Book Pile
"I have a sense that God is unfair and preferentially punishes his weak, his dumb, his fat, his lazy. I believe he takes more pleasure in his perfect creatures, and cheers them on like a brainless dad as they run roughshod over the rest of us. He gives us a need for love and no way to get any. He gives us a desire to be liked, and personal attributes that make us utterly unlikeable. Having placed his flawed and needy children in a world of exacting specifications, he deducts the difference between what we have and what we need from our hearts and our self esteem and our mental health." - from CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Long-distant reading.
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia by George Saunders
More short stories by George Saunders. He's funny and charming. I've ended up enjoying Tenth of December the most, Goodreads tells me that's statistically not the norm. I wonder if it isn't a first point of contact thing. I really liked every story collection, but probably liked every subsequent one I read slightly less. I guess the problem with mainlining an author like that is that you notice repetitive qualities they might have in a pretty big way.
My boss Larry lent me a couple more books that deal with Native American issues. I liked Neither Wolf Nor Dog by Kent Nerburn a fair bit. It's nonfiction - Kent Nerburn basically goes and talked to this older Indian guy about his feelings in regard to the colonialist takeover of North America and the race relations today. It's such a monumentally awful thing to have been perpetrated it can be kind of difficult to grapple with, and I think this book does about a good a job as any I've seen. In some ways it was helpful for my reading that the author is a white guy who, while not an apologist exactly, is definitely uncomfortable about some of the heritage-based baggage he's bringing to the table in the discussion.
The other one he lent me was Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. I think this must be on a lot of Canadian high school english curriculums - the whole time I was reading it, I was constantly being approached by fresh faced university student to tell me how much they had loved reading that book. Which, I didn't really get that much out of it, to be honest. I usually love overly clever post-modern fiction, but this novel kind of turned me off with its over-cleverness. There were some straightforward human relationships type plot arcs that I thought were okay, though.
Seven Years by Peter Stamm
It's about an architect who's got a lovely, talented wife, and a sort of crazy, unlovely mistress-of-sorts, and how he doesn't really like either of them that much, and the extent to which that makes his life miserable. Stamm does a really amazing job of pinning down and expressing ulterior motives that I think probably exist in many or even most relationships, but don't tend to see much direct expression. So, like, the protagonist takes most of the pleasure in his relationship with his mistress from the power he feels like he wields over her, which I think "enjoyment of a power dynamic" is a pretty common feature in a lot of relationships, but Stamm expresses it in such a graceful, non-clunky way that it's just kind of a pleasure to read.
Room by Emma Donoghue
Stressed me right out. Told from the perspective of a boy who has lived his entire life with his mother as a captive in some psychopath's secret sex dungeon. Kind of light reading, but I figure I'm allowed.
Long-distant reading.
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia by George Saunders
More short stories by George Saunders. He's funny and charming. I've ended up enjoying Tenth of December the most, Goodreads tells me that's statistically not the norm. I wonder if it isn't a first point of contact thing. I really liked every story collection, but probably liked every subsequent one I read slightly less. I guess the problem with mainlining an author like that is that you notice repetitive qualities they might have in a pretty big way.
My boss Larry lent me a couple more books that deal with Native American issues. I liked Neither Wolf Nor Dog by Kent Nerburn a fair bit. It's nonfiction - Kent Nerburn basically goes and talked to this older Indian guy about his feelings in regard to the colonialist takeover of North America and the race relations today. It's such a monumentally awful thing to have been perpetrated it can be kind of difficult to grapple with, and I think this book does about a good a job as any I've seen. In some ways it was helpful for my reading that the author is a white guy who, while not an apologist exactly, is definitely uncomfortable about some of the heritage-based baggage he's bringing to the table in the discussion.
The other one he lent me was Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. I think this must be on a lot of Canadian high school english curriculums - the whole time I was reading it, I was constantly being approached by fresh faced university student to tell me how much they had loved reading that book. Which, I didn't really get that much out of it, to be honest. I usually love overly clever post-modern fiction, but this novel kind of turned me off with its over-cleverness. There were some straightforward human relationships type plot arcs that I thought were okay, though.
Seven Years by Peter Stamm
It's about an architect who's got a lovely, talented wife, and a sort of crazy, unlovely mistress-of-sorts, and how he doesn't really like either of them that much, and the extent to which that makes his life miserable. Stamm does a really amazing job of pinning down and expressing ulterior motives that I think probably exist in many or even most relationships, but don't tend to see much direct expression. So, like, the protagonist takes most of the pleasure in his relationship with his mistress from the power he feels like he wields over her, which I think "enjoyment of a power dynamic" is a pretty common feature in a lot of relationships, but Stamm expresses it in such a graceful, non-clunky way that it's just kind of a pleasure to read.
Room by Emma Donoghue
Stressed me right out. Told from the perspective of a boy who has lived his entire life with his mother as a captive in some psychopath's secret sex dungeon. Kind of light reading, but I figure I'm allowed.