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outlier posted:The language is also very plain and a little staccato, perhaps due to the translation. The un-translated writing is pretty simplistic and mundane, with short sentences. So it seems the translation is fairly accurate. It's a pretty good book, and if you liked it I'd recommend L. It's a longer, semi-true story of when he and some friends traveled to some islands in the pacific to prove a bizarre theory.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:17
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The Goldfinch seems to be on every best seller list out there and I can see why, this book is pretty much worth it's weight in gold. It reminded me of when I first read the Harry Potter books when I was a kid, sans the magic. I'm going to have to check out the rest of Donna Tartt's work.
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Dec 4, 2013 14:57
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Momotaros posted:The Goldfinch seems to be on every best seller list out there and I can see why, this book is pretty much worth it's weight in gold. It reminded me of when I first read the Harry Potter books when I was a kid, sans the magic. I'm going to have to check out the rest of Donna Tartt's work. Okay first, The Secret History by Tartt is a goddamn masterwork, so crammed full of tone and atmosphere and character. Read it now. Second, I'm confused, in what way did The Goldfinch remind you of Harry Potter?
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Dec 4, 2013 15:07
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Hedrigall posted:Second, I'm confused, in what way did The Goldfinch remind you of Harry Potter? Specifically the parts of Harry Potter where he lives with his Uncle Vernon. Granted Rowling didn't create the "orphan in less-than-pleasant living conditions" genre, but both main characters find individuality and comfort in the secrets that they both carry. And mostly, when I read about Theo finding the antique shop, it wasn't unlike when the 10 or 12 year old me read about Hogwarts and how I wanted something like that. Edit: And Jesus, Boris even calls Theo "Harry Potter" the entire book! Ross Perowned fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 15:44
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The Goldfinch is also just filled with Dickens references. The "orphan" bit is obviously very Oliver Twist-inspired, and OT is explicitly mentioned by name later on. Boris is basically kinda sorta the Artful Dodger. Stephen King mentions this in his review. But there's way more. Like, the protagonist is, more than anything, a lot like Pip in Great Expectations, who looks back on his growth and is honest about his mistakes, and about those times when he just flat out made the wrong choice. One of the things that makes both novels succeed is that the narrator/protagonist is honest about what he did, but doesn't over-do it. In the words of the intro to the Penguin edition of GE, the novel "succeeds because it as frank as one could wish, without ever luxuriating in frankness."* That could equally be applied to The Goldfinch. Also, there is this weird thing going on with the sea, where it just... keeps. coming. back. That's David Copperfield all over. And there are a few characters that are a lot like Steerforth: a charming-yet-dangerous private-school character who captivates the protagonist, but, really, is kind of a piece of poo poo. And the choice of "who's the right girl?" is also the dilemma in David Copperfield (Dora/Agnes vs. Kitsey/Pippa). And yet another very Dickensian aspect is just how small the world of New York society is. Everyone seems to know everyone in this sorta very very upper middle class world (emphasis on upper).** But all that said, there's way more to the novel than Dickens references. And the Dickens references are always subverted. Just because you've read David Copperfield doesn't mean you know exactly how the love thing will end up, or what's going on with any Steerforth- or Artful Dodger-like characters. As for what there's more of: I like the meditations on art, and the last chapter is beautiful and cathartic... though I think a bit over-wrought. Just a bit. Sometimes I wonder what reading a Dickens book would have been like in the 19th century, when everything he's talking about would have been totally contemporary and, more importantly, totally familiar for his audience, the way that, for example, the use of recreational drugs in The Goldfinch is familiar to us as an audience--people will obviously use drugs in the future, but drugs won't have the same cultural meaning or occupy the same place in society that they do right now. Oh, and that's one last thing that's vaguely Dickensian: you get the sense that this is "contemporary," but, when, exactly? It's not totally precise. (The opening of Our Mutual Friend: "In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise...") * the claim comes originally from Christopher Ricks in "Great Expectations" in Dickens and the Twentieth Century. I think I've recommended Christopher Ricks before. He makes Tennyson totally accessible. And if that's not your cup of tea, he has awesome stuff on Bob Dylan. ** I think some scholar did a kind of informal study on this aspect in Dickens, and it turns out if you were a middle-class Londoner, probably it really was a small world, and everyone really would seem to know, or at least know of, everyone else, and you really would get crazy coincidences and chance meetings. I suspect the same is true now in certain circles of New York.
