The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova, Little Brown and Company, 2005, 642 pp
I bought this book when it first came out but did not get around to reading it. Knowing that my husband liked Dracula stories, I gave it to him but he couldn't get into it, even though he read and liked Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke. Finally it got picked by one of my reading groups and I read it. I loved it!
Admittedly I found it hard to get going. In fact, I started over three times, because there are three over lapping stories and frankly, at first that is confusing. I also looked up all the words I didn't know and seriously used the map in the front of the book as well as an atlas. By then I was hooked on knowledge and began looking up important buildings and monuments on Wikipedia, which has fabulous photos for many of them.
I have always liked history and yearned to know it all, but most nonfiction history texts are to me, boring and dry in the extreme. I like learning history from historical novels (and really, if you read enough of them, you don't have to worry about inaccuracies too much.) Kostova made me work so hard that I felt virtuous learning history from her novel but truly she made me be a historian. That she interwove three deeply moving love stories as well as travelogue blended with mystery and danger, made reading all those pages pure pleasure for me.
I found it amusing that most of today's vampire novels, including the Twilight series, are vampire-light compared to the horror and evil of Kostova's Vlad Dracula. This guy is no Disney character and she leaves you wondering if his minions are possibly still with us in the world.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
THREE CUPS OF TEA
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin, Viking Penguin, 2006, 331 pp
I had to read this book for a reading group. I was not looking forward to it despite all the raves I had heard from customers and perhaps because of its bestseller status. Turns out it was great!
Greg Mortenson was a mountain climber who became a promoter of peace by deciding to build a school for a poor village in Pakistan. That decision, made after the villagers saved his life, turned into a lifelong commitment involving an unbelievable amount of work, energy, danger and frustration.
Because Mortenson is a man of action, the book is a combination of extreme adventure and social/historical commentary. Extreme adventure makes up the much bigger percentage and is the impetus for Mortenson and the reader.
I am glad I read it when I did because this summer of political conventions was not making me feel hopeful about my country or my world. Three Cups of Tea reminded me that politics and government have rarely brought about good for the world. It is the actions of people of goodwill that have created better conditions for their fellowman.
I had to read this book for a reading group. I was not looking forward to it despite all the raves I had heard from customers and perhaps because of its bestseller status. Turns out it was great!
Greg Mortenson was a mountain climber who became a promoter of peace by deciding to build a school for a poor village in Pakistan. That decision, made after the villagers saved his life, turned into a lifelong commitment involving an unbelievable amount of work, energy, danger and frustration.
Because Mortenson is a man of action, the book is a combination of extreme adventure and social/historical commentary. Extreme adventure makes up the much bigger percentage and is the impetus for Mortenson and the reader.
I am glad I read it when I did because this summer of political conventions was not making me feel hopeful about my country or my world. Three Cups of Tea reminded me that politics and government have rarely brought about good for the world. It is the actions of people of goodwill that have created better conditions for their fellowman.
Monday, October 20, 2008
AN OPEN BOOK
An Open Book, Michael Dirda, W W Norton & Company Inc, 2003, 322 pp
I read an inordinate amount of book reviews, partly because books are my passion and partly because I have come to be known as the "fiction expert" at the bookstore where I work and try to keep up on what's new and good. I have my likes and dislikes when it comes to reviews so I was pleased to discover a reviewer whom I could respect and even emulate.
Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize winning critic who writes for The Washington Post, one of the few remaining American newspapers that has a dedicated book review section. The Washington Post also employs another of my favorite authors and reviewers, Carolyn See. In an effort to improve my own reviewing skills and develop my own voice as a reviewer, I decided to study the experts.
An Open Book is Dirda's memoir of the reading life and the story of how he became a critic. I came away from this book with an image of a complete book nerd. I love book nerds. I am one. Dirda grew up in Lorain, Ohio (also the home of Toni Morrison), son of second generation immigrants: a Russian father and Slovakian mother. They were poor but literate and Michael was read to by his mother from a small collection of Golden Books, as was I.
He became the reader of the family, read indiscriminately from an early age, loved the little local library located in an old house and suffered from being accused of having his nose in a book all through his childhood. This is like a male version of me (he was born just a year after I was), except that his family was blue collar and mine was white collar middle class. I went to college all expenses paid by my parents and dropped out by junior year. Michael went on scholarship, worked hard and actually got an education.
Though there were some dull parts which dragged for me, though Mr Dirda has a careful, controlled style of writing, I was quite taken by his story. It has a bit of Elmer Gantry, a touch of Charles Dickens and a lot of the passion of someone who followed what he loved and figured out how to make it his life's work. He has also published two collections of his criticism, another volume about reading and of course, you can read his weekly reviews at washingtonpost.com.
I read an inordinate amount of book reviews, partly because books are my passion and partly because I have come to be known as the "fiction expert" at the bookstore where I work and try to keep up on what's new and good. I have my likes and dislikes when it comes to reviews so I was pleased to discover a reviewer whom I could respect and even emulate.
Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize winning critic who writes for The Washington Post, one of the few remaining American newspapers that has a dedicated book review section. The Washington Post also employs another of my favorite authors and reviewers, Carolyn See. In an effort to improve my own reviewing skills and develop my own voice as a reviewer, I decided to study the experts.
