Title: When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly
Author: Oliver Goldsmith
About: Poetry, Old Writing
Old poetry is scary. Sometimes it says very uncomfortable things that speak of a world you really don't want to live in. I thought I'd share one of these with you. It's long been out of copyright, so in its entirety it goes like this:
When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly
by Oliver Goldsmith (ca. 1730-1774)
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her love,
And wring his bosom—is to die.
I highly doubt anybody killed women who ran off with their lovers, or that they killed themselves automatically, but it's a nice reminder of how nice it is to be able to call friends, rant about things going sour, grab a drink, and then move on, with none thinking the worse of you.
Also, when people claim that old times were better, more chivalrious and how nice it would have been to live in the past?... Remind me to bring up this poem.
Friday 2 December 2011
Sunday 27 November 2011
"Comes out of Darkness Morn" - Lightning on the Wave
Title: Comes out of Darkness Morn
Author: Lightning on the Wave
About the Book: Pure Awesome, Fiction, Fanfiction, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
My rating: 10/10.
Fandom: Harry Potter
The third in Lightning on the Waves' Sacrifices series. The first was, of course, Saving Connor.
As time goes by, the series changes in flavor. While "Saving Connor" is where the story properly begins, I think "Comes out of Darkness Morn" is the point which actually makes the Sacrifices series what it is: a grim, realistic, strong story. A story in which good characters fall for good reasons, in which delusion shows itself as a major reason for turning 'evil'.
In later parts Harry will demand that his allies think. It's here that we see why: mindless obedience, the tendency to hide one's problems, the tendency to objectify others turn into Big Issues naturally. Some authors would slam their opinions into us like anvils. Lightning on the Wave shows the underdog, shows the functioning of well-intended, badly misled individuals so that they can be understood. Dumbledore becomes a very tangible antagonist from within the school, Harry's brother Connor makes the wrong decisions for the right reasons.
Every character is justified. Voldemort doesn't have just a few plans, but many of them, spreading throughout the series, plans which aren't discovered or foiled as easily as all that. The threat is not just implied, it is very much present. And not only is it present, it's very relatable.
This is the turning point for Harry in this series, where he decides what his further actions, his further life, shall be like. And in the mean time, we have Dementors, Sirius, Peter Pettigrew, some more Voldemort, Albus playing the villain, Lily Potter being very, very scary, Child Services and any number of exciting things.
"No Mouth But Some Serpent's" - Lightning on the Wave
Title: No Mouth But Some Serpent's
Author: Lightning on the Wave
About the Book: Pure Awesome, Fiction, Fanfiction, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
My rating: 10/10.
Fandom: Harry Potter
This is of course a continuation of "Saving Connor". It is an Alternate Universe of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". It retains some of the elements there, though deliciously twisted.
Unfortunately, to say too much about it would spoil the first part. Let me see if I can find some intrguing things that aren't spoilers.
For the first part, it contains one of my favorite characters in the series, Sylarana. She is... well, she would probably like anybody to say that she is the prettiest, most astonishing, most amazing snake in the entire world. Her desire to be admired probably surpasses Lochkart's own, although hers can be forgiven because she's not a blind idiot. If given a choice, she'd probably be a Mary Sue. She isn't, of course, because the world doesn't agree with her being quite that astonishing, but I've enjoyed many a bout of narcissism from her. And many of her threats to bite people.
"I require someone to care for me, to burnish my scales and tell me I am beautiful and feed me the choicest bits of their food. I like eggs. And milk. And the flesh of birds. And sweets. And—"
This is also the book where, if you haven't realized that there's something very wrong with Harry, you do realize it now. His psychology is messed up beyond the point where if there was a nagging feeling before that somehow the author had messed up and exaggerated things, you realize that it's Harry who is messed up and has exaggerated psychology - for a very good reason, too, that looms darker and darker over the horizon.
And other people notice.
But it's also a book in which the main characters are still children. There are pranks involved, and Lockhart is at the butt of a very satisfying one concerning his most prized possession.
At the same time, one of the things I really appreciate in Lightning's writing is that threats are actually threats. In the canon series there are periods of time when problems seem far off, when studies are the biggest issues. When the attacks upon students happen, the threat seems controlled. Here?... You get the feeling, and for a good reason, that things are much more dangerous than in Rowling's "Chamber of Secrets".
Oh, and Dumbledore?... He gets to be much, much worse than Voldemort at times.
Author: Lightning on the Wave
About the Book: Pure Awesome, Fiction, Fanfiction, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
My rating: 10/10.
Fandom: Harry Potter
This is of course a continuation of "Saving Connor". It is an Alternate Universe of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". It retains some of the elements there, though deliciously twisted.
Unfortunately, to say too much about it would spoil the first part. Let me see if I can find some intrguing things that aren't spoilers.
For the first part, it contains one of my favorite characters in the series, Sylarana. She is... well, she would probably like anybody to say that she is the prettiest, most astonishing, most amazing snake in the entire world. Her desire to be admired probably surpasses Lochkart's own, although hers can be forgiven because she's not a blind idiot. If given a choice, she'd probably be a Mary Sue. She isn't, of course, because the world doesn't agree with her being quite that astonishing, but I've enjoyed many a bout of narcissism from her. And many of her threats to bite people.
"I require someone to care for me, to burnish my scales and tell me I am beautiful and feed me the choicest bits of their food. I like eggs. And milk. And the flesh of birds. And sweets. And—"
"I am not going to take care of you!" Harry hissed back at her, and for a moment, he thought he heard his voice the way she must be hearing it, full of intricate twists and turns and soft sibilants. It was certainly not speaking English.
He blocked the thought from his mind. He was not evil. He would not let himself be.
"Yes, you are," said the Locusta. "I've watched you. Your dearest possession is that lump of a boy who shares your nest. If you do not take care of me, I will bite him."
She becomes one of the closest creatures to Harry, so much so that she actually twines inside his mind. As far as familiars go, she's one of the best. I wonder if she lampshades Mary Sues.This is also the book where, if you haven't realized that there's something very wrong with Harry, you do realize it now. His psychology is messed up beyond the point where if there was a nagging feeling before that somehow the author had messed up and exaggerated things, you realize that it's Harry who is messed up and has exaggerated psychology - for a very good reason, too, that looms darker and darker over the horizon.
And other people notice.
But it's also a book in which the main characters are still children. There are pranks involved, and Lockhart is at the butt of a very satisfying one concerning his most prized possession.
At the same time, one of the things I really appreciate in Lightning's writing is that threats are actually threats. In the canon series there are periods of time when problems seem far off, when studies are the biggest issues. When the attacks upon students happen, the threat seems controlled. Here?... You get the feeling, and for a good reason, that things are much more dangerous than in Rowling's "Chamber of Secrets".