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Dec 4, 2013 16:17
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The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. My first non-Culture novel of his which I decided to read due to its reputation and of course it was November's Awful Book of the Month. I'm no good at reviewing books so I won't try here. On the Beach by Nevil Shute which was recommended in the post-apocalyptic book thread. The characters are not all that deep and a common complaint I've read is that the general population are somewhat laid back and accepting of their fate. However, I think this only adds to the message put across in the book. One of only a few books which has made me want to cry. Now I'm reading the second half of Martin Amis' Money. I read the first half before The Wasp Factory and On the Beach so I'm hoping I haven't lost my bearing with the story.
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Dec 5, 2013 01:17
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I just read the Ender's Game series in the last few months. I basically picked it up when I heard the movie was coming out, but now I wish I hadn't seen the movie. Enders Game was pretty awesome, action-like and an easy read. It built Ender up in a really awesome way in order to understand him at a great level of depth and so at the end you have a lot of interest and empathy for this character, Ender. Speaker for the Dead was interesting because it shoots you off 3000 years into the future and Ender has only aged like 20 years or so. This book I took mainly as filler and setup for the next two books, Xenocide and Children of the Mind. The rest of the series is nothing like the first book. The first book, only builds up the character, Ender. The rest of the books are the story. Its a strange story, complex and deep but easy enough to follow that it keeps you interested. The fifth book in the series Ender in Exile is another filler-like book that adds detail to events that happens right after Ender's Game. It also connects events that occur in the spinoff series that starts with Enders Shadow. Its a great read and also easy to follow. It has a great deal of overlap with the end of Ender's Game but it fills in a lot of detail that the first book missed out on. So nothing is ever boring or repetitive. Next books on my list is the "Shadow Series" that starts with Ender's Shadow and goes on with another three books.
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Dec 5, 2013 05:48
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Interrupt by Jeff Carlson This was an Amazon Kindle deal. The description of the book said quote:This brilliant thriller takes readers to an all-too-plausible tomorrow that’s as scientifically rigorous as it is wildly imaginative. I call bullshit! I found the book almost impossible to get through. It was disjointed, the science was far from rigorous, and it had many, many discrepancies that badly interfered with the ability to suspend disbelief. It seemed to be a cobbled-together mess of some rather outlandish internet theories--theories, I might add, that may have some merit and are at least interesting. Waste of time and money, spare yourself the pain.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:17
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DirtyRobot posted:And yet another very Dickensian aspect is just how small the world of New York society is. Everyone seems to know everyone in this sorta very very upper middle class world (emphasis on upper). I just finished At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell, the fourth Dance to the Music of Time book. I had been thinking that the conceit of disparate characters cropping up again and again over decades rings false to me, but that explains things; it was a smaller world then. The rest, though... I find the books almost entirely tedious, longwinded, the characters and their confusing relationships uninteresting, and the narrator is insufferably priggish. There's the occasional interesting character and humorous scene, and they're getting better, but I only read this far because a friend told me I couldn't quit before now, so...
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Dec 5, 2013 22:25
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I just finished Wool. I really enjoyed the first third of story, but the rest was so-so to me. It just once the story expanded I lost interest. Maybe I got too caught up in the hype, but I was let down overall.Hedrigall posted:Okay first, The Secret History by Tartt is a goddamn masterwork, so crammed full of tone and atmosphere and character. Read it now. The Secret History is an amazing novel. I have The Goldfinch, but I haven't cracked it open yet.
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Dec 6, 2013 03:54
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Beige posted:The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. My first non-Culture novel of his which I decided to read due to its reputation and of course it was November's Awful Book of the Month. I'm no good at reviewing books so I won't try here. Was it any good? It's sitting here under a pile of several other books and I need to know if I should push it to the top.
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Dec 6, 2013 06:51
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Zack Parson's Liminal States. God drat. I loving love the way Parson writes, and I get a strange feeling from his stories nothing else can provide. loving ace novel.