An Open Book is Dirda's memoir of the reading life and the story of how he became a critic. I came away from this book with an image of a complete book nerd. I love book nerds. I am one. Dirda grew up in Lorain, Ohio (also the home of Toni Morrison), son of second generation immigrants: a Russian father and Slovakian mother. They were poor but literate and Michael was read to by his mother from a small collection of Golden Books, as was I.
He became the reader of the family, read indiscriminately from an early age, loved the little local library located in an old house and suffered from being accused of having his nose in a book all through his childhood. This is like a male version of me (he was born just a year after I was), except that his family was blue collar and mine was white collar middle class. I went to college all expenses paid by my parents and dropped out by junior year. Michael went on scholarship, worked hard and actually got an education.
Though there were some dull parts which dragged for me, though Mr Dirda has a careful, controlled style of writing, I was quite taken by his story. It has a bit of Elmer Gantry, a touch of Charles Dickens and a lot of the passion of someone who followed what he loved and figured out how to make it his life's work. He has also published two collections of his criticism, another volume about reading and of course, you can read his weekly reviews at washingtonpost.com.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
SAVAGE GARDEN
Savage Garden, Mark Mills, G P Putnam's Sons, 2007, 335 pp
I will just say right up front that I did not enjoy this book. It got stellar reviews in all the right places and sounded great: "a darkly provocative mystery set in the Tuscany hills: the story of two murders four hundred years apart-and the ties that bind them together." (from the back cover of the paperback.) Unfortunately, though Mr Mills can put a sentence together, he is not a good writer.
The hero, Adam, is a young Cambridge scholar though really he is a slacker. He is assigned by his advisor to travel to Tuscany and write a scholarly article about a famous garden at Villa Docci. There he finds statues, grottoes, meandering streams, mythology, a fascinating older woman descended from an ancient Italian family and an even more fascinating young woman for whom he lusts. Sound good, no?
No. Boring actually. How could someone make such a thrilling collection of ingredients boring? It's a wonder.
I will just say right up front that I did not enjoy this book. It got stellar reviews in all the right places and sounded great: "a darkly provocative mystery set in the Tuscany hills: the story of two murders four hundred years apart-and the ties that bind them together." (from the back cover of the paperback.) Unfortunately, though Mr Mills can put a sentence together, he is not a good writer.
The hero, Adam, is a young Cambridge scholar though really he is a slacker. He is assigned by his advisor to travel to Tuscany and write a scholarly article about a famous garden at Villa Docci. There he finds statues, grottoes, meandering streams, mythology, a fascinating older woman descended from an ancient Italian family and an even more fascinating young woman for whom he lusts. Sound good, no?
No. Boring actually. How could someone make such a thrilling collection of ingredients boring? It's a wonder.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
WHAT I AM READING
My oh my. It has been two weeks since I have posted. Bad blogger.
But I have been reading, of course. And I have been writing! I mean real writing, not just my journal and my micro reviews. Because of the book on writing which I mentioned last time, I finally got going again on my novel, reworking the first chapter. I also helped a friend from one of my reading groups get her writing group going again by hosting it at my house. We had our first meeting last night and it was super great. Four out of five people read things and they were all good. I polished up the first half of a short story I had started long ago and now I am inspired (by their kind and helpful comments) to finish it and maybe even submit it somewhere.
Meanwhile I scaled the mountain of huge books and actually finished Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor. It was a bestseller in 1955 about a POW camp in Georgia during the Civil War. Gruesome, long but quite good. Then I read The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, which I had been wanting to read since it was published. After Andersonville at 760 pages, it was almost 100 pages shorter at 642, but dense, full of history and situated in eastern Europe, where my geography is sketchy at best. I learned lots but also loved the story. It is about the legend of Dracula and these are not your Stephenie Meyer vampires. Oh no.
I also read two other books from 1955 by Robert Heinlein and Norman Mailer and I am almost through one by Robert Penn Warren. Veering back and forth in a span of 50 years does make my head spin at times. Then there is the fact that I have been alive through all those years and more.
I still have not finished The Second Sex. Hopefully this week. Another goal this week is to finish the long overdue next chapter of my memoir. Why oh why do I have to go to work, cook, do laundry, etc, etc, etc?
As always, I would love to hear what you are reading. Has anyone read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle yet? Even more exciting to me is the new Toni Morrison which comes out in a few weeks I believe.
But I have been reading, of course. And I have been writing! I mean real writing, not just my journal and my micro reviews. Because of the book on writing which I mentioned last time, I finally got going again on my novel, reworking the first chapter. I also helped a friend from one of my reading groups get her writing group going again by hosting it at my house. We had our first meeting last night and it was super great. Four out of five people read things and they were all good. I polished up the first half of a short story I had started long ago and now I am inspired (by their kind and helpful comments) to finish it and maybe even submit it somewhere.
