Showing posts with label my top 100. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my top 100. Show all posts
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Ulysses - a failure, but whose?
So - James Joyce, Ulysses...stream of consciousness narrative. I've tried to read this book 3 or 4 times before and never got beyond page 43. I can tell you this as the bookmark was still in there from the previous aborted attempt. I can even date it, as the bookmark is a train ticket - October 2003, when I apparently optimistically tried to start reading Ulysses on the train from London to Langley Mill near Nottingham, on the way to see the software provider for the recruitment database I was working on at the time. I remember the trip quite clearly, but not the book. Telling. Anyway. On this attempt I was absolutely determined not to be beaten - I've found books difficult before, and have made my way through them, and on this challenge, I didn't see not finishing a book as an option. I have tried really, really hard. I've made it all the way to page 200, and so far all I can discern as having happened is: - Some young men who unfathomably houseshare in a tower have breakfast - One goes to work and gets paid - A man walks to the shops and buys a kidney for his breakfast, which he forgets about when cooking but just manages to catch before it burns - Those two men plus some others spend a lot of time discussing funerals and then attend one. That's it. 200 pages!! And another 700 to go. When I first starting reading this I asked on Facebook whether I was being thick in not finding it easier to read. Apparently, I am not alone in this, and my friend Joanna described stream of consciousness narrative as "having no narrative". She's an English teacher by training, so I trust her opinion on this! The thing is, I'm sure that if I really focus closely on drawing out what is happening, there will eventually turn out to be a narrative, slow-moving as it may be, hidden within the stream of consciousness. Not many books have defeated me, and I know that I am capable of reading it and understanding it, if I try hard enough. However, I just don't want to! There are too many books in the world, let alone other things to do, to waste time reading something as unintuitive and unenjoyable as this just to be able to say I have read it. I do also understand that literature is not all about the narrative, and what happens in the end - it's about the way the journey is portrayed, the display of intellect, the use of techniques to create a particular effect. I've read other books - A Suitable Boy is a great example, actually - where it is so long and involved that you have to stop focusing on what's going to happen at the end, and just sink into the way the story is told, the characterisation, relationships, and the style of writing. It took me three months to read, but I didn't mind because it felt like an achievement, it's intellectually challenging, but there is pleasure to be had in the act of reading. Ulysses is not like this. Thus far, there is no characterisation, no appearance of relationships between the characters...there aren't even really many finished sentences. It's impossible to sink into because the stream of consciousness is so difficult to follow, and if I relax and read at anything approaching my usual speed, I get to the end of a page and realise that what I've just read has no meaning. Sometimes, a slower re-reading also yields no meaning... And I think that's the problem - it doesn't display any of the characteristics that I associate with either a pleasurable read, or a difficult but worthwhile read. The story isn't compelling, the characters are neither likeable nor interesting...nor are they really anything more than names on a page. The language isn't beautiful. It isn't teaching me anything about a historical context. It feels, if I'm honest, like it has been written just to be clever, with no other redeeming features. According to one of the soundbites on the back, it gives an unmissable flavour of Dublin life. Really? So far, it hasn't given a flavour of anything outside of two people's internal monologues, and they appear to be two dull people! At about page 140, one of the characters said something along the lines of "Shite and onions! Life's too short for..." (and I can't remember what). And that's the conclusion I've come to - life is too short to read another 700 pages of something I won't really take in (including the last 200 pages with no punctuation - what a treat) and therefore I am declaring Ulysses a failure. Mine, really, as Joyce managed to finish it, but I couldn't. I'm sure that die-hard Joyce fans (if there are any, I've never met one) would tell me that I'm missing something, but I am left with the suspicion that this is one of those books which people recommend to sound intellectual, whilst not actually having read it. Don't bother, unless you have unlimited time on your hands! If anyone has any wisdom into what I'm missing, let me know - I can't promise I'll try again but if there is a better understanding to be had of why this is considered to be such a key piece of literature, I'd like to at least know! Ulysses passes onto the very small pile of books which have beaten me (Nicholas Nickelby, Ian McEwan's Saturday, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and this...I think that's it), and I will move on to the next thing. I need to find something on the list which isn't painful to read, and preferably doesn't take place in France or on a ship, as I need a change after the Count of Monte Cristo! Any recommendations? Rant over... :-)
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is another of those books that everyone else seems to have read at school. It is an extraordinarily powerful book, and I find it slightly depressing to have spent a whole academic year studying As You Like It, and to have studied Silas Marner TWICE...when we could have been reading Lord of the Flies. Ah well - I suppose I get to read it now with full enjoyment, rather than having to pick apart the symbolism in the pig's head on a stick, or the significance of the face paint!
A word of warning - as everyone apart from me seems to have read LOTF, I will be giving away some of the events and ending, so if you haven't read it and might, look away now.
The power of LOTF, I think, lies in the portrayal of the transition from an orderly "British" society to a savage society with its own set of rules and behaviours. When the group finds themselves stranded on the island, they initially attempt to create a culture which mirrors that they have seen at home - what would an adult do if they were here? Intentions are good - we will build shelters, keep a fire going, and one group will find food for the rest. However, intentions are not strong enough to keep the boys from doing, basically, whatever they like - the battle around the fire becomes a central theme of the book, and acts as a symbol of the decline of authority and ordered society.