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Dec 6, 2013 23:17
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2001 by Arthur C. Clarke - Classic I know, but I never got around to reading the book. Excellent read, finished it in one sitting. Watched the movie years ago and was confused a bit by the ending. Novel does great job of explaining a lot. I wished the beginning had lasted longer with the "ape-men". Felt that was the most interesting part by far but the whole book was supremely excellent. I'm about to start reading "2010" once the library sends it over my way. The Forever War - Joe Haldeman - Another classic that I've been putting off for some time. Deals with a "space marine" fighting through the ages after humanity makes it's first contact with an unknown race. Every year he spends traveling to a new world to fight the enemy, hundreds of years are passing back on Earth. It begins with him as a Private in the 1990s and ends with him as a Major in the year 3000. He goes back to Earth to visit and finds an Earth he no longer knows or wishes to know. The author was a Vietnam veteran so there are lots of themes of fighting a foreign, unknowable enemy, and returing to a home that no longer exists. Very readable, funny, depressing, and entertaining. Currently reading "The Last Legends of Earth" by A. A. Attanasio. I'm only a bit in but it deals with the human race thousands of years after our sun went supernova and Earth is all but a dream. I love it so far and it's definitely expanding my mind.
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Dec 7, 2013 02:31
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Oldstench posted:Was it any good? It's sitting here under a pile of several other books and I need to know if I should push it to the top. It is good; read it.
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Dec 7, 2013 02:48
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Just finished Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers. I've heard a lot of good things about her novels and I remember someone on the forums here recommending it as their favourite, so I picked it up as a place to start. The central murder mystery here was pretty flimsy, but I enjoyed the book as an entertaining swipe at office life and advertising culture in the early 1930s. The more melodramatic parts of the book didn't hold up as well, though, and the 'underworld' characters were by far the least interesting and plausible.
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Dec 8, 2013 23:05
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A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller. That ending sure was something.  In the third part, I noticed a change in the writing style and pacing, and I felt like Miller must have been having some kind of crisis of faith while writing it. Having read up about his depression and suicide later in life, that makes sense.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:11
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We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Short and sweet, exactly unlike arsenic poisoning.  I don't think I've ever sympathised so completely with a psychopath before. Poor Merricat, all she really wanted was to be left alone. And poor Constance, trapped there with her.  It actually reminded me a lot of The Wasp Factory, with the aggressively insular protagonist in the big house, and the ad hoc, very personal, earthy "magic". Did Banks ever say whether he'd read it? Also read The Hunger Games trilogy. Eh. edit: vvv This is true. vvv KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 16:46
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Autonomous Monster posted:We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Short and sweet, exactly unlike arsenic poisoning. Not that I know of, but I'd be shocked if he hadn't. WHALITC is infinitely better than The Wasp Factory, though.
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Dec 10, 2013 19:35
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Pale Fire by Vladmir Nabokov. I thought the writing and the story was excellent. I loved the formatting and the poem was amazing. I read this after reading House of Leaves since I heard it was somewhat similar in its form. Anyways, I thought it was great but after doing some literary research on it, I still cant figure out how people get the interpretation that Kinbote is actually Professor Botkin. Botkin is barely mentioned with the exception that his name is an anagram of Kinbote, but that doesn't seem enough to me. I did like however that Gradus was actually an escaped mental patient who was actually trying to kill the judge who sent him there American Gods by Neil Gaiman I read this one after playing Valkyrie Profile and getting interested in Norse mythology. I thought it was awful. Nothing happens throughout the majority of the plot, Shadow is a completely uninteresting character and the ending was ridiculous. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis Absolutely loved it. I have never read anything from Ellis before but I have seen American Psycho, which I did not like. Either way, I thought the ending of the book especially where he goes to the McDonalds and meets his son who is actually a reflection of him and his father was brilliant. Also, the commentary on suburban America is hilarious. How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer Very interesting. Can't say I agree with all of his theories but it was actually very entertaining especially the historical aspects of major soccer clubs like Chelsea and their shady pasts.