Oh, and Dumbledore?... He gets to be much, much worse than Voldemort at times.
Tuesday 22 November 2011
"The Eyre Affair" - Jasper Fforde
Title: The Eyre Affair
Author: Jasper Fforde
About the Book: Alternate Universe, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Meta
My rating: 10/10.
The protagonist is called Thursday Next. I usually don't judge a book by its cover, or protagonist name, but the main character here is Thursday Next. And she has a dodo bird from one of the first generations they cloned.
That actually says a lot.
The universe is very alternate in this book. Wales is a country of its own, Russia and England are still fighting the cold war and have been fighting it for the past century. Everybody reads and lives literature vicariously - there's even a device that can put people in literary texts.
It's a book so wonderfully in between genres that it somehow got published by one of the Romanian mainstream publishing houses, next to Isabel Allende's works, Milan Kundera's and so on. It has a note of realistic seriosity, many action-like twists, British silly humor and a convoluted plot.
And the world! Travelling in books is involved, as is time travelling. People have Very Serious Standing Points about whether Shakespeare authored his own texts or not and there are some sects that travel from door to door to convert people to their points of view. "Janey Eyre" ends with the protagonist going off to India to help her cousin with his missionary work and most people agree it's a bad ending to an otherwise good book. There are marvelous details in there.
The plot is filled with action - secret agents, an evil villain, old loves, new love, mystery and twists at every turn. Thursday, a Crimean War veteran and a literary detective (can you hear me gasp in geeky pleasure?) investigates the theft of the original manuscript of "Martin Chuzzlewit", which leads to her being integrated into some more secret agent-y circles of the government and to her getting into a bit of a conflict with the huge, nigh all-politically powerful Goliath Corporation. And meeting Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester.
Packed with nonsensical humor, sensical humor and much fun. A total recommendation (if it's your kind of thing).
Find it here.
Author: Jasper Fforde
About the Book: Alternate Universe, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Meta
My rating: 10/10.
The protagonist is called Thursday Next. I usually don't judge a book by its cover, or protagonist name, but the main character here is Thursday Next. And she has a dodo bird from one of the first generations they cloned.
That actually says a lot.
The universe is very alternate in this book. Wales is a country of its own, Russia and England are still fighting the cold war and have been fighting it for the past century. Everybody reads and lives literature vicariously - there's even a device that can put people in literary texts.
It's a book so wonderfully in between genres that it somehow got published by one of the Romanian mainstream publishing houses, next to Isabel Allende's works, Milan Kundera's and so on. It has a note of realistic seriosity, many action-like twists, British silly humor and a convoluted plot.
And the world! Travelling in books is involved, as is time travelling. People have Very Serious Standing Points about whether Shakespeare authored his own texts or not and there are some sects that travel from door to door to convert people to their points of view. "Janey Eyre" ends with the protagonist going off to India to help her cousin with his missionary work and most people agree it's a bad ending to an otherwise good book. There are marvelous details in there.
The plot is filled with action - secret agents, an evil villain, old loves, new love, mystery and twists at every turn. Thursday, a Crimean War veteran and a literary detective (can you hear me gasp in geeky pleasure?) investigates the theft of the original manuscript of "Martin Chuzzlewit", which leads to her being integrated into some more secret agent-y circles of the government and to her getting into a bit of a conflict with the huge, nigh all-politically powerful Goliath Corporation. And meeting Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester.
Packed with nonsensical humor, sensical humor and much fun. A total recommendation (if it's your kind of thing).
Find it here.
Saturday 19 November 2011
"Botchan" - Natsume Soseki
Title: Botchan
Author: Natsume Soseki
Translator: Matt Treyvaud
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, Awesomeness.
My rating: 10/10.
I've just mentioned Soseki being one of the few Japanese authors in my bibliography that I could read. Well, this book is definitely one of my favorites - for two reasons.
1. It's awesome.
2. The translation by Matt Treyvaud is more than awesome. (the link is at the bottom of this post)
The story in itself is fast-paced, funny, full of intrigue. The main character is a teacher who stumbles into a small town school to teach maths and falls into the world of students who prank, teachers who intrigue and people who just plainly need nicknames which he offers freely.
The title, Botchan, means 'little master' and it's offered to the main character by his loving old maid, who is certain that he is something special and wonderful and a gift to the world. The reader might be less sure about that, since Botchan is quite flawed, but he happens to be delightfully flawed. There's a very human element to his story, while it still keeps a light-hearted tone.
"I have no idea why, but the old lady just adored me. It was a total mystery. My mother had gotten sick of me three days before she died, my father never knew what to do with me, and the whole town called me devil-boy, but Kiyo thought I was the greatest."
And thus the reckless boy who manages to get through college and then acquire a job continues to be seen through life: something that's not quite within the lines of what he's supposed to be, something a bit out of the usual. Reckless? Devil? Greatest? Non-compromising? Well, I was fond of him, I'll tell you that.
While my colleagues from the same literature class were wading their way through a rough Romanian translation, I found Treyvaud's version and loved it to pieces. It's fresh, it's readable, it sounds English, not English made to break in all the wrong places to imitate Japanese and it's wonderfully full of life. There's a free translation available online, but it doesn't hold a candle to Treyvaud's.
From the translator's introduction:
"I gave Botchan himself the voice of the Platonic Ideal of the Assistant English Teacher in Japan blowing off steam: profane and outraged, hilariously aggrieved. As part of that milieu myself, I decided that too much polish would probably work against what I wanted to do, so I decided to translate the whole book in a month. And finally, I did virtually all of the work while drunk."
And that, my friends, is what gives it its perfection in this English version.
You can get it here.
Author: Natsume Soseki
Translator: Matt Treyvaud
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, Awesomeness.
My rating: 10/10.
I've just mentioned Soseki being one of the few Japanese authors in my bibliography that I could read. Well, this book is definitely one of my favorites - for two reasons.
1. It's awesome.
2. The translation by Matt Treyvaud is more than awesome. (the link is at the bottom of this post)
The story in itself is fast-paced, funny, full of intrigue. The main character is a teacher who stumbles into a small town school to teach maths and falls into the world of students who prank, teachers who intrigue and people who just plainly need nicknames which he offers freely.
The title, Botchan, means 'little master' and it's offered to the main character by his loving old maid, who is certain that he is something special and wonderful and a gift to the world. The reader might be less sure about that, since Botchan is quite flawed, but he happens to be delightfully flawed. There's a very human element to his story, while it still keeps a light-hearted tone.
