|
Cell by Stephen King. I have to give the novel credit by suckering me in with an amazing first fifty pages where the action never stops. Then it stops. Cell would be alright as a novella, but I think King wanted to stretch a short story into a novel and had no loving clue how to fill the space. My biggest problem is that after the introduction to the book, the characters are seemingly in no danger whatsoever, which ruins all the fun of the "zombie" angle. King also tries desperately to write for two teenage characters, but apparently his only reference was a book of 1940s slang (I'm not kidding). This is all tied up with crazy psychic elements that make the notion of "motivation" irrelevant; these elements are also there to make some of the poorly written sections of the book (i.e. most of it) seem plausible. Overall, a pretty insulting work, and the worst book I've ever read by King. I'm really astonished that he thought this was suitable for publishing.
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2006 00:17
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:12 |
|
|
The last book I read was Ripley Under Ground, the second book in Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series. While not as good as the first book, I'm a huge fan of Highsmith's writing, and the way she goes through the machinations and logic of Ripley's plans keeps me reading. This second book has some cat-and-mouse action, but a lot of it is devoted to characters standing around, talking about art forgeries. This is why I assumed they didn't make a movie of this book - until I discovered that they DID make it into a movie, but it was never released. The next book, Ripley's Game, was made into a movie with John Malkovich. Highsmith was definitely influenced by the story of Elmyr D'hory (Wikipedia it) when she wrote this novel. It's pretty facsinating (d'Hory's like) if you have the time to read about it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2007 17:59
|
|
|
The Partly Cloudy Patriot, by Sarah Vowell. I had read Sarah's Assassination Vacation, and don't recall being annoyed with her as much as I was with this collection of essays. Her writing is good (not great) when talking about subjects other then herself, but when she slips into autobiography mode, the effect actually sickens me. I have no problem with essayists writing about themselves (I'm a fan of David Sedaris), but Sarah's attempts to paint herself as a quirky-yet-lovable gal in the big city who does zaanny things like chop celery to the B-52s "Rock Lobster" (and in case you weren't sure, she drops in several of these examples so you know how lovably wacky she is) bore and irritate me. TPCP was way too cutesy for me. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut. Out of all the Vonnegut books I've read, this one was the least focused on plot - although this didn't harm the novel. BoC felt like an almanac to me, with Vonnegut sharing stories and defining concepts in ways that were cutting and sometimes charming. The illustrations are a nice touch, and even though BoC is quirky, by the end, the story is actually somewhat moving. With BoC, Vonnegut is not at all tied down to the trappings of fiction, and I think this works in his favor; this book feels like pure, unadulterated Vonnegut. I recently heard that there is a movie version of this, which I have filed away in the "How the gently caress?" area of my brain. bobservo fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Feb 21, 2007 |
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2007 05:17
|
|
|
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain - One of Twain's later works, TMS drops the pretenses of Twain's unfairly-mislabeled Americana genre for a dark and biting look at human nature. Swiftian in its mission, this novel doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, but it does manage to say it in delicious monologues delivered by Satan. Yes, in Twain's novel (a relative of) Satan comes to earth to interact with humans and comment upon their nature; people are delighted by him at first, but soon become disturbed by his extreme utilitarian ways. It's a pretty dark book by an obviously cynical man, yet the criticisms of human behavior are plainly spoken by TMS's outsider. The novel is unfinished, but the version of it I read ends on an appropriate and chilling note. Check it out at Gutenberg.org. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis - Even though it's an outdated criticism and lampooning of England's post-WWII decaying social structure, Lucky Jim is still worth reading. While Amis' criticisms of a buffoonish upper class must have been outrageous in the 50s, contempt for the rich is hardly anything new today (and deservedly so with people like Paris Hilton). James Dixon is a great character, and a great anti-hero- the way he is annoyed by everyone and everything reminds me a bit of Tom Ripley from the Ripley books, except with less murder. The book can be slow at times, and many may not find the struggles of a self-admitted loser professor trying to keep his job at an English college interesting, but know this: Lucky Jim has the best multi-page description of a hang over that I've ever read. The book is really funny in a uniquely British way. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris - This is the only David Sedaris book I haven't read yet, so I went into it with expectations that were met. I was happy to see a few essays in this tiny book written as other characters, instead of David's usual autobiographical fare. David's life is entertaining, and stories about himself make up the majority of his work, but I prefer his "non-David" pieces a little more. They give him the chance to be much, much darker, and allow him to satirize types of people in a much more effective manner. Pretty soon he's going to run out of interesting stories about himself, so if he continues to write more, I'm sure I'll get to see more of the kind of writing I prefer.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2007 00:17
