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defrogAccording to Goodreads, I read 65 books in 2014. That’s technically inaccurate, because the site counts unfinished books as “read”. And I did have to put down a few – two of them in December alone.
But anyway, here’s the last of the 2014 book reports.
READ
Lexicon: A Novel by Max Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading Barry, and I am impressed. The core premise takes some suspension of disbelief – a secret organization that uses linguistics and secret words as mechanisms to control people through persuasion – but it’s a fascinating riff on William Burroughs’ concept of language as virus and the power of words. The storyline follows two characters – Emily, a homeless teenage card shark recruited by the organization – and Wil, the sole survivor of a catastrophic event in Broken Hill, Australia with no memory of the event. The head of the organization, Yeats, wants to know why and doesn’t care who gets killed in finding out. Barry arranges the narrative in a puzzle that takes some time to assemble, but is fun to figure out and comes together nicely. The only real flaw is the last chapter, which seems a bit of a leap in relation to everything that leads up to it. Apart from that, it’s clever, page-turning fun.
The Fat Years by Koonchung Chan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Speculative fiction from mainland China! Or rather, a mystery set in a speculative fiction backdrop dressed up as a detailed critique of modern China. Or possibly vice versa. Anyway, the basics are this: in the near future, a global economic crisis even bigger than the 2008 meltdown has enabled China to supplant the US as the major economic power in the world, and China has become the happiness place on Earth. But a small group of people are not happy at all because they remember the events of the month that led to China’s ascendancy – a month that no one else seems to remember, and they’re determined to find out why. The novel took some effort to get into (I almost gave up on it early on) due to a slow and seemingly unfocused start. Also, Chan’s writing style tends to wander into sociopolitical-analysis mode in a way that keeps the prose from flowing. Admittedly it often reads less like a novel and more like a college lecture on Chinese history, economic theory and political science. But give it enough time and it starts to get interesting (if those things interest you – and they do interest me, since I live next door to mainland China). So it’s not for everyone, particularly people whose current worldview on China is ideologically set in stone. As a mystery story, it's okay but a little weak. But as a speculative thought experiment on how China could in fact become the biggest economic superpower in the world, it’s jolly convincing, and closer to reality than you might think.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading Fowler, and I admit I might not have picked this one up if I hadn’t learned via the press generated by its Man Booker Prize award that it’s actually science-fiction – at least in the sense that science plays an important role in the story, which is told by Rosemary Cooke, who is coming to terms with her dysfunctional family and her own past – namely, the fate of her “sister” Fern, who was being raised by her parents as part of a psychological study. It’s a nifty idea for a novel, and Fowler tells it with wisecracking flair. It’s a little hard to follow on first read, thanks to a somewhat jumbled narrative structure and Rosemary being something of an unreliable narrator. However, given her various psychological issues as a result of the experiment – and her own awareness that memory is rarely reliable – it manages to make her more convincing as a character. It’s a thought-provoking novel with something to say about family dynamics, the impact of science on its subjects (human and non-human) and the treatment of animals in the name of scientific progress.
GAVE UP
The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
I was really knocked out by Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, so I decided to try one of his Father Brown mystery collections. Only they’re not really mysteries in the sense that there isn’t much sleuthing going on. The stories are more like vignettes where something happens that leads people to think one thing is going on when in fact it’s something else completely, and Father Brown is the only one who knows what’s going on the whole time because he has a piece of information the other characters don’t. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s not really working for me. I may try again one day, but for now I’m putting this aside.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace
I’d never read DFW before, and enough people name-dropped him as someone I should read that I picked up this collection of essays and arguments to give him a try. I made it through the first two pieces, and got partway through a third before losing patience with it. You know that English teacher who ruins good classic novels by overintellectualizing the author’s intent or the book’s importance? DFW is that guy, only with talent and with a focus on pop culture. I know Wallace gets a lot of accolades as a writer, and there’s no debating his talent with words. But his essays tend to veer off on too many tangents and go overboard on the intellectualism to the point that I’m not sure whether he’s serious or making fun of pseudointellectuals (in which case he's a little too convincing). Either way, it just puts me off. I can see why other people like him, but he’s not for me. The book’s title sums up my feelings nicely.
