Very cool on the S front.
I'm digging the fact that there are a few (many?) fake websites and blogs set up to further the mysterious qualities of S. It's almost like an ARG kind of thing.
Looking forward to reading it. I'll start it after I finish Doctor Sleep, which is turning out to be incredible. It's totally in the same space as Insomnia.
I didn't know there were all kinds of inserts and shit in S.
It'll definitely be a read-at-home book, because there's lots of stuff to get lost.
This is also one of those books we've been talking about in the comic book thread, a thing that needs to be read in paper-book form, a marriage of form and function that would have to be very different in a e-format. It could still work as an interactive e-book, but it would be a very different experience.
Ooh, like Griffin and Sabine. That is a book that could not be an e-book.
...and the milk's in me.
Yep - but even more so. Like G&S on steroids, and acid, and goof balls. Like David Lynch...on acid!Quoting Mara (view post)
There's even a decoder ring for something, and maps, post cards, news paper articles, letters, book marks, photo copies....
It's pretty cool. Great value, too. Don't know how they kept the price at $35 considering the production values, and considering that normal big hardcover books already cost near $30.
Finished out the Alice Munro collection The Moons of Jupiter. Addictive little stories of gender and aging amidst changing cultural conditions, and fully developed and surprising throughout. Have another collection of hers that I'll do soon, but for now onto Don Lee's Wrack and Ruin, which is quietly exciting so far.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
I finished The Marian Chronicles last night. Anyone who hasn't read that novel is doing themselves a disservice. What a phenomenal collection of stories. It lends itself to so many fascinating interpretations on political, environmental, scientific, and theological levels that I could talk about it forever. It's the first time since leaving school that I've wanted to sit down and write about a novel. Just brilliant, inspiring stuff.
Just started reading this last night. Got about 40 pages through. So far... it's awful. I mean reeeeaaaaaaalllly bad. I'll give it another 60 pages to win me over, but it's such an inauthentic experience thus far. The "novel" that exists between the margin and footnotes, written by a mysterious recluse whose identity was never discovered, is championed throughout as the work of a genius (and called his capstone work) and it's just not good. It lacks subtlety and finesse. It's just a clumsy, run of the mill mystery novel through the first 40 pages. That would be excusable, but thus far the margin notes between the two lit students are just unforgivably bad. Perhaps it's a bit unfair because I'm a literature major, but their insights into the text are laughably obvious. On top of that, their budding romance as they write notes back and forth in the book aren't the least bit convincing (not to mention redundant; I'm through 40 pages and I'm pretty sure Jen has called Eric "condescending" five times already) nor compelling. And those extras, such as the newspaper articles and letters? Completely unnecessary right now. They bring nothing to the experience. In fact, they've been a pain in the ass, because they keep falling out as I'm reading.
It was a complete slog last night. I'm going to push through for a while longer because it was a birthday gift from my wife, but it would have to DRASTICALLY improve for me to finish it at this point.
Martian Chronicles is indeed a classic - totally brilliant. Dark, scary, filled with terror and paranoia. I'd almost classify it more as horror than SF. Like Sturgeon, Bradbury uses genre conventions and tropes to really poke at the things that make us all human.
Too bad about S. I'm not anticipating much, except for I love the concept and the look of the thing. We'll see if I agree with you or not.
Yeah, I give up. 20 more pages and I'm hating it more and more with every page, and it feels like such a massive waste of time. Moving on to something else.
Now that I talked it up so much... anyone want to buy my copy? $20 is the going rate. In flawless condition. First come, first serve.
KF, would you take 2000 Indonesian rupiah?
(Seriously, I'll take it off your hands. Let me know the price.)
Just sold the rest of my unwanted books (about 9 paper boxes full), board games and video games to Half Price books. Make a little more than I was expecting. All the employees told me it was the best haul they've ever seen brought into the store, in terms of the quality of titles.
Feels so good to have that stuff gone.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent was an unexpected surprise. I have no memory of it getting on my reading list, but I picked it up from the library and was pretty much blown away. It's an ugly and bleak retelling of the last person executed in Iceland-- a woman named Agnes Magnusdottir in 1830. Kent's prose manages to be both lyrical and spare, and I dare you to read the book and not feel physically cold.
...and the milk's in me.
Finished out Ha Jin's story collection A Good Fall (generally good) and Don Lee's Wrack and Ruin (diverting but definitely Lee's least interesting). The latter has some good engagement with identity issues and the role of multicultural creative authors, but much of it lacks an actually interesting lead, as thirty-year-olds behaving like man-children are old to me.
Hoping for James McBride's national book award winning The Good Lord Bird to give me a better streak after some decent if middling fare.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Dammit, KF. You were right. Tom Sawyer's sudden arrival turned into him directing the story (Huck follows his lead the whole way), and the revelation that Jim was about to be freed anyway renders the whole caper moot. The former is kinda maddening after Huck's personal growth under the Duke and King and his perfect announcement of "All right then, I'll go to hell!"
