This was one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read.
As mentioned to the point of aggravation, I am not a fan of short stories. I like to commit to my literature and short stories tend to feel like a summer fling that was over before I was able to analyze it to death and suck all of the fun out it.
I especially dislike collections of short stories because even the best authors' voices come through in them. While I typically like to feel as though I can hear an author's voice, when it happens during a book of 30 of their short stories and it's the same author with different stories, I get confused, partially due to the fact that I'm extremely dumb and partially due to the fact that they almost always center around the same themes or characters who hail from similar backgrounds and locations.
This was not the case with Katherine Anne Porter. Every one of these stories was completely different in style, voice, content and characterization and every one of the stories was brilliant. It helped that many of them were over 50 pages long (one was over 100). The length allowed me to get to know the characters as intimately as I wanted.
All in all, this was a fantastic book from a writer who is not only talented but extremely versatile as well.
8/10
YTD:
Books read : 30
Pages read : 8,899
Currently reading : The Dying Animal - Philip Roth & Now In November - Josephine Johnson
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Book 29 : The Breast - Philip Roth
I read The Breast a year or so ago but when I recently read The Professor of Desire and found that it was a part of a trilogy that began with The Breast I decided to re-read it before reading the 3rd installment.
I also wanted to re-read it because the first time I read it, I thought that Roth was gently mocking Kafka's Metamorphosis, which I enjoyed because I'm not a huge fan of Kafka. However, after reading the continuing Kafka parallels in The Professor of Desire, I realized that he's actually paying homage to him. Clearly I missed the point the first time I read The Breast.
The first time I read it, I didn't care much about it, either way. It's the story of a man who wakes up one morning to find that he's turned into a giant, human-sized breast. The book is from his perspective as he learns to live in this new and unexplainable world.
The second time around, it wasn't any better. It wasn't bad - in fact I thought it was an interesting book that made me think about common things in strange ways. But it also wasn't something that I related to at all or that made me feel particularly excited to get back to it when I took a break.
Overall, there are many people I would recommend this book to - namely Kafka fans or those more interested in Science Fiction than I am. For me, however, it was a pleasant though not all together satisfying break from my norm, and from Roth's.
6/10
YTD:
Books read : 29
Pages read : 8,404
Currently reading : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter & The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
I also wanted to re-read it because the first time I read it, I thought that Roth was gently mocking Kafka's Metamorphosis, which I enjoyed because I'm not a huge fan of Kafka. However, after reading the continuing Kafka parallels in The Professor of Desire, I realized that he's actually paying homage to him. Clearly I missed the point the first time I read The Breast.
The first time I read it, I didn't care much about it, either way. It's the story of a man who wakes up one morning to find that he's turned into a giant, human-sized breast. The book is from his perspective as he learns to live in this new and unexplainable world.
The second time around, it wasn't any better. It wasn't bad - in fact I thought it was an interesting book that made me think about common things in strange ways. But it also wasn't something that I related to at all or that made me feel particularly excited to get back to it when I took a break.
Overall, there are many people I would recommend this book to - namely Kafka fans or those more interested in Science Fiction than I am. For me, however, it was a pleasant though not all together satisfying break from my norm, and from Roth's.
6/10
YTD:
Books read : 29
Pages read : 8,404
Currently reading : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter & The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Book 28 : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut
I don't know what to say about Vonnegut that I haven't said before.
Jailbird, like everything I've read by Vonnegut, was filled with subtle humor and scathing attacks on the hypocrisy and overall ridiculousness of society in general. It told the story of a man who'd been jailed after Watergate and his first few days after being released.
I've been trying to write a summary of the plot for 20 minutes now. It's Vonnegut. I can't summarize the plot. It's simply not possible - and it's really not the point. The point is that the man is all about making awesome jokes that I'm into and saying really relevant and clever things that I'm also into. Such as :
Thus I discovered that the bottom drawer contained seven incomplete clarinets - without cases, mouthpieces, or bells.
Life is like that sometimes.
