It’s easy to forgive Oprah for the James Frey debacle when her book club includes novels like East of Eden, The Poisonwood Bible, and Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s languid novel of enduring love in a time and place far from our own stirs romantic dreams of a determined, unrequited love at long last requited. Marquez evokes the hopeless idealist’s dream, and the novel mines the feverished imaginings of ill-timed romances everywhere for the idea that though the door may have seemed closed, for some it is not, and never was.
Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza conduct a love affair of letters and telegrams in their youth, but she ends up marrying a rich, handsome doctor. Florentino proceeds to save his love for Fermina, conducting hundreds of casual affairs until her husband dies in their old age, when he presents himself and re-declares his undying love and devotion to her.
Marquez’s prose follows a different rhythm, off-handedly bringing the antiquated world of riverboats, swamps, and cholera in Mexico to life, while tenderly documenting the changing perspectives and lives of Florentino and Fermina during their sixty years apart. Despite their separation, the novel is a cheerful one, matter-of-fact about the impact of love as an actual disease not unlike cholera, and it leaves a lasting impression on the reader.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Ann Patchett - The Magician's Assistant
At the risk of sounding distinctly asinine, The Magician's Assistant is magical. The novel tells the story of Sabine, devoted magician's assistant to Parsifal the Magician, as she attempts to make sense of Parsifal's remaining family after his death. Sabine has known for 22 years that Parsifal's family is dead, yet when he dies of a brain aneurism a few years after his partner's death from AIDS, she discovers that they are, in fact, alive and well.
As always, Patchett's prose is graceful and understated, moving the story and characters along without superfluous description or exposition. Sabine is a native of Los Angeles, and as such her descriptions of the city and Southern California hold particular resonance for other natives. The narrative has a clear forward sweep, and though it is punctuated by flashback and dream sequences, they do not detract from the motion of the plot, and in fact give depth to Sabine's character.
The novel reminded me of another 'magically' titled book about the aftermath of death - Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Both books retain a quality of disbelief in the fact of a central person's absence. Both Didion and Patchett capture the power of the survivor's desire to see, speak to, be with the deceased again, and show poignantly how this manifests in picking up the pieces of life and moving on.
A fantastic book, and one that I did NOT want to put down.
As always, Patchett's prose is graceful and understated, moving the story and characters along without superfluous description or exposition. Sabine is a native of Los Angeles, and as such her descriptions of the city and Southern California hold particular resonance for other natives. The narrative has a clear forward sweep, and though it is punctuated by flashback and dream sequences, they do not detract from the motion of the plot, and in fact give depth to Sabine's character.
The novel reminded me of another 'magically' titled book about the aftermath of death - Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Both books retain a quality of disbelief in the fact of a central person's absence. Both Didion and Patchett capture the power of the survivor's desire to see, speak to, be with the deceased again, and show poignantly how this manifests in picking up the pieces of life and moving on.
A fantastic book, and one that I did NOT want to put down.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Sometimes re-imaginations of classic texts consist of nothing more than a cutesy renaming of characters and places, a cheeky sacrilege committed by undertalented 'writers.' Sometimes they don't.
The Master and Margarita is a true reinvention of the classic Faustian tale, set in 1930s Moscow. Written in Russian in the 1930s, the novel tells the story of what happens when Satan comes to Moscow. Incidentally, it also tells the story of what happens to parted lovers The Master and Margarita.
Translated to english, the novel retains that certain indefinite Russian flavor - that same flavor Nabokov has - and circuitous method of storytelling. If one can get beyond the first 100 pages, the story becomes captivating, and despite the slow start, those first 100 pages are essential to the rest of the story. Interspersed with the story of Pontius Pilate (from his own perspective), which is interwoven with the rest of the plot, the story is inventive, original (ironically) and entertaining.
The best part of the story is not The Master or Margarita, but Satan himself, along with his retinue, which includes a gigantic cat with a taste for chess, vodka, and arson.
Definitely a good read, and at only 300 pages, it doesn't even take too long.
The Master and Margarita is a true reinvention of the classic Faustian tale, set in 1930s Moscow. Written in Russian in the 1930s, the novel tells the story of what happens when Satan comes to Moscow. Incidentally, it also tells the story of what happens to parted lovers The Master and Margarita.
