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I just finished S., the (fictional) 1949 novel Ship of Theseus by the (fictional) V.M. Strake with footnotes by the (fictional) F.X. Caldeira and annotations by the (fictional) ... you get the idea. It was written by an author named Doug Dorst, who apparently is a creative writing instructor and three-time Jeopardy champion, though J.J. Abrams provided the concept for the work. The concept is this: V.M. Straka is an enigmatic author whose true identity is unknown. He works closely with a translator, F.X. Caldeira. After Straka's untimely death, Caldeira has Straka's Ship of Theseus published posthumously. Straka was notoriously difficult to work with and never allowed annotations or changes to his works, but Caldiera willfully defies this and includes in Straka's final work a foreword and multiple footnotes that are at times bizarre or outright incorrect. How do we know that they are incorrect? Because a graduate student has underlined passages and written his own notes in the margins. Inscribed in his pencil on the title page: quote:* IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO WORKROOM B19, He must have left it somewhere, though, because there is a handwritten note in blue pen directly underneath it: quote:Hey, I found your stuff while I was The owner of the book responds with a black felt-tip pen, the owner of the blue pen responds in kind, and in the margins of the work they explore Straka's murky history, the unusual footnotes by Caldeira, and find themselves getting embroiled in personal turmoil, hidden messages, and far-reaching conspiracy. First, off, this book is gorgeous. They went to great lengths to make this thing look like an old library book. There's a Dewey Decimal tag, the book is stamped with "NOT FOR LOAN," has stamped return dates in the back cover, and has yellow, stained pages. It lacks is old-book smell and the margins are curiously large but otherwise it looks like a library book from 65 years ago. (click for big, go to Imgur to see HUGE).  The workmanship continues in the body of the text itself. It seems that our two students might have been passing this thing back and forth for a while?  On top of that, stuck in the pages are telegrams, postcards, a newspaper clipping or two, a few handwritten notes and letters, and ... a drawing of the campus map on a napkin from a coffeehouse?     There's also this curious guy:  It's all a bit overwhelming at first. Eventually you figure out HOW to approach this story and its multiple timelines (it helps to understand the chronological order of the two students' annotations: pencil for Eric's own notes, starting when he was a teenager; blue ink and black felt pen on Jen and Eric's first set of correspondence; green and orange felt pens on their second set;the same black felt pen on their third and last set.) There's no right or wrong way to approach the book, though, from reading just he source text first and then going back through the various notes and supplements, to taking it all in at once, to a chapter-by-chapter hybrid, or whatever. I personally found it easiest to read each chapter with the penciled-in notes while ignoring the rest, then went back through the chapter and read the first set of correspondence. After I completed the book, I went through and read the next set of correspondence, etc. It's hard to ignore the annotations, though -- even if you try not to, your eye sometimes catches a note and leaves you wondering what led up to it or what will stem from it. The electronic version apparently lets you drop the annotations and read Ship of Theseus and its footnotes without the marginalia, but personally I like the physical book. But how was it? A complaint I've seen is that some reviewers just don't think the source text is good enough to justify the backstory -- that Straka was a genius whose mysterious life deserves the scrutiny of scholars. I personally loved the source story. It's not at all subtle or complicated and it positively drips with symbolism that screams, "LOOK AT ME, I'M SAYING SOMETHING HERE!" but I could definitely see a contingent of people searching desperately for clues to the elusive Straka's life and identity. The ultimate direction of the students' plotline is clear early on as well, but I still love how it played out and there's just enough left untied for the final annotation to represent either a happy ending or a tragic end. Apparently Abrams said this was "a love letter to the written word." A few reviewers seem to believe that S. is just a groan-worthy puzzle, an elaborate prop, instead of a worthwhile read. I disagree wholeheartedly, and think it's well worth the twenty-five bucks I pad for the experience. In retrospect I've liked a few books that would fall under histiographic metafiction -- The Princess Bride and The Historian jump to mind -- so I think I'll have to try a few others, namely Nabakov's Pale Fire and Byatt's Possession. (edited out a few stupid typos.) tetrapyloctomy fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 21:24
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Only it is, to some. It all depends on the buy-in. As a text without context, the book is just a weirdly-written symbolic tale. If your suspension of disbelief allows you to accept it as the posthumously-published work of a man so secretive that no one living is sure who he is, a man mixed up in important societal upheaval while leaving few clues as to his life and early death, then the metastory works. Sure, I'd love to see a version of this where Eco wrote the source text and pulled out all the stops, but this still kept me entertained. edit: huh, weird autocorrect from phone-posting just noticed. "MetaStock"? That'll teach me to post from work. tetrapyloctomy fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 08:17
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blue squares posted:Only when I'm bored and trying to decide if I should continue. If you don't like the story or you can't accept the backstory, then by all means don't read it because I don't think the payoff will be worth it to you. But if your main concern is that it's just going to leave everything hanging, it does tie up the loose ends.
