I'm looking forward to a year of solid reading now that I've officially finished studying (for the time being anyway). I took part in the 50 books challenge last year and got to 120, so I'm quietly confident that I can make it to the target this year - fingers crossed!

I'm also taking part in the Off the Shelf Challenge and have (optimistically) committed myself to reading at least 25 books from my TBR pile.

Books Read in 2010

January

1. Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett
2. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
3. Jean Rhys, Carole Angier
4. Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
5. The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk
6. Mr Shivers, Robert Jackson Bennett
7. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
8. The Left Hand of God, Paul Hoffman
9. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
10. Selected Works, Cicero
11. The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood

February

12. Stolen, Lucy Christopher
13. Fermat's Last Theorum, Simon Singh
14. By Grand Central Station, I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart
15. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
16. Outside of a Dog, Rick Gekoski
17. The Red House Mystery, AA Milne
18. Songs of the Doomed, Hunter S Thompson
19. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
20. Clodia, Robert de Maria
21. Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon
22. The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

March

23. The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers, Paul Torday
24. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens
25. Heavy Weather, PG Wodehouse
26. The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris
27. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh

....................................................

1. Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett

Ahem. I had decided to cut down on the Pratchetts this year, but he's just so entertaining, and so easy to read when you're dog tired that I couldn't resist. I think there might be another one popping up on my list again very soon.

2. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

My first Atwood, and I really enjoyed it. I hadn't expected it to be so funny, given that the subject matter is the lead up to and aftermath of an apocalypse. There are some great, very dry one-liners;

These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency

Well stuff it, Jimmy thought. If he wants to be an asshole it's a free country. Millions before him have made the same life choice

Atwood builds up the tension by skipping betweent the different threads of the story - the before and the after, and how things got to after, told from the perspective of Jimmy (later to be known as Snowman). Jimmy is one of life's perpetually peripheral characters, standing on the sidelines as everyone else seems to be in the action, and even when civilisation has collapsed, he is still unable to really react to things around him, not to act himself. Crake - his childhood friend and lingering (looming?) presence - is the real source of action.

I did find some things irritating, like the names Atwood gives to products and companies; 'Happicuppa Coffee', 'Chickie Nobs', 'Rejoov'. I'm sure I'm missing some important point that she was trying to make, but I felt like they rang a bit false in comparison to the rest of her imagined future.

All in all, liked it a lot, and have bought The Year of the Flood to read soon.

Message modifié par son auteur, Mar 14, 2010, 4:50pm.

Welcome to the group!

Oryx and Crake was my first Atwood too. I liked it better than The Year of the Flood, which I read recently, but I am in the minority on that.

I'm a big Terry Pratchett fan too - just read Unseen Academicals and loved that.

The only Margaret Atwood I've read is The Blind Assassin which I thought was really good. I'll definitely give Oryx and Crake a try, thanks!

Howdy!

I 'discovered' Atwood last year. (I'm still kicking myself for that) And I read Year of the Flood first, before Oryx. Loved both... also liked her Penelopiad. Plan to have more Atwood from the library this year. She is simply wonderful.

Welcome to the group.

I've been wanting to read something by Atwood for years, but I just haven't gotten to it yet. I bought The Blind Assassin more than a year ago, but I need to move it to the top of the TBR pile.

I also keep seeing Pratchett's name around, which makes me want to try something by him, but I have no idea where to start. Do you have any suggestions?

I'd suggest starting with Guards!, Guards! for Pratchett. It's from the Discworld series which is his main series and it's one of my favourite books. It's not the first book in the series but I think his books generally stand alone fairly well.

Otherwise I would recommend starting with Wyrd Sisters or Mort. Hope that helps!

That does. Thanks Heather!

I love what I've read of Margaret Atwood, but I often get thrown off by her synopsises--her books just seem to be all over the place, in many ways. I was fascinated by Cat's Eye, though--it's a really interesting foray into the dark depths of artistic inspiration and how personal history shapes us. I have The Year of the Flood in my TBR pile as well.

I have to admit hat I haven't read too many of the Discworld series, but I really really like Pratchett's Wee Free Men series. Definitely snort-out-loud humor.

>5: Or, The Truth! It can be read pretty well as a stand-alone, it was one of the first I'd read :)

Welcome! Nice start.

Hi everyone - wow, I knew you guys were chatty, but I hadn't expected so many of you to turn up so quickly! Thanks for the words of welcome.

>5 Any of them really, they're all good. I agree with souloftherose that the Witches or City Watch series are probably the best to start with, and I would add that you should probably avoid the stand alone ones to begin with as I think they tend to be slightly different in tone - but maybe that's just me.

>8 That's exactly what put me off Atwood for so long too - I also have The Penelopiad around somewhere as well, and I hope to get to that soon.

This is the same review I posted over on my Books Off the Shelf thread

3. Jean Rhys (stupid touchstones, why don't you like poor Jean?), Carole Angier

I'm afraid I was a bit hard on this one to begin with. I bought it and then started to read it without actually reading the back, assuming that it was just a bio of Jean Rhys, one of my favourite authors. But I became incredibly frustrated with it after just a few chapters, as it hardly talks about the details of her life at all. Then I actually read the back cover, where it clearly says

"Jean Rhys wanted no biography written of her after her death. Instead, this, moving and beautifully written study follows her search for self-knowledge through the things she wrote about."

I'm not sure how that was supposed to work (how do you describe someone's 'search for self-knowledge' without describing it in relation to what they were doing in the course of that search?), but knowing what that the intention was did influence the way I read the rest of the book. Instead of being written as a straight biography, it looks at each of her novels in turn and relates it to what was happening in her life at the time, but without going into too much detail - essentially, Angier reads into the novels Rhys' responses to events.

Which was interesting from the point of view of literary interpretation, but frustrating from the point of view of wanting to know something about the woman herself. Because she did have a fascinating, tragic life - shunted off to England from Dominica at the age of seventeen, she endured one failed romance after another, due largely to her own fairly severe personality problems, and never really achieved recognition during her lifetime. Which is a pity, as she is a wonderful, gut wrenchingly tragic writer.

Verdict: It stays on the shelf with my collection of Jean Rhys novels, but on sufferance. It's only 123 pages, so I might give it another look at some point.

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 7, 2010, 4:23pm.

The Wind in the Willows is a beautiful, dreamy tribute to the English countryside, and to a particularly English way of life of picnics, boating and genteel, gentlemanly entertainments. When I’d finished reading it I drew the conclusion that it was a wistful imagining of an idealised past, written by a wealthy-ish man pining for a world that was already starting to modernise and change out of recognition.

I left off reading the introduction until after I’d finished the book, and found that while my interpretation isn’t wrong, there is slightly more to the story than I had realised. Poor old Kenneth Grahame had a bit of a rough life – his mother died when he was very young, and his father shipped the children off to live with their grandmother. Grahame never fulfilled his ambition of studying at Oxford, and when he married it was quite late in life to a woman he seems to have had an unhappy relationship with. His son Alastair was born prematurely and was nearly blind, and was given the nickname ‘Mouse’. Grahame doted on him, and came up with the stories about Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger to entertain him, and there is definitely a feeling that these stories are an outpouring of warmth from a man who seems to have been so deprived of warmth for most of his life. The four friends, while so utterly different from each other, share a deep affection and regard, and a willingness to put themselves out to help someone in trouble. The introduction to my copy probably puts it best when it says;

Grahame invests his characters with such wonderful, human qualities; he understands so much about friendship, about appreciating the specifics of one another, the idiosyncrasies that make us tick.

The writing is just beautiful, and reflects a deep love of the English countryside and though the descriptions of the balmy weather of spring are very nice, I think I prefer Grahame’s description of the woods in winter, which seems to me to reflect an unconditional love;

Copses, dells, quarries, and all hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a while, til they could riot in rich masquerade as before, and trick and entice him with old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and yet cheering – even exhilarating. He was glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard, and stripped of its finery, He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple.

Grahame’s writing reminded me of P G Wodehouse’s – it is not as funny (though the character of Toad is surely one of literature’s greatest comic creations), but there is a similar timeless innocence to it. There is a sense that most chaps are fairly decent if given a chance, and though there are a few incurably horrible people out there, they are at least obviously bad – this is a fairly black and white world. But sometimes we need to be reassured that the world can be kind and beautiful.

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 15, 2010, 4:55am.

>13 That's a lovely review, thanks.

5. The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk

I can’t decide if I like this book or if I just feel a bit blah about it. On the one hand it is well written, with superb characters and settings. But on the other hand, it went on a bit and I think it really should have been about 150-200 pages shorter.

Set in 1970s Istanbul, it is the story of Kemal and Fusun, distantly related cousins who meet by chance and fall instantly in love. They begin a passionate affair which ends abruptly when Kemal becomes engaged to his girlfriend, who he also loves. the books starts strongly with the description of how the affair begins and ends, but then sort of trails off into the land of ‘oh my god, would you just get on with it’ as Kemal becomes fixated on Fusun, and finds himself unable to continue with his normal life. He slowly loses interest in everything except his memories of Fusun, and becomes more and more withdrawn into a private world of pain and obsession. The museum of the title is the collection of objects he amasses that remind him of her, which he keeps first in the apartment where they used to meet when they first began their affair, and later in Fusun’s family home, and much of the story is taken up with descriptions of the things he finds or steals to fill the museum.

Then there are pages and pages of description of how sad he feels, and of how much he misses Fusun which I really think should have been cut down a bit. I think I can see what Pamuk was doing when he describes this awful obsession – it is a vivid description of depression, and anyone who has ever had their heart broken knows what the pain is like. The repetitive thinking that amounts to self-torture, the conviction that the one who is the cause of the heartbreak has moved on to someone else, and is happier, the conviction that if you just had one more chance you could make it work. There are some horribly vivid descriptions of the physical sensations of depression;

Let me explain to readers without access to our museum that the pain was initially felt in the upper-right hand quadrant of my stomach. As the pain increased, it would... radiate to the cavity between my lungs and my stomach. At that point its abdominal presence would no longer be confined to the left side, having spread to the right, feeling rather as if a hot poker or screwdriver were twisting into me. It was at first as if my stomach and then my entire abdomen were filling up with acid, as if sticky, red-hot little starfish were attaching themselves to my organs... If I hit the wall with my hand...I could briefly block the pain, but at its most muted it would feel like an intravenous drip entering my bloodstream.

But when Kemal is still going on about it 350 pages later, I felt like giving him a good smack around the ear.

What I did like about this book was the characterisation – Kemal needs a good kick in the bum, but he is also basically a good person, and I felt a lot of sympathy for him, and for the various other people whose lives are affected by his pain. His group of friends are particularly well drawn – this was a time in Turkey during which the wealthy liked to think of themselves as modern, westernised Europeans, but they were still very conscious of traditional roles for men and women, particularly the idea that women had to be virgins until they were married. Most of the angst that plagues Kemal’s social set is to do with the contradictions between these two ways of thinking, and the tightrope women walked – give away too much before the wedding night, and no matter how enlightened society told itself it was you were still considered a hussy.

In fact, Pamuk’s evocation of life in Istanbul for a wealthy young man educated in American is probably the best thing about this book. In Kemal’s descriptions of day to day life there is a glossing over of social unrest and politics that seems believable for someone with such a comfortable position in life, and a focus on the restaurants, fashions of gossip of high society, even as he distances himself from it.

The things I didn’t like about this book were balanced by the things that I did like about it, and I’m keen to read something else by the same author – I have Snow on the shelf, so I’ll try to find time for that soon.

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 17, 2010, 2:17am.

Excellent review! I bought this earlier this month, but I think I'll read Snow and My Name Is Red before I read this one.

Hi Tash

Welcome to our friendly, chatty, well-read and very kind group. I note your reference to The Penelopiad and highly recommend this book. It is very creative.

Welcome! I'm always happy when someone reads an Atwood novel :)

>16 I'm definitely keen to read more by Pamuk and Snow seems to be pretty well thought of - let me know how you go! And if anyone has a strong opinion as to which one I should read next i'd be interested in hearing it

>17, 18 Hi - I think I'm quietly becoming an Atwood fan. I'm currently reading The Year of the Flood, and it's probably even better than Oryx and Crake. Always great to find a new favourite author!

I'm feeling sort of wishy-washy about Museum of Innocence, don't think I'll add it to my wish list quite yet. I've got Snow to read--in German, no less! Lol! Not gonna happen, though I will read it in English. (I had wanted to try to read some contemporary fiction in German and that title was one of the few I could find.) I'm a fan of Atwood too, so imagine I'll get to The Year of the Flood and/or Oryx and Crake sometime this year. Happy reading!

>20 I'm so impressed by people who are fluent enough in other languages to actually read novels! I did study french and spanish at uni and could read bits and pieces but it was a long, hard slog - my goal was always to learn enough french to be able to read marcel proust in the original, but I never got that far. My other dream is to learn russian well enough to read some of the russian classics, but it's always seemed like such a daunting prospect.

Ah well, my husband and I might be moving to spain at the end of the year, so I guess then I'd be forced to learn a bit more!

Good luck with the german, i'll be interested to see what you end up reading!

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 18, 2010, 4:10am.

Love your reading so far - and yours is the second recommendation of Oryx and Crake (and Atwood in general) I've read today, which does NOT bode well for my TBR pile... Happy reading, I've got you starred!

For what it's worth, the knack with reading foreign languages is just to do a bit a day and it soon gets easier. I find it difficult to believe that when I was on my year abroad in France 20 years ago I could read French almost as well as I read English - now I read 15 minutes a day in French and it's getting quicker, but I still move slowly. I've got French books as one of the categories in my 1010 challenge but I think even 5 books will be a challenge (I was aiming for short and trashy, which is always easier in French, but then a group read of the Count of Monte Cristo was suggested, which is long...)

I've only just found out about The Year of the Flood - I enjoyed Oryx and Crake, but my favourite Atwood is Alias Grace
Chloe

Hi Chloe,

That's what I've heard - repetition is the key. I'm actually starting french classes again in a couple of weeks, so I just need to push myself to actually do the homework. My grasp of grammar is appalling, but I used to have a knack for remembering names of things and various phrases so I never worked as hard as I should have because I could usually bluff my way through the classes. I vow to work harder this time, though!

