In search of lost booklogs
Jul. 8th, 2008 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneThe people have spoken! And they have said: read Don Quixote. I’m about 100 pages in right now and enjoying it very much.
The people also said a lot of good things about Middlemarch, so I will try to read that soon. Apparently, however, everybody hates French literature—not one person thought I should read Swann’s Way. You all just made Proust start crying into his madeleines. Nice job, guys.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been reading in between pretending to be literary:
94. & 98. The Princess Diaries & Princess in the Spotlight, Meg Cabot — Bored-at-work reads, which I actually enjoyed more than I expected to. Yes, Siria, I know they make no sense (seriously: NONE) but I like Mia and her dorky friends and their conversations about Star Trek. I enjoyed the second one less than the first, as it had fewer Star Trek conversations and somehow, even less of a plot, but I can see why people like these books and will probably read more as I will inevitably continue to be very, very bored on a regular basis while trapped behind my desk.
95. World War Z, Max Brooks — Pretty much exactly as awesome as everyone said it would be. Brooks obviously put an incredible amount of thought into this—the world-building is amazing, and that, coupled with the brilliant use of the “oral history” format, makes the somewhat outlandish idea of a “zombie war” seem very real—and very, very scary. The one thing that bothered me was that, proportionally, there were far fewer women’s stories: it takes about 60 pages for a female voice to appear, and even then, most of them are fairly passive—with the notable exception of the Air Force pilot character, who does get one of the most engaging sections in the entire thing. Anyway, aside from that usual bit of crankiness, I really do think this is beyond terrific: dynamic, creative, and truly unique. I’ll be making a careful stash of blunt objects, now.
96. Enemy Mine/Another Orphan, Barry B. Longyear/John Kessel — A “Tor Double Novel,” which is really two unrelated novellas packaged together for convenience. Enemy Mine, which was made into a movie starring Dennis Quaid which I’ve seen five minutes of and in filmic form looks ridiculous, was actually pretty good: the humans and the Dracs are at war, but when a human and a Drac fighter pilot each crash-land on a deserted planet after a space battle, they must become reluctant allies, then friends (read: kind of gay for each other). I found the ending deeply and unnecessarily depressing, though.
In Another Orphan, a stockbroker finds himself thrust into the world of Moby-Dick. I enjoyed this less. It was rather reminiscent of Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, especially in its use of flashbacks; however, it doesn’t really build to anything much—the revelation at the end was, to me, decidedly unrevelatory. Also, I was very disappointed by the lack of Queequeg. Dude, if you are trying to position yourself as the story’s Ishmael, STEP ONE should be tomake out make friends with Queequeg. Because, among other things, Queequeg is just awesome. MOAR QUEEQUEG PLZ.
The two stories don’t really complement each other in any way. Combined, they’re diverting, but I felt like I really wasn’t getting much bang for my buck with this whole “Double Novel” thing. I mean, two semi-lengthy short stories do not equal a single novel, let alone a double. A better bet would be to track down a collection that contains Enemy Mine and more than one other tale.
97. In the Bleak Midwinter, Julia Spencer-Fleming — Mystery in which a male cop and a female (Episcopalian) priest in a small upstate New York town team up to fight crime! I liked this more than I expected to. Russ (the cop) and Clare (the priest) are both complex, realistic characters, and I really enjoyed how the relationship between them was developed. The way they find common ground and begin to seek out and crave each other’s company felt very natural and wonderfully genderless, if you know what I mean, and after reading a lot of crappy, weirdly misogynistic romance novels, it was very refreshing to see two people become attracted to each other as people. They solve the crime at the novel’s center based on a combination of their respective skills, and I really liked all the scenes where they just…enjoy each other’s competence. The sexual tension is well drawn out in general; Spencer-Fleming makes good use of Russ’ (and possibly her readers’) ignorance about various denominational differences in a fun scene where Russ discovers that no, Clare has not, in fact, taken a vow of celibacy—though that doesn’t change the fact that Russ is married. UST FTW!
