Reading 1001 discussion
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Ragtime provides a panorama of the changing American society at the beginning of the 20th century, with its story woven from the presence of movers and shakers of the time (Houdini, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman) and elements of fiction. The plot revolves around the respective life paths of two families, one patriotic and well-to-do (Father, Mother, Mother's Younger Brother, and the son), the other, immigrant and poor (Tateh, Mameh and their daughter). The triggering event of the plot was the murder in 1906 of prominent architect Stanford White by eccentric millionaire Harry K. Thaw; the minute links between these people and the families lend an initial frame to the novel's development. But the story's main focus begins about half-way, with the entrance of Coalhouse Walker Jr., a successful ragtime pianist, whose pride and willingness to stand for himself in a society still despising the black population leads him (and other close people) to make decisions which will affect the rest of their lives.
I would describe the style as "descriptive factual", with generally short, simple sentences using basic subjects ('he, 'she', 'they') and basic verbs (conjugations of 'to be' are almost too numerous). This creates the impression that you are flicking through a scrapbook containing sepia-coloured pictures with annotations, yellowing press clippings and other artefacts, with the overarching objective to help the reader recreate mentally this period in American history. This is not a historical novel à la Hugo, for example, but nevertheless is a good, enjoyable read which mixes historical reference points and fictional elements.
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Durtal, working on a book about the life of Gilles de Rais, who famously fought by Joan of Arc's side, but infamously murdered hundreds of children for the purpose of his satanic rituals, started receiving anonymous letters from a married woman deeply enamored with him and his writings. The eventual, but disastrous liaison with this woman coincidentally brought him much closer to one of the topics explored through his work, Satanism, than he would have hoped.
As with other novels from Huysmans, the writing is extremely erudite, with plenty of rare words and in-depth knowledge of the topics broached. This is almost Satanism 101, but probably not as graphic as other novels as, for example, Bataille's Story of the Eye or even Ellis' American Psycho. I would have expected though more development around the liaison between Durtal and Hyacinthe Chantelouve, or something more somber about Durtal's direct experience with Satanism. Nevertheless, this was much easier to read than Against the Grain by the same author and still representative of the Decadent period of French literature which followed and disassociated from the Naturalist movement.
Interesting parallel to make with The Ogre by Michel Tournier: both novels share elements of the life of Gilles de Rais a.k.a. Bluebeard. In The Ogre, the main character's name is Tiffauges, which is the name of the castle where de Rais committed most of his crimes; the horse he was riding while "recruiting" children for the napola of Kaltenborn was called Bluebeard; this "recruitment" of children to be trained for the Nazi armies to be sent to war (and death), never to be seen again, mirrors the systematic kidnapping of children by de Rais and his acolytes for the satanic rituals.
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191. Sputnik Sweetheart (Haruki Murakami) [English] ****
Curious little novel about unrequited love, loneliness and dreams. With a touch of surrealism, reminiscent of some David Lynch movies, where there is this side and the other side. This was my second Murakami novel (after Norwegian Wood) and I can easily detect similarities: lonesome main character, with one main love interest and other fleeting sexual relationships; the main character ends up losing its main love interest by death or disappearance; the main character has a sexual relationship with a much older female character; one or two female characters with seemingly mental problems affecting their sexual desires; one female character harbouring the thought of a lesbian relationship with another character. Unlike Norwegian Wood, where the story is solidly anchored in reality and provides a tangible ending, Sputnik Sweetheart is open-ended and leaves the reader with several unanswered questions, with the obligation to think a bit more about possible explanations. I have always preferred books which make your brain work a bit further.
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192. The Book of Evidence (John Banville) [English] **
The story of a self-absorbed and dissolute man, through his pompous murder confession (or one of many versions of it), whose ever-drifting life led him to steal a minor Dutch master portrait of a brooding woman and to unnecessarily kill the maid who caught him in the act. Oh dear, this was a bit of a drag for only 220 pages. I just couldn't get into this story, despite the fact that it seemed well written. Perhaps it was because Freddie Montgomery was somewhat implausible as a character through his unconvincing and absurd confession; Meursault, in Camus' Stranger, was absurd in his actions, but yet made more sense than this prevaricating low-life. The main benefit I got from reading this book is that it gave me many excuses to take breaks and switch to a more enjoyable and longer read (Count of Monte Cristo). I hope the other Banvilles on the list are better...