I was really affected by the examination of tribal behaviour in this novel. There is evidence of it at the start, in that many of the boys in Jack's choir/hunting troupe never exist as individuals with names, but just as a group of boys in black caps, and the "littluns" are never numbered and named. As Jack develops into a more bloodthirsty character, and eventually achieves his first kill for food, he demonstrates that he has the power in this environment, where the ability to provide food has become more important than the ability to think, keep order, and address practicalities. Two separate "camps" emerge - boys are initially tempted across to Jack by the promise of meat and then, following the tribal dance where Simon is identified as the beast and beaten to death, Jack's leadership in violence and ruthlessness makes fear the deciding factor.
Although all of the hunting tribe are involved in the two murders, the nameless/faceless nature of most of them means that the sense of blame is attributed mainly to Jack and Roger, and this very much conflicts with the sense of personal responsibility for ones actions that is a core element of our society. Can the hunters be blamed for their actions? Of course - but when the mask of the facepaint has been applied, and darkness has fallen, the boys no longer operate as individual humans but as a pack of animals, and there is no sense of individual choice there at all.
Piggy is very much an anomaly in this society. His choice of name is significant, given that the only animals on the island which provide sustenance are pigs; as a reasoning voice who is physically unsuited to a life in the wilderness, Piggy is always doomed. He is gradually reduced to, symbolically, an animal to be hunted - severely short-sighted, first one lens of his spectacles is smashed and then the hunters make a midnight raid to steal them in order to light their fire. Piggy is then blind, unable to function - an animal, meaning that Roger is able to roll the rock down the mountain, giving Piggy no chance of escape. Piggy's death represents the final loss of reason, and from this moment Ralph becomes a hunted animal. Crazed by the idea that he needs to remove Ralph (in order to remove the accusation of wrongdoing?), Jack is determined to hunt Ralph down and the island is pretty much destroyed in doing so. Had this battle been followed to its conclusion, Ralph may have been hunted down and killed, but the tribe would also have destroyed their livelihood - the fruit trees and pig habitats were burning as Ralph emerged from the forest and found himself at the feet of a naval officer.
The irony, of course, is that it is Jack's attempt to burn Ralph out of the woods that has created a fire large enough for a ship to see. Suddenly, in front of an adult, they are small boys again, and the battle becomes a game, rather than a matter of life and death. The story ends here, with rescue in sight, leaving open all sorts of questions - how will they reintegrate into British society? Will Jack become a "normal" boy again? Will they ever be punished for the murders of two of their group (not to mention the disappearance of a littlun at the very beginning)?
Golding's pace of writing changes through the novel, changing from a "jolly japes on an island" tone to become ever more urgent, darker, and threatening. I'm sure I haven't written anything here that hasn't been said before - it has a great power to invoke feelings, sensations and moral musings. Spectacular book!
A word of warning - as everyone apart from me seems to have read LOTF, I will be giving away some of the events and ending, so if you haven't read it and might, look away now.
The power of LOTF, I think, lies in the portrayal of the transition from an orderly "British" society to a savage society with its own set of rules and behaviours. When the group finds themselves stranded on the island, they initially attempt to create a culture which mirrors that they have seen at home - what would an adult do if they were here? Intentions are good - we will build shelters, keep a fire going, and one group will find food for the rest. However, intentions are not strong enough to keep the boys from doing, basically, whatever they like - the battle around the fire becomes a central theme of the book, and acts as a symbol of the decline of authority and ordered society.
I was really affected by the examination of tribal behaviour in this novel. There is evidence of it at the start, in that many of the boys in Jack's choir/hunting troupe never exist as individuals with names, but just as a group of boys in black caps, and the "littluns" are never numbered and named. As Jack develops into a more bloodthirsty character, and eventually achieves his first kill for food, he demonstrates that he has the power in this environment, where the ability to provide food has become more important than the ability to think, keep order, and address practicalities. Two separate "camps" emerge - boys are initially tempted across to Jack by the promise of meat and then, following the tribal dance where Simon is identified as the beast and beaten to death, Jack's leadership in violence and ruthlessness makes fear the deciding factor.
Although all of the hunting tribe are involved in the two murders, the nameless/faceless nature of most of them means that the sense of blame is attributed mainly to Jack and Roger, and this very much conflicts with the sense of personal responsibility for ones actions that is a core element of our society. Can the hunters be blamed for their actions? Of course - but when the mask of the facepaint has been applied, and darkness has fallen, the boys no longer operate as individual humans but as a pack of animals, and there is no sense of individual choice there at all.
Piggy is very much an anomaly in this society. His choice of name is significant, given that the only animals on the island which provide sustenance are pigs; as a reasoning voice who is physically unsuited to a life in the wilderness, Piggy is always doomed. He is gradually reduced to, symbolically, an animal to be hunted - severely short-sighted, first one lens of his spectacles is smashed and then the hunters make a midnight raid to steal them in order to light their fire. Piggy is then blind, unable to function - an animal, meaning that Roger is able to roll the rock down the mountain, giving Piggy no chance of escape. Piggy's death represents the final loss of reason, and from this moment Ralph becomes a hunted animal. Crazed by the idea that he needs to remove Ralph (in order to remove the accusation of wrongdoing?), Jack is determined to hunt Ralph down and the island is pretty much destroyed in doing so. Had this battle been followed to its conclusion, Ralph may have been hunted down and killed, but the tribe would also have destroyed their livelihood - the fruit trees and pig habitats were burning as Ralph emerged from the forest and found himself at the feet of a naval officer.