|
|
|
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep is a seminal novel, as well as Raymond Chandler's first. Through Phillip Marlowe, Chandler basically created the "hard-boiled" detective story, which has been aped and parodied since The Big Sleep's 1939 publication date - but this doesn't affect the power of the book. Chandler is a master of short, punctual sentences that use language with an amazing efficiency, and his creative metaphors and similies (now the most cliched element of the genre) are stunning. I think Roger Ebert once said something about laughing at the dialogue of The Big Sleep, not necessarily because it's funny, but because it's so drat clever. Chandler's character's are fast-talking and unrealistically witty, and his universe of wise guys is ruled by the ultimate wise guy, Detective Phillip Marlowe. In some ways he's a male fantasy character, but in other ways he's not; Phillip is strong, clever, and unshakable, but he's also a depressed alcoholic with a surprising amount of chastity. The plot of The Big Sleep is extremely convoluted, but not impossible to follow. I read the book over the course of a day, which is the best way to experience TBS due to its detail-heavy nature. What I loved most about the book was that it really took me back into the California of the 1930s, which was not a difficult task for Chandler, who wrote it in that era. In many ways this book reminded me of the movie Chinatown, which is really an homage to noir, so it's a crappy comparison. That's why I'm stopping right here.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2007 15:49
|
|
|
Excuse the long-rear end review. The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins) - I have a real weakness for bloated, Victorian prose - and it doesn't get more bloated than serialized Victorian prose - so The Woman in White was promising to be a joy to read. Once you get over the fact that Collins, Dickens and their contemporaries were basically writing the Dragon Ball Zs of their time, it's easy to overlook that they describe every. pointless. thing. But, prose like this can become tedious if the story completely falls apart. That being said, The Woman in White is one of the books I finished only because I made it to the point where quitting would have been a bigger waste of my time. Collins opens the book promising to tell the story as a relay race: a character will tell their part of the story, and so on, in chronological order. This happens until a point, then Collins gets a little too comfortable, lingering on single characters for far too long - the last part of the book is especially guilty of this, being told almost completely by one character. Collins keeps the most interesting protagonist of the story, Marian Halcombe, out of the action by her own choosing - though the reason is really Collins' crazy sexism. Allow me to give you some examples: Women are constantly passing out, falling unconscious, and getting sick all because of their overwhelming emotions. The headstrong, smart, female character is ugly, and constantly laments the fact that she is a woman. This same character also recovers from an extreme emotional upset by doing housework. The hero's love interest is basically treated like a giant infant and all information is kept from her so she doesn't develop emotion-based AIDS or something like that. It's cute and silly at first, but the sexism eventually becomes tiresome. The last third of the book really starts to sink when Collins allows the character of Walter Hartright to become the hero - and he's the most proper Victorian hero the world has ever seen. There are going to be some spoilers ahead, so skip the next paragraph is you really want to read the book (DON'T): Every choice Walter makes is the lamest, wussiest action possible. Towards the end of the book, he has the chance to destroy a man who has ruined the lives of others, but instead lets him escape because it's the "proper" thing to do. And so he doesn't have to get his hands dirty, the universe disposes of his enemies for him: one dies by accident in a fire, and the other is murdered by strangers. Another character dies by natural causes at the end of the book, just so Walter can have an estate and money. It's all very artificial, and you can tell that Collins was reacting to the "novels are the violent video games of the mid-19th century crowd" with this work. Walter doesn't have to commit a single immoral action to save the day. The ultimate slap in the face for the reader in The Woman in White is the reveal of a major plot point. A character trying to hide a secret is the antagonist, and you spend about 500 pages wondering just what the heck the secret could possibly be. When it's revealed, the secret is the most anticlimactic chunk of poo in the entire book - but, then again, every reveal in The Woman in White is nearly as disappointing. Andrew Lloyd Webber recently made a musical out of this story, changing all of the boring plot points to make them much more interesting. I only wish that Collins would have had the same concerns.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2007 19:04
|
|
|
Mack the Knife posted:You are a brave, brave man. Rather like Twain's famous skewering review of Fenimore Cooper, many authors have written of the pain and tedium of reading Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone in particular. You should look them up, they may help you recover Can you provide me with some links, sir 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2007 03:43
|
|
|
russia is HERE posted:http://ww3.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/cooper.html I had to read both Pamela and Shamela for a class, with Shamela being the better book by a large margin (though it helped to have read Pamela first).