"I have no idea why, but the old lady just adored me. It was a total mystery. My mother had gotten sick of me three days before she died, my father never knew what to do with me, and the whole town called me devil-boy, but Kiyo thought I was the greatest."
And thus the reckless boy who manages to get through college and then acquire a job continues to be seen through life: something that's not quite within the lines of what he's supposed to be, something a bit out of the usual. Reckless? Devil? Greatest? Non-compromising? Well, I was fond of him, I'll tell you that.
While my colleagues from the same literature class were wading their way through a rough Romanian translation, I found Treyvaud's version and loved it to pieces. It's fresh, it's readable, it sounds English, not English made to break in all the wrong places to imitate Japanese and it's wonderfully full of life. There's a free translation available online, but it doesn't hold a candle to Treyvaud's.
From the translator's introduction:
"I gave Botchan himself the voice of the Platonic Ideal of the Assistant English Teacher in Japan blowing off steam: profane and outraged, hilariously aggrieved. As part of that milieu myself, I decided that too much polish would probably work against what I wanted to do, so I decided to translate the whole book in a month. And finally, I did virtually all of the work while drunk."
And that, my friends, is what gives it its perfection in this English version.
You can get it here.
"I Am a Cat" - Natsume Soseki
Title: I am a Cat
Author: Natsume Soseki
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, The Narrator is a Cat (and how cool is that?)
My rating: 9/10.
There were a number of writers that I was required to read for my Japanese literature class for my undergraduate studies. Natsume Soseki was one whom I actually enjoyed. He combines Japanese finesse with just enough plot, just enough twists and turns that you end up enjoying yourself quite a lot (especially when you have a good translation).
"I Am a Cat" is a pretty self-describing title. The narrator, of course, is a cat. But not just any sort of cat. The Japanese for that phrase is "Wagahai ha neko de aru", which translates pompously. This isn't a cat. This is a Cat speaking to you, you poor, deluded mortal. You have no idea who you're dealing with.
The Cat is witty, cinical, observing the world around him - which contains such people as the professor whose house he lives in - with quite a bit of grandiloquence and irony. However, make no mistake. This isn't Disney and it isn't about the Cat, or any cat's view on the world. This is a satire of Japanese society, of humans and their follies and of people generally take themselves too seriously.
There is no particular plot to be followed, but there are a few happenings in the humans' lives that interconnect and reoccurring characters that have a bit of fun poked at them.
I'd give it a 10/10, but it does seem to rant a bit too much at times.
It can be bought here.
Author: Natsume Soseki
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, The Narrator is a Cat (and how cool is that?)
My rating: 9/10.
There were a number of writers that I was required to read for my Japanese literature class for my undergraduate studies. Natsume Soseki was one whom I actually enjoyed. He combines Japanese finesse with just enough plot, just enough twists and turns that you end up enjoying yourself quite a lot (especially when you have a good translation).
"I Am a Cat" is a pretty self-describing title. The narrator, of course, is a cat. But not just any sort of cat. The Japanese for that phrase is "Wagahai ha neko de aru", which translates pompously. This isn't a cat. This is a Cat speaking to you, you poor, deluded mortal. You have no idea who you're dealing with.
The Cat is witty, cinical, observing the world around him - which contains such people as the professor whose house he lives in - with quite a bit of grandiloquence and irony. However, make no mistake. This isn't Disney and it isn't about the Cat, or any cat's view on the world. This is a satire of Japanese society, of humans and their follies and of people generally take themselves too seriously.
There is no particular plot to be followed, but there are a few happenings in the humans' lives that interconnect and reoccurring characters that have a bit of fun poked at them.
I'd give it a 10/10, but it does seem to rant a bit too much at times.
It can be bought here.
Tuesday 15 November 2011
"Saving Connor" - Lightning on the Wave
Title: Saving Connor
Author: Lightning on the Wave
About the Book: Pure Awesome, Fiction, Fanfiction, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
My rating: 10/10.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Lightning on the Wave deserves an amazing introduction - unfortunately, relatively little is known about her. I have heard that others pieced together that she was studying for her Ph.D. and teaching some university-level classes a few years back and I've seen her mentioning a Ph.D. somewhere. This is the curse of fanfiction authors: they are here, then they are gone. It's not a curse upon their heads, but upon the heads of their readers. You can never quite keep track and all you have is amazing stories to testify that they exist.
"Saving Connor" is the first part of a series of 7 AUs (each corresponding, like the canon, to a school year). James and Lily Potter are still alive. Harry has a twin brother, Connor, who is the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry has his lightning bolt-shaped scar from canon, but Connor has a heart-shaped scar that shows off his status. Sirius and Remus are quite well and Peter Pettigrew is in Azkaban. Coming to this story from canon, it looks like your basic dream-fulfilment story. Except Lightning has a way of twisting dreams into nightmares.
The characters are amazingly built. Connor is a carefree heroic type, not very bright and very blunt, living his childhood. Harry, a quiet, studious type, loves him to pieces and will protect him and give him a happy life at all costs - and you will come to hate this love along with many other characters before "Saving Connor" is done. Lily is sweetness personified, Albus is a shrewd leader, James is as shiny as a nice Gryffindor should be. With these patterns in mind, Lightning dances around expectations, revealing new facets underneath masks.
You can find it here.
Author: Lightning on the Wave
About the Book: Pure Awesome, Fiction, Fanfiction, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
My rating: 10/10.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Lightning on the Wave deserves an amazing introduction - unfortunately, relatively little is known about her. I have heard that others pieced together that she was studying for her Ph.D. and teaching some university-level classes a few years back and I've seen her mentioning a Ph.D. somewhere. This is the curse of fanfiction authors: they are here, then they are gone. It's not a curse upon their heads, but upon the heads of their readers. You can never quite keep track and all you have is amazing stories to testify that they exist.
"Saving Connor" is the first part of a series of 7 AUs (each corresponding, like the canon, to a school year). James and Lily Potter are still alive. Harry has a twin brother, Connor, who is the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry has his lightning bolt-shaped scar from canon, but Connor has a heart-shaped scar that shows off his status. Sirius and Remus are quite well and Peter Pettigrew is in Azkaban. Coming to this story from canon, it looks like your basic dream-fulfilment story. Except Lightning has a way of twisting dreams into nightmares.
The characters are amazingly built. Connor is a carefree heroic type, not very bright and very blunt, living his childhood. Harry, a quiet, studious type, loves him to pieces and will protect him and give him a happy life at all costs - and you will come to hate this love along with many other characters before "Saving Connor" is done. Lily is sweetness personified, Albus is a shrewd leader, James is as shiny as a nice Gryffindor should be. With these patterns in mind, Lightning dances around expectations, revealing new facets underneath masks.