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193. Possession (A. S. Byatt) [English] ***
This Booker Prize winner could be labelled a literary Da Vinci Code or Foucault's Pendulum. Two literary scholars, after the discovery of unpublished correspondence, embark on a search to discover the links between two Victorian poets, on a background of academic bickering, greed and manifold love intricacies. The intrigue underlying each discovery is somewhat burdened by the insertion of complete extracts for journals, correspondence and poems. While I understand this was done to replicate a more genuine, scholarly investigative approach, some journal passages are borderline boring and do not add much to the plot. Besides, if you don't like free verse poetry, you will hate this (I am not a big fan). Despite this, it is still an enjoyable read that didn't put me off reading her other novels on the list. If you look for a better erudite quest, Foucault's Pendulum by Eco is much, much better.
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194. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) [French] *****
Despite its daunting length (around 1550 pages), Monte Cristo is a thoroughly enthralling novel and a genuine masterpiece. Filled with various adventures and several vignettes about French (especially Parisian) life in the upper classes in the first half of the 19th century, it relates the story of Edmond Dantès, a merchant sailor, who was falsely imprisoned on accusations of conspiring for the return of Napoleon in 1815. His sojourn in the Château d'If gaol leads to a spectacular reversal of fortune and provides him a platform to mount a spectacular revenge he later inflicted on those who contributed to his jailing. There is rarely a dull moment throughout the narrative, with its quick succession of adventures and intrigues, and the fantastic powers at the Count's disposal. The plot in its itself is quite extraordinary and almost unbelievable. Definitely a classic and hard to put down.
Patrick wrote: "I believe that mastering more than one language increases your chances to ever complete this list. Not only it increases your chances of finding all the books (or good translations of these), but it makes for a much more enjoyable experience to read them in their original language; some books aren't the same when translated (I can't imagine reading Joyce in another language than English; likewise for anything by Perec, who should be read in French). "Agree - In particular German and French would seem to be most important to consider learning. Sellase's The New World has been translated into German, and Cho's Taebaek Mountain Range has been translated into French. Neither Amharic nor Korean seems a reasonable language to try to learn just for reading a single book. IIRC, most of the remaining books that are not available in English were written in Dutch, but I think most of those have been translated into German.
Je pense que mon français est suffisamment améliorée que cette année je vais essayer de lire Le Petit Prince en français. Perec va devoir de attendre.
Prochaine année je vais commencer à étudier l'allemand.
(drafted free hand, spelling and grammar checked on Google translate.)
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Don't let Google translate fool you: it probably deserves a dunce's hat...
Revu et corrigé: Je pense que mon français s'est suffisamment amélioré et que cette année je vais essayer de lire Le Petit Prince en français. Perec va devoir attendre.
L'année prochaine, je vais commencer à étudier l'allemand.
B+, you're improved since we had that exchange about another of Perec's little masterpieces, A Void (La Disparition).
I think The New World also exists in Italian somewhere (Ethiopia/Eritrea were Italian ex-colonies), which would be easy for me to pick up.
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195. Z (Vassilis Vassilikos) [French] ***½
This novel chronicles and fictionalises the events and the actions of the protagonists surrounding the assassination of the Greek leftist deputy Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. Most of the chapters of this novel are linked to each other through the meeting, often accidental or coincidental, of the various characters involved in this important political event in Greek history, giving the narrative a feeling of deductive investigation. The novel, while providing a very good insight of Greek politics and the corruptive ways of the right-wing government and authorities at the time, also contains several poetic moments, expressed through the thoughts of Z in his last moments, of his wife and of the deputy Pirouchas. An interesting book, which made me want to learn a bit more about recent Greek history and provides food for thought to help understand why Greece today is in the financial morass it is in.
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196. The Postman Always Rings Twice (James Cain) [English] ***
A classic of the roman noir, this short story traces the relationship between Frank Chambers, a drifting tramp, and Cora Papadakis, a sullen, but beautiful woman stuck in a marriage which she wants to escape. They plan to murder the husband and, after failing once, succeed, but this leads them in the hands of justice and on a trail of possible betrayals, ending rather tragically. A rather entertaining read, with some unexpected and almost unbelievable twists.
