Ten Days In The Hills (by Jane Smiley)

I was chatting with Ian about this book and it came up that John Updike had reviewed it. Ian claims that Updike called it a "fuckfest" but he may have been paraphrasing. Still, it's basically a fuckfest, with a bunch of rich celebrities and privileged people having a lot of sex and feeling sort of guilty and talking about the war in Iraq. If this sounds exciting to you, let me know and I'll send it to you. It was definitely an entertaining airplane read, I'll give it that. (Also, I found the Zoe character to be unrealistic. She is portrayed as a black actress who has all these white leading men in the olden timey days of Hollywood. When Denzel and Julia didn't so much as kiss in The Pelican Brief? I don't think so.)

Strip City (by Lily Burana)

I believe it was on the advice of Wendy that I decided to read this one after not being wild about Diablo Cody's stripper book. I definitely enjoyed it more, although it's still not the perfect stripper book. (It's still not as good of a read as Jenna Jameson's How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.) Is it the author's navel-gazing ambivalence? The distracting use of verb tenses? Not enough nitty gritty details? Maybe. Still, a fun stripper book and certainly better than Cody's. Plus, I couldn't put it down, so Burana must have done something right!

Snow (by Orhan Pamuk)

I read this for our recently resuscitated book group, and it resulted in a really great conversation. Some of us hated it, some of us loved it, some of us couldn't get through it--but it seemed like we all had something to say about it. I personally liked it a lot--the complexity of it (politics plus poetry plus femininity plus identity) and the postmodern elements of the narrative.

It seemed like the more you know about modern Turkey, the more you liked the book--at least in our group. I don't know a lot about Turkish history, don't get me wrong, but I was in Istanbul in 2000 and our tour guide talked a lot about Ataturk, and was at pains to emphasize the "Westernized" and progressive nature of the Islamic culture there. She emphasized it so much, it seemed like she was glossing over something--and this book seems to peek a little bit into the complex issues that make up modern Turkey.

God, this makes it sound boring. I think the story (full of murder, love, betrayal and intrigue... and poetry)is as suspenseful and well told. It is definitely not a boring, dry book. And yet I don't think it's for everyone. So... there you go. Read this in a book group!

Then We Came To The End (by Joshua Ferris)

As good as you've heard. Really, this book is fantastic. It's like the perfect storm of a novel--stylistically interesting, funny, relevant, perfectly pitched, totally inventive and original. One of those books that's so good, it's exciting. (Like Black Swan Green.) It's even set in an ad agency, which is where I spend my days. If you and I share any overlap in taste at all, go read it.

And then I came to the end (ho, ho) and got to the best part--Ferris's list of favorite books. Seriously, I almost died. Not only is Pale Fire on there but seriously, EVERY SINGLE BOOK ON THAT LIST, if I read it, I loved it. The list includes Pale Fire, We Have Always Lived In the Castle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Mrs. Dalloway, White Noise, and Catch-22 (this book really reminded me of Catch-22. I was going to write this review and say that TWCTTE was like Catch-22 minus the war, plus advertising, but it turns out, all the critics have already pointed this out). Humor (especially black humor), quirkyness, and unreliable narrators seem to be the throughlines there. I certainly do enjoy all of those things.

The only book on Ferris's list that I didn't love was The Ambassadors, and honestly, given Ferris's endorsement and the fact that I otherwise adore Henry James, I'm totally willing to give it another shot. (I have a feeling Ferris studied in in grad school, because I do remember reading that it has a perfectly symmetrical structure, or somthing like that--if I investigated that, maybe I'd appreciate it more.) Anyway, that's how much I liked his book--and I am totally going to read every single book he recommends that I haven't already read.

To sum up: read this book. I won't spoil it for you. Go read it.

Candy Girl; Sit, Ubu, Sit; The Full Cupboard of Life

With the authors this time, the three books I finished today are: Candy Girl (by Diablo Cody); Sit, Ubu, Sit (by Gary David Goldberg); and The Full Cupboard of Life (by Alexander McCall Smith).

I thought Cody's book, like her screenplay for Juno, was "deffo" trying a little bit too hard to sound original and hip and smart. It's also more than a little disingenuous. For instance, she starts talking about stripper names and glosses over the fact that at that point, her name wasn't even Diablo. And don't tell me one of her motivations for stripping wasn't "to get material to write a book." I'd love for there to be an honest memoir about stripping; this wasn't it. On the other hand, it's "deffo" entertaining and fun, and she's not a bad writer by any means.

Goldberg's memoir I really enjoyed; I'm a huge Family Ties fan, and if anything, I would have loved the book to be twice as long and hear more stories about the show. (I don't even think Tina Yothers was mentioned by name.) More gossip, Gary! It's essentially a love letter to his wife and to Michael J. Fox, and succeeds on both counts. Oh, and a love letter to his dog, Ubu, too. I CANNOT BELIEVE what happened to that dog. (Don't worry, it's not tragic for the dog.)

The third one is another Ladies' Detective agency book, and I enjoyed it more than the previous two! (There's not a whole lot to say about this series, but I'm enjoying it.) And now I need to go back to grading papers. (I was "grading papers" at the bookstore today, which is why I read those three books in the first place...)