First line of the book: "What are your vows, Harry?"
I thought I saw where this was going from the beginning. I thought this was going to be an overly-long series about Harry Potter always being in the shadows and Connor taking the spotlight. I thought Harry and Lily had a conspiracy going to save the world and that it would go on forever.
I was wrong.
Harry knew what they were, even though he was only five. He whispered them as his mother held him over his brother's bed, and his mother said them with him, murmured hypnotic words that Harry had heard his whole life.
This first book in the series follows the plot of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" closely enough, but you still have hints of things that are entirely different. Holes that JK Rowling left open in the originals are now filled.
Why do pureblooded wizards despise wizards born out of normal families?... Because purebloods have their own, very rich culture, centering on magic and rituals and they believe that outsiders are threatening this. Why is Lucius Malfoy such a stuck-up? It's part of his Dark culture, complete with facade. As the story goes by it becomes clearer and clearer that the magical world has its very clear subtle lines, courtesies, practices which are visibile to those who are born into it, invisible to outsiders, who then look like fools.
There are also some very significant differences between the canon and "Saving Connor", new meanings added to events which start adding up to a feeling of wrongness which will eventually get explained (in the next part of the series), but which is not at all accidental. After all, mostly all the scenes are written from Harry Potter's third person POV, which means that somewhere... in there... there is a problem.
"The unicorn was a sacrifice. He'd been a sacrifice, in Lily's terms, even though he didn't think of himself that way; he was just making sure that Connor got to enjoy a chance in the sun that would otherwise be snatched away, and unfairly.
And he loved his brother enough to lie for him, and to burn a troll for him, and to let a unicorn die for him."
It's an engaging story, with an occasional snippet of humor that strikes gold. Again, the characters are very well-developed and Narcissa is one of my favorites in this series. The take on Dumbledore will (eventually) change your views on him forever and even Voldemort manages to be more purely evil than in the original. Another bonus point is that there is very little left to chance and victories happen with any amount of preparation and care taken in advance. Battles between strong wizards are indeed impressive, violent scenes are just as violent as they need to be, politics with its conflicting interests is very well described.
A ten out of ten for style, plot, ideas, background culture, characterizations and generally everything. Including being annoying in all the right places to show that people aren't always perfect or smart, but not annoying enough to make you stop reading.
You can find it here.
Wednesday 9 November 2011
"Ivanhoe" - Sir Walter Scott
Title: Ivanhoe
Author: Sir Walter Scott
About the Book: Historical, adventuring, classic, Robin Hood, knights!
My rating: 9/10.
To clear matters up: this book is doubly historical. One: it's written in 1819, which is long enough ago to be part of history rather than part of the now. Two: it takes place in the 12th century.
A lot of people back in the day seemed to really love Scott and considered him some sort of god of writing, at least from what I gather. He's been credited with making people think of the Medieval Age in that warm, fuzzy feeling sort of way which we have now. He pretty much invented historical novels as we know them. That's something, y'know? I'm not one to say "critics consider this cool, therefore I must praise it", but I factor their opinion in.
So Ivanhoe. It's got knights running all over the scenery, doing what knights do best. Namely, fighting. And there's politics involved, doing what politics does best: complicate matters in cool ways. And there's a few ladies who do more than just sit pretty, which is always a plus in my book when it comes to Medieval Age damsels.
There's a lot of interesting characters there. The protagonist, Ivanhoe, is a nice, righteous sort of man, the exact type which you think of when you think of a knight. It's the classic sort of protagonist, but it works, since you can actually feel him, his struggles and his quest. His love interest, Lady Rowena, is a noble lady of Saxon origin (12th century, remember? It was right after the Norman conquest, when people weren't the English we know today) who is to be married for political interests to a guy who's about as thrilled about the entire thing as she is. In my book, that adds to the realism of the book: there's no clear sides here, rather many people acting according to their own varied beliefs. Rowena doesn't love the guy, the guy doesn't want to become a Saxon figurehead and Rowena's adoptive sort-of dad (Cedric, Ivanhoe's real dad) is what would be a nationalist, if nationalism existed back then.
Robin Hood also makes an appearance. While I wasn't particularly thrilled by him - I feel his character isn't quite as well-developed as it could've been - I loved Friar Tuck. His double role as clergyman and Robin's helper translates as almost a show of double personality. (wiki now tells me that later Robin Hoods borrowed much from Ivanhoe. I suppose the more complex adaptations that didn't exist at the time cast him in shadow now)
On the high politics level, King Richard and Prince John are nicely antithetical to each other: Richard is indeed courageous and worthy of his "Lion-Hearted" nickname, but also careless about his kingly duties; while Prince John is weak and power-hungry. Indeed, what they have in common seems to be a single trait: they can't rule England worth a damn.
Minor characters are also delightful, whether we're talking about the fool Wamba, whose foolishness remains to be debated, or the Jewish Issac who fits every stereotype of Jews ever, only to have that image of his ethnic group thoroughly deconstructed by his daughter, Rebecca, who is as great a lady as Rowena in her own right - and a very strong character.
The plot is nicely twisting and turning, the question being mostly not about the destination, which might be guessed from the premises, but about the road taken in getting there. The characters live and breathe and interact with each other wonderfully.
9/10 because the style isn't what today's readers are accustomed with, so it might not be easy to understand what Scott's saying at times.
Find it here for free.
Author: Sir Walter Scott
About the Book: Historical, adventuring, classic, Robin Hood, knights!
My rating: 9/10.
To clear matters up: this book is doubly historical. One: it's written in 1819, which is long enough ago to be part of history rather than part of the now. Two: it takes place in the 12th century.
A lot of people back in the day seemed to really love Scott and considered him some sort of god of writing, at least from what I gather. He's been credited with making people think of the Medieval Age in that warm, fuzzy feeling sort of way which we have now. He pretty much invented historical novels as we know them. That's something, y'know? I'm not one to say "critics consider this cool, therefore I must praise it", but I factor their opinion in.
So Ivanhoe. It's got knights running all over the scenery, doing what knights do best. Namely, fighting. And there's politics involved, doing what politics does best: complicate matters in cool ways. And there's a few ladies who do more than just sit pretty, which is always a plus in my book when it comes to Medieval Age damsels.