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197. The Heretic (Miguel Delibes) [French] ****
This book depicts the life of Cipriano Salcedo, from his birth in 1517 on the day Luther nailed in Ninety-Five Theses on All Saints' Church in Wittenberg to his death in 1559, burned at the stake for heresy. It is an interesting portrait of what rural Spain around Valladolid in the 16th century was like, but also of the difficult, if not impossible, dissemination of Reformist ideas under the preying eyes of the Holy Office and the Inquisition. It tracks the evolution of Cipriano's religious beliefs, from his early scruples through his Catholic education to a firm personal belief in the main tenets of the Lutheran reform. I enjoyed the various aspects explored within the novel, not only the historical background, but also the development of the characters and the themes covered (love, faith, sin, courage of convictions). I was not expecting too much at from this book at first, but was ultimately surprised.
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198. Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel) [English] ***
As mentioned a few weeks ago, I was apprehensive about this book, as I assumed that it was borderline "chick-lit", a literary style I am definitely not attracted to. Not necessarily because I am a man: I do like love stories (Belle du Seigneur by Cohen and Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand are some of my favourites). It is more in the manner the stories are told that my difference in appreciation arises, preferring substance to the slight, syrupy tackiness that usually abounds in popular "chick-lit".
This novel traces the often forbidden, but in the end ephemerally consumed love relationship between Tita and Pedro, related in monthly instalments (just like those serialized fotonovelas of old) through the use of various and exotic Mexican recipes as support for the narrative. So, was this "chick-lit"? I would say: borderline. While the plot would clearly belong to the genre, there are two elements which ensure that we are not so much in "chick-lit" territory. The first is brought by the magical realism of some of the major events of the story, especially the effect of the food and some of its ingredients on the main characters, which is sometimes quite hilarious and is somewhat conducive of the superstitious ways seen in some parts of the Mexican culture. The second lies in the narrative structure, which follows a main, linear artery interspersed by digressions or jumps back in recent time, like little veins, to provide a side story or some explanation to a current element of the narration. Enjoyable, but definitely not a favourite.
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199. The Lover (Marguerite Duras) [French] ****
This semi-autobiographical novel depicts the relationship between a 15-year old girl living in Indochina and an older, richer Chinese man, written somewhat in the style of Nouveau Roman. The narrative, while mainly linear, is interspersed by some of the features seen in other novels of the genre: sudden time disjunctions, frequent repetitions of various objects (the hat and the shoes) and moments in time, prose at times devoid of emotion. Perhaps it is because I have studied this literary movement some time ago that I was able to better appreciate this novel, because I knew what to expect and how to feel this novel. With Nouveau Roman, you cannot expect the somewhat passive relationship between writer and reader, where all the story is given through the writing; the Nouveau Roman writer wants the reader to create part of the story for himself/herself. By focusing on certain objects or certain descriptions which seem unnecessary, the Nouveau Roman writer wants to create a sense of extreme realism to plunge the reader as much as possible in the context of the action and help generate the emotions felt at the particular moment. And this is what I love about this novel: at times, it makes you really feel like Indochina before the war, the narrative also feels like the Mekong slowly flowing, carrying its various objects picked along the way, like forgotten memories that resurface. I have read and seen other Duras works, and I think this is her most accessible work.
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200. Out of Africa (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen) [English] ***
The book depicts the years when the author tried to run a coffee plantation in Kenya. Being more a journal than a novel, the book reads almost like a photo album, where stories are not necessarily arranged in chronological order, but rather by themes. I struggled through the first chapter (and almost thought of giving up) where her description of the surroundings of her farm felt like an impenetrable jungle of words. But it got better afterwards, with the numerous vignettes of her interactions with the natives and their culture, with the African environment and its animals, and with the other expatriates who visited her farm. It was an interesting read and a good portrait of colonial Africa at the beginning of the 20th century, but I am sure whether I would be keen to read something else she wrote.