Seven Books

Because I couldn't fit them all in the title:

#1, The Other Boleyn Girl (by Philippa Gregory); #2, Morality for Beautiful Girls and #3, The Kalahari Typing School for Men (by Alexander McCall Smith); #4, Survival in Auschwitz (by Primo Levi); #5, The Heart of the Matter (by Graham Greene); #6, The Virgin's Lover (by Gregory again); and #7, The Gum Thief (by Douglas Coupland).

I'm lumping these seven books together because I read them all over the course of our two-week vacation--mostly on the long plane flights. I figure I might as well just run through them all real quick before I forget my opinions about them.

I thought #1 was riveting, and I generally strongly prefer nonfiction, like Antonia Fraser's books, to historical fiction. I actually never read historical fiction. But for some reason I picked this up as a good airplane book, and it totally was. I couldn't put it down! In fact, I went into every English-language bookstore we passed looking for more in the series. But The Boleyn Inheritance was a big book with huge type, and I skimmed it and it seemed inferior, so I bypassed it in favor of #6, and I was quite frankly disappointed with that one too. All Elizabeth seemed to do was whine, "I'm so afraid! I'm so afraid!" Queen Elizabeth should show some spunk, even early Queen Elizabeth, even Gregory's version of Queen Elizabeth. So very wrong.

Anyway the reason I was in the bookshops in the first place was #2 and #3. I listened to the first two books in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series on audio, which I loved, and which took a while. It turns out that if you're reading the books on paper, they take about ten minutes to read. The series continues to be charming but--and I think I mentioned this before with the series--there are often issues brought up that get resolved way too easily and with a lack of detail. It's not that I want overblown drama, but early on in #3, a rival detective agency starts up. What a perfect plotline for some good drama and tension! But you hear virtually nothing about it again until it's quickly resolved in half a chapter at the end. Weak.

#4 was a book Ian brought along because we visited Auschwitz on our trip (although we did not go to Monowitz, where Levi was.) Obviously this book is harrowing, masterful, and totally beyond critique.

#5 is a reading list book, and the protagonist (Scobie) is quite a Javert character--or almost. (I love Inspector Javert, by the way. My absolute favorite Les Miserables character by a mile.) They are both police officers with a very rigid moral code that basically destroys them in the end. But with Scobie, you somehow don't feel for him as much, because he's clearly an idiot. Javert is just...stubborn. Scobie's decisions seems less consistent and comprehensible. (Trying not to give too much away here.)

#7 is charming--another book purchased in a Prague bookshop, Coupland's latest about a couple of people (a middle aged guy and a young Goth girl) who work at Staples and strike up an unlikely friendship by correspondence. I especially enjoyed the story within the story, Glove Pond, which is very Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? If you like the average Coupland novel (and I find him very love-him-or-hate-him in general) you'll enjoy it, I bet.

The end!

Schuyler's Monster (by Rob Rummel-Hudson)

Reading this book was a crazy experience, since I first started reading Rob's blog just before Schuyler was born. I remember all the events in the book...and lots of events that didn't make it into the book! I'm so, like, totally inner circle.

I wasn't sure how this book would read, but I found it to be a level beyond what Rob has done in his blog. More sophisticated and more restrained, on the whole. I think Rob and his editor really made the right choices most of the time.

I really am curious to know how the book reads to people who haven't read Rob's blog for all these years...if the People review is anything to go by, probably pretty positively! Not that I'm surprised--his story is incredibly compelling.

Good job, Rob! Remember I knew you when!

Lives on the Boundary (by Mike Rose)

Read this for class; discussing with my students. Will get back to you!

Pnin (by Vladimir Nabokov)

I know; it's absurd that I hadn't read this book, Pale Fire's precursor and cousin. I can't wait to read the criticism of it, especially how it relates to Pale Fire (I noticed lots of overlap--solus rex, butterflies, reflections, and autobiographical details of Nabokov's life--and of course Pnin the character makes a cameo appearance in Pale Fire). It appears to be, at face value, a charming character study of the sympathetic titular character. But of course, there's a narrator--and to what extent he is unreliable remains to be seen. He seems to be an unsympathetic version of Nabokov himself... very intriguing.

Helping Me Help Myself (by Beth Lisick)

Yep, this is the third book I finished today! It was fabulous. There's a whole thing in there about coincidences and I experienced it firsthand a few days ago as I was reading the book. I was composing an email to the author in my head and debating if I should or could send it to her, and then I picked up the book and read about her agonizing about sending an e-mail to someone she'd bumped into backstage at a show... anyway, I still haven't sent the e-mail. Read the book.

Catherine the Great (by Virginia Rounding)

Yes, I finished two books today! I've been reading this one for a while. Not as absorbing as Antonia Fraser's books, but Catherine is certainly a fascinating figure. On the whole I ended up admiring her quite a bit, and it's interesting to read what was going on in Russia while Marie Antoinette was living and dying in France. Also, one of her granddaughters was Queen of the Netherlands!

I don't have anything thrilling to say about this book. A serviceable book about a very interesting and admirable woman.

