I’m not sure I have any particularly interesting or insightful observations about The Cider House Rules. I certainly enjoyed the book. Dr. Larch was easily my favorite character, followed by Nurse Caroline. Candy bugged me more than anything. I enjoyed the first half more than the latter half, but I was pleased with the ending. The role of Dr. Larch’s historical records throughout the story is both amusing and poignant, and set the stage nicely for the ending.
From a craft perspective, I was struck by the way Irving moved from different perspectives/narrators within the same passage. On the one hand, that would seem to serve to make the authorial perspective seem particularly omniscient. On the other hand, I think it actually accentuates the importance of narrative and story-telling, which is one of the central themes of the novel (particularly the way the stories we tell and the stories we believe shape who we are and how we understanding others).
The book did make me wish that I had kept a graph of the connections between the books on the list with a node connecting ones that reference each other. It would make an interesting representation of the links between works of literature. It would also need to be huge, and I likely will not attempt to start one now. Still, would be an interesting project.
After wrapping that one up, I read To the Lighthouse. Confession time: I am not a fan of Virginia Woolfe. She just really does nothing for me. I found the ways she drifted from one perspective to another to be powerful and to pull out both the differences and commonalities among the various psyches and voices she explored. There were certain passages that caught me (I don’t think of myself as someone who reads for the language, per se, but I am increasingly finding that when I love a book, it is because of various passage within it that just resonate with me and make me see humanity or the world or myself in a new way, that complicate or eliminate, uplift or sadden). Not a favorite, but glad I read it.
My fear of Dickens had become paralyzing, so I decided I needed to leap into Little Dorrit today. I’m well past page 100 today, and I am amazed by how engaging I am finding it. I can see why he is so popular and seen as an enjoyable author, not just an important one. His love for humanity and his humor certainly come through (I think you have to embrace the satirical edge). It’s my fourth Dickens, and the one I have enjoyed the most so far. We’ll see if it keeps up, since it is over 850 pages, which is long even for something that is fun.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The FAQ Part II
Continuation of the FAQ:
Which ones have been your favorites so far? I consider may favorites to fall into two categories: 1) ones that are fun to read (Love in a Cold Climate, Lord of the Rings, Dracula) and 2) ones that I wouldn’t have read without a push from the list, and that I am so glad that I have read.
I think the latter list is more interesting: The Ground Beneath Her Feet (some of the passages were so painfully beautiful that I had to stop reading and just breathe), The Red Queen (the Queen’s voice is distinctive and so fully realized; I read the rice chest piece coming home from work late one night, and I was shaky), The Forsyte Saga (yes, it’s long, but it is worth it; I had no idea what I was getting into when I started it, and it’s portrayal of the changing meanings of marriage, of the different ways love takes shape; I can’t articulate my love for this book in only a few words); Pale Fire (so hilarious; if you want something fun, go read this one); and many others (Remains of the Day; Never Let Me Go; Count of Monte Cristo; The Wings of the Dove; All Quiet on the Western Front)
Are there any books that you've wanted to stop? Yes.
All right, smarty, which ones? The Hunchback of Notre Dame, American Psycho, The Trial, Dr. Zhivago, The Unnamable, Molloy, Malone Dies. Sorry, Beckett aficionados and anyone else whose favorite books made this list. I would love to talk with you about why you didn’t hate every character in Hunchback, why the nihilist violence in American Psycho is more than just gratuitous, how you manage (if you manage) to not want to shove every character in a Kafka novel into a vat of hot oil, why there is anything romantic to be found in the suffering of Dr. Zhivago, and what in the world is happening in the Becket trilogy of “Oh my God, when will this end? Die, Malone, and put me out of my misery.”
What If you want to read something that isn't on the list? Then I do. The list is not meant to be restrictive. I definitely read the latest Mary Russel novel the day it was published. I also throw in non fiction on a fairly regular basis (in addition to the nearly 60 list books in 2010 thus far, I've also read Yes Means Yes, Dream City, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Undercurrents, Half the Sky, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, and All The President's Men; I also read for a book club, and I read The Economist cover-to-cover weekly)
What if they update the list? I've decided it's like when you enter college. The degree requirements/list of books when you start applies throughout (technically I think in most colleges you can later choose the new reqs if you want, but I don't intend to update the list for myself).
