http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/122484 en-US Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:01:49 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 2053840 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:01:49 -0700
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, sff
review:

]]> 2045692 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:01:04 -0700 The Martian Chronicles. I would've liked it better as an anthology, but as it is, it feels loose and abstracted, albeit beautifully written.]]>
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, short-stories
review:
A novel fashioned out of short stories, but less effectively than The Martian Chronicles. I would've liked it better as an anthology, but as it is, it feels loose and abstracted, albeit beautifully written.
]]> 2516172 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:58:02 -0700
author: John Knowles
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2516540 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:57:40 -0700
author: Ursula K. LeGuin
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, sff, short-stories
review:

]]> 2143214 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:56:41 -0700
One scene sums up the novel for me: Mike Sr. and Mike Jr. meet for dinner, and Mike Sr. acknowledges to himself that they're playing out a TV cliché, the embarrassed old drunk father and the virile young son. That's the entire book in microcosm. Conscious of its design, even self-conscious--of bordering on soap opera, of being part of a tradition of Generational Literature--and never able to fully transcend that design. "Life was trickier than TV," Mike Sr. reflects in that scene, but you'd never know it from We Were the Mulvaneys.]]>
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:
This was the first Oates novel I read (as opposed to her short stories, which I liked), and it didn't do much for me. It's a very cultivated, cohesive book--never more strikingly than in the parallelism between the first and last lines, both of which echo the title--and yet something doesn't click. It's a little too cultivated and cohesive, a little artificial. The characters shade into stereotypes: Mike the jock, Patrick the bright loner, Marianne the pure-hearted and wronged daughter, and Judd the obscured observer.

One scene sums up the novel for me: Mike Sr. and Mike Jr. meet for dinner, and Mike Sr. acknowledges to himself that they're playing out a TV cliché, the embarrassed old drunk father and the virile young son. That's the entire book in microcosm. Conscious of its design, even self-conscious--of bordering on soap opera, of being part of a tradition of Generational Literature--and never able to fully transcend that design. "Life was trickier than TV," Mike Sr. reflects in that scene, but you'd never know it from We Were the Mulvaneys.
]]> 1990820 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:55:40 -0700
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1943
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: french-lit, novels
review:
People tell me I have no heart for hating this book. Well, yeah.
]]> 2020071 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:55:03 -0700
author: Tim O'Brien
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:
A tight, chilling, thoughtful, beautifully written novel about sites of trauma, and the indeterminacy of history and human experience. O'Brien's non-'Nam stuff doesn't seem to be read that widely, but it ought to be.
]]> 1989049 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:54:46 -0700
author: Eudora Welty
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1941
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, short-stories
review:
I can read Welty in small doses--I like her almost Lawrentian sense of how the metaphysical erupts out of the mundane--but if I read too much at once, she grates. She tries a little too hard for my taste.
]]> 1948875 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:54:28 -0700
author: Tony Kushner
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, drama, five-stars, glbt-interest, pulitzer-prize, tony-award
review:

]]> 1948883 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:53:32 -0700
author: Tony Kushner
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, drama, five-stars, glbt-interest, tony-award
review:

]]> 1984766 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:53:19 -0700 The Catcher in the Rye, I was ready to drop him, but somebody handed me Franny and Zooey one day and said, "Give this a try." I read it in a hour, and I've been all over the Glass family ever since.]]>
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1955
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:
furies says this is the book that "saved Salinger" for her; funnily enough, it was that book for me, too. After The Catcher in the Rye, I was ready to drop him, but somebody handed me Franny and Zooey one day and said, "Give this a try." I read it in a hour, and I've been all over the Glass family ever since.
]]> 1984999 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:53:03 -0700 D.H. Lawrence, Dubliners, and this book--in particular "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Gets into your head and doesn't come out.]]>
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, short-stories
review:
I sometimes think that I can trace every story I've ever written back to D.H. Lawrence, Dubliners, and this book--in particular "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Gets into your head and doesn't come out.
]]> 22854105 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:52:43 -0700
author: Margaret Weis
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 08/06/08
shelves: american-lit, in-sf, novels, sff
review:

]]> 27591390 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:16:43 -0700 The Night Watch. Not that Night Watch wasn't engaging on its own merits, but I loved this book for its note-perfect imitation of Victorian literature... and its gradual subversion of that genre, of women's friendship narratives and Jamesian supernatural tales. Night Watch was a good story, but Affinity is more. It's also a fascinating piece of commentary on the way we tell stories, and on the way that the real "horror" in turn-of-the-century novels was what was repressed.]]>
author: Sarah Waters
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/24/08
shelves: a-different-light, glbt-interest, novels
review:
Although I'm not a huge fan of the ending, I have to go against conventional wisdom here: I liked this better than The Night Watch. Not that Night Watch wasn't engaging on its own merits, but I loved this book for its note-perfect imitation of Victorian literature... and its gradual subversion of that genre, of women's friendship narratives and Jamesian supernatural tales. Night Watch was a good story, but Affinity is more. It's also a fascinating piece of commentary on the way we tell stories, and on the way that the real "horror" in turn-of-the-century novels was what was repressed.
]]> 22853807 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:16:31 -0700
But the thing is, I'd found all of that in Faulkner and Hemingway before. I like McCarthy for the same reasons I like Hemingway--I think he mostly does the same things well--but he doesn't manage to follow Faulkner as successfully. Every sentence doesn't have to be a paragraph-long run-on; there ought to be a reason. Every cadence doesn't have to be Biblical; there ought to be a reason. Faulkner knew that, but I don't think McCarthy's quite learned it.

For all that, it's still a bleakly beautiful book that hits some high points:

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.]]>
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/24/08
shelves: american-lit, in-sf, national-book-award, neo-westerns, novels
review:
I actually feel a little more 3.5ish about this book (is "3.5ish" an adjective? It is now), but Goodreads doesn't allow fractional stars. If I hadn't read Faulkner first, I'd probably have loved McCarthy more unreservedly. After all, he hits a lot of my narrative kinks: this is a story about a journey, about humanity against the wilderness, about male bonding and violence; it's a kind of neo-Western; it's full of superb landscape description and dialogue; and it manages to be both sentimental/lyrical and hypermasculine/repressed.

But the thing is, I'd found all of that in Faulkner and Hemingway before. I like McCarthy for the same reasons I like Hemingway--I think he mostly does the same things well--but he doesn't manage to follow Faulkner as successfully. Every sentence doesn't have to be a paragraph-long run-on; there ought to be a reason. Every cadence doesn't have to be Biblical; there ought to be a reason. Faulkner knew that, but I don't think McCarthy's quite learned it.

For all that, it's still a bleakly beautiful book that hits some high points:

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.
]]> 1968357 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:11:30 -0700
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1902
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/24/08
shelves: five-stars, novels, polish-lit
review:

]]> 1903602 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:03:34 -0700
author: Günter Grass
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1959
rating: 5
read at: 01/02
date added: 07/24/08
shelves: desert-island-books, five-stars, german-lit, novels, war-literature, wwii
review:
Best novel of World War II. Right here.
]]> 1940124 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:02:02 -0700
author: T.S. Eliot
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/24/08
shelves: chicago-paper, desert-island-books, five-stars, honors-reading, poetry
review:

]]> 28195960 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:00:19 -0700
author: Ann-Marie MacDonald
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/24/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 2045909 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:25:52 -0700
author: Sir Thomas More
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1994
rating: 1
read at: 01/06
date added: 07/18/08
shelves: novels, philosophy
review:

]]> 1950193 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:20:45 -0700
author: Robert Graves
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1929
rating: 4
read at: 01/03
date added: 07/18/08
shelves: autobiographical, british-lit, chicago-paper, nonfiction, war-literature, wwi
review:
Easily my favorite of the WWI memoirs. And easily my favorite Graves book.
]]> 1948915 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:40:41 -0700
author: Norman Mailer
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1948
rating: 5
read at: 07/04
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, five-stars, novels, war-literature, wwii
review:

]]> 1961538 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:40:10 -0700
author: Irwin Shaw
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at: 06/05
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, war-literature, wwii
review:
Interesting in its portrayal of less traditional WWII soldiers: the older family man, the Jew, the German. But nothing special in the prose.
]]> 1990108 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:39:18 -0700 aesthetically true piece of writing about the Eastern European peasant/village experience of WWII. It's morbidly grotesque, unremittingly malevolent, and emotionally deadening in its litany of atrocities: narrator enters town, narrator is abused, narrator leaves town, over and over again. In no way an enjoyable read, and surprising only in the creativity of its cruelty.

(Note of interest: reputedly, Kosinski was supposed to be at Roman Polanski's house on the night in 1969 when the Manson Family murdered five people there. He missed it thanks to a baggage delay at the airport.)]]>
author: Jerzy Kosinski
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 11/05
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: novels, polish-lit, war-literature, wwii
review:
One of the most difficult books I've ever read. There's been a lot of furor over the autobiographical "truth" of this novel, and even over the identity of its author, but I think the controversy misses the point. I don't much care who wrote this book, or about whom; I care that it's an aesthetically true piece of writing about the Eastern European peasant/village experience of WWII. It's morbidly grotesque, unremittingly malevolent, and emotionally deadening in its litany of atrocities: narrator enters town, narrator is abused, narrator leaves town, over and over again. In no way an enjoyable read, and surprising only in the creativity of its cruelty.