Meanwhile I scaled the mountain of huge books and actually finished Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor. It was a bestseller in 1955 about a POW camp in Georgia during the Civil War. Gruesome, long but quite good. Then I read The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, which I had been wanting to read since it was published. After Andersonville at 760 pages, it was almost 100 pages shorter at 642, but dense, full of history and situated in eastern Europe, where my geography is sketchy at best. I learned lots but also loved the story. It is about the legend of Dracula and these are not your Stephenie Meyer vampires. Oh no.
I also read two other books from 1955 by Robert Heinlein and Norman Mailer and I am almost through one by Robert Penn Warren. Veering back and forth in a span of 50 years does make my head spin at times. Then there is the fact that I have been alive through all those years and more.
I still have not finished The Second Sex. Hopefully this week. Another goal this week is to finish the long overdue next chapter of my memoir. Why oh why do I have to go to work, cook, do laundry, etc, etc, etc?
As always, I would love to hear what you are reading. Has anyone read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle yet? Even more exciting to me is the new Toni Morrison which comes out in a few weeks I believe.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
FALLING MAN
Falling Man, Don DeLillo, Scribner, 2007, 246 pp
For a long time, I could not bring myself to read any novel concerning 9/11. Even though I realize that it's what writers do (write about what goes on in the world) I felt a squeamish repugnance to the idea of turning that event into fiction. I broke through this objection when I read Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I truly admired.
I've never read Don DeLillo before and to his credit, he waited a full six years before publishing his 9/11 novel. According to what I gather about his earlier novels, he is a writer who was destined to write such a book. But you know what? I thought I was basically over the whole disturbing gory thing and that I had "moved on" to bemoaning our government's inept response. Well, I wasn't over it.
Falling Man put me right back there, watching those images over and over on TV and feeling the shock and awe which the terrorists clearly wanted Americans to feel. A man walks out of the first tower, covered in ash, wounded and disoriented. He keeps walking until he reaches the apartment of his wife and son, from whom he had separated some time earlier.
For the rest of the story this man, who of course was not in good shape beforehand, tries to find his way in his life. So does his wife, his son, his mother-in-law and various friends of his. None of them really do. The reactions of these people rang true to me. I realized that because I was not there in New York and in fact knew no one personally who suffered or died, I was detached. Possibly a huge percentage of Americans were also detached. As horrific as the TV news and images were, we are so inured to violence, destruction and war as delivered to us by the media, that it all seemed a bit unreal.
DeLillo has made it very real through these individual characters and their extremely personal feeling and thoughts and actions. Ultimately for these characters, a huge disconnection with their fellow man resulted. Some try to connect again, some give up and simply become more weird than they already were.
When I finished I was glad to be out of the story. It doesn't actually have a climax; it just ends. But now the story was in me and I was so thankful that I had a reading group to go to, to discuss, to get it out of my system, to process some of my emotion, to connect.
For a long time, I could not bring myself to read any novel concerning 9/11. Even though I realize that it's what writers do (write about what goes on in the world) I felt a squeamish repugnance to the idea of turning that event into fiction. I broke through this objection when I read Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I truly admired.
I've never read Don DeLillo before and to his credit, he waited a full six years before publishing his 9/11 novel. According to what I gather about his earlier novels, he is a writer who was destined to write such a book. But you know what? I thought I was basically over the whole disturbing gory thing and that I had "moved on" to bemoaning our government's inept response. Well, I wasn't over it.
Falling Man put me right back there, watching those images over and over on TV and feeling the shock and awe which the terrorists clearly wanted Americans to feel. A man walks out of the first tower, covered in ash, wounded and disoriented. He keeps walking until he reaches the apartment of his wife and son, from whom he had separated some time earlier.
For the rest of the story this man, who of course was not in good shape beforehand, tries to find his way in his life. So does his wife, his son, his mother-in-law and various friends of his. None of them really do. The reactions of these people rang true to me. I realized that because I was not there in New York and in fact knew no one personally who suffered or died, I was detached. Possibly a huge percentage of Americans were also detached. As horrific as the TV news and images were, we are so inured to violence, destruction and war as delivered to us by the media, that it all seemed a bit unreal.
DeLillo has made it very real through these individual characters and their extremely personal feeling and thoughts and actions. Ultimately for these characters, a huge disconnection with their fellow man resulted. Some try to connect again, some give up and simply become more weird than they already were.
When I finished I was glad to be out of the story. It doesn't actually have a climax; it just ends. But now the story was in me and I was so thankful that I had a reading group to go to, to discuss, to get it out of my system, to process some of my emotion, to connect.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
WORD OF THE DAY
Today's word is quiddity again read in the New York Times Book Review.
It has two definitions and the second definition fits the context in which I read it.
quiddity noun 1 the essential quality of a thing
2 a trifling distinction, quibble
from Middle Latin quidditas from Latin quid what, neuter of quis who
My sentence: Your quiddity about the sauce not being truly French cuisine didn't seem to hamper your enjoyment of it.
If you wish to contribute a sentence just click the comments button at the end of this post.
It has two definitions and the second definition fits the context in which I read it.
quiddity noun 1 the essential quality of a thing
2 a trifling distinction, quibble
from Middle Latin quidditas from Latin quid what, neuter of quis who
My sentence: Your quiddity about the sauce not being truly French cuisine didn't seem to hamper your enjoyment of it.