The irony, of course, is that it is Jack's attempt to burn Ralph out of the woods that has created a fire large enough for a ship to see. Suddenly, in front of an adult, they are small boys again, and the battle becomes a game, rather than a matter of life and death. The story ends here, with rescue in sight, leaving open all sorts of questions - how will they reintegrate into British society? Will Jack become a "normal" boy again? Will they ever be punished for the murders of two of their group (not to mention the disappearance of a littlun at the very beginning)?
Golding's pace of writing changes through the novel, changing from a "jolly japes on an island" tone to become ever more urgent, darker, and threatening. I'm sure I haven't written anything here that hasn't been said before - it has a great power to invoke feelings, sensations and moral musings. Spectacular book!
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Holiday reading
One of my favourite things about going on holiday is having time to read- time to pick up a book, get absorbed in it, and keep on reading till the end because there's nothing else you have to do. Fabulous.
This week in Italy, as well as seeing many beautiful mountain views from hilltop towns, and making friends with lots of local cats, and eating some fabulous food, I have read:
A Town Like Alice
The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Brave New World
PopCo (Scarlett Thomas)
A Week in December (Sebastian Faulks)
I also started reading Anna Karenina on the plane on the way home but that was always an ambitious ask after 3 hours' sleep!
Let's start with the non-list ones first.
Scarlett Thomas wrote The End of Mr Y, which was my favourite book of 2009. PopCo was published earlier, but shows the same level of creativity and storytelling ability as the End of Mr Y. Alice is a bit of a misfit working for PopCo - the third biggest toy company in the UK. She is reluctantly attending PopCo's annual creativity conference in Devon when she is selected, along with a small group of others, to remain behind indefinitely after the conference and develop a product set which will kickstart a craze amongst the difficult-to-reach teenage girl demographic. The concentrated seminars, designed to help them understand how a toy craze takes hold, makes her increasingly aware of and uncomfortable about the way toys and marketing are designed to manipulate children. This leads into some interesting questions of ethics, globalisation & trade. Alongside this story, Alice is working to crack a code left to her by her grandfather, and also trying to work out who is communicating with her in code within the PopCo centre. The author has clearly done her research and goes into extensive detail on codes, how they work, how they are decoded, different methods etc - but it always complements the story, and doesn't feel like it's just a show and tell of how much she has learned! There are other threads to the story too, and the whole thing weaves together to create a gripping, intelligent and frequently surprising work of fiction. I absolutely loved it, and couldn't put it down.
Secondly, Sebastian Faulks. I have mixed feelings about this one. Faulks' earlier work, particularly Birdsong/Charlotte Grey/Girl at the Lion d'Or, is fantastic, and they are some of my favourite books. However, more recently I've found him much harder to read - Human Traces was just too academic, and I struggled to engage with Engleby. So, I started A Week in December without massive expectations. It's set in 2007 in the context of the banking meltdown, and follows characters ranging from a hedge fund trader to a tube train driver. It's pretty readable but I don't think Faulks' modern style displays him at his best - the dialogue is a bit cliched and stilted. It might be that the event is too much in recent memory to have fiction written about it and to create a sense of originality. So, if you are a Faulks fan, I'd probably recommend reading it, but it isn't amazing.
Sherlock Holmes was the first book I read on the Kindle. It proved that the Kindle is very much a viable medium for reading, and I didn't really notice too much of a difference from reading a book. Well, that's not strictly true I guess, but it is easy to read on, doesn't strain the eyes, and it's actually quite nice that you can just switch it off, and on again, and it is in the same place - no need for a bookmark (lazy reader...!). Sherlock Holmes is, of course, great. Very readable, each case is a distinct story in itself, and each time the resolution is one which seems so simple, but beyond the capability of me as a reader to work it out! It definitely deserves its place within the top 100 list - I enjoyed it very much.
Brave New World is chilling, and creates a convincing image of the new society where babies are grown to fit the genetic characteristics required for the role they are due to play, and a caste system is created according to physical and intellectual ability - but this doesn't matter as all humans are conditioned from birth to be happy with their lot & capacity. When the striving for a "better" life is removed, and the individual does not feel that they should be capable of more than "just" working in a factory, for example, everyone is happy. And, if they are not happy, "soma" is provided, a drug which can be taken to numb emotional disappointments and distress, so that the unhappiness never truly exists, and passes by the time the soma wears off.Bernard is a member of the highest caste but doesn't truly fit in, and he is already dissatisfied with life, reluctant to take soma "holidays", and wishing for a lasting relationship with one woman rather than the now socially acceptable "everyone belongs to everyone". He then visits the New Mexico Reservation, and meets a woman who was cast out of acceptable society to bring up her son. The brave new world, when viewed through the eyes of John "the Savage", who is essentially viewing the world with the morals of Huxley's period of writing, does not seem as perfect as individuals are conditioned to believe. This is a fantastically constructed world, and does deserve its reputation, but it doesn't quite have the strength of 1984 - the characters are less engaging, and the writing is more distant. That's not necessarily to say that 1984 is better - Brave New World goes further in terms of the way that society has developed, and the way that this is maintained - but I did enjoy reading it more.
