No Rest for the Literate

I'm starting A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (A double-recommendation! Thanks to Uncle Mr Bill and Auntie Fran). Of the 2 books E offered me for my next task, this one was at my local bookstore when I popped in this afternoon. I know absolutely nothing about it and haven't read The Kite Runner either so it's my introduction to this author. I'll have an interim review in about a week, I'd say.

I'm also starting Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. It hasn't been recommended by anyone - so isn't officially a LitGirls task - but it is the next reading for my bookclub, which meets next weekend. I listened, during my years (and years) as a performance studies undergraduate, to various recordings of Ginsberg reading Howl, but haven't returned to it since, nor read any of the other poems in the collection. I've always struggled with reading poetry, much preferring to listen to it be read by someone who's taken the time to get the rhythms and stresses right (and yes, if that's Stephen Fry, I won't complain). But I'm really looking forward to getting into this Beat Generation classic. Of course, if anyone knows where I can access any online audio files of Ginsberg's readings, I'd appreciate that, too.

xoxo

The Voices in my Head

(AKA Review: The Fran Lebowitz Reader)

I really wanted to like The Fran Lebowitz Reader. Really, I did. And I pretty much expected I would: it’s one of E’s suggestions and I trust her taste; it’s observational humour and that’s usually a hands-down winner for me; and it has stood the test of time (remember, most of the individual pieces were written in the ’70s and ’80s and yet it’s still out there, making good sales and keeping its writer fed and clothed despite her almost two decades’ writer’s block).

And yet? Didn’t love it.

Why? Because of the voices in my head.

Lebowitz is unabashedly, outrageously, completely American. She’s East Coast American. New York American. She is, let it be known, a Capital N, Capital Y New Yorker. With a great many of the pieces in this collection consisting of carefully crafted anecdotes about life in that megatropolis (of which "Diary of a New York Apartment Hunter" is by far my favourite), you are never not aware of that fact. Fran Lebowitz equals New York, here.

And yet, there’s something in the tone in this collection – particularly in the early section “Metropolitan Life” – that doesn’t feel American. Or more precisely, it doesn't sound American. While the subject matter is decidedly so, something in the writing style, choice of words, sentence construction, doesn’t fit. It’s a little … out of whack, somehow. So I’m reading these pieces, smiling, enjoying the tricky callbacks and creative puns when a direct reference to Christopher Street, or a sweater, or Walter Cronkite crops up and I’m completely thrown because – in my head – the whole book is being read aloud by Stephen Fry.

Now, that’s not normal for me. Yes, I love Stephen Fry. No, I don’t usually hear his voice in my head (although this definitely tops my Christmas Wish List this year). But I suspect it comes back to the writing. There’s a – and I can find no better way to describe it, so work with me on this – decidedly British tone to a lot of the pieces which then clashes with the American-ness of its content. Lines like

[…] it is not feasible to bring into one’s own home all the desirable accoutrements of discotheque dancing such as deejay, several hours of tape, and the possibility, slim though it may be, of meeting one’s own true love.

are just screaming “British!” to me. It’s the same with

It was with considerable approval that I listened one Sunday evening to my weekend host instruct his chauffeur to drive us, his guests, back to New York.

Until the last two words, that is.

And while this experience lessens as the book continues, it was so strong initially that I couldn’t get passed it. I started to wonder, “is this a new literary technique Lebowitz is pioneering?”, “is it a greater comment on the subtleties of writing in the English language?”, “Am I going bonkers here?”. In the end, I simply couldn’t reconcile my imaginary, British voice-over with the ever-present American auteur herself and it ruins the book for me.

I love you, E but I’m sorry I’m just not with you on this one.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader: only Two Strings of Pearls from me.

xoxo

PS: Yes, I’m fully aware that this post probably says far, far more about me than it does about The Fran Lebowitz Reader but there you have it: it’s my blog and I get to write about Stephen Fry if I want to.

