes it realistic – i believe) conversation fragments fit both post-apocalyptic England and the cowboys of the south/west quite well.
I wish I had not been told that this book was the prequel to The City of Ember. Actually, maybe it is okay that I knew, but it sent me into this really funny sort of expectant state. The novel is good and certainly DuPrau shows her ability to deal with reality just as well as her quasi-utopian giver-esque world. (And points for actually connecting the worlds.)
I was just so confused when I was twenty pages from the end of the novel and still had not figured out the connection from this book, to the first in the series. And actually although I was uneasy for two hundred pages, I think I have decided that I love this.
This is our second bookgroup book for December or January or whenever we get around to it. I have little to say about it because 1) I haven’t read any other Vonnegut (at least not the fiction) so I am told he develops some of these things later but not here and I guess that would have been cooler 2) I guess I am just sick of this genre and while I accept and understand that this is very very well done I can’t get past knowing that it is presently over done.
I just wish I had read this fifty years ago (you know twenty some odd years before I was born).
I think it is all about the vacuum.
Take a container with an opening, and a small hole in the bottom. Cover it with your finger, submerge it in water, save the bottom. Remove your finger. Water will enter where you have created the vacuum.
Or perhaps you will have created a trip that begins in a swampy village yet to become a city, yet to be reborn as a proper city that takes us as far as the kingdom of Prester John (which seems to not quite be all the way to Pakistan) and back, and possibly back again.
Baudolino speaks every language and lies in each of them, he is a master of facts and stories, though he has fabricated most of them and doesn’t know which. And so we follow him through his story into the kingdom of self-created myths, blending fiction and fact in such a way that eight hundred years later they are nearly impossible to tell apart.
Based on our bookgroup discussion one of Brianne’s professors stated that this was Eco proving he knows everything. And it seems like he might. Eco’s personal library is 30,000 books (think double my basement) and it shows. The historical fiction is filled with facts in far more places than I would expect and when actual events are absent the gaps are filed with mythology. Or possibly the gaps are just the interstitial vacuum between corpuscles.
But then nature fears the vacuum.
(I need to read more.)
- Bookgroup November 2007.
Oh Susanna Clarke and your dry and academic, magical British fairytales. I cannot get enough. These short stories, issued in collection by a fictional Australian professor of sidhe studies is short, often whimsical re-tellings of the most classic stories of the fairy.
She needs to just keep writing.
After just posting Prose’s Primitive People I realized I never posted Reading Like a Writer, which I suppose I read last fall, just about a year ago (very shortly after it came out).
The book is a tour of how one writer (Prose–it is often quite autobiographical and personal) reads, for education, inspiration, and pleasure. By using a variety of examples she redefines the standard creative-writing vocabulary through works of the past. Moves on to discuss her own relationship with Chekhov’s work and finally provides a list of books that she believes anyone who wants to writes–should really have already read.
So for those of you wanting to write, or just who enjoy reading and writing and such related activities, you will likely enjoy this book.
I got Francine Prose’s Primitive People while I was home last weekend at the Book Outlet, and in maintaining my read-a-bunch-of-short-books plan finished it this morning. It was pretty good, I did enjoy it, but it did not blow me away.
My favorite character, the vulgar and philosophical, sex-driven yet idealistic children’s hairstylist Kenny wasn’t used to his full potential. Actually I think that is generally my complaint, I wanted a bit more to happen, though I did appreciate the not so tidy ending. It is a well executed piece of writing, just unfortunately not too much more than that.
After Middlemarch, Jonathan Lethem’s The Disappointment Artist was a much needed change of pace. Through his essays which are mostly autobiographical/memoir, we learn about the incredibly obsessive adolescence of the author. Which is really the best descriptor of what he was, really really obsessive.
The essays lead us through his influences, his influence largely having driven his young life: collecting all of Philip K. Dick’s work (and reading the “irv” twice), seeing Star Wars twenty-one times in a single summer, matching that number with 2001, jumping from author to author, compulsively digesting their style before moving on to the next.
The focus mostly stays on reading and film-viewing, with some nods to music-listening, and a reasonably thorough description of his parents and their nyc-hippie lifestyle. Most interestingly to me though is so clearly being able to state who his influences are, and each with an associated time period. This is something I simply cannot do; I know generally who and what I have read, but never anyone so many times or so completely sit in my mind with a period of my life. I am too scattered for such determined focus.
Some things are so central that they eventually must be covered by authors who span a complete discussion of the human condition.
You live in a world inundated with branding, with consumerism, with media making decisions for you, impacting your life, driving you. Reading the novel is an exercise in understanding the form, but even with the suburban details, the plot, the airborne toxic event, and the characters are strong. This is combination is really well captured, well detailed, I could only wish for a bit more impact of Hitler into the storyline, but certainly that is due to my own tastes. Overall, quite a good piece, but then as it is DeLillo I am biased.
This “novel” is written in the style of an oral history: it consists solely of, what we are told are, direct quotes from people associated with one Buster L. Casey. Because of this we must assemble the narrative of the book in our minds as we are only told revolving fractions of events that friends, acquaintances, and so called experts fill in.
The device of an oral history works very well here because it allows a method where theatrhoe cannot be expected to fill in all the details or make the story consistent; it can remain partially shrouded in the mystery of people’s memories, of the past, and of the future.
NNT’s argument is that things that we don’t expect to happen matter more so we should stop forecasting (most) things because we aren’t going to get anything (important) right anyway.
He has lots of bits about why we delude ourselves with narratives (and how to prevent narratives from doing that, or how to use narratives to get ourselves to be re-deluded to believe better things), how statistics do nothing for us, and how these “black swans” matter lots and lots and we should leverage them.
The bell curve is very bad. Mandlebrotion randomness is very good. Being a successful writer require random good luck.
Most importantly, one must find their own historical foundation from the works of forgotten/neglected/partially ignored scholars.
I have never listened to an audio book before (except some failed attempts at librivox.org recordings – that I never actually made it through). It was pretty enjoyable; though we certainly picked a giant to start with: 18 cds. I suppose since I refuse to listen to anything abridged this is bound to occur, but it was still a pleasant way to spend a large portion of the trip.
Sean Wilsey recounts his childhood, complete with San Francisco star parents, love affairs, boarding schools, sex, drugs, rock and roll, an overdose on Tolkien, escape plans, childhood fantasies, and eventually the building story of what he became (an editor at McSweeney’s, a published novelist, a successful journalist, a husband, a father).
I am sure this book will be pleasant to read or listen to, and well presents one man’s story of growing up in and out of San Francisco.
No one.
Short stories are eloquent, but they can also be humorous and heartfelt. I really like Miranda July, and I really like her short stories. She has the new voice, she highlights the absurd and the uniquely beautiful, and so you should all just read this book because it is short and complete and complicated and simple and true.