As for the mystery plot itself, aside from one “I’ll just follow the instructions in this telephone message of dubious origin and go out to a cabin in the middle of the woods by myself in a snowstorm without telling anyone” moment, which actually had me sending keyboard-mashing IMs to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siriaeve, there aren’t too many bad mystery clichés or examples of terminal character stupidity. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and look forward to reading the next book in the series when my mood rolls around that way again.
99. & 107. The Choking Doberman & The Mexican Pet, Jan Harold Brunvand — Popular analysis of urban legends by a folklore professor. I read Brunvand’s first book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker, last year; first published in 1981, it apparently became a bit of a phenomenon, and these later books reflect that. I preferred Doberman to Pet because it contains more in-depth analysis, though both books are a great deal of fun, both because they reprint these delightfully disturbing tales (many of which still have the power to freak me out, even though I know they’re fake fake fake) and because they do such a good job tracing the ways the various stories shift and evolve. I am also quite charmed by the fact that all of these books are pre-World Wide Web, giving them a glamour that only tales passed on by mimeographed pages can provide.
Urban legends have of course evolved to fit the age of the internet, though. In fact, just this weekend I was having lunch with my brother when he leaned across the table and said, in utter seriousness, “I heard the creepiest story the other day. A friend of a friend was babysitting…” I interrupted him with a burst of laughter right there, as babysitting and FOAFs are two of urban legends’ most common tropes. He was terribly pissed at me for being so reluctant to believe his story from the get-go, as he’s going through a rather pretentious film school phase and he bought it, hook, line, and no doubt photoshopped photographic “proof”-sinker. I’d be cool if Brunvand wrote a modern book that includes details like doctored jpegs. Until then, I’m going to continue to enjoy these wonderful ’80s relics.
100. Dead Clever, Scarlett Thomas — Up till now, I’ve only read Thomas’ “literary” novels, The End of Mr. Y and PopCo. I found both fascinating, if ultimately frustrating. Dead Clever, Thomas’ first novel and first of a trio of mysteries, is much the same. Thomas’ prose is compelling and exudes intelligent; her heroine, Lily Pascale, is, like her other heroines, complex and interesting. However, the central premise of Dead Clever is, perhaps, too clever, involving academic cults (shades of The Secret History) and clandestine medical research when I think a simple murder would have served her better. The intense complexity of the crime makes it even more unbelievable when everything ties up so neatly at the end; she really lost me in the last few chapters—which actually kind of happened in Mr. Y and PopCo, too. At least there aren’t any lengthy proselytizations about vegetarianism in this one.
It’s weird: I wouldn’t hesitate to read another Scarlett Thomas novel if I came across one—her writing is that good—but every one I’ve read has exasperated me in one way or another. This is no exception.
101. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett — Am finally making an effort to make up for my thus far rather sporadic reading of the Discworld novels. Started with this one becauseakukorax yelled at me for having read Night Watch before the earlier Watch books, and because wychwood has been saying that Carrot is basically Benton Fraser and would crack me up. He did, and the book in general did—as Terry Pratchett always does. I hope to read the rest of the Watch books in a more timely manner than I’ve proceeded with the Discworld novels so far.
102. First Date, Karen Kendall — This popped up on an ebook community I belong to just as I was desperately craving “culture clash”-type romantic comedies. It’s about a Texan and a Jersey girl not hitting it off and then getting it on, so I thought, why not? Well, to begin with, it’s just sort of…bland. The writing’s competent, I suppose, but the people and the situation are so very, very mainstream and ordinary that a plot that’s almost 100 percent about them getting together, with next to no external conflict, isn’t very interesting at all. I mean, I know plenty of couples who are perfectly adorable, but I don’t want to read 300 pages about how they met and fell in love, either.
The one thing that could have distinguished this book, I suppose, is that it has a subplot involving Alzheimer’s. This is an important topic, certainly (sadly) relevant to a lot of people’s lives; however, it’s pretty much the last thing I want to encounter in a fluffy romantic comedy.
Anyway, all that aside, this would have passed with a “bland but okay” from me, except that as it shuffled on to the end, the slight, subliminal sexism of the main couple’s relationship suddenly made itself all too clear:
He wanted to kiss away her competence and see her trusting smile again, the joy she'd taken in feeling sexually attractive to him.
