Again, in no particular order (I'd find it hard to put these in order; sad that only four are by women)
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Plague – Albert Camus
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
First runner up: Silk – Alessandro Baricco
So, yeah, go read these! But remember how I feel about skills at recommending books.
Showing posts with label Virginia Woolfe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virginia Woolfe. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Why I try to avoid recommending books
I think I have pretty unusual, and at times a bit morbid, taste in books. These two books are good examples of works that I loved, but that I'd be hesitant about recommending to the general populous. Both are really excellent! But maybe not for everyone.
The first was a bit of a surprise for me, because generally I am not a Virginia Woolf fan (bad feminist!). That said, I absolutely loved The Waves. For a one-word descriptor, I'd choose transcendent. It's very unconventional, and accentuates that impressionistic quality of Woolf's. Though that sometimes (usually) bothers me, in this case it worked. The novel follows the inner lives of several friends as they intersect and then cascade away throughout their lives from childhood to adulthood. The characters do not speak in the usual sense; instead, we hear their inner monologues.
Here is a favorite quote: “He will forget me. He will leave my letters lying about among guns and dogs unanswered. I shall send him poems and he will perhaps reply with a picture post card. But it is for that that I love him. I shall propose meeting – under a clock, by some Cross; and shall wait, and he will not come. It is for that that I love him. Oblivious, almost entirely ignorant, he will pass from my life. And I shall pass, incredible as it seems, into other lives; this is only an escapade, perhaps, a prelude only.”
The second one, Time's Arrow, sort of sounds horrifying when you just read the summary. It's about a Nazi doctor who was at Auschwitz as told through the perspective of this alter ego who is in his body but disconnected from his mind/thoughts. The kicker is that the alter ego is experiencing the life of the protagonist backwards, starting with death and working back through his years living in the U.S. undercover as a doctor at a hospital, hurtling of course towards the years at the concentration camp. Doesn't that just sound delightful?
So, it's obviously a difficult read (though a super fast one, too) raising a number of difficult issues, but it's really, really amazing. Holocaust novels are a genre in and of themselves, of course, and it can feel like a cheap shot at making something "meaningful" and "important" (there's a reason there was that Kate Winslet skit about the Oscars). This one, though, doesn't fall in that trap. Through this incredibly strange narrative device, it brings a unique perspective to many of questions. The narrator truly is experiencing everything backwards, so during the years at the hospital he sees the doctor as taking healthy people and breaking them; at the concentration camp, he experiences the crematoriums as taking ash and turning it into people. It's disturbing, yes, but also gets at you in ways that more conventional and trite works certainly do not.
But yes, this is why I shy away from making recommendations.
The first was a bit of a surprise for me, because generally I am not a Virginia Woolf fan (bad feminist!). That said, I absolutely loved The Waves. For a one-word descriptor, I'd choose transcendent. It's very unconventional, and accentuates that impressionistic quality of Woolf's. Though that sometimes (usually) bothers me, in this case it worked. The novel follows the inner lives of several friends as they intersect and then cascade away throughout their lives from childhood to adulthood. The characters do not speak in the usual sense; instead, we hear their inner monologues.
Here is a favorite quote: “He will forget me. He will leave my letters lying about among guns and dogs unanswered. I shall send him poems and he will perhaps reply with a picture post card. But it is for that that I love him. I shall propose meeting – under a clock, by some Cross; and shall wait, and he will not come. It is for that that I love him. Oblivious, almost entirely ignorant, he will pass from my life. And I shall pass, incredible as it seems, into other lives; this is only an escapade, perhaps, a prelude only.”
The second one, Time's Arrow, sort of sounds horrifying when you just read the summary. It's about a Nazi doctor who was at Auschwitz as told through the perspective of this alter ego who is in his body but disconnected from his mind/thoughts. The kicker is that the alter ego is experiencing the life of the protagonist backwards, starting with death and working back through his years living in the U.S. undercover as a doctor at a hospital, hurtling of course towards the years at the concentration camp. Doesn't that just sound delightful?
So, it's obviously a difficult read (though a super fast one, too) raising a number of difficult issues, but it's really, really amazing. Holocaust novels are a genre in and of themselves, of course, and it can feel like a cheap shot at making something "meaningful" and "important" (there's a reason there was that Kate Winslet skit about the Oscars). This one, though, doesn't fall in that trap. Through this incredibly strange narrative device, it brings a unique perspective to many of questions. The narrator truly is experiencing everything backwards, so during the years at the hospital he sees the doctor as taking healthy people and breaking them; at the concentration camp, he experiences the crematoriums as taking ash and turning it into people. It's disturbing, yes, but also gets at you in ways that more conventional and trite works certainly do not.
But yes, this is why I shy away from making recommendations.
Friday, July 1, 2011
How Strange
Some books simply are not cut out to have back of the book descriptions. I think these are two good examples.
The first, Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, according to the back of the book, is about a 16th century nobleman, who over the course of the story will become a 20th century woman. Indeed.
The second, The Blind Assassin, starts out describing the suicide of a young woman in the 1950s in Canada, before jumping to the alien planet Zycron. Yep.