A Handful of Dust (by Evelyn Waugh)

Also on both the MLA and Time lists, and a remarkably quick read, really. To tell the plot would be to give too much away. It starts off as a sort of comedy of manners (British society between the wars) that's very funny, and then ends up... in quite a different place. There's a whole lot of literary allusion going on here, as the central figures form a King Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot triangle, which adds interest and poignancy and depth. The ending is unexpected and yet adds dimension to the whole book.

Still, I'd have preferred the novel to stay as a small social satire, rather than going in that different direction. As I'm typing this I realize I wanted a Henry James or Edith Wharton type of novel, where nothing fantastical has to happen in order for it to be meaningful. At any rate, it's a good book, but as far aw Waugh goes, I prefer Brideshead Revisited. And as far as literature goes, I prefer Age of Innocence and Portrait of a Lady.

I'm Not The New Me (by Wendy McClure)

I hadn't read the book when it first came out, and I loved it the second time around. I read it for the Elastic Waist book club and here's what I said:

Part one:

I dug up my copy and am having a great time re-reading it--I haven't read it since it first came out, and I was very caught up in the surreal nature of having something like a JournalCon written about in a book.

A lot of things struck me, but one I wanted to mention in response to your second question is the depiction of other "fat chicks" (like Evelyn at the wedding) that seem to have something the author does not, something enviable. Since it's not thinness, I think at this point, the narrator has shifted from wanting to be thin to wanting to find whatever it is Evelyn has. I don't know if I'm right, but after part one, that's my theory.

Part two:

It was in the second half of the book that I really started to notice the fantastic metaphors. I wrote down "Russian nesting dolls" and "Star Trek transporter" as my two favorites.

I loved how caught up I was in the story, I loved the no-easy-answers ending. Fantstic.

I don't have anything particularly exciting to add, but I don't think I wrote about this book when I read it the first time. So here it is now. Thumbs up!

Portnoy's Complaint (by Phillip Roth)

Another book that is on both the MLA and the Time Magazine list. God knows where or when I read this on my recent travels; I think I was in Colorado. I've been meaning to read this for years, since on the cover of my copy of Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York, it calls it the "feminine rejoinder to Portnoy's Complaint." Finally having read it, I totally get it. The ending is a little "hey-yooooo" and the book in general is a little... I don't know, one note? But it's pretty funny and entertaining. I suppose everyone thinks Roth is so brave for writing about Oedipal stuff and whacking off a lot. I guess I enjoyed it but I'm not necessarily all jazzed up about it. It's probably my penis envy talking.

Should Nabokov's Last Work Be Burned?

That is the question.

As things stand, there's a chance we may never know. What we do know is that the Laura manuscript consists of approximately 50 index cards covered in V.N.'s handwriting. Dmitri has said in the past that the text amounts to some 30 conventional manuscript pages. (To those familiar with what is perhaps Nabokov's greatest work, Pale Fire, the use of index cards as a draft medium will not seem strange. Indeed the parallels to Pale Fire's account of a struggle over the disposition of an index-card manuscript border on the uncanny.) But in any case, before he died in 1977, Nabokov made clear that he wanted those cards destroyed.

I personally am selfish and want to read it desperately. I mean, thank god for all the work that authors wanted burned that survived--Emily Dickinson's poetry comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others. Don't do it, Dmitri!

Via Bitchypoo.

Plum Lucky (by Janet Evanovich)

One of those holiday-themed "between the numbers" Stephanie Plum books. Once again, a disposable and entertaining piece of fluff. This time, it's St. Patrick's Day related, and features a little person who thinks he's a leprechaun. Really, exactly what you'd expect.

Revolutionary Road (by Richard Yates)

Recommended by my friend Stephanie and also on the Time List that I seem to be committed to reading next. (That list has some cool choices on it, including things like Snow Crash and of course, Pale Fire.) I wanted to see it before the movie version comes out, which obviously I will be seeing, since it's Kate and Leo, reunited! Although it's no Jack and Rose type story, but instead a story of middle class alienation in the 50s. Cool Yates quote from Wikipedia on the novel's title:

"I think I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the 1950s. Because during the Fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs — a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price, as exemplified politically in the Eisenhower administration and the Joe McCarthy witchhunts. Anyway, a great many Americans were deeply disturbed by all that — felt it to be an outright betrayal of our best and bravest revolutionary spirit."

Overall, an excellent and thought-provoking book, very real and relatable, and very much on the theme of the American Dream. It makes a good companion to books like The Great Gatsby, Appointment in Samarra, and even, in a weird way, Under the Volcano. Definitely a classic.

Under the Volcano (by Malcolm Lowry)

After I finished the Radcliffe list, I peeked at my booklists again. I'm still 41 books short of the MLA list and something like 50 short of the Time Magazine list, so both of those will take a while. But I did make a note of six books that I haven't read that are on both lists, figuring I'd start there. Then I read the list to Ian and asked if he had any of them, and he handed me this one. Which is a really long-winded explanation of how I decided to read this book!

It's very interesting, and I'm surprised it's not on the Radcliffe list. It's a largely autobiographical stream-of-conscious novel about an alcoholic living in Mexico. The introduction to the book (which I went back and read last night) talks about how Lowry is compared to James Joyce a lot, but that Joyce's characters embody the collective unconscious, while Lowry's characters are more specific and in many cases, they represent himself. I don't think that's a bad way to differentiate the two. It's not necessarily praise or criticism, it's just a difference. Lowry's SOC is easier to read than Joyce's or Woolf's, for what it's worth.