6. Mr. Shivers, Robert Jackson Bennett

Set during the Great Depression, the story opens with a man named Connelly travelling across America in pursuit of... someone. Someone mysterious and malevolent, who, we discover, murdered Connelly’s daughter. As he travels he meets up with a group of people who are pursuing the same man for the same reason that Connelly is after him, and together they track him from town to town, until they finally catch up with the man they call Mr Shivers. Bit by bit they piece together the truth about the man they pursue, and the nature of his relationship to Connelly. A truth that was not that much of a surprise when it was revealed, but which does create a well drawn out feeling of suspense.

This is the book you would expect someone would write if they'd been reading a lot of Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King - Bennett isn't quite as good an author as either of those two, but their influence is apparent in both the style and the subject. The writing is pretty good – the same sorts of sharp, staccato sentences that Cormac McCarthy employs – though there are a few bits of clunky dialogue;

”I don’t know about God,” said Connelly. “I know less about God than I do the nation. I don’t think about that. I don’t need to. Some things don’t need to be thought about. You just do them. And I aim to.”

But for the most part it is a well drawn picture of depression era America, with its hoboes and shanty towns, and the tide of people moving across the country. In particular Bennett makes use of the drought and the dust as a nice metaphor for the nature of Mr Shivers, creating a sense of impending doom.

I also liked what I read as a dig either at those various compassionate religious leaders who blame every national disaster on the sins of the people worst affected, or at the smug affluence of our own society;

”I think it goes further. They say the storm is a curse and they say the hungry times are a curse. Like they expect things to be safe and this hunger is new and strange. That there’ll always be plenty. But that’s the strange thing. That’s the new thing. Living comfortably. That’s strange.”

This wasn’t a taxing read by any means, but it was an enjoyable one – I read it while I sat out in the sun in my garden on a lazy Sunday morning, and it was just right for that time and place. The plot moves quickly, the characters are interesting and though I don’t think it will make my list of literary highlights for the year, it did make me want to keep turning the pages.

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 21, 2010, 4:30am.

> 15, interesting review of The Museum of Innocence though i don't think i'll get to it soon. i've not read Snow but have heard good things about it. i was really impressed with his writing in The Black Book and have since wanted to go through all his translated novels, though the one i'm reading now, My Name is Red, i find a bit of a slog and have set aside, i hope, temporarily.

Well, looks like Mr Shivers needs to join ol' TBR pile...

Edited to say hello to my two visitors - thanks for stopping by.

Deebee1 - I'm with you on the slog aspect of Pamuk, even though I did enjoy the book I read. It was hard to make it clear in my review that it was slow going and hard work at times without making it sound like something no one in their right mind would want to read. Can things be boring but enjoyable? Like a bowl of porridge.

Drneutron - you sound like you have a fascinating job - an actual rocket scientist, you say? I'll have to pick your brains about some science books! And I'm very sorry to hear that you've added to your TBR pile because of me, though Mr Shivers was pretty entertaining.

7. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
8. The Left Hand of God, Paul Hoffman
9. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

I feel a little claustrophobic this week. That might be something to do with my reading material, all of which has tended to involve similar themes of bureaucracy, citadels and Machiavellian scheming. First up was Gormenghast. My husband and I were discussing last night the idea of ‘favourites’, and we concluded that we aren’t ‘favourites’ people – I don’t have a favourite band, colour, food, or even book, (or so I thought). I have clouds of favourite things, lists of things I like, but I’m not the kind of person who would lie down and die for, say, Withnail and I, or The Goneaway World, or potato salad, much as I like each of those things. But then I started thinking about Gormenghast and I think that just maybe, (and I’ll type this quietly so the other books don’t hear)... I think Gormenghast might be my favourite book, ever. Oh, the guilt.

But I do love it so very much. It is the first book in the brilliant trilogy by Mervyn Peake (soon to become a quartet, with the discovery of a book by Peake that was left unfinished at the time of his death, but which was finished by his wife Maeve and then packed away in an attic. This is one piece of literary grave-robbing that I think I’m OK with). I’ll preface my effusive praise of this book by saying that I love liberality. If I’m having four people over for dinner, I’ll cook for eight. I love going to shops where they sell nuts and grains out of huge barrels. I think that this tendency towards liking extravagance is why I like this book so much, with its glorious, lavish language.

It is set in Gormenghast - a huge, crumbling castle populated by people who are for the most part just cogs in a vast machine that rolls on regardless of what any individual might want or need. The aristocracy and their various hangers on are inching through their lives, unthinkingly and yet gloomily following the traditions that have been followed for centuries. When an ambitious kitchen boy decides that he would much prefer being in charge no one sees him for what he is, because nothing like this has ever happened before, and he is allowed to carry on with his scheming and manipulation almost entirely unobserved.

But the plot is almost incidental. What draws me to this novel again and again are the characters and the world that Peake has created for them. Let’s start with the names, to give you an idea of the atmosphere. The evil kitchen boy is Steerpike. There is the head servant, Flay, and his arch nemesis Abiatha Swelter, the grotesquely fat head chef (given to such pronouncements as Silensh my fairy boys. Silensh my belching angels. Come closer here, come closer with your little creamy faces and I’ll tell you who I am). There is the mincing Doctor Prunesquallor, who is more observant than he appears, and the bad tempered master of ceremony Barquentine, who is less observant than he should be. Then there are the minor characters, such as Spogfrawne and Rottcodd.

The names alone are so evocative, and they should give you an idea of the kind of feel of the book. But they aren’t just quaint names - Peake backs them up with these incredible personalities that amount to almost physical presences. Here is Steerpike the first time we meet him;

His body gave the appearance of being malformed, but it would be difficult to say exactly what gave it this gibbous quality. Limb by limb it appeared that he was sound enough, but the sum of these several members accrued to an unexpectedly twisted total. His face was pale like clay and save for his eyes, masklike. These eyes were set very close together, and were small, dark red, and of startling concentration.

But my favourite character is Sepulchrave Groan, the seventy-seventh earl, and titular head of Gormenghast, though he never exerts any influence. He is utterly, almost catatonically depressed, and his one love in life is his library. He is also the first person Steerpike sets his sights on to destroy. This is the earl just before Steerpike begins the execution of his devious plan;

There had been a slight but perceptible lifting of his spirit... He had become aware of a dim pleasure in having a son. Titus had been born during one of his blackest moods, and although he was still shrouded in melancholia, his introspection had, during the last few days, become tempered by a growing interest in his heir, not as a personality, but as the symbol of the Future. He had some vague presentiment that his own tenure was growing to a close and it gave him both pleasure when he remembered his son, and a sense of stability amid the miasma of his waking dreams.

There is too much to this book to do it justice in a short review, but I’ll just note here that if I was going to be stuck on a desert island, I would want this almost-but-not-quite-overblown, richly drawn piece of gothic fantasy as my companion (or even the whole trilogy if the person who was putting me on the island was feeling generous). It is a massive book, not so much its length as in its scope of ideas, its wit, and a certain almost indefinable quality that I think can only be described by saying that this book has a sense of itself as a real world.

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 25, 2010, 1:23am.

Book 8 was The Left Hand of God, by Paul Hoffman, and I’m less enthusiastic about this one. The setting is a citadel, as huge and rambling as Gormenghast. It is called the Sanctuary, but as the opening lines make clear; the Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie, for there is no redemption that goes on there, and less sanctuary.