There's a lot of interesting characters there. The protagonist, Ivanhoe, is a nice, righteous sort of man, the exact type which you think of when you think of a knight. It's the classic sort of protagonist, but it works, since you can actually feel him, his struggles and his quest. His love interest, Lady Rowena, is a noble lady of Saxon origin (12th century, remember? It was right after the Norman conquest, when people weren't the English we know today) who is to be married for political interests to a guy who's about as thrilled about the entire thing as she is. In my book, that adds to the realism of the book: there's no clear sides here, rather many people acting according to their own varied beliefs. Rowena doesn't love the guy, the guy doesn't want to become a Saxon figurehead and Rowena's adoptive sort-of dad (Cedric, Ivanhoe's real dad) is what would be a nationalist, if nationalism existed back then.
Robin Hood also makes an appearance. While I wasn't particularly thrilled by him - I feel his character isn't quite as well-developed as it could've been - I loved Friar Tuck. His double role as clergyman and Robin's helper translates as almost a show of double personality. (wiki now tells me that later Robin Hoods borrowed much from Ivanhoe. I suppose the more complex adaptations that didn't exist at the time cast him in shadow now)
On the high politics level, King Richard and Prince John are nicely antithetical to each other: Richard is indeed courageous and worthy of his "Lion-Hearted" nickname, but also careless about his kingly duties; while Prince John is weak and power-hungry. Indeed, what they have in common seems to be a single trait: they can't rule England worth a damn.
Minor characters are also delightful, whether we're talking about the fool Wamba, whose foolishness remains to be debated, or the Jewish Issac who fits every stereotype of Jews ever, only to have that image of his ethnic group thoroughly deconstructed by his daughter, Rebecca, who is as great a lady as Rowena in her own right - and a very strong character.
The plot is nicely twisting and turning, the question being mostly not about the destination, which might be guessed from the premises, but about the road taken in getting there. The characters live and breathe and interact with each other wonderfully.
9/10 because the style isn't what today's readers are accustomed with, so it might not be easy to understand what Scott's saying at times.
Find it here for free.
Monday 7 November 2011
"The Lake" - Banana Yoshimoto
Title: The Lake
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
About the Book: Japan, Art, Strangeness, Delicacy, Mysterious Past
My rating: 8.5/10.
As with many other books, your mileage may vary on this one. Even more so if you start reading in the wrong key. It starts out with a somewhat romance-like setting, which can be quite deceptive.
I went into it not expecting anything, so I had the chance to be quite pleasantly surprised. The writing style is light and delicate and strange. It feels airy and relaxed. I like listening to Chihiro's thoughts - still a bit of a child at heart, essentially uncertain of herself, but wonderfully accepting of other people and very relaxed.
Nakajima, the man who she enters into a strange relationship with, is strange. I can't properly feel him throughout the book, which may be what the author was trying to do. He is closed off and just *there* as somebody who needs acceptance and not much else. He reminds me of a cactus, somehow. Low-maintenance, arid looks.
As secondary characters, Mino and Chii, siblings taken right out of the supernatural realm, are delightful. They have an air of magical realism about them - there's always the question whether they're for real or not, but they fit right in "The Lake"'s world without much fuss.
The ending, where the mystery that is hinted at from the very beginning, is unraveled, feels to me somewhat blunt and sketchy. It is dark, contrasting with the wonderful lightness of the rest of the book - this wouldn't be a problem. However, it's explained in Nakajima's words and his voice doesn't charm me as much as Chihiro's, feeling somewhat too dry and artificial. I like it, but I also don't. The story is interesting, but the style detracts from it.
Anyway, it's a book I'd definitely recommend. Now I want to find "Kitchen", the Banana Yoshimoto book I was looking for when I found this.
You can get it here.
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
About the Book: Japan, Art, Strangeness, Delicacy, Mysterious Past
My rating: 8.5/10.
As with many other books, your mileage may vary on this one. Even more so if you start reading in the wrong key. It starts out with a somewhat romance-like setting, which can be quite deceptive.
I went into it not expecting anything, so I had the chance to be quite pleasantly surprised. The writing style is light and delicate and strange. It feels airy and relaxed. I like listening to Chihiro's thoughts - still a bit of a child at heart, essentially uncertain of herself, but wonderfully accepting of other people and very relaxed.
Nakajima, the man who she enters into a strange relationship with, is strange. I can't properly feel him throughout the book, which may be what the author was trying to do. He is closed off and just *there* as somebody who needs acceptance and not much else. He reminds me of a cactus, somehow. Low-maintenance, arid looks.
As secondary characters, Mino and Chii, siblings taken right out of the supernatural realm, are delightful. They have an air of magical realism about them - there's always the question whether they're for real or not, but they fit right in "The Lake"'s world without much fuss.
The ending, where the mystery that is hinted at from the very beginning, is unraveled, feels to me somewhat blunt and sketchy. It is dark, contrasting with the wonderful lightness of the rest of the book - this wouldn't be a problem. However, it's explained in Nakajima's words and his voice doesn't charm me as much as Chihiro's, feeling somewhat too dry and artificial. I like it, but I also don't. The story is interesting, but the style detracts from it.
Anyway, it's a book I'd definitely recommend. Now I want to find "Kitchen", the Banana Yoshimoto book I was looking for when I found this.
You can get it here.
"Confessions of a Mask" - Yukio Mishima
Title: Confessions of a Mask
Author: Yukio Mishima
About the Book: Japan, Angst, Homosexuality, Perversions
My rating: 10/10.
I haven't read a Japanese book in awhile, but I picked this one up. I'm strangely glad I did. Mishima is a very strong author, uncompromising, thoughtful but without falling into the trap of over-thinking what he writes.
Kochan, the protagonist and narrator, is a strange, intellectual creature. He studies himself, turns himself on all sides, then shows the results to his audience, not asking for any reaction at all. He doesn't complain about his problems, nor is he proud about them. He seems to be alone, talking to himself from somewhere just outside of a society that he acts for in order to exist. Having the double misfortune of being both a homosexual and perverted - associating sex with violence and death - there's no chance of confessing to anyone but the silent reader.
This inner monologue, which is knife-sharp with honesty, explains how he came to be. As a child, he had strange reactions when seeing torn princes in fairy tales, Saint Sebastian pierced by arrows and other violent art. Then he switches his subject matter and remembers the women in his life - just two of them. The second of which he tried very much to be straight with, hoping that he would become so with the first kiss - and failing.
A very lonely book, very honest, suffering quietly and doing nothing to ask for help. It left me at the end with a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, of quiet resignation.
I loved it, even if I didn't expect to.
Odd.
You can find it here.
Author: Yukio Mishima
About the Book: Japan, Angst, Homosexuality, Perversions
My rating: 10/10.
I haven't read a Japanese book in awhile, but I picked this one up. I'm strangely glad I did. Mishima is a very strong author, uncompromising, thoughtful but without falling into the trap of over-thinking what he writes.