And that’s how the male protagonist went from someone I’d probably smile at absently in line at Ralph’s to someone I want to kick in the nuts. He wants to kiss away her competence? What the fucking fuck? A woman wrote this! There is something very wrong with the world when a woman would write something like that to appeal to other women.
Romances like this make me want to stay single forever. Joy.
103. Not Quite What I Was Planning, Ed. by Rachel Fershleiser & Larry Smith — The subtitle explains it: “Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.” These are a lot of fun, and some are clever, and some are touching. After a while, though, they get a bit same-y—“Understood: bad romantic decisions were made”—but I continue to dig the concept and look forward to dipping back in occasionally, now that I’ve read the whole thing.
104. The Art of Fiction, David Lodge — A series of essays Lodge wrote for the London Independent about, well…the art of fiction. Lodge’s tone is engaging and informative; he never talks down to the reader, and he’s not just showing off, either. My one gripe would be that the essays—having previously been newspaper columns—were all too short: I kept feeling like they ended just when he was starting to really get somewhere. But then, I was trained on lengthy English lectures. I bet Lodge was a rockin’ professor, and I wish he’d been mine.
105. Cruel Shoes, Steve Martin — Very strange, short pieces that are less humorous and more…Daliesque. I admired them more than I was amused by them, which is an odd reaction to have to a book by a comic. All in all, not quite my thing, but certainly unique!
106. Unscientific Americans, Roz Chast — An older Roz Chast collection featuring many cartoons that don’t appear in her later “best of” books. I love Chast’s cartoons for their literary humor and for her ability to find fun in all sorts of modern neuroses and peccadilloes. Her sketchy art is great, too—there’s one in here in which Freud is, somewhat randomly, a dinosaur, and it’s the drawing of the little dino with a beard and glasses that really made it for me. I also love her occasional narrative comics—the standout one in here is about going with some friends for a nighttime drive. It’s perfectly real and true.
In summation: Roz Chast = WIN.
108. Waiting for Gertrude, Bill Richardson — A bit of whimsy in which the famous people buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris—Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Colette, etc.—are reincarnated as the graveyard’s many cats; I actually found it rather disturbing. There are some nice moments—Alice B. Toklas’ longing for the thus far absent Gertrude Stein forms the heart of the book, and it’s appropriately achy and passionate; I was also really struck by a scene with Chopin in which he morns the fact that his music must now remain entirely within his head. However, I’m not sure that the conceit that these humans-reincarnated-as-cats still behave entirely like humans—they write letters, bake, go ballooning, launder sheets, and so on—really worked for me, especially contrasted with the occasional bursts of pure animal behavior, starting with ass-sniffing and moving on to rape and castration. Ack! I simply couldn’t connect with whatever tone Richardson was going for, and thus continued to feel an at times welcome remove. Strange and unsettling and not, ultimately, for me.
109. Succubus Blues, Richelle Mead — Paranormal romance/urban fantasy thingy that I enjoyed in spite of some rather obvious flaws. Namely: the writing’s only okay (no first person narrator should ever say “as I noted earlier” unless they’re narrating an academic text), the identity of the villain is obvious pretty much from the moment he’s introduced, and the ending’s kind of an anti-climactic cop out. I was also kind of bummed that in a novel about angels and demons, no one seemed particularly good or evil; there’s a second-rate Crowley-and-Aziraphale pair, for instance, but for most of the book, you’d be hard pressed to tell which of them is on which side. Maybe that’s kind of the point, but I’d like to see a little more demonic energy from a group of vampires, imps, and succubi.
That said, however…I genuinely liked the heroine, a succubus by night/bookstore assistant manager by day. Her angst was believable, and I liked that she refused to sit quietly when told and instead went out and investigated (even if she was a liiiiiiiitle bit slower to put certain things together than I’d have liked—though I did have the advantage of knowing I was reading a book, etc.). I also liked her geeky novelist love interest, and there were some genuinely clever moments. So: not brilliant but enjoyable, and far more surprising/delightful than the “Sex and the City with a little Buffy thrown in” mix it’s billed as.