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Oct 10, 2014 15:18
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Itachia posted:Not long just finished Goldfinch - Donna Tartt , it wasn't anything like I thought it would be which was a pleasant surprise. It was a very light read compared to what I usually read, although I felt that the story dragged on a little longer than it maybe should of been but there always seemed to be something going on.
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Oct 11, 2014 20:49
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On an impending flight from Frankfurt I had nothing to read, so I bought a bunch of books for the Nook and also picked up "a blind date with a book" -- a brown-paper-wrapped book with a few handwritten notes on the paper providing a vague description of what was inside. It promised a tense thriller, so I eagerly opened in on the plane and started to read. It was Yannick Murphy's This Is The Water, and it was such an awful experience I'm surprised to see reviews that liked its second-person narrative and who didn't think the ending was just a snoozer. I followed that up with Paula Hawkins' The Girl On The Train, which was vastly superior, and then about 2/3 of Gone Girl. I wish I'd been able to go into the latter unspoiled, but it was still a fun read. More than anything I'm glad I had something to read after This Is The Water, which had just annoyed me the whole way through.
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Aug 10, 2015 18:17
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I don't know, I wasn't a huge fan of Carrion Comfort. The Terror and (looking at Wikipedia) Summer of Night sound promising, though, so I'll check them out.
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Sep 10, 2015 09:58
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I finished The Terror yesterday and read Summer of Night today. Simmons is an acceptable way to pass the time, but I think his ideas and research are better than his actual execution. Next up: Broken Monsters. I loved The Shining Girls, so I hope this one goes well.
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Sep 20, 2015 22:18
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I just finished Ready Player One. I mean, after all, it had a ton of good reviews, surely everything I've seen on Something Awful totally panning it was just backlash, right? Ugh. I'm not even sure what else to say. Ugh. It wasn't so terrible as to make it unreadable or anything, it's just that it's hard to imagine an author more blatantly attempting to elevate spectrum-disorder characteristics to not just cool, but DESIRED. I'm sorry -- the jerkoffs behind me at the local showing of Ghostbusters reciting every line will never attain widespread, fawning recognition for their social ineptitude. People who relentlessly play out scenes from Monty Python will continue to make everyone else cringe. I read the blurb in the back from his new book; am I right in assuming that being an outcast who happens to be great at old video games is exactly what we need to save the world!!!?
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Oct 12, 2015 20:37
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nerdpony posted:Just finished S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. I enjoyed most of it, and the marginalia and inserts were well done. I thought things resolved too neatly for Jen and Eric in the end, though. That said, I didn't really mind the way things ended within Ship of Theseus since that was obviously Filomena (my favorite character in the book -- wish there had been more of her!) writing the ending she wished she and Strava could have had. Would generally recommend. Regarding the ending: Did it resolve so nicely? The "OK" is crossed out; is that because they're going to just spend time with one anther without the book as a buffer, or did something happen to them? On top of that, if the set up is that we are reading "their" book -- why don't they have it anymore?
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Jan 7, 2016 23:48
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tonytheshoes posted:Just finished Bird Box by Josh Malerman. I was pleasantly surprised. It is a psychological horror novel that presents an interesting take on the tried and true 'band of survivors holed up together in a house while evil lurks outside' genre. It's the first horror novel in a long time that was able to affect me in any way. The author did a nice job building tension, and the ending was better than most books of this ilk. I read this based on your suggestion and I enjoyed it too.
