Kundera

I finished my K book for the A to Z list a few days ago. It was a long time coming. I think I started it a few months ago. I could say that with summer school and my sister being here, I just wasn't finding the time...but I'll be truthful. I just couldn't get into it.

I've had a lot of friends and respectable people recommend his work to me. I started The Unbearable Lightness of Being a few years back, but never could get more than a few pages into it. After perusing the K section, I thought he would be a good choice. I picked up The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

From the get go, I pretty much knew I wouldn't like it. In my opinion, he shouldn't have written a book, but an essay or series of essays. I got the sense that I was being preached to, or even looked down on as if I wasn't good enough.

I will say that I gave the book a good hard chance. I read the whole thing through and tried to take what I could from it, but in the end, I felt unappreciated as a reader. I got the very strong sense that Kundera, or the voice he was writing through, was very pretentious.

I distinctly remember a portion where he discusses how a spoken word can be emphasized. Here's a very short excerpt:

He said the word "subtle" as if it were in italics. Yes, some words are not like others; they have a special meaning known only to initiates.

I don't know about you, but I know what emphasizing a word means and I know that when it's in italics, it's being emphasized. I also know it can create special meaning for said word. This whole little section sort of sums up how I feel about the book.

It felt a bit preachy, had a holier-than-thou type of feel. I just wasn't, and couldn't get, into it. Maybe in a few years, at a different point in my life I'll like it more, but I'm pretty iffy about that.

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.