Translated to english, the novel retains that certain indefinite Russian flavor - that same flavor Nabokov has - and circuitous method of storytelling. If one can get beyond the first 100 pages, the story becomes captivating, and despite the slow start, those first 100 pages are essential to the rest of the story. Interspersed with the story of Pontius Pilate (from his own perspective), which is interwoven with the rest of the plot, the story is inventive, original (ironically) and entertaining.
The best part of the story is not The Master or Margarita, but Satan himself, along with his retinue, which includes a gigantic cat with a taste for chess, vodka, and arson.
Definitely a good read, and at only 300 pages, it doesn't even take too long.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Luis Alberto Urrea - The Hummingbird's Daughter
Part biographical fiction, part historical fiction, The Hummingbird's Daughter is a delicious book, set in pre-Industrial, pre-Mexican Revolution Mexico. Following the early life of 'La Santa De Cabora' - Teresita Urrea, Urrea (the name is no coincidence, saint and author are related) seamlessly blends the influences of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the indigenous beliefs and practices of medicine women in creating Teresita's character. Soundly researched and beautifully written, I think my favorite thing about this book is that Urrea resists the temptation to be overly reverential in his treatment of Teresita.
Teresita has a sense of humor, makes mistakes, gets scared, and retains a sense of wonder, or at least joy, in the world around her, and Urrea does an outstanding job capturing the world of harsh reality and puffy-cloud fantasy that one imagines Teresita lived in.
An enjoyable, captivating book to read - for all of its 500 pages, this book grabbed me and made me finish it in a fraction of the time it took me to force myself to read the Interpreter of Maladies.
Teresita has a sense of humor, makes mistakes, gets scared, and retains a sense of wonder, or at least joy, in the world around her, and Urrea does an outstanding job capturing the world of harsh reality and puffy-cloud fantasy that one imagines Teresita lived in.
An enjoyable, captivating book to read - for all of its 500 pages, this book grabbed me and made me finish it in a fraction of the time it took me to force myself to read the Interpreter of Maladies.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
William Faulkner - The Sound and The Fury
There's something simultaneously depressing and uplifting about reading amazing books. On the one hand, books this good remind us struggling reader-writers that we will never accomplish something of such staggering genius. But on the other hand, it reminds us that all we can do is write what we want how we want, and maybe, just maybe, it'll score us a Nobel Prize (or at least a Booker, or something made of metal and worth money).
The Sound and The Fury drops a massive F-bomb on anyone prepared to place rules on literature. Be warned: the first 80 pages make absolutely no sense-- narrated by a retarded man with no concept of time (and he's somehow still the most reliable of the narrators!)-- and devolving in the next 100 pages into a block of text so dense as to be impossible to read. It's written almost entirely in dialect, with complete disregard for grammatical conventions, and absolutely no concession made to the fact that a vast majority of readers simply won't have the patience or appreciation to finish the book.
And it's amazing-- definitely deserving of its place on the list of 100 Best Novels. Faulkner's uncanny ability to narrate from anyone's point of view; his use of symbols and precision with language; his evocation of place and person-- by the end of the third section you hate Jason so bad that you hope a truck loaded with cinder blocks will run over his chest-- make this an absolute joy to read. It's also a book that can be, indeed needs to be, read many times to really grasp what is going on.
FYI: My 'Next Up' thingie is ridiculously arbitrary. I finish things when I finish them and write about them when I want to-- Chinua Achebe may take me the rest of the year to read and report on at it's staggering length of 130 pages. In the meantime: courage!
The Sound and The Fury drops a massive F-bomb on anyone prepared to place rules on literature. Be warned: the first 80 pages make absolutely no sense-- narrated by a retarded man with no concept of time (and he's somehow still the most reliable of the narrators!)-- and devolving in the next 100 pages into a block of text so dense as to be impossible to read. It's written almost entirely in dialect, with complete disregard for grammatical conventions, and absolutely no concession made to the fact that a vast majority of readers simply won't have the patience or appreciation to finish the book.
And it's amazing-- definitely deserving of its place on the list of 100 Best Novels. Faulkner's uncanny ability to narrate from anyone's point of view; his use of symbols and precision with language; his evocation of place and person-- by the end of the third section you hate Jason so bad that you hope a truck loaded with cinder blocks will run over his chest-- make this an absolute joy to read. It's also a book that can be, indeed needs to be, read many times to really grasp what is going on.
