The Winter Zoo, by John Beckman: do not bother reading this book. Back in the day (i.e. second half 2002) there was a minor spate of books on Eastern Europe right after the fall of communism. The best of these books were Everything is Illuminated, Prague, and The Russian Debutante's Handbook. In some or another review of this trend, Beckman's book came up, and it was the one I never managed to get around to. And I kind of wish I hadn't.
There's a pretty serious amount of deviant sex in the book: cousinly love, statutory rape, pornographic photography, lots of girl-on-girl action, and a free for all orgy. And it seems at first like the sex belongs - that there's a reason for it. But there's not, most of it is just for titillation, as far as I can tell.
I feel mean being this negative, so I'll stop here. The other books I mention are all great and I highly recommend them. But stop before you get to Poland and The Winter Zoo.
[UPDATE: Rahul makes a good point in his comment below. My problem with the sex is not that it was "deviant", or that it crossed lines, but that Beckman seemed to just be looking for ways to try to shock the reader. It didn't work, it just got old. Also, hi Rahul!!! It's nice - and a little scary - to think that someone is actually reading this...]
As for The Bean Trees, we finished just in time for tonight's book club. I have no idea what I'm going to say. I liked the rendering of the toddler's baby talk? If the aforementioned novel had too much sex, maybe this one had too much sexless romance? The book is nice, and sweet, but didn't really provoke much of a reaction from me.
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1 comment:
hey, there's nothing wrong with deviant sex, mmkay?
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