November Reading
55. Cry, The Beloved Country
by Alan Paton
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 312
56. Holy Fools
by Joanne Harris
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 355
57. Dude, Where's My Country?
by Michael Moore
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 218
58. Knock 'Em Dead: Cover Letters
by Martin Yate
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 281
59. Going After Cacciato
by Tim O'Brien
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 336
60. The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 631
Possible Spoilers ahead:
I haven't been all that happy with my reading selections lately. I may have to start searching out more places to get recommendations. I have contemplated joining one of the Livejournal book communities, but I don't want my whole friends list eaten up by posts on books that I don't care about.
Cry, The Beloved Country is set in South Africa during apartheid. In the first section of the book, Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo leaves his home in the countryside to search for his wayward sister and son in Johannesburg. He gradually uncovers that his son has turned to a life of crime. He then learns that his son has shot and killed a white man, Mr. Jarvis, during a robbery. Ironically, Mr. Jarvis was working to help the native population. These tragic events take place within the framework of the larger chaos and injustice that is taking place in South Africa. Pastor Kumalo lends a sad, quiet dignity as the story's narrator, but I was somewhat disappointed by the book. It does read like the kind of book that you are forced to read in high school, one that beats you over the head with its message.
Holy Fools is set in France in 1610. Juliette, a former rope dancer and traveling performer, has escaped from her troubled past and joined a convent. She has made a happy life for herself and her daughter, Fleur. But when the abbess dies, a man from her past, Guy LeMerle, arrives, hell-bent on using the convent for revenge. I have an interest in the lives of nuns, but overall, I didn't like this book as much as the first book by Harris that I read, Five Quarters of the Orange.
I enjoyed Dude, Where's My Country?, but I don't think I could have stood to read it if the election hadn't gone the way it did. It may be a little out of date, since it was written before the 2004 election, but the passage of time may have served to prove Moore right, especially about the war in Iraq. My favorite part of the book was when he talked about how ironic it is that Americans are surrendering their civil liberties to stop terrorists.
In Going After Cacciato, Cacciato walks away from the Vietnam War in the hopes of walking across a continent to Paris. The book is the story of the other soldiers who pursue him. It's a weird and trippy premise and a well-written novel, but it simply did not resonant for me in the way I hoped it would. Maybe it is partially because the Vietnam War ended before I was born, but I never felt for the characters or their situation. The book jacket bills it as the best novel about the war, but I think The Things They Carried was far superior.
The Birth of Venus reminded me of Holy Fools, in that it is historical fiction and also the second novel I've read by Sarah Dunant and it did not live up to the first (In the Company of the Courtesan). In The Birth of Venus, Alessandra is a willful young girl living in turbulent Florence in the late 1400s. She lives for art and freedom, but both are forbidden to wealthy young women. Her father brings a young painter in to paint the family's chapel and Alessandra is intrigued by him. Alessandra's family arranges her marriage to a wealthy, older man, who is homosexual and who is having an affair with her brother. Circumstances conspire to bring Alessandra and the painter together.
I was disappointed in this book. Alessandra isn't nearly as strong a narrator as the dwarf of In the Company of the Courtesan. The most interesting relationship in the whole book is that of Alessandra and her gay husband, but that is not well explored. Dunant also fails to show the passion between the painter and Alessandra as secret lovers. Overall, the painter is a dull and charmless character.
by Alan Paton
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 312
56. Holy Fools
by Joanne Harris
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 355
57. Dude, Where's My Country?
by Michael Moore
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 218
58. Knock 'Em Dead: Cover Letters
by Martin Yate
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 281
59. Going After Cacciato
by Tim O'Brien
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 336
60. The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 631
Possible Spoilers ahead:
I haven't been all that happy with my reading selections lately. I may have to start searching out more places to get recommendations. I have contemplated joining one of the Livejournal book communities, but I don't want my whole friends list eaten up by posts on books that I don't care about.
Cry, The Beloved Country is set in South Africa during apartheid. In the first section of the book, Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo leaves his home in the countryside to search for his wayward sister and son in Johannesburg. He gradually uncovers that his son has turned to a life of crime. He then learns that his son has shot and killed a white man, Mr. Jarvis, during a robbery. Ironically, Mr. Jarvis was working to help the native population. These tragic events take place within the framework of the larger chaos and injustice that is taking place in South Africa. Pastor Kumalo lends a sad, quiet dignity as the story's narrator, but I was somewhat disappointed by the book. It does read like the kind of book that you are forced to read in high school, one that beats you over the head with its message.
Holy Fools is set in France in 1610. Juliette, a former rope dancer and traveling performer, has escaped from her troubled past and joined a convent. She has made a happy life for herself and her daughter, Fleur. But when the abbess dies, a man from her past, Guy LeMerle, arrives, hell-bent on using the convent for revenge. I have an interest in the lives of nuns, but overall, I didn't like this book as much as the first book by Harris that I read, Five Quarters of the Orange.
I enjoyed Dude, Where's My Country?, but I don't think I could have stood to read it if the election hadn't gone the way it did. It may be a little out of date, since it was written before the 2004 election, but the passage of time may have served to prove Moore right, especially about the war in Iraq. My favorite part of the book was when he talked about how ironic it is that Americans are surrendering their civil liberties to stop terrorists.
In Going After Cacciato, Cacciato walks away from the Vietnam War in the hopes of walking across a continent to Paris. The book is the story of the other soldiers who pursue him. It's a weird and trippy premise and a well-written novel, but it simply did not resonant for me in the way I hoped it would. Maybe it is partially because the Vietnam War ended before I was born, but I never felt for the characters or their situation. The book jacket bills it as the best novel about the war, but I think The Things They Carried was far superior.
The Birth of Venus reminded me of Holy Fools, in that it is historical fiction and also the second novel I've read by Sarah Dunant and it did not live up to the first (In the Company of the Courtesan). In The Birth of Venus, Alessandra is a willful young girl living in turbulent Florence in the late 1400s. She lives for art and freedom, but both are forbidden to wealthy young women. Her father brings a young painter in to paint the family's chapel and Alessandra is intrigued by him. Alessandra's family arranges her marriage to a wealthy, older man, who is homosexual and who is having an affair with her brother. Circumstances conspire to bring Alessandra and the painter together.
I was disappointed in this book. Alessandra isn't nearly as strong a narrator as the dwarf of In the Company of the Courtesan. The most interesting relationship in the whole book is that of Alessandra and her gay husband, but that is not well explored. Dunant also fails to show the passion between the painter and Alessandra as secret lovers. Overall, the painter is a dull and charmless character.