It is the story of a young boy, Thomas Cale, who has been trained to be a ruthless religious warrior. He sees something he shouldn’t have seen and must flee to Memphis, a place that is the antithesis of the Sanctuary. I enjoyed this book for the most part, as it has some great scenes and characters, but the narrative structure is a little odd. At first I thought I was having trouble because when I started reading it it was late at night and I was a bit drunk tired, but then I realised that there is actually something a bit jarring about it. There are sudden jumps away from Cale’s perspective to the perspective of various other characters – Terry Pratchett, among other authors, does the same thing all the time and it never bothers me there, but for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on it bothered me here.
And then there are weird changes in tone – sometimes it’s funny, sometimes deadly serious – that give it a really uneven quality.

But what really bugged me was the ending. I got to within thirty pages of the end and was thinking to myself ‘how on earth is he going to wrap all this up in such a short space?’ The answer is that he doesn’t. After the fast-paced adventure of the previous 400 pages, the ending just sort of petered out... Apparently it is going to be a trilogy, so hopefully some of the plot lines will be resolved in later books.

As frustrated as I got, I think I’d probably read the next book, just because I want to know what happens – if I’d outright hated this book I wouldn’t care, but I would like to know.

Bottom line: this series has potential, even if I didn't love this book.

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 25, 2010, 12:27am.

9. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

Excellent as always – I find that Pratchett’s stand alone books tend to be a bit more philosophical than the books that are part of a series. This one is largely about religion, and seems to have taken inspiration from a phrase attributed to Galileo – ‘and yet it moves’, which you can read about here if you're interested.

10. Selected Works, Cicero

I don't mind admitting that this was a tough one to get through. I read plenty of Cicero at uni, but I'd never sat down and attempted to read a whole book of his work and bits of it were hard work.

But I am fascinated by Cicero - there are more famous and more glamorous figures from the same period of history (Julius Caesar and Marc Antony for example), but Cicero has always seemed so real to me. You get this picture from his writing of a man who was highly intelligent, a consummate political player, but who was also terribly insecure and given to pomposity and arrogance.

This collection is made up of philosophical works, letters and speeches, the most enjoyable to read being the speeches – those wonderful, muckraking speeches. A hard slog at times but worth it.

Hello.... I've been lurking away and now suddenly there are all these reviews setting my head in a whirl!

1) Can things be boring but enjoyable? Like a bowl of porridge. All that with sugar on top.

2) drneutron - A real life rocket scientist, huh? I'm so envious - I'm fascinated by science, especially physics, but when it came to studying it my literary-minded brain went into mathematical meltdown! Now I just read up myself for fun...

3) I only have Titus Groan so far but it sounds like I have to boost it up Mount TBR and buy the rest of the trilogy to boot! Have you seen the adaptation with a rather young Jonathan Rhys-Meyers? I was wondering whether to buy that as well - I was a bit young when it was on TV I think!

Message modifié par son auteur, Jan 25, 2010, 7:40am.

Msg 27: It's funny, I was just looking at Gormenghast yesterday! There was a quote on the back of Flora Segunda (which I had just finished) that likened it to "Gormenghast out of any Ripping Yarn you care to think of...". So, I was just considering it and along comes your review--very good timing :).

Hi ellie - I think I'd had a bit too much coffee yesteday after a night of not enough sleep, hence the sort of lateral responses to people's comments! Normally it would never occur to me to compare a nobel prize winning author to a bowl of rolled oats.

I never saw the adaptation of Gormenghast when it came out, but I did just buy the DVD and I'm just waiting for the TV mood to strike me before I settle down to watch it.

Willowsmom - I'd never heard of Flora Segunda, but it sounds interesting - from you review I can see where the comparison to Gormenghast might come in. I'll have to keep an eye out for it, thanks!

Let me know how you get on with the DVD then - I might have to finally push it from wishlist to basket if you like it... And I thought the porridge thing was really funny - I knew exactly what you meant!

Hi! I think this is my first visit to your thread. You've done some interesting reading! Nice reviews!

Mr. Shivers sounds like something I'd enjoy. I've added it to my list!

Ellie - started watching Gormenghast last night, and I'm really enjoying it so far (two episodes in). It doesn't manage to convey the deep sense of melancholy of the novel, but it does capture the sly humour that pops up throughout it.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is spot on as Steerpike, and with the exception of Fushia Groan and Nanny Slagg, all the other characters have also been really well cast.

From an Amazon review; It really feels like you have entered the imaginations of a flamboyant dystopian; Gormenghast is all at once rich, beautiful, haggard and doomed. The intensity of the film, the strength of the characters and the epic nature of the story may be a little too much for some viewers (like a particularly rich chocolate gateau)

Yep, that's about it.

So this is going to be a bit of a rant, something I just needed to get out of my system. Feel free to skip it if you're not in the mood for my grumbling!

I was saddened this week to hear of the death of J D Salinger, an author whose books I have been reading lately. But I have been amazed at the response on various blogs (ever here on LT) to news of his death. People are glad he’s dead. What? They’re glad he’s dead? We’re talking about the same guy here, right? The guy who wrote some stories, stories that some people (me included) like very much, but which lots of people seem not to have liked. We’re talking about J D Salinger the author, not J D Salinger the genocidal maniac, or J D Salinger the kitten-and-puppy-kicker. He was a writer, a weird dude, and according to some accounts, not an especially nice guy (though that hardly makes him unique as an artist), not a monster.

I don’t ascribe to any religion, and I wouldn’t describe myself as a spiritual person, but I do believe that when someone dies you should show some compassion. I’m always moved by the way people here on LT respond to the news that a member of the community has lost someone – there’s always a spontaneous, and sincere outpouring of kind words. I’m inspired by that response, and frankly sickened by the response of ‘I’m glad he’s dead’. Ugh.

OK, rant over, normal programming will resume.

11. The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake was a great book, and I enjoyed it a lot, but I felt that the future it portrayed was sometimes less than convincing. I didn’t like the product names (rejoov, happicuppa) or the animal names (pigoon, rakunk) and found them a bit too gimmicky and cutesy for my taste. I also found the depiction of life inside the compounds a bit sterile and felt like I never got a sense of them as real, working worlds. In spite of all that, I did like it a lot – it was funny, and beautifully written, and I came to care deeply about what happened to Jimmy.

The Year of the Flood was all the things I liked about Oryx and Crake without the things that bugged me about the first book. Whereas O&C is set in the high-security world of privilege of the compounds, TYOTF focuses on the world outside – the pleeblands. The way that Atwood describes life outside the sterility of the compounds was much more convincing, and I felt like there was a bit more emphasis on showing us how that world works. In particular, Atwood spends quite a lot of time describing how the main characters – members of a vegetarian, pacifist cult called God’s Gardeners – manage to survive in the city. The descriptions of life on their rooftop garden manage to be idyllic, but also imbued with a sense of menace. Here are these beautiful refuges from the city, where people spout all sorts of new-agey platitudes, and yet there are all sorts of dark, dangerous things going on underneath.

And, of course, this is such a well written book, with a dry sense of humour, and an earthy, poetic tone. As with the descriptions in the first book of the world after the ‘waterless flood’ (the disaster that wipes out most of humanity), there is a wonderful impression of nature as unrestrainedly fertile, as fecund and bursting with life. I think this is what stops the books from being bleak. There is a feeling that not all is lost – we’ve stuffed the planet up pretty badly, but nature is bigger than us or anything we could do to it and will recover, (whether we’re there to see it or not).

