http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/60698 en-US Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:55:28 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 13909558 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:55:28 -0700
author: Georges Perec
name: Matt
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/19/08
shelves:
review:
A review is forthcoming...
]]> 28139949 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:46:25 -0700
author: David Sedaris
name: Matt
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/16/08
shelves:
review:
I was in a rush to work on Monday and needed a book to read during lunch hour, and this is the one I blindly grabbed. I'm about a quarter of the way through thus far. I must say, it's gone a bit beyond my expectations, and I have laughed (your one star review delayed reading this for a long time, Oriana!) on numerous occasions, perhaps most notably when he said the sign on the front of Ms. Munson's door shouldn't read "Speech Therapy Class" but rather "Future Homosexuals of America." This is perhaps the literary equivalent to a french fry, but I admit it's pretty tasty thus far.
]]> 26729374 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:05:37 -0700
************************

I actually finished this a week ago, but haven't had a chance to change its "shelf" status until now. I'll be honest, I'm not really certain how to review this book, as it's intended to be performed by living, breathing people. I haven't seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof performed on Broadway, nor have I seen the movie, which I believe stars a young and handsome Paul Newman. But how can one review a play as a work of literature? You follow the stage directions, you envision the characters, but despite the sheer awesomeness of the imagination, it still often pales to the interpretation and nuance real life flesh and blood can imbue into a character.

Because you're mostly left to read stylized dialogue, you lose a lot of the verve and cadence a performance inherently entails. You follow the drama, you read the words, you can see the undercurrent that is supposed to charge the atmosphere, but you can't feel it like you should. Nevertheless, although a play using the themes of mendacity and latent homosexuality in Southern society didn't really bark up my tree, Tennessee Williams was a snazzy enough writer to keep me turning the pages. I liked reading it, but couldn't love it, due to some of the reasons mentioned above.

My copy of the book came with two third acts: the first as he originally wrote it, and a second Broadway version, influenced by Elia Kazan. Overall, I preferred the first. ]]>
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Matt
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1958
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/24/08
shelves:
review:
Tired of only being able to read The Magic Mountain at work in 10 minute internals. As such, this book will be getting packed in the lunch box tomorrow while The Magic Mountain was brought to the bedside tonight. I haven't read Tennessee Williams since high school.

************************

I actually finished this a week ago, but haven't had a chance to change its "shelf" status until now. I'll be honest, I'm not really certain how to review this book, as it's intended to be performed by living, breathing people. I haven't seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof performed on Broadway, nor have I seen the movie, which I believe stars a young and handsome Paul Newman. But how can one review a play as a work of literature? You follow the stage directions, you envision the characters, but despite the sheer awesomeness of the imagination, it still often pales to the interpretation and nuance real life flesh and blood can imbue into a character.

Because you're mostly left to read stylized dialogue, you lose a lot of the verve and cadence a performance inherently entails. You follow the drama, you read the words, you can see the undercurrent that is supposed to charge the atmosphere, but you can't feel it like you should. Nevertheless, although a play using the themes of mendacity and latent homosexuality in Southern society didn't really bark up my tree, Tennessee Williams was a snazzy enough writer to keep me turning the pages. I liked reading it, but couldn't love it, due to some of the reasons mentioned above.

My copy of the book came with two third acts: the first as he originally wrote it, and a second Broadway version, influenced by Elia Kazan. Overall, I preferred the first.
]]> 755378 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:28:17 -0700
Tom Robbins is one of those writers, along with folks like Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Georges Perec, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Ford, and a few others that I not only "get," but that I would love to share a drink with and shoot the shit. Many reviews I've read about Tom Robbins are split down the middle, the whole love him/hate him dichotomy. I fall into the former category. Having read two books of his now, I see that he follows a certain blueprint and his humor falls into a sort of shtick (one review called it something like "stoner cowboy hippie humor"), but I hummed along to his tune.