Then Sue suddenly stepped out of the bathroom holding her robe in one hand, naked. She had discovered she couldn’t put it on because it wasn’t really a robe, it was nothing.
No one belongs here more than you.
Oh Ian McEwan, because of this novel I nearly purchased a large belt buckle at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo that was covered in hot air balloons, but then I realized that this would be a morbid act and a reminder of death in the shape of hot air balloons.
So while I did not purchase this buckle, I did enjoy this book, which kept me reading, kept me interested, and kept me guessing on what was going to happen, who to believe, and how stable the mental health of the main character is.
Tying in science writing, a childless yet love filled relationship, an obsessed and devout christian stalker, and the search for truth, we find that enduring love is not what we might have thought.
Oh man. Well, we knew it was coming, and after my strong distaste for the Half Blood Prince let me warn you now this is not going to go well for Ms. Rowling.
Spoilers will almost certainly follow.
I had two main requirements which were necessary for me to like the book, which were:
My reasons for these are more complicated but are briefly as follows. In war, people die, and since there aren’t hundreds or thousands of soldiers to throw at Voldemort, many of our main characters must die. The second is more complicated, but if you were the bad guy and you knew your main target constantly hung out with two of his best friends, then those two are escalated up the target list nearly as high as Undesireable Number One himself.
In my opinion (this is opinion because of the first point), Rowling failed on both counts. The second is more obvious- here are the spoilers- Voldemort (in theory) died; Harry, Ron, and Hermoine all lived. Even if you count Harry as dying (which I don’t – and I think her little avada kedavra only took out the Voldemort part of you, theory is bogus) that is still only one, and I required two. As for the first, she had a few good deaths that were real and believable but most of these came early in the novel, since her battle scenes are rushed and we have really little time to feel any sadness over the loss of people in those last one hundred pages.
Sidenote: All of the trained aurors can get killed (except Kingsley – and I am not even sure he is techncially an auror) but not Ron or Hermoine (or Ginny, Luna, Neville, and a bunch of other kids who never get mentioned- cough: Cho).
Rowling can maintain her points for getting children to read long books that are fairly difficult and dense, and motivating them to be excited to read, but since I am going to judge books as literature, and at this point I am trying to validate these books as a (the?) strong point of fantasy this decade (they may have to simply settle for top-selling), it is tough for me to get past this.
To close on a positive note, I think she did handle quite beautifully the problem she almost locked herself into of the classic fantasy quest with the Horcruxes, by creating the Hallows and also not focusing the books like a giant list of destroyed Horcruxes, one of my largest worried at the end of book 6. (I am afraid the other worry does remain, the strangely shifting intelligence of Harry/Dumbledore/Snape/Voldemort, and in the end I still question many of the decisions these four characters made – Gringotts?/Was that the best time?/You couldn’t have done anything better with the students at hogwarts?/Expelliarmus- that was all it took?)
The plot remains twisting and complex, interesting and original, many of the ideas are quite wonderful, even if in the genre of fantasy it might have little lasting impact, and even if the more recent books could have been improved hugely by a strong editorial hand.
I like the nickname Jace for someone named Jason. I also like the idea of living in backwater England in 1982, except really I wasn’t born then. Plus stuttering closeted-poets who drive a humorous narration make for good reading.
The Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in 1982 which started the Falklands War (undeclared – because if you don’t declare your war then it isn’t as real). Interestingly while I expect the American populace – especially my own generation – entirely uninformed on the topic of wars that do not involve Americans; the British citizens in the book were quite excited/worried/obsessed. So quickly we forget. I suppose the things I am currently worrying about will also soon no longer matter, the world forgetting what has imprinted itself on my memory. The next generation building on a different foundation.
If swans weren’t real, myths’d make them up.
Also – no swans live in Black Swan Green (which is the name of the town).
I recently saw the movie Fur, about documentary photographer Diane Arbus (pronounced Dee-ahn, played by Nicole Kidman) which was a fictional biography. A fictional biography seemed like a bit of a strange idea to me, a story that could possibly have taken place in her life, smooshed between real events, but that was in reality – fabricated.
Then, I realized (I was already about halfway through this novel) – that I was reading a fictional biography. Michael Winter’s The Big Why is really that, a description of events that may or may not (but probably mostly did not) occur during the time Rockwell Kent (a real american artist, see: Rockwell Kent ) was living in Brigus.
It was most interesting to me to see Michael Winter’s style, very modern, very sexual & raw, very diary-like, and full of philosophizing over anything and everything – which I appreciate – used to tell a story nearly one hundred years old. That takes place in a small fishing community. Without running water. In the middle of nowhere Canada.
But I was pleased, it works really well. I like thinking all of this is real, that this happened.
Kevin B (who never comes to bookgroup) recommended this as a novel of historical fiction which is a family’s story over several generations of living in Pittsburgh. This novel has a compelling story, and is an interesting read especially for everyone in Pittsburgh – as you can connect with the names and places and the history as seen from a lower class (mill worker) point of view.
And you thought building fences wasn’t entertaining
(Alright after reading this – some of you will still think so)
Oh Ian McEwan. You will forever be known as the author who gave the February edition of the book group, the book so commonly referred to as “The Child Rape Book”, which I still maintain is a bit of a misnomer since only three of the eight stories deal with children being raped.
Sure, you might say in most collections of short stories rarely would even a single story broach the topic of raping children – but no, not here. (Many a childs’ first love is clearly rape.)
Anyway, I surely enjoyed this book, as did most of the group, even if it was a bit … sick, twisted, haunting, what have you.
I think I identify well with poets.
This was the novel we read for our March meeting of BookGroup. While I enjoyed it – and liked Ka, and his journey, others felt he was whiny and emotional and crazy? (I may not be accurately representing their views) However I did enjoy this novel, and the layers of fiction and truth it piled through using the narrator and shifting the truth as events occur, even when they are earlier forecast.
I still have not read Toibin’s The Master, his epic portraying Henry James, but after reading his new collection of short stories I have even more motivation to read more of this Irish master’s work. Each of these stories deals with (sometimes loosely) the relationship between a mother and her son(s). Each feels real and true and they are very classically told stories – nothing experimental really, just as if you were listening to him tell the story, as a master would.
I really enjoyed this a lot more than I allowed people to believe I would.
George Eliot’s classic Victorian novel covers a lot of ground, a lot of topics, and has a lot of characters. It has its failings–like where may I ask are the servants stories?–but in all is really quite a masterpiece. Nothing about it is intirely unpredictable, which the conclusion explains as irrelevant, the point being simply to tell the story of those unsung.
Just to cover a few things of interest, and general motifs that I took from the novel
But the story is well told, and most of it stays quite interesting. I do not regret working through all 800 pages, my only sadness comes from only reading a single book in the month of September. I recommend this to fast readers or those with much patience and perserverance.