I also noticed Lowry's incredible use of metaphor and symbol. Ian told me that there was an article where Lowry said, "I'm going to see how many symbols I can squeeze into this novel!" and once he said that, it all made sense. It does seem overstuffed with them. The elements I most enjoyed were the amazing metaphors and the wonderfully specific description of the experience of extreme drunkenness, which is not a pleasant sensation. The stream of consciousness style worked so well to convey that. Lowry also gets inside the brains of multiple characters, which is also well done. Really, I would recommend this book to any writer of novels, because Lowry does such unique and sophisticated things with point of view.

My biggest complaint was that you didn't get enough of a sense of the relationships--why did Yvonne come back? Why was she so heartbroken by the end of her relationship? What are the details of her relationships with Hugh and Jacques? And why, above all, does she want to be with the Consul in the first place? All we see of him is the alcoholic. We never saw what he used to be, or could have been. It would have added so much depth and poignancy, I think. (It's not like it's totally absent, it's just really subtle, and requires a lot of reading between the lines.)

And finally, my biggest personal failing in reading this novel is that there is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of descriptions of scenery. I had to force myself to re-read sentences over and over and really work on visualizing. The tremendous metaphors really helped; at times I felt like I really understand why descriptions of scenery exist and what they add. But at other times my mind wandered away, as usual, because I couldn't be bothered. It's good, though. It is good. It's not you, Lowry, it's me.

"He watched the clouds: dark swift horses surging up the sky. A black storm breaking out of its season! That was what love was like, he thought; love which came too late. Only no sane calm suceeded it... And let such love strike you dumb, blind, mad, dead--your fate would not be altered by your similie. Tonnerre de dieu... It slaked no thihirst to say what love was like which came too late." (Page 11)

Schulz and Peanuts (by David Michaelis)

This was a Christmas book (I bought it for myself with a Borders card) and the first book of the new year. Totally fascinating biography of Charles Schulz. I thought it was comprehensive and satisfying, although I would have enjoyed 600 more pages, talking more in-depth about the comic itself, its characters and real-life counterparts, and comparing the characters' personalities over the years(which it does at the end, for instance, when talking about the development of Lucy Van Pelt).

As a huge Charles Schulz fan, I found it compelling, enlightening, and convincing. Plus, it reminded me how uncomfortable I was to see the Peanuts characters shilling for different products. Like many people, I love them and want them unsullied. Linus is still my boy name!

Sorry if this makes no sense; I've had some wine. Maybe I'll rewrite this. But anyway, thumbs up; couldn't put it down!

Year-End Book Wrapup

Here is last year's wrapup and I did a top and bottom five, so I will do that again. This year I read 55 books, 33 of which were by women and 22 by men. The list is skewed towards women mostly because I went on an Agatha Christie spree at the beginning of the year; other than that, it was actually pretty balanced. Again, I wish I'd read more books, but since I was reading Finnegans Wake at a crawl all year, I'll cut myself some slack.

Top five books of the year:

1. I Capture the Castle. It may not be as skillfully written as the books I've picked for number two, but in terms of pure love for a book and pure enjoyment, you can't beat it. I loved it so much… I don't know what else to say about it. If I hadn't loaned it out, I'd be reading it again right now.
2. Black Swan Green and Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, who is a genius. Black Swan Green is the better of the two; it's a near-perfect book, in my opinion. A modern day Catcher in the Rye, and good in such a different way from his brilliant Cloud Atlas. A great place to start, if you haven't read Mitchell, is with these two books.
3. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I apparently like books with the word "castle" in the titles! This one had to sit with me for a while, and I liked it better and better the more I thought about it. (It was the same with The Remains of the Day, which I was initially lukewarm about but is now one of my favorite rereads.) It might be the unreliable narrator thing, which you know I always love.
4. There's no way I can leave off Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I stayed up all night to finish. What a great ending to the series. I am still feeling post-Potter letdown. This is an experience you either had or you didn't, right? The midnight book sale, reading under the covers until dawn…
5. Love in the Time of Cholera is a beautiful book, but I'm actually torn between that and Thursday Next: First Among Sequels. If you want to go by pure fun, the latter would win. Which book I think is more enduring and masterful, obviously, you go with Marquez. Or should I put Finnegans Wake on here? I should, if I'm going based on literary merit. Or maybe I should just make it a three-way tie. Jasper Fforde and James Joyce—basically the same thing, right?

Bottom five of the year. In contrast to last year (boy, did I hate me some books last year) I didn't really read much that I hated. So this is a list of one that I hated, one that I didn't like, two that were kind of at the bottom of the list of eeeh, and a terrible musical. (I reviewed it in this blog so it counts.)

