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Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Books for August

August:

1. Eleven On Top -- Janet Evanovich -- 3.5
   • I'm not sure how much of it is me and how much of it is these books, but I just don't like them as much as I did when I read the first ones last year. I think I've re-sensitized myself a bit to the vulgarity in them (which is a good thing, I guess) and I find myself losing patience with the writing style as well. I'll probably keep reading them, to see what the author does with the characters (will Stephanie ever marry Joe?), but I'm not going to be recommending them to people.
2. The Taming of the Shrew -- William Shakespeare -- Shakespeare transcends any rating system ever invented, not necessarily because he's the best, just because he is the standard by which other works are judged. So no number rating from me.
   • I liked this play, a lot, until the end. It sounds so crass to say this of Shakespeare -- the nerve of me -- but I felt like Katharina's last speech was just tacked on. It didn't seem to fit her character. I'm going to go outside and wait for the lightning bolt now.
3. The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1) -- Franklin W. Dixon (the Stratemeyer Syndicate)
4. The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1) -- Carolyn Keene (the Stratemeyer Syndicate)
   • My kids are reading Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys respectively right now, and I wanted to go through a few of them really quickly just for fun, and so that I could remember more accurately what they were like, and because the kids wanted me to. :) I always did like the Hardy Boys better than Nancy Drew, but neither of them crosses the line from children to adult very well. What I find most interesting about these books is that there was no such person as Franklin W. Dixon (or Carolyn Keene either); both series were the brainchild of a man named Edward Stratemeyer, written by various ghostwriters. Which, honestly, you can kind of tell. I always liked Trixie Belden better myself. Which brings us to...
5. Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion -- Julie Campbell -- 4
   • Trixie doesn't make the same stupid mistakes in every book. Trixie's dialogue flows a good deal more naturally than Nancy's or Frank & Joe's. Trixie is a country girl who loves to ride horses. Trixie didn't get a car for her birthday, and Trixie is only thirteen/fourteen, and Trixie's family isn't rich, and Trixie's friends and siblings seem far more like real people than the cardboard cutouts tossed into the Stratemeyer books. Whenever I see a girl reading Nancy Drew, I tell her about Trixie Belden.
6. Watership Down (book on tape read by John MacDonald) -- Richard Adams -- 5
   • This is easily one of the most amazing books I've ever read, and it's been on my short list of favorites since I was in school. It's utterly unique, and luminously memorable. The characterization is spot-on, the themes are handled brilliantly -- some very heavy stuff here, but you never once get the feeling you're being preached at. The descriptions of the natural world in this part of England make me want to visit; the internal language and folklore fit seamlessly into the story and manage to add to it rather than detract from it. (For one thing, the language is one you can actually remember, so that when characters use it you can understand what they're saying, unlike the long passages of Elvish etc. in a certain series we all know and mostly enjoy). All in all, quite a list of accomplishments for a book about a bunch of bunnies. The reader's voice took a while to get used to -- I was expecting someone British -- but he did quite a decent job.
7. Everything is Illuminated -- Jonathan Safran Foer -- 2
   • I really wanted to enjoy this book; the themes are important, the storytelling is original (if a bit gimmicky) and the characters are memorable. A few things kept me from really liking it, though -- the humor in it (yes, humor in a Holocaust novel) just wasn't my style, the folk-story flashbacks annoyed me tremendously and didn't pull me in at all, and (the largest factor here, I think) the vulgarity in this story was just over the top. I know there's a modern school of writing where this sort of thing is essential -- I just don't like it.
8. Outlander -- Diana Gabaldon -- 3.5
   • This is another book/series with which I used to be quite obsessed, and now I kind of shrug about it. They're good stories, but maybe after five readings or so the novelty has worn off to the point that I notice the errors and moments of awkward writing as much as I do the storytelling. I'm reading through this series right now because the next volume is due out at the end of September, and the list of characters and the series is so long and complicated that without a recent re-read when I read a new addition, I find myself not knowing who a great deal of the people are who keep popping up in the pages. I keep waiting for the "magic" to start again, where I get swept into the story and really enjoy it... haven't given up hope completely yet.
9. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- Jonathan Safran Foer -- 4
   • I liked this far, far better than Everything is Illuminated, largely on the strength of the protagonist, Oskar, and the fresh, believable, enjoyable way in which he was written. This novel takes on another serious topic -- this time both the WWII bombing of Dresden, Germany, and more centrally the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11, in which Oskar's father was killed. Oskar's grieving process is well-described; I especially liked the way he was constantly devising "inventions" which would keep people safe in disasters, because that's the kind of way I think too. "If only we had..." His search for answers turns into several literal searches through the city of New York (congratulations, Mr. Foer, for writing a book that makes that huge metropolis seem appealing even to this bucolic country girl), and the resolutions of these searches, or lack thereof, really add a lot of depth to the story. Again, the flashbacks in his grandparents' stories were, I thought, less deftly handled than the other aspects of the book, but they were not badly done, even so. I definitely recommend this book, and I do hope someone is writing a screenplay of it even as we speak, because I think it would make a great movie.
10. Dragonfly in Amber -- Diana Gabaldon -- 3
    • The second volume in the Outlander series, and always my least favorite. I do like the new characters, and some of the storylines are still very interesting. On the fifth re-read, though, you do notice the infodump quite a bit. And I really don't like all the "intrigue" in it. Confession: I skimmed a lot.
11. The Information -- Martin Amis -- 3
    • This book was... interesting. Very masculine in its tone and subject. Interestingly written, with a good amount of skill and an original (if occasionally... pompous? is that the right word?) style; the dialogue especially was extremely well-rendered, in my opinion. Parts of the story were riveting, in a train-wreck sort of way, and parts were very humorous. It was a bit confusing, though, to sway back and forth from dark, bleak comedy to what was I think an attempt at literary depth (see above re: pompous). The best thing about this novel is the way it exposes and depicts the ego -- of men, of writers in particular, and of people in general. That made it worth reading, and worth continuing, even when I was a bit tired of the book overall.

Comments

Posted by: Maria at September 1, 2005 12:31 AM

Posted by: laura at September 1, 2005 08:41 AM

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