Robbins was first recommended to me in college by a good friend named Tony. As a matter of fact, he joined this website, rated all the Tom Robbins books (4 and 5 stars, as I recall), and hasn't been heard from on here since. Tony majored in philosophy, and also enjoyed ganja and hippiedom. I lay somewhere in the middle, but I digress. The point is there is apt philosophizing going on in the world of Robbins, but more crucial to me is the brilliant social satire Robbins conjures up. He pokes fun of the people that take things just a little bit too seriously. Other writers do that, sure, but not only can Robbins split your sides with his anecdotes and metaphors, but you find yourself nodding your head, saying, "Ain't that the damn truth."

I'm generalizing here, so a bit more pertaining to this book particularly. I think Robbins writes abnormally strong female characters. Not, like, physically strong like bull strong, but fleshed out in a way the suggests intelligence, legitimate sexuality, and a feminist gear for taking no shit from anyone for having a pair of breasts. I don't know what's the story with his other novels, but in the two I've read, this and Skinny Legs and All have featured women as the main protagonist. In Skinny Legs, her name was Ellen Cherry Charles. In this, she's Princess Leigh-Cheri. Are cherries an ongoing thing with this guy? Please, tell me. I want to know. Each of these characters were so engaging I wanted to scream, "Why can't I find these people in real life!"

The Princess writes her lover (The Woodpecker, a red-headed anarchist with a penchant for making things to boom) a letter, saying, "I'm not quite twenty, but thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?"

The woodpecker responds, and it's of equal importance, and more akin to my thoughts on the matter, but I'd prefer it if you guys read this book and found out what that is. It's a worthwhile cause. Robbins is ahead of the curve.

And he gets brownie points for mentioning the man-made "pyramids" in Collinsville, Illinois, which is where I happened to go to high school. Sweet.]]>
author: Tom Robbins
name: Matt
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/24/08
shelves:
review:
Ok, Jesus, I fell off the face of the earth for a while. But now I'm back! With a review, no less.

Tom Robbins is one of those writers, along with folks like Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Georges Perec, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Ford, and a few others that I not only "get," but that I would love to share a drink with and shoot the shit. Many reviews I've read about Tom Robbins are split down the middle, the whole love him/hate him dichotomy. I fall into the former category. Having read two books of his now, I see that he follows a certain blueprint and his humor falls into a sort of shtick (one review called it something like "stoner cowboy hippie humor"), but I hummed along to his tune.

Robbins was first recommended to me in college by a good friend named Tony. As a matter of fact, he joined this website, rated all the Tom Robbins books (4 and 5 stars, as I recall), and hasn't been heard from on here since. Tony majored in philosophy, and also enjoyed ganja and hippiedom. I lay somewhere in the middle, but I digress. The point is there is apt philosophizing going on in the world of Robbins, but more crucial to me is the brilliant social satire Robbins conjures up. He pokes fun of the people that take things just a little bit too seriously. Other writers do that, sure, but not only can Robbins split your sides with his anecdotes and metaphors, but you find yourself nodding your head, saying, "Ain't that the damn truth."

I'm generalizing here, so a bit more pertaining to this book particularly. I think Robbins writes abnormally strong female characters. Not, like, physically strong like bull strong, but fleshed out in a way the suggests intelligence, legitimate sexuality, and a feminist gear for taking no shit from anyone for having a pair of breasts. I don't know what's the story with his other novels, but in the two I've read, this and Skinny Legs and All have featured women as the main protagonist. In Skinny Legs, her name was Ellen Cherry Charles. In this, she's Princess Leigh-Cheri. Are cherries an ongoing thing with this guy? Please, tell me. I want to know. Each of these characters were so engaging I wanted to scream, "Why can't I find these people in real life!"

The Princess writes her lover (The Woodpecker, a red-headed anarchist with a penchant for making things to boom) a letter, saying, "I'm not quite twenty, but thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?"

The woodpecker responds, and it's of equal importance, and more akin to my thoughts on the matter, but I'd prefer it if you guys read this book and found out what that is. It's a worthwhile cause. Robbins is ahead of the curve.