That said, I actually enjoyed both a great deal. I have some issues with Woolf, but I found Orlando to be her most readable and enjoyable. This may be due to it being less melancholy than your average Woolf. It is strange, but overall it works surprisingly well, and it raises some interesting questions about gender, sexuality, and identity (fluidity is sort of the theme).
Similarly, I found The Blind Assassin to be one of the more enjoyable Atwood's that I have read (though I confess the aliens didn't due too much for me). It's an interesting one structurally, certainly, and the twists work. I think Iris is a bit of a polarizing character, and your enjoyment likely will depend on how well you can take her.
The first, Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, according to the back of the book, is about a 16th century nobleman, who over the course of the story will become a 20th century woman. Indeed.
The second, The Blind Assassin, starts out describing the suicide of a young woman in the 1950s in Canada, before jumping to the alien planet Zycron. Yep.
That said, I actually enjoyed both a great deal. I have some issues with Woolf, but I found Orlando to be her most readable and enjoyable. This may be due to it being less melancholy than your average Woolf. It is strange, but overall it works surprisingly well, and it raises some interesting questions about gender, sexuality, and identity (fluidity is sort of the theme).
Similarly, I found The Blind Assassin to be one of the more enjoyable Atwood's that I have read (though I confess the aliens didn't due too much for me). It's an interesting one structurally, certainly, and the twists work. I think Iris is a bit of a polarizing character, and your enjoyment likely will depend on how well you can take her.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
No One Likes the British or Buses
I know that in the past I have complained about (or at least made frequent note of) instances where the two books I am set to write about have nothing in coming, thus making a coherent post challenging. These two really do have nothing in common, but in some ways they are ripe for comparison because they could hardly be more different from a style perspective.
Castle Richmond is pretty much exactly what you think a mid 19th century British novel should be. It is self-consciously a novel, the author talks to the reader and makes comments about himself, acknowledging that this is a story, a constructed world. It's your classic love story with decaying aristocracy, over-bearing relatives, sinister and scheming characters who get what they deserve, and lots of life of leisure events like day-long picnic excursions and parties. Everything is, of course, resolved by the right people marrying each other. Hooray!
Jacob's Room, however, is nothing like that. It's not even really a story. When reading Woolf, it always helps me to remember this article I read that talks about her novels as being very impressionistic. I'm not a Woolf fan, but coming from that lens helps me appreciate her, and that was particularly the case for this one. The world is constructed and conveyed in that impressionistic style, and to the extent that we ever get close to the titular character, he is similarly constructed. I don't think that I got too much out of this one, since existential angst doesn't do a ton for me. But I always like reading about British people going to Italy.
Back to Castle Richmond for a small bone to pick (or really not so small, but I'm letting it go): Trollope describes Clara as the heroine of the story, but that is far from the word I would use. She doesn't get to do anything except sit around and wait for all the people in her life to work out whom she should marry. Seriously. Yes, she is sort of the eye of the hurricane of the story in many ways, but she is not a heroine. She's less developed and interesting than your average Disney princess.
Castle Richmond is pretty much exactly what you think a mid 19th century British novel should be. It is self-consciously a novel, the author talks to the reader and makes comments about himself, acknowledging that this is a story, a constructed world. It's your classic love story with decaying aristocracy, over-bearing relatives, sinister and scheming characters who get what they deserve, and lots of life of leisure events like day-long picnic excursions and parties. Everything is, of course, resolved by the right people marrying each other. Hooray!
Jacob's Room, however, is nothing like that. It's not even really a story. When reading Woolf, it always helps me to remember this article I read that talks about her novels as being very impressionistic. I'm not a Woolf fan, but coming from that lens helps me appreciate her, and that was particularly the case for this one. The world is constructed and conveyed in that impressionistic style, and to the extent that we ever get close to the titular character, he is similarly constructed. I don't think that I got too much out of this one, since existential angst doesn't do a ton for me. But I always like reading about British people going to Italy.
Back to Castle Richmond for a small bone to pick (or really not so small, but I'm letting it go): Trollope describes Clara as the heroine of the story, but that is far from the word I would use. She doesn't get to do anything except sit around and wait for all the people in her life to work out whom she should marry. Seriously. Yes, she is sort of the eye of the hurricane of the story in many ways, but she is not a heroine. She's less developed and interesting than your average Disney princess.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
List from the List!
Some authors appear on this list a lot. An awful lot. Here is how many I still have to read for some of those repeat offenders.
Phillip Roth = 4
Kurt Vonnegut = 1
Henry James <1 (since I’m reading the final one for him at the moment; fist pump!)
Charles Dickens = 2 (fist pump!)
J.M. Coetzee = 5 (gulp)
Salman Rushdie = 3
Virginia Woolf = 7 (gulp)
Ian McEwan = 3
Kazuo Ishiguro = 2
Margaret Atwood = 3
D.H. Lawrence = 3
Phillip Roth = 4
Kurt Vonnegut = 1
Henry James <1 (since I’m reading the final one for him at the moment; fist pump!)
Charles Dickens = 2 (fist pump!)
J.M. Coetzee = 5 (gulp)
Salman Rushdie = 3
Virginia Woolf = 7 (gulp)
Ian McEwan = 3
Kazuo Ishiguro = 2
Margaret Atwood = 3
D.H. Lawrence = 3
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Cider House Rules; To the Lighthouse (and a little Little Dorrit)
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.
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.
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