Many random thoughts
Woohoo! I'm home! I'm in the Taipei apartment right now sweating profusely. I always forget how hot and humid Taiwan is. It feels like one is actually wading through the air. Personally, I think air should be one of those things people don't really think about. When I have to think about air, it's almost always a bad thing: asthma attacks, coughing
( Read more... )
I was so excited to find OotP that I'm glad I'm enjoying it too! It wasn't a Connor sit w/ the book. I have quite a bit of experience w/ teen angst by this point both my own and Ben's friends one of whom put his hand through my front window over a tiff about a game last summer. And harry and Ben are the same age. Harry was annoying
me for some reason, I think it's just a timing thing. Sometimes a book just doesn't click with where you're at at the moment… but I got OK after p91… about half way through now and I'm enjoying it just fine. :-)
I came to HP quite late. I only read the other books a few months ago when I was out of stuff and raiding Ben's shelves. I have this resistance thing with popular stuff since I don't like most of it and the first book just seemed to dwell in misery at the beginning but Ben kept bugging me and I did eventually press on with the first one, then of course the rest were history! All the crits are quite fair. Harry does have bad traits and Dumbly does favor him in a way that almost makes me symp w/ Malfoy. But there's a familiarity to the POV, that quite takes me back to the feel of growing up and I think I agree with rah on this. Of course I can't be twelve again to be sure so it might just be that JKR and I "remember" the same way.
Re: Brust... I quite despair of recommending things to others since the connection with a book can be so subjective. Like I loved Cooper and Garner and Lewis some others,but didn't get into Pullman? I might try him again since so many like him. If you do read Brust, I think you'll want the first one though. After that the chronology doesn't always follow the year he wrote... his very best book (IMHO) is The Sun, the Moon and the Stars which isn't in this series and Gyspy is quite good also which he wrote with Megan Lindholm.
Reply
I'm quite irked now because my mother forgot to give me the receipt for Harry Potter... now I can't go pick it up tomorrow and must wait an extra day! Gr. Actually the wait wouldn't be so bad since I'm used to waiting for books to come out in paperback, but I'm very sick of skipping over all the LJ entries discussing OotP.
Reply
Greg, the narrator, is an artist who has joined with four other artists -- Dan, David, Robert and Karen -- in a studio, where they have been struggling to make names for themselves in the art world. They have all been largely unsuccessful, and they have come to a crisis point; should they call it quits and break up the studio or should they try to come up with the money for an art show? The stress takes its toll, and communications break down severely.
This is only one of the stories Steven Brust tells. Another storyline follows Greg through the process of creating a painting on a huge canvas he calls The Monster. As Greg works his way through the painting, he reflects on art and painting and what it means to him personally. Interspersed through the novel is a Hungarian folk tale, "The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars," which tells of three gypsy brothers who go on a quest to bring light to the world. Actually, only one brother does all the work, Csucskari, who is a kind of trickster-hero, but he's willing to share with his brothers.
The different narrative threads are broken into numbered sections within each chapter, and each chapter is headed with the title of a famous painting. It is not obvious whether the painting has a bearing on the text of the section, although some readers might enjoy looking them up. Greg is an engaging narrator, and his ruminations on art are fascinating. This "inner" narrative enriches the outer story, restoring balance and providing insight to the conflicts among the artists.
Brust's writing is evocative and luminous, and he paints a vivid picture with his words. His respect for the reader is clear. Cultural references date it somewhat, but that can be overlooked. This is an unusually thoughtful and thought-provoking novel which should find a home on any bookshelf.
http://www.rambles.net/brust_sun.html
Good luck finding the Potter... I may wait for you to catch me up; I have afew other things pulling at me anyway and it be fun to read along with someone. Ben's out and about these days trying to cram 2 months of fun into a two week summer vac before starting his first job! Between that and a new girl he's trying to talk around; he's a bit distracted. ;-)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment