reading update
Mar. 1st, 2005 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelseagirlHaven't talked about my recent reading in awhile, so the list is pretty long . . .
Tobias Wolff, Old School -- read this for book club. Probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own, as I'd read the short story version in the New Yorker and while this touches on more important themes, it never seems to grow much beyond that. It's a good read, but it never really caught fire for me.
Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves -- I don't know if you have to be an academic to love this book but it certainly didn't hurt -- I adored all the meta stuff, with the footnotes and etc. The "Johnny Truant" plot struck me as weaker and more conventional than the house manuscript, but that character's "introduction" scared me so much I didn't go to sleep that night with the book on my night table -- I actually got up and put it on my shelf.
Michelle Lovric, The Floating Book -- this stuff is catnip to me, Venice in its heyday, the early history of printing, etc. Too bad the story wasn't better; some of the characters get caught up in self-involved loops where the reader loses all sympathy, and one of the main female characters seems to be such a male fantasy she stood out in a book written by a woman. Still, it's got Venice in its heyday, the early history of printing, etc. -- worth reading but not amazing.
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America -- I have not been a Roth fan (though to be fair, Goodbye Columbus has become such a period piece that it's hard to read it the way it must have been seen when it came out), but this book was compelling from start to finish. If a genre writer had done something similar as a "alternate history" sf book, they probably would have spent more time with the larger scope of things. But filtering it through the experiences of a young child makes it all the more personal, and it tracks all the more real. Unqualified recommendation -- read this book.
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination -- despite Neil Gaiman's admonition in the introduction, this book seems not to have stood the test of time -- the characters, particularly gender relationships, and the prose, are not outstanding. The plot, as it unfolds, is a pleasant surprise, once the originality leaks past all the creaky and off-putting bits. Still, I'd reread his The Demolished Man, but this one goes in the donation pile.
Isabelle Allende, The Infinite Plan -- a really enjoyable read, and interesting to see a Chilean female author take on a North American male as her main character. But then I realized from biographical things I know about Allende that this is the story of her partner, and I began to wonder how much is fiction and how much is directly lifted from his life.
Plus Dante's Purgatorio (which alas, is NOT as much fun as Inferno), James Gleick's Isaac Newton (background for when we do the Scientific Revolution in one of my classes), and other school-related stuff.
Tobias Wolff, Old School -- read this for book club. Probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own, as I'd read the short story version in the New Yorker and while this touches on more important themes, it never seems to grow much beyond that. It's a good read, but it never really caught fire for me.
Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves -- I don't know if you have to be an academic to love this book but it certainly didn't hurt -- I adored all the meta stuff, with the footnotes and etc. The "Johnny Truant" plot struck me as weaker and more conventional than the house manuscript, but that character's "introduction" scared me so much I didn't go to sleep that night with the book on my night table -- I actually got up and put it on my shelf.
Michelle Lovric, The Floating Book -- this stuff is catnip to me, Venice in its heyday, the early history of printing, etc. Too bad the story wasn't better; some of the characters get caught up in self-involved loops where the reader loses all sympathy, and one of the main female characters seems to be such a male fantasy she stood out in a book written by a woman. Still, it's got Venice in its heyday, the early history of printing, etc. -- worth reading but not amazing.
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America -- I have not been a Roth fan (though to be fair, Goodbye Columbus has become such a period piece that it's hard to read it the way it must have been seen when it came out), but this book was compelling from start to finish. If a genre writer had done something similar as a "alternate history" sf book, they probably would have spent more time with the larger scope of things. But filtering it through the experiences of a young child makes it all the more personal, and it tracks all the more real. Unqualified recommendation -- read this book.
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination -- despite Neil Gaiman's admonition in the introduction, this book seems not to have stood the test of time -- the characters, particularly gender relationships, and the prose, are not outstanding. The plot, as it unfolds, is a pleasant surprise, once the originality leaks past all the creaky and off-putting bits. Still, I'd reread his The Demolished Man, but this one goes in the donation pile.
Isabelle Allende, The Infinite Plan -- a really enjoyable read, and interesting to see a Chilean female author take on a North American male as her main character. But then I realized from biographical things I know about Allende that this is the story of her partner, and I began to wonder how much is fiction and how much is directly lifted from his life.
Plus Dante's Purgatorio (which alas, is NOT as much fun as Inferno), James Gleick's Isaac Newton (background for when we do the Scientific Revolution in one of my classes), and other school-related stuff.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-01 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-01 06:34 pm (UTC)this may be my new motto for life
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Date: 2005-03-03 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-01 06:38 pm (UTC)I'm reading, very slowly for some reason, The Number One Ladie's Detective Agency.
See my pretty icon? I like pretty things.
::
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-01 07:03 pm (UTC)I don't know that I agree with you on this one -- I'm with Neil on this! ;) -- I think a good case is made first thing in the book that the world's been sent back to a sort of creepy neo-Victorian state, and that worked for me re: the screwed up gender relationships. I wish the women of today could realize how recently we got the rights of human beings and citizens, and how terrifyingly quickly we could lose them again.
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Date: 2005-03-03 11:23 pm (UTC)And to tell the truth, of all the Neil intros I've read, this was the one where he seemed most to be talking himself into his position. There are some books which make such an impact and which should never be reread.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 07:56 pm (UTC)