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2007 06:46
|
|
|
russia is HERE posted:So did I, actually! I really enjoyed Shamela, because Pamela was such a miserable experience. What confused me was that there was a professor of literature at Yale or Harvard that wrote about how great it was in the preface. I thought it was unbelievably poorly written. If you look hard enough, anyone will write an introduction to anything. In the Collins book, some scholar went on for ten pages describing the story with this method: "And who can forget when character X did action Y? How marvelous!"
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2007 02:23
|
|
|
The Regulators (1996) By Stephen King - I read a healthy amount of Stephen King as a teen, but whenever I come back to him as a twentysomething, I'm left disappointed. It could be that my tastes are now too mature for "besteller" novels, or it could be that King is just a bad writer. One thing is clear, though: this book isn't good. The Regulators begins with a homicidal assault on a small Ohio town by a group of Power Ranger knockoffs driving futuristic vans -- and it gets weirder from there. All the violence comes from an evil entity named Tak, who is using the imagination of the neighborhood's autistic boy to trap a small suburban street in a land of fictional terror. King likes to remind the reader often that all the madness in the book is being caused by a child -- a fact which is made explicitly clear in the narration. Characters will often cap their observations about the changes in their environment by saying, "...it's almost as if a child thought it up!" And the characters do make observations. A lot. Most of the dialogue can be replicated with this formula: "Hey [Character X], you'll never believe it, but [Action Y] is happening in front of my very eyes!" The book also has a blunt quality that sucks all the joy out of the rewarding experience that reading should bring. Plot points and character connections will be hinted at, but before you can feel any sort of satisfaction for figuring (admittedly simple) things out on your own, he goes ahead and states the obvious about six times just in case some of the duller readers weren't paying attention. It's extremely condescending, not to mention frustrating. After witnessing King shoot subtlety in the face for the sixth or seventh time, I was left wondering, "Does he really think his readers are this dumb?" I was drawn to The Regulators because of its interesting concept and because I wanted to read a light novel after having read too much Wilkie Collins. Books can be dumb fun, but this one made me feel dumb. I mean, King even trots out the "autistic people are actually geniuses instead of mostly being severely retarded" nugget of wisdom that I'm sure the supermarket book-buyers eat up with a spoon.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2007 18:10
|
|
|
Ripley's Game (1974) By Patricia Highsmith - This novel, the third in Highsmith's "Ripliad" (starting with The Talented Mr. Ripley), follows the amoral protagonist and his ongoing life in France. Ripley's Game is told in a different manner than the previous two novels, though; much of the book follows Jonanthan Trevanny, a young picture framer with a terminal illness. Half of the book is mainly from his point of view, giving the reader a view of Ripley from the outside. We also see Ripley not scheming out of self-preservation for once, but out of curiosity; hence, the "Game" in the title. With Ripley's manipulative actions, Highsmith questions what a person will do when their mortality is staring them right in the face. Ripley's Game was a little better than Ripley Under Ground, if only because that book never drifted too far from the topic of art forgery (which is only exciting for so long). It's clear Highsmith is interested in painting and painters, but she works these topics into this novel in a less solipsistic way. Ripley's Game is also more intense than the last novel, bringing the intensity up to levels approaching the first book by involving The Mafia in Ripley's life. This does come with some problems, though; given the publication date of Ripley's Game, it's clear that -- mostly due to The Godfather -- The Mafia was the topic du jour on everyone's mind. As a result, their portrayal is a little cliched and lacking the characterization Highsmith usually gives her characters. I haven't been disappointed by the series yet, and I encourage you to start reading it, too -- especially if you're only familiar with the Matt Damon film.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2007 18:33
|
|
|
The Shroud of the Thwacker (2005) By Chris Elliot - Chris Elliot has had a pretty obscure-yet-influential role in the world of alternative comedy. He made Letterman's show in the 1980s what Canon O' Brien's show would become in the 1990s, and he also starred in one of the craziest short-lived sitcoms to ever exist, Get a Life. His first novel is written with the same persona Chris has been playing for over 20 years: an innocent, losery manchild who isn't quite sure of what's happening around him. Chris' first novel is of a genre that isn't published much anymore: the gag-a-minute, absurdist style made popular by authors like Douglas Adams. Thwacker takes this style and incorporates metafiction, 19th century lit, and the modern thriller for a combination almost as absurd as the events of the book. The best material comes out of Chris' portrayal of a 19th century New York, where he makes fun of the food, hygiene, racism, and rampant drug use of that era; this is a world where a giant statue of a KKK member holding a burning cross is erected before the Statue of Liberty. It's clever and wildly creative, but at a certain point I began to get sick of the book's style. Thwacker shouldn't have been longer than 200 pages -- this 360-page novel is just barely supported by the jokes holding it up. Thwacker also feels a bit lazy by the end, with a interesting turn of events amounting to Elliot ignoring the logic behind all the absurdity in the novel. I'm hoping his next novel (which he may be writing now) is a little less chunky.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2007 20:13
