Tell me what you've read!
Currently physically on my night stand:
Ivan Klíma, Love and Garbage. RDC read this for Modernism and Postmodernism fall 1996. He says it's cerebral and emotional at the same time. Starting it was my treat in the sun today, fifty pages and an hour and a half in the bright strong (though March) Denver sun was all my skin could take. Then I came in and worked on my site like a good girl.
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, and others. In the summer of 1993, a professor read aloud one of the micro mini stories from Invisible Cities and I was instantly hooked.
A.S. Byatt, The Conjugial Angel
I don't know why "conjugial" instead of "conjugal"
yet--maybe an obsolete spelling? This is the other novella in the volume
Angels and Insects. Also The Matisse Stories. The Conjugial
Angel is just what I like: historiographic, taking a small fact of what
is known (for whom Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote "In Memoriam")
and bringing it to life and making the history move.
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When I saw Byatt at the Tattered Cover in May of 1996, someone asked
what she thought of the cinematic interpretation of Morpho Eugenia.
She said she thought it was well done except for a line at the end. I don't
remember now if it was a line added or omitted, or who spoke it. Not remembering
annoys me, as we just rented "Angels and Insects" a month ago
and I just finished Morpho Eugenia this morning. Byatt's skill with
pastiche is impressive here also--the writings were an element dropped from
the film, but she didn't comment on that (that I recall). Films can't rely
too heavily on text, I guess. 8 March 1997
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Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina
Had I heard of this before HAO told me what she'd read over Christmas break? I think I had, but I don't remember how. I haven't finished it yet but I'm writing this column and want it up-to-date (considering how long this site has been off-line). (I like it so far, does that count?)
The last book set in the South I remember is William Owen's Littlejohn, which is fantastic. I think I mentioned it in an earlier Recent Reads. Anyway, as I told Rich a bit about Bastard and commented how often incest occurs in Southern novels, he said that that is often pointed out as Faulkner's legacy. And proud of it he would be, too, I bet. But even if siblings Caddie and Quentin slept together, the child Quentin is not his daughter, right?
Okay, now I've finished it. One of its blurbs says this novel never has
to raise its voice to seize and retain our attention. I thought it would
end much more violently than it did, though I won't say how. It was plenty
painful as it was.
3 March 1997
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E.L. Konisberg, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth and Father's Arcane Daughter
Father's Arcane Daughter
Given its length, this novel achieves a lot. "It doesn't end as
you'd think," said HAO,
so I guessed who Winston's audience was before it was spelled out. Slightly
unbelievable in that no child would submit that much to such meek Saturdays.
What is really amazing is the vocabulary and the metaphors. A rainy Saturday
has no color in it even a quarter note above gray. A tall person and a short
form a trochee at the end of a line of people. Marvelous.
26 February 1997
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth
From HAO's bookshelf. I love From
the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler but never finished (George)
and somehow never looked for her when digging through other libraries. Hao
has a few autographed ones and I borrowed two. Good solid children's reading,
although you have to wonder why, if Elizabeth is getting stronger, she puts
up with Jennifer's imperious didacticism. 24 February 1997
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(George) and All Together, One at a Time
I didn't like these as much as the others. Sometimes Konigsburg's almost-sly
knowingness doesn't ring true.
February 1997
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Donna Tartt, The Secret History
I don't remember how I came across this book, but I did scrawl its title in my date book in my list of Today's Discoveries between Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled (no, I still haven't finished it) and Jim Harrison's novella, "Legends of the Fall" (which I might never bother with). Anyway, I am glad I'm clever enough to keep this list, because when I have time to browse, I browse and write down the titles, and then when I go again and am frustrated that I don't know what's going on anymore, I have this list. So recently, there I was at the library choosing new books, and I stopped to say hi to Joanne, the Reader's Adviser, and showed her what I'd picked out. She nodded sagely over The Secret History, which I thought was a good sign.
Currently in publishing there is a lot of money spent in cover art, an investment in the book's visual appeal and therefore sales. Possibly a designer got paid lots of money for this cover, but I bet someone thought it was a risk. It looks like the Beatles' White Album. And I had no idea what to expect, neither from the jacket nor the blurb. This was the first risk I've taken in choosing an author and title of which I knew nothing without even a recommendation in quite a while. 971024 Its trade paperback cover has moody elusive artwork, no surprise
One of the many clever points in this novel's style is its timelessness. From the mood, I thought it might be Salingeresque with lots Head of the Charles and Seven Sisters thrown in. But then a character might spin a theory about how classical Greek grammatical structure influenced Greek society, and that feeling of unacademic Society vanished. And peppered throughout are careful measures of carefully contextualized pop references.
So yes, I liked the style, but the plot is also well-crafted. The final action could have been any number of other sequences without affecting the novel's credibility or logic, which might not be a positive factor, but unlike in many books, I had no idea where the final paragraphs might go.
An excellent book. One of its blurbs calls it highly readable, I think,
and it is, not quite a page-turner for suspense, but it binds you into it.
18 February 1997
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Susanna Kaysen, Far Afield
Kaysen continues to please me. I feel so avant-garde about her, I shall have to wear a black turtleneck whenever I describe her. I discovered her in the UConn Co-op with her first published book, Girl, Interrupted, and have bought and read her next two as soon as they came out. As if she were my own little discovery. Girl, Interrupted describes her time in an asylum--whither she was committed for over a year after a consultation that lasted less than twenty minutes. I felt a kinship with her because of that, which is delusional, as I've never been committed, but perhaps that delusional makes me committable? Next please! Asa, As I Knew Him chronicles a relationship, told post-break up but mostly staged pre. I liked this book less than the first, but the name of the ex's new girlfriend, Adrian Françoise, amused me highly given when I first read it, which is another story.
Anyway, several months ago I bought Far Afield and finally last week I read it. An anthropology grad student performs his field work in the Faroe Islands. His choice befuddled his professors, who considered the Faroes not remote enough; in his year far afield Jonathan learns that there are many ways of being remote. I love Kaysen's method of guiding her characters through introspection and introversion and out again.
I wouldn't recommend Far Afield if you're easily squeamed or staunchly
vegetarian. These Faroese act locally, if they do not think globally, and
acting locally means eating locally. In an archipelago in the North Atlantic,
not even root vegetables thrive. 4 February 1997
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Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions
I loved Bird by Bird and thought there were bits of Hard Laughter
that were worthwhile, and of course Operating Instructions comes
up often in Bird by Bird. And EKH
(as well as several other of my friends) are pregnant this year, but EKH particularly has read and reread
Operating Instructions, so I wanted to. She amuses me. January 1997
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Margaret Atwood, Murder in the Dark
Margaret Atwood read and spoke at the Tattered Cover 10 January 1997, and I bought a couple more of her books that night. If I'd thought about it, I'd've brought all her books that I own instead of only hardbacks; I have The Handmaid's Tale and The Robber Bride only in paper, and only in pulp. Why aren't they in trade?
Wheee! I found The Robber Bride in trade at the Tattered Cover
LoDo (superior to the Cherry Creek branch) last Sunday. Hooray! January
1997
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I like the style a lot, but I have never read such a wretched portrayal
of humanity since I finished Jude the Obscure Christmas morning (nice
timing!) 1995. Or maybe since Dead Souls, 1989.
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Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled
And likely to stay there. I thought The Remains of the Day was
wonderful, and I admire what of this I have read, but I feel like I'm slogging
through marshland. Which is the intended effect, maybe? but makes for difficult
reading. No, I haven't finished it in two tries, but I haven't given up
yet either.
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Last modified 20 November 1997
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