1. The Tin Drum. Oh god, the bodily fluids. This book was just an unpleasant reading experience with lots of bodily fluids and I will be very happy to never have to read it again. What else can I say?
2. Louisa May Alcott. Totally disappointing biography, which left out key information and details at every turn. All it made me want to do is read Alcott's letters, which I bet are actually interesting and in-depth, as opposed to this kind of superficial skimming of her life.
3. Summer. I had to look up my review of this Edith Wharton book in my archives, because I'd forgotten what it was about. I don't know; it is fine, I guess. Very bold about sexuality and womanhood, and I'm sure at one point it was scandalous and ballsy. However, it's very "of its time" which makes it, these days, quite predictable.
4. How to Be Good. Mediocre and not quite convincing novel by Nick Hornby. Maybe I should read High Fidelity before I give up on him completely. I didn't hate this; I was just unimpressed by it.
5. Legally Blonde Colon The Musical. Last year when I wrote that I loathed Look Homeward, Angel, someone called me a twat. The response to my bad Legally Blonde review was not quite as good but still funny. "Hating this musical is like hating Mozart!" Good times.

How about you?

Radcliffe Wrapup

So why did I read Finnegans Wake? Lots of answers to this, really. For bragging rights. For street cred as an English teacher. To finish one huge chunk of my reading list project, which I started years ago. Because it was a challenge, and I love a challenge. So I could speak intelligently about Joyce without dissembling. Because it is a work of genius (and ego, and penis, but also genius). Because it was fun. Because it was there?

Why did I read all the books on the Radcliffe list? Some of the same reasons. Before I started my reading project, I had never read any Hemingway, Faulkner, Woolfe, Cather, Vonnegut, or James, among others. Keep in mind, this is after I graduated from college and was halfway through graduate school. Keep in mind, I read constantly and always have, and consider myself a literate person. Keep in mind that my goal has always been to teach English. You can see that those gaps in my exposure to literature were not small ones.

Here is where it all started in the year 2000. Holy shit, have I really spent seven years on this project so far? Insane. (Well, it's not like I wouldn't have been reading anyway.) Really, it's been fantastic. Although some of the books on this list gave me physical pain (Atlas Shrugged, anyone?) there are so many amazing books and authors on here that I never would have discovered otherwise. Here are some lists of the list for you.

Ten Books I'd Kick Off the List
This is purely based on my own personal taste, not on what I think "should" be on the list. Here are 10 that I simply didn't enjoy.
1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
3. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
4. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
5. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
6. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
7. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
8. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
9. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
10. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Runners up included (as much as I love James and Wharton) both The Bostonians and Ethan Frome, as well as Rabbit, Run, Heart of Darkness, The Wind in the Willows, and The Naked and the Dead. A lot of my issues with these books is that I couldn't get past the misogyny (like Women in Love) or that I don't think they have aged well (like The Jungle). Also, I apparently don't like books about India, as A Passage to India, Kim, and both Rushdie books were on my shortlist. I also don't like allegories much, since I also shortlisted The Old Man and the Sea and The Lord of the Flies. Nice to know these things about myself.

My Personal Top Ten
What are the ten best books on this list? The ten best books in literature. Crap, this is harder than picking the ten worst. I want to include Finnegans Wake just because it is such a genius book, but it's the opposite of accessible, willfully obtuse, and I think that's a strike against it. We'll call it number eleven.

1. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
2. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
3. Beloved by Toni Morrison
4. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
5. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
6. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
7. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
8. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
9. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
10. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Runners up were books I've loved for a really long time (White Noise, A Clockwork Orange, Catch-22) some classics that I'm sure you all know and love that I'm just going to take as read because otherwise this list would be impossible (The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird) and a couple of great American novels (Go Tell It on the Mountain, the Grapes of Wrath). Honorable mentions also go to The Maltese Falcon, A Separate Peace, In Cold Blood, The Wings of the Dove, To the Lighthouse, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Also, it killed me to cut Franny and Zooey, which I love more than Catcher in the Rye, and which you should all read.

Not on the Radcliffe list, but would have made this even harder? The Remains of the Day and, of course, Pale Fire.

So there you go. Feel free to take a gander at the Radcliffe list and let me know what you've read, what you loved, what you hated, and whether you agree with me or not!

Finnegans Wake (by James Joyce)

Fuck yeah!

(Er, more later. Is it too early to open some champagne?)

A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake (by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson)

My hat is absolutely off to these two, the first to really extract a throughline from a book that is, at first glance*, utterly incomprehensible. I still have no idea how they did it. When I was reading their framework and then turning to the applicable passage in the book, I could sometimes barely extract a word or a phrase that enabled me to say, "Oh yes, that's where they got that."

(*I typed "at first glass" which is so totally Joycean; I will have to save that for a poem.)

I think Joyce himself did a lot of explaining, when the Wake was published, about the characters (which is how you know HCE and ALP's real names, which aren't even in the book anywhere with 100 percent accuracy as far as I remember) and about his sigla (the symbols that signify the characters in their various forms, which, again, are not in the book for the most part). That's the most frustrating thing about Joyce; would it have killed him to include some of this incredibly vital information IN THE TEXT ITSELF? Like the chapter titles in Ulysses. Sometimes it's like he wants to remove any possibility of comprehension, and that seems like needless ego.

Anyway, I read a critic somewhere or other who said that the Skeleton Key is reductive in the worst way, that it's the lowest common denominator version of Finnegans Wake that does a disservice to people who read it. That's ridiculous, really. First of all, anyone intelligent enough to read the Skeleton Key (which is in itself not easy) and make it through the Wake will obviously see that there's far more in the text than the Key can possibly cover. But it's absolutely essential (at least it was for me) to know which characters turn into which other characters, the basics of what's happening, who's talking, and what it all means.

However, it certainly doesn't negate any of the other interpretations of the book. This critic seems to think readers will swallow the Key whole and cease to think for themselves, but that's ludicrous. I have a great example from today, where the Key translates "...little eggons, youlk and meelk, in a farbiger pancosmos. With a hottyhammyum all round." into "ham and eggs for all." Of course that's reductive, and it has to be, or else the Key would be twelve times as long as the Wake. But I enjoyed extracting my own meaning from the text; for instance, I took "little eggons, youlk and meelk" to mean that our lives ("you" and "me") are "little eons." And I'm sure you can read a hundred other things into those two short sentences.

So, my point is, thank god for the Skeleton Key, because without it, I wouldn't have been able to read Finnegans Wake at all. Obviously it was a starting point in Joyce scholarship, and I take it in that light. I look forward to reading more recent scholarship, but I tip my hat once again to the men who gave critics everywhere a place to start.

Page 601

I don't want to get too confident, here, but I'm on page 611 and there are only 628 pages in the book. I think I might even finish it tomorrow (three days to spare)! I have to say, though, I felt incredibly obtuse today.

I'm reading the final part of the book, and it is basically the ending/beginning of the cycle. Just for a bit of background, the book is essentially about cycles. (You may know that the book ends in the middle of a sentence, and the book opens with the end of that sentence, so the whole book is a big cycle.) In this part of the book, part four, the cycle has ended--but at the same time is about to begin. (There are references to Vishnu, who is dreaming, and whose dream is the universe, which ties in so beautifully with dreams, another huge theme of the book.) In addition to the theme of cycles and dreams, the book has countless examples of places where there are layers upon layers upon layers of meaning, often in just a single word or portmanteau word.

So knowing both of these things, and basically understanding them for the past 600 pages (and full year of reading) you will know why I felt kind of dense when I realized that the "wake" in Finnegans Wake is not only the awakening of the book's dreamer (in some interpretations) and the vigil that is alluded to in the song ("lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake"), but also refers to the events of the book taking place IN THE WAKE of Finnegan, who is the primordial father figure. Since everything has already happened and is about to happen, it all comes in the wake of Finnegans fall, which is man's primitive fall, etc. etc.

Okay, typing this out, I don't know if it makes any sense at all. But trust me, I should have figured this out about 550 pages ago.

Last Night at the Lobster (by Stewart O'Nan)

Another very very fast read (a novella) but a delightful little character study. It's about the last night at a Red Lobster that is closing; it's really about the manager, Manny. Although I would have enjoyed the relationships and secondary characters to be fleshed out a little more, I still loved the mood and feel of this. It's very familiar to people who have worked in food service or retail (I worked at Starbucks for three years; my sister was a server for many years and I spent a lot of time at her restaurant.) I actually found Manny's stickler attitude somewhat annoying by the end, but it felt very real to me. The relationships didn't resonate as much as they should have; possibly it was that the two primary women in Manny's life didn't come to life for me as characters. So, not perfect. But still recommended.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (by Shirley Jackson)

Recommended by jen fu, yay! I was impressed first of all by how extremely well written it is, with an impressively simple precision of language, and wonderfully strange characters. I wasn't sure if the ending was supposed to be a twist; it wasn't particularly surprising but it's still chilling and wonderful. I don't want to say too much and give it away. It's a quick read but really well done. If you liked "The Lottery" (Jackson's famous short story) you might be even more impressed with this!

Born Standing Up (by Steve Martin)

I love Steve Martin. I decided a few years ago that if I could grant immortality to five famous people, he would be one of them. (Basically I realized I would be extremely depressed if any of the following people died: Steve Martin, Dick Van Dyke, Bea Arthur, David Bowie, and [sniff] John Ritter.) Anyway, I adore Steve Martin. I am a huge fan of his films (especially L.A. Story, Bowfinger, and Three Amigos) and his writing (especially his novellas); less so of his standup, which this book chronicles. And yet it's still written in perfect Steve Martin style; wry, dry, impeccable.

I should get this on audiobook, assuming he reads it. It would be fun to listen to him describe his standup act and re-enact some of his comic bits, as opposed to just reading it on the page. But even reading it on the page is delightful. I love the comedy anecdotes (he mentions the song that inspired L.A. Story) and his Disneyland memories. It's just a delightful read, that's all. Thanks to Ian who gave me this book for Christmas!

The House on Mango Street (by Sandra Cisneros)

Suggested by Sony as a potential text for my class next year, and currently the front runner. (It fits all the criteria I had for the book and also meshes very nicely with my nonfiction choice.) It's an incredibly quick read (probably took me about an hour), and is deceptively simple and easy to understand, yet it's layered, poetic, relatable... perfect. I'm already excited about teaching it.

I am kind of tempted to write an erudite analysis of it here, just to see if any students next year Google the book title and then plagiarize my post. Irony!

