A Fortunate Age - Joanna Smith Rakoff (Scribner, 2009)
No citations, but I heard lots of mixed reviews about this modern-day homage to Mary McCarthy's The Group (which I haven't read, but apparently if I had read it, I would have known pretty much the major plot points of this novel). Enough that I wasn't really interested in reading it for the longest time. I forget what made me decide to add it to my list.
Regardless, I'm glad I did. Because I found the characters often terrifyingly familiar. There's something about coming out of an elite college or university and then making your way in the real world that perhaps happens to us all. There's a weird juxtaposition between who we are able to be in college and who we must be outside, for better or worse. I'm just about the same age as the characters when the novel ends (well, a little younger, but not much) and I can't really say that my life looks like any of theirs. (The differences between 1994 and 2001 matter a lot too.) But there is something there that transcends that.
Anyway, the novel jumps around between the major characters, a group of friends from Oberlin who all congregate in New York (most of them being from the region anyway). Most of the really big life-changing events - except Lil's wedding, which opens the novel - take place off stage. You see the lead up to them, and then suddenly we've jumped and they've already occurred. It challenges the notion, to some extent, of what is truly important, what matters the most.
And what strikes me the most is how much of growing up is about letting go. And how difficult that can be.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Egypt & mystery
Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters (Harper, 2006)
I've mentioned before how much I've loved this series, which I think may have come to a close with this book. I didn't blog this when I finished it (2 weeks ago, maybe?) because I had a nagging feeling the whole time that I had already read it. Maybe I have, I'm still not sure. If I haven't, that sense of it not being new is troubling (like the first chapter of The Babysitters Club, which I'm pretty sure I had memorized for at least a decade after I stopped reading those).
Anyhow. I love this series. I love the characters. Peters brings so much humor to play, and the characters are way more interesting than the action. But it does sort of feel like it's time to wrap things up. It's become too modern for one - this novel involves the opening of King Tut's tomb - and I don't think there's much more to be done with the characters. When Peabody and Emerson fell into a bit of a rut, Ramses and Nefret were old enough to take up much of the dramatic slack. But now, unless Peters wants to move forward another several years to focus on Sennia and the twins (which would consign P & E to undeniably old age) it's got to be over.
(I am not going to go look on message boards, because I imagine people who don't wait four years to read new books have probably already had this discussion, and Peters may have already addressed the question, and I'm just going to be solipsistic and ignore all those possibilities.)
This isn't the strongest book in the series. But. It made me want to go back to the beginning and re-read them all. So at some point, I'll be doing that. I read the first when I was probably 12 or so. I'm ready to go back.
I've mentioned before how much I've loved this series, which I think may have come to a close with this book. I didn't blog this when I finished it (2 weeks ago, maybe?) because I had a nagging feeling the whole time that I had already read it. Maybe I have, I'm still not sure. If I haven't, that sense of it not being new is troubling (like the first chapter of The Babysitters Club, which I'm pretty sure I had memorized for at least a decade after I stopped reading those).
Anyhow. I love this series. I love the characters. Peters brings so much humor to play, and the characters are way more interesting than the action. But it does sort of feel like it's time to wrap things up. It's become too modern for one - this novel involves the opening of King Tut's tomb - and I don't think there's much more to be done with the characters. When Peabody and Emerson fell into a bit of a rut, Ramses and Nefret were old enough to take up much of the dramatic slack. But now, unless Peters wants to move forward another several years to focus on Sennia and the twins (which would consign P & E to undeniably old age) it's got to be over.
(I am not going to go look on message boards, because I imagine people who don't wait four years to read new books have probably already had this discussion, and Peters may have already addressed the question, and I'm just going to be solipsistic and ignore all those possibilities.)
This isn't the strongest book in the series. But. It made me want to go back to the beginning and re-read them all. So at some point, I'll be doing that. I read the first when I was probably 12 or so. I'm ready to go back.
Book club!