If you wish to contribute a sentence just click the comments button at the end of this post.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, Alfred A Knopf, 2008, 465 pp
This financial thriller, set in Sweden, has already been a bestseller in Europe. The author spent his life fighting racial and religious intolerance, exposing neofascism in Europe. He completed a trilogy of thrillers and then died in 2004. This is the first of the three novels and is written in a refreshing new style and voice while resting firmly in the Ludlum, Grisham, Baldacci thriller tradition.
The closest I've ever been to Sweden was a horrific 5 hour layover in Amsterdam airport on the way home from Paris last year, so I was initially challenged by unfamiliar names of streets, cities, persons, magazines, newspapers and other elements of modern Swedish life. But the story is exciting and smart and ultra modern, comprising a closed-room murder mystery, a dastardly financial villain, psychopathic descendants of Nazis and the girl in the title. She is in fact an extra mystery all in herself and as good as any heroine in a Neal Stephenson novel.
I could tell that it was a first novel, though that could be partly due to the translation, but except for a few clunky sections, Larsson dept me turning the pages. There is a decidedly European take on love and sex, again refreshing compared to the American psychosis of puritanism vs porn. I suspect a bit of hype in the title because I was let down by the ending as concerns the dragon tattooed girl, but presumably there will be more about her in the sequels.
This financial thriller, set in Sweden, has already been a bestseller in Europe. The author spent his life fighting racial and religious intolerance, exposing neofascism in Europe. He completed a trilogy of thrillers and then died in 2004. This is the first of the three novels and is written in a refreshing new style and voice while resting firmly in the Ludlum, Grisham, Baldacci thriller tradition.
The closest I've ever been to Sweden was a horrific 5 hour layover in Amsterdam airport on the way home from Paris last year, so I was initially challenged by unfamiliar names of streets, cities, persons, magazines, newspapers and other elements of modern Swedish life. But the story is exciting and smart and ultra modern, comprising a closed-room murder mystery, a dastardly financial villain, psychopathic descendants of Nazis and the girl in the title. She is in fact an extra mystery all in herself and as good as any heroine in a Neal Stephenson novel.
I could tell that it was a first novel, though that could be partly due to the translation, but except for a few clunky sections, Larsson dept me turning the pages. There is a decidedly European take on love and sex, again refreshing compared to the American psychosis of puritanism vs porn. I suspect a bit of hype in the title because I was let down by the ending as concerns the dragon tattooed girl, but presumably there will be more about her in the sequels.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
THE GOD OF ANIMALS
The God of Animals, Aryn Kyle, Scribner, 2007, 305 pp
This book was recommended to me by a co-worker at the bookstore, who is herself a budding writer. I loved it and will be putting it on my top favorites list for the year. It is a first novel and only strengthened my opinion that we are in a Golden Age of new novelists.
Alice Winston is 12 years old and lives a young life of quiet desperation on a run-down horse ranch in a small Colorado desert town. Her older sister, Alice's idol and and an excellent prize winning horse woman, has run off with a rodeo cowboy. The mother of the family has been bedridden with a case of postpartum depression, having rarely left her room since the day Alice was born.
As she tries to be the good daughter and right hand man to her overworked, demanding yet reticent father, Alice is looking, listening, actually lurking in life, trying to understand what the hell is going on. The author masterfully creates the environment of horse ranch and desert small town life juxtaposed with the new rich on the other irrigated side of town, who board their horses at the ranch and send their daughters for riding lessons.
I grew to love Alice and to feel her search for love and understanding like it was my own. Her tragedies, her moments of triumph and breakthroughs in figuring our what happened in her family are all revealed in a haunting prose, as spare as the desert, that is some of the most effortless reading I have done.
This book was recommended to me by a co-worker at the bookstore, who is herself a budding writer. I loved it and will be putting it on my top favorites list for the year. It is a first novel and only strengthened my opinion that we are in a Golden Age of new novelists.
Alice Winston is 12 years old and lives a young life of quiet desperation on a run-down horse ranch in a small Colorado desert town. Her older sister, Alice's idol and and an excellent prize winning horse woman, has run off with a rodeo cowboy. The mother of the family has been bedridden with a case of postpartum depression, having rarely left her room since the day Alice was born.
As she tries to be the good daughter and right hand man to her overworked, demanding yet reticent father, Alice is looking, listening, actually lurking in life, trying to understand what the hell is going on. The author masterfully creates the environment of horse ranch and desert small town life juxtaposed with the new rich on the other irrigated side of town, who board their horses at the ranch and send their daughters for riding lessons.
I grew to love Alice and to feel her search for love and understanding like it was my own. Her tragedies, her moments of triumph and breakthroughs in figuring our what happened in her family are all revealed in a haunting prose, as spare as the desert, that is some of the most effortless reading I have done.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
WORD OF THE DAY
Today's word is eremite, read in the New York Times Book Review. It means a religious recluse; a hermit. It comes from Middle English from Old French ermite, hermite.
My sentence: After years of prayer and meditation in a remote monastery, the eremite returned to a world changed beyond recognition.