* * * *
"Or maybe it isn't worth it," she said.
She was talking about rescuing the people of the United States from their economy, but I thought she was talking about life in general. So I said about life in general that it probably was worth it, but that it did seem to go on a little too long.
I just realized that taken out of context, neither of those quotes are very compelling. I guess you'll have to take my word for it that in context, their power would compel you!
I'm not sure why I gave this 7/10. I did enjoy reading it but it wasn't my favorite of the works I've read by Vonnegut and I don't think it'd be one that I would recommend as a starting point.
Overall I think it was fun to read but I doubt that it will stick with me for long.
7/10
YTD:
Books read : 28
Pages read : 8,315
Currently reading : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter & The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Jailbird, like everything I've read by Vonnegut, was filled with subtle humor and scathing attacks on the hypocrisy and overall ridiculousness of society in general. It told the story of a man who'd been jailed after Watergate and his first few days after being released.
I've been trying to write a summary of the plot for 20 minutes now. It's Vonnegut. I can't summarize the plot. It's simply not possible - and it's really not the point. The point is that the man is all about making awesome jokes that I'm into and saying really relevant and clever things that I'm also into. Such as :
Thus I discovered that the bottom drawer contained seven incomplete clarinets - without cases, mouthpieces, or bells.
Life is like that sometimes.
* * * *
"Or maybe it isn't worth it," she said.
She was talking about rescuing the people of the United States from their economy, but I thought she was talking about life in general. So I said about life in general that it probably was worth it, but that it did seem to go on a little too long.
I just realized that taken out of context, neither of those quotes are very compelling. I guess you'll have to take my word for it that in context, their power would compel you!
I'm not sure why I gave this 7/10. I did enjoy reading it but it wasn't my favorite of the works I've read by Vonnegut and I don't think it'd be one that I would recommend as a starting point.
Overall I think it was fun to read but I doubt that it will stick with me for long.
7/10
YTD:
Books read : 28
Pages read : 8,315
Currently reading : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter & The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Book 27 : The Pianist Who Liked Ayn Rand - A Novella & 13 Stories by Gene H. Bell-Villada
I have no idea how this book ended up on my bookshelf. There are only a few hundred copies of it. It turns out that the author is this super anti-Rand professor at some college or another and had this book printed for a class of his. In any event, I'm glad I finally gave it a shot.
I'm pretty sure that if Woody Allen were huge into classical music, and Hispanic, this is the book he would have written.
I think if I'd read any of these short stories or the novella on their own, I would have really loved it. However, when grouped together they felt a little flat. First of all, every story was about the same protagonist - yet he had a new character for each one. So the voice was identical to the story before, yet there was an entirely new background. It made it really confusing at times, especially when the guy always ended up with a leading lady that was basically the same character - yet different - every time as well.
I also had an issue with these stories not really being, well, stories. Not a single one of them had any sort of conclusion. Almost all of them started out with a huge infodump, then set up a problem . . . and stopped, sans resolution.
He also clearly could have benefited from an editor. There were many instances of poor word choices that a simple read through from an unbiased eye could have picked up on. Note, for example, the excessive use of the word 'almost' in this passage :
"Oh, damn, English class, I'd almost clean forgot," he muttered. The bike ride across campus felt almost exhilarating. There was almost no one on the paths as he coasted along.
Those issues aside, I did really enjoy the book. It was peppered with all kinds of tongue in check attacks against Rand and Objectivism in general.
My favorite was easily a story called History Reconsidered which was actually a satirical review of a fake book called, Hitler Reconstructed : An American Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Third Reich, and Finds More Than a Few Things to Recommend. It included great lines like, "Can anyone who killed 20,000,000 Soviets really be half bad?"
Overall : I'm glad I read it and I would recommend a story or two to a friend, however, I don't think it worked as a volume.
7/10
YTD:
Books read : 27
Pages read : 8,032
Currently reading : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter & With These Hands - The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today by Daniel Rothenberg
I'm pretty sure that if Woody Allen were huge into classical music, and Hispanic, this is the book he would have written.