And he gets brownie points for mentioning the man-made "pyramids" in Collinsville, Illinois, which is where I happened to go to high school. Sweet.
]]> 21839458 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:15:21 -0700
Other reviews or whatever will tell you about the uniqueness of the narrative, how characters have the same first names or jump from vignette to vignette and all that fancy clever stuff. And it is fancy. And clever. And super cool, if sometimes tricksy and nearly confusing.

What matters here is the insight. Handler, through the structural pigeonhole of an adverb describing the type of love we are to read about (encounter, discover, live), captures the true essence of love through a sort of multi-faceted prism that at once captures both its warts and allure. It's an impressive balancing act how Handler can show the exuberance, the desperation, the ridiculousness, the aching, the all-consuming, the face-flushing, the fleeting lust fuck, the uniqueness, the ubiquitousness, the love amongst friends, the "almost-loves" and "never-loves," hell, practically the damn-near-everything about what love is and can be. He accomplishes this with most of the characters being first name only non-entities, hardly more than cardboard cutouts. In a 300 page book, we spend maybe 20 pages on average with each of them and their adverbial tango with love.

And did I mention this book is flat out hilarious? At one point, a woman desperate for money asks her book editor, "What would happen if I slept with you?" The editor, to her relief, gave the question the same false consideration he had given the two index cards she had slid his way over dessert. "I'd probably ejaculate," he said, and got into the waiting taxi.

Not to steal a line from Thomas Pynchon's cameo appearance on The Simpsons, but wait, there's more!

"And I'm not important enough," I said. I wished I had two bottles of win, and not just for the usual reasons. I wished I had all the right symbolism, two bottles, one of the sweet wine of red relief and one of the bitter wine of white disappointment that I could mix into a sort of rosé in my mouth. I'm very proud of that sentence. "I'm not important enough," I said. "That's it, huh?"

"Importance is the least of your problems," he said. "You don't have any pants on, man."

And!!!

This is a love worry, of course. It is the trouble all the time with love. You see the person and you want to cry, "Put down your honey bear and look at me, my darling I dream of! Bring me the doughnut I desire!" But all the time you know the depressing thing: she doesn't even know you exist.

She got herself a glass of water and drank it even though she also had to pee, and this is even another thing like love. We need things and also to get rid of them, and at the same time. We need things, and the opposite of them, and we are so rarely completely comfortable. Helena sat in her second-favorite chair and looked. He was wearing pajamas, but the particulars hardly matter. It wasn't the things he said, and it wasn't the things he did. All over the world are particular people, and you could be happy with probably five or six of them, eight if you're bisexual and everyone is. And so the happiness is not particular, and so you cannot be particular, or all you will have at the end of the night is a purse full of complaints to your mother.

Is this boring you? OK. Sorry, one more:

"I met this guy Steven," Andrea said. "He was at the Laundromat if you can believe it. We're going to see the Friendly Skies."

"But they suck," Sam said.

"So do all my clothes," Andrea said, walking in front of the TV, "but I'm going to wear something. Listen for the doorbell."

The above are just mere moments of awesomeness in an entire book filled with them. Handler wows. He tickles the senses. He can warm and break your heart with ease. He shoots off fireworks of brilliantly engaging prose. He makes you spit up your milk in laughter. He then dabbles at your chin with a towel to help clean you up. If you read this book, I can almost promise you your ability to laugh and love will be enhanced. Your literary stomach will get filled with hearty meat and potatoes (or just veggies if you're that type of person), and he'll throw in the sweet confections too. I can't recommend it enough.]]>
author: Daniel Handler
name: Matt
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/26/08
shelves:
review:
Let me preface this review by saying I have never taken the opportunity to read any of the Lemony Snicket books. There are, what, thirteen of them? So, for all intents and purposes, this is my first foray into the world of Daniel Handler. And let me tell you, aw hell, I'm gonna have to go grab my copy from the bookshelf so that I can help share the wealth.

Other reviews or whatever will tell you about the uniqueness of the narrative, how characters have the same first names or jump from vignette to vignette and all that fancy clever stuff. And it is fancy. And clever. And super cool, if sometimes tricksy and nearly confusing.

What matters here is the insight. Handler, through the structural pigeonhole of an adverb describing the type of love we are to read about (encounter, discover, live), captures the true essence of love through a sort of multi-faceted prism that at once captures both its warts and allure. It's an impressive balancing act how Handler can show the exuberance, the desperation, the ridiculousness, the aching, the all-consuming, the face-flushing, the fleeting lust fuck, the uniqueness, the ubiquitousness, the love amongst friends, the "almost-loves" and "never-loves," hell, practically the damn-near-everything about what love is and can be. He accomplishes this with most of the characters being first name only non-entities, hardly more than cardboard cutouts. In a 300 page book, we spend maybe 20 pages on average with each of them and their adverbial tango with love.

And did I mention this book is flat out hilarious? At one point, a woman desperate for money asks her book editor, "What would happen if I slept with you?" The editor, to her relief, gave the question the same false consideration he had given the two index cards she had slid his way over dessert. "I'd probably ejaculate," he said, and got into the waiting taxi.

Not to steal a line from Thomas Pynchon's cameo appearance on The Simpsons, but wait, there's more!

"And I'm not important enough," I said. I wished I had two bottles of win, and not just for the usual reasons. I wished I had all the right symbolism, two bottles, one of the sweet wine of red relief and one of the bitter wine of white disappointment that I could mix into a sort of rosé in my mouth. I'm very proud of that sentence. "I'm not important enough," I said. "That's it, huh?"

"Importance is the least of your problems," he said. "You don't have any pants on, man."

And!!!

This is a love worry, of course. It is the trouble all the time with love. You see the person and you want to cry, "Put down your honey bear and look at me, my darling I dream of! Bring me the doughnut I desire!" But all the time you know the depressing thing: she doesn't even know you exist.

She got herself a glass of water and drank it even though she also had to pee, and this is even another thing like love. We need things and also to get rid of them, and at the same time. We need things, and the opposite of them, and we are so rarely completely comfortable. Helena sat in her second-favorite chair and looked. He was wearing pajamas, but the particulars hardly matter. It wasn't the things he said, and it wasn't the things he did. All over the world are particular people, and you could be happy with probably five or six of them, eight if you're bisexual and everyone is. And so the happiness is not particular, and so you cannot be particular, or all you will have at the end of the night is a purse full of complaints to your mother.

Is this boring you? OK. Sorry, one more:

"I met this guy Steven," Andrea said. "He was at the Laundromat if you can believe it. We're going to see the Friendly Skies."

"But they suck," Sam said.

"So do all my clothes," Andrea said, walking in front of the TV, "but I'm going to wear something. Listen for the doorbell."

The above are just mere moments of awesomeness in an entire book filled with them. Handler wows. He tickles the senses. He can warm and break your heart with ease. He shoots off fireworks of brilliantly engaging prose. He makes you spit up your milk in laughter. He then dabbles at your chin with a towel to help clean you up. If you read this book, I can almost promise you your ability to laugh and love will be enhanced. Your literary stomach will get filled with hearty meat and potatoes (or just veggies if you're that type of person), and he'll throw in the sweet confections too. I can't recommend it enough.
]]> 22593925 Mon, 26 May 2008 18:59:11 -0700
Along with a few other writers, I trust Milan Kundera wholeheartedly. I've read four books of his now, and he's never let me down. I finished reading Ignorance a week ago while waiting for a flight at the Reagan National in D.C., plowing through this 200 page book in six hours. I was sad and alone, wearing sunglasses, avoiding conversation with anyone around me, waiting for the plane that would send me back home. The overarching theme that Kundera turns to is the tale of Odysseus, that of returning home. I simplify, but there it is. Much deeper below the surface, Kundera touches on issues of pride and shame, both on a personal level and from more of a national stance, the distortion of memory, the inequality of love, the manifestations of time and their relation to the human psyche, shared dreams of emigration, starting everything over again.