Sentence anyone?
My sentence: After years of prayer and meditation in a remote monastery, the eremite returned to a world changed beyond recognition.
Sentence anyone?
BECOMING ABIGAIL
Becoming Abigail, Chris Abani, Akashic Books, 2006, 121 pp
In this novella, Abani's follow-up to Graceland, a young African woman is brought to London by her uncle and put into the sex trade. It is a harrowing story of loss and abuse set amid the ancient sites of modern day London. Through the eyes of Abigail, you see both the clash of culture as well as the universal theme of men using women.
It is beautifully written but highly disturbing. Even when Abigail finds love, it cannot save her. I am not sure I really liked it. One of the darkest stories I have ever read.
In this novella, Abani's follow-up to Graceland, a young African woman is brought to London by her uncle and put into the sex trade. It is a harrowing story of loss and abuse set amid the ancient sites of modern day London. Through the eyes of Abigail, you see both the clash of culture as well as the universal theme of men using women.
It is beautifully written but highly disturbing. Even when Abigail finds love, it cannot save her. I am not sure I really liked it. One of the darkest stories I have ever read.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
HOPE'S BOY
Hope's Boy, Andrew Bridge, Hyperion, 2008, 303 pp
Andrew Bridge was taken from his mother by Social Services in Los Angeles when he was seven years old and raised in foster care until he was 18. This is his memoir. He went on to become a lawyer all on his own efforts without help from anyone and is now an advocate for children in foster care.
As usual I tore through this book in 12 hours with only a break for making and eating dinner. I still don't understand my fascination for the orphan/abandoned child story. I've had it since I was five years old.
The writing is not great but it does the job. Bridge indulges in virtually no self pity. He emphasizes how he never stopped loving or missing his mother, who ended up in a mental health facility. He seems to be in favor of families staying together unless it is utterly impossible to help the family. I am starting to agree with this position and perhaps that is the direction my novel should take.
Andrew Bridge was taken from his mother by Social Services in Los Angeles when he was seven years old and raised in foster care until he was 18. This is his memoir. He went on to become a lawyer all on his own efforts without help from anyone and is now an advocate for children in foster care.
As usual I tore through this book in 12 hours with only a break for making and eating dinner. I still don't understand my fascination for the orphan/abandoned child story. I've had it since I was five years old.
The writing is not great but it does the job. Bridge indulges in virtually no self pity. He emphasizes how he never stopped loving or missing his mother, who ended up in a mental health facility. He seems to be in favor of families staying together unless it is utterly impossible to help the family. I am starting to agree with this position and perhaps that is the direction my novel should take.
Monday, September 08, 2008
WHAT I AM READING
I had a rough week in reading. I was doing OK on my 50 pages a day of The Second Sex but by Tuesday I just could not bring myself to read it. It is highly interesting though the writing style is a bit scholarly, but also highly disturbing. I found myself getting upset, angry, sad and just generally feeling sort of crazy, as I read about the history of woman in society, the patriarchal views and the myths of man toward woman. The worst part was noticing the ways I have fallen under the influence of it all. But then, that is part of my quest in writing the memoir; to discover my own journey to full self hood as a female.
Last Monday, I had an attack of book lust and went to a bookstore (not the one where I work). I bought a book about writing, a book on how to write biography and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman, who is married to Michael Chabon. I read a good deal of the book on writing and got inspired to work on my novel again, except then I did not write a word.
I also read a memoir about growing up and reading called An Open Book by Michael Dirda, one of my favorite book reviewers. Through the second half of the week I felt somewhat ill, due to either the heat or allergies or that ****ing sex book, who knows. Finally on Saturday, I cracked open The Second Sex and got going on it again. It is still disturbing but I can tell that I will get through it and be better for it.
I also read Three Cups of Tea in full this weekend and though I was prepared to be somewhat bored, I was fascinated. It is a great story, full of hope, and I learned much about Pakistan, Afghanistan, terrorists, Muslims, just the whole scene that we have been living in for seven years. How appropriate with September 11, 2008 coming up this week.
What have you been reading? I really want to know!
Last Monday, I had an attack of book lust and went to a bookstore (not the one where I work). I bought a book about writing, a book on how to write biography and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman, who is married to Michael Chabon. I read a good deal of the book on writing and got inspired to work on my novel again, except then I did not write a word.
I also read a memoir about growing up and reading called An Open Book by Michael Dirda, one of my favorite book reviewers. Through the second half of the week I felt somewhat ill, due to either the heat or allergies or that ****ing sex book, who knows. Finally on Saturday, I cracked open The Second Sex and got going on it again. It is still disturbing but I can tell that I will get through it and be better for it.
I also read Three Cups of Tea in full this weekend and though I was prepared to be somewhat bored, I was fascinated. It is a great story, full of hope, and I learned much about Pakistan, Afghanistan, terrorists, Muslims, just the whole scene that we have been living in for seven years. How appropriate with September 11, 2008 coming up this week.
What have you been reading? I really want to know!