Total Books: 109
The people also said a lot of good things about Middlemarch, so I will try to read that soon. Apparently, however, everybody hates French literature—not one person thought I should read Swann’s Way. You all just made Proust start crying into his madeleines. Nice job, guys.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been reading in between pretending to be literary:
94. & 98. The Princess Diaries & Princess in the Spotlight, Meg Cabot — Bored-at-work reads, which I actually enjoyed more than I expected to. Yes, Siria, I know they make no sense (seriously: NONE) but I like Mia and her dorky friends and their conversations about Star Trek. I enjoyed the second one less than the first, as it had fewer Star Trek conversations and somehow, even less of a plot, but I can see why people like these books and will probably read more as I will inevitably continue to be very, very bored on a regular basis while trapped behind my desk.
95. World War Z, Max Brooks — Pretty much exactly as awesome as everyone said it would be. Brooks obviously put an incredible amount of thought into this—the world-building is amazing, and that, coupled with the brilliant use of the “oral history” format, makes the somewhat outlandish idea of a “zombie war” seem very real—and very, very scary. The one thing that bothered me was that, proportionally, there were far fewer women’s stories: it takes about 60 pages for a female voice to appear, and even then, most of them are fairly passive—with the notable exception of the Air Force pilot character, who does get one of the most engaging sections in the entire thing. Anyway, aside from that usual bit of crankiness, I really do think this is beyond terrific: dynamic, creative, and truly unique. I’ll be making a careful stash of blunt objects, now.
96. Enemy Mine/Another Orphan, Barry B. Longyear/John Kessel — A “Tor Double Novel,” which is really two unrelated novellas packaged together for convenience. Enemy Mine, which was made into a movie starring Dennis Quaid which I’ve seen five minutes of and in filmic form looks ridiculous, was actually pretty good: the humans and the Dracs are at war, but when a human and a Drac fighter pilot each crash-land on a deserted planet after a space battle, they must become reluctant allies, then friends (read: kind of gay for each other). I found the ending deeply and unnecessarily depressing, though.
In Another Orphan, a stockbroker finds himself thrust into the world of Moby-Dick. I enjoyed this less. It was rather reminiscent of Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, especially in its use of flashbacks; however, it doesn’t really build to anything much—the revelation at the end was, to me, decidedly unrevelatory. Also, I was very disappointed by the lack of Queequeg. Dude, if you are trying to position yourself as the story’s Ishmael, STEP ONE should be to
The two stories don’t really complement each other in any way. Combined, they’re diverting, but I felt like I really wasn’t getting much bang for my buck with this whole “Double Novel” thing. I mean, two semi-lengthy short stories do not equal a single novel, let alone a double. A better bet would be to track down a collection that contains Enemy Mine and more than one other tale.
97. In the Bleak Midwinter, Julia Spencer-Fleming — Mystery in which a male cop and a female (Episcopalian) priest in a small upstate New York town team up to fight crime! I liked this more than I expected to. Russ (the cop) and Clare (the priest) are both complex, realistic characters, and I really enjoyed how the relationship between them was developed. The way they find common ground and begin to seek out and crave each other’s company felt very natural and wonderfully genderless, if you know what I mean, and after reading a lot of crappy, weirdly misogynistic romance novels, it was very refreshing to see two people become attracted to each other as people. They solve the crime at the novel’s center based on a combination of their respective skills, and I really liked all the scenes where they just…enjoy each other’s competence. The sexual tension is well drawn out in general; Spencer-Fleming makes good use of Russ’ (and possibly her readers’) ignorance about various denominational differences in a fun scene where Russ discovers that no, Clare has not, in fact, taken a vow of celibacy—though that doesn’t change the fact that Russ is married. UST FTW!
