Aja on 16/7/2009 at 06:34
Right now, for a summer course, I'm reading a book by native American author Ray Young Bear called Black Eagle Child: The Facepaint Narratives. I'd never heard of this author before I enrolled in the course (I needed the credits) but after a book of his poetry and now this novel, I think he probably deserves more recognition than he gets.
Young Bear's writing style is difficult to place. He describes what seem to be events in his life, but often without specific details of time and place. The reader is left to assemble the narrative from a stream of vivid but disjointed recollections that invoke pop culture as much as they do Mesqwaki (the tribe to which Young Bear belongs). Occasionally awkward passages give way to some startlingly evocative and skillfully crafted ones.
So far I'm reading this text partly as a commentary on aboriginal/white relations (how could it not be), but at the same time it seems unfair that all Native literature should have a diasporic focus. To that end, the novel doesn't seem to be written for a specifically western audience (i.e. one that craves the kind of self-reflection that only a displaced person can provide), and it sometimes makes me feel excluded, which, in this case, is not necessarily a bad thing.
Morte on 16/7/2009 at 18:33
A couple of hundred pages into James Clavell's Shogun right now, and enjoying it quite a bit, even if it sometimes feels like he's hitting you over the head with how much research he's done.
I recently finished Imperial Life in the Emerald City, which really laid bare the naivete, incompetence and arrogance of the Iraq occupation, in a very readable way. Since it focuses on the administration of the occupation and stays away from the the overall political rationale behind war it won't give anything approaching a complete picture, but then it's not pretending to. As a snapshot of the implementation of the war, and the bizarre ivory tower that was the Baghdad green zone it's excellent.
Also just got done with China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. It's dirty and grimy and grotesque, and jam-packed with ideas. I really, really liked it. If there were more fantasy books with as much verve, I'd be reading a lot more fantasy.
demagogue on 16/7/2009 at 19:13
I'm about in the mid-'60s (halfway) in European postwar history.
The author tends to be pretty droll, and I like his style.
He enjoys the little ironies, stories that bring to light really interesting contradictions, idiosyncrasies, or character traits of each country. It really breathes some colour into the history and makes for enjoyable reading. But he also ties things into the bigger trends ... the "Germany problem"; the USSR-ification of the East; the "Social Democratic moment".
I wish I could tell some of the stories to see if anyone from those countries sympathize or would want to qualify or contest them, but there are so many of them it would be overwhelming.
snowcap21 on 17/7/2009 at 07:51
Quote Posted by BEAR
Hopefully the surrogate-writer will be done by the time you get to the final book. Even having read most of them, Im not sure why anyone would do that to themselves ;)
Reading them or finishing the series as a surrogate-writer? Being now in the middle of book two I seriously doubt that I'll read all in one go (if at all), so I'm pretty sure that I wont end up waiting anxiously for the final book(s).:D
Quote Posted by Morte
Also just got done with China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. It's dirty and grimy and grotesque, and jam-packed with ideas. I really, really liked it. If there were more fantasy books with as much verve, I'd be reading a lot more fantasy.
It really was jam-packed with ideas, only for me that was the problem of the book, because it didn't seem to grow together to an impression of a living city (and narrative). While that could be intentional with regard to the city, showing it as an accumulation of people and groups instead of as a working society, it didn't work for me as a believable background. He seemed to reflect the problem with his two big metaphors, the Construct vs. the Weaver, but that was too obviously done for my taste.
SubJeff on 17/7/2009 at 22:49
The Pickwick Papers. For real this time.
suliman on 21/7/2009 at 02:54
Rama was indeed one of Clarke's best books. I love how it's all about exploration and discovery. It almost feels like a Jules Verne book.
(That was a compliment:D).
Also read Martian Time Slip, which was kinda meh-ish and a bit of a dissapointment after The Simulacra, and No Blade of Grass, which is like a more depressing version of Day of the Triffids. I didn't like the way it kinda turned to standard post-apocalyptic stuff fairly early on. I mean, forty pages in and it could've been a zombie apocalypse, plain old nuclear holocaust, anything basically. Which is a shame, because the grass eating virus and its consequences were very interesting and they ended up being just the premise for the rest of the book. Other than that, good book.
Getting started with Extro now, which gives off the impression of being batshit insane. That's ALSO a compliment if it turns out to be as awesomely batshit insane as The Stars My Destination.
thefonz on 21/7/2009 at 06:13
Darwin's Origin Of Species. :cool:
You'd be surprised how chicks on the tube are impressed.
Plus its much more exciting that the dull horrostories in the Metro each morning.
Andarthiel on 28/7/2009 at 02:20
I'm reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.
Borrowed it off a friend who's obsessed with Neil Gaiman.
It's quite good so far and I like the mish mash of history that it has, some of the characters are quite odd. The conecpt is quite interesting I must say and I appreciate it's dark fantasy aspect.
Angel Dust on 28/7/2009 at 03:14
I finished Midnight's Children a few days ago and found that my initial enthusiasm had given way to a resounding 'meh'. The teasing, back and forth way in which it was told was intially intriguing and charming but quickly become tedious and finally irritating, and I found it hard to get caught up in the characters struggles when I constantly had advance knowledge/hints of what was to occur. A little dramatic irony or foreshadowing can be effective but I felt it was a bit overkill in this case. I also wonder if my ignorance of Indian history may have hurt the resonance of some sections. Needless to say I did a bit of wikipedia-ing after I finished it!
Still Rushdie seems to be a talented writer, and I did enjoy much of the first half, so are there any recommendations for something else by him?
I've been really sick the last week so have not been up to tackling another book so I'm currently working through a Kafka short story collection. I read The Metamorphosis last night and it was quite a strange and disturbing tale, as well as being an extraordinarily effective examination of alienation.
Sypha Nadon on 30/7/2009 at 17:00
I'm still reading China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station." Purchased the book years ago but only decided to read it this year. I started reading it back in May, read the first 120 pages or so, then didn't read it at all in June. A few days ago I picked it up again and read a lot more of it, to the extent that I'm past the halfway point now and making my way to the end. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, there are moments where I feel like it's one of the most brilliant and exciting books I've come across in awhile now, but there are also moments where I just find the whole thing very frustrating and, at times, a real chore to read.
Many people on Amazon have complained about China's overuse of "big" words and his baroque writing style... this doesn't bother me in the least. I like how he has applied a sort of element of Lovecraftian horror to the whole fantasy/steampunk genre, and I also like how he namechecks surrealists as an influence in interviews (such as Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy). Yet for all his interest in experimentalism, in some ways many aspects of his book are very conventional, from his use of numerous Deus Ex Machinas to the somewhat flimsy characters. The plot of the book takes forever to set up, and what it actually is isn't anything to write home about (then again, I've never really cared all that much about plot anyway). And sadly, like most fantasy books, it's way too long... over 600 pages, over 200,000 words, etc. Why so many fantasy books are bloated in this manner, I'll never know.
The city of New Crobuzon is a fascinating environment, but I think that China spends way too long describing it (and it doesn't help that seemingly every district in the city is a slum teeming with garbage and sewage... surely there must be some nicer neighborhoods). And while I love weirdness, after awhile the constant weirdness becomes numbing. Which reminds me of a critique I read recently regarding the whole "New Weird" genre, that after awhile so much weirdness just becomes normal and commonplace. I think that might be the problem (well, one of the problems) with "Perdido Street Station."
Having said that, I'm totally in love the Weaver character.
