Never Let Me Go

I finished this book by Kazuo Ishiguro almost entirely on the plane ride back from Chicago. The combination of reading it in one sitting and being surrounded by people, yet completely alone had a profound affect on my opinion of the book. It was a nighttime flight, so most people were asleep and after reading the book I was offered a good two hours to just contemplate what I'd read.

The story was written from the protagonist's, Kathy's, viewpoint. She sorts through memories of her past and we are taken from past to present. This is, I believe, the only was this story could have been written with enough appeal, since for the majority of the book, the true reasons are hidden. Had he initially told the reader the main secret, it would have been far too campy and predictable. However, written the way it was, it came around quite nicely.

The chapters and paragraphs are tied into each other by a simple, often times annoying, tactic of leading the reader through. For example, a paragraph would end with something like "This reminded me of that autumn day Tommy and I met at the fountain." The next paragraph or chapter would then chronicle what happened at said fountain. This in itself would have been tolerable had the author not chosen to use the method repeatedly through the story. It's a small irritation, but it irked me nonetheless.

The eventual outcome of the book is unsettling, yet strangely calming. In the plane, when I finished the book I closed it and placed it in my little storage pocket. I poked my head up and stared at the domes of hair, most of which were lolling in uncomfortable sleep. It further enhanced the strange feelings of living in a world quickly being engulfed by technology, a world where in a 5 hour plane ride I spoke not one word to a stranger.

I enjoyed the book, even grew misty eyed in the last chapter. I didn't want to put it down, not once. I'm under the distinct impression that had I read it at a different time, not in an airplane that I might think different. As it stands, I did read it now and on an airplane and I did enjoy the book.

Author J, whomever you are, I'm coming!

She

I chose the book, She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard, for my H book. I wanted something that wasn't a classic and that wasn't too contemporary. I believe this book came out around the same time as The Jungle Book and it has the same sort of feel.

It follows two men on a mysterious adventure deep into the jungle. An old chest with an ancient story on a shard of pot leads them to believe that a great queen simply named, She, is the murderess of a long gone relative and that he must exact revenge upon her.

While the storyline is interesting, it is a bit typical of an adventure novel. I will say though that it was probably near the first of its kind and I'm probably just late to pick it up. The speech gets a tad tiresome as it's all "thou must, thou shalt," and a whole lot of other very proper ways of speaking.

As a whole, the book was good. Not great, the speech killed it for me, but a good adventure story.

Ps, sorry for the standard internet-searched photo. I'm still in Chicago and don't have anywhere to upload pictures!

Good Books Go Fast

I have finished (so much faster than my F book) my G book. I chose The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff.

I thoroughly LOVED this book. The beginning line alone, "The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass.", is intriguing. In one sentence, the author has already created an outline of imagery that is just the right amount of vague to capture the reader.

Her characters are lovable, in the sense that they are full of contradictions, doubt, and flaws. The main character, Willie, is a strong, smart, and driven woman, that still trembles from self-doubt and fear. Her mother, Vi, is strong as well and veiled in mysteries that unravel through the novel.

The story line flips through time as Willie searches through archives, letters, and books searching for her long lost father. The book was especially wonderful simply because of the choice in storytelling. It could have been told from one perspective in one era in one flat boring line. However, Groff takes the reader through history to experience individual feelings and thoughts. With this jumping from past to present, there could have been a great rift in storyline creating problems with flow, but Groff travels seamlessly through time pulling the reader through a multi-layered complex story involving a 50 foot monster, estranged fathers, and plots of murder.

If you can't already tell, I had a terrific time reading The Monsters of Templeton. There were so many different genres in this that I feel I could recommend it to a wide range of readers. If you're reading this and you've gotten this far, I recommend it to you!

Letter F

Finally! I finished Forster's novel, A Passage to India. It took about three months which is long for me. I read some other reviews on the book and it seemed to have a generally positive response.

I just couldn't get into it though. The subject matter was interesting, a clash between English and Indian, but beyond that I found no redeeming factors. The story felt flat, unchanging, even during the (semi) climactic courtroom scene. And for whatever reason I got a very pretentious attitude from the narrator.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this book, but could see the reasons it became a classic.

Now, on to Letter G!

Tits&Ass,
LadyD

A to Z

A while back I started an A to Z reading list. I go through the alphabet picking from authors last name, one fiction book per letter of an author I've never read. Some letters (the common ones) I will read twice, to skip letters like "Z".

I'm about to finish my "F " book by E.M. Forster. And I decided I should keep a catalog of pictures, so at the end I can have 26 pictures of my journey.

I say journey because this is meant to expand my horizon as a reader. We all create niches of genres/authors that we lean towards and sometimes this narrows our literature eye to a very small corner of books. By choosing authors I've never read before, it offers new writing styles, voices, themes, etc. Here are the books I've read so far:

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster was quite an illusion for me. I both enjoyed and hated it. You can see all the notes and tabs I added to it, but reading it wasn't the best of experiences. It still held may gems of wisdom and intellect, but was off kilter just enough to make me wonder why I liked it.
My "B" book is T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain. I'd been told by my brother-in-law to read this book many times before I actually decided to read it. He insisted it was a good read and while I had no doubts about his opinion, I just never got around to it. I figured my list was a perfect time to dive in. I really enjoyed the sharp contrast between the two story lines. In one, we see the struggle of an illegal couple bearing the pain and suffering of dreaming of bigger and better things; while in the other, we see an almost laughable white couple endure what seem to be much smaller grievances. Overall, it was wonderful.

This is Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. I pick most of my books randomly. I'll read the back covers and pick whichever seems most interesting. This one was totally random and not the best book I've read. He seemed to have a lot of acclaim for this and other works, but it was not my cup of tea. The writing style and topic seemed too simplified. The plot could have been better, I feel. It still had its moment though, like any other book. There's never all bad...in most cases.


This Geek Love by Katherine Dunn and by far my favorite book of this list and climbing the charts for one of several favorite books of all time. It's about a circus family where the father genetically alters the embryos of his children while in the womb to create his own brood of freaks. The story travels back and forth from past to present. It was an all together amazing novel and I can't believe it was written a few decades ago!

My "E" book, Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers. I believe this was made into a movie, but a lot of his books have so I may be mistaken. It could definitely translate to a movie fairly well. It was odd and totally bizarre at the end. It made me feel like I'd missed something during the reading of it and I can't figure to take that as a sign of a good or bad book. My overall opinion of this is mediocre.

That brings us to F. Once I'm finished, I'll take a picture and give my thoughts. Hopefully, I'll have more to write on the books since I'll be doing them one at a time from here on out.