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May 30, 2016 05:54
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Sacks popped up a few times on Radiolab and man, did he EVER sound like he would have been the most fascinating guy to end up sitting next to on a long train ride.
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Jun 7, 2016 22:16
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Colonel Taint posted:Just finished the second installation of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy, The Confusion. Onto the next 800 pages! The Name of the Rose might be my favorite book. I think Foucault's Pendulum probably is Eco's better book, but The Name of the Rose just brings me a particular sense of joy when I read it. That said, no matter whether you read the Eco or the Gibson, you're reading some good stuff.
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Feb 19, 2017 21:13
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The Grey posted:Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman I agree -- I feel like Gaiman throws ideas onto paper to get them out and doesn't care if it's fleshed-out enough or not, and as a result I'm not a huge fan of his short stories. John Connolly, on the other hand, achieves the sense of a fully completed plot no matter how few pages he uses. That's not to say that he won't leave you with a dangling hook, but you still get the sense that there's a whole story there instead of the half-baked fragments that Gaiman gets published.
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Apr 5, 2017 12:03
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Colonel Taint posted:Someone recommended Eco for people who like Neal Stephenson books, which I mostly enjoy. I really enjoyed Anathem so I thought reading another book, this time about actual monks, might be OK. I'm not saying it was all bad. I get that there was probably a lot of symbolism in the visions/dreams etc but I just couldn't care about it or the esoteric history stuff. Just not my cup of tea really. I love Eco and I love Stephenson, but man I would never recommend one based on the other. But Eco is pretty consistent, so Foucault's Pendulum probably won't be your cup of tea. (You should still read it.)
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May 5, 2017 14:49
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robotsinmyhead posted:Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - Despite urging from folks in the Sci-Fi thread, I read the entire book and liked it a lot. There's plenty of crunchy very-near-future space travel stuff (orbital dynamics, dV calculations, etc) to scratch the itch that I developed by playing Kerbal Space Program, lots of big picture stuff, some intrigue, and existential horror things. The only reason the book exists is he wanted to come up with a quasi-reasonable reason why something like the Star Trek universe has tons of alien civilizations but with creatures that not only look somewhat human, but often can even interbreed. I'm of the "two-thirds of this is a good book" camp, but I wouldn't tell people not to read the third act. Just think of it as ... sorta bad fan fiction by the ultimate goony fan, the author himself.
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Aug 11, 2017 19:42
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chernobyl kinsman posted:im trying to imagine a worse reason to write a book and im coming up empty  withak posted:I thought it started out as a response to the question "what would happen if the moon blew up". Neal Stephenson posted:The third element that made its way into the story is the concept of aliens. Science fiction writers have dreamed up many kinds of aliens, some of them fantastically imaginative, some so profoundly different from us as to be nearly incomprehensible. But the aliens that have stuck with us in popular culture have been English-speaking humanoids. In some cases, as in Star Trek, these are so similar to us that we can even breed with them! The subtext seems to be that the aliens are us; we are the aliens. Fine. Just another reason we don't have to develop faster-than-light drive.
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Aug 13, 2017 13:00
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I read The Ballad of Black Tom two days ago, and because I enjoyed it immensely I jumped right into The Changeling. I didn't dislike The Changeling, but it had pacing issues and just overall felt not as well thought-out. I'm going to read The Devil in Silver as a tie-breaker.
