Over the Clover

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:03:49 -0400

The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Classics)

Thomas Pynchon

★★★

This was my first Pynchon book. I have always heard lots of great things about this author, so I was eager to read it. Now, I just don't know what to say about it.

A story about covert postmen? They were organized and stealthy...like a cross between organized crime and martial arts experts. Maybe they were mobster-ninja mailmen? Oh, and of course, they were British.

If this makes little sense, this is sort of the way the book was written. One rambling, coincidental scenario and story after another.

It was interestingly far-fetched, and the style matched what he was trying to say about life. Although it did keep the characters at a distance--probably more commentary about life though.

It was also nice to see a woman at the forefront of a detective story. Not so crazy about the fact that she was also a bit flighty, emotional, and even hysterical at times.

So, imagine Play It As It Lays (it's California, it's drugs, it's the 60s) but with more a sense of humor and then set it in a noir background and you might start to get a sense of this book.

Also, I could not help but think about the ending to Eyes Wide Shut. That might sound strange, but both are about secret societies and leave the main character wondering if anything that happened was actually real.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Mining in Portland

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:18:40 -0400

While on our trip to Portland, Oregon last week we stopped in at Powell's four out of five days. We took advantage of their handy-dandy mailing service. So what if I haven't read all the books I bought there a year and a half ago. Here's what I found on sale and now have added to my long list of books to be read:

Fiction:
1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell Trilogy by Susanna Clarke
    Been hearing a lot about it. Sort of seems like Harry Potter for a more intellectual crowd. But I might change my mind on that after I actually read it.
2. Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
    It's a classic.
3. Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
    Another classic.

Non-fiction:
1. Hedonism Handbook by Michael Flocker
    Because this topic seems to come up over and over again. I've just been thinking of all the ways hedonism can be interpreted.
2. Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
    A book about how technology can teach us about simplification in business and life. Doesn't that just sound riveting?
3. Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart
    Because I love Jon Stewart.

Reference:
1. The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two
I can never have too many books about words.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:26:52 -0400

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel

Dai Sijie

★★★

This book was not on my list. And I've never read anything by Balzac. So why did I read it?

Besides the fact that I'm easily distracted I had heard that it mentions Madame Bovary in the end and it's a very short book.

First off, the title is awful. It makes sense in the end, but still, it just distracted me the entire time since the story is about two Chinese boys. The book and the seamstress come in about midway.

I was a little offended that the "little Chinese seamstress" was never given a name even though all the other characters were. Perhaps it was a commentary on how the boys saw her more as an object than a person, but I'm probably reaching on that.

Most of the book was superfluous and boring, but the ending was very good. It perfectly illustrated the "dangers" of knowledge. And I'm a sucker for books about censorship.

Oh, and unlike Madame Bovary, the "little Chinese seamstress" escapes from the trappings of family, love, materialism, and sensuality.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Madame Bovary

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:13:23 -0400

Madame Bovary (Oxford World's Classics)

Gustave Flaubert

★★★★

The fascinating thing about Madame Bovary is, well, Madame Bovary. Is she a sympathetic but flawed character, or is she a cruel and selfish woman?

Emma Bovary's main problem is that she believes money will end all her problems. But then most people today hold that same false belief.

I think how a person relates to this character says a lot about who he/she is.

It's sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't kind of question though.

On one hand, if you sympathize with her you have to admit that you understand such a heightened level of egoism and self-delusion.

But if you don't sympathize with her it feels a bit sexist since it was a repressive, patriarchal class structure that undoubtedly created women similar to this fictional woman.

I'm still trying to figure out what I think of the character of Madame Bovary, but what I found particularly engaging about this book was its narrative form. I bet one could take a whole class on what Flaubert did with the narrative in just this one book.

One thing I can say with certainty is that my heart has never broken so much for a character as it did for the equally flawed Charles Bovary. I wonder what that says about me?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

More books

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:02:39 -0400

I haven't yet finished my 2008 list of books to read. In fact, this is the first year I've ever made a list of books to read. I was always sort of against the idea because I thought it made reading too stringent and boring. I believed the list would make reading less spontaneous and fun.

What I've come to realize is that I'm actually reading a lot more. The list is keeping me on track and making me super productive. (I'm easily distracted, so perhaps I needed to learn to a tad less spontaneous with my reading.) The lessons we learn aren't always the ones we set out to learn.