Kochan, the protagonist and narrator, is a strange, intellectual creature. He studies himself, turns himself on all sides, then shows the results to his audience, not asking for any reaction at all. He doesn't complain about his problems, nor is he proud about them. He seems to be alone, talking to himself from somewhere just outside of a society that he acts for in order to exist. Having the double misfortune of being both a homosexual and perverted - associating sex with violence and death - there's no chance of confessing to anyone but the silent reader.
This inner monologue, which is knife-sharp with honesty, explains how he came to be. As a child, he had strange reactions when seeing torn princes in fairy tales, Saint Sebastian pierced by arrows and other violent art. Then he switches his subject matter and remembers the women in his life - just two of them. The second of which he tried very much to be straight with, hoping that he would become so with the first kiss - and failing.
A very lonely book, very honest, suffering quietly and doing nothing to ask for help. It left me at the end with a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, of quiet resignation.
I loved it, even if I didn't expect to.
Odd.
You can find it here.
"The Beautiful Lie" - Dracoqueen22
Title: The Beautiful Lie
Author: Dracoqueen22
About the Book: Fiction, Fanfiction, Slash, Romance, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
Warning: Gay sex?...
My rating: 9,5/10.
Fandom: Bleach
This is a gem of a story and no doubt about it. The first chapter was published on the 24th of April '09 and the last on the 3rd of November '11, spanning controversies and stronger spirits in between, while the author danced most wonderful pirouettes above and beyond her readers' expectations.
It's slow-paced and leisurely as far as the actual actions of the characters are concerned, but inside their psyches many, many, many things happen. And that, among other things, makes it impossibly exciting.
"When Ichigo comes home from classes that afternoon, there is a dead man sitting at his dining room table," says the first sentence. The dead man is Aizen Sousuke, presumed dead after the shinigami war that Ichigo had won for the shinigami. Now he's very much alive and kicking, but powerless. And he wants Ichigo to take his place and try to conquer the world. Meanwhile, Ichigo, scarred and tired after the war, has wrapped himself up in a lie: that of living a normal, ordinary life.
The story follows Ichigo as he finds himself pushed more and more towards just that course of events, Aizen who tags along, and Urahara Kisuke, who become fugitives. It shifts from POV to POV with grace, giving insights of the three's psyches: Ichigo at the middle, Aizen on the one side, hating Urahara, Urahara on the other side, hating Aizen. At times, interludes about other characters are written by a different hand than Draco's: Lady Azar, a very good writer herself, gives insights into others' lives.
This is where the controversy springs: Urahara and Aizen are so entirely opposed to one another that it's hard not to take a side. The greatness of Draco's writing is that she manages to balance their good and bad traits so well that the two parties of story readers are pretty much evenly split.
From one point of view, Aizen is a ruthless tyrant, who caused a war that got many people killed and who tried to instate himself as the king of the world; he is unapologetic, cold, detached, still pursuing his goal even if he projects it on Ichigo. Urahara is a faithful person, who stuck by Ichigo, helped him in trouble, fought on the right side of the war and never had dreams of grandeur. During the war or after, he has been there for Ichigo.
From the other point of view, Aizen is a strong, determined character. On realizing that Soul Society was corrupt and rotten to the core, he challenged it through lies, deceit and betrayal, trying to take it over to make it better. If he does not apologize - and indeed he would do the same again - it is because he truly believes in his cause; if he used lies and deceit, that is because those are among his methods. In this version, Urahara is weak and unable to face the harder truths of reality. He is unable to get over his feud with Aizen (more visibly than Aizen is unable to get over the feud with him), he doesn't say or do the right things at the right time. He was part of the corrupt society that Aizen fought against, an unquestioning part that killed when it was told to and asked no questions, probably not willing to face the answers.
Both are true, both are false, and there's something to be said about the middle.
Draco plays reader expectations like Edvin Marton plays his Stradivarius violin: skilfully, gracefully, with talent and determination and awesomeness.
While I don't want to spoil the ending, I would like to say that I think it's marvelously crafted. I have strong opinions about the solution she proposes and I applaud it when I see it is well done, with delicacy and very satisfying psychological reasoning in getting there.
Another aspect I'd like to mention is that Draco is one of those writers whose erotica is excellent. Not only does it do what erotica is meant to do - titillate (I like that word) - but it also serves a purpose in the text. If Draco has an erotic moment in her writings, you can be assured that it means something. It is an expression of the characters, a communication between them, something that adds to the relationship. You don't feel it's there for the gratification of the reader: it's there because you cannot omit it without losing part of the story. Elegant, with a point, with feeling.
If there is one aspect that made me not give it a perfect mark, it is that towards the end the story seemed to lose some of its texture and become slightly more sketched. However, 'slightly less good' in the case of awesomeness is decidedly still very good.
You can find it here.
Author: Dracoqueen22
About the Book: Fiction, Fanfiction, Slash, Romance, Psychological (I don't know what else to call it)
Warning: Gay sex?...
My rating: 9,5/10.
Fandom: Bleach
This is a gem of a story and no doubt about it. The first chapter was published on the 24th of April '09 and the last on the 3rd of November '11, spanning controversies and stronger spirits in between, while the author danced most wonderful pirouettes above and beyond her readers' expectations.
It's slow-paced and leisurely as far as the actual actions of the characters are concerned, but inside their psyches many, many, many things happen. And that, among other things, makes it impossibly exciting.
"When Ichigo comes home from classes that afternoon, there is a dead man sitting at his dining room table," says the first sentence. The dead man is Aizen Sousuke, presumed dead after the shinigami war that Ichigo had won for the shinigami. Now he's very much alive and kicking, but powerless. And he wants Ichigo to take his place and try to conquer the world. Meanwhile, Ichigo, scarred and tired after the war, has wrapped himself up in a lie: that of living a normal, ordinary life.
The story follows Ichigo as he finds himself pushed more and more towards just that course of events, Aizen who tags along, and Urahara Kisuke, who become fugitives. It shifts from POV to POV with grace, giving insights of the three's psyches: Ichigo at the middle, Aizen on the one side, hating Urahara, Urahara on the other side, hating Aizen. At times, interludes about other characters are written by a different hand than Draco's: Lady Azar, a very good writer herself, gives insights into others' lives.
This is where the controversy springs: Urahara and Aizen are so entirely opposed to one another that it's hard not to take a side. The greatness of Draco's writing is that she manages to balance their good and bad traits so well that the two parties of story readers are pretty much evenly split.