Tears of the Giraffe (by Alexander McCall Smith)*

Second book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, on audiobook. Read by the same reader who did the first book. I liked it just as much, although I thought some of the plot twists at the end were a little too neat, and the central mystery and major conflicts were each too easily solved. (For instance, that business with the maid.) Okay, maybe I didn't like it just as much! I did still enjoy it though, and right away I tried to buy the third one, except iTunes doesn't like me. But there were charming vignettes (such as engagement ring shopping and the story of the orphans) that kept me interested. I'm definitely hooked on the series, and will get the next one ASAP!

Eleanor Rigby (by Douglas Coupland)

I tend to read all of Coupland's stuff and enjoy most of it (I hated Microserfs, sorry everyone), so I picked up Eleanor Rigby in a used book store. I'd never heard of it, but I figured the odds were on my side. And I did enjoy it, although I don't quite buy the ending; Coupland's characters do tend to behave in ways that normal people never would behave. I guess that's what you're getting yourself into, reading his stuff.

The thing is, today I was on call for work and I am also sick with a cold/flu type thing. I read a big chunk of Finnegans Wake and once I'd maxed out on that, I switched to this book. I guess all I've done today is read, because I just realized I started Eleanor Rigby this morning (and finished it) and I got to page 554 of Finnegans Wake.

This hasn't told you anything about the book. Well, it's good--not too crazy, and not too implausible. The depiction of the main character and narrator--spinsterish, lonely--is spot-on. I wish Coupland had just kept the events of the book smaller and more realistic. Except then he would be a completely different writer.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (by Alexander McCall Smith)

Okay, so obviously this book is hugely popular and I like detective stories--so why hadn't I read it yet? (She asks, as if anyone were really wondering that.) I guess because I'm super picky about my detective stories. For some reason, I tend to like the ones written by women (Agatha Christie, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich) and I don't like cheap-looking, lurid covers or mysteries about cats. (Please don't tell me that cat series is any good at all or my brain will explode.) I don't want to waste my time, because I feel like there's a lot of bad mystery out there. It seems weird to say "I like Janet Evanovich!" and "My standards are high!" in the same paragraph, but whatever. Moving on.

I picked up this book a couple of times and found myself bored with the first paragraph and put it down again. I wanted to like it, though, because it is a series (up to seven books or something like that) and I always love having a new series to read. But it didn't grab me. Then this weekend I drove to and from L.A. in two days, and I was going by myself, and I thought I might need a book to listen to to pass the time. This one seemed like the perfect choice: I was anticipating it being fluffy and easy to listen to, and I figured even a mediocre book was better than no book at all. And although I had some problems with it, for the most part I fell totally in love with it. It was way better than I'd expected.

The heroine (Mma Ramotswe I think is the spelling) is one of the best characters ever, seriously. How much do I love her? And sure, I'm biased because she's fat and proud of being a "traditional African lady" and all the men in the novel are in love with her. (Totally need to post about this on BFD.) But I also find her personality delightful. And I love the rich setting of Botswana, and the cultural touches, and the emotional complexity, and the simple, yet beautiful language.

I am thrilled to see that the next book is on Audible by the same narrator, who I think added a lot of charm to the book for me. I don't know what my experience would have been reading it on the printed page (maybe I'll find out if the later books aren't narrated by her) but it was delightful to listen to; if you like audiobooks (Beth) and you haven't read it yet, give it a shot.

My quibbles: I couldn't tell if the organization of the book was a little choppy; at times, it seemed so. I also did not understand the motives of the main villain whatsoever: made no sense. And also, at least one of the mysteries she solves (the one with the doctor) is very predictable, and I like to be surprised. But those are minor complaints. Basically, I can't wait to listen to the next book in the series.

So are any of you reading this series? Have any of you read the first one? I'm really curious to know what other people think, given that I listened to this instead of reading it. I hope the next book is as good as the first one.

Love in the Time of Cholera (by Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

My friend h pressed this book upon me, insisting that I had to read it before I saw the movie or the trailer and ruined everything. The other day we saw Michael Clayton and I even went so far as to stick my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes when the trailer came on, because I had been forewarned.

I've tried to read One Hundred Years of Solitude (by which I mean I've started it) so many times and I've never made it through. Someone recently called that book Thirty Pages of Boredom and I was like, that's right, I don't like magical realism, I don't like the opening of that book, I must not like Marquez. I WAS WRONG. This book is awesome, awesome. (Don't read the next paragraph if you haven't read it yet; just go buy it and then come back.)

I was predicting one ending, but the book surprised me totally. It's got such an interesting complexity to it. The characters do not fall neatly into roles. The lovesick lead is kind of horrible and directly causes the deaths of at least two women. Fermina Daza makes a choice that isn't even necessarily wrong even though in a lesser book, the author would judge her more evidently. Along the way you get this beautiful, lucid, poetic meditation on love and aging and devotion. It's such a gem. Highly recommended; thanks, h!

The Prestige (by Christopher Priest)

Ian told me about the movie version of this, and it sounded incredibly stupid, but I'd heard the book was different, and someone sent it to me for free, and I needed something to read, and there you go. I read it. I found it an engrossing and quick read. It's not so different from the film, but it sounds like it's a little more subtle, which I liked. I don't know; I'm kind of interested in the film too, except I hear that Something Bad Happens To Animals, so forget it. The book didn't have that.