My apologies to the authors whose names did not appear in the labels for this post (apparently only twenty can per post).
Which ones have been your favorites so far? I consider may favorites to fall into two categories: 1) ones that are fun to read (Love in a Cold Climate, Lord of the Rings, Dracula) and 2) ones that I wouldn’t have read without a push from the list, and that I am so glad that I have read.
I think the latter list is more interesting: The Ground Beneath Her Feet (some of the passages were so painfully beautiful that I had to stop reading and just breathe), The Red Queen (the Queen’s voice is distinctive and so fully realized; I read the rice chest piece coming home from work late one night, and I was shaky), The Forsyte Saga (yes, it’s long, but it is worth it; I had no idea what I was getting into when I started it, and it’s portrayal of the changing meanings of marriage, of the different ways love takes shape; I can’t articulate my love for this book in only a few words); Pale Fire (so hilarious; if you want something fun, go read this one); and many others (Remains of the Day; Never Let Me Go; Count of Monte Cristo; The Wings of the Dove; All Quiet on the Western Front)
Are there any books that you've wanted to stop? Yes.
All right, smarty, which ones? The Hunchback of Notre Dame, American Psycho, The Trial, Dr. Zhivago, The Unnamable, Molloy, Malone Dies. Sorry, Beckett aficionados and anyone else whose favorite books made this list. I would love to talk with you about why you didn’t hate every character in Hunchback, why the nihilist violence in American Psycho is more than just gratuitous, how you manage (if you manage) to not want to shove every character in a Kafka novel into a vat of hot oil, why there is anything romantic to be found in the suffering of Dr. Zhivago, and what in the world is happening in the Becket trilogy of “Oh my God, when will this end? Die, Malone, and put me out of my misery.”
What If you want to read something that isn't on the list? Then I do. The list is not meant to be restrictive. I definitely read the latest Mary Russel novel the day it was published. I also throw in non fiction on a fairly regular basis (in addition to the nearly 60 list books in 2010 thus far, I've also read Yes Means Yes, Dream City, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Undercurrents, Half the Sky, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, and All The President's Men; I also read for a book club, and I read The Economist cover-to-cover weekly)
What if they update the list? I've decided it's like when you enter college. The degree requirements/list of books when you start applies throughout (technically I think in most colleges you can later choose the new reqs if you want, but I don't intend to update the list for myself).
My apologies to the authors whose names did not appear in the labels for this post (apparently only twenty can per post).
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The FAQ Part I
This seems a little self-serving, but on the other hand, people really do tend to ask me the same questions when they first learn that I am attempting to read each and every book on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list (from here on out, just the list). The project also comes up pretty frequently, for three reasons 1) if you're reading Babbitt, King Solomon's Mines, or American Psycho, people will want to know why, 2) I tend to trot this out when I need to make small talk, since I find it a remarkably impersonal topic to discuss, and 3) it tends to snowball from there since people tell other people. I don't really know why.
Without further ado, The FAQ:
How do you decide what to read? What people really mean, usually, is: "Are you reading in order? Oldest to most recent?" to which the answer would be, no. Not even close. The process isn't exactly random, but it's not apparently systematic and it's hard to describe. It's a combination of what I feel like reading, and what I can easily get from the local library (I rarely buy a book on the list).
I have to break up authors and genres. D. H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh become repetitive if you try to read more than two in a row. I need to start on Dickens soon here (I've only read A Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickleby, and Christmas Carol) or I will really be in trouble later. I also need to break up styles. White men are a bit overrepresented in the list (why should it be different than congress?), and I need to slip in some women, people of color, and people not from the US or Europe on occasion or I start to get cranky. A little Noir goes a long way, and coming of age stories get old quite quickly.
Overall, though, the project is capricious. If it looks long and painful, I try to bookened it with something shorter and more fun. In general I try to go long, short, long, short as much as possible.
How much do you read a day/week? How long does it take you to read a book? I average around 100 pages a day (50 pages each way on my commute! Thanks, Red Line, for single tracking!). I try to read at least two books a week.