I think all of Kundera's books are tinged with degrees of melancholy, overarching lives, permeating his own personal/quasi-fictional cosmos. It seems to me that in this most recent of Kundera's fictions, he personally confronts this melancholia and defines it: "nostalgia." He says, "so nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return." Etymologically and semantically speaking, Kundera investigates the forms of the word nostalgia through other languages. "The most moving Czech expression of love: styska se mi po tobe ("I yearn for you," "I'm nostalgic for you"; "I cannot bear the pain of your absence")." Absence, the pain of not knowing, ignorance. Each time I read him, Kundera rips my heart out and tells me how well it's beating. As far as authors go, he's like a surgeon, a lover, a friend.]]>
author: Milan Kundera
name: Matt
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/26/08
shelves:
review:
"Everyone is wrong about the future. Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know the present? Is he in a position to make any judgment about it? Certainly not. For how can a person with no knowledge of the future understand the meaning of the present? If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad, whether it deserves our concurrence, or our suspicion, or our hatred?"

Along with a few other writers, I trust Milan Kundera wholeheartedly. I've read four books of his now, and he's never let me down. I finished reading Ignorance a week ago while waiting for a flight at the Reagan National in D.C., plowing through this 200 page book in six hours. I was sad and alone, wearing sunglasses, avoiding conversation with anyone around me, waiting for the plane that would send me back home. The overarching theme that Kundera turns to is the tale of Odysseus, that of returning home. I simplify, but there it is. Much deeper below the surface, Kundera touches on issues of pride and shame, both on a personal level and from more of a national stance, the distortion of memory, the inequality of love, the manifestations of time and their relation to the human psyche, shared dreams of emigration, starting everything over again.

I think all of Kundera's books are tinged with degrees of melancholy, overarching lives, permeating his own personal/quasi-fictional cosmos. It seems to me that in this most recent of Kundera's fictions, he personally confronts this melancholia and defines it: "nostalgia." He says, "so nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return." Etymologically and semantically speaking, Kundera investigates the forms of the word nostalgia through other languages. "The most moving Czech expression of love: styska se mi po tobe ("I yearn for you," "I'm nostalgic for you"; "I cannot bear the pain of your absence")." Absence, the pain of not knowing, ignorance. Each time I read him, Kundera rips my heart out and tells me how well it's beating. As far as authors go, he's like a surgeon, a lover, a friend.
]]> 17391787 Mon, 26 May 2008 16:56:33 -0700
By the time the book has begun, Beatrice-Joanna has already embarked upon an incestuous, adulterous affair with Tristram's younger, and ostensibly homosexual brother, Derek, one of the bigwigs at the aforementioned Ministry of Infertility. Essentially, Derek shags his brother's wife rotten, despite the fact that he's publicly gay and breeding is nearly to the point of prohibition. Another case of "Oh, you're not wearing a condom? Fuck it."

And thus the wheels of plot turn. Eventually, a point of global anarchy is reached. Cannibalism becomes the norm. War, previously a relic of the past, is reinstated to reach certain food and population quotas. Beatrice-Joanna goes into hiding; Tristram ends up going on a number of adventures to reclaim his wife. It's a pretty frighteningly hilarious book. Burgess toes a delicate line between the macabre brutality of life and its redemptive beauty. Very worthwhile, but maybe not for everyone. ]]>
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Matt
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/26/08
shelves:
review:
The Wanting Seed was completely amazing for 3/4s of the way through. For those first three-quarters, I thought it to be a superior book to A Clockwork Orange. The premise of the book, in case you were unaware, is that at some point in the "distant future" (at least distant from the early 60s when this was written), planet earth is over-populated to an absurd degree, families are limited to one child, a fictive deity referred to as "Livedog" has replaced God, resources are scarce and getting scarcer, and homosexuality is encouraged to the point where England has a "Ministry of Infertility" that has slogans like "It's Sapiens to be Homo!" and provides citizens with food credit if a family member dies and gets recycled for their "phosphorus nutrients," or something silly like that. It's a theoretical dystopian future that doesn't sound too terribly theoretical, nor especially distant. The book begins by showing the confined and sad existence of one Beatrice-Joanna Foxe, who's child, Roger, has just died. She's in a somewhat loveless marriage with Tristram Foxe, a rather dull but intelligent school teacher who teaches history, and more specifically, the theory of cyclical human behavior throughout history.