I imagine that you could read this as a stand-alone book without too many problems, but part of the appeal for me was that it filled in so much of the back story from O&C – people from the first book keep popping up, and you get a bit more of an idea of what was going on in the first book.

#38: I have never read anything by Salinger myself, but honestly the 'I'm glad he's dead' philosophy sickens me, too. Even if you disagree with someone's religion, ethics, etc., the death of anyone diminishes us as human beings (paraphrasing Donne). I understand your rant completely.

#39: I am glad to see that you enjoyed The Year of the Flood. I just discovered Atwood last year myself and Oryx and Crake was the first of hers I read. I have since read a couple of others and am hoping to get to at least one more this year.

#38: I completely agree with you & Stasia. Fortunately I haven't seen any of those blogs or posts that you referred to, but those thoughts are despicable.

#39: I loved your comments about Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. I doubt I'll have time to get to these books this year, but I'll plan to read them both next year.

#39: I loved The Year of The Flood as well...I haven't read Oryx and Crake yet, and am not sure I will, especially after your review. If all the things I loved about The Year of The Flood (God's Gardeners, all the references to foraging and self sufficiency, the rooftop gardens, their apocalypse preparedness) aren't as present in Oryx and Crake, I might just skip it by entirely. I think these two books sum up my feelings about Margaret Atwood: sometimes I love love love her, and sometimes I just...don't...GET her. It's interesting that, as an author, she can be so consistently random and all over the place!

#39: I too loved both books but preferred The Year of the Flood and think that you summarized my feelings perfectly.

Add my voice to Stasia and Darryl's regarding your "rant." You're right to be upset by such attitudes. I haven't seen the nasty posts / blogs you spoke of, and am glad of it.

Thanks guys - I needed to get that rant off my chest, and sometimes I feel better when I've written it down, rather than just talked about it!

And I'm glad to see how many other people are Atwood fans too, as I think I'm developing a pretty serious writer-crush on her.

#43 It's funny, though I liked O&C a lot, it wasn't until I'd read TYOTF that I was able to articulate to myself what it was that I hadn't liked about the first book, if that makes sense.

#42 That's the impression I've had of Atwood so far, that she seems to write books about whatever comes into her head rather than to a theme - I love the way you describe her as 'consistently random'!

12. Stolen, Lucy Christopher

I've had such a good run of books lately, I'm almost afraid that my luck can't hold much longer! Stolen is YA fiction, which I've never read much of in the past, but I might have to seek some more out because this was just a revelation. It's one of those great books that keeps you up at night, thinking 'just one more page', until you just can't stay awake any more.

A British girl, Gemma, is kidnapped from Bangkok airport by a young man who drugs her and disguises her so he can get her away. When she wakes up she is alone with her captor in a shack in the middle of the Australian desert. She initially fights him every step of the way, but the more time they spend together, the more she finds herself questioning her feelings for him, and hating herself for doing so.

The novel is written as if it is a letter from Gemma to her kidnapper, and while I did find it hard to believe that a sixteen year old would write the way the book is written, I quickly forgot that quibble. Because even if the style very occasionally fails to convince, the tone of her thoughts and her emotions never do. She thinks of herself as being unhappy at home, that her parents don’t care about her, and that she is outgrowing her friendships, but her experiences in the desert show her how different her life could have been.

I think my favourite part about this book was the way that Christopher invokes the absolute isolation of the Australian desert as a metaphor for the relationship between victim and captor (For some reason I kept thinking of the wonderful, but highly underrated and sadly largely unknown Australian movie ‘Japanese Story’. It starts Toni Collette, check it out if you get the chance). The desert is the third major character, and Christopher does a great job of showing that it is hypnotically vast, and that this vastness can be oppressive and terrifying. And yet at the same time she shows that there is life everywhere if you know where to look, and that even in the heart of an apparently dead wasteland you can find...what? Not contentment, certainly. Perhaps respect is a better word, respect for the sheer power of the environment. That you can learn to love the desert if you know how to.

Any other criticisms? Sometimes the symbolism is a little too obvious, but I can’t say too much about that without giving away the plot, and I really don’t want to spoil this for anyone who might decide to read it. But who says symbolism has to be obscure for it to be effective?

I love this book, and have already begged the Scholastic rep for an advance copy of Christopher’s new book, which comes out in April here in oz.

Message modifié par son auteur, Fév 3, 2010, 5:29am.

#39 I loved The Year of the Flood too. I haven't read Oryx and Crake but I'd like to to get the background. Stolen sounds good too - another wishlist addition!

#46: Adding Stolen to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation, Tash.

>>46: You may also like Living Dead Girl although it sounds like it would be far more disturbing than Stolen.
There is a lot of good YA stuff coming out lately. I think half of my reading last year was YA.

#47, 48 I heard about Stolen on a BBC radio show called Open Book - don't know if you do the podcast thing but I highly recommend this particular show - I've 'discovered' quite a few great books this way.

#46 eeep, that sounds a bit intense for me! I did look it up on Amazon and read a couple of pages there, and it does look really well written, so maybe I'll get to it one day, thanks

13. Fermat's Last Theorum, Simon Singh

My brother-in-law has a theory that every successfully married couple has a Bert and an Ernie in it. What he means is that a couple must tolerate each other’s obsessions, and have contrasting but complementary personalities in order to be happy together. And according to him, the best way to do this is to emulate puppets from a kid’s TV show. He's been happily married for ten years, so he might be on to something.

Why do I bring this up? Not just because I'm slightly miffed that I have been universally declared to be the Bert of my marriage, but because I think it might be a little bit true. Fermat's Last Theorem belongs to my husband, an engineering student. He read this book with a look of rapture on his face, and kept muttering things about how beautiful and elegant maths is.

I read it and... meh. It is a history of mathematics told through the story of a three hundred year battle to solve a maths puzzle, which to me was as exciting as it sounds. It is very, very well written, and explains a lot of things I hadn't understood before, but I just couldn't get into it. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the enormous intellectual talent of the people involved in solving the problem, or that I failed to be awestruck by their brilliance and perseverance, it was just that I couldn’t make myself care about the maths. That isn't the fault of the book, it just wasn't for me. The only bits I really liked were the short biographies of the various people who worked on the puzzle over the years – but that’s how my mind works. People are interesting, formulas aren’t.

This book failed to grab my attention in the same way that things like Don Quixote and Brideshead Revisited have failed to grab my husband’s attention, in spite of the fact that they are some of my favourite books and that he has really tried to get into them. Ah well, at I guess I’ve always got my collection of paper clips to focus on.

#51: I really liked that one when I read it a couple of years ago, but I agree, it is definitely not a book for everyone.

14. By Grand Central Station, I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart

Again, a case of 'meh'. Again, a beautifully written book but not for me.

This is a fictionalised account of the love affair between the author and the poet George Barker. It is a passionate, painfully emotional account, but I think this is one of those books you have to come to at a certain point in your life to really appreciate it.

In spite of the fact that I didn't love this book, there was some wonderful writing;

IT is coming. The magnet of its imminent finger draws each hair of my body, the shudder of its approach disintegrates kisses, loses wishes on the disjointed air. The wet hands of the castor tree at night brush me and I shriek, thinking that at last I am caught up with.