MRS DALLOWAY
Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, Harcourt Inc, 1925, 190 pp
Mrs Dalloway is not a person I would care to know or hang out with, so despite my readiness to be impressed by Virginia Woolf's fiction, I found this book a long and sleepy go. The story covers one day in the life of Mrs Dalloway. She is giving a party in the evening in her home in London, a society affair, so we follow her through the day as she gets ready and through the party itself. A few other characters are also living through that day in London, though not all interact with Clarissa Dalloway.
One of these characters is Peter Walsh, a former flame whom Clarissa almost married 30 years earlier. You get back stories on all these characters which makes the one day a device for telling several stories at once and for taking up topics such as love, marriage, careers, society, politics and the Great War.
I was reminded most of Jane Austen in the style of writing and the subject matter, though the story is in the 20th century. According to the introduction to the edition I read (Harcourt Annotated, 2005), Woolf was part of a whole group of writers including T S Eliot, D H Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and James Joyce, who were each attempting to modernize poetry and the novel. Due to Sigmund Freud also publishing at that time, psychology was a big subject, though Woolf, who had mental issues herself, did not care for or respect her male doctors' application of psychology to her. This aversion comes through in Mrs Dalloway.
In any case, I have now read the book; I will read the rest of her fiction one day. I consider it part of my literary education. Since My Big Fat Reading Project begins in 1940, I have missed almost half of the 20th century, so I will have to fill that in eventually. Next in this particular study is to read The Hours by Michael Cunningham and then see the movie.
Here is a quote from Woolf's essay "How Should One Read a Book?: "The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions."
Mrs Dalloway is not a person I would care to know or hang out with, so despite my readiness to be impressed by Virginia Woolf's fiction, I found this book a long and sleepy go. The story covers one day in the life of Mrs Dalloway. She is giving a party in the evening in her home in London, a society affair, so we follow her through the day as she gets ready and through the party itself. A few other characters are also living through that day in London, though not all interact with Clarissa Dalloway.
One of these characters is Peter Walsh, a former flame whom Clarissa almost married 30 years earlier. You get back stories on all these characters which makes the one day a device for telling several stories at once and for taking up topics such as love, marriage, careers, society, politics and the Great War.
I was reminded most of Jane Austen in the style of writing and the subject matter, though the story is in the 20th century. According to the introduction to the edition I read (Harcourt Annotated, 2005), Woolf was part of a whole group of writers including T S Eliot, D H Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and James Joyce, who were each attempting to modernize poetry and the novel. Due to Sigmund Freud also publishing at that time, psychology was a big subject, though Woolf, who had mental issues herself, did not care for or respect her male doctors' application of psychology to her. This aversion comes through in Mrs Dalloway.
In any case, I have now read the book; I will read the rest of her fiction one day. I consider it part of my literary education. Since My Big Fat Reading Project begins in 1940, I have missed almost half of the 20th century, so I will have to fill that in eventually. Next in this particular study is to read The Hours by Michael Cunningham and then see the movie.
Here is a quote from Woolf's essay "How Should One Read a Book?: "The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
ALL ABOUT LULU
All About Lulu, Jonathan Evison, Soft Skull Press, 2008, 338 pp
I learned about this book in the Poets and Writers Magazine feature called "Page One," where they print the first sentence of several books. All About Lulu is a first novel by a young author and is excellent.
Will Miller, Jr, is the son of a body builder who used to be a hippie. (I love all these stories about kids raised by hippies and former hippies because of me and my kids.) Will is the wuss of the family while his younger twin brothers are sturdy and follow their dad into body building. But the mom dies when Will is 8, followed by a new wife who brings into the family her daughter Lulu. Will and Lulu are the same age and become best friends who fall in love as they reach puberty.
However there is a problem and a deep dark secret concerning Will and Lulu. The reader figures this out before Will does, but in the end that does not matter. This is Will's coming-of-age tale told by him and though Lulu, her mother and Big Bill have their own stories, these are all seen through Will's eyes.
All About Lulu is a tragedy, but is filled with humor, satire and an authentic hipness. I don't know how old Jonathan Evison is but he has not forgotten the teen experience, not one whit. He has also got the college years right. When the whole truth about Lulu comes out and Will gets his closure, at first I thought that section might have been better written. It was all so well, well. Then I realized that is the way it is at that age in the 21st century.
This is a very fine first novel. I eagerly await more from Evison and feel once again optimistic about the fiction of the future. (I sent Evison an email, which he answered, and he has another novel coming out in 2009!)
I learned about this book in the Poets and Writers Magazine feature called "Page One," where they print the first sentence of several books. All About Lulu is a first novel by a young author and is excellent.
Will Miller, Jr, is the son of a body builder who used to be a hippie. (I love all these stories about kids raised by hippies and former hippies because of me and my kids.) Will is the wuss of the family while his younger twin brothers are sturdy and follow their dad into body building. But the mom dies when Will is 8, followed by a new wife who brings into the family her daughter Lulu. Will and Lulu are the same age and become best friends who fall in love as they reach puberty.
However there is a problem and a deep dark secret concerning Will and Lulu. The reader figures this out before Will does, but in the end that does not matter. This is Will's coming-of-age tale told by him and though Lulu, her mother and Big Bill have their own stories, these are all seen through Will's eyes.