Patrick wrote: "B+, you're improved since we had that exchange about another of Perec's little masterpieces, A Void (La Disparition).I think The New World also exists in Italian somewhere (Ethiopia/Eritrea were Italian ex-colonies), which would be easy for me to pick up. "
Merci. That would make sense, but I know some of the Dutch works that haven't been translated into English have been translated into German - I've never noticed Italian. So while Italian would probably be easier than German, it doesn't eliminate the need for German. While German eliminates the need for Italian, except for traveling to Rome or Florence. :-)
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I think The New World also exists in Italian somewhere (Ethiop..."
And German would be useful to travel to Berlin and Frankfurt. I visited these two cities recently and I was amazed by how few people speak/understand English over there, compared to Scandinavia or the Netherlands, for example. German will be necessary of Halfzeit by Martin Walser; the last known English translation was in the 60s...
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201. Henderson the Rain King (Saul Bellow) [English] **
I need three years to clear these thoughts, hey
I like to say I know one true thing
It feels like years and all I've done is fought
And not turned up, anything
Little black, take roll and roll, over my bed
I'm waiting here for, some reality crease
There's one big dead end, in my head
And not a moment of peace
- Sonic Youth, Rain King from the album Daydream Nation (1988)
Before I picked up this book, the only thing I knew about the Rain King was this song from Sonic Youth, probably the worst song from their masterpiece Daydream Nation. The rest of the lyrics were fairly incomprehensible to me, well, up to this day. They echoed pretty much some rather chaotic parts of the book, where Henderson takes us through strange digressions about some of his "terrible" experiences (who cares about the dental bridges and why and how he got them!).
Henderson the Rain King traces the peregrinations of a rich, but simple middle-aged man who seeks a deeper meaning for his seemingly unhappy and unsatisfying life. This sets him on a trek through remote Africa, where he mingles with two traditional tribes. In the second tribe, he meets Dahfu the king, with whom he gets some "reality training" and through whom he becomes Sungo, the Rain King.
I am still trying to get what the exact purpose of this novel is, even though the book cover promotes it as "a profound look of the forces that drive a man through life" (oh, is it "I want, I want, I want!"?). Henderson's character is unbearable to read/follow, especially after 200 pages (it was slightly comical up to that point, but after that, oh dear...). I could describe him best as a fat, nasally-challenged, pathetic, neurotic, whinging oaf. Eugene H. Henderson has now joined Freddie Montgomery (Banville's Book of Evidence) in my list of despicable characters who spoiled what could have made a good novel.
Maybe Sonic Youth understood the novel better than I did since they were inspired from it. Nevertheless, that worst song is definitely better than the book which it took its inspiration from.
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202. Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson) [English] ****
This sprawling techno-thriller uses four narrative threads (three during World War II, one in the late 90s) to retrace a gold stockpile abandoned in the Philippines towards the end of World War II. At the heart of this story are all the cryptographic efforts, both past and present, to ensure that almost nobody knows of the existence of this stockpile. Stephenson writes this novel in a nerdish, punkish manner, and creates several hilarious passages (Bobby Shaftoe's gung-ho character features in many of these), while maintaining interest through this four-pronged plot where facts and links are discovered layer by layer. While some people might be afraid by the mathematical aspects of parts of the novel, I believe that it was written to appeal the non-mathematical minds while titillating the already-converted and pushing them to dig further into some of the more arcane concepts exposed (Van Eck phreaking and zeta functions, anyone?). Very entertaining page-turner, with very few boring moments.
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203. Spring Torrents (Ivan Turgenev) [English] ***
A typical late-19th century Russian novel, where young Sanin, during his travels through Italy and Germany, makes a stopover in Frankfurt and fell in love for the first time with young Italian exile Gemma. Ensues the usual display of rational irrationality (over the course of less than a week) which inhabits most heroes of Russian novels: to protect Gemma's honor, he provokes a young military to a duel, since her betrothed boofhead is too weak to do so; this engagement is subsequently broken off, and Sanin makes his move on Gemma, promising to sell his estate in Russia to resettle in Frankfurt; upon running into an old schoolmate, Sanin undertakes to cheaply sell his estate to his schoolmate's wife, a young, independent, rich and beautiful temptress, Maria Nikolaevna Polozov. Not only does he sell his estate, but also his dignity, his soul and his Gemma as he succumbed to seduction and became the temptress' lover. Enjoyable, but not enough to make me rave about it. At least, it was better than Fathers and Sons.
