2009 Reading List
Books Read in 2009:
1. Don Quixote by Cervantes--- I didn't think I'd like this book, and I did start to grow tired of it during the second half, feeling like the same cycle was just repeating itself, but I still enjoyed it. The humor is timeless.
2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett--- A book my former English professor loaned me to read. (It was even ( Read more... )
1. Don Quixote by Cervantes--- I didn't think I'd like this book, and I did start to grow tired of it during the second half, feeling like the same cycle was just repeating itself, but I still enjoyed it. The humor is timeless.
2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett--- A book my former English professor loaned me to read. (It was even ( Read more... )
I love Hemingway, that bastard, but I have a few bones to pick with that story.
1) The characters, rich, jaded expatriates with nothing better to do than sit around and drink wine, had the potential to be funny, or in the very least, interesting, but they were trite, the scratching posts for a completely cynical world view, and completely unlikeable. Even if this was done on purpose, it was just too much. Especially the Jewish guy, Robert C/Kohn; I mean, Hemingway made him look so bad that it was excessive - pieces need a bit of panorama and compassion for their characters, even the stupidest, most evil of them. Not that I expect poor Hemingway to have complete buttsex with this Jewbag, but the blips of sympathy he showed for Cohn were disgustingly condescending, as if he knew he had to parcel out something for him.
2) Boiled down, Jake's love situation was a masochistic fetish. This poor guy, emasculated by his wound, should have had some kind of breath of fresh air, but there was none. It was claustrophobic and alienating, but not in the forgiving way. The relationship, in another sense, would have been okay if Brett, again, was at least interesting or something. All of Jake's exchanges with her made me want to just, die. So dry and lifeless. Brett sucked as a character and Jake was just... dull, so their "affair" or "romance" or "Chinese water torture" or whatever you want to call it was the epitome of lame. I think the concept of Brett was much more interesting: her aloof cruelty, seeming independence but complete dependence on sexual relationships, her feral but sophisticated attitude - all of these things, conceptually, are downright hot, but it was executed so mutely/condescendingly that she felt more like a device and less like a human being. I don't even want to debate on whether Hemingway did it on purpose, because whether or not he did it on purpose, she still was boring as hell.
3) The descriptions of traveling, Hemingway's wordsmithing, and anything that didn't have dialogue in it was acceptable and often very nice to read, but I could feel my butt cheeks clench every single time I perceived quotes on the page. No one should have to feel that way about dialogue, man.
Despite all the horrors of this book, I did like the impression it gave me. I mean, if it got anything down, it got that down, the quiet, literary depression that would scar young adult readers and writers for another hundred years, down to us. Lololol.
/end rant.
Hemingway and I have an abusive relationship. I keep crawling back to him and all he does is beat me and say he's sorry, but he's never really sorry. :(
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