I think if I'd read any of these short stories or the novella on their own, I would have really loved it. However, when grouped together they felt a little flat. First of all, every story was about the same protagonist - yet he had a new character for each one. So the voice was identical to the story before, yet there was an entirely new background. It made it really confusing at times, especially when the guy always ended up with a leading lady that was basically the same character - yet different - every time as well.
I also had an issue with these stories not really being, well, stories. Not a single one of them had any sort of conclusion. Almost all of them started out with a huge infodump, then set up a problem . . . and stopped, sans resolution.
He also clearly could have benefited from an editor. There were many instances of poor word choices that a simple read through from an unbiased eye could have picked up on. Note, for example, the excessive use of the word 'almost' in this passage :
"Oh, damn, English class, I'd almost clean forgot," he muttered. The bike ride across campus felt almost exhilarating. There was almost no one on the paths as he coasted along.
Those issues aside, I did really enjoy the book. It was peppered with all kinds of tongue in check attacks against Rand and Objectivism in general.
My favorite was easily a story called History Reconsidered which was actually a satirical review of a fake book called, Hitler Reconstructed : An American Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Third Reich, and Finds More Than a Few Things to Recommend. It included great lines like, "Can anyone who killed 20,000,000 Soviets really be half bad?"
Overall : I'm glad I read it and I would recommend a story or two to a friend, however, I don't think it worked as a volume.
7/10
YTD:
Books read : 27
Pages read : 8,032
Currently reading : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter & With These Hands - The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today by Daniel Rothenberg
Book 26 : The Professor of Desire - Philip Roth
This wasn't my favorite Roth - in fact I would not even recommend it to a friend - but of course I loved it none the less.
Roth's first two books (Goodbye, Columbus and Letting Go) were sprawling narratives written by Roth before he was 30 years old. They were honest, and though flawed, they were clearly focused and straight forward.
With his most famous book, Portnoy's Complaint, Roth started trying new literary techniques. He continued this for several books - none of which I am a huge fan of.
The Professor of Desire is a book on the cusp of his experimental period and the point at which he went back to his roots. He still tried many weird literary techniques in this book and none of them worked for me.
One example is the dialouge. Instead of the standard (starting a new paragraph when a new speaker begins) he varied his dialouge tags based on the urgency of the conversation. An example :
"Well, there's no need to ask what you thought of him, is there?” "It's as you said : he adores you.” "Really, just what has empowered you to sit in judgment of other people's passions? Haven't you heard? It's a wide, wide world; room for everybody to do whatever he likes. Even you once did what you liked, David. Or so the legend goes.” "I sit in judgment of nothing. What I sit in judgment of, you wouldn't believe.” "Ah, yourself. Hardest on yourself. Momentarily I forgot.” "I sat, Helen, and I listened and I don't remember saying anything about the passions or preferences or private parts of anybody from here to Nepal.” "Donald Garland is possibly the kindest man alive.” "Fine with me".
I think he was trying to encourage the reader to realize that this type of dialouge was much quicker and more urgent than a typical conversation. I found it distracting and hard to follow. In fact, many passages like this went on for 4 or 5 pages without a paragraph break.
I also found portions of it to be over written. Roth has an extensive vocabulary throughout all of his books, but only during this strange experimental phase did I become aware of his writing - of the fact that he was trying. Good literature should be like special effects in the movies -- no matter how difficult they were to pull off, your goal is to find a way to make them seem natural and believable and to not have your audience think twice that they are effects. An example of his painful overwriting :
Hardly a single benighted literature major straying into ingenious metaphysical exegesis!
There were some interesting themes in this book that I really enjoyed. It starts out with David, the protagonist, in love with a very complicated and exciting woman. They eventually marry and the passion between them becomes too much for either of them to live with. Years after they divorce, he moves on to a much simpler woman who is content to simply be with him.
