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defrog
Because you can’t have too many book reports on teh Internets.JUST FINISHED
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Like a lot of people I know, this was my first time reading McCarthy, having been inspired by the film version of No Country For Old Men. Oprah’s endorsement made me wary, but I tried it anyway and ... Damn. It’s a good tight and intense story, albeit with maybe a little too much walking, and features the most lyrical prose I’ve encountered in a long time. If Davis Grubb had written post-apocalytic fiction, he might have come up with something like this. It’s books like this that make me think I should give up writing completely.
JUST STARTED
Red Dust by Ma Jian
I tried Ma Jian a few years ago with The Noodle Maker, and it was a surreal experience. This book, an account of his travels across China in the early 80s after he’d already been labeled a “questionable youth”, should be more straightforward, and seems like just thing to read before the Olympics get going.
RECENT TITLES
Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke
I’ve been off and on again with Sir Arthur – great on scientific ideas, weak on characterization and dialogue, and a tendency to include in-jokes only scientists will find funny. Still, I come back to him every so often, and in honor of his passing I picked this up. This pretty much fit in with my expectations, and Clarke would go on to write better things, but as alien invasion stories go, it’s in a class of its own.
God Bless You Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
One of the handful of Vonnegut books I haven’t read yet, and one that I bought right after he died. It’s pretty standard KV fare, but that’s not a bad thing. The standout quote (because it’s relevant to my own writing) in relation to the science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, whose books were carried in adult shops alongside porn novels: “He didn't understand that what Trout had in common with pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world.”
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
More like a novella, this is Chabon’s stab at a Sherlock Holmes-like story. It’s okay, but not the knockout blow that The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Klay was. But never mind – I”ve got The Yiddish Policeman’s Union in the queue.
The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By by Georges Simenon
For someone who was once a huge name in mystery fiction, Simenon books aren’t easy to find, but Penguin has been re-releasing some of them. I was surprised to find that this wasn’t a Maigret novel. It follows an average guy who turns to crime to escape his drab, dead-end life, and it’s rather well done.
Nature Girl by Carl Hiassen
As mainstream crime fiction goes, I’ve found Hiassen to be pretty reliable in terms of dark humor, environmental anger and a page-turning story. This one, in which a mentally unstable woman gets revenge on a telemarketer, takes awhile to get going, and at times it’s a little over the top even for Hiassen. He’s done better, but it’s rarely dull.
Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke
I’ve been off and on again with Sir Arthur – great on scientific ideas, weak on characterization and dialogue, and a tendency to include in-jokes only scientists will find funny. Still, I come back to him every so often, and in honor of his passing I picked this up. This pretty much fit in with my expectations, and Clarke would go on to write better things, but as alien invasion stories go, it’s in a class of its own.
God Bless You Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
One of the handful of Vonnegut books I haven’t read yet, and one that I bought right after he died. It’s pretty standard KV fare, but that’s not a bad thing. The standout quote (because it’s relevant to my own writing) in relation to the science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, whose books were carried in adult shops alongside porn novels: “He didn't understand that what Trout had in common with pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world.”
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
More like a novella, this is Chabon’s stab at a Sherlock Holmes-like story. It’s okay, but not the knockout blow that The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Klay was. But never mind – I”ve got The Yiddish Policeman’s Union in the queue.
The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By by Georges Simenon
For someone who was once a huge name in mystery fiction, Simenon books aren’t easy to find, but Penguin has been re-releasing some of them. I was surprised to find that this wasn’t a Maigret novel. It follows an average guy who turns to crime to escape his drab, dead-end life, and it’s rather well done.
Nature Girl by Carl Hiassen
As mainstream crime fiction goes, I’ve found Hiassen to be pretty reliable in terms of dark humor, environmental anger and a page-turning story. This one, in which a mentally unstable woman gets revenge on a telemarketer, takes awhile to get going, and at times it’s a little over the top even for Hiassen. He’s done better, but it’s rarely dull.
Seminole bingo,
This is dF
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no subject
on 2008-04-21 05:29 am (UTC)I haven't read THE ROAD yet, but I have it sitting on my bookshelf. I've read McCarthy's Border trilogy (brilliant) and I've been trying to find somebody else who I can have a discussion about BLOOD MERIDIAN with for a few years now--it's an amazing book, but I don't know anybody else who's read it and I haven't been able to find any decent writing about it.
Let me know if you get around to it, it's really a very interesting book with a bigger ambition than the other McCarthy stuff I've read.
-- JF
no subject
on 2008-04-21 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-21 06:18 am (UTC)Blood Meridian is probably the most difficult of his books I've read--certainly the harshest--but it's also the most rewarding. I think. There's a lot going on in there. I think I'll try to read it again when I get through my current stack... (ok, the stack is bottomless, but at some point I need to reread it...)
-- JF