Altering Misconceptions

So, "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje. I read that (took me 15 days for those keeping score). I will admit, I approached this title with almost as much trepidation as I did Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" - to me they are the epitome of modern classics. I am young enough that it feels like both of them have always been a part of the pop lit cannon. Everyone who reads knows of them. That carries a lot of weight of expectation, which mostly has nothing to do with the actual novels.

Interestingly, this novel ranked 2nd in my list of 'titles I am least looking forward to reading' when I began, with Schindler's Ark in 1st (another title which bore the weight of enormous expectations!). I have a suspicion that anything WWII related is designed to make me weepy - which I HATE - plus I understood it to be a romance. War romance? Usually twice the weeping!!

I did not cry. I didn't even have to try not to cry. It is an interesting story. It is a travelogue, a mystery, it has the tension of a thriller (who doesn't tense when there's a bomb being defused?!). I enjoyed "The English Patient". It is clearly written - only at one point was I not entirely sure of what I was being told. The story and the characters are engaging, and deeply human. I didn't cry, although it is filled with tragedy. I learned new things. All in all, it is a solid top 8 of the books I've read so far, and one of only two books that I had preconceived notions of which did not disappoint. Yay!

My favourite part of the novel was the use of 'altered books' to depict the characters rewriting of their own histories - absolutely loved it!  Both Hana, the Canadian nurse, and the titular character alter books, and in combination with the frequent use of quotation in the story it creates a desperate love song to civilization, as expressed through literature.  While they are rewriting their world, they are trying to understand it through the literature of the past. 

It is really freaking beautiful.

I've always loved the idea of altered books - adapting an existing work to express a larger story, or even an entirely different story, within the leaves of another story.  Inspired! But, I can't bring myself to actually do it! I have a passion for beautifully crafted books and I feel that marking in them in any way, well, destroys them.  It's a bit ridiculous, I know, especially since I also love the idea of marginalia.  But I simply can not write in a book!

I was sorely tempted to grab Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" on my way out the door this morning, rather than Barry Unsworth's "Sacred Hunger".  Unsworth and Ondaatje were joint winners in 1992, Doyle the winner in 1993.  I've had "Sacred Hunger" beside my bed for three weeks now.  It's a bit daunting.  630 pages, and it appears to be about the slave trade.  Not exactly 'light' reading in any sense. Doyle, on the other hand, is tempting on so many levels.  I loved "The Commitments" (although I haven't ventured into the rest of the Barrytown trilogy yet) and I love all things related to Ireland.  So why is "Sacred Hunger" waiting in my bag? Because I know if I skip it now, I'll come up with more excuses to continue post-poning it, and it may never get read.  At least, not by me! And that would never do!

Happy reading!

Better Late Than Never?

Wow. I'm sorry it's been such a ridiculously long time since my last post. My vacation in Ireland was fantastic! I always love it there but it's extra special when you get to share the experience with friends you love. Most of the month since I got back has been dedicated to finishing the Anna shawl KAL which was hosted over at http://www.ridiculousknits.blogspot.ca/ - it was a challenge for me, but a gorgeous knit and I had a lot of fun with it. This is it, blocking on my bed, looking way too gorgeous to be accused of sucking away 6 weeks of my reading life. 

As for my Man Booker challenge, well, it hasn't been going so great! I managed to read one novel during my holiday, Stanley Middleton's "Holiday", which was really no holiday. Irony, yes? This novel would probably have been quite sad and even a bit depressing if I had felt enough of a connection with it to care even a little bit about the characters, but I didn't. The protagonist walks out of his marriage but has no place to go, so takes a holiday at the resort town his family visited when he was a child. While there he reminisces about his father and the relationship he will never have with his own son, while dealing with his in-laws attempts to reconcile him with his wife. It's really a novel about grief and how we process it in different ways, told in a series of flashbacks, but because the main character is in such a numb, dissociative state of mind I found it really difficult to connect with him.