And finally, A Town Called Alice. This is one of my mother's favourite books, and I believe one of my Grandad's favourite books too. I can't believe I haven't read it before. It centres around Jean Paget, who is a prisoner of war in Malaya and is forced to walk hundreds of miles, in a ragtaggle group of women and children, after they are captured - there is no prisoner of war camp to put them into, and so the Japanese keep them on the move. Jean takes the lead and proves herself to be "a damned fine girl". Following the war, she inherits a large sum of money and goes out to Malaya to build a well for the village where she spent 3 years towards the end of the war. There, she finds out that Joe, an Australian that she met during the war, was not killed as she supposed, and decides to go to Australia to find him. The second part of the novel is Jean making sense of Australian society, and deciding to make a difference. This is a really uplifting work, due to the strength of Jean's character, her ability to achieve anything in any situation, whilst being really an ordinary girl. It is also a love story. And it is beautifully written. I think it's going onto my list of favourites now too!
Onto Anna Karenina next, I think...
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Of Mice and Men (and major book acquisition!)
I've just finished Of Mice and Men -another Steinbeck. Most people read this at school, and I can't quite work out why we didn't. I know that other classes did, as I was vaguely familiar with the story from having seen bits of creative writing based on OMAM on the classroom wall, but my English teacher clearly decided that our group was destined for other things!
So - the cultural background to OMAM is very similar to the Grapes of Wrath, in that George and Lennie are labourers looking for work, with no particular geographical base, ready to pick up and move on. The novel opens as they are heading for their next job.
For those who are not familiar with OMAM, Lennie is a strong giant of a man, who is intellectually limited - his understanding of the world is childlike, coupled with unfeasible strength which he is unable to control when he is scared - a recipe for disaster. George is smaller but cleverer, and has taken it upon himself to care for Lennie. Lennie, unfortunately, continually does "bad things" but never deliberately or maliciously.
They share a dream - to own their own piece of land, just enough to get by, where Lennie will be allowed to look after the rabbits. Realistically, this is never going to happen until they meet Candy, who has saved some money in anticipation of not being able to work, and offers it to George as long as he can live with them on the land, and be as useful as they can. Suddenly there is an exciting future...but Lennie's next "bad thing" puts that at risk.
I don't want to give any more detail for fear of spoiling the ending. Following Lennie's actions, George is left with a very difficult choice and I think, in the end, makes the decision that is best for Lennie. You may choose to disagree with me once you know what that is. However, there is some ambiguity around George's motivations - is he trying to do what is best for Lennie, or has Lennie pushed him too far by endangering George's prospects of achieving his lifelong dream?
It's a pretty quick read, and very accessible - good choice for a GCSE syllabus. It is an interesting insight into that world, and also into the way that ambition and desperation overcome the "natural" human instinct. I'm not sure I'd be particularly excited to read it again, and I'm not sure I'd include it on a list such as this, but it was a perfectly acceptable way of passing a couple of hours!
In other news, it was my birthday a week or so ago, and I was fortunate enough to receive about 15 new books, mainly courtesy of my brother making generous use of an Amazon wish list... This is very exciting - due to the speed at which I read, I very rarely have a queue of new books awaiting my attention. So, I am looking forward to getting into those. I also received a Kindle (e-reader) so that I can theoretically go on holiday without using 50% of my luggage allowance on books. So far, I'm really pleased with it - it's a good size and weight, and pretty easy on the eye as far as the reading experience goes. I'm going to be reading the complete Sherlock Holmes on this, so that review will also look at how it feels to read a book on the Kindle. I don't really know, so far, whether it will make any difference. Also, holiday coming up soon so expect a gap and then lots of list progress, if all goes to plan.
So - the cultural background to OMAM is very similar to the Grapes of Wrath, in that George and Lennie are labourers looking for work, with no particular geographical base, ready to pick up and move on. The novel opens as they are heading for their next job.
For those who are not familiar with OMAM, Lennie is a strong giant of a man, who is intellectually limited - his understanding of the world is childlike, coupled with unfeasible strength which he is unable to control when he is scared - a recipe for disaster. George is smaller but cleverer, and has taken it upon himself to care for Lennie. Lennie, unfortunately, continually does "bad things" but never deliberately or maliciously.
They share a dream - to own their own piece of land, just enough to get by, where Lennie will be allowed to look after the rabbits. Realistically, this is never going to happen until they meet Candy, who has saved some money in anticipation of not being able to work, and offers it to George as long as he can live with them on the land, and be as useful as they can. Suddenly there is an exciting future...but Lennie's next "bad thing" puts that at risk.
I don't want to give any more detail for fear of spoiling the ending. Following Lennie's actions, George is left with a very difficult choice and I think, in the end, makes the decision that is best for Lennie. You may choose to disagree with me once you know what that is. However, there is some ambiguity around George's motivations - is he trying to do what is best for Lennie, or has Lennie pushed him too far by endangering George's prospects of achieving his lifelong dream?
It's a pretty quick read, and very accessible - good choice for a GCSE syllabus. It is an interesting insight into that world, and also into the way that ambition and desperation overcome the "natural" human instinct. I'm not sure I'd be particularly excited to read it again, and I'm not sure I'd include it on a list such as this, but it was a perfectly acceptable way of passing a couple of hours!