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Sep 5, 2017 02:45
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Ben Nevis posted:LaValle very much touches a lot of social issues in the larger books, so Devil in Silver is a critique of the mental health system along with the horror aspect. I've read those 3 and enjoyed them all. I feel like The Changeling may hit harder for a recent parent, but I did find there to be some slack in there. I still really liked that one. I'll be curious to hear what you think of Devil in Silver. I liked it. The actual identity of the creature was a bit of a let down since I was really in the mood for supernatural horror, but it needed to work out as it did to stay true to the theme. I can't blame a book for not exactly being the genre that I wanted! There are also some weird inconsistencies in his tone, like when he steps out of the narrative and addresses you directly, author to reader, but it generally wan't too jarring. Overall, I think I would rank The Changeling < The Devil in Silver << The Ballad of Black Tom. It might be a bit unfair to compare them directly like that, as the last is a novella and naturally is going to be tighter, but The Changeling in particular just was too inconsistent in tone and did kind of a clumsy job tying everything together. After finishing The Devil in Silver, I read Ania Ahlborn's The Devil Crept In. Meh. The protagonist of the story is a kid with mental issues -- which is sort of necessary in order to make him more unreliable to everyone he's trying to convince -- but he also has echolalia, and it gets old really quickly. Wasn't bad, wan't great. I'm not going to actively hunt down any more of her books. Next up: Emma Files' Experimental Film and/or John Langan's The Fisherman. I don't even quite remember what led me to pick these two, but here they are among my recent purchases, so why the hell not.
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Sep 8, 2017 18:26
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Experimental Film wasn't half-bad. I was hoping that it wouldn't wuss out and come up with a lame non-paranormal etiology and to my relief it did not. I'll probably pick up more Files (and not misspell her first name next time).
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Sep 12, 2017 02:47
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I finally got around to finishing The Club Dumas. It's really quite up my alley, I'm not sure why it didn't gel with me.
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Oct 1, 2017 22:26
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Xmaspast posted:I read that a few years ago when I was still working at my last library since we had it in our collection and I'm an unashamed fan of The Ninth Gate. I really enjoyed it for like 3/4 of the way through and then it just sort of lost my interest. I finished it cause I was almost done, but it was almost like I hit a brick wall where it stopped being quite as fun as it used to be. There's something that just disappoints me about stories that collapse down into mundane explanations. Oh, so the huge plot to hide the instructions to summon Lucifer is not only left blandly ambiguous at the end, but actually has nothing to do with everyone else you've been chasing? Those people are literally just arranging a super-secret party? MEHHHHH. I felt similarly about Night Film, which I thought had a phenomenal hook that the rest of the story just couldn't live up to. I guess what I'm saying is: I want The Exorcist, where Pazuzu is real. I don't want someone to wipe of Regan's makeup and then show us how she faked it.
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Oct 4, 2017 13:41
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I just finished Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down and Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants yesterday, one after the other. I read them both on my phone while I pushed Tet Jr. in his stroller around the first floor of the house, which is sometimes the only thing that will console him. I think it was just me fulfilling some deep desire either to be crushed in rubble or spectacularly immolated, which are probably preferable to listening to an infant whine for a few hours straight.
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Aug 6, 2018 17:20
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Captain Hotbutt posted:Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff Your short review here piqued my interest. (I, uh, may have needed a same-day delivery from Amazon, and remembered this book. Added another few books on, and there we were.) It was great. The specific historical context did provide a unique take on the mythos, and left me wanting more tales from the characters. Anyway, thanks. I bought Mirage and maybe other one of his books too.
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Oct 22, 2018 01:10
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Lawen posted:I think I’ve read everything Matt Ruff has written and Set This House in Order is still my favorite so check it out if you haven’t 🙂 Captain Hotbutt posted:Glad to hear it!
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Oct 30, 2018 14:30
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Ben Nevis posted:I've been curious but hesitant about Mirage. I've got a real soft spot for Fool on the Hill though. It's a first novel, but one with some definite strong points. It's funny -- many of the too-on-the-nose parallels in his alternate world made me roll my eyes ... and then when the back story came together they added to the story rather than detracted from it. Additionally, though I can't quite explain how, Ruff cones across as genuinely interested in understanding that which he researches for his books, rather than just exploiting them for setting hooks. Both books I've read thus far make me wish I could get a group together for tabletop roleplaying again, and then I remember that I am lazy and lack imagination.
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Oct 31, 2018 02:39
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Captain Hotbutt posted:Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders The audiobook is positively phenomenal.
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Nov 17, 2019 20:32
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Ibexaz posted:Finally finished my mount everest of the year, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.