The book is about rival magicians, as you may remember from the trailer of the film. It's told in a diary form, where both magicians keep diaries telling their sides of the stories. There are also descendants of the two magicians in the present day, although their storylines are basically left hanging at the end.

I guess I'm really wondering if anyone understood the very ending, which will sound absolutely ridiculous to anyone who hasn't read the book, and which will spoil all the fun, so don't read it. (Attempting to spoiler tag...) Okay so Nicky, the brother whose body was in the vault, was silent when Andrew came and picked him up. Then Andrew put him down and he was screaming... so he's kind of in his half-dead, half-alive state. Does Andrew basically have to carry his twin's corpse around for the rest of his life? Is there any way to allow Nicky to rest in peace? Does he have to take him home and prop him in a chair and have conversations with him? I really don't get it.

If you know the answer or have a theory, let me know!

Water for Elephants (by Sara Gruen)

Or as Ian calls it, Like Water for Elephants. A bestseller I picked up at the airport, I think. With trepidation because I do not like books where Bad Things Happen to Animals and I knew it was about a circus. But it seemed like the type of thing I’d like; a well researched bestseller. And I’m not going to give away anything about the Bad Things, but I didn’t regret having read it for that reason.

I don’t know. It definitely wasn’t bad, I just really wanted it to be better. Gruen researched the hell out of it and incorporated a lot of real-life anecdotes about circuses and about the depression, but... the story somehow doesn’t feel real. The characters and plot were unconvincing. And I never could tell the difference between August and Uncle Al, nor did I understand why they needed to be two separate characters. The twist at the end was kind of interesting, but... overall it was a little predictable, a little pat, and overall just kind of average. Plus, again, the characters never came to life for me. And that was absolutely my biggest problem with the book.

Has anyone else out there actually read this?

Sex and the City (by Candace Bushnell)

As you may guess, this was airplane reading. It was totally disposable, but I love the series, so it was fun. I guess I'm gearing up for the movie (which is filming now). I just posted over at Contents May Be Hot about how I haven't had time to exercise; the measure of how true this is is that I also haven't had time to read. I haven't even made Finnegans Wake progress and am behind in my reading schedule. I will finish it by the end of the year, though! Don't you worry.

The Professors House (by Willa Cather)

The beginning and ending of this book were fabulous. I mean it; really different from any Cather I've read before, and really terrific. The middle part was like Brokeback Mountain without all the sex. I mean it perked up at the end. But you know how I feel about descriptions of scenery. Blah blah scenery.

A friend of mine at Pope Hilarious actually taught this book; and I want to sit down and talk with her about it. After that conversation, I'm sure I'd have more to say. I'm just burned out this week. What are you gonna do?

I have a feeling this is a very good book.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (by Francine Prose)

I read this while camping a couple of weekends ago. It's a book about savoring language, which is great when I'm generally blasting through the classics reading them holistically and deciding yay or nay. It's good to be reminded that some books are all about the sentence, some are about the paragraph, some are about the characters... way more, for me, about reading than writing. I guess nothing I didn't know. But an enjoyable, breezy read nonetheless.

The Tin Drum (by Gunter Grass)

This is officially the first reading project book I've read all year (I think it's on the Time List and the MLA list). It's one of Ian's favorite books, but I didn't like it. I found it grotesque and unpleasant. That is such a princessy review, I know. But although it's extremely well written, it depicts a reality I did not enjoy experiencing. (And the attitude toward women is very creepy; though if that's coming from the narrator rather than the author, I guess it's appropriate.)

In addition to zoning out when reading descriptions of scenery, I also hate reading about bodily fluids or bad stuff happening to animals, and there was a lot of that in this book. Every time I was reading it while commuting with Ian I would crack it open and say "I'll let you know when I get to a disgusting bodily fluid!" and it was within a few pages. Like, I get the eel thing, but do we really need this gratuitous boil-squeezing?

I started off thinking it was fantastic, just because the writing is so amazing. I did enjoy certain passages very much (the Onion Club comes to mind as a late-in-the-game scene that I really loved.) You'd think unpleasant unreliable narrators would totally be my thing, but I guess for me, I like there to be an external reality that the reader can discover between the lines--as in two of my favorite books of all time, Pale Fire and The Remains of the Day. Even in the deposition at the end of the book, it ends up being more magical realism, whereas I was expecting to find out some crucial clue about the "reality" of Oskar's existence.

Actually, come to think of it, maybe I don't like magical realism! I also hated Midnight's Children. If I hate Garcia Marquez too, once I finally get around to reading him, then we'll know for sure.

I suspect that this novel is a whole lot of fun to unpack symbolically. I'm sure Oskar represents Germany There are way too many suggestive connections to be made there. I've just been sitting here for two minutes thinking about it and I'm like, "Of course! First he's like a child and he has blue eyes, and then after the war he grows, except he's distorted, and his two fathers are one Nazi and one cowardly Polish guy, and Oskar's cut off from his Grandmother in the East, and his grandfather is in America, and..." So that's interesting. But I am really ready to find something else to read.