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Dec 10, 2013 21:31
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TommyGun85 posted:Pale Fire by Vladmir Nabokov. More recently I've finished The Castle by Frank Kafka. I enjoyed it more than Pale Fire, in part because Kafka's writing is more accessible than Nabakov's. Following the protagonist's attempts to penetrate an opaque bureaucracy with no function except to enforce regulations with no purpose, transport and process enormous amounts of paper, dominate the laypeople, and mock the protagonist is great fun.
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Dec 10, 2013 22:06
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Autonomous Monster posted:We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Short and sweet, exactly unlike arsenic poisoning. I only read it for the first time earlier this year and Merricat became one of my favorite narrator/points of view ever. I'm still a little bummed that this amazing cover:  is from the first edition which, as much as I loved the book, puts it outside of what I'd actually want to spend for it.
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Dec 11, 2013 05:54
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Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. I admit I picked this up due to it being a source of inspiration for the STALKER video game series. I was really surprised at how closely the games hewed to the book, including the unusual naming conventions, the names and descriptions of artifacts and anomalies, and the general idea of a wish granter waiting somewhere in the wastes. Not that the games didn't have their own trippy ideas to add (noosphere tampering  ). The book's protagonist, a conflicted, working-class thug who takes immeasurable risks for his family, did a great job of highlighting just how dangerous the zone and his work is, and you get a real sense of his soul being sapped away as the years drag on.
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Dec 13, 2013 05:56
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I just finished "The Empress of Ice Cream" by Anthony Capella. It was a pretty fun and interesting read. The side characters are well-developped and the main ones are interesting on top of that. I was surprised when I found out that this is the English title, because here in Italy it was called "The king's pastry chef".
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Dec 13, 2013 11:24
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moot the hopple posted:Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. I love this book. I must have read it about four times already. Definitely check out the film too, it is beautiful. I whipped through We Have Always Lived in the Castle too, since The Wasp Factory was one of my favourite books as a teenager. It is really similar, and the prose stands up much better than TWF, but (spoilers for both books) TWF pushed the magical thinking to more disturbing extremes, and ultimately explored more interesting concepts of gender roles. It's guessable by the time Merricat goes to the shop for the first time, before anyone even explicitly mentions the poisoning, what the full story is - so it does start to feel patronising when paragraphs are spent on explaining what happened when it's already perfectly obvious. I enjoyed it, but I'm going to have to throw my lot down with The Wasp Factory on this one!
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Dec 13, 2013 12:31
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Just finished Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. It was fantastic. It helped that I also read The Shining this year as well so that was fresh in my mind. Great sequel, and if you're a fan of his writing you'll definitely enjoy it.
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Dec 13, 2013 13:19
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After reading through some the Ender's Game books, I switched gears and read through the Divergent trilogy. I found the world that they were in was absolutely fascinating, and aside from some of the teen angst poo poo, I really enjoyed them... ...until the end of the third book. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I found myself not entirely satisfied. Without going into potential spoilers (because the books are worth the read I think), I wonder if the pressure of the success and anticipation of the fans got to the author. I never finished Dance with Dragons, so I'm going to go back and read the version of the book that merges it all together with the fourth book. Supposedly it makes it a better read overall. We shall see.
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Dec 14, 2013 07:03
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I just finished reading "The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches)" by Anne Rice. This is a long story (1038 pages) about a Talamasca investigation of a family of witches spanning hundreds of years. It definitely wasn't one of her better books for me. Much of the book captures the feel of a scholarly investigation which gives it an air of authenticity at the expense of reading like a history textbook. There is a wealth of detail and all of the elements work well together and some parts of the book are absolutely fantastic but overall the pacing is just too slow and the book loses momentum due to its structure as a series of scholarly reports.
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Dec 15, 2013 01:39
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I just finished The Hole Behind Midnight. It came recommended from a friend who has recommended actual good books in the past. This was not a good book. It may have been the worst thing I've ever read. We may not be friends anymore.
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Dec 15, 2013 05:56
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Just finished A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin. 3rd book in the Game of Thrones series. It's really exciting to be past where the show left off some 3000 pages later.