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204. Blood and Guts in High School (Kathy Acker) [English] *
WARNING: Strong language below. This book is definitely 18+ only. Anyway, anybody under 18 (even above 18, for that matter) would probably never be able to fully understand its contents...
Janey, around 12-13 years' old, leaves Mexico to New York, from what appears an incestuous relationship with her father. She has an abortion, she goes (infrequently) to high school, she works unhappily at a hippy bakery, she gets abducted by a Persian slave trader who locks her up and forces her to learn to become a whore, she develops cancer, she escapes and flees to Tangiers where she hooks up with Jean Genet and wanders around North Africa until she dies. Well, that seems to be the story.
This book has a very chaotic structure, it reads almost like a perturbed teenager journal; to use Janey's words, it's fucked-up. It is extremely and literally graphic, with bits of text interspersed with hand drawings (including lots of sexual organs). Even the text itself is chaotic, probably mirroring Janey's state of mind. And there is plenty of free verse poetry, which I hate. It was painful to read, not necessarily for its shocking contents, but rather because of the disjointed structure of the text, which at times is unreadable and makes you look forward to reading Adjunct: An Undigest. This text has been touted as post-punk porn, post-punk feminist. Porn, yes: Janey loves and craves sex, and she is not afraid to tell you. Post-punk, not really: this was written in 1978, which chronologically fits, but, in content, structure and tone, this text still contains much of the latent aggressiveness of the punk movement (post-punk is much milder). Feminist, hard to say: while you can't help hearing Janey's cries for love and to aspire to better conditions as woman, instead of being at the bottom of the pile, her insatiable desire for violent sex kind of contradicts those cries. Or maybe there is something I don't get about feminism. I think Germaine Greer would be just as bemused...
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205. Youth (J. M. Coetzee) [English] ***½
Properly speaking, this is not a novel, but rather a fictionalised account of the author's late teens and early 20s, mainly his struggle to find his path after he moved out of South Africa to London in the early 60s. Coetzee is an introvert (and almost a recluse, so the pundits say); his spells of loneliness, his socially awkward experiences and his frequent, detailed inner questionings are proof of his nature. In short terms, he was yearning for two things when he left South Africa: becoming a poet and live from his art; getting into a relationship. In general, both his attempts at working and having sex were far from satisfying (and sometimes quite hilarious). Nevertheless, it provides a different point of view of this era, of the events that were troubling South Africa at the time and, oddly enough, of the early development of the computer industry. At times (especially in the first couple of chapters), it felt a bit like reading a biography written in the style of Kundera, albeit less poetic. I had only read Foe from this author and wasn't overly charmed; I am warming up a bit more to him, thanks to this short book.
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206. The Beggar Maid (Alice Munro) [English] **½
This collection of interconnected short stories is also known as Stories of Flo and Rose. These are actually more about Rose than Flo, spanning the period from her childhood in pre-war rural Ontario to her independent, more comfortable middle-age years, coinciding with the last years of Flo. Each story focuses on a theme or an anecdote and can cover various periods throughout the lives of both women. I couldn't feel really interested in the contents throughout, and I got bored halfway through. Some of the events felt too ordinary to be worth of a story. I don't see why this is on the List, and I hope that her other book (Lives of Girls and Women) is more entertaining.
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207. I, Robot (Isaac Asimov) [English] ****
A pioneering classic of science fiction, this novel tracks the imaginary development of robotics from its infancy through to the middle of the 21st century, from short stories around its turning points involving robopsychologist Dr Susan Calvin. All the stories are knit around applications of the Three Laws of Robotics and make for interesting situations from a logical and sometimes ethical point of view. Asimov was truly a visionary and, despite most of his visions having not yet morphed into reality (we have half-a-mile buildings nowadays, but we are far from mining on other planets), his book truly offers food for thought about some of the future directions humanity can take, robots or not. For example, I felt that the last chapter (The Evitable Conflict) really mirrors the current evolution of the political and economic landscape of the 21st century, with the rise of Asia/China, the gradual decline of North America and the eventual emergence of Africa. This is the kind of book one needs to re-read every ten to fifteen years, then to reflect on how the world has progressed compared to Asimov's.