With only two and a half more books to get through on the list, I'm going to challenge myself some more:

11. Winesburg, Ohio (plan to read this during my July roadtrip to Ohio)
12. Madame Bovary (reading this one with a friend)
13. Lost in Place: Growing Up in Absurd Suburbia (biography of growing up in Connecticut)
14. Housekeeping (suggested by a friend)
15. Cinema Nirvana (because it combines two fascinating topics)
16. Enormous Room (biography of e.e.cummings's experience in a foreign prison)
17. Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (because I've yet to read anything by Murakami)
18. Looking Backward (utopian novel I've been planning on reading since high school)
19. Day Off (on the 1001 book list and haven't ever read anything by Jameson)
20. Wuthering Heights (reading with a friend)

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The Road

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:27:11 -0400

The Road

Cormac McCarthy

★★★

In college I was taking a philosophy class and happened to watch the movie Trigger Effect. It's not a memorable movie but it stunned me because I was absorbed in trying to understand Hobbes's State of Nature. Suddenly it all made sense. I wonder if some student out there is having the same experience with this book. (The Road is vastly superior to Trigger Effect in case you're wondering.)

But the fact that society is based on two things: people and trust--that's the same message in all three. Of course, that led to all kinds of thoughts about how I live in a place with three main rules: never admit you're wrong, take as much as you can from everyone in every situation, and patience is a vice. And I wondered just how close Connecticut is to full on cannibalism.

OK, my personal nightmares aside, I did find this book haunting. I have been thinking about things--birds and food and aspirin and the general point of life--for days now in a new light.

But the ending...I don't think this book could have an adequate end. There's no point if the characters die, right? And if everything works out in the end it's just a cheesy cliche. I think the author did the best he could in light of this horrible corner he painted himself into, but the ending just didn't quite work for me.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Thursbitch

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:59:37 -0400

Thursbitch

Alan Garner

★★★

Saying this book was pretentious would be easy. In fact, it probably is the most pretentious thing I've ever read. But leaving it at that is not the whole story.

Why is it pretentious? There is little description of place or people. Time switches between around 1700 and 2000, (making it difficult to understand what is happening in the beginning). Dialogue happens without an explanation of who is saying what. And the characters in the 1700s are using rural English slang of the time, something few are probably familar with.

Why it is interesting in spite of those things? Thursbitch is a real place in England. It has a strange past and a cryptic stone was once erected there in memory of one of its residents. The author seems somewhat obsessed with the area's history and only talks about the place's "secret" to other academics.

This book is what House of Leaves wishes it was. Whereas House of Leaves is hollow at the end because the "secret" is just made up, this story really is shrouded in some kind of mystery.

And I also happen to be a sucker for anything that involves the concept of time. The time anomalies and symbolism in this book are really well done.

If nothing else, this book made me aware of a place that would one day be very interesting to visit.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Story of the Eye

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:03:03 -0400

Story of the Eye

Georges Bataille

★★

Instead of reading the next book on my list I read Story of the Eye. It's on the 1001 book list and only a hundred pages. My main impetus was to read something quick.

I can definitely see why people were shocked back in 1928.

One thing struck me. I have never heard of a murderous egg fetish.

The rest of it was just unpleasant--rape, insanity, blasphemy, murder, golden showers, suicide--but not indescribable.

The egg thing. That's unique. Sick, but unique.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Early Reviewing

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:18:39 -0400

LibraryThing just notified me that I am receiving my first Early Reviewer book. I am so excited!

The website has this cool idea of sending people free books even before they hit the bookstores. The only thing you have to do is read it and write a review. What could be better than that?

Although I had requested to be a part of this project about a year ago, I had given up hope that I would ever be chosen.

But, nope, I have a title coming to me, Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks From Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West I'm gonna have to switch gears a bit because it's non-fiction. I used to read mostly non-fiction, but I've kind of gotten out of the habit.

No matter. The book is about travel--a combination of my two favorite things. I don't know if I'll be able to contain myself.

I can hardly wait to get the book in my hands! Wish me luck...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

To Kill a Mockingbird

nobody@vox.com(loucindy) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:17:03 -0400

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

★★★★

It seems most people read this book in high school. After I finished it, I could not decide if it would have been better to read it fifteen years ago or not.

Part of me would have gotten more out of it at the age of eighteen. Now, it's hard to believe that there is a place where children play outdoors, listen to their parents, and everyone is wise.

Except on the topics of race and class, that is--
which is one reason this book is so poignant.

Telling the story through the eyes of a child is a powerful tool. It reminds the reader that everyone was young once. Everyone saw the world without the contemptuous of adulthood at one time.

Living in a very jaded place for the last eight years, I can really relate to the message. I fight to keep the cynicism and animosity at bay. But I know some of it has crept in over the years. In some ways it seems like the South has made more progress in the last hundred years than many places in the North. Where I am living the class struggle might as well be given a name that holds the same weight as racist does. Because it's no less ugly and no less harmful.

In high school I would not have known any of this. I was living in the rural Midwest, perhaps one of the most sheltered places in the U.S. I would have just thought this was a nice story about how kindness will win out in the end and if you get to know people you'll find they're basically good. Now I know it's a lot more complicated than that.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend