Top Twelve (Oops) Books I Want to Reread

Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

1. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - Luckily, we've chosen this book for the next round of book club, so I'll be rereading this in the next couple weeks. I loved the language and the style. It was one of my absolute favorites when I read it a decade ago, we'll see if I still feel the same. 
2. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami  - I really loved this when I read it several years ago. It'd be nice to read it again with a regained critical eye. Perhaps I'd get more out of it. 
3. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - so, I may be alone in this, but I loved this book when I was required to read it in high school. I had every intention of hating it, and yet, somehow, I was riveted. I wonder if I'll still like it a lifetime later. Also, with the much anticipated When She Woke now out, I kind of want to revisit it. 
4. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather - because it's been so long I barely remember. 
5. The Awakening by Kate Chopin - same deal.
6. Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle and Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut - I've gone far too long without some Vonnegut in my reading diet. 
7. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - I read this 10-12 years ago and can't remember much of it. And that's a travesty because Bradbury's fantastic.
8. 1984 by George Orwell - Or, well, maybe it would just depress me too much. But it's another one I read half a life ago. 
9. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger - another book I'm curious to experience as an adult instead of a teenager. 
10. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - I adored this short story collection when it came out, especially the first piece. I would love to revisit it. 
11. The Blind Assassin  by Margaret Atwood - I didn't enjoy this one as much as some of her others. I think I need to reread to pick up on what I may have glossed over at the time
12. Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion Jane Austen - I adore her witty dialogue and dry observations about the trivialities of daily life that women were pretty much relegated to at the time. 

Book I can tell I'm going to need to reread to fully enjoy:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - Can you ever tell while reading a book for the first time that you'll enjoy it immensely more the second time around? That's how this one feels. But this first run has been a little slow-going. Really, I needed to read it while actually on vacation, with much time to fully devote to it. That's not how it's gone, at all. 

Committing to a reread is actually very hard with all the unread material I want to cover. Really, I just need to be paid a comfortable salary to read and then write about what I read. Any sponsors out there? Ha. 

RIP VI challenge

Thanks to Brenna and Beth, I have discovered this little ghoulish challenge. I mean, really, how can I pass up a challenge whose picture-theme is based on one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who? As always, I'm fashionably late to this party, and my reading plate is rather full (God of Small Things - a favorite from a decade ago that needs a reread - for book club, Middlesex, which I've meant to read for ages, for Reading Buddies, Infinite Jest, to be finished before the nuptials, and various other things I've wanted to read for quite a while). But I hope to rearrange some things, and at the very least get a copy of The Lantern (the audio version is waiting for me at the local library) and join in the October group read. I also have these goodies on my shelf that are all fair game for this challenge:

Agatha Christie is always a good, fast read & short stories may be the way to go as well. So... I should get reading, then, huh. Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

Reading Habits

At book club last week, during which we discussed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (review forthcoming), a member mentioned a woman she knew that so completely engrossed herself in her reading material that she'd have an atlas & the decade-ago equivalent of Wikipedia at hand at all times. If she wasn't quite sure where something was, she'd look it up. If the novel mentioned a city, she'd find it in an atlas and then research its history. If it mentioned a an obscure scientist or artist with whom she was not familiar, she would immediately familiarize herself. You get the picture.

A book like Kavalier and Clay, which spans a few decades, would probably take her several months to read that way.  To me, it seemed like a completely overwhelming and, well, hyperimmersive way to read a book. How does she get through anything? Is reading a novel such a chore that she rarely bothers, or is it a great joy for her to use novels as her guides to learning about people and places and history?

I will occasionally stop to research something if I've always meant to learn more about it, or look things up on a map if I have absolutely no general idea of where a place is in relation to other places, but never have I gone to the above extreme. It must be a completely different reading experience. But would it also take something away from the flow of the story, from the general pleasure of reading itself? I tend to think it probably would, at least for me. I also like to trust that the author is giving me enough information to follow and enjoy and fall into the story without having to stop, look something up, start again, stop again, etc. If the author is any good, that is.

Anyone else read like the woman above, or even anything close to it?

Top Ten Books it seems just about everyone has read but me

Hosted every week by the The Broke and The Bookish, participated in haphazardly by me.

1. All things Franzen (The Corrections, Freedom, etc.) - I feel as though I should delve into one of these one of these days, especially since he grew up in Webster Groves, a township of STL, and especially since one of his novels is set in St. Louis (so few are). But, I haven't yet. Some day. 
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - Seriously everyone has read this book. It was the first book for book club, but I didn't have enough notice to acquire and read a copy. I have since found a used copy and will probably read it someday. It's not high on my priority list though. (Should it be?)
3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - Another that absolutely everyone read and talked about. My mom gave me Angels and Demons which I tried to read, and while the plot was interesting enough, I just could not get past the atrocious writing. So, this will remain in the Never Gonna Read pile.
4. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - This never appealed to me for some reason. Readers I trust have read and loved and recommended it, but... I don't know. Not so into it. I may get around to it one day.
5. White Teeth by Zadie Smith - I tried to read this several years ago but couldn't get into it. I feel like I should read it try again but it's not at the top of my list. 
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - Every woman I know has read this, most likely when they were younger. I have not. I need to get around to it. 
7. Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov - The language, I hear, is outstanding. The subject matter keeps me at bay. One day. 
8. All of the Harry Potter books - I read 1-3 when 4 was only out in hardcover, and I was not about to lug that giant, awkward book around the city and on the subway. So I stopped after 3. I do want to read the rest though. Everyone says I must. 
9. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - This will never happen. The general theme appalls me (and I don't mean the vampires), and I hear the writing is hard to stomach. I think I'll survive without ever reading this. 
10. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, and all things Judy Blume - Sooo I never read Judy Blume as a child! And now I feel too old for it, until there are children for whom books must be screened and age-appropriately recommended. 

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham: Impressions

A friend of mine leant me By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham a couple months ago, saying I should read it if I liked The Hours. While I didn't enjoy it as much as his most well-known novel, it was still an engaging, fast read with the occasional delightful little insight.

By Nightfall is told in the third person, but solely from the perspective of Peter Harris, an early 40-something, mildly successful art dealer that lives in Soho. As a reader, you spend a lot of time (too much, really) inside Peter's head, subject to all his self-musings, self-consciousness, self-criticism & self-admonishings (noticing a pattern?) over worrying about his own problems when there are people far worse off than he. (Those come across as a little disingenuous, more of, I think I'm supposed to be worried about other people but I'm really just not and I feel bad about it - does that make me a bad person? I don't want to be a bad person and I don't like feeling bad about others' downtroddenness so I wish their lives could at least appear to be comfortable enough so that I didn't feel I should feel bad about being much better off than them and still having Problems of my own, which are bothering me. Oh, woe is me.)

It takes place in the very recent past, after the market crash of 2008 and the economic downturn, a time when rich people didn't want to appear too flamboyant about their richness because it would seem, well, tacky. And rich people are all about appearances, the poor souls. The novel is set over the course of a week of Peter's life, during which time his wife Rebecca's wanderlust and, well, lost, much-younger-brother (Mizzy) comes to town, for whom Peter finds he has ambiguous feelings, which causes a mid-life crisis of sorts.  It seems Mizzy is rendered an aimless, beautiful drug-addict because he must live in the shadow of his older sisters' various successes, poor lad. He had to go hang out in Japan for a while, at some monasteries, but that doesn't give him a sense of purpose, either, and now he's globe-trotting again. I know, it's all very tragic. So now he's setting up temporary camp in his older sister's swank loft apartment in Soho. Oh, the tragedy. Am I being too harsh? Perhaps. Very wealthy, privileged people are people too, after all, and still can experience tragedy, although, I don't find purposelessness tragic, merely self-indulgent, at least, in this case, despite the fact that he's young. Although, I suppose, when your nickname, Mizzy, is short for The Mistake... what can you expect?

One of the most unbelievable accounts in the novel comes when Peter mistakes Mizzy for his wife... while he's in the shower. Really? Come on. With clothes involved, it could be remotely believable, but not without. Rebecca, Peter's wife, is painted as an icy stranger, overly concerned about Mizzy's well-being. Peter describes Rebecca as thus, as they lie in bed together on a Sunday morning with the New York Times:

They do not lie close to each other. Rebecca is absorbed in the book review. Here she is, grown from a tough, wise girl to a savvy and rather cool-hearted woman, weary of reassuring Peter about, well, almost everything: grown to be a severe if affectionate critic. Here is her no-nonsense girlhood transmogrified into a womanly capacity for icy, calmly delivered judgments. 