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Dec 15, 2013 09:40
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Things Fall Apart. A very good novel. I was puzzled by Okwonkwo's exile, because while I see its thematic points, it meant that he was only indirectly involved in the missionaries' arrival and spread, which weakened the narrative compared to him being present.
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Dec 15, 2013 10:34
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^ That's because it's a historical novel and the plot points are based in reality and not for the express purpose of providing the "best" narrative. It's important to know that Chinua Achebe was rather unique for writing African works in English. There are college courses about him. Also a big point of the novel is that Okonkwo was not directly involved in the missionaries' arrival and spread. It's just colonialism. Fun Times! fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 20:21
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Just blitzed through Gone Girl, mostly because Fincher's doing the adaptation. I was really surprised at how engrossed I was. The characters were a pretty new brand of despicable that I haven't encountered much of in fiction. It was a breath of fresh air, and the ending was a stroke of brilliance. Definitely recommended. It'll make a loving great film with Fincher at the helm too.
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Dec 15, 2013 21:11
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Steve2911 posted:Just blitzed through Gone Girl, mostly because Fincher's doing the adaptation. I was really surprised at how engrossed I was. The characters were a pretty new brand of despicable that I haven't encountered much of in fiction. It was a breath of fresh air, and the ending was a stroke of brilliance. Definitely recommended. It'll make a loving great film with Fincher at the helm too. The book is great, I loved how it pulls you in slowly with the sense of something just being off from the start, and takes you completely unexpected places.
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Dec 15, 2013 22:37
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zhuangcg posted:I just finished reading "The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches)" by Anne Rice. This is a long story (1038 pages) about a Talamasca investigation of a family of witches spanning hundreds of years. It definitely wasn't one of her better books for me. Much of the book captures the feel of a scholarly investigation which gives it an air of authenticity at the expense of reading like a history textbook. There is a wealth of detail and all of the elements work well together and some parts of the book are absolutely fantastic but overall the pacing is just too slow and the book loses momentum due to its structure as a series of scholarly reports. Congratulations, this is the first time I've ever seen someone review The Witching Hour without saying "The protagonist is a woman who enjoys being raped".
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Dec 16, 2013 01:19
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Just finished Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. The first detective neo-noir mystery thriller stoner comedy I've ever read. Need more books like this. Hilarious, sometimes sad, but always fun. By the end of the book I really had no idea what the hell was going on, the complicated web of characters and relationships eventually became too much for me to keep track of, but it was a very entertaining read nonetheless. Can't wait to see how PT Anderson brings this to the screen.
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Dec 16, 2013 18:19
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THUD! by Terry Pretchett Sam Vimes is forced to battle politics, racism, and his inner demons and still make story time with his son. It was very enjoyable and an absolute page-turner for the last 2/3.
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Dec 16, 2013 20:21
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The Hero of Ages. Third book of the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. A satisfying conclusion to a pretty good series that tells the story of a group of thieves living in a world in which the "hero" that was supposed to save the world from evil has failed. Hero of Ages has a brilliant magic system, typical of Sanderson novels, though some of the characters are a little flat. Overall a good read.
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Dec 16, 2013 20:43
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Dust - Final book of the Silo Saga, by Hugh Howey Consider this series YA fiction, then go read and enjoy it if you like post-apocalyptic, semi-dystopian settings. Dust wrapped up the series sufficiently well and I gobbled it up in one sitting. There are some unrealistic and/or shallow aspects to the series but overall it's a good story which is extremely easy to read and follow, which was a big relief after finally finishing: The Crippled God - Final book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen series, by Steven Erikson The series is three-and-a-half million words of a complex, fractured story covering three hundred thousand years of history, with a huge cast of characters who disappear with some frequency and occasionally reappear in later books. The author has given me a much greater appreciation of the dictionary feature on my Kindle than I previously had.
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Dec 17, 2013 19:04
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snooman posted:The Crippled God - Final book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen series, by Steven Erikson It's up around five million if you include side stories, prequels and the five official shared world novels by Ian Cameron Esslemont.
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Dec 18, 2013 01:38
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Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Excellent and horribly funny. The passage about the bubonic plague corpses is going to stick with me for some time. The next book I read shouldn't be an apocalypse one, methinks.
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Dec 18, 2013 14:50
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