http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/32784 en-US Mon, 28 May 2007 14:19:39 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 1498051 Mon, 28 May 2007 14:19:39 -0700
author: Mac Montadon
name: Mike
average rating: 4.33
book published: 0
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/28/07
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]]> 352568 Mon, 28 May 2007 14:17:40 -0700
author: Douglas Porch
name: Mike
average rating: 2.67
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 05/28/07
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]]> 523640 Fri, 13 Apr 2007 04:34:42 -0700
author: Philip Roth
name: Mike
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 04/13/07
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]]> 352607 Wed, 04 Apr 2007 06:07:23 -0700
author: Henri Alain-Fournier
name: Mike
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 04/04/07
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]]> 352439 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:35:31 -0700
It's a frank account of addiction, the highs and the lows, with no details spared (save Burrough's killing his common-law wife, which doesn't get a mention). I like the Raymond Chandler feel to it, and the bare prose. I also like the fact that the story meanders from place to place with the protagonist, and never really reaches a satisfactory conclusion. It's not a story, after all, it's an account, and Burrough's addiction continued. Spurred on by his association with the beats, I tried to read On The Road a view years back, but I really didn't take to it. Naked Lunch was a bit of a trial too!]]>
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Mike
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 09/06
date added: 03/21/07
shelves:
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This was a teenage favourite of mine, that I re-read towards the end of last year.

It's a frank account of addiction, the highs and the lows, with no details spared (save Burrough's killing his common-law wife, which doesn't get a mention). I like the Raymond Chandler feel to it, and the bare prose. I also like the fact that the story meanders from place to place with the protagonist, and never really reaches a satisfactory conclusion. It's not a story, after all, it's an account, and Burrough's addiction continued. Spurred on by his association with the beats, I tried to read On The Road a view years back, but I really didn't take to it. Naked Lunch was a bit of a trial too!
]]> 352695 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:29:50 -0700
I found it very interesting, particularly since the range of characters, and their involvement in various episodes, seemed to have been slimmed down to allow for narrative ease on the screen. Indeed, the episode where the marine imitates the bugle did not even happen to Swofford. Nevertheless, this seemed to give a more nuanced view of the marine's perspective. Swofford, in his own voice, seems less the chained-up, testosterone-fuelled lout. In part, this is probably the inevitable consequence of his having grown up (I doubt he was as lucid as a 19 year old). Nevertheless, this marks him out as less of an everyman than the film would have us believe.

Regardless, I think this is a very interesting portrayal of the frustrations of the modern soldier - still effectively trained for the 'big show', by the time of the conflicts if the 1990s they're barely allowed to fire a gun(or in the 00s case of Iraq and Afghanistan they can't easily distinguish who the enemy is).]]>
author: Anthony Swofford
name: Mike
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 08/06
date added: 03/21/07
shelves:
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I read this after watching the film. It was also spurred on by a general interest in war writing/war narratives.

I found it very interesting, particularly since the range of characters, and their involvement in various episodes, seemed to have been slimmed down to allow for narrative ease on the screen. Indeed, the episode where the marine imitates the bugle did not even happen to Swofford. Nevertheless, this seemed to give a more nuanced view of the marine's perspective. Swofford, in his own voice, seems less the chained-up, testosterone-fuelled lout. In part, this is probably the inevitable consequence of his having grown up (I doubt he was as lucid as a 19 year old). Nevertheless, this marks him out as less of an everyman than the film would have us believe.

Regardless, I think this is a very interesting portrayal of the frustrations of the modern soldier - still effectively trained for the 'big show', by the time of the conflicts if the 1990s they're barely allowed to fire a gun(or in the 00s case of Iraq and Afghanistan they can't easily distinguish who the enemy is).
]]> 352481 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:21:11 -0700
I don't have a huge amount to say about this one. I suppose I should say something about the cold war setting, mutually assured destruction yada yada, but I can't be bothered. I rolled along pretty nicely, was quite amusing, had that whole 'science and religion' vibe (very topical), which I thought was very interesting. I think that latter point was what I found most intriguing - it was a bit late to state that science had 'sin' in 1945, it seemed to be sinning for a long time before that - funny that it would take such an extreme of militarily-applied science to give that one wide currency. Indeed, with the Dresden episode, Vonnegut was also referred to sinning science, albeit of a less sophisticated variety.]]>
author: Kurt Vonnegut
name: Mike
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 03/07
date added: 03/21/07
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Heading back to Vonnegut's early work, and I begin to feel a little irked by the lack of wackiness! Am I just too hard to please?

I don't have a huge amount to say about this one. I suppose I should say something about the cold war setting, mutually assured destruction yada yada, but I can't be bothered. I rolled along pretty nicely, was quite amusing, had that whole 'science and religion' vibe (very topical), which I thought was very interesting. I think that latter point was what I found most intriguing - it was a bit late to state that science had 'sin' in 1945, it seemed to be sinning for a long time before that - funny that it would take such an extreme of militarily-applied science to give that one wide currency. Indeed, with the Dresden episode, Vonnegut was also referred to sinning science, albeit of a less sophisticated variety.
]]> 352487 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:15:20 -0700
Still, it does seem to want to go off on a tangent sometimes, and the constant references to vital statistics and appendages don't feel quite right to me as they only appear half way through the book. Or maybe I should just accept that it's 'experimental'. Hmmmm...]]>
author: Kurt Vonnegut
name: Mike
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 03/07
date added: 03/21/07
shelves:
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Very readable and amusing in parts. A little irritating in others. I wonder whether Vonnegut's eccentricity didn't get the better of him on this one. Don't get me wrong, I like that the author materializes himself into the action towards the end, guiding the reader through his decisions about the characters he's created. It provides a double-shot of irony since Dwayne Hoover comes to believe he's the only person in the world with free will right about the time Vonnegut puts himself in the scene.