So honestly, he needed a better editor.
And I understand that when you are insane and writing the first novel that Russia has seen it is hard to find a good editor; and I understand that it was in vogue to be verbose, or as they would say – to eloquently describe every particular of the scene, but please – spare me.
Conceptually the story is interesting, from a literature theory point of view, he is using techniques that would come to define a style triumphed maybe fifty years later, but working through the text is difficult, and in the end not all that rewarding as the end of Part I is not conclusive, urging readers to look forward to parts II & III.
(Part III was never written, Part II was written twice and burned both times – though fragments (which I refused to read) remain.)
I think his short stories will be more promising – and I give him both those stars for cleverness and technique, not for creating a novel I wanted to read.
I read “Zoanthropy” the third short story in this collection, in the Best American Non-Required Reading … 2004, and I loved it. I think it remains my favorite in this collection though others come very close. Many of the stories are funny and the human aspects feel real.
Many people say that “The Devil Comes To Orekhovo” is the best – and I will say it is good, but not the best. Read “Zoanthropy”, “When the Nines Roll Over”, and “Merde For Luck”.
Novels are mostly written by authors. Sometimes they write about authors. Like this book – an author can’t finish his novel, even though it is done, and has been complete for quite a while. But maybe something isn’t correct or it isn’t as good as he feels it should be. So he rewrites and paces and rewrites and then seeks other outlets, crowds of people, photographers, travel, public speaking.
I enjoyed this book, and DeLillo is a master. He knows what he is doing, it is not long but it is epic and says just what it needs to as it pulls you to where you need to be.
And remember: “The Future Belongs To Crowds”
I really enjoyed this book. Another one of my early October reads, back before midterms exploded onto the scene was Anthony Burgess’s The Wanting Seed.
This is a wonderful half-parody of a dystopian society, not only is it incredibly well written, but it is a gripping moving plot with forced homosexuality, the necessity of cannibalism, and a fight between brothers who share a lover.
This makes me want to go read more Burgess, so that will have to get added to the to do list.
(Reprinted from TheTartan.org)
I honestly tried to like Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter by Joe Maguire. I am not saying that because I am in some way addicted to or affiliated with Ann Coulter, I promise; I am not a fan of anyone with the massive record of demeaning quotes Coulter has to her name. Unfortunately, Maguire’s book forgets to rehash her most maddening remarks and instead he merely mumbles about how much he really hates her.
Few of the just over 200 pages of this book are actually spent dealing with the inaccuracies, possible plagiarism, and misconstrued facts that Coulter has produced in her more than 10 years as a political figure. Coulter has, in many ways, redefined the political punditry landscape. She has described herself as someone who likes to “stir up the pot” and in doing so she has made myriad controversial statements across her five best-selling books.
Maguire even thanks Coulter in the acknowledgements for being “such an easy target,” and honestly, she is. From her comments on women (“[T]he problem with women voting and your Communitists will back me up on this is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned”) to her views on Senator Joe McCarthy’s policies (“[He had] a gift for appealing to the great common sense of the American people” and “Liberals like to scream and howl about McCarthyism…. They’ve had intellectual terror on the campus for years…. It’s time for a new McCarthyism,”) she has certainly expressed her extreme opinions. Worst of all might be her comments towards the family members of 9/11 victims: “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”
While Maguire does get around to blasting apart one of Coulter’s “lies,” the book focuses on her "lunacy" and, specifically, on sarcastically and back-handedly insulting her at any opportunity he gets. The sarcasm becomes so thick it is hard to handle at times, and even the language dries up – any book that uses the phrase “Pete’s sake” twice in the first 18 pages is one I want to put down.
At times it seems that Maguire has simply run out of material. In the middle of his chapter Ann on Women, he goes off on a tangent discussing the three things you say when you want to make a woman hate you: “You’re a bad mother. You’re a slut. You act like a man.” At which point he discusses how Coulter probably would be a bad mother, going further to say “she’d probably be the absolute worst absentee, simultaneously neglectful and domineering, and with nothing but white wine in the fridge.”
This is cracked! Maguire forms this book around the thesis that Coulter distorts the truth or simply avoids it by distracting people with outlandish and attention-getting statements, and yet he does the same thing; this book is, ultimately, really a tribute to the method Coulter has developed. The writing style reminds me of something a bitter ex-boyfriend might write about his bereaved ex-lover. I believe it is possible that Maguire is secretly in love with Coulter… and then she broke up with him, so he wrote a book about her. This makes perfect sense: He can call her an awful, horrible person, but at the same time compliment her for being a brilliant writer. I only wish he would have picked up some of those writing skills.
Now, Mr. Maguire, please explain to me the chart which takes up half of page 129 called “Nicknames for Ann Found on the Internet.” There are only seven names on this chart, and I could do better than that in five minutes. Though maybe this was the right direction to head in. Overall the best way to improve this book would be to have simply created a list of Coulter’s outright lies, misleading statements, and hypocritical quotes, with citations that show they are false. Yes, I believe this whole book could have been reduced to a chart. A really giant chart.
Maguire was an editor at Reuters until they saw this book. According to a piece in The New York Times, a Reuters company statement states: “Our editorial policy and The Reuters Trust Principles are prominently displayed for all to see on ”http://www.about.reuters.com">www.about.reuters.com. Mr. Maguire’s book will soon be available. Both speak for themselves."
Brainless suffers from a few major problems. The pacing is off. The second chapter of the book, Ann on Beauty, Race, and Culture is 42 pages, more than double most of the other chapters, which really slows down his argument. This, coupled with the fact that there is no real conclusion to the book, completes the impression that this whole exercise is simply a tirade that fades off into nothingness. Also as mentioned earlier, the language is not compelling, and it is often too informal. Finally, the humor isn’t there. Maguire is not a comedian; he is (was?) a journalist, and he often fails when trying to go for laughs.
In conclusion: Don’t read this book. It is easy enough to make fun of Ann Coulter without a guided tutorial.
Oh I am so behind on posting. This is what grad school does to me.
So this was our first book, for the book group I have started to host. The discussion about the book was good, some people liked it, some not as much. A lot of people felt it was hard to get through, with the Irish vernacular and the obscure references to the culture that he lived in.
I enjoyed the novel, though more from a historical period piece on the coming of age of an artist and I really enjoyed both the aesthetic quality of the piece and the comments it had on aesthetics and beauty in general.
These two short novellas are an example of how a practiced writer can research and really capture the essence of a time period.
The first is an exploration of the early work that was started both in reaction and support of Darwin’s research, telling the story of a man who returning from his journeys where he lost everything is taken into the estate of a British family that then begins to absorb his life while he desires to return to the wild.
