We'll always have booklog!
Jan. 13th, 2009 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneYup, here we are, back at the beginning again. Woo?
1. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri — Thoughtful and lovely short stories. Lahiri explores Indian and Bengali culture, the immigrant experience, and the relationships between men and women, parents and children, all with lucid prose and easy grace. These stories feel effortless, like a light and tangy sorbet served in an airy restaurant where all the bustle and clanging of pots and pans occurs behind tightly sealed doors. My kitchen, on the other hand, is apparently open to the world, leaking half-finished sauces and runaway metaphors. Um. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; fix your attention on Lahiri instead.
2. Batman: The Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb — A bit of a let down after all the hype, this was still a decent…well, “romp” is really the wrong word for Batman, isn’t it? A decent mope? A decent glower? Whatever. It wasn’t bad, though 1) mafia stuff still bores me, and 2) the ending was horribly confusing. Deliberately, I’m told—although whether Loeb is just being coy or trying to cover up the fact that his plot got really muddled, I don’t know. Either way, the Batman/Catwoman shenanigans of Hush were much more fun.
3. The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived, Allan Lazar, et. al. — Supposedly a discussion of “How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History”—to quote the rather lengthy subtitle—this book instead presents 101 explanations of who 101 characters are—there’s almost no analysis at all of why they are important or how they did any of the things the subtitle loftily claims. I could have gleaned the same information by clicking around to 101 random Wikipedia entries. The Wiki entries could very well have proven to be better written, too. (Yes, you heard me correctly: I’d give Wikipedia 50/50 odds in the Good Writing Bowl against this contender.) Lazar and his coauthors are suffering from a very bad case of thinking they are much, much funnier than they actually are. I found it annoying. Would you like me to count the ways?
4. The Ten-Cent Plague, David Hajdu — A workmanlike account of the rise and fall of comic books, from their creation in the early part of the 20th century to their near-destruction at its midpoint. Hajdu provides ample quotage both from interviews with comic book creators and from the various writings of comic book detractors. Basically the two arguments can be summed up thusly:
Pro-comics: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! Also, sex and violence really sell!
Anti-comics: THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Also, my anti-comics screeds really sell!
Hajdu (and, I think, the average reader, myself included) naturally sides with the comics folks, even though some early works were apparently really nasty—though nasty enough to make Garth Ennis or Frank Miller blush, I can’t say.
The book itself is thorough and readable, but never thrilling; someone else compared it to a term paper, and I think that’s fairly accurate. I’d only recommend it if you’re really interested in the subject—or writing a term paper yourself.
5. Shakespeare Wrote For Money, Nick Hornby — The third and final volume of Hornby’s “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns for Believer magazine. If you’ve read either of the previous two (which you should!) you’ll know what to expect here: Hornby's warm, digressive, open-minded, open-hearted, and very English discussions about books and reading (with the occasional passage about football thrown in). This volume feels less fresh than the first, but it's still fun, still has the relaxing properties of a good cup of tea, and still made me scribble down a bunch of books I wanted to look into. I hope he’ll be inspired at some point to make this a Hitchhiker’s Guide-style trilogy instead of the regular kind.
6. A Letter of Mary, Laurie R. King — A mystery made up almost entirely of red herrings. Holmes and Russell continue to be charming, but I was frustrated by how much of the narrative turned out to be irrelevant. Even the letter of the title—supposedly a piece of correspondence between Mary Magdalene and her sister, which is, you know, generally the type of thing da Vinci writes codes about and plots are based around—is, as far as this story and even its characters are concerned, essentially meaningless. If Holmes can solve the entire mystery by spending a couple days putting up some wallpaper, then why do we have to spend ages hanging out with Russell while she pretends to be some rich dick’s secretary? None of the mucking about was even particularly illuminating in regards to her character or her relationship with Holmes.
I was, however, amused by Lord Peter Wimsey’s little cameo, especially since not long before he arrived, I’d been thinking that we’d entered the time period when he’d be back from the war and running about solving crimes, too. Handwaving the fact that in Sayers’ books, Sherlock Holmes is frequently referred to as fictional, making a crossover technically impossible for sticklers like myself, I will allow myself to titter and enjoy the occasional pleasures inherent in wacky published fanfic such as this.
7. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami — I should note at the outset that this is the book I brought with me to jury duty, so my opinion may be influenced somewhat by the fact that I read it while waiting endlessly in a freezing courthouse, sitting on a series of hard, uncomfortable benches, and surrounded by moronic people with no understanding of the justice system, all of whom seemed to be under the impression that the voir dire was their own personal free therapy session. Ahem. That said, this was not one of my favorite Murakami books. It’s nominally the story of Toru Okada’s search first for his lost cat and then for his lost wife, but from this stem sprout a number of side stories, many of which I found far more interesting than the main narrative, and not all of which I felt really came together. There were still some amazing moments—the Manchurian sections were brutal and evocative (at times perhaps too evocative—I won’t be eating peaches again for a while), and May’s morbid musings were a treat—but other aspects of the narrative seemed to drop away with barely a trace, and the mystical aspects of this story didn’t work for me as well as those in, say, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
So: still glad I read it, wish I’d read it under better circumstances, but nevertheless, probably won’t be rereading it any time soon.
8. Revise the World, Brenda Clough — This book has a truly rockin’ concept: British polar explorer Titus Oates—he of self-sacrificing “I am just going outside and may be some time” fame—did not in fact perish in Antarctica in 1912, but was instead rescued by scientists experimenting with new time travel technology in 2045. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wychwood and I discussed in several very capslocky emails, how can one resist a book where, as she put it, “THERE IS TITUS OATES IN FUTURE NEW YORK AND ALSO SPACE ALIENS”? Especially when it’s available for free online? Answer: one cannot.
The execution is not quite as awesome as the concept, although such a thing would admittedly be hard. The narrative is told in a tight 3rd person POV, from Titus’ perspective, and I don’t know if this is a product of that, but the prose is very exclamation mark-heavy, which is not my favorite thing ever. There are also some frustrating misunderstandings, caused as much by Titus not paying attention as by him being thrust more than a hundred years into the future, and I felt that parts of the story dragged. Nevertheless, this is the best “person from the past goes to the future/present” book I’ve found so far, with the space and polar exploration bits being wonderful (no pun intended, Titus, I swear) icing on the cake. The romance is pretty tasty too. And did I mention that you can read it right now, for free? So it’s cake you can have and eat too!
All right, I’m stopping now.
9. Wish You Were Here, Stewart O’Nan — After the death of the family patriarch, a large clan gathers for the last time at their soon-to-be-sold lake house. The POV shifts around between the various characters, each of whom has assorted issues: the recovering alcoholic daughter, the kleptomaniac grandson, the maybe-a-lesbian granddaughter, the shiftless son, the judgmental and demanding mother. They all struggle with themselves as they simultaneously struggle to find ways to fill up the week, over the course of which, as with many vacations, almost nothing happens. Which for the reader translates to: over the course of this novel’s 500-plus pages, almost nothing happens.
O’Nan is a good writer, talented at cracking open his characters’ skulls and making pretty patterns with the grey matter. I really loved his Last Night at the Lobster, but what differentiates Lobster from Wish is that the former is a glorious exercise in nuance and restraint. It’s a tiny tiny novel that says a lot, while Wish is a huge novel that never seems to arrive at any kind of conclusion. Which, I admit, might be true to life: I find it easier to believe in this family failing to resolve all their issues in seven days than I would a magical last-minute burst of understanding. But while I can take 200 pages of sound and fury, 500 pages of every single detail of every single moment of every single day—from multiple POVs, no less!—becomes downright painful. I mean, I get the whole “form equals content” concept, but I’ve been on endless family vacations that felt shorter than the time it took to slog through this novel. Next time just send me a postcard.
10. Skellig, David Almond — English young adult book that earned raves from Nick Hornby in Shakespeare Wrote For Money and appeared near the top of a UK survey of the best YA books ever. I thought it was good, but not that great. Michael, who has just moved to a new house and whose baby sister is deathly ill, discovers a weakened winged man in his garage. (Yes, it’s kind of like The Vintner’s Luck without the complex theology or the sexy bits.) He and the girl next door try to nurse this strange creature back to health, using mostly Chinese food and owls. This makes more sense in context.
There’s a nice gentleness to the story, but it didn’t wow me. Both Michael and Mina-from-next-door are they type of fictional children that seem wise far beyond their years, and once again, the spiritual aspects of the narrative didn’t really do much for me. Maybe this is one I would have liked better if I’d read it when I was younger.
