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As you may or may not know, I just returned home after spending several months overseas, where I did a great deal of reading. Since I probably read more in this period than I have in any other short amount of time in my life, I thought it would be interesting to give you all a little break-down of the books.
List (in alphabetical order)*
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
- The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
- The Centauri Device by M. John Harrison
- The Committed Men by M. John Harrison
- The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell
- The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
- Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull
- Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Ivory by Mike Resnick
- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
- The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Little Kingdoms by Steven Millhauser
- The Machine in Shaft Ten by M. John Harrison
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Once and Future King by T.H. White
- Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
- Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction by J.D. Salinger
- Redwall by Brian Jacques
- Remainder by Tom McCarthy
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
- Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
- Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
- The Victorians by A.N. Wilson
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
- Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
*Italics denote a reread.
Departure: July 20, 2007
Arrival: December 9, 2007
Days Away: 151
Months Away: 5
Average Reading Speed:
1 book every 4.08 days
7.4 books every month
Favorite Reads:
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
What Mervyn Peake has done here is given Tim Burton an entire career's worth of material, if only he would use it. That sounds like one of those comparisons book reviewers make to try in vain to liken an indescribable work of art to something that is more-easily recognizable. Actually, what am I saying? It is one of those comparisons. Can I do better, though? Not really; I'm bumbling through this whole mini-review anyway, so I'll just let it stand. There is a magic and charisma to this book that I just can't get a handle on when I try to explain why I like it so much. Its characters are completely dark, melodramatic, and often in many ways 2-dimensional. But the author still manages to give them the carefully knowing, loving and yet subtle, friendly mocking treatment of Dickens. The plot is also overcomplex, reliant upon unrealistic (but convincing) twists and turns, and though massively involving, seems almost superfluous when looking back. If is seems like I am pointing out a lot of this book's flaws, think again. They are flaws in the technical sense, yes; glaring flaws, telling flaws, but integral to Peake's flawed vision. The characters, the plot: these aren't the point. Like many of the best fantasy authors, Peake is a world-builder and atmosphericist first and foremost, and his is a dark, flawed, intricate world that I know I will be happy to return to soon.
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
It took me a while to get what Sebald was doing, so I didn’t really enjoy the first part of this book as much as I did the latter part. Fiction for me is almost always at least marginally concerned with things such as “character” and “plot,” which didn’t seem to be major issues for Sebald. Instead, he focused much more on such things as the atmosphere of places, the trajectory of obscure-yet-influential intellectual systems, and the growth and decline of whole civilizations, as evidenced by what characters he does include. These characters actually tended to be people who are alive or have lived, though whether or not he has manipulated the facts of their existences for his own ends I would have to do more research to know. Once I realized the common thread between his seemingly disparate anecdotes and non-linear plotless "stories," not only did I find the book far more enjoyable, I also found that many of the themes were similar to those of Peake’s book listed above, and would actually suggest them as excellent companion reads.
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
What can I say? McCarthy is probably the best writer of English fiction living today, and this is one of his most accessible books. He knows exactly how to form a sentence, how to structure a narrative, how to tell a story, how to be creative and original without resorting to gimmicks, how to be deep and intellectual without being impenetrable. I think if there is one author I would recommend to just about anyone, it would be Cormac McCarthy, and if I had to choose one of his books to recommend it might just be this one. He isn’t my favorite author, but that’s because his themes aren’t those I identify most-strongly with. That said, unlike some of my favorite books, I think there is something in All the Pretty Horses for everyone, which is why I try to tell everyone that just because he’s on Oprah’s Book List, that doesn’t mean you should lump him in with all the other drivel she recommends.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
I tend to think of characters (and people in general, I guess) as living two kinds of lives: an outer or visible life, the boring one where they go to work, eat lunch alone, cry about a relationship gone bad, eventually die; and the inner life, that secret life of symbols, unconsious urges, and unrecognizeable patterns that inform that same person's actions. Authors I have read in the past used the outer life as a metaphor for the inner. The visible world is one we all experience, so it is easy to write about. Kundera is not the first author I have ever read who wrote about the inner lives of his characters. (Any of the books I enjoy tend to at least have hints of this; this is where books get their emotional cores, to my understanding.) Kundera is, however, the first author I have read who wrote about the inner lives of his characters without teasing them out of their outer lives. He completely eschews most talk about who did what when to talk instead about why they did what they did, and what it was about each character that caused them to make the choices that shaped their lives.
Least-Favorite Reads:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
You know that guy who is always joking, but it's obvious he's trying really hard to make people laugh? Maybe somebody called him the class-clown when he was a kid, and he took that as a compliment to try to live up to, but he doesn't realize that good humor is effortless and the more he works at it the more cringe-worthy it is. I think Douglas Adams is that guy. He's not funny, he's not clever, but he wants us so badly to think he's both. If you have confidence in yourself and your jokes and your audience's ability to appreciate them, you don't need to spread it on so thick. If you like Vonnegut when he's irreverant and silly and trying too hard to make a point, you'll really dig Douglas Adams. If you wish Carrot Top would make fun of religion as if he wanted you to change your mind, you'll absolutely go nuts for this. As for me, I'll take my comedians nonchalant, my lessons from somebody more-intelligent, and my literature written by someone else, thanks.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
I think a sci-fi book can combat the effects of its science becoming dated by including things that are timeless, like interesting and enduring characters, plots, and so on. An example of something that does this marginally well would be Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I read just after this book. Even though that book has far too much speculative science that has been disproven, and is overburdened by scientific names sitting in for descriptions of various forms of aquatic life, Nemo is intriguing enough to make it worthwhile. For me, Journey to the Centre of the Earth had no such redeeming qualities. It's plot was virtually non-existent, there was no real conflict between any of the characters, and in fact there was barely any conflict with the environment. All that was left was a bunch of scientific theories that obviously have not withstood the test of time. I am glad that this book was written, because it helped birth the science-fiction genre, which I am recently very taken with, but I wish I had had a better book to occupy my time.
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce SterlingI didn't dislike this as much as the other two. I just found it kind of boring and pointless. I was excited by the idea of reading it, but it just didn't really get me. Maybe I missed the point and somebody needs to enlighten me. But until then, it was very much an "ehh" kind of read.