See all my reviews
Never say never again,
This is dF
But anyway, here’s the last of the 2014 book reports.
READ
Lexicon: A Novel by Max BarryMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading Barry, and I am impressed. The core premise takes some suspension of disbelief – a secret organization that uses linguistics and secret words as mechanisms to control people through persuasion – but it’s a fascinating riff on William Burroughs’ concept of language as virus and the power of words. The storyline follows two characters – Emily, a homeless teenage card shark recruited by the organization – and Wil, the sole survivor of a catastrophic event in Broken Hill, Australia with no memory of the event. The head of the organization, Yeats, wants to know why and doesn’t care who gets killed in finding out. Barry arranges the narrative in a puzzle that takes some time to assemble, but is fun to figure out and comes together nicely. The only real flaw is the last chapter, which seems a bit of a leap in relation to everything that leads up to it. Apart from that, it’s clever, page-turning fun.
The Fat Years by Koonchung ChanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Speculative fiction from mainland China! Or rather, a mystery set in a speculative fiction backdrop dressed up as a detailed critique of modern China. Or possibly vice versa. Anyway, the basics are this: in the near future, a global economic crisis even bigger than the 2008 meltdown has enabled China to supplant the US as the major economic power in the world, and China has become the happiness place on Earth. But a small group of people are not happy at all because they remember the events of the month that led to China’s ascendancy – a month that no one else seems to remember, and they’re determined to find out why. The novel took some effort to get into (I almost gave up on it early on) due to a slow and seemingly unfocused start. Also, Chan’s writing style tends to wander into sociopolitical-analysis mode in a way that keeps the prose from flowing. Admittedly it often reads less like a novel and more like a college lecture on Chinese history, economic theory and political science. But give it enough time and it starts to get interesting (if those things interest you – and they do interest me, since I live next door to mainland China). So it’s not for everyone, particularly people whose current worldview on China is ideologically set in stone. As a mystery story, it's okay but a little weak. But as a speculative thought experiment on how China could in fact become the biggest economic superpower in the world, it’s jolly convincing, and closer to reality than you might think.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy FowlerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading Fowler, and I admit I might not have picked this one up if I hadn’t learned via the press generated by its Man Booker Prize award that it’s actually science-fiction – at least in the sense that science plays an important role in the story, which is told by Rosemary Cooke, who is coming to terms with her dysfunctional family and her own past – namely, the fate of her “sister” Fern, who was being raised by her parents as part of a psychological study. It’s a nifty idea for a novel, and Fowler tells it with wisecracking flair. It’s a little hard to follow on first read, thanks to a somewhat jumbled narrative structure and Rosemary being something of an unreliable narrator. However, given her various psychological issues as a result of the experiment – and her own awareness that memory is rarely reliable – it manages to make her more convincing as a character. It’s a thought-provoking novel with something to say about family dynamics, the impact of science on its subjects (human and non-human) and the treatment of animals in the name of scientific progress.
GAVE UP
The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. ChestertonI was really knocked out by Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, so I decided to try one of his Father Brown mystery collections. Only they’re not really mysteries in the sense that there isn’t much sleuthing going on. The stories are more like vignettes where something happens that leads people to think one thing is going on when in fact it’s something else completely, and Father Brown is the only one who knows what’s going on the whole time because he has a piece of information the other characters don’t. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s not really working for me. I may try again one day, but for now I’m putting this aside.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster WallaceI’d never read DFW before, and enough people name-dropped him as someone I should read that I picked up this collection of essays and arguments to give him a try. I made it through the first two pieces, and got partway through a third before losing patience with it. You know that English teacher who ruins good classic novels by overintellectualizing the author’s intent or the book’s importance? DFW is that guy, only with talent and with a focus on pop culture. I know Wallace gets a lot of accolades as a writer, and there’s no debating his talent with words. But his essays tend to veer off on too many tangents and go overboard on the intellectualism to the point that I’m not sure whether he’s serious or making fun of pseudointellectuals (in which case he's a little too convincing). Either way, it just puts me off. I can see why other people like him, but he’s not for me. The book’s title sums up my feelings nicely.
See all my reviews
Never say never again,
This is dF