Slate's Audio Book Club tackled Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which I read last December. (I like the book club better when I've actually read the book they're discussing.) This is a good one; give it a listen.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Brief? Yes. Wondrous? Uncertain
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books, 2007)
First and foremost, I would like to say that this book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, deserves all the accolades it has received. It is lively and witty and intense and well-written and filled with pathos and history and I don't even know what else.
But I kind of blew it. How? you might ask. Well. I read too much of the hype. People gushed over it, and I think I might have expected too much. I also think that I might not have been the right audience. One of the brilliant aspects of Diaz's prose is the insertion of lots of sci-fi, fanboy references that make perfect sense considering Oscar and the novel's narrator. I recognize them, sort of, but I don't really live them. So while I can appreciate them, I don't get them all the way. My fault, not Diaz's.
Plus, Oscar was a difficult character for me. I felt simultaneously intensely protective of and embarrassed by and for him. This, again, is all to Diaz's credit, but made for a difficult reading experience. I could much better handle Lola and Beli, and the other side stories. And I was absolutely fascinated by the footnotes, the vast majority (all?) of which dealt with Dominican history.
Another thing: at least two excerpts were published as short stories in the New Yorker. (This one actually spans the entire plot.) I remember reading them. But I didn't recognize them reading the novel, as I usually do when this happens. I don't think that's good or bad, just unexpected.
This is a much more tepid review than the book deserves. Seriously, take this as an endorsement. It's good. Really good. You won't be sorry that you read it. But don't let your expectations run away with you.
First and foremost, I would like to say that this book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, deserves all the accolades it has received. It is lively and witty and intense and well-written and filled with pathos and history and I don't even know what else.
But I kind of blew it. How? you might ask. Well. I read too much of the hype. People gushed over it, and I think I might have expected too much. I also think that I might not have been the right audience. One of the brilliant aspects of Diaz's prose is the insertion of lots of sci-fi, fanboy references that make perfect sense considering Oscar and the novel's narrator. I recognize them, sort of, but I don't really live them. So while I can appreciate them, I don't get them all the way. My fault, not Diaz's.
Plus, Oscar was a difficult character for me. I felt simultaneously intensely protective of and embarrassed by and for him. This, again, is all to Diaz's credit, but made for a difficult reading experience. I could much better handle Lola and Beli, and the other side stories. And I was absolutely fascinated by the footnotes, the vast majority (all?) of which dealt with Dominican history.
Another thing: at least two excerpts were published as short stories in the New Yorker. (This one actually spans the entire plot.) I remember reading them. But I didn't recognize them reading the novel, as I usually do when this happens. I don't think that's good or bad, just unexpected.
This is a much more tepid review than the book deserves. Seriously, take this as an endorsement. It's good. Really good. You won't be sorry that you read it. But don't let your expectations run away with you.
Friday, March 05, 2010
A portrait of the president as a young man
Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press, 1995, 2004)
I'm not the first to ask, but I still have to wonder if Obama thought he would run for president when he wrote this book. Not so much because of the cocaine and racial tension, but because he is so thoughtful and honest (at least, he comes off as honest) about his own personal struggles with his identity. I don't read a lot of political memoir, but I gather than overcoming one's demons is a popular trope in the field. But this seems like more than that. It's a different kind of journey.
Anyway, it's frustrating to now, a year after Obama's inauguration, be reading the memoir that everyone else read back in 2004 or at least by 2007. In part because there was a lot I already knew, but in part because you realize which parts didn't garner attention. I heard about Jeremiah Wright (obviously) but not about how what it was like to search for a spiritual home while working with - and seeing the flaws of - so many of Chicago's church leaders. Or about what family meant to his relatives in Africa, and the tensions of responsibilities. I also found myself wondering so much why I always thought of his mother's daughter as his sister, but his father's children as his half-siblings. What are my own biases?
He incorporates a lot of dialogue, which gives the book a feeling more sometimes of a novel, b/c you know much of the dialogue is reimagined in order to get at what Obama felt to be fundamentally true, even if it's not quite what happened. This is something I've always found fascinating about autobiography.