The second is another historical piece, this time capturing seances to communicate to the loved dead. The story centers around Emily Jesse, once betrothed to the brother of Alfred (Lord) Tennyson, but disowned by his family after her love, Arthur dies, and she decides years later to re-marry. Her efforts to communicate with Arthur while dealing with the people around her, the ghosts, and also the written legacy left by both Arthur and Alfred.
Note, these novellas are very dense and I believe many … current readers would find the entirely boring.
I read this right before I left Buffalo so I could give it to Amy, so she could read it. While I found the idea of using economics as a framework for looking at other problems a pretty obvious idea, I thought Lewitt’s execution was very good, though I would have liked to see even more formalization of the process he used, and thought the book bordered too close to simple storytelling.
It seems people feel much better about themselves when they believe they are reading science, regardless of how scientific the science is.
Yeah
I actually read this a while back in Buffalo, and it is good, though I think I enjoyed the breadth of Magical Thinking better. However, read this, or just go see the movie which comes out soon, it should be funny, though I have a feeling this is a book that will be better. More soon as I adjust to Pittsburgh.
Isn’t that book cover supremely ugly? This book is a nice thought experiment, though as often with Dick, the execution could use work. It takes quite a long time to get into, though the concepts are there. I read this in preparation for the new movie (the Linklater film with the rotoscoped animation), and saw that the day after I finished this quick novel. Linklater knew what he was doing when he scripted that movie, and I think he took the best parts of the book (much of the movie is nearly word for word) and even cleared up the meaning. So, read the book if you want, but in this rare case, just go watch the movie.
I sort of want to be each of his characters, and Murakami because if I could write like this I am not sure I would do anything else with my time. This is one of his finest, the story of a teenage boy who takes the name Kafka, runs away from home, and enters a world of people that talk to cats, lasting remnants of past wars, living ghosts, and a pair of extremely intelligent librarians that serve as wonderful guardians.
Read this in place of sleeping, because he writes dreams more beautiful than you could imagine.
This book is one of the few collections that I can actually read aloud to my home friends without them promptly falling asleep or beginning unrelated conversations. Augusten Burrough’s ability to tell a story, paired with his interesting tendencies towards drama and extreme situations give his stories a real life. I intend to find his other works (Dry, Running With Scissors) and read through those as well. They are very quick shorts, in much of the same vein (though less family oriented) as David Sedaris.
Ah yes, Doris Lessing has four short novels. The first, and title piece is about two young women who are best friends, who then each have a single son, and proceed to fall in love with the son of the other. Now as twisted as this might seem, it is really quite a lovely story, and the one I liked most in this book, though I also enjoyed A Love Child.
Mr. Handler who you know as Mr. Snicket, wrote this book, which is interesting new-voice fiction, all short stories, each named by an adverb, and while these pieces may not stand out as my favourite writing, he does twist together an interesting story by blending the characters throughout.
If you want to just read one, read “symbolically”.
I owed reading this both to someone else and myself as it was one of those classics that got missed.
Note: Spoilers? Hardly spoilers, but still.
I have longer notes on this, but what I want to say here is simply: If humanity was meant to fight and the spirit is to rise up, why did they lose? I am aware that this novel is meant to enliven people to fight, to guide them to their own intelligence and spirit, but it just doesn’t happen.
This fight doesn’t occur which means it is not only possible for “the bad guys” to win, but they can win forever. All they have to do is cross that threshold where they have an indestructible power. So the message is not “Fight!”, but “Fight-Now-Because-Soon-It-Will-Be-Too-Late-To-Save-Us!”. And I don’t know that I believe that message, or like that message, or want it to proliferate, though I suppose it would rouse people to fight faster – or just become cripplingly depressed that it is too late.
Okay, so now this is all messed up. I read this book, quite a while ago, at some point and I don’t really remember when. It is tough because I am now so far behind, that I hardly remember when I read these things, or what order they went in. So I am going to catch up this month, by just posting a ton, sometimes all right in a row.
So, with the help of amazon I can see what is actually in here. There is of course the lovely “Tiger Mending” by Aimee Bender, two George Saunders pieces, “Hell-Heaven” by Jhumpa Lahiri, and Jeff Gordinier’s “The Lost Boys” as well as the interesting “Five Forgotten Instincts” by Dan Choan. I of course recommend this book as always because Dave Eggers and his school-children (that sounds or torturously perverted) put together an always entertaining collection. So go read this and I will attempt to figure out which books I have read this year.
After a long posting hiatus which I like to refer to as “Graduating” we are now back in action, possibly even with new posters. Possibly even back on our every other day quasi-schedule.
I was first introduced to Julie Orringer through the compiled Best American Non-Required Reading (I believe it was 2004), and her short story “The Smoothest Way is Full of Stones”, also published as an honorable mention in the Pushcart Prizes 2005. That story along with several other long-short stories is published here in her first collection. She is now working on a novel.
I enjoyed this collection, it is a pretty fast read but full of interesting stories mostly centered around young and adolescent people growing up, and coming into their own worlds. I specifically recommend “When She is Old and I am Famous” and “The Isabel Fish”. Go forth, read, and enjoy summer, the best time of all to catch up on the seventy-two books you were supposed to read this year which you are clearly behind on.
The biggest question we must as me about this book is: Is it better than On Beauty? Simply, eh, probably not. While I truly enjoyed this novel and I recommend it to everyone that I know I still think On Beauty was better. It was just more fitting to the things I am interested in, the places I have been.
This is a wonderful novel though. It follows the story of two men, their three children, and the lives they impact throughout London, a tale that is complete only because of Ms. Smith’s intrecate knowledge of London and the way she drives location to be an aspect of the story. The piece becomes a memoir of the city, of generations, of religious movements, war stories, and rebellion.
Her prose is both dense and beautiful, the layers that bring together time, space, and personality make all of her novels work. Though this novel which is some 450 pages long, is quite a read, so pack a lunch.
This was RIT’s choice for If All of RIT Read the Same Book… 2006. It is a neat little project they do every year which is very fun. It will be one of the things I will miss doing each year at RIT, especially being the only student to attend all three years running, but hopefully Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon will have something similar (the project If All of Enter_City_Name_Here was started in Seattle in ’96 so it is entirely possible).
Either way, the book is good, and the longer I remain away from it, reflecting back on it, the more I like it. While the writing is not my favorite, the detail she captures and the neutrality of her tone are really quite impressive. Considering the issues she deals with – sexuality, the loss of a sibling, eating disorders, the loss of religion – she maintains the voice of an observer not recalling personal feelings, only stating the facts as she remembers them.
So if you like personal memoir this is a good read and goes pretty quick.
Also I wrote an article for Reporter Magazine and I republished it here
This short collection features six Toronto Poets who are obviously becoming world-wide famous super-star poets. Like … well … Jewel I guess.