On the flight home I started reading David Storey's "Saville" - an absolute brick of a coming of age novel. If I'd been reading a physical book rather than an eBook I'm certain I would have found it's size quite daunting. It's a semi-autobiographical novel about the son of a coal miner growing up during WWII in a small village in England, dealing with his family's pressure to make the most  of the opportunities he has been given and his own desires to be a poet, and it's very beautifully phrased.  Unfortunately it seemed like nothing actually happened in the story, other than his growing up.  There were lots of opportunities within the story for a little added plot but... nothing happened.  I enjoyed the novel, but I was disappointed with that.

Now I'm reading Ben Okri's "The Famished Road" - I'm only about a fifth of the way into it, but it feels a bit like a cross between Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" (the way I would've loved for it to be written, really fantastic!) and "Saville" - a young boy growing up in a magical world within our own.  Only, kind of not quite.  Time will tell if I love it or not, but hopefully not too much time.  My goal is to be finished it by Monday.  There are lots of interesting looking books coming up on the list, and I want to get to them!!

Happy reading!

I Tried To Like It, and Now I Am Cheating

I finished reading Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" last night – it took me 13 days, but it probably deserved another two weeks of my time to really savor it. If you're planning on reading it I strongly suggest taking your time with it, maybe just a chapter a day. Otherwise you may find, as I did, that the style or "form" of the writing becomes really annoying. For the past five days, every time I picked up the book I said (often out loud, so I endured mockery) "I'm going to finish this book today, because if I have to it again tomorrow I'll..." Well, now I'm done, and I'm so relieved that if I weren't writing this I would be reading something else. Anything. Cereal boxes. Anything. Gosh, I feel like I'm panning this book, which is really, truly not my intention. I guess I'm just a bit disappointed. I expected, hoped, to be really blown away by the Booker of Bookers and instead I found it was a slightly irritating but ok novel.This seems deeply unfair, because I actually liked the novel. I did not love it but I did like it. The premise is super interesting, and the sentences are often gorgeous. It's going into my re-read pile as I honestly believe another look could make me fall in love with it. I can see why people love it - but right now I don't. The story is narrated by one Saleem Sinai, starting with his grandparents courtship and going right through to his own death (I maintain this is not a spoiler, as he tells you right out that he’s dying) and encompassing the history of India. Saleem was born at midnight as India became an independent nation, the premise being that they are psychic twins whose fate is intertwined. In addition, there were a thousand other children born during that first hour of independence and they all possess some magical abilities. It’s a very cool idea and I'll admit that I kind of wish a genre author had written this book to give more weight to that magical element. I feel I was tricked out of a really cool fantasy story and given historical fiction instead. Not that there's anything wrong with historical fiction, but that fantasy idea was so good, I feel it deserved a better treatment.
Beyond that, I had a couple of other issues with this novel. As I mentioned, the form, the style of Rushdie’s writing, his beautiful looping narrative and elegant sentences – well, they got really annoying. Even though the sentences are beautiful, and the descriptions are lush and deeply textured, I found myself echoing the character of Padma, begging just please come on and tell the story now, I need some action no not more political history! People, action, character motivation, please! It was driving me crazy. Saleem starts to tell a story, then stops himself and goes back because that story comes later - I mean, it's a good tease once-in-a-while but when it's every other chapter (and that's being generous) it gets to be a bit much. By which I mean totally freaking annoying. Although, I suspect (hope) that my irritation is a result of reading the book so quickly (lol!) and if I were to have spaced it out a bit more I may be enjoyed that technique. However, for this read through, it was super annoying. I also found that I really didn't have any emotional connection with these characters. There are a lot of characters, a lot of horrible things happen, there are horrible deaths, but none of it mattered to me - because, to me, it felt like none of it mattered to Saleem. Even when he's saying how angry he is, or how much he loves someone, they are just words. I don't believe any of it. The exile and amnesia segment, where there should be a different emotional pitch to the story, is only different because Saleem jumps between a first person and third person narrative. The narration is too passive, considering it is first-person. I felt alienated from the story. I don't know, maybe that was the intention, to showcase the alienation from society. Maybe this is another case of me just not getting the Art. As I said, I really liked the premise of the magical Midnight Children, but my grasp of Indian history and the politics of the 1960’s and ‘70’s is pretty weak, so I may not be the target audience on this. It could also have a lot to do with the idea of the oral tradition, of which that looping narrative is also a part. I’m not entirely sure, but it did take the edge of the pleasure of an otherwise interesting novel.I’ve been following another blog the past couple weeks, www.thinskinofculture.blogspot.com – and he’s making me feel like the slowest reader in the world! A book a day?! I can see that with a children’s book, but there is no way I could finish a book like “Midnight’s Children” in a day! So, to compensate for my feelings of inadequacy, I’m going to try to finish two books this week. Wish me luck! Also, I'm skipping ahead chronologically, because I don't feel like trying to read “Schindler's Ark” this week. I suspect it's going to take me more than the allotted 7 days, and I also suspect it's going to be an emotionally heavy read. So, I'm temporarily jumping ahead to a couple of shorter novels, starting with “Life and Times of Michael K.” by J.M. Coetzee and then “Hotel du Lac” by Anita Brookner. I feel like I’m cheating by skipping ahead, but the only real rule for my little challenge was to finish all the books within one year.

