Let the great booklog spin
Jan. 23rd, 2010 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneAlmost. Done!
191. Horns, Joe Hill — Damn. My feelings about this book are so conflicted. On the one hand, it contains a few pieces of imagery so staggeringly beautiful that they could have come from a Haruki Murakami novel—gorgeous, surrealistic setpieces that nevertheless are firmly anchored in the characters' stories and personalities. Hill continues to prove himself to be an excellent prose stylist, with an ear for dialogue and an inherent fairness to the way he treats his characters; the roles they end up playing are rarely what one might expect. I enjoyed the first part of this novel especially, in which Hill manages to evoke a real sense of horror and keep the reader ravenously curious as to what's really going on. However, as with his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, I feel he's stronger in the set-up than in the denouement. Yet that isn't even my real problem with this book: it's that I think I, on the most basic level, vehemently disagree with what Hill is trying to say about the nature of good and evil—as much as I can understand it, anyway. My own views are so just so diametrically opposed to what (I think) this book is purporting that, while I enjoyed it on a, I suppose you could say, visual level, it ultimately left me cold.
However, it nevertheless also still left me excited to see what Hill comes up with next. His twisty mind is one I definitely want to watch; I have every confidence that he’ll write something truly brilliant one day.
192. Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld — For a book that contains crossdressing adventures in an AU steampunk WWI with genetically engineered living airships versus a bunch of AT-STs, this was surprisingly boring. There’s just so much stuff in there—maybe too much?—and I never felt emotionally engaged. It’s not bad or anything, and the illustrations are nice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. Oh well.
193. Over Tumbled Graves, Jess Walter — Serious and yet oddly whimsical serial killer mystery. This is Walter's first novel, and you can tell that there were a lot of elements he wanted to get in there—the Green River Killer and the double-edged sword of profiling and new policing vs. old and T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and even a touch of romance. I'm not sure how well it all works together; the resulting work feels a bit disjointed, not quite complete. But it's also so much more interesting and complex than the average mystery, with psychologically rich characterization and an—at least as far as I could tell—impressive level of realism to the police work. Emotionally, most of the novel feels impressively gritty and grounded in harsh truths. And yet, in the same book, there's also a random scene in a bar that, as an Eliot fan, had me spasming with joy. Bizarre combination. But fascinating and compelling, and you can see traces of the genre-blending creativity that are so evident in his later work. Much of this book has stayed with me, and it definitely left me wanting more.
194. SuperFreaknomics, Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner — In writing this sequel to the uberbestseller Freakonomics, did Levitt and Dubner forget everything that made the first book fun? Instead of amusing minutiae, this book attempts to tackle "big issues," but it fumbles them. I think enough's already been said about the bizarre global warming chapter, but then there's also the lame chapter about terrorism (I suppose you could say this about almost anything in retrospect, but doesn't the conclusion about life insurance seem incredibly obvious?), and the chapter about prostitution, which is SuperFreaky, but not in a good way. The book concludes with a short epilogue about monkeys, which is more entertaining—and more like the first Freakonomics—than the rest of the book combined. This is a case where just repeating what made the first book successful and enjoyable would have been enough, but instead the authors tried to reinvent the wheel. Whatever this odd collection of spokes and rubber is, it doesn't work.
195. American Gods, Neil Gaiman — I know some people say that this is Gaiman’s masterpiece, but when it first came out I was disappointed by how cold it is, and on reread I still am. Shadow remains an enigma to me—I’m never able to feel like I know him or love him like some of Gaiman’s less stoically competent protagonists (Richard!). All those scenes in bleak, cold Lakeside encompass the emotional tone of the book for me. Therefore, while I like this book, I don’t love it; I enjoy it more for what it says about America and the potential world it creates than for the actual story it tells.
196. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman — I suspect I’m in the minority here once again, because unlike American Gods, I think Anansi Boys is a grand old romp. It’s just fun, and I like all the characters (except poor Rosie, who somehow completely fails to have a personality—how did that happen?), and it’s one of those Gaiman stories where, while I am never especially surprised by it, I don’t mind at all because it goes exactly where I feel it should go, where the ideal story must go. It’s comfort food.
197. Your Movie Sucks, Roger Ebert — More enjoyable snark, although for whatever reason, I liked it less than the first one. I am so glad I haven’t seen most of these films.
198. The Help, Kathryn Stockett — Another book that flies off the shelves at my store; I was therefore suspicious of it. Especially suspicious as it’s a book primarily about black maids in 1960s Mississippi, being eagerly bought by rich white ladies in 2009 Los Angeles...often with their Latina maids in tow (or elsewhere in the store, looking after the kids). I was really afraid the book would soft-pedal the numerous, numerous issues.