As for the mystery plot itself, aside from one “I’ll just follow the instructions in this telephone message of dubious origin and go out to a cabin in the middle of the woods by myself in a snowstorm without telling anyone” moment, which actually had me sending keyboard-mashing IMs to
siriaeve, there aren’t too many bad mystery clichés or examples of terminal character stupidity. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and look forward to reading the next book in the series when my mood rolls around that way again.99. & 107. The Choking Doberman & The Mexican Pet, Jan Harold Brunvand — Popular analysis of urban legends by a folklore professor. I read Brunvand’s first book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker, last year; first published in 1981, it apparently became a bit of a phenomenon, and these later books reflect that. I preferred Doberman to Pet because it contains more in-depth analysis, though both books are a great deal of fun, both because they reprint these delightfully disturbing tales (many of which still have the power to freak me out, even though I know they’re fake fake fake) and because they do such a good job tracing the ways the various stories shift and evolve. I am also quite charmed by the fact that all of these books are pre-World Wide Web, giving them a glamour that only tales passed on by mimeographed pages can provide.
Urban legends have of course evolved to fit the age of the internet, though. In fact, just this weekend I was having lunch with my brother when he leaned across the table and said, in utter seriousness, “I heard the creepiest story the other day. A friend of a friend was babysitting…” I interrupted him with a burst of laughter right there, as babysitting and FOAFs are two of urban legends’ most common tropes. He was terribly pissed at me for being so reluctant to believe his story from the get-go, as he’s going through a rather pretentious film school phase and he bought it, hook, line, and no doubt photoshopped photographic “proof”-sinker. I’d be cool if Brunvand wrote a modern book that includes details like doctored jpegs. Until then, I’m going to continue to enjoy these wonderful ’80s relics.
100. Dead Clever, Scarlett Thomas — Up till now, I’ve only read Thomas’ “literary” novels, The End of Mr. Y and PopCo. I found both fascinating, if ultimately frustrating. Dead Clever, Thomas’ first novel and first of a trio of mysteries, is much the same. Thomas’ prose is compelling and exudes intelligent; her heroine, Lily Pascale, is, like her other heroines, complex and interesting. However, the central premise of Dead Clever is, perhaps, too clever, involving academic cults (shades of The Secret History) and clandestine medical research when I think a simple murder would have served her better. The intense complexity of the crime makes it even more unbelievable when everything ties up so neatly at the end; she really lost me in the last few chapters—which actually kind of happened in Mr. Y and PopCo, too. At least there aren’t any lengthy proselytizations about vegetarianism in this one.
It’s weird: I wouldn’t hesitate to read another Scarlett Thomas novel if I came across one—her writing is that good—but every one I’ve read has exasperated me in one way or another. This is no exception.
101. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett — Am finally making an effort to make up for my thus far rather sporadic reading of the Discworld novels. Started with this one because
akukorax yelled at me for having read Night Watch before the earlier Watch books, and because wychwood has been saying that Carrot is basically Benton Fraser and would crack me up. He did, and the book in general did—as Terry Pratchett always does. I hope to read the rest of the Watch books in a more timely manner than I’ve proceeded with the Discworld novels so far.102. First Date, Karen Kendall — This popped up on an ebook community I belong to just as I was desperately craving “culture clash”-type romantic comedies. It’s about a Texan and a Jersey girl not hitting it off and then getting it on, so I thought, why not? Well, to begin with, it’s just sort of…bland. The writing’s competent, I suppose, but the people and the situation are so very, very mainstream and ordinary that a plot that’s almost 100 percent about them getting together, with next to no external conflict, isn’t very interesting at all. I mean, I know plenty of couples who are perfectly adorable, but I don’t want to read 300 pages about how they met and fell in love, either.
The one thing that could have distinguished this book, I suppose, is that it has a subplot involving Alzheimer’s. This is an important topic, certainly (sadly) relevant to a lot of people’s lives; however, it’s pretty much the last thing I want to encounter in a fluffy romantic comedy.
Anyway, all that aside, this would have passed with a “bland but okay” from me, except that as it shuffled on to the end, the slight, subliminal sexism of the main couple’s relationship suddenly made itself all too clear:
He wanted to kiss away her competence and see her trusting smile again, the joy she'd taken in feeling sexually attractive to him.