Do you ever stop a book once you've started it? In theory, no (see the rules). In practice, once. This reasoning behind the rule that I have to finish the books is simple. I'm only putting it off, since if I seriously plan to finish the list, then eventually I will have to read it. I prefer to do unpleasant things right away, so coming back to books doesn't make sense for me. It's also way too easy to shop around different books and never actually finish anything. Making the rule hard and fast keeps me moving forward.
There has been one exception though, in the form of Franny and Zooey. I actually find this exception ironic, given that when I came back to it I really enjoyed it (I would love to see the scene with Zooey and his mother as a play short). When I first tried to read it, though, I was dealing with my own angst, and didn't need Franny's adding to it. While the fact that I enjoyed it more when I came back might be an argument for letting myself not finish books on the first go, I think it's easy for that to become a cop-out/excuse for not finishing. If I genuinely think I will get more out of a book if I wait, then I will. If I'm just being lazy or indulging my short attention span, then the rule keeps me accountable.
What will you read when this is done? Books that aren't on the list. One thousand and one is a lot, granted, but there are so many books (and plays, memoirs, essays, short stories, and poems which don't usually appear on the list) that didn't make the list, and more are always coming out, that I am not at all worried. I find this question one of the most strange. When people do ask, they always sound so genuinely concerned that I will somehow run out of reading material before I turn 40.
Without further ado, The FAQ:
How do you decide what to read? What people really mean, usually, is: "Are you reading in order? Oldest to most recent?" to which the answer would be, no. Not even close. The process isn't exactly random, but it's not apparently systematic and it's hard to describe. It's a combination of what I feel like reading, and what I can easily get from the local library (I rarely buy a book on the list).
I have to break up authors and genres. D. H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh become repetitive if you try to read more than two in a row. I need to start on Dickens soon here (I've only read A Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickleby, and Christmas Carol) or I will really be in trouble later. I also need to break up styles. White men are a bit overrepresented in the list (why should it be different than congress?), and I need to slip in some women, people of color, and people not from the US or Europe on occasion or I start to get cranky. A little Noir goes a long way, and coming of age stories get old quite quickly.
Overall, though, the project is capricious. If it looks long and painful, I try to bookened it with something shorter and more fun. In general I try to go long, short, long, short as much as possible.
How much do you read a day/week? How long does it take you to read a book? I average around 100 pages a day (50 pages each way on my commute! Thanks, Red Line, for single tracking!). I try to read at least two books a week.
Do you ever stop a book once you've started it? In theory, no (see the rules). In practice, once. This reasoning behind the rule that I have to finish the books is simple. I'm only putting it off, since if I seriously plan to finish the list, then eventually I will have to read it. I prefer to do unpleasant things right away, so coming back to books doesn't make sense for me. It's also way too easy to shop around different books and never actually finish anything. Making the rule hard and fast keeps me moving forward.
There has been one exception though, in the form of Franny and Zooey. I actually find this exception ironic, given that when I came back to it I really enjoyed it (I would love to see the scene with Zooey and his mother as a play short). When I first tried to read it, though, I was dealing with my own angst, and didn't need Franny's adding to it. While the fact that I enjoyed it more when I came back might be an argument for letting myself not finish books on the first go, I think it's easy for that to become a cop-out/excuse for not finishing. If I genuinely think I will get more out of a book if I wait, then I will. If I'm just being lazy or indulging my short attention span, then the rule keeps me accountable.
What will you read when this is done? Books that aren't on the list. One thousand and one is a lot, granted, but there are so many books (and plays, memoirs, essays, short stories, and poems which don't usually appear on the list) that didn't make the list, and more are always coming out, that I am not at all worried. I find this question one of the most strange. When people do ask, they always sound so genuinely concerned that I will somehow run out of reading material before I turn 40.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Idiot and Of Mice and Men
Spoiler Alert: I've finished both of these, and I may spoiler the plots.
I finished The Idiot today. Six hundred and fifteen pages from Friday to Monday; not one of my fastest reads, but a solid pace. I'm going to put some distance between this one and my attempt on Crime and Punishment, but I actually enjoyed it much more than I expected. It qualifies for the success list, since it's one that I wouldn't have read without the list pushing me towards it, and I likely wouldn't have gotten as much out of it without having read Anna Karenina, Dead Souls, War and Peace, etc. to give it some context.