In other news, it was my birthday a week or so ago, and I was fortunate enough to receive about 15 new books, mainly courtesy of my brother making generous use of an Amazon wish list... This is very exciting - due to the speed at which I read, I very rarely have a queue of new books awaiting my attention. So, I am looking forward to getting into those. I also received a Kindle (e-reader) so that I can theoretically go on holiday without using 50% of my luggage allowance on books. So far, I'm really pleased with it - it's a good size and weight, and pretty easy on the eye as far as the reading experience goes. I'm going to be reading the complete Sherlock Holmes on this, so that review will also look at how it feels to read a book on the Kindle. I don't really know, so far, whether it will make any difference. Also, holiday coming up soon so expect a gap and then lots of list progress, if all goes to plan.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Dune
The next project was Dune, by Frank Herbert. I interpreted this as being the novel, Dune, rather than the whole series which goes under that name - apologies if this is cheating but we would be waiting rather a long time for me to finish the list if I have to read them all.
Dune is acclaimed as a seminal work of science fiction, and I can see why. The world is convincing, well-thought out, and totally different to life as we know it. The world is placed on a planet where water and "spice" are the commodities - or, actually, necessities - of highest value, and it is seen through the eyes of characters who come from a planet of plentiful water. This allows the reader to feel the shock and acclimatisation experienced by the characters as they adapt to the different economic and, more significantly, cultural behaviours driven by the water supply.
A mark of successful science fiction is the seamless suspension of disbelief - everything that happens within Dune requires this suspension, whether it is the highly developed communication/observation techniques, the transition from one Reverend Mother to the next, weapons and transport, scientific research and methods...the list goes on. I would say that Dune is very much successful in this regard - the principles and world are so well thought through that there is nothing to jar the reader back into reality. I found the characters slightly unconvincing - each and every character operated with a constant awareness of their role in society, and the "baddies", for want of a better word, are little more than caricatures. However, I think this novel/series is far more about creating the alternate reality and global events, than it is about character.
If you have read Lord of the Rings a number of times, and you love it, I would venture to suggest that you would also enjoy Dune. In fact - you've probably already read it. I won't be rushing to read it again, or to read subsequent episodes in the series, but this is a reflection on me and my lack of interest in sci-fi rather than the quality of the writing. This is very well-written, and I have read it within a couple of weeks (pausing along the way for a quick Jane Green pitstop) which, given the level of interest I have in the genre is very much a compliment to Mr Herbert...but I do find it difficult to care about what happens to the characters in this kind of novel (partly because life is so cheap) and, as I've already discovered in the pages of this blog, it is caring about what happens next that drives me to read!
Gone with the wind next - expect a long radio silence and perhaps some interim posts...
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Cold Comfort Farm
Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons, is (according to the back of the book) "a hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas". Unusually for books which claim to be hilarious, it actually is - I laughed out loud a number of times which is rare for me when reading.
CCF was written in the 30s as a parody of novels by the likes of Mary Webb, which were popular between the wars. I suspect that many of the references are lost on me, being completely unfamiliar with the genre, but it can be appreciated despite this.
Each character is an embodiment of a cliche - not hidden beneath the surface, in the usual way of cliches, but out & proud. The cows are called Graceless, Pointless, Feckless and Aimless (presumably taking issue with the prevailing fashion for naming people & animals after desirable qualities). There is a strong & silent son called Reuben, another son, Seth, who is the brooding embodiment of the farmer's son with the animal instinct (fathering a child per year with the kitchen maid); Amos, the father, a hellfire and brimstone preacher, and Elfine, the daughter of nature who drifts around in the fields and woods. The Starkadder family are trapped on CCF by Aunt Ada Doom (more subtle naming), who saw something nasty in the woodshed when she was a girl and hasn't been right since. Flora Poste, a sophisticated 19yr old, comes to live at CCF when she is orphaned and decides to take the family in hand. It's difficult to say much else without giving the story away...so, read this book.
This is one of the few books I've read so far from the list that I know I will read again - Gibbons' ability to put together evocative phrases which are just slightly over-stated and therefore both striking and funny is rare and makes it an immensely rewarding read. Enjoy it! It's such a shame that none of the rest of her books are in print.
This week, I am mainly modelling myself on Miss Flora Poste...
Monday, 3 May 2010
Lord of the Rings #4
Well, I am delighted to say that I have finished Lord of the Rings - all 3 books, or indeed 6 books as I read them.
I'm not sure whether reading the three one after the other (without reading something else in the meantime) was the best way to do it - by the end of book 3, I was a bit bored of the whole orc/war/good/evil thing, but having said that, they hang together so much more as one big story, rather than three individual episodes.
So, some thoughts. As I think I've mentioned before, it took me a while to get over my Lord of the Rings prejudice, and admit that I was interested, and I have, overall, thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience. The world is convincing and well-constructed, the storyline moves along at a good pace, and there is a huge variety of character, events, and place. Essentially, I guess I'm saying that it is very well and compellingly written.
However, I'm continuing to discover how much my reading is driven by caring about the characters, and it seems that I only extend this to human beings!! I was very much involved in LOTR until the point that Frodo successfully destroys the ring (presuming that since everyone in the world other than me has seen the films, this won't be a spoiler for anyone else), and the compulsion that the story held was very much wanting to know whether they were successful in their mission. Once the ring had been destroyed, in my mind, mission accomplished, and I then struggled to finish the rest of the book, because I'd pretty much forgotten that the hobbits would need to get home again...I didn't mind whether they had a happy resolution to the story as I viewed them very much as vehicles for the Ring, rather than beings with a right to an ending themselves. This may be a reflection on the way I read - generally described as charging through to get to the end rather than pausing to absorb the detail. It also may be a positive reflection on Tolkien in that the strongest character in the trilogy is the ring itself, and everybody else is a means to an end.