Actually I just picked this up because I like Michael Redhill, and sometimes when you like an author, you like reading what he is reading. And possibly you like reading the things the people he likes reading, read. And sometimes you even like reading the things the people that the the people that he likes reading, read. And sometimes you don’t.
My favourite poet in the book is Christian Bok.
Right, well this was the last book I had to read for my Power and Influence in Organizations, Business class last quarter. It was alright. I mean it is a classic and all so we have to respect the ground that it covered etc. But in reality I don’t really care that much. It kept me entertained. My favourite character was Simon. And it should be read, to be read, but it isn’t something that will remain with me for all time.
This is a book of essays by Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections (soon to be read, still on the list). While I expected this book to be some sort of series of essays about how to deal with being alone, after being with someone (Franzen did get divorced from his wife at some point), it turns out to be almost the opposite, it is a book on how to be more alone. It centers on finding privacy in today’s crazy, busy world.
Since I was looking for methods on how to be comfortable being alone and not strategies on how to actually be more alone, feel more private, and live without others this wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but many of the essays are interested (most printed first in magazines, etc.) and really stand on their own.
This book also gives a good insight into Franzen’s life and background, dealing with both of his parents, and also a few aspects of his childhood, which will be nice for when I start reading The Corrections which is fictional, and according to my Dad just a really long book about spoiled modern people who complain a lot. I am going to read it anyway.
I really really enjoyed this book. I got this at the discount book store by St. Albert’s in North Tonawanda. It was an impulse buy, a book with a nice cover (it is the cover above, from a canadian printing). Magnus Mills is a British author (I keep meaning to get more of his novels, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet) who here tells the story of a man, who lives in a tin house. Really that is the entire premise. Just a man who lives in a tin house. Expect extended descriptions of the house, the walks out in the sand he takes, the way he shovels the sand away from the house. I know I am making this sound as interesting as watching paint dry, but I love this book. It is very surreal, and takes you on one strange journey. One of the best I have read this year.
I read this book for Mary-Beth Cooper’s Leadership class that I took this past winter. It is a pretty popular book by Malcolm Gladwell. He is pretty famous. He has a blog at gladwell.com. I don’t actually read it, but it is probably interesting. He has developed a unique style of persuasive essay/novel. Blink itself is a good read, with many interesting examples of generals, museum curators, and musicians that have exceptional skills and training.
The idea behind the book, is that people can learn to make better decisions without over-analyzation. A sort of training of the gut reaction, though I think his examples lead people to believe that this can just happen without a lot of effort or work. Which I really don’t think is the case, and don’t believe he thinks is the case. Though I bet it helps sales. For my further analysis of this point, see: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
I also read this for my Creative Writing class last Winter. It is a collection of many of the best of the shorts of the year, short stories, short poems, some essays, all published in the small presses.
It is a good read, something to piece through when you have time, on rainy evenings, during thunderstorms, and lightning strikes, and as your house burns down around you, as you are curled up in a chair, escaping to the realms of writers who publish.
Someday I will publish.
Not the cover I have. This is the cover I have now, much nicer. Plus David gave it to me, for my birthday … yeah I know, behind. I read it back in January though.
We are all sad when we think of the wondrous potentialities that human beings seem to have and when we contrast these potentialities with the small accomplishments that we have. Again and again people have thought that we could do much better.
This came into my possession with the word think written on the back of a ripped up shred of calendar. But that is how one should take Feynman, thinking about what it is that he is really saying, past the arrogance and the storytelling, he is propempting everyone to take control of their lives. This is a collection of three lectures he gave at the University of Washinton (Seattle) that are for him, quite a bit off the top of quantum elecrodynamics. It is a pretty quick read though, and recommended.
This is a book of very short essays on writing. It is a fast read, and something that we were given in my Advanced Creative Writing class this past winter. It is very enjoyable and has some great advice. I particularly enjoyed a few of the pieces on Composting, and also tricking yourself into writing by promising chocolates and pastries (This works especially well when performed out at a restaurant sitting across from the dessert case – can’t order until you write five pages, etc.)
One of the most practical pieces I applied from this is the concept of buying a cheap notebook with some ugly picture on the front (the two dollar kind) every month, and filling it each month. (Because 160 pages a month is quite a bit, and they dont really come smaller than 80 sheets, I am working my way up to filling it, and my goal this year is to just write more each month than the last.) This is going pretty well for me so far, I started in December, and have all these crazy colored notebooks with flowers and stripes. The idea is if the notebooks are not the most beautiful things in the world then you won’t feel intimidated to write in them, and you wil just say whatever is on your mind.
Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking is wonderful, and terrifyingly sad. This non-fiction account is of the year following the death of her husband, something that happened nearly entirely by surprise, and the year she spends noticing every instant of that night, and detailing the places they had been, the way they had grown together.
This book has ranked on many of the top lists of 2005, and their reviews will be much more compelling than mine here, so read them, or better, this book. It is one of my favourites for the year, and certainly a story that will stay with me for a long time.
In recent addition to Aimee Bender’s wonderful book of short stories, this is her first novel, the story of Mona Gray. Mona is a math genius, and a runner, and she is really sort of messed up. It is one of those stories of the strange leading the strange, but it is quite lovely – though not as good as the short stories – and you can read it if you want.
Right after I purchased this book, which is the last book I purchased from Vertigo Books down in Maryland, I went to Noodles, which is like my favourite restaurant in Maryland, which is in the same plaza as the bookstore. I proceeded to read at least the first three stories. To fall in love with the book. And also to lose the dust jacket. At least, I think I lost it there, I haven’t seen it since, and I probably took it off and put it on the table as soon as I started.
These stories are marvelous, they are witty, inspired and conceptual. They range from situations that are nearly realistic to people with pumpkin-heads. Each is told with such an amazingly clear and deliberate voice – you believe every-word she writes.
When I got home for Thanksgiving Break, and I was sad, I would read these stories to my friends, because they made such good stories for telling. They are storytelling stories. They flow. And when I ran out, I wanted more, so I went and got Ms. Bender’s book from the public library (An Invisible Mark of My Own).
This is really a wonderful book.
I started reading Zadie Smith after she did the guest introduction to the 2003 Best American Nonrequired reading. I enjoyed what she had to say there and decided to pick up her novels. On Beauty being the most recent, was the first I picked up. A very dense novel which for the most part I couldn’t put down. I have very vivid memories of carrying this book with me everywhere and just constantly reading it, work, david’s bedroom floor, out to eat, in bed at night, until I finished.
Smith perfectly recreates the collegiate environment that she is working towards, and you feel an attachment to every character in the novel, no matter how many inane courses of action they will take, you want them to win. You want every character to be happy, you want to talk to them, you want to take courses from them, you want to hear their street poetics and their academic debates.
This book was recently put on the New York Times Top Ten Books of 2005, and they are right, it really is a dedicated and cared for creation that carries the reader into a world that is not their own.