That being said, a little Russian goes a long way for me, I'm not going to lie. While I definitely prefer it to War and Peace (which I HATE), there were subplots that I could easily do without. The overall plot didn't do much for me, but there were some passages that made up for that. My thoughts are half-baked on this, but I think reading the text through the lens of the recurring discussions of the death penalty could make for an interesting paper if I had to write one. Fortunately, I don't. I also sort of shipped Adelaida and Prince Sch. Till the end, anyway.
I'm not sold on Dostoyevsky's portrayal of women's psychology, but the letters that Anastassya Filippovna sent Aglaya and the scene where Aglaya confronts Anastassya Filippovna were the most compelling passages for me (the ones that made up for anything having to do with Burdovsky).
After finishing The Idiot, I read Of Mice and Men; it's a nice, short read. I've never read The Grapes of Wrath, and I'm still a little apprehensive about it, but I found Of Mice and Men strangely compelling. This is a good counterexample, I think, to the belief that being spoiled about the ending ruins a work for someone. In this case, I think it was quite clear what the novel(ia) was building towards, and for me at least, part of its power came from knowing and seeing George's agony, while knowing that the conclusion was inevitable.
I'm now reading The Cider House Rules. I've never seen the movie, though from seeing clips/its trailer, I can't help but picture Michael Caine as Larch. That being said, I'm glad that Tobey McGuire isn't invading my perceptions; I'm not really a fan.
I finished The Idiot today. Six hundred and fifteen pages from Friday to Monday; not one of my fastest reads, but a solid pace. I'm going to put some distance between this one and my attempt on Crime and Punishment, but I actually enjoyed it much more than I expected. It qualifies for the success list, since it's one that I wouldn't have read without the list pushing me towards it, and I likely wouldn't have gotten as much out of it without having read Anna Karenina, Dead Souls, War and Peace, etc. to give it some context.
That being said, a little Russian goes a long way for me, I'm not going to lie. While I definitely prefer it to War and Peace (which I HATE), there were subplots that I could easily do without. The overall plot didn't do much for me, but there were some passages that made up for that. My thoughts are half-baked on this, but I think reading the text through the lens of the recurring discussions of the death penalty could make for an interesting paper if I had to write one. Fortunately, I don't. I also sort of shipped Adelaida and Prince Sch. Till the end, anyway.
I'm not sold on Dostoyevsky's portrayal of women's psychology, but the letters that Anastassya Filippovna sent Aglaya and the scene where Aglaya confronts Anastassya Filippovna were the most compelling passages for me (the ones that made up for anything having to do with Burdovsky).
After finishing The Idiot, I read Of Mice and Men; it's a nice, short read. I've never read The Grapes of Wrath, and I'm still a little apprehensive about it, but I found Of Mice and Men strangely compelling. This is a good counterexample, I think, to the belief that being spoiled about the ending ruins a work for someone. In this case, I think it was quite clear what the novel(ia) was building towards, and for me at least, part of its power came from knowing and seeing George's agony, while knowing that the conclusion was inevitable.
I'm now reading The Cider House Rules. I've never seen the movie, though from seeing clips/its trailer, I can't help but picture Michael Caine as Larch. That being said, I'm glad that Tobey McGuire isn't invading my perceptions; I'm not really a fan.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Task: Read every book on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list before dying.
The Impetus: A combination of two factors, really. The first was actually reading the list and realizing I had read 76 titles on it. Depressing. I consider myself a fairly avid reader, and granted I’ve read way more books that are not on the list, but still. 76? Really?
The second factor was an English class I took in college. The class itself wasn’t super inspiring in some ways (most people treated it the way most people treat book clubs; yeah, we’re here to talk about books, but does that really require reading them first? All the way to the end? Really?), but the professor and the books were great. I read and fell in love with Beloved and God of Small Things, two books I hadn’t planned to read before taking the class.
After graduating college and realizing that my life and mind were my own again, I wanted to use my new liberty to read voraciously books of my choosing. But I also wanted to continue to read authors and styles that I wouldn’t normally choose if I was basing my selections solely on what I thought I would like before even trying the book (it’s like eating; my life would be sadly falafel free if I didn’t try food that looked completely unappetizing at first; sometimes books are the same way).
