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Time for book reports. By popular demand. Obviously.
Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve been enjoying Greene’s novels so far, but this one didn't really work for me as well as the others. The plot follows Henry Pulling, a middle-aged retired bank manager who leads a quiet, ordinary and boring life. That changes when he meets his Aunt Augusta – whom he hasn’t seen since childhood – who ropes him into a series of travels that range from Brighton and Paris to Istanbul and eventually Paraguay. The jacket synopsis promises encounters with war criminals, smugglers, CIA agents and hippies way, and there is some adventure and intrigue along the way, but the book is mostly Aunt Augusta telling Henry about her wild and adventurous life, and Henry slowly realizing how dull his life really is. Some of Aunt Augusta’s tales are a lot of fun (especially the Dog Church), but some are tedious (to me, anyway). It’s not a bad book, and I’d give it an extra half star if I could, but compared to other Greene novels I’ve read so far, this is the weakest.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I confess I didn’t intend to read this – partly because of all the hype, and partly because I rarely read books about Nazi Germany and/or WW2. Having read Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel (both of whom I like), and having visited Dacau, I’ve had my curiosity more than satisfied about the atrocities of the Nazis. And the premise of a young girl stealing books and making friends with a Jew hidden in the basement sounded too predictable. But the bride had a copy and it was just sitting on the shelf, and so I ended up picking it up and … Well, I have to say, it’s brilliantly done. Zusak’s decision to make Death the story’s narrator may be a hook, but it’s a good one that lets him play around with the story in ways that a conventional narrative wouldn’t have allowed, to include strategically excessive foreshadowing. And he invests a lot of time in creating a cast of memorable and believable characters. A few scenes try a little too hard for sentiment, and it took some initial effort for me to get into it, but overall it’s a very compelling and rewarding book.
From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Verne’s vision of men going to the moon, in which the Baltimore Gun Club devises a plan to build a huge cannon that can fire a projectile to the moon. The plan becomes a manned mission when a French daredevil volunteers to ride the projectile. My previous experience with Verne has been a mixed bag – good stories, but with a tendency to get sidetracked for pages by scientific minutiae. But I enjoyed this book immensely. For one thing, it’s a lot more fun. Verne employs broad satire here – I love the idea of a bunch of gun nuts planning a moon mission out of sheer boredom now that the Civil War is over, and the over-the-top planning meetings are pretty funny. Also, while Verne obviously gets some things scientifically wrong regarding a trip to the moon, it’s amazing how many things he got right, given that he wrote it in 1865. Great fun.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Debut novel from Ransom Riggs, which uses vintage oddball photos to illustrate/fuel the story of Jacob, a 16-year-old who grew up with tales from his grandfather about monsters and a house on a Welsh island populated by children with “peculiar” abilities. Jacob always assumed they were just stories, but when his grandfather is killed by such a monster, Jacob finds evidence that the stories were real, and eventually seeks out the house to find the truth. It starts off well, but by the third act it devolves into standard and predictable action fare. It’s not bad, and I’d give it an extra half-star if Goodreads allowed it, but mainly for the photos, which are cool, and a pretty neat gimmick. But in the end it’s still a gimmick, and at times it feels like Riggs is forcing the narrative to include the photos. The second volume is out now, but I think I’ll pass.
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Essentially this is Lewis’ riff on Dante’s Divine Comedy, as well as a riposte to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake imagined a final reconciliation between the two. Lewis insists there can be none in the end. Which may sound uninteresting, but Lewis makes his case in the form of a fantasy story in which some damned souls take a bus ride from Hell (which is mainly like Earth) to the foothills of Heaven, where they still have a chance to get in. If nothing else, it’s an imaginative take on how Heaven and Hell work. It also showcases Lewis’ sharp insight into human nature, and how some people will still reject Paradise even when it’s right in front of them. Obviously it will start arguments with believers and non-believers alike, but that’s a point in its favor, as far as I’m concerned. Well written and thought provoking.
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Nikolai Gogol
I’d been thinking about trying Gogol for awhile, but I only made it past the first two stories in this collection – the title track and “The Nose”. I get that it’s intended to be surrealist satire, but there’s something about Gogol’s dense and meandering writing style that just doesn’t work for me. This is my problem, not Gogol’s, so out of fairness I didn’t give it a rating. And I might come back to this one day. But for now I don’t really want to spend any more time on it.