From one point of view, Aizen is a ruthless tyrant, who caused a war that got many people killed and who tried to instate himself as the king of the world; he is unapologetic, cold, detached, still pursuing his goal even if he projects it on Ichigo. Urahara is a faithful person, who stuck by Ichigo, helped him in trouble, fought on the right side of the war and never had dreams of grandeur. During the war or after, he has been there for Ichigo.
From the other point of view, Aizen is a strong, determined character. On realizing that Soul Society was corrupt and rotten to the core, he challenged it through lies, deceit and betrayal, trying to take it over to make it better. If he does not apologize - and indeed he would do the same again - it is because he truly believes in his cause; if he used lies and deceit, that is because those are among his methods. In this version, Urahara is weak and unable to face the harder truths of reality. He is unable to get over his feud with Aizen (more visibly than Aizen is unable to get over the feud with him), he doesn't say or do the right things at the right time. He was part of the corrupt society that Aizen fought against, an unquestioning part that killed when it was told to and asked no questions, probably not willing to face the answers.
Both are true, both are false, and there's something to be said about the middle.
Draco plays reader expectations like Edvin Marton plays his Stradivarius violin: skilfully, gracefully, with talent and determination and awesomeness.
While I don't want to spoil the ending, I would like to say that I think it's marvelously crafted. I have strong opinions about the solution she proposes and I applaud it when I see it is well done, with delicacy and very satisfying psychological reasoning in getting there.
Another aspect I'd like to mention is that Draco is one of those writers whose erotica is excellent. Not only does it do what erotica is meant to do - titillate (I like that word) - but it also serves a purpose in the text. If Draco has an erotic moment in her writings, you can be assured that it means something. It is an expression of the characters, a communication between them, something that adds to the relationship. You don't feel it's there for the gratification of the reader: it's there because you cannot omit it without losing part of the story. Elegant, with a point, with feeling.
If there is one aspect that made me not give it a perfect mark, it is that towards the end the story seemed to lose some of its texture and become slightly more sketched. However, 'slightly less good' in the case of awesomeness is decidedly still very good.
You can find it here.
"813" - Maurice Leblanc
Title: 813
Author: Maurice Leblanc
About the Book: Fiction, Comedy, Adventure, Thievery, Disguise, Mystery!
My rating: 9/10.
Arsene Lupin! Gods, I love this guy. A charming, intelligent, moral thief who has adventures and whatnot. A master of disguise, of trickery, of drama, of jokes - and since we all have weaknesses, one of mine is tricksters. When I saw "813" in a second hand bookshop, I whisked it away in my backpack and ran home with it (after paying for it, of course).
"813" didn't disappoint. I'm afraid I can't discuss the plot, since any discussion whatsoever would lead to spoilers. There's twists and turns at every step and you never know exactly where you land. To give you a flavor of things, Arsene Lupin is accused of murder, which is the one things he never does. So with the police at his back, he rushes forward to find the real criminals and discover the answer behind the mystery of a young man and an important note saying simply '813'.
There's international politics involved and a bit of a French 'take that!' against Sherlock Holmes. For some strange reason, while his name in the original French (and in my translated Romanian) is Herlock Sholmes, in English they translated it as Holmlock Shears. Translators. Go figure.
So it's a thrilling, light-hearted adventure, cheery, fast-paced, engaging. The only reason why I didn't give it a 10/10 is because the style is somewhat sketched and jolted and despite my fangirl enthusiasm about Lupin, it kept nagging at me during my reading. But that's a small fault.
You can find it for free here.
Author: Maurice Leblanc
About the Book: Fiction, Comedy, Adventure, Thievery, Disguise, Mystery!
My rating: 9/10.
Arsene Lupin! Gods, I love this guy. A charming, intelligent, moral thief who has adventures and whatnot. A master of disguise, of trickery, of drama, of jokes - and since we all have weaknesses, one of mine is tricksters. When I saw "813" in a second hand bookshop, I whisked it away in my backpack and ran home with it (after paying for it, of course).
"813" didn't disappoint. I'm afraid I can't discuss the plot, since any discussion whatsoever would lead to spoilers. There's twists and turns at every step and you never know exactly where you land. To give you a flavor of things, Arsene Lupin is accused of murder, which is the one things he never does. So with the police at his back, he rushes forward to find the real criminals and discover the answer behind the mystery of a young man and an important note saying simply '813'.
There's international politics involved and a bit of a French 'take that!' against Sherlock Holmes. For some strange reason, while his name in the original French (and in my translated Romanian) is Herlock Sholmes, in English they translated it as Holmlock Shears. Translators. Go figure.
So it's a thrilling, light-hearted adventure, cheery, fast-paced, engaging. The only reason why I didn't give it a 10/10 is because the style is somewhat sketched and jolted and despite my fangirl enthusiasm about Lupin, it kept nagging at me during my reading. But that's a small fault.
You can find it for free here.
"White Teeth" - Zadie Smith
Title: White Teeth
Author: Zadie Smith
About the Book: Fiction, Comedy, Immigrants
My rating: 7/10.
I would enthuse wildly, but there's nothing to enthuse about. I would bash, but there's not much to bash. I'm pretty much 'meh' about this book. I expected more.
The first time I saw White Teeth it was in a huge ad on the side of my favorite bookstore. I looked at it, read whatever was written underneath and decided it was probably a serious book about racial issues, so I wasn't really interested. Incidentally, I was wrong about the first part. The book's a comedy through and through. But it's still about racial issues.
So eventually, when it was one of the options on my reading list for a Master's class and one of my colleagues recommended it with approximately the same enthusiasm I save for my own very dearest books, I decided I'd give it a try. The many favorable blurbs and awards were also in its favor.
First impression: the cover was impossibly colorful. Second impression: the way the book starts is light, humorous. Perhaps a bit too much, just like the colors of the cover. I like my books to have realism, to delve into the psychology of characters, to sparkle. I want to feel that things are real even when they're entirely unrealistic - which is what the first pages of the book entirely failed to do. Still, a deliberate lack of realism is a style in itself, so I tried to get over my disappointment.
The plot starts with Archie Jones, a 47 year-old man who intends to commit suicide by gassing himself. However, he is interrupted because he parked in such a way as to impede the delivery to a butcher's. Quote from the book: "'No one gasses himself on my property,' Mo snapped as he marched downstairs. 'We are not licensed.'" Archie realizes that he actually wants to leave, ends up at a New Year's party, where he meets the 19 year-old Clara, a beautiful black Jamaican whose teeth were knocked out in a motorcycle accident, and they marry in no time because she comes from a Jehova's Witnesses family and her upbringing gets her to somehow decide that she wants this man and she needs to marry him.