And Obama is often a beautiful writer, and as I said before, a thoughtful one. Such as in passages like this:
It's been a challenging year for Obama, and I can't guess how the remainder of his term will play out. But reading this book reminded me why it was so important that we elect him.
I'm not the first to ask, but I still have to wonder if Obama thought he would run for president when he wrote this book. Not so much because of the cocaine and racial tension, but because he is so thoughtful and honest (at least, he comes off as honest) about his own personal struggles with his identity. I don't read a lot of political memoir, but I gather than overcoming one's demons is a popular trope in the field. But this seems like more than that. It's a different kind of journey.
Anyway, it's frustrating to now, a year after Obama's inauguration, be reading the memoir that everyone else read back in 2004 or at least by 2007. In part because there was a lot I already knew, but in part because you realize which parts didn't garner attention. I heard about Jeremiah Wright (obviously) but not about how what it was like to search for a spiritual home while working with - and seeing the flaws of - so many of Chicago's church leaders. Or about what family meant to his relatives in Africa, and the tensions of responsibilities. I also found myself wondering so much why I always thought of his mother's daughter as his sister, but his father's children as his half-siblings. What are my own biases?
He incorporates a lot of dialogue, which gives the book a feeling more sometimes of a novel, b/c you know much of the dialogue is reimagined in order to get at what Obama felt to be fundamentally true, even if it's not quite what happened. This is something I've always found fascinating about autobiography.
And Obama is often a beautiful writer, and as I said before, a thoughtful one. Such as in passages like this:
What is a family? Is it just a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me? Or is it a social construct, an economic unit, optimal for child rearing and divisions of labor? Or is it something else entirely: a store of shared memories, say? An ambit of love? A reach across the void?
It's been a challenging year for Obama, and I can't guess how the remainder of his term will play out. But reading this book reminded me why it was so important that we elect him.
Making books, old-school
Scribes, Script and Books: The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance - Leila Avrin (American Library Association, 1991)
Sometimes I read books for school. Mostly I read PDFs of journal articles, but there are books too. And I just read this one for my course on the history of the book. (Technically it's the history of books and libraries, but apparently with this instructor, just the book.)
This book is pretty cool. It's laid out like a textbook. Lots and lots of graphics -plates, figures, maps. It averaged over 1 per page. So you could see examples of the evolution of pictograms into letters, and of scrolls and writing tools. Plus, it makes the text (8 1/2 x 11 pages) seem a little less daunting.
Avrin starts with writing and the alphabet and then moves on to ancient books/scroll/manuscripts through various eras and geographic locations. We get the Greek book, the Hebrew book, the Islamic book, plus lots of handwritten codices, manuscript and papyrus making, illumination, and bookbinding. What I suppose I most enjoyed was thinking about how much the transmission of information has both changed and stayed the same over thousands of years. And how much information we've be able to glean from the objects that made it through history.
And again, lots of cool illustrations. I can't really see this book being of much use to someone who isn't, say, studying the topic, but if that happens to be you, then I'd recommend the book. :)
Sometimes I read books for school. Mostly I read PDFs of journal articles, but there are books too. And I just read this one for my course on the history of the book. (Technically it's the history of books and libraries, but apparently with this instructor, just the book.)
This book is pretty cool. It's laid out like a textbook. Lots and lots of graphics -plates, figures, maps. It averaged over 1 per page. So you could see examples of the evolution of pictograms into letters, and of scrolls and writing tools. Plus, it makes the text (8 1/2 x 11 pages) seem a little less daunting.
Avrin starts with writing and the alphabet and then moves on to ancient books/scroll/manuscripts through various eras and geographic locations. We get the Greek book, the Hebrew book, the Islamic book, plus lots of handwritten codices, manuscript and papyrus making, illumination, and bookbinding. What I suppose I most enjoyed was thinking about how much the transmission of information has both changed and stayed the same over thousands of years. And how much information we've be able to glean from the objects that made it through history.
And again, lots of cool illustrations. I can't really see this book being of much use to someone who isn't, say, studying the topic, but if that happens to be you, then I'd recommend the book. :)
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