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208. The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) [English] ***
This semi-autobiographical novel follows the downward spiral experienced by Esther Greenwood, young aspiring writer who won an internship on a fashion magazine in the 1950s. Uneasy relationships and a few disappointments led her to severe depression and several suicidal thoughts culminating in an attempt at her life. This obviously is not a joyful read. Nevertheless, it provides a strong insight of what exactly goes on in the mind of a seriously depressed person. There are many unanswered questions and it feels that there is a lack of development in parts, but I believe this was meant also to replicate her state of mind (not knowing exactly why she felt like that). I guess its presence on the List owes more to the "popularity" which followed her suicide (as happens with many rock stars unfortunately choosing the same path) than for the literary merits of the book.
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209. The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins) [English] ****
Pioneering the detective genre during the Victorian era, this novel is about the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Moonstone, a huge diamond that was pilfered from India at the end of the 18th century and bequeathed by its "thief" to his niece on her 18th birthday. The narration and the plot development is made quite interesting through the use of several narrators, assisting the reader in the discovery of who the culprit was. I usually have reservations about books written in the Victorian era, as I feel the prose a bit heavy and somewhat pompous, but this novel does not really cling to these stereotypes. The author had me guessing quite a few times the identity of the culprit, which, in a sense, proves the quality of the novel. I'd definitely be happy to read his other works.
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210. Neuromancer (William Gibson) [English] **
A cyberpunk, sci-fi classic where Case, a techno cowboy, is hired to commit further crimes in cyberspace in exchange for remedial surgery which will enable him eventually to resume his hard drug usage. Well, the plot is even more complex, as it involves two artificial intelligence constructs that will merge to evolve further in the matrix, but I won't go there because I am not even completely sure that this is what happened. I struggled to follow this story through many parts of the book, as if I myself had a derm of betaphenethylamine on my wrist. Time, space and action were utterly confused on many occasions, due partly to the very choppy style of writing adopted by Gibson. Glad to be through this one...
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211. Untouchable (Mulk Raj Anand) [English] ****
A couple of years ago, I watched a television report about an NGO helping women in certain parts of India who were labelled 'Untouchables'. As their occupation still involved manual scavenging and cleaning latrines, the NGO's aim was to help these women find other types of work, in order to stop this practice which had nevertheless been outlawed in the 90s. This was still a very arduous challenge, as the local population still entertained the prejudices attached to this label and refused to give work to somebody related to this lowly caste.
Hence my interest in this book. It traces a day in the life of Bakha, an 'Untouchable', going through his duties as a sweeper and latrine cleaner with his family. He has to face many situations where he is humiliated and exposed to various injustices due to his status as a lowest-caste member. The novel concludes with a scene depicting a speech made by Gandhi calling for better treatment and more freedom for the Untouchables.
This was an excellent portrayal of the plight suffered from the people belonging to the lowest rungs of the Hindu caste system. Despite having been written in the 30s, it took a very long time for the Indian society to change its mindset and abandon some of the discriminatory practices arising from the caste system. And it looks there is still some way to go, as I remember, for example, hearing some years ago that it was only recent that membership of the Indian cricket team was finally open to other players than the higher castes'. Also, The White Tiger by Adiga, only written a few years ago, deals to some extent with these caste differences, still being applied in remoter parts of India.
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212. Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris (Paul Gallico) [English] ***
Mrs Harris is a London charwoman who had one day an epiphany about owning a Dior dress. Through perseverance and many lucky events, she amassed the required money for the pilgrimage to the House of Dior in Paris. Once there, she has to overcome a few more hurdles in order to get coveted dress, but her return to England and the fate of the dress leaves her with something more precious than what she expected. A slightly moral tale about not judging a book by its cover and about the importance of friendship over materialistic love. Entertaining, but not exciting.
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213. Mary Barton (Elizabeth Gaskell) [English] *** 1/2
I have never been fond of Victorian literature (apart from Dickens maybe); I often find the style too heavy, even pompous to read. And I have to admit I was apprehensive before starting to read this novel. However, Mary Barton provided me with a nice surprise. First, the setting in the harsh living conditions of the lower Manchester working class at the dawn of unionism and Marxism. Second, the frequent use of local dialects (once you get used to them), yielding authenticity to the scene and the characters. Third, a tragic love triangle interweaved with the struggle between the haves and have nots. Of course, there was still that Victorian turn of phrase that I don't like, but all in all, a pleasant read. It reminded me a lot of Germinal by Zola. Some say North and South is even better; can't wait to read it.