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Jan 2, 2020 22:02
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chernobyl kinsman posted:read aickman bitch I bought a few collections based on the last time you brought him up and yeah, it's some good stuff.
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Feb 7, 2020 15:54
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Bilirubin posted:Lincoln in the Bardo. Really lovely, with some quite funny moments. It's actually an amazing audiobook, too. I read it first, then listened to it on a long road trip with my wife.
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Aug 10, 2020 00:58
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Bilirubin posted:Just finished Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. A crazed mishmash of a history of esotericism in the west coupled with post war European sensibilities and predatory publishing leads to a massive conspiracy. If you haven't read The Name of the Rose yet, do so immediately. I think Foucault's Pendulum is probably the better book, but The Name of the Rose is probably my favorite Eco book.
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Feb 10, 2021 14:22
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Not the Messiah posted:The Martian, by Andy Weir. I just read Project Hail Mary and the narrative voice is just about identical. Totally worth the quick read.
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May 15, 2021 04:57
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NGDBSS posted:Was it worse than Seveneves, which stapled a clumsy far-future goodies-vs-baddies narrative onto the first two thirds? (I think eugenics might have been involved, it's been a few years since I listened to the audiobook.) You have it backwards, actually. He wrote *Seveneves* because he wanted to explain how you could have a setting like *Star Trek*, with humanoid aliens that are still close enough genetically to humans to interbreed. He wrote 2/3 of a good book to set up the 1/3 poo poo portion he'd planned for.
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Sep 23, 2021 21:20
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Lockback posted:Finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, excellent read. Finished it in 3 sittings, really enjoyed it as a high concept yet a relatable allegory. I was a bit disappointed it was as short as it was, but honestly I am not sure what you can do without having it stretch too thin. I want to give her other book (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) understanding it is a very different novel. I agree completely. I was definitely expecting something longer, but it was just about the perfect length for the story it told.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:26
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Gaius Marius posted:I read Tlon a couple weeks ago and then started Foucault's Pendulum and I've already got a pretty good idea what's going on because of it. Ma gavte la nata.
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Jul 25, 2022 18:22
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I just burned through all nine books of the Expanse series. They did a great job of maintaining long arcs while still having a suitably-contained story for each book, and I'm also impressed by how they managed to keep it from just developing into unmanageable bloat. I'm a bit sad to be done, honestly, it was quite a ride.
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Dec 27, 2022 16:19
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A History of Fear. It was ... okay, I guess. I didn't buy the voice used for the main character's journal, even for a self-absorbed academic wannabe it just didn't feel right.
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Jan 3, 2023 02:37
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Over the weekend I read books one through four and book six of the Earthsea series. Weirdly, we had The Farthest Shore (book three) in my house when I was growing up and none of the others, so I'd read that previously. Four and six are alright, but the original trilogy remains fantastic over fifty years after publication. I read them on my Kobo but absolutely will buy some hard copies, it's something I want around when Tet Jr is old enough to be poking around for something to read.
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Dec 27, 2023 17:13
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Wait there's six of them now? I read the trilogy as a wee lad and Tehanu when it was published in Finnish, and was aware there was another book come out at some point.ee Yeah, with book five being a collection of short stories that fill our Earthsea lore. I think the first three are must-read, and the latter three are if you want more Earthsea.
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Dec 30, 2023 19:23
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I said come in! posted:Just finished Circe: I love Greek mythology, and this takes that and puts a new perspective and twist on it, while still remaining faithful to Homers Illiad, and the Odyssey. Seeing this fantasy setting from the perspective of a lesser god was really interesting and cool, and its just such a great story to read with very good character depth and growth. Circe is a good book, but The Song of Achilles is fantastic. Beautiful prose, just masterfully written.
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Jan 12, 2024 17:50
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White Coke posted:The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, translated by William Weaver. I read this because I watched the movie and really enjoyed it. The movie was more focused on the murder mystery while the book had the space to expand upon the setting and take longer tangents discussing various aspects of history, politics, and theology. I enjoyed it though I don't know if that's just because all of those topics interest me. I don't think this is the best Umberto Eco book, but it iltemains my favorite after many years.
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Mar 5, 2024 10:15
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