Happy reading!

Why I Am Afraid Of Salman Rushdie

Today's post is not strictly Booker related, but it does directly affect my reading, so please bear with me!

This weekend, I discovered something distasteful about myself: I want to be liked. Now, that's not such a huge revelation, I realize most people want to be liked, but I've always considered myself to be firmly in the "I don't care what people think about me" camp. I want to be that aloof, independent person, and I'm trying to reassess my self image now that I know I'm not.

What happened was I had a new book to read, and two-and-a-half free days in which to get a good solid start on it before my work week, but I only managed to read four pages of it. The book, of course, is Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" - by all accounts a superb novel, one of the greatest English-language novels of the last century, and one I was quite looking forward to reading. So, really, what was the problem? Why was I finding Anything else to occupy my time with to avoid reading? I actually resorted to doing laundry! Admittedly, I didn't stoop to doing dishes, but if there weren't so many hockey games on I'm sure I would've gotten sudsy!

At first I thought I was afraid of Salman Rushdie, afraid that the genius of his writing would prove too much for my feeble mind and the novel would leave my weak brain a quivering mass of gelatin. It's actually not too far from my actual fear, and may yet be proven true (if you don't hear from me again, send flavour crystals in mourning - everybody likes a jello salad!) but I hadn't even given the book a fair chance to intimidate me properly! Why couldn't I even start the book?

Then, a comment from a friend highlighted my true worries. She told me she loved "Midnight's Children", and something in me twinged and I thought, 'but what if I don't?' What if I don't love one of the greatest novels of our time? What if *gasp* I hate it? Even worse, what if it fails to touch me at all? Is it possible that I am in some fundamental way damaged by my years of devouring genre fiction, so much so that I can no longer appreciate a masterpiece of literature? And, if so, what will people think of me? My friend who loved it, the customers at my book store, all of you, perhaps even Mr. Rushdie himself - what would you think if I don't love it? I couldn't start reading, for fear that I wouldn't like it and therefore people wouldn't like me.

It's all a bit absurd. I don't want to care whether people like me, and I'm honestly having a hard time figuring out why I think anyone else would really care if I don't love this novel. But I do, on both counts.

Which brings me to something another (brilliant!) friend of mine once told me. 'All the mean things that you worry other people are thinking about you are just reflections of the mean things you think about other people.' Ouch. Its true, though. I know I'm disappointed when a friend doesn't like something I love, even more so than if they don't bother to read it at all. I guess I see them as being just a little less cool, because they're a little less like me. How vain am I, right? But it's true. It's ugly, and I don't like any of it, but it's my truth. Now that I'm aware of these thought patterns I'm going to combat them, because that's a person I really don't want to be.

I'm nearly a fifth into "Midnight's Children" now, and I'm enjoying it. Mr. Rushdie has a good sense of humour, which always wins my heart in a book. His style is very elegant also, with story elements looping back on themselves building up the narrative. So, I like it. And I'm trying not to care if that makes me 'cooler' or not.

Happy reading!

