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I silently participated in the book challenge last year. My initial goal was 30 and I hit that about halfway through the year, so I bumped it up to 50. Wound up at 54 books last year, so I think I'll set my sights on 50 again and hopefully see another little boost in my goal if I hit it early. I'll do Stravinsky's challenge as well, since I already have most of those categories covered on my list of stuff to read and I like to keep things moderately diverse- and because The Blind Owl was already on my shortlist. My general goal is to read more history books and classic literature that I've missed out on up to now, but there was a great, heaping list of different recommendations I've been pulling out of the QBaFCaRSRL thread that I'm eager to read as well. Right now I'm reading King Leopold's Ghost, The Day of the Triffids, and the Fitzgerald translation of The Odyssey.
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Jan 5, 2015 05:05
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Hitting month 12 strong with my first actual update and a request for a wildcard. I pulled back my arbitrary number of total books read from 50 to 30 because I got hit hard with work this year and I've been reading much longer books as opposed to a lot of shorter ones. I think I'll make the challenge by the skin of my teeth. 1. 'Day of the Triffids' - John Wyndham This had a really evocative and promising opening sequence, which was sadly the singular high point right out of the gate. The rest really let me down, pretty much setting the standard for the other sci-fi I would read this year. 'Triffids' is really brought down by a lot of meandering, and upon retrospect I believe it lacked a good, distinctive antagonist to compliment the Triffids, who represented more of an external complication for the protagonists to overcome. I can see where a lot of post-apocalyptic media was influenced by this work, it reminded me a bit of 'The Birds' and the seemingly wanton revenge of nature. 2. 'King Leopold's Ghost' - Adam Hochschild (*History book) I had read a lot of buzz about this prior to picking it up on sale, and it wound up being fairly good. It illuminated some horrific African history, most of which I had not even been vaguely aware of before reading this, so I have to give it credit for giving me a jumping-off point for other historical literature of the continent. I think Hochschild shoots himself in the foot when it comes to building up the stories of the major figures concerned with working toward ending Leopold's forced labor industry and the Congo Free State, and then later has a few chapters devoted to insipidly questioning what positive effect, if any, their intervention had on the Congo, especially in light of how its political infrastructure apparently just devolved from that point onward. I had some other issues with the book that I can't remember clearly anymore, I think chiefly with some of Hochschild's rhetoric, but on the whole it was definitely worth reading. 3. 'The Blind Owl' - Sadegh Hedayat (*The Blind Owl) I coincidentally read this two days after an incredibly frightening drug trip, so you can imagine how it might have struck me viscerally with its imagery and thematic repetition- I found it to be a fascinatingly immersive. I'm not good when it comes to criticizing these kinds of heavily symbolic stories and relating it with my own perspective, but this resonated with me in a specific, difficult-to-articulate way that nothing else I read this year did. 4. 'Flowers for Algernon' - Daniel Keyes Massively disappointing. Like 'Triffids,' an exceptional, slow-building introduction that later fumbles terribly in its follow-through. This would have made a far superior short story (and from what I understand, it might have been originally?). Instead, when it's not blatantly telegraphing its predictable story beats, it's weighing down its pace with tepid melodrama. This was definitely the worst book I read this year (thus far), and while I'm dogging on it pretty hard, it was really just mediocre and schmaltzy, but otherwise acceptable. Inherently I like the epistolary format and think it saves the book, even though it's kind of gimmicky and makes exposition more awkward. 5. 'The Big Sleep' - Raymond Chandler (*Mystery) This was my first Chandler, and as evidenced by the book I immediately followed it up with, it made a fantastic impression on me. Chandler's prose, his wordplay and metaphors, are simply remarkable. The plot is a convoluted hodge-podge with massive betrayals and revelations, as it ought to be in mystery novels, and Marlowe is the archetypal wry, compromised private detective that made me fall in love with noir in the first place. Kicking myself for not reading him sooner. 6. 'Farewell, My Lovely' - Raymond Chandler Had to follow up with another Phillip Marlowe. Just as strong, maybe even a bit better(?) than 'The Big Sleep.' I couldn't pin down exactly why, but I think this one had a more dynamic story. 7. 'Dracula' - Bram Stoker (*The Color Red) Apologies for the lazy challenge association. Unlike 'Triffids' and 'Algernon,' while this also had a defining opening section, I had more positive reactions for the remainder of the book other than 'boredom' and/or 'annoyance.' Epistolary again put to good use here, and I really enjoyed the meta-narrative of Mina collecting articles and other journals relating to Dracula and compiling everything to form the body of the book we're reading, that was a clever justification for changing up the perspective. Still a bit too long and a bit too repetitive- I think I remember a portion of the book where there's a whole lot of 'planning to get the Count' moments and then the characters gently caress it up in frustrating ways. Still, quite entertaining, and I think this had a genuinely exciting, albeit abrupt, climax. 8. 'The Metamorphoses' - Franz Kafka Equally somber and hilarious. I read 'The Trial' last year and preferred this for its succinctness, which I guess Roberto Bolano would posthumously call me out on later when I read '2666.' 9. 'Hunger' - Knut Hamsun Again, somber and hilarious. I love the protagonist's weird idiosyncrasies and his self-destructive adherence to his moral values. I actually seem to have read a few stories this year with similar, ever-suffering protagonists, chiefly 'Sot-Weed Factor.' This book ends with one of the most perfect and abrupt 'gently caress it, I'm out' moments. 10. 'The Odyssey' - Homer (*Unreal) It's 'The Odyssey,' it's really good.