Total Books: 10
This is probably the only time all year that I'll be all caught up! Savor it with me!
1. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri — Thoughtful and lovely short stories. Lahiri explores Indian and Bengali culture, the immigrant experience, and the relationships between men and women, parents and children, all with lucid prose and easy grace. These stories feel effortless, like a light and tangy sorbet served in an airy restaurant where all the bustle and clanging of pots and pans occurs behind tightly sealed doors. My kitchen, on the other hand, is apparently open to the world, leaking half-finished sauces and runaway metaphors. Um. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; fix your attention on Lahiri instead.
2. Batman: The Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb — A bit of a let down after all the hype, this was still a decent…well, “romp” is really the wrong word for Batman, isn’t it? A decent mope? A decent glower? Whatever. It wasn’t bad, though 1) mafia stuff still bores me, and 2) the ending was horribly confusing. Deliberately, I’m told—although whether Loeb is just being coy or trying to cover up the fact that his plot got really muddled, I don’t know. Either way, the Batman/Catwoman shenanigans of Hush were much more fun.
3. The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived, Allan Lazar, et. al. — Supposedly a discussion of “How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History”—to quote the rather lengthy subtitle—this book instead presents 101 explanations of who 101 characters are—there’s almost no analysis at all of why they are important or how they did any of the things the subtitle loftily claims. I could have gleaned the same information by clicking around to 101 random Wikipedia entries. The Wiki entries could very well have proven to be better written, too. (Yes, you heard me correctly: I’d give Wikipedia 50/50 odds in the Good Writing Bowl against this contender.) Lazar and his coauthors are suffering from a very bad case of thinking they are much, much funnier than they actually are. I found it annoying. Would you like me to count the ways?
4. The Ten-Cent Plague, David Hajdu — A workmanlike account of the rise and fall of comic books, from their creation in the early part of the 20th century to their near-destruction at its midpoint. Hajdu provides ample quotage both from interviews with comic book creators and from the various writings of comic book detractors. Basically the two arguments can be summed up thusly:
Pro-comics: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! Also, sex and violence really sell!
Anti-comics: THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Also, my anti-comics screeds really sell!
Hajdu (and, I think, the average reader, myself included) naturally sides with the comics folks, even though some early works were apparently really nasty—though nasty enough to make Garth Ennis or Frank Miller blush, I can’t say.
The book itself is thorough and readable, but never thrilling; someone else compared it to a term paper, and I think that’s fairly accurate. I’d only recommend it if you’re really interested in the subject—or writing a term paper yourself.
5. Shakespeare Wrote For Money, Nick Hornby — The third and final volume of Hornby’s “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns for Believer magazine. If you’ve read either of the previous two (which you should!) you’ll know what to expect here: Hornby's warm, digressive, open-minded, open-hearted, and very English discussions about books and reading (with the occasional passage about football thrown in). This volume feels less fresh than the first, but it's still fun, still has the relaxing properties of a good cup of tea, and still made me scribble down a bunch of books I wanted to look into. I hope he’ll be inspired at some point to make this a Hitchhiker’s Guide-style trilogy instead of the regular kind.
6. A Letter of Mary, Laurie R. King — A mystery made up almost entirely of red herrings. Holmes and Russell continue to be charming, but I was frustrated by how much of the narrative turned out to be irrelevant. Even the letter of the title—supposedly a piece of correspondence between Mary Magdalene and her sister, which is, you know, generally the type of thing da Vinci writes codes about and plots are based around—is, as far as this story and even its characters are concerned, essentially meaningless. If Holmes can solve the entire mystery by spending a couple days putting up some wallpaper, then why do we have to spend ages hanging out with Russell while she pretends to be some rich dick’s secretary? None of the mucking about was even particularly illuminating in regards to her character or her relationship with Holmes.
I was, however, amused by Lord Peter Wimsey’s little cameo, especially since not long before he arrived, I’d been thinking that we’d entered the time period when he’d be back from the war and running about solving crimes, too. Handwaving the fact that in Sayers’ books, Sherlock Holmes is frequently referred to as fictional, making a crossover technically impossible for sticklers like myself, I will allow myself to titter and enjoy the occasional pleasures inherent in wacky published fanfic such as this.
7. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami — I should note at the outset that this is the book I brought with me to jury duty, so my opinion may be influenced somewhat by the fact that I read it while waiting endlessly in a freezing courthouse, sitting on a series of hard, uncomfortable benches, and surrounded by moronic people with no understanding of the justice system, all of whom seemed to be under the impression that the voir dire was their own personal free therapy session. Ahem. That said, this was not one of my favorite Murakami books. It’s nominally the story of Toru Okada’s search first for his lost cat and then for his lost wife, but from this stem sprout a number of side stories, many of which I found far more interesting than the main narrative, and not all of which I felt really came together. There were still some amazing moments—the Manchurian sections were brutal and evocative (at times perhaps too evocative—I won’t be eating peaches again for a while), and May’s morbid musings were a treat—but other aspects of the narrative seemed to drop away with barely a trace, and the mystical aspects of this story didn’t work for me as well as those in, say, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
So: still glad I read it, wish I’d read it under better circumstances, but nevertheless, probably won’t be rereading it any time soon.
8. Revise the World, Brenda Clough — This book has a truly rockin’ concept: British polar explorer Titus Oates—he of self-sacrificing “I am just going outside and may be some time” fame—did not in fact perish in Antarctica in 1912, but was instead rescued by scientists experimenting with new time travel technology in 2045. As
wychwood and I discussed in several very capslocky emails, how can one resist a book where, as she put it, “THERE IS TITUS OATES IN FUTURE NEW YORK AND ALSO SPACE ALIENS”? Especially when it’s available for free online? Answer: one cannot.The execution is not quite as awesome as the concept, although such a thing would admittedly be hard. The narrative is told in a tight 3rd person POV, from Titus’ perspective, and I don’t know if this is a product of that, but the prose is very exclamation mark-heavy, which is not my favorite thing ever. There are also some frustrating misunderstandings, caused as much by Titus not paying attention as by him being thrust more than a hundred years into the future, and I felt that parts of the story dragged. Nevertheless, this is the best “person from the past goes to the future/present” book I’ve found so far, with the space and polar exploration bits being wonderful (no pun intended, Titus, I swear) icing on the cake. The romance is pretty tasty too. And did I mention that you can read it right now, for free? So it’s cake you can have and eat too!
All right, I’m stopping now.
9. Wish You Were Here, Stewart O’Nan — After the death of the family patriarch, a large clan gathers for the last time at their soon-to-be-sold lake house. The POV shifts around between the various characters, each of whom has assorted issues: the recovering alcoholic daughter, the kleptomaniac grandson, the maybe-a-lesbian granddaughter, the shiftless son, the judgmental and demanding mother. They all struggle with themselves as they simultaneously struggle to find ways to fill up the week, over the course of which, as with many vacations, almost nothing happens. Which for the reader translates to: over the course of this novel’s 500-plus pages, almost nothing happens.
O’Nan is a good writer, talented at cracking open his characters’ skulls and making pretty patterns with the grey matter. I really loved his Last Night at the Lobster, but what differentiates Lobster from Wish is that the former is a glorious exercise in nuance and restraint. It’s a tiny tiny novel that says a lot, while Wish is a huge novel that never seems to arrive at any kind of conclusion. Which, I admit, might be true to life: I find it easier to believe in this family failing to resolve all their issues in seven days than I would a magical last-minute burst of understanding. But while I can take 200 pages of sound and fury, 500 pages of every single detail of every single moment of every single day—from multiple POVs, no less!—becomes downright painful. I mean, I get the whole “form equals content” concept, but I’ve been on endless family vacations that felt shorter than the time it took to slog through this novel. Next time just send me a postcard.
10. Skellig, David Almond — English young adult book that earned raves from Nick Hornby in Shakespeare Wrote For Money and appeared near the top of a UK survey of the best YA books ever. I thought it was good, but not that great. Michael, who has just moved to a new house and whose baby sister is deathly ill, discovers a weakened winged man in his garage. (Yes, it’s kind of like The Vintner’s Luck without the complex theology or the sexy bits.) He and the girl next door try to nurse this strange creature back to health, using mostly Chinese food and owls. This makes more sense in context.
There’s a nice gentleness to the story, but it didn’t wow me. Both Michael and Mina-from-next-door are they type of fictional children that seem wise far beyond their years, and once again, the spiritual aspects of the narrative didn’t really do much for me. Maybe this is one I would have liked better if I’d read it when I was younger.
Total Books: 10
This is probably the only time all year that I'll be all caught up! Savor it with me!