Message modifié par son auteur, Fév 5, 2010, 4:31am.

#52 Jo also has The Big Bang by the same author, and has said that it is much easier to read (especially for a nincompoop like me), and I did like Singh's writing style so I'll probably read that eventually.

#54: I do not have The Big Bang by Singh, but I do have his The Code Book, which is another one that I liked.

15. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

I love it when a book provokes a strong emotional reaction in me, and this is what I found in reading Wuthering Heights. It is an incredible work of fiction which I found difficult to put down, in spite of the fact that I was repulsed by most of the characters and frequently disturbed by the level of brutality in their actions. I loved the book, and yet hated it as well, which is curiously appropriate, as this is a novel about passion, and what it can become – it can turn into passionate love, passionate hate, or it can be both at the same time. It is an exploration of the psychology of relationships, and though I didn’t think that there was a truly likeable person in the book (though some of them do manage to redeem themselves in the end), each character is brilliantly depicted.

Heathcliff in particular is utterly, convincingly awful. As Edgar Linton describes him; {Heathcliff is} not a rough diamond – a pearl containing oyster of a rustic; he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I wasn’t taken with the elder Cathy either, reading her as manipulative and kind of creepy. I know this is often considered one of the great romances of literature, but I was pretty much unmoved by the relationship between them - as far as I’m concerned, they deserved each other. But their relationship is interesting, though perhaps interesting is too mild a term to describe it. Maybe pathological is more appropriate. I know, I know, their relationship is deeply spiritual, and transcends the bounds of mortal love (though the word that sprang to my mind was ‘histrionic’). It just goes to show how talented Bronte was, that in spite of the fact that I looked on Cathy and Heathcliff as emotionally retarded narcissists, I still loved reading about them.

I wouldn’t say I liked this book in the sense that I think I will reread it anytime soon, but I do understand why it is considered to be one of the great works of English literature.

Having said all that, I suppose the question that remains is; who’s your man, Heathcliff or Rochester? I’ll be a Rochester girl forever – I love Jane Eyre and reread it every couple of years, and I loved the film version with Orson Welles. Sorry Emily, Charlotte just wrote a better love story.

Further fascinating insights into the men of the Bronte novels can be found here, in a piece from the always perceptive Kate Beaton.

Message modifié par son auteur, Fév 9, 2010, 11:44pm.

Rochester, hands down for me.

16. Outside of a Dog, Rick Gekoski

This is an autobiography of a reading life, in which the author tells you less about the events of his personal life, and more about how and what he has spent his life as a writer, bookseller and teacher reading. I found it fascinating, and loved the dryly funny style – Gekoski seems like he would make a great dinner guest, full of self-depreciating anecdotes; from his description of his realisation that his ex-wife had claimed his books as part of their divorce settlement, to his experiences as a rare book dealer trying to bribe ex-KGB officers, this was a hugely entertaining book.

If the following quotes resonate with you, you will almost certainly enjoy it;

(books) were as close as I came to a soul, they contained my history, my inner voices and connections to the transcendent

Large numbers of books seem to consume the very air. There’s something insistently aggressive about them, something clamorous: Look at me! Read me! Remember me! Refer to me! Cite me! Dust me! Arrange me!

Books are peculiarly adhesive. A throng of characters clamorously demand attention, voices rise and fall, fade in and out of our consciousness. We suspend the everyday, ignore the telephone and doorbell, eat with our eyes fixed to the page, overcome.

Message modifié par son auteur, Fév 8, 2010, 11:21pm.

#58: I will have to look for that one. Thanks for the recommendation, Tash!

Yeah, I wishlisted it too! You're my "go-to" person for coming-of-age, multicultural books set in Canada. Thanks!

#56 Definitely Rochester. He was my biggest 13 year old crush....

I love Wuthering Heights but I don't love the characters, certainly not in the same way I love Jane Eyre.

Outside of a Dog sounds great too - another one for the wishlist!

#56 I'll vote for Rochester, too. I discovered Jane Eyre in high school via a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV production with George C. Scott as Rochester, and Susannah York, I believe, as Jane. I was utterly captivated, so my Mom dug out her old, battered copy of the book for me, which I've read several times. It's one of the few books I own that I absolutely wouldn't consider parting with, despite its condition -- even for a new, shiny copy.

I'd go for Rochester too. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were pretty early reads for me - my mum handed me her copy of JE when I was an ickle girl and just said 'I think you'll love this.' And I did, even though I didn't 'get' it all that first time - and even now, if I catch the scent of those old pages I get a chill down my spine at the thought of Grace Poole! Now both books are amongst my favourites.

I prefer Rochester, definitely, but I can still see the appeal of Heathcliff, the wild and passionate gypsy man out on the Yorkshire moors. He's the one you want to redeem rather than the one you marry... ;-)

I'm glad there are so many Rochester fans out there, but rereading what I wrote about him in my review I can't help but feel like I've poisoned the well slightly - speak up Heathcliff fans, I'm sure there must be some of you around!

#61 Thanks very much bonnie - that's a very specific skill, but I'm always glad to be of service!

#63 My edition of Wuthering Heights was my mother-in-law's childhood book, and when it was passed on to me I opened it and found that it was full of pressed flowers that she must have put there as a teenager. I ended up getting hold of a different copy to read, as I couldn't bring myself to take the flowers out, and possibly destroy them in the process. That book will be with me forever.

#64 Have you ever read The Wide Sargasso Sea? It's one of those love/hate books (I love it), but it's interesting in that it gives another view of Mrs Rochester and creepy old Grace.

And I do see the appeal of Heathcliff the wild gypsy, but I just imagine him standing there on the howling moor, with his black hair all tousled, turning to me, and saying with his dark eyes smouldering..."where's my bloody dinner, woman?", and the image sort of collapses for me.

Um, nope, when I imagine him standing there on the howling moor, with his black hair all tousled, turning to me with his dark eyes smouldering, I can't say dinner is the first thing that springs to mind... ;-)

I have a weakness for the bad boys, what can I say? Rochester just pipped him to the post for not, y'know, going completely insane, but I still love Heathcliff!

Message modifié par son auteur, Fév 12, 2010, 7:16am.

Agreed, the tousled-haired bad boy will always be more attractive than the very nice boy with excellent job prospects, whose eyes stubbornly fail to even begin to smoulder.

17. The Red House Mystery, A A Milne

Written by A A Milne before the Winnie the Pooh books, this is a gentle little country house mystery that made for excellent lazy Sunday morning reading. But I have a feeling that if you asked me about it in a month from now, I wouldn't be able to tell you the names of any of the characters, or what they got up to. It certainly wasn't bad, it was just that it was quite light and fluffy and didn't really make that much of an impression on me.

It has all the ingredients of a classic Agatha Christie style novel - mistaken identity, secret passages, a bit of amateur sleuthing and so on. The main characters are jolly nice chaps, sort of Christopher-Robin-grown-up types, given to exclamations such as 'hullo! a secret door!', and 'by Jove! You mean the locked the door afterwards?'. The plot is, as these things tend to be, fairly unconvincing, but you know that will be the case before you start with books like this so it doesn't really matter too much.