Mostly, the first part of the book feels like a rushed comedy. Imitated accents, characters sketched rather than portrayed, all sorts of unrealistic happenings, weird tics, but a humor that saves the day, I suppose. I can understand the appeal the book had to the critics: post-modernism, today's cultural movement, is intensely political. It just loves its minorities, colonials, race differences, culture clash and whatnot, sometimes to the point where the art trails behind the ideology. And if it's something this book has, it's minorities (religious, cultural, racial). There's Jamaicans and Jews, English and Bangladeshi, black, white, Islam, Jehova's Witnesses, scientists and just people off the street... It seems to have everything. For the first hundred pages, my question was just "Why?" The plot was contrived, the characters flat, everything essentially seemed to be there just to make the cultural clash humor go on.
Later, however, Smith starts to get into it. Her characters gain some weight, some greater motivation, some personality. Not a lot, mind you. Just enough so they can function as people and you can understand their motivation and their decisions. You can feel life seeping into these people, mostly when the second generation - Archie's daughter and his best friend's twin sons - come into play. The characters start bouncing off on each other in all sorts of ways, children get 'adopted' by other parents, while those parents tend to ignore their own offspring, there's a generation clash, much sexuality that is hard to handle (not that we ever get to actually feel it, but just observe its effects on the characters) and a ton of problems that spring everywhere, which are handled not in the best of ways.
Overall, however, the book doesn't do it for me. The characters are mostly observed from the outside, like in family photos, not really seen from the inside. The plot seems to exist on and off, to have no real point in existing. Even though in the last pages somebody gets shot, there's no real climax, no ending.
...meh. I'm too disappointed and neutral about it to come up with anything more interesting to say...
You can get it here.
Author: Zadie Smith
About the Book: Fiction, Comedy, Immigrants
My rating: 7/10.
I would enthuse wildly, but there's nothing to enthuse about. I would bash, but there's not much to bash. I'm pretty much 'meh' about this book. I expected more.
The first time I saw White Teeth it was in a huge ad on the side of my favorite bookstore. I looked at it, read whatever was written underneath and decided it was probably a serious book about racial issues, so I wasn't really interested. Incidentally, I was wrong about the first part. The book's a comedy through and through. But it's still about racial issues.
So eventually, when it was one of the options on my reading list for a Master's class and one of my colleagues recommended it with approximately the same enthusiasm I save for my own very dearest books, I decided I'd give it a try. The many favorable blurbs and awards were also in its favor.
First impression: the cover was impossibly colorful. Second impression: the way the book starts is light, humorous. Perhaps a bit too much, just like the colors of the cover. I like my books to have realism, to delve into the psychology of characters, to sparkle. I want to feel that things are real even when they're entirely unrealistic - which is what the first pages of the book entirely failed to do. Still, a deliberate lack of realism is a style in itself, so I tried to get over my disappointment.
The plot starts with Archie Jones, a 47 year-old man who intends to commit suicide by gassing himself. However, he is interrupted because he parked in such a way as to impede the delivery to a butcher's. Quote from the book: "'No one gasses himself on my property,' Mo snapped as he marched downstairs. 'We are not licensed.'" Archie realizes that he actually wants to leave, ends up at a New Year's party, where he meets the 19 year-old Clara, a beautiful black Jamaican whose teeth were knocked out in a motorcycle accident, and they marry in no time because she comes from a Jehova's Witnesses family and her upbringing gets her to somehow decide that she wants this man and she needs to marry him.
Mostly, the first part of the book feels like a rushed comedy. Imitated accents, characters sketched rather than portrayed, all sorts of unrealistic happenings, weird tics, but a humor that saves the day, I suppose. I can understand the appeal the book had to the critics: post-modernism, today's cultural movement, is intensely political. It just loves its minorities, colonials, race differences, culture clash and whatnot, sometimes to the point where the art trails behind the ideology. And if it's something this book has, it's minorities (religious, cultural, racial). There's Jamaicans and Jews, English and Bangladeshi, black, white, Islam, Jehova's Witnesses, scientists and just people off the street... It seems to have everything. For the first hundred pages, my question was just "Why?" The plot was contrived, the characters flat, everything essentially seemed to be there just to make the cultural clash humor go on.
Later, however, Smith starts to get into it. Her characters gain some weight, some greater motivation, some personality. Not a lot, mind you. Just enough so they can function as people and you can understand their motivation and their decisions. You can feel life seeping into these people, mostly when the second generation - Archie's daughter and his best friend's twin sons - come into play. The characters start bouncing off on each other in all sorts of ways, children get 'adopted' by other parents, while those parents tend to ignore their own offspring, there's a generation clash, much sexuality that is hard to handle (not that we ever get to actually feel it, but just observe its effects on the characters) and a ton of problems that spring everywhere, which are handled not in the best of ways.
Overall, however, the book doesn't do it for me. The characters are mostly observed from the outside, like in family photos, not really seen from the inside. The plot seems to exist on and off, to have no real point in existing. Even though in the last pages somebody gets shot, there's no real climax, no ending.
...meh. I'm too disappointed and neutral about it to come up with anything more interesting to say...
You can get it here.
Sunday 6 November 2011
About
I've long been looking for a place where I could just throw in anything and everything concerning what I read and what I think about what I read.
I was initially going to call this 'Random Book Blog', but it occurred to me that not everything I want to talk about is a book - sometimes I run into short stories that are worth my attention, at other times into articles and essays.
Hence the 'lit' in there, used in its widest sense: anything written.
What to expect: fantasy novels, mainstream novels, classics, fanfiction, non-fiction of the academic-written kind (humanities), short stories from around the internet, other novels in general and then maybe other things that sound interesting at the time.
What to not expect, unless the unexpected happens: horror, detective stories, cheesy romances (although I occasionally read these for a laugh), self-help books, stuff on how to become a better person.
I'll try to tag everything accordingly for easy finding.
I take recommendations, but my to-be-read list is a mile long, so I might not get around to reading everything people recommend.
Sarshi is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
I was initially going to call this 'Random Book Blog', but it occurred to me that not everything I want to talk about is a book - sometimes I run into short stories that are worth my attention, at other times into articles and essays.
Hence the 'lit' in there, used in its widest sense: anything written.
What to expect: fantasy novels, mainstream novels, classics, fanfiction, non-fiction of the academic-written kind (humanities), short stories from around the internet, other novels in general and then maybe other things that sound interesting at the time.
What to not expect, unless the unexpected happens: horror, detective stories, cheesy romances (although I occasionally read these for a laugh), self-help books, stuff on how to become a better person.
I'll try to tag everything accordingly for easy finding.
I take recommendations, but my to-be-read list is a mile long, so I might not get around to reading everything people recommend.
Sarshi is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)