Now I am certainly in an order that is off from reality. But here is Dave Eggers book of Short Stories. And it is unlikely that I really read two books of short stories back to back, but I can’t seem to figure out what I read in between. So, I am just gonna post this up here anyway.
I liked this book. I realize a lot of people won’t. Eggers has a very experiemental feel, especially in this book, some stories being only a page, some stories going on for what seems like half the book: with talking horses and clouds and characters from his other novels. If you are a dedicated Dave Eggers reader you will enjoy this thoroughly, if you are just starting to read him, you might as well start with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (I wish I could make this a link but no one has posted it up here yet) which will be a lot easier to get in to.
I will say there was a particular story in this book that found me in the right time and place (as Eggers tends to do to me) and so I am biased into fond memories of this collection of stories.
Did you know “nonrequired” was one word? I certainly did not. I also am not quite sure if my order is correct from here on out, but I will do the best I can.
Look! The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004. Which means you don’t have to read this book. But you can! Because you will like it! Certainly not every short story, graphic excerpt, and essay, but enough of it that it is worth it. And the introduction by Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings fame is also quite good. I highly recommend this, becuase it covers everyone’s interests. And it lets you know what the good American writers are writing. If they are writing, and if they got selected. But it is still a good general idea. You could also read 2005 if you want to be real current. But I am not that current. Yet.
I read this in September, which means I am currently three months, and about ten books behind in posting. But I was busy figuring out that I wanted the background of the site to be black, not white. Yes, that took three months to decide. Or something.
What actually happened, was this book both upset me and also really didn’t bother me much at all. Most of this is because I understood the book to be something different from what it actually is. In fact, don’t read the back of this book. If possible have absolutely no expectations about what this book is before beginning it. Or perhaps have only one small bit of expectation that I am about to give you, the first line of the text:
“The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge.”
This book is not a book praising Christianity nor supporting it. It is not a book that tells you that Christianity is the only answer, it is simply an explanation of one person’s journey, and his view on what Christianity is. It really isn’t that bad. Don’t fear it. I even really nearly support the text itself, the only thing that makes me sad is how incredibly misconstrued the meaning is in today’s world. If you want an example of that, then I suppose you can go read the back of the book. Just do it after you read the inside.
In the future we will be married, after we meet, at which point you will have to fill me in on everything I have already told you because I won’t have done it yet.
“Be Kind.”
Audrey Niffenegger’s first novel is quite an accomplishment. It is dense, and yet still a very quickly paced story, it is scientifically as accurate as possible, and yet it does not get bogged down in making sure the overlapping events are explained perfectly or detailed in an easily understood way. A story that uses time travel as a key device is always nearly wrapping itself into knots it cannot untangle, but by using it only as a tool, Niffenegger has created a novel that is no longer concerned with the act of time travel, but the human results and consequences.
This is an amazing first novel, from a very creative woman, artist, and bibliophile; and I am greatly looking forward to her next tale.
I picked this up at Daedalus because I wanted another book and couldn’t find anything I wanted. And I was going to attempt to buy something by one of the authors selected, but instead just bought this, and it really is a good read. It highlights a few great authors and has some really good pieces in it. Some of my favourites: Mark Bowden’s essay on Saddam Hussein (“Tales of the Tyrant”), David Drury’s “Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire” and Judy Budnitz’s “Visiting Hours.” It also has a neat little piece by Jonathan Safran Foer (who is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors for his constantly strong and clear voice that you just melt into trusting.) which if you have your friends read you can begin to adapt the punctuation from – I constantly hear myself saying ‘Empty Box’, ‘Empty Box’, ‘Black Box!’.
Anyway this is great, especially when you are looking for some new authors to read and track and follow and hunt and stalk.
We can never be on the side of the pirates. (Save the kind from the Caribbean) The pirates are the bad guys and have always been, taking from those who deserve, and stealing. No good rotten dirty theives.
But this book is bound to upset you. Digging its foot into every nook and cranny where you know you have be enraged at the actions that are taken. The equality that copyright law may have once held is no longer existant. The public domain is going to die, killing certain forms of creativity.
But not only is this book a long list of the strange effects of law ( A doctor amputating the incorrect leg on a patient can not be fined more than any person who downloads two songs off the internet … the damage there is fair, no?) but also the personal struggle of one person who tried, and unfortunately failed, to correct one aspect of the changes that are being made. This struggle is just beginning.
The movie version of this book is coming out soon. I saw the trailer when I was with David at Broken Flowers. Which was quite good. So I decided might as well read the book. Right.
Everything is Illuminated is written by Jonathan Safran Foer. Who is also a character in the novel. A character who travels half way across the world to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather’s life when the Nazi’s invaded in World War II. Except he never writes about his trip. The story he tells instead is the story of his ancestors, back into the late 1700s.
We hear only about his actual travels from his young translator both in his account of the experience and his letters to Foer.
And thus we have a novel in three parts. The tales of a small village in a magical past, the apologetic and criticizing letters of a translator, and the events of a young man’s trip to find a woman he knows only by a name scratched into the back of a photograph.
The book is wonderful, the movie however, after watching the trailer again, seems to be an entirely different story.
Some books we cannot do justice to in a short post.
I can say that Murakami write a whole lot, and I should have started reading him long ago, so that I could catch up.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles is a story about a man who has cat named for his borther in-law whom he hates that disappeares (the cat – not the brother in-law). And … that is really all the set-up you get, and possibly even all you need. What makes this novel so beautiful is the way it evolves, taking on background and meaning as it grows organically. You are never given information ahead of the design of things, which is often impossible to trace.
This simple story about a man looking for his missing cat becomes so wonderfully parallel and entwined with the lives of mystics, war veterans, teenage surveryers of the follically challenged, detectives, spelunkers, mutes, and healers that you are bound to fall in love.
The SECOND of Edward R. Tufte’s books on information display and visualization (1990). The series provides many graphical illustrations of how information should and should not be represented. Because I cannot reproduce those here, I must encourage everyone to find an actual copy of these texts and read (and look) through the books to see what he so vividly demonstrates. Following is a condensed version of my notes.
Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice is a series of studies and arguments with a single point. No Choice is horrible. As Choices are added the peasants are happier. But only to a point! Then the Choices become overwhelming, people are awash in decisions with too many possibilities and the stress of choosing and regret that will follow what could be an imperfect Choice may follow.
He spends a lot of time focusing on the difference between a maximizer and a satisfier. Exactly as you would expect, the satisfier makes a decision once he has found a product that he believe will work, it is good enough. A maximizer must look at every possibility and consider every pro and con before he has made a decision. Now you may have beaten me to the punchline, but the satisfier with his logically flawed decision is a much much MUCH happier person. He does not think back on the other options he could have had. He does not feel regret. He does not fill himself with stress before the decision.