Still, it does seem to want to go off on a tangent sometimes, and the constant references to vital statistics and appendages don't feel quite right to me as they only appear half way through the book. Or maybe I should just accept that it's 'experimental'. Hmmmm...
]]> 352503 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:09:33 -0700 I was not disappointed - this, again, is great stuff.

I love the crossover of characters in Vonnegut's oeuvre - Campbell's presence in Slaughterhouse 5 brought me to this, as Kilgore Trout's would take me to Breakfast of Champions. I love this idea of a little world in the author's head, where the characters aren't actors, they're real people. And they go on living, and they interact with each other.

Anyway, this is very dark, but very amusing. It raises some very interesting questions, about good and evil, and about who you pretend to be. As with Slaugtherhouse 5 I particularly like the way that the protoganist is dragged along by events (indeed it's that awful inevitability that things will go wrong that makes this story so amusing), and never seems able to shape them.]]>
author: Kurt Vonnegut
name: Mike
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 02/07
date added: 03/21/07
shelves:
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My Vonnegut curiousity aroused, I headed for this next.
I was not disappointed - this, again, is great stuff.

I love the crossover of characters in Vonnegut's oeuvre - Campbell's presence in Slaughterhouse 5 brought me to this, as Kilgore Trout's would take me to Breakfast of Champions. I love this idea of a little world in the author's head, where the characters aren't actors, they're real people. And they go on living, and they interact with each other.

Anyway, this is very dark, but very amusing. It raises some very interesting questions, about good and evil, and about who you pretend to be. As with Slaugtherhouse 5 I particularly like the way that the protoganist is dragged along by events (indeed it's that awful inevitability that things will go wrong that makes this story so amusing), and never seems able to shape them.
]]> 352472 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:02:12 -0700
Anyway. I like it a lot.

It was described to me as 'about the bombing of Dresden' - so that's what I expected. It's not what I got, but I think I like what I got more.

I've heard a lot of people compare it to Catch-22. I guess that's fair enough, but I would say that Catch-22 is about highlighting the absurdity of war as it happens, through the soldier's experience. Slaughterhouse 5 seems more to question how we can reconcile a massacre, through the eyes of a veteran. That is to say, in a way it's more about the aftermath than the event (hence the time travel).

The conscious post-modernist motif about the 'ironic' climax ("every great war novel has to have an ironic moment") brought a smile to my (historian's) face. The "so it goes", after p.5, did not. ]]>
author: Kurt Vonnegut
name: Mike
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1969
rating: 5
read at: 02/07
date added: 03/21/07
shelves:
review:
My friend bought this for me after a discussion about our favourite books - I'd never heard of it, or the author. But then I am a fiction ignoramus.

Anyway. I like it a lot.

It was described to me as 'about the bombing of Dresden' - so that's what I expected. It's not what I got, but I think I like what I got more.

I've heard a lot of people compare it to Catch-22. I guess that's fair enough, but I would say that Catch-22 is about highlighting the absurdity of war as it happens, through the soldier's experience. Slaughterhouse 5 seems more to question how we can reconcile a massacre, through the eyes of a veteran. That is to say, in a way it's more about the aftermath than the event (hence the time travel).

The conscious post-modernist motif about the 'ironic' climax ("every great war novel has to have an ironic moment") brought a smile to my (historian's) face. The "so it goes", after p.5, did not.
]]> 352550 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:54:41 -0700
I'll look forward to reading the sister piece, The Conquest of Morocco, next.

Criticisms? Well, in setting the scene the author doesn't really get into the action until about p.100, and furthermore he perhaps doesn't make it clear enough (in the opening part of the book) that the story of the Saharian conquest was decidely non-linear in its progression, involving as it did several, and importantly, rival French colonies, and various different colonial drives over a period of time. I also thought that it dragged a little in the last couple of chapters, although given the scope of the story, in both land mass and chronology, this is hardly surprising.]]>
author: Douglas Porch
name: Mike
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 03/07
date added: 03/21/07
shelves:
review:
I'd been putting this one on the back-burner for a while, as I was fairly convinced that it wasn't exactly going to be riveting stuff. So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that it is actually written in a very entertaining fashion, and gives plenty of info about a whole range of things outside of the colonial soldiering view with which I came to it. So bravo to Porch for that.

I'll look forward to reading the sister piece, The Conquest of Morocco, next.

Criticisms? Well, in setting the scene the author doesn't really get into the action until about p.100, and furthermore he perhaps doesn't make it clear enough (in the opening part of the book) that the story of the Saharian conquest was decidely non-linear in its progression, involving as it did several, and importantly, rival French colonies, and various different colonial drives over a period of time. I also thought that it dragged a little in the last couple of chapters, although given the scope of the story, in both land mass and chronology, this is hardly surprising.
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