Like Re-Reading A Book For The First Time

I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday season. What with holiday knitting, hockey, obligatory feasting, and spending time with family - all of which was fantastic! - I only just managed to finish reading "Rites of Passage" last night. Which means in the past two months I've only read four books! I'm feeling a bit scandalized. So, I took another look at how many books I have left (36!) and how many days I have to reach my goal, and I am now left with approximately 7 days per book rather than 8. It still feels do-able. I just can't celebrate Christmas again during the next nine months. I think I can manage that, too!

Alright, you're here to watch me struggle with literature, not basic math concepts, so let's get on with it!

I loved William Golding's "Lord of the Flies". I thought it was a great book, with a well-developed, if slightly dark, theme of societal collapse within a closed group resulting from a bullying mentality. Great book. I haven't read it in probably fifteen years, but I was thinking about it quite a bit while I was reading Golding's "Rites of Passage" the past few weeks. It's the same theme, just with a grown up cast, a bit less action, and less suspense - they're on a boat, so there's no waiting for rescue. I actually never even considered that the boat may not make it, even though there are plenty of things that may happen to a ship at sea, I just never felt any real threat to the vessel.

It's a well-developed story, a touch of mystery, and the essence of the voyage was well invoked. However, the theme was so obviously the same as in "Lord of the Flies" that I figured out which roles everyone had been cast in about a quarter into the novel and therefore knew what to expect from the rest of the story. There's nothing really wrong with that, except that I had no impetus to keep reading other than to simply finish the book. I wasn't waiting to find out what happens next, and that's always a bit disappointing. It's a good read, but I would've liked a bit more anticipation. I did struggle a bit with some of the word and language choices, but it did give the novel a more authentic flavour.

My next book it Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" - I'm kind of excited for this novel! I've heard such great things about it, and it's the winner of not just the Booker but also the Best of the Booker - so, the best novel of all the Booker prize winners! No pressure, right?

By the way, I still have not finished my holiday knitting. Men's sized Dr. Who socks take longer than I anticipated!

Happy Reading!

It Is Possible To Like Something You Do Not Understand

I finished reading Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" at midnight last night, only took me twenty-freaking-days! I'm now approximately three books behind schedule, with two rather intense books looming on the reading list: Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" and Thomas Keneally's "Schindler's Ark" are currently sitting at positions 3 & 4 in my queue. I'm actually rather looking forward to "Midnight's Children" but I'm slightly intimidated by it as well. I may adjust my reading schedule slightly by going back to read some of the titles I was unable to locate earlier, mainly because I don't want to be struggling with my reading during the holiday season. I will be busy and emotional as is.

Ok, back to "The Sea, The Sea". I actually really enjoyed this book, although I'm not sure I really 'got' it. There are a lot of philosophical passages where characters are just talking heads espousing their particular theories on life, love, and the cosmos - it's all relatively simple to understand, but it does slow down the plot progression quite a bit. I enjoyed the descriptions of the atmosphere (sea and buildings mostly) and also the food related passages as they continued to be very poetic and very amusing, respectively.

The purpose of the story itself remains a bit of a mystery to me, but given it's style as a diary/memoir that almost suits it. I'm sure subsequent readings will show the plot structure more clearly, in those 'aha' moments where you can see what the author is doing because you already know what comes next. It's so easy to seem bright on the second or third reading of a book! Maybe I'm just not intelligent enough to understand it the first time through.

I did enjoy Murdoch's use of mystery and paranormal elements, and also the enigma of the spiritual mysticism - quiet frankly I loved Cousin James, and I rather think he should have had his own novel! Charles was... Well, I'm left thinking he's a fairly horrible person, but I suppose he's really no different than any of us. Even if he does use terrorist tactics on his friends and family. It's really just an extreme example of what most people do.

Anyway, as I said, I did enjoy the novel, and I'm glad I purchased a copy so I'll be able to re-read it in the not-so-near future. If you haven't read it, I do recommend it. It's a very interesting read.

My next book is Penelope Fitzgerald's "Offshore" - the jacket reviews sound promising, so I'm looking forward to this one. Plus, it's only 181 pages!

Happy Reading!