Apart from that, the book was excellent. I thought my favorite bits would be the moments with them just hanging on the raft, shooting the breeze, but I also loved how the Duke and King turned the book on its head. Their shenanigans are like the worst possible version of Huck's shenanigans (faking their way 'cross the country, swindlin' folk), so it was cool watching Huck play off them and gain a better sense of self.
Forgot to say, the Blackstone Audio book-on-CD was solid. Tom Parker did a fine job narrating, more than comfortable in the dialect.
Now. On to Kafka's The Trial. First Kafka, so excite.
Agree completely with all of your assessments. I'd add that I didn't care for Jim's transition into helpless wallflower either. Still liked the book, but boy was I disappointed with that final third. Sorry I was right. Just know that I wish I wasn't.
Yes yes yes. Frustrating and weirdly diminishing after the first half of the book builds him into something much more than an object.
Finished Atwood's MaddAddam, which concludes the series that began with Oryx and Crake and the Year of the Flood. It's a bit of a letdown narratively, as it too repeats the chronology of events from a different perspective, but much of the drive and energy from Jimmy or Toby's personal dealings from the earlier books are lessened in the focus on Zeb. Technically, it's still valuable information, fleshing out many of the side-aspects that remained from the series, but Atwood isn't as invested in propelling us forward this time. That's unfortunate, in that the first two books are anywhere from solid to wonderful, but this one doesn't have the same fleetness.
Moving onto Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition next.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
@Dead & @KF:
Missed the Huck Finn conversation. Interesting that Ernest Hemingway once made the exact same criticism as KF did. For my money, all three of you are knuckleheads (albeit each knucklehead is in good company).
I don't think you read Finn for the plot. I think you read it for Twain's use of language. The book is electric. It's alive. There's a rhythm and cadence to Finn that is remarkable and unique. It's an epic poem set in course language.
A strict reading based on the plot is to ignore most of what the book has to offer. Why would anyone do that? It's like criticizing The Marriage of Figaro or Twelth Night for the ridiculousness of their plots, or dinging Pride and Prejudice and A Room with a View for their elaborate romantic machinations. In a more modern sense, it's like saying Henry Miller should stop going off on tangents and telling Jack Kerouac to cut out all those run on sentences. Those could be valid criticisms. But the also miss the larger points in a big way.
Twain borrows from a lot of people with Finn. The structure is straight picaresque; Cervantes, Rabelais, Swift, Voltaire, etc. He's a humorist, and the ending of Finn is him pulling out all the stops, giving his reader gigantic spectacle, and being true to his characters. He's borrowing from popular 19th century theater & a couple of centuries of tradition with all that nonsense about mistaken identities. The trouble is that humor, especially written humor, tends to date very badly. I'm not sure that's Twain's fault. It's probably ours.
@Dead - Jim being freed late in the book, or being free without knowing it, doesn't render the caper moot. It's the entire point Twain was trying to make: that Jim was human from the start. And as a human, he was always free, regardless of what the law, conventional wisdom, and the morality of the day said. The fact that this idea is introduced in an arbitrary, off handed way at the climax of the book only highlights the hypocrisy Twain addressed with Finn.
I still like the novel, but despite what you say, narrative flaws are just that: flaws. Crafting a better narrative would do nothing to diminish the language of Huck. I'm not excusing Twain from his errors just because he's Twain.
Edit: also, I don't think your modern examples don't work. Those are stylistic devices, especially Kerouac. This is poor narrative choices.
I'm not asking you to. I'm suggesting that what you think are flaws aren't actually flaws at all, if you consider the novel in context. And that to consider this book solely on the basis of its plot, through 21st century eyes, is to miss its point and its beauty.
Then further address my complaint. In what way is reverting Huck to a powerless tag along at the mercy of Tom, killing his character arc and grinding an excellent, powerful narrative to a near halt, the point and beauty of the novel? What context am I lacking? How would not making those narrative choices be of detriment to the point and beauty of Twain's work?
Good point about Kerouac, stylistic choices, etc. To counter, I'll offer the entirety of On the Road and, hell, every book he published afterwards.
I was really just pointing out that, in a much larger sense, nobody reads Kerouac or Miller for their plots.
I'm not sure I'd characterize Huck as a "a powerless tagalong," but I do agree that Twain uses Tom Sawyer to wrench his story out of a tight narrative corner.
He does this because, without Tom, Twain would have to violate Huck's character in order to free Jim.
An understanding that this novel is in the European tradition of picaresques like Gargantua and Pantagruel, Candide, and Gulliver's Travels. All of them were political books that used outsized, ridiculous characters and events to make a point.
Same with Finn. The ending of the book is like the finale to a fireworks show. And amid all the insanity, Twain underlines his themes a couple of times to boot.
I responded as your original posts on this seemed to throw the baby out with the bath water.
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