In the end, neither extreme works for him. He realizes that nothing is going to work for him. Not that he is destined to be alone -- but rather that he will never find the ideal he is looking for. This book is part two in a three part series focusing on David and my guess is that in Book 3 he will find a way to find happiness with another.
* * * *
Ah, Clarissa, let me tell you, all that is pleases. The pond where we swim. Our apple orchard. The thunderstorms. The barbeque. The music playing. Talking in bed. Your Grandmother's iced tea. Deliberating on which walk to take in the morning and which at dusk. Watching you lower your head to peel peaches and shuck corn . . . Oh, nothing, really, is what pleases. But what nothing! Nations go to war for this kind of nothing, and in the absence of such nothing, people shrivel up and die.
* * * *
She never speaks of what she does not have, never lingers for so much as a moment upon loss, misfortune, or disappointment. You'd have to torture her to get her to complain. She is the most extraordinary ordinary person I have ever known.
8/10
YTD:
Books read : 26
Pages read : 7,798
Currently reading : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut & The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter
Roth's first two books (Goodbye, Columbus and Letting Go) were sprawling narratives written by Roth before he was 30 years old. They were honest, and though flawed, they were clearly focused and straight forward.
With his most famous book, Portnoy's Complaint, Roth started trying new literary techniques. He continued this for several books - none of which I am a huge fan of.
The Professor of Desire is a book on the cusp of his experimental period and the point at which he went back to his roots. He still tried many weird literary techniques in this book and none of them worked for me.
One example is the dialouge. Instead of the standard (starting a new paragraph when a new speaker begins) he varied his dialouge tags based on the urgency of the conversation. An example :
"Well, there's no need to ask what you thought of him, is there?” "It's as you said : he adores you.” "Really, just what has empowered you to sit in judgment of other people's passions? Haven't you heard? It's a wide, wide world; room for everybody to do whatever he likes. Even you once did what you liked, David. Or so the legend goes.” "I sit in judgment of nothing. What I sit in judgment of, you wouldn't believe.” "Ah, yourself. Hardest on yourself. Momentarily I forgot.” "I sat, Helen, and I listened and I don't remember saying anything about the passions or preferences or private parts of anybody from here to Nepal.” "Donald Garland is possibly the kindest man alive.” "Fine with me".
I think he was trying to encourage the reader to realize that this type of dialouge was much quicker and more urgent than a typical conversation. I found it distracting and hard to follow. In fact, many passages like this went on for 4 or 5 pages without a paragraph break.
I also found portions of it to be over written. Roth has an extensive vocabulary throughout all of his books, but only during this strange experimental phase did I become aware of his writing - of the fact that he was trying. Good literature should be like special effects in the movies -- no matter how difficult they were to pull off, your goal is to find a way to make them seem natural and believable and to not have your audience think twice that they are effects. An example of his painful overwriting :
Hardly a single benighted literature major straying into ingenious metaphysical exegesis!
There were some interesting themes in this book that I really enjoyed. It starts out with David, the protagonist, in love with a very complicated and exciting woman. They eventually marry and the passion between them becomes too much for either of them to live with. Years after they divorce, he moves on to a much simpler woman who is content to simply be with him.
In the end, neither extreme works for him. He realizes that nothing is going to work for him. Not that he is destined to be alone -- but rather that he will never find the ideal he is looking for. This book is part two in a three part series focusing on David and my guess is that in Book 3 he will find a way to find happiness with another.
* * * *
Ah, Clarissa, let me tell you, all that is pleases. The pond where we swim. Our apple orchard. The thunderstorms. The barbeque. The music playing. Talking in bed. Your Grandmother's iced tea. Deliberating on which walk to take in the morning and which at dusk. Watching you lower your head to peel peaches and shuck corn . . . Oh, nothing, really, is what pleases. But what nothing! Nations go to war for this kind of nothing, and in the absence of such nothing, people shrivel up and die.
* * * *
She never speaks of what she does not have, never lingers for so much as a moment upon loss, misfortune, or disappointment. You'd have to torture her to get her to complain. She is the most extraordinary ordinary person I have ever known.
8/10
YTD:
Books read : 26
Pages read : 7,798
Currently reading : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut & The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter
Book 25 : The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
With the possible exception of Night by Elie Wiesel, The Fixer is the most powerful and affecting book I've ever read.
It tells the story of a Jew living in Russia ~1920. The Fixer is a man who has grown up in the Jewish ghetto and moves into the city of Kiev in an attempt to make a better life for himself.
He gets a job and all is going well until he runs across a man who is passed out, drunk, in the street. After he helps him to his home, the grateful man offers him a well paying job in his warehouse. Though the Fixer knows that it's in an area of Kiev where Jews are not allowed, he accepts the job anyway.
Eventually he is arrested for living in a Jew-Free-Zone and subsequently is charged with the murder of a local boy. The majority of this book takes place in prison, where the fixer tries desperately to get access to a lawyer, to get an indictment or to just understand at all what the charges before him are.
He is poisoned. He is chained to a wall. He's beaten, he's sexually assaulted. Throughout it all, his captures promise to let him go if he will only admit that he killed the boy because 'the Jews' told him to. He is not a religious man, yet he refuses to pass on the blame.
This story was incredibly hard to read. Though it won the Pulitzer in 1967, there are some very clear parallels that can be drawn to Gitmo.
Overall, an outstanding and highly moving book.
9/10
YTD:
Books read : 25
Pages read : 7,535
Currently reading : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut & The Pianist Who Loved Ayn Rand - Gene H. Bell-Villada
It tells the story of a Jew living in Russia ~1920. The Fixer is a man who has grown up in the Jewish ghetto and moves into the city of Kiev in an attempt to make a better life for himself.
He gets a job and all is going well until he runs across a man who is passed out, drunk, in the street. After he helps him to his home, the grateful man offers him a well paying job in his warehouse. Though the Fixer knows that it's in an area of Kiev where Jews are not allowed, he accepts the job anyway.
Eventually he is arrested for living in a Jew-Free-Zone and subsequently is charged with the murder of a local boy. The majority of this book takes place in prison, where the fixer tries desperately to get access to a lawyer, to get an indictment or to just understand at all what the charges before him are.
He is poisoned. He is chained to a wall. He's beaten, he's sexually assaulted. Throughout it all, his captures promise to let him go if he will only admit that he killed the boy because 'the Jews' told him to. He is not a religious man, yet he refuses to pass on the blame.
This story was incredibly hard to read. Though it won the Pulitzer in 1967, there are some very clear parallels that can be drawn to Gitmo.
Overall, an outstanding and highly moving book.
9/10
YTD:
Books read : 25
Pages read : 7,535
Currently reading : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut & The Pianist Who Loved Ayn Rand - Gene H. Bell-Villada
Book 24 : Interpreter of Maladies - Jumpa Lahiri
Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories that center around the experience of being an immigrant in the United States.
I don't typically like short stories and almost never read them of my own accord. I only picked this up because it won the Pulitzer and I'm reading them all. I feel pretty confident that I could read this woman's short stories exclusively for the rest of my life and be quite happy. Each story had distinct characters that she managed to fully develop within a very short amount of time. Some were funny, some where sad. Unfortunately, none of them were pornographic.
I highly recommend this book and will be reading more from her.
9/10
YTD:
Books read : 24
Pages read : 7,299
Currently reading : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut & The Pianist Who Loved Ayn Rand - Gene H. Bell-Villada
I don't typically like short stories and almost never read them of my own accord. I only picked this up because it won the Pulitzer and I'm reading them all. I feel pretty confident that I could read this woman's short stories exclusively for the rest of my life and be quite happy. Each story had distinct characters that she managed to fully develop within a very short amount of time. Some were funny, some where sad. Unfortunately, none of them were pornographic.
I highly recommend this book and will be reading more from her.
9/10
YTD:
Books read : 24
Pages read : 7,299
Currently reading : Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut & The Pianist Who Loved Ayn Rand - Gene H. Bell-Villada
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)