By the time the book has begun, Beatrice-Joanna has already embarked upon an incestuous, adulterous affair with Tristram's younger, and ostensibly homosexual brother, Derek, one of the bigwigs at the aforementioned Ministry of Infertility. Essentially, Derek shags his brother's wife rotten, despite the fact that he's publicly gay and breeding is nearly to the point of prohibition. Another case of "Oh, you're not wearing a condom? Fuck it."

And thus the wheels of plot turn. Eventually, a point of global anarchy is reached. Cannibalism becomes the norm. War, previously a relic of the past, is reinstated to reach certain food and population quotas. Beatrice-Joanna goes into hiding; Tristram ends up going on a number of adventures to reclaim his wife. It's a pretty frighteningly hilarious book. Burgess toes a delicate line between the macabre brutality of life and its redemptive beauty. Very worthwhile, but maybe not for everyone.
]]> 835959 Mon, 26 May 2008 16:31:44 -0700
author: William Faulkner
name: Matt
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1932
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/26/08
shelves:
review:
A bit of introspection later, I've decided to downgrade this book from 4 stars to 3. I can't really explain why, except that within a week of finishing this book, I also finished reading two other books, by Anthony Burgess and Milan Kundera, respectively. That isn't to say I didn't like this book; it's just that I found it nearly unapproachable from a personal perspective. Essentially, Light in August falls in line with several of those other books where you can totally respect the craft, dig the language, the structure, the story, and even the driving philosophies behind these characters, but for what ever the reason, it just didn't punch me in the gut or have me nodding my head in enthusiastic understanding or appreciation. I felt completely detached during this reading experience. As a 25-year-old male living in the middle of the United States, I couldn't identify with a single character or situation. It's not the first time by any means. One of the joys of fiction is to encounter unfamiliarities or incongruities with you and how you see yourself, what you would do in their situation; you can learn, grow, whatever. A great book for me is one that can help me bridge that gap within myself. This one failed in that regard. I see that you're good, Mr. Faulkner, but your cup of tea just isn't for me.
]]> 754606 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:53:04 -0700
***************************

Can you believe I didn't listen to The Beatles once over the two weeks that it took me to read this? I find it strange, as I tend to suffer from Beatlemania and listen to them frequently. But no, no Beatles, not a single time. As interesting as that may or may not be, it isn't the best way to start this review. I find myself wondering if Toru Watanabe is the one literary character I have been able to relate to most. No, no...that isn't a good start either.

Very early on in this book, I knew I would love it. This is my third Murakami, and he hadn't let me down before. I find his writing in general to be visceral, nostalgic, and tinted with shadows of melancholy. This book, however, in contrast to The Elephant Vanishes and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go until its final words passed before my eyes. Is it because he eschews the supernatural this time around, or doesn't throw his usual left hooks plotwise? Not really.

Normally I can understand why, or at least rationalize a review or rating, but I find the right words are elusive tonight. I think back through particular scenes in the book and can pinpoint certain moods and feelings. I can say that so-and-so a scene was intense enough to give even me an erection; I can say I discovered heartache and touched sorrow here, relived loss there, experienced beauty, felt pain, the joy of togetherness. You'd figure if you covered this semi-representative range of moods and emotions, mixed them together like an omelet and said voila! you would have this book. And I suppose in a way that's true...

But it's also not true. This book isn't some magic potion, and it isn't an omelet. At it's heart, it's a love story, about love that is simultaneously there, tangible and real, but also elusive and forever slipping away. As John Lennon once wrote, "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me." But Matt, you're thinking, there are millions of love stories out there. What makes this one so special? I don't know. It's complex, sure. Yet that's not it. It's beautifully written, sure. Yet that's not it. It has colorful characters, fantastic dialogue, raging eroticism, thoughts and ideas I can relate to, yet they aren't it either. I can't pinpoint it. But I love it anyway.

There's a quote that I think sort of relates in a roundabout way. "Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish." This reading is still very fresh in my mind, too fresh perhaps, but I get the feeling it will stick with me for a long time to come. I look forward to seeing again, further down the road.

And, for the record, the music I found most apt to this reading experience was the Icelandic band, Sigur Rós. Dig it, kids.

]]>
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Matt
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/24/08
shelves:
review:
My oh my....I think I would give this book ten stars if I had the chance. A review is forthcoming, once it isn't 4:49 in the morning and all of my thoughts are properly collected....

***************************

Can you believe I didn't listen to The Beatles once over the two weeks that it took me to read this? I find it strange, as I tend to suffer from Beatlemania and listen to them frequently. But no, no Beatles, not a single time. As interesting as that may or may not be, it isn't the best way to start this review. I find myself wondering if Toru Watanabe is the one literary character I have been able to relate to most. No, no...that isn't a good start either.

Very early on in this book, I knew I would love it. This is my third Murakami, and he hadn't let me down before. I find his writing in general to be visceral, nostalgic, and tinted with shadows of melancholy. This book, however, in contrast to The Elephant Vanishes and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go until its final words passed before my eyes. Is it because he eschews the supernatural this time around, or doesn't throw his usual left hooks plotwise? Not really.

Normally I can understand why, or at least rationalize a review or rating, but I find the right words are elusive tonight. I think back through particular scenes in the book and can pinpoint certain moods and feelings. I can say that so-and-so a scene was intense enough to give even me an erection; I can say I discovered heartache and touched sorrow here, relived loss there, experienced beauty, felt pain, the joy of togetherness. You'd figure if you covered this semi-representative range of moods and emotions, mixed them together like an omelet and said voila! you would have this book. And I suppose in a way that's true...

But it's also not true. This book isn't some magic potion, and it isn't an omelet. At it's heart, it's a love story, about love that is simultaneously there, tangible and real, but also elusive and forever slipping away. As John Lennon once wrote, "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me." But Matt, you're thinking, there are millions of love stories out there. What makes this one so special? I don't know. It's complex, sure. Yet that's not it. It's beautifully written, sure. Yet that's not it. It has colorful characters, fantastic dialogue, raging eroticism, thoughts and ideas I can relate to, yet they aren't it either. I can't pinpoint it. But I love it anyway.

There's a quote that I think sort of relates in a roundabout way. "Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish." This reading is still very fresh in my mind, too fresh perhaps, but I get the feeling it will stick with me for a long time to come. I look forward to seeing again, further down the road.

And, for the record, the music I found most apt to this reading experience was the Icelandic band, Sigur Rós. Dig it, kids.


]]> 754584 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:13:31 -0700
author: Flann O'Brien
name: Matt
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/08/08
shelves: hiatus
review:
I'm putting this book on my hiatus shelf. For whatever reason, I just can't get myself into it. It seems brilliantly written, funny, and all that, but when I get home at night, I've found myself reaching for the tv remote before the book. Ugh. I need a book that will jump start me, and right now, this isn't cutting it. I think I'll head back to Murakami for a while.
]]> 5140761 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:01:43 -0700 Of course, we couldn't be the only ones interested in this other highway that little by little lets us in on its secret, growing fond of us as we grow fond of it, and so with very little noise and no violence we come into possession of its trails, paths and remote places, and much like the process of gradually possessing a loved one in bed, with caresses and gazes and murmurs that bit by bit are revealed as doors and windows behind which there are always more, sweeter, lovelier, and finally no one knows who's opening which door, who is the window or who has whom in their arms.