For the most part, it doesn’t. All of Stockett’s characters, black and white, are individual and complex, and her descriptions of place and period seem authentic. They should: the segregated south is where Stockett grew up, raised in part by a black maid, and the afterword, in which she describes her own childhood and her relationship with the woman who raised her, who was part of the family except not, is refreshingly honest and very moving. This is a book about people finally getting to tell their stories, and it’s very clear who Stockett is honoring in writing it. It’s also clear that she’s really thought about the myriad issues involved.
She’s also just a really good storyteller: in this book she juggles three different POV characters, all of different ages and backgrounds, and each voice was distinct. Moreover, I simply did not want to put the book down—for what is in many ways a domestic drama, this book was intense. A few threads were dropped or abandoned too quickly at the end, but in general The Help was an immensely satisfying read. And there is an element of fantasy in that: even for all its realism, this book presents a small pocket of time and space in which there’s a somewhat idealized group of relationships. You know nothing like this ever happened. But it should have.
This is a book about people getting to have their stories told. I’m not sure what the women who shop at my store are taking away from it, but personally, this book makes me glad that such stories are reaching them (and me)—even in this fictitious form. Stories have power.
199. Nation, Terry Pratchett — I really wanted—and expected—to like this, but I just did not. Despite some nice passages—the one![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wychwood cites in her review, in which Mau takes care of the dead, springs to mind—for the most part I was bored. The science/religion conflict never really came to much, and the whole thing dragged, with new people constantly arriving on the island when I wanted to focus on getting to better know its original inhabitants. I think I would have enjoyed the book better if it had been just Mau and Daphne for most of it (although I can see how that could risk straying toward a Blue Lagoon sort of place). Not Pratchett's best.
200. Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann — Recent National Book Award Winner in which the lives of a diverse group of New Yorkers intersect with each other and with Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers. I’m surprised by how strongly this book has stayed with me. McCann’s prose is consistently beautiful and lucid and controlled, but I found the first half of this book a slog. McCann’s main device involves using a different POV character for each chapter, and several of the early sections are spent in the minds of the most self-involved, pretentious ones. The disparate threads don’t connect until the book’s second half, either, so I spent the first 150-or-so pages floundering.
The book rewards your patience, however, with the sense of connection that eventually begins to trickle in, and there are some truly lovely moments, ones that have grown and lingered in my mind. I’m glad I read this—and that I continue to try to read “literary” fiction in general, as this book reminds me that despite its pomposity, the genre does offer its rewards.
Total Reviews: 200/210
191. Horns, Joe Hill — Damn. My feelings about this book are so conflicted. On the one hand, it contains a few pieces of imagery so staggeringly beautiful that they could have come from a Haruki Murakami novel—gorgeous, surrealistic setpieces that nevertheless are firmly anchored in the characters' stories and personalities. Hill continues to prove himself to be an excellent prose stylist, with an ear for dialogue and an inherent fairness to the way he treats his characters; the roles they end up playing are rarely what one might expect. I enjoyed the first part of this novel especially, in which Hill manages to evoke a real sense of horror and keep the reader ravenously curious as to what's really going on. However, as with his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, I feel he's stronger in the set-up than in the denouement. Yet that isn't even my real problem with this book: it's that I think I, on the most basic level, vehemently disagree with what Hill is trying to say about the nature of good and evil—as much as I can understand it, anyway. My own views are so just so diametrically opposed to what (I think) this book is purporting that, while I enjoyed it on a, I suppose you could say, visual level, it ultimately left me cold.
However, it nevertheless also still left me excited to see what Hill comes up with next. His twisty mind is one I definitely want to watch; I have every confidence that he’ll write something truly brilliant one day.
192. Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld — For a book that contains crossdressing adventures in an AU steampunk WWI with genetically engineered living airships versus a bunch of AT-STs, this was surprisingly boring. There’s just so much stuff in there—maybe too much?—and I never felt emotionally engaged. It’s not bad or anything, and the illustrations are nice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. Oh well.
193. Over Tumbled Graves, Jess Walter — Serious and yet oddly whimsical serial killer mystery. This is Walter's first novel, and you can tell that there were a lot of elements he wanted to get in there—the Green River Killer and the double-edged sword of profiling and new policing vs. old and T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and even a touch of romance. I'm not sure how well it all works together; the resulting work feels a bit disjointed, not quite complete. But it's also so much more interesting and complex than the average mystery, with psychologically rich characterization and an—at least as far as I could tell—impressive level of realism to the police work. Emotionally, most of the novel feels impressively gritty and grounded in harsh truths. And yet, in the same book, there's also a random scene in a bar that, as an Eliot fan, had me spasming with joy. Bizarre combination. But fascinating and compelling, and you can see traces of the genre-blending creativity that are so evident in his later work. Much of this book has stayed with me, and it definitely left me wanting more.