(Note of interest: reputedly, Kosinski was supposed to be at Roman Polanski's house on the night in 1969 when the Manson Family murdered five people there. He missed it thanks to a baggage delay at the airport.)
]]> 2021118 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:37:58 -0700
author: Joseph Heller
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 01/02
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, war-literature, wwii
review:

]]> 1984079 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:36:26 -0700 Weltsmerz thrown in.]]>
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: german-lit, novels
review:
I don't know why Remarque isn't more widely read today. This book in particular makes me think he's the German F. Scott Fitzgerald, with a little Hemingway and added Weltsmerz thrown in.
]]> 1979521 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:35:56 -0700 The Deer Hunter.]]>
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: five-stars, german-lit, novels
review:
My favorite Remarque--completely heartbreaking. Also reputedly the (loose) basis for my favorite war movie, The Deer Hunter.
]]> 1950641 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:35:05 -0700
author: Pat Barker
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: british-lit, desert-island-books, five-stars, glbt-interest, novels, psychology, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 1950662 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:34:56 -0700
author: Pat Barker
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: booker-prize, british-lit, desert-island-books, five-stars, glbt-interest, novels, psychology, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 1961520 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:34:43 -0700
author: John Dos Passos
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 08/04
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 1961759 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:34:34 -0700
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1929
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 1978212 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:34:23 -0700
author: Siegfried Sassoon
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: autobiographical, british-lit, chicago-paper, nonfiction, the-strand, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 1979548 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:34:09 -0700
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1928
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: german-lit, novels, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 1990842 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:33:59 -0700
author: E.E. Cummings
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, autobiographical, nonfiction, war-literature, wwi
review:
It's very clearly a memoir written by a poet--a slightly obscure style, meandering narrative movement... and flashes of incredible momentary insight. Worth reading more than once.
]]> 27593100 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:32:07 -0700
author: Various
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: anthologies, poetry, war-literature, wwi
review:

]]> 27593115 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:31:47 -0700
author: Various
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: anthologies, poetry, war-literature, wwii
review:

]]> 2957165 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:28:18 -0700
author: Wilson Rawls
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: animals, dogs, kidlit, novels
review:

]]> 2094880 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:27:58 -0700
author: Fred Gipson
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: animals, dogs, kidlit, novels
review:

]]> 1903460 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:26:42 -0700
author: Paul Celan
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: desert-island-books, five-stars, german-lit, poetry
review:
For my money, the best and the most devastating poet of the late twentieth century.
]]> 2055531 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:25:49 -0700
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: novels, polish-lit
review:

]]> 2053671 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:25:01 -0700
author: Albert Camus
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1942
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: french-lit, novels
review:

]]> 27592643 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:23:05 -0700
author: Robert Cormier
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1974
rating: 2
read at: 01/95
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: novels
review:

]]> 2061838 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:22:11 -0700
author: John Dos Passos
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2061860 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:22:01 -0700
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Leigh
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1844
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: french-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2061872 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:21:50 -0700
author: Maria Edgeworth
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: british-lit, irish-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2061908 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:21:06 -0700
author: James T. Farrell
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:
An important naturalistic trilogy about growing up in early-twentieth-century Irish Chicago, influential on later writers like Dos Passos and Mailer. Unfortunately, it feels a little dated now, as even the innovations have become commonplace.
]]> 2064510 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:20:58 -0700
author: William Faulkner
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1930
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2064564 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:18:52 -0700 very smart. Maybe not the saddest story you'll ever hear, but one of the most skillful.]]>
author: Ford Madox Ford
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1915
rating: 4
read at: 01/05
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: british-lit, novels
review:
Possibly the best use of unreliable narration I've ever read. Very assured, very controlled, and very smart. Maybe not the saddest story you'll ever hear, but one of the most skillful.
]]> 2094801 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:18:14 -0700
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: colombian-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2095161 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:17:41 -0700
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: colombian-lit, novels, spanish
review:

]]> 2193987 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:16:19 -0700
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1937
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels
review:

]]> 2233598 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:16:11 -0700
author: Herman Melville
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, honors-reading, short-stories
review:

]]> 2421139 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:15:08 -0700 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.]]>
author: Tom Stoppard
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.45
book published: 1972
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: british-lit, drama, honors-thesis
review:
A relatively early book, and it shows. Predictably witty and intelligent, of course, but the farce doesn't carry the play even as well as it does in, say, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
]]> 2515764 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:14:53 -0700
author: Sarah Orne Jewett
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.21
book published: 1925
rating: 1
read at: 01/05
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, short-stories
review:

]]> 2515864 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:14:30 -0700
author: Franz Kafka
name: Leigh
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: german-lit, short-stories
review:

]]> 2516045 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:13:59 -0700
author: Stephen King
name: Leigh
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 07/17/08
shelves: american-lit, novels, sff
review:
Well, it was better than the film, and the film had Damian Lewis talking to himself. So