And that’s how the male protagonist went from someone I’d probably smile at absently in line at Ralph’s to someone I want to kick in the nuts. He wants to kiss away her competence? What the fucking fuck? A woman wrote this! There is something very wrong with the world when a woman would write something like that to appeal to other women.
Romances like this make me want to stay single forever. Joy.
103. Not Quite What I Was Planning, Ed. by Rachel Fershleiser & Larry Smith — The subtitle explains it: “Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.” These are a lot of fun, and some are clever, and some are touching. After a while, though, they get a bit same-y—“Understood: bad romantic decisions were made”—but I continue to dig the concept and look forward to dipping back in occasionally, now that I’ve read the whole thing.
104. The Art of Fiction, David Lodge — A series of essays Lodge wrote for the London Independent about, well…the art of fiction. Lodge’s tone is engaging and informative; he never talks down to the reader, and he’s not just showing off, either. My one gripe would be that the essays—having previously been newspaper columns—were all too short: I kept feeling like they ended just when he was starting to really get somewhere. But then, I was trained on lengthy English lectures. I bet Lodge was a rockin’ professor, and I wish he’d been mine.
105. Cruel Shoes, Steve Martin — Very strange, short pieces that are less humorous and more…Daliesque. I admired them more than I was amused by them, which is an odd reaction to have to a book by a comic. All in all, not quite my thing, but certainly unique!
106. Unscientific Americans, Roz Chast — An older Roz Chast collection featuring many cartoons that don’t appear in her later “best of” books. I love Chast’s cartoons for their literary humor and for her ability to find fun in all sorts of modern neuroses and peccadilloes. Her sketchy art is great, too—there’s one in here in which Freud is, somewhat randomly, a dinosaur, and it’s the drawing of the little dino with a beard and glasses that really made it for me. I also love her occasional narrative comics—the standout one in here is about going with some friends for a nighttime drive. It’s perfectly real and true.
In summation: Roz Chast = WIN.
108. Waiting for Gertrude, Bill Richardson — A bit of whimsy in which the famous people buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris—Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Colette, etc.—are reincarnated as the graveyard’s many cats; I actually found it rather disturbing. There are some nice moments—Alice B. Toklas’ longing for the thus far absent Gertrude Stein forms the heart of the book, and it’s appropriately achy and passionate; I was also really struck by a scene with Chopin in which he morns the fact that his music must now remain entirely within his head. However, I’m not sure that the conceit that these humans-reincarnated-as-cats still behave entirely like humans—they write letters, bake, go ballooning, launder sheets, and so on—really worked for me, especially contrasted with the occasional bursts of pure animal behavior, starting with ass-sniffing and moving on to rape and castration. Ack! I simply couldn’t connect with whatever tone Richardson was going for, and thus continued to feel an at times welcome remove. Strange and unsettling and not, ultimately, for me.
109. Succubus Blues, Richelle Mead — Paranormal romance/urban fantasy thingy that I enjoyed in spite of some rather obvious flaws. Namely: the writing’s only okay (no first person narrator should ever say “as I noted earlier” unless they’re narrating an academic text), the identity of the villain is obvious pretty much from the moment he’s introduced, and the ending’s kind of an anti-climactic cop out. I was also kind of bummed that in a novel about angels and demons, no one seemed particularly good or evil; there’s a second-rate Crowley-and-Aziraphale pair, for instance, but for most of the book, you’d be hard pressed to tell which of them is on which side. Maybe that’s kind of the point, but I’d like to see a little more demonic energy from a group of vampires, imps, and succubi.
That said, however…I genuinely liked the heroine, a succubus by night/bookstore assistant manager by day. Her angst was believable, and I liked that she refused to sit quietly when told and instead went out and investigated (even if she was a liiiiiiiitle bit slower to put certain things together than I’d have liked—though I did have the advantage of knowing I was reading a book, etc.). I also liked her geeky novelist love interest, and there were some genuinely clever moments. So: not brilliant but enjoyable, and far more surprising/delightful than the “Sex and the City with a little Buffy thrown in” mix it’s billed as.
Total Books: 109