"Womanly capacity"? Obviously, I'm going to take issue with that. Men have the same capacity for piercing the heart with statements calculated to do just that. And this is how he views his wife? Judgmental because she's tired of reassuring him? How low is this man's self-esteem that his wife's to blame for not boosting him up enough?

It appears I didn't enjoy this book at all, and though it's true I read many passages with eyes rolling, that's not the whole story. Cunningham has a knack for capturing - with uncomfortable accuracy - those intimate interactions we have with people whom we've known for years, with whom we've established a comfortable rapport that can turn into assumptions about another that then turns us into strangers interacting with our own out-dated projections of the other person instead of continuing to work (it can be work) to stay in tune with each others' ever-changing subtle natures. These two are clearly out of sync with each other, and a strong, judgmental resentment has been built around their own misconceptions of whom their spouse is which doesn't at all match with whom they want their spouse to be.  That is the danger we face in long-term intimate partnerships, such as marriage, and it is what we have to work to avoid to make such relationships survive. The dialogue is normally wry and witty banter, usually enjoyable to read, and though Peter's self-conscious pretensions are trying, the novel does capture, with some accuracy, the weird self-critical back-and-forth that can go on in one's head in times of life-crises, the ones that occasionally lead to a little self-insight:

Beauty--the beauty Peter craves--is this, then: a human bundle of accidental grace and doom and hope. Mizzy must have hope, he must, he wouldn't shine like this if he were in true despair, and of course he's young, who in this world despairs more exquisitely than the young, that's something the old tend to forget.  

I'd say you should read this if you're curious, but be ready to take the self-delusional pretensions with a grain of salt. It was unique in its ever-second-guessing-of-oneself nature, told in the third person, and I'm guessing most of us would be lying if we said we've never gone through such times, even if we haven't reached mid-life crises yet. Greg over at New Dork Review of Books warned me about its pretentiousness when I started reading, and I wonder if that colored my experience. Hard to say. Despite my criticism, I think I enjoyed it a wee bit more than he did.

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead: Impressions

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead was a uniquely interesting if not entirely enjoyable novel. It's been on my TBR list for years, after a good friend told me I absolutely had to read this book (I can't recall whether or not he gave me a specific reason, but I do remember the emphaticalness of his recommendation), and it won the very small poll for August's book club pick because it sounds particularly intriguing and deceives one into thinking it will be fast paced right away. It is not. The pace does not quicken substantially but rather accelerates very slowly until about midway through the novel, after which it maintains a good page-turn inducing speed.

The story, as far as I can tell, is a bit of speculative fiction with a fair amount of absurdism thrown in. It seems to be set in an alternative version of the late 50s or early 60s (they mention the "famous reverend"). In this alternate reality, the Elevator Guild has substantial power in city operations (the city is probably New York, but it's never actually called New York City). The reality seems to have begun, or split, down this different path sometime in the 1850s, when elevators were first introduced. At the time of the book, there is a heated rivalry between the Empiricists, who need to see everything about the elevator in order to determine what's wrong, or if everything is running smoothly, and the Intuitionists, who have some sort of intimate interaction with the elevators they inspect and can determine any problems by communing with the elevator itself - no need to check the physical gear. An Empiricist name Chancre is currently in power, but elections are coming up.

Lila Mae Watson, the protagonist, is the first black, female elevator inspector, and she's an Intuitionist - three strikes against her. Race relations in this reality are no better than they were in ours in the 50s and 60s. Lila Mae can blend right into the background, become invisible, due to her color and everyone's tendency not to take notice of anyone non-white. It is still blatantly threatening to black people, as Lila Mae describes her natural inclinations ("Because her father taught her that white folks can turn on you at any moment") while entering a bar (O'Connor's) looking for her one pseudofriend in the guild:

They can turn rabid at any second; this is the true result of gathering integration: the replacement of sure violence with deferred sure violence. Her position is precarious in the office, she understands that, and in O'Connor's as well; she's a lost tourist among heavy vowels, the crude maps of ancestral homelands, and the family crests of near-exterminated clans. Her position is precarious everywhere she goes in this city, for that matter, but she's trained dread to keep invisible in its ubiquity, like fire hydrants and gum trod into black sidewalk spackle. Makeshift weapons include shoes, keys, and broken bottles. Pool cues if their handy. 