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Dec 16, 2015 09:40
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11. 'Middlemarch' - George Eliot (*Hate or Love) Tremendously good- sprawling but comprehensive, with distinctive, believable characters and backgrounds. It's more or less a soap-opera in scope, only with the schlock replaced by genuine literary craft. What would strike me most would be Eliot's way of beautifully and succinctly expressing some kind of thought or feeling, typically relating to regret, retrospection, or reflection. One of my favorites this year, which is saying something. 12. 'JR' - William Gaddis (*Absurdist) I'm pretty astounded that this book exists, and even more astounded that it was written in the 1970's. Very entertaining, frenetic, and jarring. I can just sit back and reel off wonderful moments from this book, and it's all so densely packed and substantial, even if a lot of that substance is corporate financial bullshit jargon. My criticisms are that, by virtue of the characters' repetition and cutting each other off being a prominent schtick, 'JR' becomes pretty fatiguing towards the latter portion of the book. But what gets me worse is that Jack Gibbs' story feels distractingly separate from everything else in 'JR' tonally, where sits this weird pocket of Gibbs dealing with his friend's suicide that's only tenuously connected to the story at hand, then progressively overshadows it. Still, this is one I'm going to have to reread down the line. It's not perfect, but it's huge, funny, and hypnotic. 13. 'The Good Earth' - Pearl S. Buck (*Female Author) Not bad, although I'm kind of at a loss for what to say about it. It's a concise portrait of an incredibly flawed man's life. Buck has a certain way about instilling a banal disgust with Wang Lung in the earlier portion of the book, and then making you slightly sympathetic for him in the latter half, when the things in his life that elevated him slowly fall away, and how his genuine love, faith, and work put into his land is going to be impassively exploited for profit after his death by his sons. And now I'm beginning to remember a lot of things I liked about it, so yeah. 14. 'The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare' - G.K. Chesterton I dunno if C'est Moi genuinely likes this book or not, but I was absolutely smitten with it. Chesterton captures the essence of a dream perfectly, and while being so drat brisk and entertaining. It's so short that it's really hard not to just recommend, read it in an afternoon and see what you think. One other thing I like about this is that all the covers for it awkwardly emphasize Gregory looking mysterious, and then he just gets thoroughly owned by Syme in the first three chapters. 15. 'Storm of Steel' - Ernst Unger (*Biography) My one re-read. Still a bare and brutal account of the war on Germany's side, although this was an inferior translation compared to my other copy. I have to respect Junger's impartial attitude when commenting on the fighting spirit of the opposing armies, and his practical, soldierly perspective of fighting for his country. 16. 'The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake' (*Short stories) This is some of the most poignant, beautiful prose and written imagery ever that caused me to feel utterly morose. 17. '2666' - Roberto Bolano (*Non-white author) '2666' is fairly hard to pin down. I rather liked it, for as much as it weighs heavy on the human spirit, and confounds with essentially being five different books in one. Suffice it to say I got a lot out of it, and It's the kind of book that would take an entire thread devoted to it to have a satisfactory discussion. 18. 'The Sot-Weed Factor' - John Barth (*Post-modern) 'The Sot-Weed Factor' gave a bad first-impression for me, when it must methodically set up Cooke's journey and the extensive political backdrop of Maryland, but once it gets going, it becomes amazing. This book has tremendous payoffs, and is stuffed with so much witty, vulgar, evocative moments and memorable characters. Eben Cooke is one of the most magnificent, terrible adventures ever written, and shares in the delighted, thorough destruction of innocence with 'Candide.' 19. 'Moby Dick; or, The Whale' - Herman Melville It's Moby Dick, it's really good. Seriously, though, it's nine different literary forms cobbled into one epic story, and it's masterfully written. 20. 'Candide' - Voltaire Another hilarious story where the young, naive protagonist is poo poo on at every turn just to learn a simple lesson. I started reading this before 'Sot-Weed' and subsequently became swept up in that monster before coming back to this, but for as good as 'Sot-Weed' was long and entangled, this is strong because of its sheer bluntness and brevity. 21. 'The Name of the Rose' - Umberto Eco (*Sitting on your desk waiting) Speaking of brevity, ha ha ha... This was great, if a little contrived in Adso's part-Watson, part-Robin role to William's Sherlock. Eco obviously knows his history and flaunts it extensively in the face of the detective plot, but it never deterred me from what was going on in the story, and it was all quite illuminating, besides. 22. 'The Dispossessed' - Ursula K. Le Guin (*Space) I'm pretty much 1 for 3 with Le Guin here. 'The Left Hand of Darkness,' while not perfect, was pretty good, I thought. This, on the other hand, I found really ponderous and stilted. I can identify with Shevek to a certain extent and with some of the concepts Le Guin puts forth here, but any genuine heart in this tale is surrounded with mounds of tepid, disinterested world-building and politics. I can visualize Shevek's journey and his character arc throughout the course of the story, cleverly told in a nonlinear structure which nearly disguises how boring the whole thing is, and it's not like nothing happens in the book, but that's certainly how it felt reading it. Here's my lovely critic soundbite for this book: "Dispossessed? Color me dissatisfied."
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Dec 16, 2015 09:40
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Guy A. Person posted:The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
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Dec 17, 2015 21:40
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saphron posted:Hoooboy, pushed to finish the challenge and just managed to by the skin of my teeth 23. 'The God of Small Things' - Arundhati Roy (*Wildcard) What a palate cleanser after "The Dispossessed." Initially I was put off by Roy's usage of cutesy wordplay and repetitional phrases, but throughout the course of the book they become so layered and situationally meaningful, and give the story a pervasively wistful, melancholic presence. I really admire the craft in this one. 24. 'Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic' - Henri Bergson (*An Essay) Not sure what I was expecting from this compilation of essays on comedy published in 1900, but I was surprised at how genial and easily understandable Bergson's definitions were- I'm used to the impenetrability and jargon of film essayists, and this couldn't have been more different. So much of what Bergson puts forth feels on the mark, but in a way that isn't easily made clear until he's broken it down piece by piece. Even if some of his examples are understandably outdated, there's still genuine, modern truth in his thesis, I think. 25. 'Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic' - Sam Quinones (*Published this year) Very engaging account of the rise of Oxycontin abuse in middle America and how it fed into an ingenious black tar heroin distribution organization based out of a small city in Nayarit, Mexico. It's very dense with what could be construed as repetitive information and mantras, but there's something in the practical, gently sardonic voice Quinones has, and the chapters are typically short and shifting perspectives and introducing new ones so often that it's hard not to find something of interest in this. 26. 'Sailing Alone Around the Room' - Billy Collins (*Book of Poetry) This was my first time reading Billy Collins and I definitely warmed up to him over the course of reading this. Some of it feels so slight and overtly whimsical, but I admire his flipmode technique where every so often he can take a mundane concept and really cut deep with it. 27. 'Siddhartha' - Herman Hesse (*Philosophy) I'm honestly not sure what to say about Siddhartha. I enjoyed it, I can get behind the 'wisdom can't be taught' credo. 28. 'Galileo' - Bertolt Brecht (*Poetry) There's some excellent writing in this, particularly in the exchanges and monologues in the last few scenes, but they're peppered a bit too sparsely in an otherwise rigid and on-the-nose interpretation of Galileo's clash with the church over his observations of heliocentricism. 29. 'Burning Bright' - John Steinbeck This is a weird hybrid of a novella and a play that Steinbeck experimented with, and I really enjoyed it. Theatrical voices always come through so well in Steinbeck's writing, and the shifting setting of each act is a great, understated touch to the punchy, familiar morality play. 30. 'Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair' - Pablo Neruda Didn't completely resonate with me, but every so often I'd get sidelined by an amazing stanza. 2015 Booklord Challenge in full: 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year: 30/30 2. Read a female author: 'The Good Earth' - Pearl S. Buck 3. The non-white author: '2066' - Roberto Bolano 4. Philosophy: 'Siddhartha' - Herman Hesse 5. History: 'King Leopold's Ghost' - Adam Hochschild 6. An essay: 'Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic' - Henri Bergson 7. A collection of poetry: 'Sailing Alone Around the Room' - Billy Collins 8. Something post-modern: 'The Sot-Weed Factor' - John Barth 9. Something absurdist: 'JR' - William Gaddis 10. The Blind Owl: 'The Blind Owl' - Free Translation 11. Something on either hate or love: 'Middlemarch' - George Eliot 12. Something dealing with space: 'The Dispossessed' - Ursula K. LeGuin 13. Something dealing with the unreal: 'The Odyssey' - Homer 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read): 'The God of Small Things' - Arundhati Roy 15. Something published this year or the past three months: 'Dreamland' - Sam Quinones 16. That one book that has been sitting on your desk waiting for a long time: 'The Name of the Rose' - Umberto Eco 17. A play - 'Galileo' - Bertolt Brecht 18. Biography: 'Storm of Steel' - Ernst Junger 19. The color red: 'Dracula' - Bram Stoker 20. Something banned or censored: 'Candide' - Voltaire 21. Short story(s): 'The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake' 22. A mystery: 'The Big Sleep' - Raymond Chandler
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Jan 1, 2016 12:41
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