Bottome line: It was enjoyable for what it was, but I'd only recommend it to devotees of country house mysteries and die hard A A Milne fans.

18. Songs of the Doomed Hunter S. Thompson

I had a lot of weird dreams about Hunter S Thompson while I was reading this book. Hunter S Thompson and I bought a puppy. Hunter S Thompson and I hosted a game show. Hunter S Thompson and I went to a party with people from my high school, and he shouted at girl who was mean to me.

Why am I dreaming about HST? Maybe because, like a very strong cheese, the books of HST are not something you should consume just before you go to bed. They seem to have a strange effect.

How to describe this book? The structure is easy enough - this is a collection of essays, articles, stories and letters ranging from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Over the course of the decades his writing style changes a lot - in the 50s his characteristic style is developing, but it is much milder than anything from the later years. By the time he was covering the Vietnam War his tone of incredulous rage is well and truly established, and by the late 80s bitterness and a weariness are starting to creep in.

HST is a vegemite (or marmite, or whatever yeast-extract based spread you choose) writer - you love him or hate him. I love his writing (though not the man himself) because his voice is so unique. I don't always like everything he writes - much of it is bizarre, verging on the completely mental - but I like tha fact that there are certain things that he wrote that no one else could have.

If you haven't yet read any of HST's books and you think you might like to, do not start with this book. But if you already like HST this is a fascinating book, detailing his development as a writer, and as a figure of notoriety.

Best. Random (yet quite specific). Review. EVER.

#70 I plead the 'it was late, and I was tired' defence

So we just found out that my husband's uni has approved his application to transfer to Spain for the end of the year, hooray! That means I'll be going too, to live as a lady of leisure for 6 months while he studies. So what I need are some book suggestions - I've read Don Quixote, South From Granada and Homage to Catalonia recently, and I did a bit of Spanish history at uni, but I'm open to any and all suggestions!

19. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury

I'm a sucker for the evil carnival genre (what's that? “evil carnival books are not a genre?” I consider it to be a genre, and this is my review, so there) - I read The Pilo Family Circus and Johannes Cabal the Necromancer last year and enjoyed them very much. A carnival is just such fertile ground for fantasy and horror. There is a romance in contemplating the lives of these outsiders, these liminal people who are always moving on that both appeals and terrifies. It leads us to fantasies of what life must be life without ties. But there is also the awareness that it must sometimes be a lonely life. Which leads us into contemplation of why anyone would choose such a life. Surely only people with terrible secrets to hide? Surely only people with nefarious intentions? And so we come to the inevitable conclusion that anyone who runs a circus must do so as a cover for something so terrible that it is beyond comprehension.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is the granddaddy of the genre, and is appropriately gothic and creepy. But it isn’t just a horror story - it is also a coming of age story that looks at the ways in which relationships with friends and parent change as we get older, and the ways in which we deal with the knowledge of our own mortality.

Message modifié par son auteur, Fév 15, 2010, 12:28am.

#73: I liked that one, too. I had not read much Bradbury prior to LT (only Fahrenheit 451), but have discovered a lot of his books here and that was one of them.

But it isn’t just a horror story - it is also a coming of age story that looks at the ways in which relationships with friends and parent change as we get older, and the ways in which we deal with the knowledge of our own mortality.

Sold. I'm adding this to my wish list. Thank you!

Me too. I seem to be adding so many books to it recently but I have to read some stuff before I can buy more!

#73 I would add that one, too, but I have already read it. And loved it.

(Maybe it's time for a re-read!)

Hello chaps, hope those of you who are yet to read Bradbury like it. It was one of those funny ones that took a while to sink in and I think would probably benefit from a reread (as if there's ever time for that!)

20. Clodia, Robert de Maria

Clodia is the fictionalised account of the love affair between the Roman poet Catullus and the aristocrat Clodia Metelli. From Catullus’ poems we have the story of their relationship, but here de Maria has attempted to it flesh out a bit. This is a well written book, though it is sometimes almost too carefully written, with an eye more to style than to feeling. This is meant to be the searing tale of passion between a scandalous socialite and a poet best known for his bawdy and obscene poetry. For some examples, see here . Yeah, you get the idea. So why was this book so utterly tame? I’m not saying I was in it for the smut (there is plenty of rumpy-pumpy here, but I skimmed over as it was mostly irritating male fantasies of dominance), what I’m saying is that this was meant to be passionate, damn it! Catullus’ poetry was full of risqué sexual jokes, gossip and invective. He was a wit, a roué young man about town. But he comes across here as utterly blank, someone who reacts to other people’s actions but is incapable of taking any action himself. I think I was meant to read this as world weary cynicism, but it just came across as flat to me. The characters are given passionate things to say but they never really came to life.

I feel like I need to say something nice about this book, because it really wasn’t as bad as I’m making it sound, I'm just in a grouchy mood today. As a portrayal of life in Republican Roman it is much more successful than as a love story as de Maria clearly knows his history and I got a pretty vivid image of what life must have been like for a wealthy young man at that time. The seedy underworld is created convincingly, and the author is much better at creating realistic male characters than he is at creating believable females. I also thought it was interesting that the author decided to accept the gossip that Clodia had had an affair with Cicero, making a convincing case for a highly unlikely relationship. But I think next time I want a trip to ancient Rome I’ll go with Robert Graves.

21. Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon

I liked this a lot, and would recommend it to fans of The Princess Bride. It isn't as funny as that (nor is it meant to be), but it is a classic adventure romp and has a similar swashbuckling feel. Set in the 10th century in the Caucasus, the main characters are a pair of opportunistic 'gentlemen of the road' (that is, bandits) who manage to get themselves involved in a conflict over the throne of Khazar and must decide whether or not to help the dispossed youngest son of the old ruler.

#79: I think I will stick to Robert Graves too.

#80: I liked that one a lot as well. Glad you enjoyed it, Tash.

#79,

Whoa, the cover is an unpleasant color... but I think I might give this one a shot if our library has it, despite the fact that it seems flawed. Thanks for pointing it out.

> 80
I read that one this year and liked it much too :-)
Anita

#82 It's definitely worth it if you're interested in Roman history - I mainly picked it up because I'm fascinated by Clodia and I haven't ever managed to find a biography or history about her and this was the closest I could get.

#82, 83 I loved Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon and was really suprised at how different it was from that book - have either of you read anything else by him?

22. The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

Carter apparently didn't like it when people described her stories as 'versions' of fairy tales, but that's pretty much what they are. That's not meant to be a dismissive comment, just that I don't know how else to describe these stories. There are retellings of Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood and Bluebeard, each told with an inventive little twist. Each story brings a new emotional depth to the story it is based on, allowing the female protagonists slightly more motivation that just wanting to marry a prince.

However, I didn't really read these as feminist retellings. OK, sure, the archetypal figures of fairy tales are given personalities and voices of their own, but they are still largely at the mercy of the whims of men, and their sexuality is usually passive. As one critic points out; "Carter envisages women's sensuality simply as a response to male arousal. She has no conception of women's sexuality as autonomous desire." I don't know if I completely agree with this, but there is definitely sense in which Carter's stories describe sensuality as a conflicting. I other words, I think what these stories do really well is combine sensuality with a fear of sensuality, as in one of my favourite passages from the title story which retells the tale of Bluebeard;

I saw him watching me in the guilded mirrors with the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh, or even of a housewife in the market, inspecting cuts on the slab. I'd never seen, or else had never acknowledged, that regard of his before, the sheer carnal avarice of it; and it was strangely magnified by the monocle lodged in his left eye. When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes, but in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away. The next day, we were married.