Challenge issued and accepted!

J has chosen my next book: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.  I haven't read much Woolf, only Mrs Dalloway, I think, but if I remember correctly I liked it well enough, so I'm happy to give another of hers a go.  I'll have to re-join the library in the next couple of days to get hold of it, but I'll check in again soon and let you know how it's going.

XOXO

Recommendations, and Thoughts on Being a Chucker

A few things to say.  First, recommendation from Another Matt:

* The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages by Norman Cohn

* Hyperion by Dan Simmons

* The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

* The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Second, I have decided to put Guns, Germs and Steel back on the shelf for a bit.  While I am enjoying it a lot more now, it's just taking me way too long, and as a result the blog is lying fallow.  Since Rule #1 of having a blog is: Post, stupid, I feel like I need to get going on some other books in the meantime.  I do fully intend to come back to Guns... in the not-too-distant, but right now I need something a bit more portable (much of my reading time occurs on buses and in random stolen moments).  I'm awaiting directions from J, and will let you know when she has assigned me something new.

In the meantime, here's what I would say about Guns...: it's an important book, and more people should read it.  There's a lot of great information in it that sheds light on human development around the world, and Diamond goes a long way toward his goal of beating the crap out of those my-people-won-because-we're-just-better arguments.  But the problem is that the book is pitched too high: the people who are able to get through it (and I don't just mean people who are able to comprehend the information, but people who would are devoted enough to read the entire thing) are almost certainly going to be the people who already agree with him and are looking to back up their own arguments.  Which isn't to suggest that the book is wasted, because Guns... is, as far as I know, the first book to collect all of the data and present it in one place, and that makes it very useful indeed.  But it's hard going, and I can't pretend otherwise.

So my verdict (for now) on Guns, Germs and Steel is this: Read it, by all means - it's certainly worth the effort - but expect to have to put some work in.  I would also advocate dipping into it over an extended period rather than trying to do it as I have.  It's too much information to take in all at once, for me at least, and trying to cram it all in over a short time just means that I'd have ended up missing important pieces of the puzzle.

XOXO

Further Recommendations

Two more lists have come in.

Matthew suggested:
* Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
* To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
* The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
* Atomised by Michelle Houellebecq
* Life of Pi by Yann Martel
* Vernon Goodlittle by DBC Pierre
* True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
* Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

Toby suggested:
* His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
* The Accidental Buddhist by Dinty Moore
* Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

These lists of recommendations are starting to make me think of Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveller... in which books are classified as follows:

- Books You've Read
- Books You Haven't Read
- Books You've Been Planning to Read For Ages
- Books Dealing with Something You're Working On At The Moment
- Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer
- Books You Need to Go With Other Books On Your Shelves
- Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
- Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered
- Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback
and (my favourite)
- Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too.*

On reflection, that last was the real impetus for this little project. There are so many books I feel I've semi-read, having listened to friends and family rave about them over the years. And here's my chance to reshelve some titles from the last to the first category.

Better get on with it, then.

xoxo

*This is not the full list but you get the drift, yeah?

Nice one, Tamara.

So J just texted me asking if I could pick a new book for her to grab at lunchtime, as she's in for Jury Duty and has almost finished The Fran Lebowitz Reader.  I suggested Maximum City by Suketu Mehta or, if she couldn't find that one, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.  I haven't read either myself, so it was just luck of the draw.  We'll see what comes of it.

You'll note that I've changed our header per J's last post (LOVE).  I also want to note Anthony's remark about the need for 'a book club for sophisticated ladies of a certain disposition'.  I suspect that might find its way into the header at some point as well.

In other news, I'm enjoying Guns, Germs and Steel heaps more now that I'm into the section about human evolution and diseases and their contribution to the whole mess.  I like my life sciences, what can I say.  It's good, though, because I no longer despair of finishing the damn thing.  I will get there, and I'll even enjoy it.  More to follow.

XOXO

You Guessed it: More Recommendations

Tamara suggested:
* Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
* The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
* The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
* Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and then ...
* The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Tam's summation of the first was "trashy but with a literary bent" which I heartily endorse as the LitGirls' new tag-line.

A review of The Fran Lebowitz Reader will follow in a day or two, promise.

xoxo

Still more recommendations

Sorry, but I kept forgetting to post this.  Uncle Mr Bill (thanks!) sent through the following:

* The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

* Incident at Twenty-Mile by Trevanian (a Western!)

* A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I'm getting antsy to be finished with Guns, Germs and Steel and move on to whatever comes next.  I'm not sure if we've explained this to you-all yet, but J and I decided that the easiest way to split up the books would be for us to switch off picking books for ourselves and picking books for each other, so since I chose Guns for myself, J will pick my next book for me.  (And because there are enough books on here that neither of us knows, this will end up being more random than it seems at first glance.)  I'm hoping for something a bit more plot-heavy than this one has been, and that's not something I'd normally say, so I must be struggling with it even more than I'd realised.

XOXO

Interim Review: Guns, Germs and Steel

So.  This book has been much more of a struggle for me than I'd expected.  I enjoy science writing as a rule, and I don't need it to be especially pop-sciencey to enjoy it: I generally find that the facts are interesting enough on their own to sustain me without a lot of dressing-up.  But you still need to be able to tell a story if you want to keep my interest for 457 pages, or even 7 pages, and I'm not convinced that Diamond can do that.

Well, no, that's a bit too harsh.  I think he probably can tell a story, but in this book it feels more like he's tried to write a book-length journal submission.  I'm having trouble working out quite what doesn't work for me about his style: it's not that it's dry, exactly, nor is the density of it really a problem for me (though it is seriously dense); and it's bugging me, because I feel like I should like it more.  I'm certainly learning a lot, and about things that interest me, so why can't I get into it as much as I'd like?  (For those who don't know, it's an examination of why certain cultures ended up so much more technologically advanced than others, and the repercussions of that advancement on other aspects of human history.  It's comprehensive and honest, and goes a long way toward putting a nail in the coffin of those 'some races are just better' arguments that make me long to punch people squarely in the balls.)

That all having been said, I should note that I'm finding it much easier going now that I'm a good ways into it, but I shouldn't have to get almost halfway into a text like this before it grabs me.  Tim said that he'd started it a few times and never got far, and I now understand why; were I not reading it for Lit Girls, I suspect that I would have chucked it aside by now.  And that would have been a shame, because there is a lot worth reading in it: it's one of those books that answers questions you hadn't realised you wanted to ask by filling in blanks you hadn't realised were empty.  And Diamond has done most of his work (his 'real job' is as a biologist studying bird evolution) in the South Pacific, so he has a great deal of knowledge about the history of this part of the world, and that makes it more interesting to me: having grown up in the U.S., I didn't even get the tiny amount of education about this history that Australian students get.  But... I don't know, I still don't love it.  And the people I know who like it are really passionate about it, so I feel like I must be missing something.

Anyway.  I'll post again when I've finished it, and we'll see how I feel then.  Cross fingers it will continue to improve.

XOXO

Yet More Recommendations

They're coming in thick and fast now.

Paul suggested:
* The Master and Margarita or Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
* The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
* Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Melanie suggested:
* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
* Almost French by Sarah Turnbull
* Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
* Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
* A Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Lynn suggested:
* Bliss by Peter Carey
* The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
* Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

I have to say, there are many goodies there I've not read so I'm keen to get them on my list.

Keep 'em coming, people. This is fab!

xoxo

Off and Reading

A quick post to let you know I've started my first project; it's Elena's offering - The Fran Lebowitz Reader. My review post will follow when I've actually, you know, read it.

But, based on the number of pages E has folded over - her time-tested method of marking particular pages that have something she wants to return to, read again, share with friends - it's going to be a great read!

Kisses,
J