194. SuperFreaknomics, Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner — In writing this sequel to the uberbestseller Freakonomics, did Levitt and Dubner forget everything that made the first book fun? Instead of amusing minutiae, this book attempts to tackle "big issues," but it fumbles them. I think enough's already been said about the bizarre global warming chapter, but then there's also the lame chapter about terrorism (I suppose you could say this about almost anything in retrospect, but doesn't the conclusion about life insurance seem incredibly obvious?), and the chapter about prostitution, which is SuperFreaky, but not in a good way. The book concludes with a short epilogue about monkeys, which is more entertaining—and more like the first Freakonomics—than the rest of the book combined. This is a case where just repeating what made the first book successful and enjoyable would have been enough, but instead the authors tried to reinvent the wheel. Whatever this odd collection of spokes and rubber is, it doesn't work.
195. American Gods, Neil Gaiman — I know some people say that this is Gaiman’s masterpiece, but when it first came out I was disappointed by how cold it is, and on reread I still am. Shadow remains an enigma to me—I’m never able to feel like I know him or love him like some of Gaiman’s less stoically competent protagonists (Richard!). All those scenes in bleak, cold Lakeside encompass the emotional tone of the book for me. Therefore, while I like this book, I don’t love it; I enjoy it more for what it says about America and the potential world it creates than for the actual story it tells.
196. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman — I suspect I’m in the minority here once again, because unlike American Gods, I think Anansi Boys is a grand old romp. It’s just fun, and I like all the characters (except poor Rosie, who somehow completely fails to have a personality—how did that happen?), and it’s one of those Gaiman stories where, while I am never especially surprised by it, I don’t mind at all because it goes exactly where I feel it should go, where the ideal story must go. It’s comfort food.
197. Your Movie Sucks, Roger Ebert — More enjoyable snark, although for whatever reason, I liked it less than the first one. I am so glad I haven’t seen most of these films.
198. The Help, Kathryn Stockett — Another book that flies off the shelves at my store; I was therefore suspicious of it. Especially suspicious as it’s a book primarily about black maids in 1960s Mississippi, being eagerly bought by rich white ladies in 2009 Los Angeles...often with their Latina maids in tow (or elsewhere in the store, looking after the kids). I was really afraid the book would soft-pedal the numerous, numerous issues.
For the most part, it doesn’t. All of Stockett’s characters, black and white, are individual and complex, and her descriptions of place and period seem authentic. They should: the segregated south is where Stockett grew up, raised in part by a black maid, and the afterword, in which she describes her own childhood and her relationship with the woman who raised her, who was part of the family except not, is refreshingly honest and very moving. This is a book about people finally getting to tell their stories, and it’s very clear who Stockett is honoring in writing it. It’s also clear that she’s really thought about the myriad issues involved.
She’s also just a really good storyteller: in this book she juggles three different POV characters, all of different ages and backgrounds, and each voice was distinct. Moreover, I simply did not want to put the book down—for what is in many ways a domestic drama, this book was intense. A few threads were dropped or abandoned too quickly at the end, but in general The Help was an immensely satisfying read. And there is an element of fantasy in that: even for all its realism, this book presents a small pocket of time and space in which there’s a somewhat idealized group of relationships. You know nothing like this ever happened. But it should have.
This is a book about people getting to have their stories told. I’m not sure what the women who shop at my store are taking away from it, but personally, this book makes me glad that such stories are reaching them (and me)—even in this fictitious form. Stories have power.
199. Nation, Terry Pratchett — I really wanted—and expected—to like this, but I just did not. Despite some nice passages—the one
wychwood cites in her review, in which Mau takes care of the dead, springs to mind—for the most part I was bored. The science/religion conflict never really came to much, and the whole thing dragged, with new people constantly arriving on the island when I wanted to focus on getting to better know its original inhabitants. I think I would have enjoyed the book better if it had been just Mau and Daphne for most of it (although I can see how that could risk straying toward a Blue Lagoon sort of place). Not Pratchett's best.200. Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann — Recent National Book Award Winner in which the lives of a diverse group of New Yorkers intersect with each other and with Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers. I’m surprised by how strongly this book has stayed with me. McCann’s prose is consistently beautiful and lucid and controlled, but I found the first half of this book a slog. McCann’s main device involves using a different POV character for each chapter, and several of the early sections are spent in the minds of the most self-involved, pretentious ones. The disparate threads don’t connect until the book’s second half, either, so I spent the first 150-or-so pages floundering.
The book rewards your patience, however, with the sense of connection that eventually begins to trickle in, and there are some truly lovely moments, ones that have grown and lingered in my mind. I’m glad I read this—and that I continue to try to read “literary” fiction in general, as this book reminds me that despite its pomposity, the genre does offer its rewards.
Total Reviews: 200/210
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Date: 2010-01-23 11:09 pm (UTC)Btw, ComicCon? Plans? Etc? Booking is going to open soon *hands*