I love these stories. I love the imagination and the inventiveness of Carter's writing, her wicked sense of humour, her talent for twisting stories that we know so well into forms that are almost unrecognisable and yet which remain so familiar.

23. The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers, Paul Torday

The world needs more writers like Paul Torday. Light enough in style that you can read his books late at night or on the bus and not feel that you've missed something, and yet weighty enough in subject that you don't feel like you're consuming the literary equivalent of fairy floss. The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers is set in the lead up to and immediate aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. The narrator is Eck, a mid-level functionary for a hedge fund firm in London. He doesn’t really understand what the company he works for does, but he earns a very good salary and can’t see that the way his bosses do business could be doing any harm. By chance he meets Charlie Summers, a man who describes himself as an entrepreneur but who could probably better be described as a bumbling con man. This is broadly a satire of the world of finance, mocking the idea that people ever really expect to get something for nothing.

24. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens

I finally understand why people get all gooey about Dickens. The only book I'd read up until now was Great Expectations, and it was horribly tainted by my high school english teacher (ten years later and I still can't forgive her for ruining so many wonderful pieces of literature for me with her appalling racism, stupidity and just general wackiness). But I now officially have a reader's crush on Chuck.

As has been noted many times, and by people who were much better at expressing it than me, the characters just walk off the page. You can hear them talking, see them in your mind's eye. Brilliant. And the names are just a joy.

The only thing I didn't like about this book something that I knew about it going in - that it is unfinished. But you can make this a positive if you like, in that you can spend ages wondering about what the ending was going to be.

25. Heavy Weather, PG Wodehouse

Message modifié par son auteur, Mar 14, 2010, 5:02pm.

Looks like some good recent reading, Tash.

I have not heard of Paul Torday. I will see if my library has any of his books. Thanks for the recommendation.

26. The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris

Tim, the protagonist of The Unnamed, has a condition that makes him walk compulsively. He might be in bed, at work, or talking to someone when he starts to walk, unable to stop until the compulsion releases him and he simply collapses from exhaustion. It is never asserted whether this is a mental or a physical disorder, though in an interview I heard with the author he stated that it is quite clearly a physical problem. Far be it from me to disagree, but I don't think it's quite that obvious in the book.

At any rate, whether the disorder is psychological or physiological is beside the point, and the idea seems to be that the body is at war with the mind. Or if not at war, that there is a profound disconnect between the mind and the body in the life of the main character. He is so focused on his work and his inner life that he sometimes seems cut off from the rest of his life.

I felt that part of his problem was a sudden awareness of his body that he'd never noticed before - when he talks about 'the other' he's talking about his body;

The advantages the other had over him, advantages that made hunger gnawing and pain vigilant and a touch from a woman bound up in memories of love more unbearable than all the other ills put together, were insurmountable. The sense were unvaqnquishable... Hungry? Fuck you, two days without food. Hurting? Too bad, it's your funeral...He resided behind armed checkpoints and coils of razor wire and slabs of blastproof concrete, but her touch was a convoy.

I liked this a lot. It wasn't easy to read the descriptions of the Tim's disintegration, but it was gripping and I really engaged with it. I think I would describe this as a cathartic novel - I didn't feel uplifted, but I did feel emotionally stretched by it.

Message modifié par son auteur, Mar 14, 2010, 5:27pm.

27. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh

In my personal literary pantheon, Evelyn Waugh sits at the right hand of PG Wodehouse. They sit there together in the great celestial drawing room, one curmudgeonly, the other kindly, and they plot the mayhem of our lives. Sometimes PG has to gently remind Evelyn to be a bit kinder to his subjects, and sometimes Evelyn has to remind PG to take off the rose coloured glasses. That’s a belief system I could get behind.

But I’m rambling. Scoop is a brilliant piece of satire, targeting journalism and politics. It seems to veer about wildly, and yet you know that Waugh has it under total control the whole time. The plot centres on a case of mistaken identity, and the wrong man is sent to cover the revolution in Ishmaelia (a fictional African country). William Boot is a mild mannered writer of a nature column before he is plucked from his comfortable country house and sent to Africa, where he manages to become the most successful journalist there through dumb luck. He is essentially one of life’s innocents, and escapes unscathed from his trials mainly because he generally doesn’t really register that there is a problem, though he generally manages to leave behind him a trail of confusion.

This is one of those great books that leaves you grinning an evil grin from the sheer wickedness of Waugh’s humour, as in this exchange between Mr Salter the editor and William Boot, who believes that he is about to get the sack;


(Salter) ‘Would you like to go to Ishmaelia?’
‘No.’
‘Not at all?’
‘Not at all. For one thing, I couldn’t afford the fare’
‘Oh, we would pay the fare,’ said Mr Salter, laughing indulgently.
So that was it. Transportation. The sense of persecution which had haunted William for the last three hours took palpable and grotesque shape before him. It was too much. Conscious of a just cause and a free soul he arose and defied the nightmare. ‘Really,’ he said, in ringing tones, ‘I call that a bit thick. I admit I slipped up on the great crested grebe, slipped up badly. As it happened, it was not my fault. I came here prepared to explain, apologise and, if need be, make reparation. You refused to listen to me. “Good God, no”, you said, when I offered to explain. And now you calmly propose to ship me out of the country because of a trifling, and in my opinion, justifiable error. Who does Lord Copper think he is? The mind boggles at the vanity of the man...’
‘Boot, Boot, old man, ‘cried Mr Salter, ‘you’ve got this all wrong. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, you have no more ardent admirer than Lord Copper. He wants you to work for him in Ishmaelia.’

‘Would he pay my fare back?’

#90: I will have to find a copy of that one. Thanks for the recommendation, Tash.

#89 - Thanks for reviewing The Unnamed. I read and loved Then We Came to the End and have been debating whether to read this next one or not. I have read several reviews, some liked it, some not, but yours is the best short description I have seen. I have to say I still haven't decided whether or not to read it, but at least I'm pretty clear what it will be like if I do. Did you read Then We Came to the End? Did you like it? How would you compare the two?

#90 I went to thumb your review on the book page but it's not there! Really good review, I've never read any Evelyn Waugh before but I have Vile Bodies checked out of the library at the moment and I'm looking forward to it.

#92 Hi Janet - No, I haven't read Then We Came to the End, but my friend has it and has promised to hand it over when he's finished. I would say that The Unnamed is definitely worth reading if you get a chance - it wasn't an easy read, but it was very enjoyable.

#93 Why thank you very much - I'd never considered posting reviews outside of my own thread, I've always left it to those who seem a little more confident! I find it really hard to share my opinions about things I've been reading, which is why I like LT so much, I find it takes the pressure off a bit.

Vile Bodies is my second favourite Evelyn Waugh (first being Brideshead Revisited) - Waugh really digs his claws into the fatuousness of high society and is properly bitchy. Hope you enjoy it!

Added both of those to my extensive LT Recs Post-It Notes of Financial Doom... (one day I'm just going to go crazy and buy EVERYTHING!)