|
|
|
The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980) By Patricia Highsmith - Before I write about this book, here's an interesting quote about the author that I dug up from The New York times: No flashy or fashionable effects are allowed to interrupt the flow of a Highsmith narrative, which often appears to be eventful even when nothing is happening. The Boy Who Followed Ripley is a book where nothing really happens. Okay, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole. When compared to the first three books in the Ripley series, though, the actions are few and the tension is absent. In this respect, the book is a little disappointing; it almost feels like Patricia Highsmith is falling in love with her own character so much that she doesn't want to make things too hard for him; and, aside from a few bits of action, this is a relatively easy adventure for Ripley. Most of the book is a travelogue of sorts that follows Ripley and a young male companion as they visit different sites in Europe. The boy, a multimillionaire heir who flees America after impulsively killing his father (not a spoiler), seeks out Ripley in France and becomes a sort of protege to him. Ripley isn't trying to turn him into a killer; he's more of a morality coach for someone who actually has a conscience (which can also be seen in Ripley's Game). Though the book can be dull at times, Ripley's attachment to the boy is a startling, but not artificial, change in his character, which borders on gay but never quite enters that territory -- except for one ludicrous scene where Ripley lures some criminals into a gay bar (after dressing completely in drag) so he can follow them back to their hideout; if you think about his plan, he could have lured them to any location for his plan to work. It was a brief bit of insanity by Highsmith. The last 40 pages of The Boy Who Followed Ripley contain a surprising and story-changing event that Highsmith barely gets to explore, as it happens halfway through the dénouement. It was a little disappointing that we didn't get to investigate more of Ripley's internal thoughts after this event, and it was a major misstep for it to happen so late in the book. This is just one of a few problems which makes this Highsmith tale seem far sloppier and unplanned in comparison to her other works. I think I'm going to take a break before I read the last novel in the series, Ripley Under Water.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2007 17:16
|
|
|
Pop. 1280 (1964) By Jim Thompson - To give away too much of Pop. 1280's story would be a crime, so the best way to describe the book would be "if Kurt Vonnegut wrote a western." A clerk at the local used bookstore recommended Thompson to me because of my interest in other pulp authors like Cain, Chandler, and Hammett; I walked away from Pop. 1280 with respect for a new writer that I plan on following. Thompson's writing takes on the sinister tone of his fellow pulp writers, but he places more of an emphasis on humor and experimental techniques than what's typically seen in the genre. This can be seen with the main character, Sheriff Nick Corey: at first, he seems like a harmless, dense, coward of a man. But as the novel progresses, the reader slowly learns that he is far different than he presents himself. Giving away more of the plot would ruin the book, so I'll finish up my description of Pop. 1280 by saying that it's a darkly funny (almost nihilistic) and surprising story that -- for me at least -- overcame its setting (I'm personally not a fan of Westerns). Like I said before, I'm adding Jim Thompson to the list of authors I need to read more of.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2007 01:09
|
|
|
inktvis posted:There's quite a good film made of that, Coup de Torchon, albiet one transposed to the French colonies in Africa. I enjoyed it for the same reasons you seemed to like the book so it seems like a safe enough bet for a night in. A couple of great leads in it at any rate. Thanks for the suggestion; I added it to my NetFlix.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2007 07:43
|
|
|
Babbitt (1922) By Sinclair Lewis - I've been putting off writing about Babbitt because I don't think a review (at least, a review written by me) will do justice to how great this book is. Babbitt's brilliance comes from Sinclair Lewis' satirizing of the middle-class and middle-America; he presents a character (named Babbitt) whose waking moments revolve around status and materialism, and who is constantly trying to fight the notion that his life is empty. What's so disturbing about Babbitt is how little American "values" have changed since Lewis' 1920s portrayal of Babbitt's hometown, Zenith. This fictional American city represents a sort of local nationalism, xenophobia, and the mad mundanity present in all of Zenith's philistine populace. Being a citizen of Zenith, Babbit stands for all of these backward values, so he's a character that's easy to demonize; yet, Sinclair allows you to sympathize with the protagonist and his identity crisis as the book unfolds. All Americans should be forced (yes, forced) to read Babbitt if only to see how deftly Lewis takes apart the values and materialism we hold so dear. As the Violent Femmes once sung, "America is the home of the hypocrite," and Babbitt cuts straight to this message like no other novel I've read. Despite being nearly 100 years old, this novel is still relevant because its satirical target has remained, for the most part, unchanged; hell, I think someone in Babbitt even says, "If you're not with us, you're against us."