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214. A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan) [English] *** 1/2
A series of vignettes covering episodes of the lives of about half-a-dozen characters, most involved in the punk rock industry, and how time and events has affected them. The little stories are not arranged chronologically but rather adjacently in time (sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards) with links to at least one character. There is even a Powerpoint presentation... Subsequent stories often provide an explanation to a comment or an allusion made about/by a character in a previous story. The structure can appear bewildering at first, but the jumps in time and the various perspectives make this novel quite entertaining.
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215. Animal Farm (George Orwell) [English] *****
This dystopian tale begins when Major, an ageing and politically attuned boar living on Manor Farm, warns the other farm animals about the dictatorial ways and abuses of the farmer, Mr Jones, and encourages them to regain their freedom. After Major's death, two younger pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, foment a revolt and lead the four-legged occupants to chase Mr Jones and take control of the farm, which is renamed "Animal Farm". While at the beginning self-sufficiency is achieved and all animals are seemingly equal, the pigs later gradually seized control of the farm and all decision making, became "more equal than the others" and end up resembling human beings in behaviour and demeanour. A thinly veiled critic of the then-USSR and of the ravages that benevolent despotism can spawn, the novel also provides flashes of other revolutionary (e.g. the Terror during the French revolution) or dictatorial moments in history (e.g. Squealer could have been Goebbels with his propaganda). This novel should be included in the corpus of compulsory reading for political science students, alongside Machiavelli's Il Principe and Sun Tzu's Art of War. A concise and effective masterpiece.
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216. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Hamid) [English] ****
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217. The Book about Blanche and Marie (Per Olov Enquist) [French] ***
I have to admit that I was expecting more from this book. The novel is a collection of episodes, fictionalized and fictional, about the lives and relationships of Marie Curie, double Nobel prize winner, and Blanche Wittman, neurologist Charcot's famous patient. The story, organised into three books (yellow, black and red) apparently written by Blanche and several cantos, is an exploration of how love and radium affected (and nearly destroyed) these two women. At times, the writing reminded me of Marguerite Duras' style, meandering between various memories, but with much less poetry and fluidity. While this novel aroused my interest in finding out a bit more about the characters, certain passages were slightly boring and failed to maintain my full interest. A bit disappointing.
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218. The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith) [English] ***
Tom Ripley, a young hoodlum with a broken past, accepts a mission from a rich industrialist: bring back his gallivanting son Dickie from Italy. Hoping for a new life from this opportunity, he develops an unhealthy fascination with Dickie's lifestyle, gradually weaving a web of lies, murders and deceit to ensure his freedom. An easy read, there was no real tension from the action, even though it was somewhat interesting to get Tom's perspective on the crimes, almost like a negative of a detective investigation. There is no chance that a character like this would get away with it in our era the way Ripley did in the 50s. Enjoyable, but not groundbreaking.
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219. The Diary of a Nobody (George & Weedon Grossmith) [English] **
Boom-tish! this was the diary of an ordinary man with his ordinary family and his ordinary friends, going through mishaps, crazes and lame jokes at the end of the Victorian era. I've always had an issue with British humor, even worse when it is Victorian humor. It was not really funny, just a repetition of lame play on words, lame situations, lame characters (apart from Lupin). Its main redeeming feature was that it was short. Should have been titled Diary of Nothing.
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220. The Tin Drum (Gunter Grass) [French] *** 1/2
Oskar Matzerath refused to grow up any further once he reached three. Armed with his red and white tin drum and a voice that can pierce glass, he meanders in this picaresque novel through pre-war Danzig, then a Free City, its residents and his family; their lives throughout the German invasion; his semi-exile with a troupe of dwarfs entertaining the German army; his return and dealings with the Dusters, a band of hoodlums akin to the Resistance; his exile in Dusseldorf where he became a jazz celebrity to finally be interned in a psychiatric institution. Imbued with magical realism, this novel depicts many aspects of life in Danzig (now Gdansk) under the struggle between German and Polish influences and, to some extent, some events of the author's life. At times, it felt like I was reading the script of a Fellini movie, with its grotesque and malformed characters. I quite enjoyed this book and was ready to give it four stars when I finished the second part; however, the third and last part, away from Danzig after the war, was so-so and not as magical as the first two parts.