FYI: My 'Next Up' thingie is ridiculously arbitrary. I finish things when I finish them and write about them when I want to-- Chinua Achebe may take me the rest of the year to read and report on at it's staggering length of 130 pages. In the meantime: courage!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Jhumpa Lahiri - The Interpreter of Maladies
I'm beginning to think that I'm just not good enough for Pulitzers. I started reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Interpreter of Maladies in April, or May. I got one story in, picked up a fantasy book, and left Lahiri in the dust for months. I got back from Europe, read 3 more stories, and then read 3 fantasy books before forcing myself to finish the collection. I'm just not cut out for these books.
The Interpreter of Maladies (IoM) is a collection of short stories spanning continents and cultures. Transcending the boundaries of each story, however, are the character types in play - uniformly Indian and outcasts within their own communities and within foreign cultures, the characters in Lahiri's stories struggle with their identities and heritage. Each story is distinct and crisp, yet retains a languid quality and slightly off-putting flavor. Lahiri has a captivating way of describing emotion and scene, yet the collection fails to grab the reader's attention in any sustained fashion.
While the stories don't always end in unhappiness, the collection features a staple of Pulitzer Prize-winning novels: harsh illumination of the human condition. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I like my books to at least be cheerful, or humorous in their cynicism. I don't demand a happy ending, but The Interpreter of Maladies offers little to lighten the gloom of unhappiness.
Deft analogies and use of language only go so far, and for me, beauty of language could not save The Interpreter of Maladies from its subject matter.
The Interpreter of Maladies (IoM) is a collection of short stories spanning continents and cultures. Transcending the boundaries of each story, however, are the character types in play - uniformly Indian and outcasts within their own communities and within foreign cultures, the characters in Lahiri's stories struggle with their identities and heritage. Each story is distinct and crisp, yet retains a languid quality and slightly off-putting flavor. Lahiri has a captivating way of describing emotion and scene, yet the collection fails to grab the reader's attention in any sustained fashion.
While the stories don't always end in unhappiness, the collection features a staple of Pulitzer Prize-winning novels: harsh illumination of the human condition. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I like my books to at least be cheerful, or humorous in their cynicism. I don't demand a happy ending, but The Interpreter of Maladies offers little to lighten the gloom of unhappiness.
Deft analogies and use of language only go so far, and for me, beauty of language could not save The Interpreter of Maladies from its subject matter.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Mark Abley - Spoken Here
The basic premise: Linguists estimate there are roughly 6,000 different languages spoken on Earth. In 100 years, that number may be as low as 600.
Part travelogue, part memoir, part elegy for endangered languages, Spoken Here is a fascinating exploration into what language is, what purpose it serves to mankind, and what happens when it goes away. Using examples from every corner of the globe, Abley gives poignant perspectives on the peoples, cultures, and ways of organizing the universe which necessarily disappear when language does. The outlook is grim given the massive power and money differentials in a rapidly globalizing world, but it's not all bad. There are examples of languages making resurgences, of simple programs governments can implement which foster multilingualism in children, giving them a fuller sense of their own culture, as well as multiple ways with which to view and explain their world.
No matter what Republicans may say, English is not the best language, and it's certainly not sufficient to encompass all human experience in all its forms. Example: English is not a very mystical language; it doesn't have a lot of mystical concepts or ways with which to express inexpressible things. A bunch of linguists got together and started teaching experimental maths and quantum physics and string theory to Navajos in Navajo-- a language permeated with mysticism, which has far more comprehensive and effective ways of explaining those particular ideas-- and it was a success. The students in Navajo got a better grasp on the concepts quicker than did groups being taught in English.
The fact of the matter is: no language is better than another, but each language has something to add to the expression of the human experience, something to say about who we are, and right now we are on a bullet train to losing 90% of those, and that is a tragedy.
Part travelogue, part memoir, part elegy for endangered languages, Spoken Here is a fascinating exploration into what language is, what purpose it serves to mankind, and what happens when it goes away. Using examples from every corner of the globe, Abley gives poignant perspectives on the peoples, cultures, and ways of organizing the universe which necessarily disappear when language does. The outlook is grim given the massive power and money differentials in a rapidly globalizing world, but it's not all bad. There are examples of languages making resurgences, of simple programs governments can implement which foster multilingualism in children, giving them a fuller sense of their own culture, as well as multiple ways with which to view and explain their world.
No matter what Republicans may say, English is not the best language, and it's certainly not sufficient to encompass all human experience in all its forms. Example: English is not a very mystical language; it doesn't have a lot of mystical concepts or ways with which to express inexpressible things. A bunch of linguists got together and started teaching experimental maths and quantum physics and string theory to Navajos in Navajo-- a language permeated with mysticism, which has far more comprehensive and effective ways of explaining those particular ideas-- and it was a success. The students in Navajo got a better grasp on the concepts quicker than did groups being taught in English.
The fact of the matter is: no language is better than another, but each language has something to add to the expression of the human experience, something to say about who we are, and right now we are on a bullet train to losing 90% of those, and that is a tragedy.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Remember in high school when you had to read the Scarlet Letter? Remember the thorough bludgeoning you got with the heavy-handed symbolism? Prepare yourself for the Scarlet Letter II - this time with hermaphrodites! Of course, the story is not at all the same, but what is similar is Eugenides reliance on overblown symbolism and foreshadowing. In what I like to call 'the introduction/setting the scene,' Eugenides spends roughly half of the book just working his way up to the narrator's birth. His family history is bogged down time and again with too much historical detail, interspersed with tantalizing glimpses of the narrator's present-day life, intended, I believe, to goad the reader into slogging through the muck and debris of the background story.
When you finally get to Calliope telling her story about herself, it's a relief. We can finally read about something interesting, like a hermaphrodite who was raised as a girl and (the reader knows) ends up deciding to switch to living as a man. However, even in this section, the narrative switches without warning or delineation between Calliope as a first-person narrator and Calliope as a third-person narrator, switching between 'she' and 'I.'
The story is engaging, but Eugenides can't seem to settle on a story about Calliope or a story about her family leading up to her birth, and the result is a story whose general thrust is rather muddled. Maybe that's the point - Calliope is a mix of two divergent things, so the book is too. But frankly, it doesn't work. For all its hulabaloo and its Pulitzer prize, Middlesex doesn't really do it for me.
When you finally get to Calliope telling her story about herself, it's a relief. We can finally read about something interesting, like a hermaphrodite who was raised as a girl and (the reader knows) ends up deciding to switch to living as a man. However, even in this section, the narrative switches without warning or delineation between Calliope as a first-person narrator and Calliope as a third-person narrator, switching between 'she' and 'I.'
The story is engaging, but Eugenides can't seem to settle on a story about Calliope or a story about her family leading up to her birth, and the result is a story whose general thrust is rather muddled. Maybe that's the point - Calliope is a mix of two divergent things, so the book is too. But frankly, it doesn't work. For all its hulabaloo and its Pulitzer prize, Middlesex doesn't really do it for me.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Excuse me... I'd like to introduce me
Ummm. Hey. I'm Adam, and I read books too. Internets, nice to meet you.
The title of this entry is a musical reference. 50 points to the first person who can identify it. Oh yes, there are points now on this blog, and they're very, very important. I don't have anything to review now, per se, because I'm slowly drowning trying to write a novel of my own. Or to be more precise, a proposal for a novel. It's like drawing a picture of how you want to cut someone's hair. Yes, that pointless.
Hang in there, interwebs. I'm a-comin'.
The title of this entry is a musical reference. 50 points to the first person who can identify it. Oh yes, there are points now on this blog, and they're very, very important. I don't have anything to review now, per se, because I'm slowly drowning trying to write a novel of my own. Or to be more precise, a proposal for a novel. It's like drawing a picture of how you want to cut someone's hair. Yes, that pointless.
Hang in there, interwebs. I'm a-comin'.
Friday, September 7, 2007
I'm bad.
I've been indulging in re-reading a series of fantasy novels, so I haven't finished Middlesex. Sue me.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Sue Monk Kidd - The Mermaid Chair
Super Short! Very good, with extremely lucid descriptions of things, and a bright, sharp accuracy in describing the rush of feelings the main character experiences. Kidd ties the two plots, the main character's affair, and the mystery of her mother's mutilation of her own hand together very well. The perspective shifts occasionally to a couple other characters besides the main character's, which I felt to be a bit clumsy on Kidd's part. If she was going to incorporate other perspectives, she should have done so more consistently, not intermittently. It seemed just that she couldn't get certain things across without resorting to letting them say it for themselves. psha.
Otherwise, a very tight, captivating book that despite its depressing subject matter manages to leave you feeling buoyant, and avoids making the ending a sugary-sweet piece of bullshit about forgiveness and redemption.
