Coming of Age

To end the year, I read two books which aren't especially thematically related (read: have nothing in common) but that I am grouping under the loose tie that both involve boys who are becoming adults.

The first is Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, which I have delighted in describing as "Catcher in the Rye, if Catcher in the Rye had been good." (I had issues with CINR, most of which I now blame on my 11th grade English teacher.) Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Cameron is also the author of The City of Your Final Destination, a novel I read a few years ago about a young doctoral student who gets involved with the family of his research subject, somewhere in South America. James Sveck, of STPWBUTY, is also surrounded by a cast of eccentrics, these his upper-class New Yorker family. James, like Sveck, has a keen eye for the absurd and fake (but thankfully, whines less about it) and has devoted the summer before college to figuring out a plan to avoid going to college - which he doesn't think he will like very much - altogether.

I laughed out loud often while reading this, and agree with whatever reviewer noted that while classified as Young Adult fiction, this book can be a joy for readers of whatever age. (Well, not too young - some of the themes are a bit mature. Use discretion before buying for a niece or nephew.)

The other read of the week is one of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries, which I continue to adore. Guardian of the Horizon was especially enjoyable, as it was written out of order and returns us to a lovestruck Ramses. Here he is 20, and kind of all over the place in terms of defining his adult relationship with his parents and their ward, and determining what is love and what is a proper course of action, etc etc. I'm stretching things a bit - mainly this is a typical Peabody book, where they end up on some fool adventure (this time a return to a lost oasis in the Sudan) and people are trying to kill them and they get captured and there are twists and turns and Emerson blusters and Amelia pretends togetherness and Ramses is, well, perfect.

And all that said, Happy New Year to all!

Russian Reading Challenge 2008

(crossposted from the Russian Reading Challenge blog)

I've only glanced at other lists, but what I've seen all sounds good and I am a bit envious and excited for the reading ahead in 2008. While I LOVE lists, I was overwhelmed by the prospect of figuring out what to choose, so I limited my choices to only books that I had already sitting on my shelves and hadn't read. Which was still too many, but eventually got whittled down to the following:

Natasha's Dance - Orlando Figes
Keys to Happiness - Anastasya Verbitskaya
The Winter Queen - Boris Akunin
King Queen Knave - Vladimir Nabokov

and for extra credit, since it was written in English and doesn't count: Olga's Grushin's The Dream Life of Sukhanov.

[My other challenge: reading at least 5 other books that I already own]

It is done

as of yesterday afternoon. I am pretty bloody proud of myself.

I have no self-control

Books that I have acquired on or since Christmas:

Fire in the Blood, Irene Nemirovsky
Man Walks Into a Room, Nicole Krauss
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver
Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

I have already read Bros K, so this is only for my library, but for the other five, any bets on how many will actually get read in 2008?

I love you, Orhan Pamuk

The Nobel Laureate, on what it's like to have won: "I recommend it to everyone."
(from KQED's Forum)

oh, I read a book

Last week or so. Donald Antrim's The Headmaster Ritual. I've already returned it, so can't refer back for witty analysis. It's set at a posh boarding school, and the headmaster is a crazy Marxist. The main characters are the new history teacher, and the headmaster's sorta-loser son. They both have girl trouble, and work trouble, and get shot at by North Koreans, and it all works out in the end. It's funny, but not particularly memorable.

My December resolution

I know there is no chance of my keeping up in the New Year, but I'd like to get off on the right foot, so I plan to catch up on all of my New Yorkers by December 31st. I'd say my odds are probably decent. It's not a sure thing, but I will try.

Paint it Black

I haven't read or seen White Oleander, so I can't compare Janet Fitch's new(est) novel to the one that made her famous.

It took me a week to get around to blogging about Paint it Black. In part because it's been a busy time, but more because I just wasn't sure what to say. The novel follows the life-worn (at all of, I think, 20) Josie, as she struggles to make sense of her lover's suicide. It's the early 1980s, and Josie is a runaway and punk; Michael was the son of a writer and pianist, who left Harvard for art classes at what I think is LACC.

The novel flashes back to Josie & Michael's short-lived happiness, and the darker times that preceded his death. The tragedy of love, and the inability to help the ones you love struggle with their demons - neither make this an easy read emotionally, and yet Fitch's writing has such ease and fluidity that it's a quick read. But then you're left with the weight of the pain, and the question of how some shoulder it while others simply cannot.