All About Lulu is a tragedy, but is filled with humor, satire and an authentic hipness. I don't know how old Jonathan Evison is but he has not forgotten the teen experience, not one whit. He has also got the college years right. When the whole truth about Lulu comes out and Will gets his closure, at first I thought that section might have been better written. It was all so well, well. Then I realized that is the way it is at that age in the 21st century.
This is a very fine first novel. I eagerly await more from Evison and feel once again optimistic about the fiction of the future. (I sent Evison an email, which he answered, and he has another novel coming out in 2009!)
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
THE ANGEL OF GALILEA
The Angel of Galilea, Laura Restrepo, Random House Inc, 1997, 193 pp
I have found a new author to love. She is Colombian, she is literary and political in life, but she has an element of the magical/spiritual in her writing.
In this novel, Mona is a frustrated journalist in Bogota, Columbia, making her living writing junk for a tabloid. When she is sent to cover sightings of an angel in the slums, she falls headlong into a whole other world, as well as headlong in love with the angel. The angel means many different things to many different people, as angels often do. Is he truly from God, a sexual deviant, a psychotic or the work of the devil?
In the process of trying to love and save this being, Mona is brought face to face with the evils and glories of life in her city and revives a certain deadness in her heart. I liked the several juxtapositions that Restrepo sets up as well as her humorous and pointed remarks about modern life in Columbia.
This is possibly her first novel (it is always hard to tell with foreign fiction) and she has at least five more which I look forward to reading.
I have found a new author to love. She is Colombian, she is literary and political in life, but she has an element of the magical/spiritual in her writing.
In this novel, Mona is a frustrated journalist in Bogota, Columbia, making her living writing junk for a tabloid. When she is sent to cover sightings of an angel in the slums, she falls headlong into a whole other world, as well as headlong in love with the angel. The angel means many different things to many different people, as angels often do. Is he truly from God, a sexual deviant, a psychotic or the work of the devil?
In the process of trying to love and save this being, Mona is brought face to face with the evils and glories of life in her city and revives a certain deadness in her heart. I liked the several juxtapositions that Restrepo sets up as well as her humorous and pointed remarks about modern life in Columbia.
This is possibly her first novel (it is always hard to tell with foreign fiction) and she has at least five more which I look forward to reading.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
WHAT I AM READING
I have been reading the books for 1955 (for My Big Fat Reading Project) since April of this year. My goal was to finish the list by the end of June. Ha. I still have 12 books to go. But I have made some progress since I returned from Michigan.
I read the Marcia Brown version of Cinderella which won the Caldecott Medal in 1955.
Arthur C Clarke died this year and reading about him and his work made me decide to add him to my list of sci fi authors. So I read my first book ever by him, Earthlight, published in 1955, which takes place on the moon. It was great.
The God of Animals, by Aryn Kyle, is a first novel and one of the best books I have read lately.
I power read through an advance readers copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stief Larsson, so I could post my opinion on BookBrowse.com (a very cool site about new books that come out.) It was entertaining and has a fantastic heroine. It publishes in September.
Falling Man by Don DeLillo was for one of my reading groups. It is about people in the aftermath of 9/11 and VERY disturbing. But finally I have read a book by this author.
For another reading group I read The Savage Garden by Mark Mills. It is supposed to be a literary mystery but it was BORING.
Last weekend I started work on the chapter about 1953 for my memoir, Reading For My Life, and realized that I had neglected to read The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir. She published the book in France in 1949, but it was released in English in America in 1953. At 720 pages, it is a tome, so I started the other day with a target to read 50 pages a day, which I have now done for three days in a row. Definitely not a page turner, but so amazing. She is one of the most intelligent writers I have read. Every woman needs to read this book.
Meanwhile I read The Talented Mr Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Wow. I loved the movie but the book is so much better. And I had not realized that she wrote it in 1955.
Tonight I will start Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor, which was #3 on the bestseller list for 1955 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. This one is 760 pages! Plus it is about a prisoner of war camp in the South during the Civil War. I'll have to read some chick lit after all this.
(Just so you don't think wrongly about me, the above reading was done over a three week period.)
So...what are you reading? Have you read any of the above books? Any recommendations? Can you tell I am hungry for comments?
I read the Marcia Brown version of Cinderella which won the Caldecott Medal in 1955.
Arthur C Clarke died this year and reading about him and his work made me decide to add him to my list of sci fi authors. So I read my first book ever by him, Earthlight, published in 1955, which takes place on the moon. It was great.
The God of Animals, by Aryn Kyle, is a first novel and one of the best books I have read lately.
I power read through an advance readers copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stief Larsson, so I could post my opinion on BookBrowse.com (a very cool site about new books that come out.) It was entertaining and has a fantastic heroine. It publishes in September.
Falling Man by Don DeLillo was for one of my reading groups. It is about people in the aftermath of 9/11 and VERY disturbing. But finally I have read a book by this author.
For another reading group I read The Savage Garden by Mark Mills. It is supposed to be a literary mystery but it was BORING.