Otherwise, a very tight, captivating book that despite its depressing subject matter manages to leave you feeling buoyant, and avoids making the ending a sugary-sweet piece of bullshit about forgiveness and redemption.
JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
There's something wrong if you can finish a 759-page book in under 12 hours. Especially when those 12 hours are not solely dedicated to reading. While the last Harry Potter was certainly an entertaining read, it left me with the same feeling that I've had with all of them: why did that take a billion and a half pages to get through? While I respect the imagination that it takes to create a world and plot as detailed as Harry Potter's, I still am not convinced that any of a dozen other authors I could name in the next ten sceonds couldn't have done the same thing, but not taken a bazillion pages.
Don't get me wrong. I liked the book, and the way she constructed the book, aside from the epilogue, because with such a huge fan base and such a fraught, multi-book plot, it would be very difficult to come up with something to end the series that was both satisfying as an author and as a reader. So I commend her for that, I just don't think that she needs to be worshipped as some goddess of writing like many people do.
Don't get me wrong. I liked the book, and the way she constructed the book, aside from the epilogue, because with such a huge fan base and such a fraught, multi-book plot, it would be very difficult to come up with something to end the series that was both satisfying as an author and as a reader. So I commend her for that, I just don't think that she needs to be worshipped as some goddess of writing like many people do.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Anita Diamant - The Red Tent
I am, admittedly, unfamiliar with Biblical stories, so when I saw the title of Anita Diamant's book I wondered where in the Bible there were red tents. I freely admit to having no experience with the name Dinah except for the song "Dinah blow your horn." In the wake of this book, though, I think that it was better to not know the climax, and to simply follow the story.
Diamant has created a powerful story that demonstrates the role and perspective of women within the known framework of Biblical lore. It feels a bit like historical fiction, because the bones of the story are familiar, but the emotions, and probably some of the characters themselves, are newly imagined.
It was a quick read, but one that left a lasting impression. Some parts did remind me of the Simpson's episode where Homer settles down to listen to the Bible on tape and falls asleep during "so-and-so begot so-and-so..." but it doesn't bog the story down too much.
All in all, a good book worth recommending to one's friends.
Diamant has created a powerful story that demonstrates the role and perspective of women within the known framework of Biblical lore. It feels a bit like historical fiction, because the bones of the story are familiar, but the emotions, and probably some of the characters themselves, are newly imagined.
It was a quick read, but one that left a lasting impression. Some parts did remind me of the Simpson's episode where Homer settles down to listen to the Bible on tape and falls asleep during "so-and-so begot so-and-so..." but it doesn't bog the story down too much.
All in all, a good book worth recommending to one's friends.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Welcome to Your Next Favorite Book!!
Welcome, interwebulars!
This blog is all about books. If you know me, you know I read obsessively, and fairly omnivorously. Far too few people follow suit, but I think that is partially because if you go to a bookstore and stand in the middle, how do you even begin to pick a book? You could start with bestsellers, books with lots of buzz, though sometimes they're total crap. At least you'd be reading. It's always better to try a book that you like the look of based on a summary or recommendation from a friend. But I find that when I'm at the bookstore I tend to be a sucker for pretty or interesting book covers, or that I try to base a judgement of a book's prospects on its title. Not the best measure of quality, I'm afraid.
So, with all that in mind, I'll be writing about the books I've read recently. A book report of sorts, I guess.
If you happen to read something good and you want to write about it, let me know and I'll add you to the contributors list, and then you can post whenever you want.
Happy reading, interwebs!
This blog is all about books. If you know me, you know I read obsessively, and fairly omnivorously. Far too few people follow suit, but I think that is partially because if you go to a bookstore and stand in the middle, how do you even begin to pick a book? You could start with bestsellers, books with lots of buzz, though sometimes they're total crap. At least you'd be reading. It's always better to try a book that you like the look of based on a summary or recommendation from a friend. But I find that when I'm at the bookstore I tend to be a sucker for pretty or interesting book covers, or that I try to base a judgement of a book's prospects on its title. Not the best measure of quality, I'm afraid.
So, with all that in mind, I'll be writing about the books I've read recently. A book report of sorts, I guess.
If you happen to read something good and you want to write about it, let me know and I'll add you to the contributors list, and then you can post whenever you want.
Happy reading, interwebs!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)