Sanity now it’s beyond me,
This is dF
Travels With My Aunt by Graham GreeneMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve been enjoying Greene’s novels so far, but this one didn't really work for me as well as the others. The plot follows Henry Pulling, a middle-aged retired bank manager who leads a quiet, ordinary and boring life. That changes when he meets his Aunt Augusta – whom he hasn’t seen since childhood – who ropes him into a series of travels that range from Brighton and Paris to Istanbul and eventually Paraguay. The jacket synopsis promises encounters with war criminals, smugglers, CIA agents and hippies way, and there is some adventure and intrigue along the way, but the book is mostly Aunt Augusta telling Henry about her wild and adventurous life, and Henry slowly realizing how dull his life really is. Some of Aunt Augusta’s tales are a lot of fun (especially the Dog Church), but some are tedious (to me, anyway). It’s not a bad book, and I’d give it an extra half star if I could, but compared to other Greene novels I’ve read so far, this is the weakest.
The Book Thief by Markus ZusakMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I confess I didn’t intend to read this – partly because of all the hype, and partly because I rarely read books about Nazi Germany and/or WW2. Having read Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel (both of whom I like), and having visited Dacau, I’ve had my curiosity more than satisfied about the atrocities of the Nazis. And the premise of a young girl stealing books and making friends with a Jew hidden in the basement sounded too predictable. But the bride had a copy and it was just sitting on the shelf, and so I ended up picking it up and … Well, I have to say, it’s brilliantly done. Zusak’s decision to make Death the story’s narrator may be a hook, but it’s a good one that lets him play around with the story in ways that a conventional narrative wouldn’t have allowed, to include strategically excessive foreshadowing. And he invests a lot of time in creating a cast of memorable and believable characters. A few scenes try a little too hard for sentiment, and it took some initial effort for me to get into it, but overall it’s a very compelling and rewarding book.
From the Earth to the Moon by Jules VerneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Verne’s vision of men going to the moon, in which the Baltimore Gun Club devises a plan to build a huge cannon that can fire a projectile to the moon. The plan becomes a manned mission when a French daredevil volunteers to ride the projectile. My previous experience with Verne has been a mixed bag – good stories, but with a tendency to get sidetracked for pages by scientific minutiae. But I enjoyed this book immensely. For one thing, it’s a lot more fun. Verne employs broad satire here – I love the idea of a bunch of gun nuts planning a moon mission out of sheer boredom now that the Civil War is over, and the over-the-top planning meetings are pretty funny. Also, while Verne obviously gets some things scientifically wrong regarding a trip to the moon, it’s amazing how many things he got right, given that he wrote it in 1865. Great fun.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom RiggsMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Debut novel from Ransom Riggs, which uses vintage oddball photos to illustrate/fuel the story of Jacob, a 16-year-old who grew up with tales from his grandfather about monsters and a house on a Welsh island populated by children with “peculiar” abilities. Jacob always assumed they were just stories, but when his grandfather is killed by such a monster, Jacob finds evidence that the stories were real, and eventually seeks out the house to find the truth. It starts off well, but by the third act it devolves into standard and predictable action fare. It’s not bad, and I’d give it an extra half-star if Goodreads allowed it, but mainly for the photos, which are cool, and a pretty neat gimmick. But in the end it’s still a gimmick, and at times it feels like Riggs is forcing the narrative to include the photos. The second volume is out now, but I think I’ll pass.
The Great Divorce by C.S. LewisMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Essentially this is Lewis’ riff on Dante’s Divine Comedy, as well as a riposte to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake imagined a final reconciliation between the two. Lewis insists there can be none in the end. Which may sound uninteresting, but Lewis makes his case in the form of a fantasy story in which some damned souls take a bus ride from Hell (which is mainly like Earth) to the foothills of Heaven, where they still have a chance to get in. If nothing else, it’s an imaginative take on how Heaven and Hell work. It also showcases Lewis’ sharp insight into human nature, and how some people will still reject Paradise even when it’s right in front of them. Obviously it will start arguments with believers and non-believers alike, but that’s a point in its favor, as far as I’m concerned. Well written and thought provoking.
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Nikolai GogolI’d been thinking about trying Gogol for awhile, but I only made it past the first two stories in this collection – the title track and “The Nose”. I get that it’s intended to be surrealist satire, but there’s something about Gogol’s dense and meandering writing style that just doesn’t work for me. This is my problem, not Gogol’s, so out of fairness I didn’t give it a rating. And I might come back to this one day. But for now I don’t really want to spend any more time on it.
Sanity now it’s beyond me,
This is dF