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221. After the Quake (Haruki Murakami) [English] ***
This is a collection of six short stories where the 1995 Kobe earthquake plays indirectly a pivotal role in the life path of the protagonists. All the familiar elements of Murakami's writing are there: lonesome, at times isolated characters whom have had difficult relationships in the past or the present; sexual relationships described without a hint of a taboo; some magical realism (Super Frog Saves Tokyo, for example); open-ended conclusions (perhaps not for Thailand). Not his gripping best, but nonetheless agreeable tidbits.
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222. 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami) [English] ****
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223. Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein) [English] **½
A Martian of human origin, Michael Valentine Smith, is brought back to Earth. Unaware of human customs or conditions, having been raised as a Martian, and endowed unknowingly of an immense wealth, he is in the custody of corrupt government officials until rescued by a nurse, Jill, and an eccentric lawyer/doctor named Jubal. Smith ends up adapting to human conditions while keeping his Martian traits and goes on to establish a religious sect. Even though it is a pioneering science-fiction novel, I found it hard to maintain my interest throughout. I found the discussions about possible legal and political ramifications a bit tedious. From the moment Jubal and his harem enter the stage, I felt it was more a circus than anything else. And while Mike's church pre-empted the whole hippie movement, it failed to grab my attention. I was expecting more out of this. I really didn't fully grok it.
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224. The Last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper) [English] ***
Set in the midst of colonial North America during the Seven Year War, the novel retraces the mission given to a young British major to bring the two daughters of the general of Fort William Henry safely back to their father, while the fort is under siege from Montcalm's French forces and the environing forests are teeming with malevolent Indian warriors. Things get dicier when Magua, their guide, betrays them and sets an ambush with other Hurons; however, thanks to a shrewd scout and his two Mohican friends, they manage to thwart the snare and pursue towards their goal. A fairly fast-paced novel, although written in the heavier early 19th century style, which also focuses on the relationships between the French, the English and the Native American tribes, which already were verging on extinction in certain areas. Considering that this is somewhat part of my own history (I am French Canadian), I am surprised that it took me that long to read this. It made me want to revisit some of the old history books I perused during high school.
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225. Antic Hay (Aldous Huxley) [English] ***
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226. The History of Love (Nicole Krauss) [English] ****
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227. A Pale View of Hills (Kazuo Ishiguro) [English] ***
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228. The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri) [English] ****
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229. The Lost Steps (Alejo Carpentier) [French] ***
A Cuban musicologist living in New York is enticed to make a trip in the deep forests of a South American country (presumably Venezuela) to procure some rare, traditional musical instruments. He makes the trip with his mistress and, the further they venture in the virgin forest, the more he wants to relinquish the trappings of modern life and to adopt the more simple life beat of the tribes and the early colonists who founded fledgling cities far from modern civilization, while composing a musical piece completely uprooted from conventional musical tenets. To some extent, this has some autobiographical overtones (Carpentier is Cuban, a musicologist and lived in Venezuela for nearly 20 years). Written in a journal form, the novel is at times hard to read, especially when the main character launches himself in a musicological digression. Some may hate the self-centered main character, who seem to live for the moment, for his own enjoyment (he had another mistress in the virgin forest and was trying to figure out the best way to divorce from his actress wife). Interesting read, with some philosophical and poetic features, reminiscent to some extent of Kundera (the latter mastered this blend of features and styles even more).
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230. Fatelessness (Imre Kertesz) [English] ****
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231. At the Mountains of Madness (H. P. Lovecraft) [English] **1/2
I bought the 1001 book in 2009 and started at once to take the list seriously, as I realized that I had already read a fair few of these titles over the years. Depending on how busy I am, I plan to read between 30 and 50 books every year. I believe that mastering more than one language increases your chances to ever complete this list. Not only it increases your chances of finding all the books (or good translations of these), but it makes for a much more enjoyable experience to read them in their original language; some books aren't the same when translated (I can't imagine reading Joyce in another language than English; likewise for anything by Perec, who should be read in French).