One thing that I became slightly weary of by the end is the way that significance/fate is attached to almost every event - nothing just happened because it happened, it was all part of the grand plan. After the ring is destroyed and the darkness lifts, there are two weddings. These felt like a slightly superfluous attempt to bring human interest into the story, and they were written in such a way as to indicate that Tolkien felt he ought to include them but wasn't particularly interested. So, rather than there being a gradual development of any sort of romantic feeling, both relationships seemed to arise almost out of nowhere, but to be portrayed as the fulfilment of something that was meant to happen. I suppose it is possible to read something into it about the lifting of the darkness of the Dark Lord's influence, allowing love & positive relationships to flourish, but I can't help feeling that I'm reading more than was intended into it! I don't feel that I've described that very well, but read it and you will see what I mean.
I don't know if it was necessarily intended, but I couldn't help but notice some parallels to religious concepts in there - I'm not in any way suggesting that this is an extended metaphor like the Chronicles of Narnia, but the sense of spiritual oppression brought by the darkness/black riders/ring, and the impression that so many events were predestined had a strong religious flavour to it.
An 8 hour drive from Devon today is clouding both my memory of the books and my ability to type so I will leave it there. Onto something with people in it next, I think!
I'm not sure whether reading the three one after the other (without reading something else in the meantime) was the best way to do it - by the end of book 3, I was a bit bored of the whole orc/war/good/evil thing, but having said that, they hang together so much more as one big story, rather than three individual episodes.
So, some thoughts. As I think I've mentioned before, it took me a while to get over my Lord of the Rings prejudice, and admit that I was interested, and I have, overall, thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience. The world is convincing and well-constructed, the storyline moves along at a good pace, and there is a huge variety of character, events, and place. Essentially, I guess I'm saying that it is very well and compellingly written.
However, I'm continuing to discover how much my reading is driven by caring about the characters, and it seems that I only extend this to human beings!! I was very much involved in LOTR until the point that Frodo successfully destroys the ring (presuming that since everyone in the world other than me has seen the films, this won't be a spoiler for anyone else), and the compulsion that the story held was very much wanting to know whether they were successful in their mission. Once the ring had been destroyed, in my mind, mission accomplished, and I then struggled to finish the rest of the book, because I'd pretty much forgotten that the hobbits would need to get home again...I didn't mind whether they had a happy resolution to the story as I viewed them very much as vehicles for the Ring, rather than beings with a right to an ending themselves. This may be a reflection on the way I read - generally described as charging through to get to the end rather than pausing to absorb the detail. It also may be a positive reflection on Tolkien in that the strongest character in the trilogy is the ring itself, and everybody else is a means to an end.
One thing that I became slightly weary of by the end is the way that significance/fate is attached to almost every event - nothing just happened because it happened, it was all part of the grand plan. After the ring is destroyed and the darkness lifts, there are two weddings. These felt like a slightly superfluous attempt to bring human interest into the story, and they were written in such a way as to indicate that Tolkien felt he ought to include them but wasn't particularly interested. So, rather than there being a gradual development of any sort of romantic feeling, both relationships seemed to arise almost out of nowhere, but to be portrayed as the fulfilment of something that was meant to happen. I suppose it is possible to read something into it about the lifting of the darkness of the Dark Lord's influence, allowing love & positive relationships to flourish, but I can't help feeling that I'm reading more than was intended into it! I don't feel that I've described that very well, but read it and you will see what I mean.
I don't know if it was necessarily intended, but I couldn't help but notice some parallels to religious concepts in there - I'm not in any way suggesting that this is an extended metaphor like the Chronicles of Narnia, but the sense of spiritual oppression brought by the darkness/black riders/ring, and the impression that so many events were predestined had a strong religious flavour to it.
An 8 hour drive from Devon today is clouding both my memory of the books and my ability to type so I will leave it there. Onto something with people in it next, I think!
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Lord of the Rings #2
Just a quick one to mark the finishing of the second book of 6 (1 of 3 in film terms!). As a mark of how much I'm actually enjoying this, I will be straight on with the next to find out what happens to Frodo and Sam as they stride off into the wilderness.
I was reading it last night as I watched one of the Harry Potter films (Goblet of Fire) which really hammered home the derivitiveness (that clearly isn't a word but you know what I mean) of HP - particularly the moment where Dumbledore used his Pensieve just as Frodo was introduced to the mirror of Galadriel.
I don't think LOTR will become one of my favourite books, but I am definitely withdrawing my previous comments about it being over-rated/geeky/just for children. Sorry, Tolkien. :-)
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Crime and Punishment
I have finished Crime and Punishment! This feels like an enormous achievement, given the confusing names, density of the text and scale of the concepts involved. It is a hard but satisfying read, and I'd recommend it, as long as you have a bit of time on your hands...which I didn't, hence the time it has taken me to get through.