For those of you who know me, you know why this makes me sad. Schwartz says some people may be borderline satisfier/maximizers, and also certain situations cause people to act differently (the difference between shopping for clothes and “shopping” for a graduate university). However, I am a maximizer. In every situation. But there are certain solutions to this, and the book does present some of them. Such as learning to more objectively analyze opportunity costs and also tricks to accepting imperfection.
On any count, this book is a very interesting read, and showcases why it is easier to write about a topic, than to be given a blank slate.
Everything within takes place after Jack died and before mom and I drowned in a burning ferry in the cool tannin-tinted Guaviare River, in east-central Colombia, with forty-two locals we hadn’t yet met. It was a clear and eyeblue day, that day, as was the first day of this story, a few years ago in January, on Chicago’s north side, in the opulent shadow of Wrigley and with the wind coming low and searching off the jagged half-frozen lake. I was inside, very warm, walking from door to door.
That is what the cover says. And this is possibly all the introduction the book needs. Our narrator Will is destroyed by the death of his friend Jack, he will be born and die with his mother, and he will spend the rest of his story not inside and warm, but constantly walking and moving. Chasing a life that is not his own.
I can only tell you that I enjoyed this story, its pace, and its application of concept in both plot and expression.
In planning for the soon to be created/released favourite book pages, I present to you Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay’s first venture into the blending of history and fantasy and his fourth published novel. GGK is easily one of my most-cherished authors and this is possibly his finest novel.
While GGK’s Fionavar Tapestry, his classic fantasy trilogy, is one of the best defined and most original stories in recent history he truly shines when he blends two lineages, both of which he has obviously deeply studied. Since Tigana, each novel following ( A Song For Arbonne, The Lions of Al-Rassan – soon to be made into film, The Sarantine Mosaic – comprised of Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emporers, and most recently The Last Light of the Sun ) has taken place in his own specific, blended historical-fantasy world. A world of two moons, diverse religions, and regions with strikingly similar coastlines to our own fair planet.
Tigana is the story of a land, conquered and stripped of its identity, its culture, its history, and most painfully its name. The story as many of his are, are not focused solely on a few main characters, but on changes in the soil, changes in the way nations or peoples operate. Guy Gavriel Kay’s work stands out because he does not trivialize the writing of a novel, it is a process that he details out to the furthest degree. He can write characters that we fall in love with, but these are simply actors in a world that is moving around them. He has created broad epics that capture the essence of changing times and a changing world, and Tigana is one of my very favourite narratives.
(Note on Amazon.ca : The photograph and link above are to Amazon-Canada, because that is the print edition I own – I have Canadian prints of all his books – and also because I enjoy the cover art, that remains synchronous through all of his historical-fantasy)
This novel chases Gogol Ganguli ( though first his parents for a while ), through what may be best described as life. The novel is epic in span, though it does not cover enough time. We see the circumstances leading up to his birth, his childhood, his adolescence, and his escape from family life. We are not privy to his conclusion though.
While I marvelled at Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies just weeks ago, for her excellence in describing everyday life artistically, her punctuated circumstances in this novel feel nearly overwhelming. Every action we are presented with carries such deep undertones that there is a feeling of grandeur that just resonates from every page of the novel, however this detracts from humanity that each of her characters possesses. Unfortunately The Namesake struggles from overextending the reader through too much artistic weight.
The Namesake is certainly a wonderful read, full of characters that you will know like siblings and experiences that will take on even more meaning as they begin to blend with your own. Yet, with such a reputation to live up to this novel cannot stand up to her previous short stories where beauty is expressed in snapshots and situations, a realm Lahiri has mastered.
Michael Winter captures my heart with his direct poetic language, everytime.
This collection of short-stories pre-dates his diary-esque This All Happened – again following fictional creation Gabriel English.
While these short stories are heart-felt and often captivating they do not possess the poetic grace of This All Happened. The stories are sometimes more harsh and exciting than I would prefer, focusing not on the simplest aspects of life but on monumental events of Gabriel’s childhood.
I found the most interesting stories were those near the end, that bring in Lydia, his on-again-off-again girlfriend from This All Happened. Also of note is a little bit of inconsistancy between the two books – I believe at the end of This All Happened he and Lydia seperate – yet they are married for some of the short stories in One Last Good Look. Somehow though, these small(?) inconsistancies make me warm up to the stories and Michael Winter. These characters are for all purposes just devices and in each story they can do as they please. Yet, I do miss the Lydia from This All Happened, I felt she was a stronger person.
These stories are an interesting look back into the childhood of a character that we feel very intune with after having read This All Happened, and while it is a good read, I firmly recommend This All Happened over this less focused, earlier collection of stories.
Warning SPOILERS follow hugely…
Alright, well I seem to have gotten around to this first, so without attempting to be overly pessimistic, I am dissapointed in this book for a number of reasons.
Most importantly, I believe although everyone loves the plot and focuses upon the plot of these novels, for the first time on a large scale we have lost all of the slight character development these books had. Every character that we have formed bonds with has now been stripped of those familiar habits. Dumbledore is blatantly wrong. Harry is constantly correct (after being horribly wrong on nearly every assumption he made in Order of the Phoenix). Hermione’s intelligence is nearly ignored and not at all used for anything constructive (except a few after the fact: “i knew he wasn’t a Prince”, etc.). And most consuming, Snape, who we are told to trust, told has changed, and we even see being protective – if still a jerk – is resolutely (saving large plot twists of unbelievable proportions) evil.
From the beginning these novels have not been focused on character growth, they have been event focused and plot driven, but here we lose all sense of personality. These characters are no longer people, they are just tools to accomplish a job. Even JKR has said, she is following the plan she drew up at the beginning. But the characters that have been spun are not the concepts that she once had, they are nearly living, breathing, captivating humans who are now being thrown around like dolls.
If you are going to convince us Snape is good, Dumbledore is trustworthy, and Harry is a teenager – then make us believe it! What 16 year old is on the mark so many times that he manages to outsmart everyone around him? And as a book that is meant to answer questions, I think it needs to get a better grasp on it’s own environment. How many Aurors are there? Why can’t they stop the Death-Eaters? Are there more good guys or bad guys? What about all the other wizards in the world – we heard once about a French school like Hogwarts, do they care about Voldemort?
And Horcruxes? Why do we need to unnecessarily complicate what has up to this point been such a fluid narrative sense. The books have all been very non-quest based. It was surviving that was important, it was normal, average life. Taking classes and making relationships and figuring out what was going on in the world. Now we have a to-do list that is your classic hero-quest. Not to mention a book 6 that is really quite incomplete. We are left around with the ending stating “exams are postponed”. Till when? Hogwarts might not even re-open, and they are just randomly postponing exams? Of course all the professors seem to be entirely confused now with their headmaster being killed. None of them even though Snape could be evil, even knowing his history. The only person in the world who seems to have thought it was possible was a sixteen year old boy. That makes sense.