The juxtaposition of these two factors gave rise to the quest. I’m currently reading book 157 (The Idiot), and am on schedule to finish by the time I am 35 if I keep to my 2010 (to date) pace. I likely won’t.
The Blog: When I explain the project to people, they always tell me I should write a blog about this. People keep saying that novels and print are dying, and now they say that blogs are, too, so why not bring them together? Really, I have no good reason for this and I expect I won’t keep it up. But now I can have a better response when people tell me to keep a Blog on the books I’ve read.
The Rules:
Rule Number One: If you start, you must finish.
This is the most important rule, and the foundation on which this whole project is based. Without it, everything crumbles. Just like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to never making it through the Russian masters is paved with letting yourself “come back to it later” (a phrase which I unapologetically put in quotation marks, because it really means, “never revisiting Larissa Feodorovna Guishar and trying to forget if we want the Reds or the Whites to win”).
Of course, rules are made to be broken, and in my next installment (the FAQ) I’ll write about the time (just once thus far) that I have broken this rule.
Rule Number Two: No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds.
So the whole canon of Edith Wharton is not on the list. So you’d rather read The Wind Done Gone than Margaret Mitchell’s (discouragingly) lengthy tome. So what? The Custom of the Country is not, and never will be, The Bunner Sisters. Get over it. This is not a quest to read books written by authors who appear on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, it’s a quest to read the list.
Rule Number Three: Books are not Movies
This one I think is pretty obvious, but clearly I actually have to read the book. The Wishbone adaptation and the Wikipedia article don’t cut it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still be facing Don Quixote.
Those are really it. The first one is the most significant. The other two are basic to the very spirit of the project. Everything else about how I tackle the list will be covered in the FAQ. Which I may never write, because I am a fickle, fickle person, and this may be the one and only post on the quest.
The second factor was an English class I took in college. The class itself wasn’t super inspiring in some ways (most people treated it the way most people treat book clubs; yeah, we’re here to talk about books, but does that really require reading them first? All the way to the end? Really?), but the professor and the books were great. I read and fell in love with Beloved and God of Small Things, two books I hadn’t planned to read before taking the class.
After graduating college and realizing that my life and mind were my own again, I wanted to use my new liberty to read voraciously books of my choosing. But I also wanted to continue to read authors and styles that I wouldn’t normally choose if I was basing my selections solely on what I thought I would like before even trying the book (it’s like eating; my life would be sadly falafel free if I didn’t try food that looked completely unappetizing at first; sometimes books are the same way).
The juxtaposition of these two factors gave rise to the quest. I’m currently reading book 157 (The Idiot), and am on schedule to finish by the time I am 35 if I keep to my 2010 (to date) pace. I likely won’t.
The Blog: When I explain the project to people, they always tell me I should write a blog about this. People keep saying that novels and print are dying, and now they say that blogs are, too, so why not bring them together? Really, I have no good reason for this and I expect I won’t keep it up. But now I can have a better response when people tell me to keep a Blog on the books I’ve read.
The Rules:
Rule Number One: If you start, you must finish.
This is the most important rule, and the foundation on which this whole project is based. Without it, everything crumbles. Just like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to never making it through the Russian masters is paved with letting yourself “come back to it later” (a phrase which I unapologetically put in quotation marks, because it really means, “never revisiting Larissa Feodorovna Guishar and trying to forget if we want the Reds or the Whites to win”).
Of course, rules are made to be broken, and in my next installment (the FAQ) I’ll write about the time (just once thus far) that I have broken this rule.
Rule Number Two: No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds.
So the whole canon of Edith Wharton is not on the list. So you’d rather read The Wind Done Gone than Margaret Mitchell’s (discouragingly) lengthy tome. So what? The Custom of the Country is not, and never will be, The Bunner Sisters. Get over it. This is not a quest to read books written by authors who appear on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, it’s a quest to read the list.
Rule Number Three: Books are not Movies
This one I think is pretty obvious, but clearly I actually have to read the book. The Wishbone adaptation and the Wikipedia article don’t cut it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still be facing Don Quixote.
Those are really it. The first one is the most significant. The other two are basic to the very spirit of the project. Everything else about how I tackle the list will be covered in the FAQ. Which I may never write, because I am a fickle, fickle person, and this may be the one and only post on the quest.
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