Last weekend I started work on the chapter about 1953 for my memoir, Reading For My Life, and realized that I had neglected to read The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir. She published the book in France in 1949, but it was released in English in America in 1953. At 720 pages, it is a tome, so I started the other day with a target to read 50 pages a day, which I have now done for three days in a row. Definitely not a page turner, but so amazing. She is one of the most intelligent writers I have read. Every woman needs to read this book.
Meanwhile I read The Talented Mr Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Wow. I loved the movie but the book is so much better. And I had not realized that she wrote it in 1955.
Tonight I will start Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor, which was #3 on the bestseller list for 1955 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. This one is 760 pages! Plus it is about a prisoner of war camp in the South during the Civil War. I'll have to read some chick lit after all this.
(Just so you don't think wrongly about me, the above reading was done over a three week period.)
So...what are you reading? Have you read any of the above books? Any recommendations? Can you tell I am hungry for comments?
WORD OF THE DAY
These word of the day posts are a bit hard to do and I have been lazy. Actually I have been reading, but I have put this off for too long, thinking that it takes up too much of my time. But for readers and writers alike, building vocabulary is key. Do you agree?
Today's word is pilaster and comes from page 16 of Children of Men by PD James. (She, by the way, gave me 8 words to look up in the first 98 pages.) This is a word that I have read and not known (except that it is something on a building) for years, so I finally got honest and looked it up.
pilaster noun
a rectangular support or pier projecting partially from a wall and treated architecturally as a column, with a base, shaft and capital.
derived from the French, pilastre from the Italian pila, a pile, column
My sentence: She dreamed of a room with four pilasters on each wall, every one of which was painted a different color.
Please feel free to leave your sentence in the comments.
Today's word is pilaster and comes from page 16 of Children of Men by PD James. (She, by the way, gave me 8 words to look up in the first 98 pages.) This is a word that I have read and not known (except that it is something on a building) for years, so I finally got honest and looked it up.
pilaster noun
a rectangular support or pier projecting partially from a wall and treated architecturally as a column, with a base, shaft and capital.
derived from the French, pilastre from the Italian pila, a pile, column
My sentence: She dreamed of a room with four pilasters on each wall, every one of which was painted a different color.
Please feel free to leave your sentence in the comments.
A SLIPPING DOWN LIFE
A Slipping Down Life, Anne Tyler, Alfred A Knopf, 1970, 186 pp
This is Tyler's third novel and reads somewhat like an early novel, yet has her signature characters: people who live just outside the mainstream.
Evie Decker is a plump, motherless high school girl in a small town. She becomes, in her own detached way, infatuated with a local rock singer. As the story goes on she gets increasingly involved in Drumstrings Casey's life. Nothing really bad ever happens to her but there is a sort of underlying menace throughout the story. Evie is smart and fearless but also pretty clueless so you fear for her.
I was intrigued and pulled along all the way. There is just no one quite like Anne Tyler. And there is a movie!
This is Tyler's third novel and reads somewhat like an early novel, yet has her signature characters: people who live just outside the mainstream.
Evie Decker is a plump, motherless high school girl in a small town. She becomes, in her own detached way, infatuated with a local rock singer. As the story goes on she gets increasingly involved in Drumstrings Casey's life. Nothing really bad ever happens to her but there is a sort of underlying menace throughout the story. Evie is smart and fearless but also pretty clueless so you fear for her.
I was intrigued and pulled along all the way. There is just no one quite like Anne Tyler. And there is a movie!
Friday, August 29, 2008
THE BOOK OF AIR AND SHADOWS
The Book of Air and Shadows, Michael Gruber, William Morrow, 2007, 466 pp
I admit it. Sometimes I pick a book because of its title. This one was promoted as being a smart thriller. Well, yes, it had plenty of smart people in it, including a compulsively philandering intellectual properties lawyer, his perfect wife who made millions as a financial advisor, his brilliant but fairly autistic son, a Shakespeare scholar, etc.
It is a thriller combined with a sort of literary style and quite a scathing wit. The book is all about the plot, which I won't go into except to say that various people are after a supposedly never before seen Shakespeare play. (Worth millions of course.) It was the plot that kept me reading; its many twists kept me guessing right until the final page. The characters, the wit, and the info on Shakespeare dressed it up. Really nothing wrong, though it was a bit wordy for a pleasure read, which it was clearly meant to be. I think I was hoping for another Shadow of the Wind, but I didn't get that.
I admit it. Sometimes I pick a book because of its title. This one was promoted as being a smart thriller. Well, yes, it had plenty of smart people in it, including a compulsively philandering intellectual properties lawyer, his perfect wife who made millions as a financial advisor, his brilliant but fairly autistic son, a Shakespeare scholar, etc.
It is a thriller combined with a sort of literary style and quite a scathing wit. The book is all about the plot, which I won't go into except to say that various people are after a supposedly never before seen Shakespeare play. (Worth millions of course.) It was the plot that kept me reading; its many twists kept me guessing right until the final page. The characters, the wit, and the info on Shakespeare dressed it up. Really nothing wrong, though it was a bit wordy for a pleasure read, which it was clearly meant to be. I think I was hoping for another Shadow of the Wind, but I didn't get that.
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