But in this world it does make sense. The story is not about Harry’s life. It is about the plot and solely Harry’s battle with Voldemort. Unimportant daily events that once made interesting side stories have been stripped from the most recent addition to the Potter cycle. No longer is the DA important, because Harry has decided such, and thus all the other student blindly accept that they are no longer needed. Neville disappears almost entirely. Really classes disappear as well, save Potions, but only because of his textbook. The story is no longer about Hogwarts, the story is no longer about Harry’s friends, it has dissolved into a war (although even the assassinations and the muggle world is only briefly highlighted), and that is what saddens me about the HBP, all of the connections that the series worked so hard to achieve over five novels are forgotten. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is just that, a story chasing a few main characters in the days before the world ends.
No really. This is not a spoiler to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I specifically am writing this before I have my grubby little book-devouring hands on this book in less than twenty-four hours.
Carolyn’s Report on the HBP is posted here, and she goes into far more detail about what may (and probably will) actually happen. But that is not what I am about to here describe.
The largest question and therefore most interesting large-concept to look at, is “Will Harry Die?” This is important, for many reasons, it has been foreshadowed, he is the main character, and it is binary. He can only live or die. There is no other option (or is there?).
Carolyn would argue that Harry Potter will die. And she has many valid points which I will attept to do justice to below:
Reasons he may live:
But most importantly, I think we need to focus on the fact that if Harry had lived when these books were not popular, they would have never become classics. This is no longer an issue, because they have sold too many copies to not become classics. They outsell every other book in existance, and they will be remembered for that (if little else). So really, in the end, I am saying it doesn’t matter. If JKR needs the money, (she shouldn’t) then she keeps him alive, or in some state of easy revival, so that she can possibly write three more books. (Though anything she writes at this point is an automatic best-seller.) If she wants to try to give these books any amount of reality(?) or possibly metaphorical strength, she has to kill him.
A few other notes, JKR said after book 3 – I think – that she had outlined the entire main plot points of all seven books very very early on in this process. She also said she would remain true to those notes. If she still follows this rule – and granted she said this a few years ago – then he is probably heading straight for the magical wizard coffin. But then we won’t be able to check this until the original plans go up on eBay.
About a week ago I asked the question at JustCurio.us “Will Harry Potter die at the end of book 7?” The responses I recieved are:
At the end of all this … it seems people don’t really care. And they certainly aren’t unanimous. Harry will either die or he will live. And the Harry Potter books will become some amazing phenomena of the turn of the millenia, where people went crazy over wizards, even though the pope says they are soul sucking books. Harry has secured his fate, he – and we – should not worry about little things like death.
I started reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories from 2000; and the first story is just lovely and horrible and beautiful.
It follows a couple living together, the husband, at 35 finishing his doctoral thesis, the wife, slightly younger, working as an editor/proofer. Beautifully explaining her planning skills, her ability to organize everything, and always be prepared. Her attention to meticulous details is highlighted so well. Unfortunately the child she is pregnant with, dies immediately before birth which slowly seperates the couple.
A note from the electric company comes in the mail, letting all the residents know that their power will be out for one hour at 8 pm each night for five days. And as they eat together, the room lit by a few remaining birthday candles in the darkness, they tell each other one secret that they have never before told, a pattern that continues each night, and redefines their collapsing relationship.
It is really an amazing story, I love the way their relationship unfolds with each hour of darkness, but I don’t want to spoil the
ending for you, so I will stop there.
And this is just the first story in this amazing collection by the Pulitzer Prize winning Lahiri. Each short take on life is torturous and beautiful, each with tragedy, but nothing so extreme it is not believable. That is where her prose truly shines, her ability to take an absolutely normal situation and make it into a painting of tragedy, love, and humanity.
This book is very good. It is massive, and to spar with other books that are larger, it packs incredibly dense prose, each sentence extends your senses into the history, culture, and change of India through its early independence. With such an assortment of devices used, ranging from the lies of true geneology to telepathic powers of communcation between the children that were born at midnight – at the same hour that India became an independent nation, you are swept through not only a whirlwind of history, a but a trip through the concept of reading. Each aspect of the novel attacks from a different angle, always leaving one with some way to relate to our shattered narrator.
My complaint is the ending. Only because there are so many chapters of building energy, so many small subplots, so many tortured curries and broken heroes/parents that no conclusion can do this novel justice. At the very least, wrapping up life, before death, is premature, and possibly the ending to this novel – the ending to India as a nation? – the ending to the belief of being connected to a country? – is premature.
This novel captures insanity, urgancy, and self-belief, it showcases a range of historical events from the gigantic to the quickly forgotten, and it focuses in on the power of a single giant nose. Somehow inherted through conditioning between generations, the largest example of a wonderful moral to take away, the point of the novel is not what happened, it is the resulting memories, the story that can be passed on.
Fury, a novel written in 2001 by Salman Rushdie was my first actual encounter with his work. He has an unmistakable style and a great sense of how society and culture function on a day to day basis. Full commentary: Furies of Representation
The most recent book from the acclaimed Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay, is a recreation of the events of the Viking conquest, relating the English and Welsh (the beautifully tongued) in the fantasy world that his last five novels have dwelt in. It is another wonderful novel from a man who can clearly tell a captivating story.
Really just a lovely story, told (I am told) in a Bridget Jones-esque format. A very poetic journal highlighting an entry from each day of the year, canvasing the narrator’s friends, his love interest, his progress on his novel, and the attitudes about St. Johns. Some really great lines and a captivating sequence of events really bring us into his life.
Really interesting book about a man searching through India for someone he was once possibly friends with. Takes us through his stay in the country very quickly and with lots of beautiful description. Short story written in style: Pulsar, He Said.
About a Boy is a laugh out loud british satire. The main character, Will Lightman, sees himself as lacking social graces and any real depth. The book focuses on his search to find the perfect woman; ie one that will date him and dump him, and thinks he’s found this through a single parent support group. After meeting a 12 yr old boy, he is forced to confront himself during many hilarious and embarrassing moments.
Read The Cloven Viscount, a real interesting story about a man “cloven” into two pieces: the Good’Un and the Bad’Un. Possessed by his experience the Bad’Un decides to give everyone the beauty and grace he has recieved by bisecting any wildlife he can find, while the good goes around curing all the sick of their ills. Eventually, both consumed by love of the same person, they are re-united into one after a duel over Pamela, the girl they love. Good story, still have to read The Nonexistent Knight
This book is sparse and dark and brooding and brilliant. While it may be horribly depressing, the straighforward conversation between a father & son balances the grey scenes of post-destruction. I recommend this quite highly, and on gloomy ash-rainy days if possible so that the feeling of the book overpowers any of the happiness that may be in your soul.