The underlying threat of violence flows throughout the novel, but unevenly, and at times, unnecessarily. (Would someone please explain to me the relevance of The Screaming Man? Because as far as I can tell, that small scene in there solely to mislead, and adds unnecessary violence.)

Lila Mae's character is an interesting choice - she's a woman, black and an Intuitionist, but her personality is calculating, cool, observant and distant, basically turning gender and race stereotypes on their respective heads. Perhaps it's only objects that Lila Mae can relate to, as an Intuitionist who understands the wants and needs of elevators but not those of people.

The novel, overall, didn't go as far as I would have liked. The elements of the absurd (Intuitionism, for example) took a while to recognize in the light of an alternative reality. The wordplay was enjoyable, but it often slowed down the pace of the novel. (At one point a character is described as "that vapor, that meandering cumulus masquerading as a man.")  It's a short novel but not a fast read. I'd recommend reading it (I'm almost positive I'm missing something) but only when you're looking for something different and a little challenging.

Too many books in the air

I am reading too many books at the moment, or maybe just the right amount. As I mentioned previously, I've embarked on a journey with Infinite Jest, the coconspirator's favorite book. While it is quite good and insightful, I'm still early in (about a fifth in) and having a little trouble gathering momentum. The book is massive, the size of a law school tome, and the pages are larger than normal - although, it's easy to see why. No one would want to pick up a complicated novel that was so obviously 1600+ pages long! 1000 pages is one thing, but 1600? No way. But if it had ben printed in 'normal' paperback size, based on the kindle "lines" and other kindle line to physical book pages comparison, Infinite Jest would be infinitely long.

For those of you with any IJ experience: The Wardine and Poor Tony sections (and the section with Hal's grandfather going on and on to Hal's father as a kid) have been the most challenging to read so far, and I'm growing fond of Marathe and Steeply. I love that there are dangerous Quebecois wheelchair assassins. The halfway house complaints are also hilarious. I have no experience as a drug addict, but DFW seems to be giving an uncomfortably accurate window into various thought processes of addicts. Anyway. The book keeps alternating between enjoyable and entertaining and completely uncomfortable.

My book club is reading The Intuitionist by Coleson Whitehead, and since  we're meeting next Thursday to discuss it I thought I might want to start reading it. It looks promising, but I've barely started. A friend of mine also recommended Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which I found available for audio download at my library, so I've started listening to that. It's very interesting so far. I didn't read any description ahead of time, and it's nice to go in blind. It's also an easy way to read while doing mindless tasks or not feeling so well.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw out a quick update since I sense it might be a little while before I get another review down. Anyone else prefer to be involved with more than one book at a time? Or are you a book monogamist?

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: Impressions

In Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell manages to connect the past, present, and two levels of dystopian futures in an engaging and insightful novel consisting of loosely interlocking narratives told in drastically different styles. The structure is very different from anything I've read before - it is somewhat modeled after Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night, A Traveler, a collection of stories that seem to stop in the middle or just before the climax. Cloud Atlas, however, picks up those threads later in the novel and finishes each story.

The characters range from a gullible young lawyer to a scheming and talented obscure composer to an "awakened fabricant" (think Blade Runner) in the future. An aging publisher, who manages to get himself trapped in a retirement home, laments upon his life's chosen profession:

Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. 'Admire me, for I am a metaphor.'

The most difficult section for me to read was "Sloosha's Crossing," which is written in a sort of future ruralspeak dialect, but it was also such a riveting section that I couldn't help but read it quickly. The narrative's main climax occurs here, basically, in the middle of the novel, and yet you still want to pick up the threads of each of the other stories.

The overarching themes in the background occasionally seem heavy-handed, but never in an offensive way. In one aside, a tertiary character offers this explanation of how humanity has arranged itself:

'Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will... The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence.'

Quite a bleak outlook on the state of things, and one that currently can't help but ring mostly true. But out of this hopelessness, one finds optimism at the conclusion of the novel, one of my favorite reads this year, and one I'd recommend to anyone looking for something different and does not mind elements of dystopian futures. I'd also recommend reading it at the same time as others - it was a joy to read this with Erin & Anita, even if I was the slow one in the group!