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2008 06:38
|
|
|
perceptual_set posted:Basically anything by Lewis is gold. What do you suggest I read next?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2008 20:22
|
|
|
Ripley Under Water (1992) By Patricia Highsmith - This fifth and last book of the Ripley series starts out on a hopeful note, literarily speaking. As the Ripley books increased in number, Highsmith had a tendency to meander too much about the quaint country life of Thomas Ripley and his many leisurely European vacations. Unlike the 100-page warm-up of the last book, Ripley Under Water starts with immediate tension; an American couple has been snooping into Ripley's affairs in France, with the husband of this couple most interested in taking Ripley down for his own pleasure. The smoking gun in this story is a corpse left under water in the second book, quite possibly the only evidence that could incriminate Ripley for any of his past deeds. The conflict in Under Water makes it an oddly-timed direct sequel to Ripley Under Ground--and odder still due to how rarely Highsmith used to mention events of past books throughout the Ripley series. Sadly, the writing on the walls in The Boy Who Followed Ripley has become the actual text in Ripley Under Water; Highsmith's love for her own character makes his last adventure equally insufferable and improbable. Ripley is too perfect, too loved, and seemingly always at the right place at the right time. And much to my dismay as a fan of the Ripley series, he barely gets his hands dirty. Speaking of which, the disposal of this book's two antagonists is the most insulting "defeat" I've read since The Woman in White. To watch Highsmith's universe grant such dumb luck to Ripley only further proved his Mary Sue-hood. Just so I can explain how thoughtless the ending was, I'll present an analogy: Let's say we have a story where Character A is trying to defeat Character B. Character A's master plan is to ring Character B's doorbell and run away. Character A rings the doorbell, and when Character B gets up to go to the door, he trips over a footstool and dies. Ripley Under Water is this stupid. This book is a sad end for the Ripley series (and Highsmith), but it doesn't detract from the other novels; the first is excellent, while the following two are very good. If you manage to get into the Ripliad, I advise you skip the last two books. You really won't be missing anything, unless you have a disappointment fetish.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2008 01:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:12 |
|
|
The Count of Monte Cristo (1844, 2003 Translation) By Alexander Dumas - Sweet Jesus is this a long book; even after setting a goal of 100 pages a day, it still took me two weeks to read. But I can now say (with a permissable amount of lying) that I've read this book twice, even though the first time around was with a stodgy, mid-19th Century English translation which I later found out was abridged (don't ever trust the words "enhanced classic"). So why did I decide to read this behemoth twice? Because it's just so damned awesome. And, after finding out about a recent re-translation with all of the juicy bits intact, there was no other sane option. The story of Monte Cristo is simple: dude gets wrongly accused and put into jail, then breaks out and executes elaborate revenge plots on all those who've wronged him. What makes the story great is the insane amount of fleshing out Dumas does to this relatively simple premise; there are so many different stories intertwining that you could probably make 7 or 8 separate novels if you assembled the individual threads into their own separate narratives. And everything works, even if the payoff is a little lacking in comparison to the extremely protracted build-up; after all, the story is so epic because it was being published serially and Dumas, like any sane man, wanted lots of money. But aside from a few tolerable jaunts into relatively unrelated territory--Dumas sometimes likes to explore the complete backgrounds of characters we barely see--everything feels like it fits into the grand scheme that is this novel and the Count's own revenge. Reading The Count of Monte Cristo is a huge investment, but it may give you the greatest satisfaction you'll ever get from finishing a book--and not because you won't have to hold the damned thing up anymore. Whatever you do, make sure you grab the Penguin Classics version, which has a great translation and includes concepts once excised for the benefit of wimpy Victorian England audiences, like lesbians and drug trips.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2008 23:28
|
|