There is a lot to consider in this book. First, the main storyline - Rodion commits a murder, in the belief that he is one of a special breed of men who have responsibility to carry out grand actions to change the course of society and therefore are above the law. Even in the act of the murder, his conscience leads him to doubt this and he spirals into a madness driven by his guilt & conflicted conscience. The remainder of the novel then follows him as he wrestles with whether he should confess, flee or kill himself - which is most honourable, will he be found out etc.
The events of this work are then, in the main, viewed through a filter of his madness, and you can never quite be sure whether they are as they seem, or they are his interpretation. For example, Svidrigailoff enters the narrative in pursuit of Rodion's sister, discovers his guilt and then tries to use this to convince the sister to marry him. This conflict leads him too into madness. However, before he reachs this point, he toys with Rodion. On one occasion, Rodion (in one of his many fevered wanderings of the streets) believes he is going to Svidrigailoff's home, and instead ends up in a completely different part of the city, where he sees Svidrigailoff in the window of a tea house. He sees this as fate, coincidence etc, but Svidrigailoff says that he has told Rodion to meet him there...he has no recollection. There are many of these coincidental events throughout, and this gives an insight - perhaps they are not fate, driving Rodion towards a confession, as he believes, but normal, planned meetings, which he is misinterpreting due to the depth of his confusion & madness!
Catherine Ivanovna adds a welcome lightness to the mid-part of the novel - in particular, the funeral dinner following the death of her husband is the only section that made me smile. The fact that a funeral dinner is the funniest part of the work does give an indication of its bleakness! All of the key characters are subsisting at the lowest echelons of society, hand-to-mouth in terms of their financial situation, and at the mercy of those with money and position. It highlights how the justice system did not really offer justice for the poor, but just for those with the most influential voice, and those with money have a disproportionate amount of power & influence over those without. This is obviously not a new idea in society, lest you think I believe I'm making a revolutionary observation, but it does come across very starkly here.
I won't give away the ending, as I would highly recommend reading it, but will just say that it resolves, and felt like a satisfactory conclusion (take note, Grapes of Wrath - this is how to finish!). I feel like I have achieved something in this one - it was hard work, but it was worthy of the hard work.
Phew. Now to some shopping. And perhaps Lord of the Rings next!
There is a lot to consider in this book. First, the main storyline - Rodion commits a murder, in the belief that he is one of a special breed of men who have responsibility to carry out grand actions to change the course of society and therefore are above the law. Even in the act of the murder, his conscience leads him to doubt this and he spirals into a madness driven by his guilt & conflicted conscience. The remainder of the novel then follows him as he wrestles with whether he should confess, flee or kill himself - which is most honourable, will he be found out etc.
The events of this work are then, in the main, viewed through a filter of his madness, and you can never quite be sure whether they are as they seem, or they are his interpretation. For example, Svidrigailoff enters the narrative in pursuit of Rodion's sister, discovers his guilt and then tries to use this to convince the sister to marry him. This conflict leads him too into madness. However, before he reachs this point, he toys with Rodion. On one occasion, Rodion (in one of his many fevered wanderings of the streets) believes he is going to Svidrigailoff's home, and instead ends up in a completely different part of the city, where he sees Svidrigailoff in the window of a tea house. He sees this as fate, coincidence etc, but Svidrigailoff says that he has told Rodion to meet him there...he has no recollection. There are many of these coincidental events throughout, and this gives an insight - perhaps they are not fate, driving Rodion towards a confession, as he believes, but normal, planned meetings, which he is misinterpreting due to the depth of his confusion & madness!
Catherine Ivanovna adds a welcome lightness to the mid-part of the novel - in particular, the funeral dinner following the death of her husband is the only section that made me smile. The fact that a funeral dinner is the funniest part of the work does give an indication of its bleakness! All of the key characters are subsisting at the lowest echelons of society, hand-to-mouth in terms of their financial situation, and at the mercy of those with money and position. It highlights how the justice system did not really offer justice for the poor, but just for those with the most influential voice, and those with money have a disproportionate amount of power & influence over those without. This is obviously not a new idea in society, lest you think I believe I'm making a revolutionary observation, but it does come across very starkly here.
I won't give away the ending, as I would highly recommend reading it, but will just say that it resolves, and felt like a satisfactory conclusion (take note, Grapes of Wrath - this is how to finish!). I feel like I have achieved something in this one - it was hard work, but it was worthy of the hard work.
Phew. Now to some shopping. And perhaps Lord of the Rings next!
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
A little light relief
I am still working my way through Crime and Punishment, and will make it through to the end.
However, as a little light relief, and also to put off having to pick it up just now, I was thinking about books that I would put on my top 100. My friend Jo, for her next significant birthday, has asked her friends and family to get her a copy of their favourite book. For me, this is akin to Nick Hornby's main character in High Fidelity (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember) being asked to put together his top 5 records. I couldn't estimate how many books I've read in my lifetime (on an average week's holiday, I'll read 4 or 5 if not more), and I have a nagging feeling that as soon as I pick one, I will think of 5 others I prefer!! So, to help me in my thinking for Jo's birthday (and Jo, if you're reading, you may like to stop now or no surprise for you!) - my top 100 books that everyone should read would include:
The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas - a brilliant mystery based on a PhD student who finds a work by the author she is studying in a bookshop - the work is extremely rare, and no-one alive has ever read it, because everyone who has ever read it has died or disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The book then follows her as she reads the book and gets drawn into the mystery of it. I won't go into any more detail because I think it's best discovered for yourself, but read it! Best book I read last year...I think!
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The story of a small boy who is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a labyrinth of books which would otherwise have been in danger of being destroyed or forgotten. As a rite of passage, he chooses a book to take home, understanding that he is then taking responsibility for the survival of that book. As he reads the book and grows up, he becomes drawn into the mystery of the author. It's quite dark but absolutely compelling.
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami. Anything by Murakami could have made it onto this list, but this is the first one I read and so I think made the biggest impact. Murakami is one of Japan's most read authors of modern times, and with good reason. The plot of this novel is almost impossible to outline and do justice to - look it up on Amazon - but the key feature of anything by Murakami is the way he draws you into an utterly surreal and often comic world, but in such a way that you do not notice you're moving away from reality until you realise that you are reading about a character whose ears have the power, when uncovered, to improve sex, or the hunt for a manic depressive in a sheep outfit, or a hotel which has a hidden world on the 19th floor which very occasionally appears...and it seems completely usual. Murakami's powers of imagination and story telling are amazing, and I went on from this novel to read all of his other novels.
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde. Books are again central to this (I'm spotting a theme in books that appeal to me!), but in a very different way. Fforde creates a world where travel into the interior of novels is possible, Swindon is the capital of England, dodos have been revived (slightly unsuccessfully), and time travel is not only possible, but used as a means of policing. Oh, and the Crimean War is still running by the 1980s. It can be read on a very simple level, enjoying the premise of the story - nominally a mystery, where Thursday Next (the main character) attempts to track down and stop the criminal who is kidnapping minor characters from the original copies of novels and holding them to ransom. If he doesn't get what he wants, he plans to kidnap Jane Eyre and murder her, meaning that Jane would disappear from all copies of the novel, and ruin one of the classics of English literature. (Martin would be glad of this, as he still holds that Jane Eyre is one of the dullest books ever written). Beyond this storyline, though, the novel is littered with literary references, and so can be read with a faint feeling of smugness/bewilderment as you place, or fail to place, the references. It's brilliantly constructed, funny, and gripping, and again I went on to read the rest of Fforde's work.
I could go on - I love recommending books - but will stop there, and try and work further through Crime and Punishment! If you try any of the above and like them, let me know...
However, as a little light relief, and also to put off having to pick it up just now, I was thinking about books that I would put on my top 100. My friend Jo, for her next significant birthday, has asked her friends and family to get her a copy of their favourite book. For me, this is akin to Nick Hornby's main character in High Fidelity (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember) being asked to put together his top 5 records. I couldn't estimate how many books I've read in my lifetime (on an average week's holiday, I'll read 4 or 5 if not more), and I have a nagging feeling that as soon as I pick one, I will think of 5 others I prefer!! So, to help me in my thinking for Jo's birthday (and Jo, if you're reading, you may like to stop now or no surprise for you!) - my top 100 books that everyone should read would include:
The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas - a brilliant mystery based on a PhD student who finds a work by the author she is studying in a bookshop - the work is extremely rare, and no-one alive has ever read it, because everyone who has ever read it has died or disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The book then follows her as she reads the book and gets drawn into the mystery of it. I won't go into any more detail because I think it's best discovered for yourself, but read it! Best book I read last year...I think!
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The story of a small boy who is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a labyrinth of books which would otherwise have been in danger of being destroyed or forgotten. As a rite of passage, he chooses a book to take home, understanding that he is then taking responsibility for the survival of that book. As he reads the book and grows up, he becomes drawn into the mystery of the author. It's quite dark but absolutely compelling.
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami. Anything by Murakami could have made it onto this list, but this is the first one I read and so I think made the biggest impact. Murakami is one of Japan's most read authors of modern times, and with good reason. The plot of this novel is almost impossible to outline and do justice to - look it up on Amazon - but the key feature of anything by Murakami is the way he draws you into an utterly surreal and often comic world, but in such a way that you do not notice you're moving away from reality until you realise that you are reading about a character whose ears have the power, when uncovered, to improve sex, or the hunt for a manic depressive in a sheep outfit, or a hotel which has a hidden world on the 19th floor which very occasionally appears...and it seems completely usual. Murakami's powers of imagination and story telling are amazing, and I went on from this novel to read all of his other novels.
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde. Books are again central to this (I'm spotting a theme in books that appeal to me!), but in a very different way. Fforde creates a world where travel into the interior of novels is possible, Swindon is the capital of England, dodos have been revived (slightly unsuccessfully), and time travel is not only possible, but used as a means of policing. Oh, and the Crimean War is still running by the 1980s. It can be read on a very simple level, enjoying the premise of the story - nominally a mystery, where Thursday Next (the main character) attempts to track down and stop the criminal who is kidnapping minor characters from the original copies of novels and holding them to ransom. If he doesn't get what he wants, he plans to kidnap Jane Eyre and murder her, meaning that Jane would disappear from all copies of the novel, and ruin one of the classics of English literature. (Martin would be glad of this, as he still holds that Jane Eyre is one of the dullest books ever written). Beyond this storyline, though, the novel is littered with literary references, and so can be read with a faint feeling of smugness/bewilderment as you place, or fail to place, the references. It's brilliantly constructed, funny, and gripping, and again I went on to read the rest of Fforde's work.
I could go on - I love recommending books - but will stop there, and try and work further through Crime and Punishment! If you try any of the above and like them, let me know...
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