That quotation from this book is the essential strand that circles in and around my head when I think about how to begin this review. In a way, it explains everything that I feel about Autonauts itself. So what better way to begin this review than with it?

I think reading this book is to understand being in love; or, more likely, to actually be in love yourself. It's one of those books that you feel compelled to share with the dearest of friends or most intimate of lovers, so that you can share with them this secret, where first impressions are thrown aside, and gradually, you come to see the thing for what it is: one of the most unique, best things in the world.

Anyone who tells you this book is about two people spending a month and change merely vacationing in rest areas in the countryside of France is completely missing the point. The subtext is delicious and bittersweet. And the final realization for me was that I too went (and still am) on a journey, a journey where there are constant discoveries, both good and bad, and yet the strongest suggestion is one of the best ones of all - to live life to its fullest. Read it, travel, discover, be in love. Never regret.]]>
author: Julio Cortazar
name: Matt
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/27/08
shelves:
review:
Of course, we couldn't be the only ones interested in this other highway that little by little lets us in on its secret, growing fond of us as we grow fond of it, and so with very little noise and no violence we come into possession of its trails, paths and remote places, and much like the process of gradually possessing a loved one in bed, with caresses and gazes and murmurs that bit by bit are revealed as doors and windows behind which there are always more, sweeter, lovelier, and finally no one knows who's opening which door, who is the window or who has whom in their arms.

That quotation from this book is the essential strand that circles in and around my head when I think about how to begin this review. In a way, it explains everything that I feel about Autonauts itself. So what better way to begin this review than with it?

I think reading this book is to understand being in love; or, more likely, to actually be in love yourself. It's one of those books that you feel compelled to share with the dearest of friends or most intimate of lovers, so that you can share with them this secret, where first impressions are thrown aside, and gradually, you come to see the thing for what it is: one of the most unique, best things in the world.

Anyone who tells you this book is about two people spending a month and change merely vacationing in rest areas in the countryside of France is completely missing the point. The subtext is delicious and bittersweet. And the final realization for me was that I too went (and still am) on a journey, a journey where there are constant discoveries, both good and bad, and yet the strongest suggestion is one of the best ones of all - to live life to its fullest. Read it, travel, discover, be in love. Never regret.
]]> 1095703 Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:47:05 -0700 If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino. It's almost comically straightforward, and then you're off, invested as the main character in a book within a book about a book within a book, folded one upon the other several times more. The level of abstraction is delightfully complex.

As the book as a whole consists of several (ten, to be exact) beginnings, and with each beginning purported to be by another author (Silas Flannery, Takakumi Ikoka, Calixto Bandera, Ukko Ahti, et al.), every time you begin to get sucked into the new narrative and fully invest yourself in that world, you get broken off, for myriad reasons. You - the Reader - go on an adventure to find the complete manuscript, only to get sidetracked, misled, misinformed, led down alternative avenue. You encounter another Other Reader - a woman named Ludmilla - and you embark on one of the most bizarre relationships. You have an erotic moment together, where in the act of intercourse, you read one another. It's pure fucking genius, I tell ya.

Calvino writes: " Lovers' reading of each other's bodies (of that concentrate of mind and body which lovers use to go to bed together) differs from the reading of written pages in that it is not linear. It starts at any point, skips, repeat itself, goes backward, insists, ramifies in simultaneous and divergent messages, converges again, has moments of irritation, turns the page, finds its place, gets lost. A direction can be recognized in it, a route to an end, since it tends toward a climax, and with this end in view it arranges rhythmic phases, metrical scansions, recurrence of motives. But is the climax really the end? Or is the race toward that end opposed by another drive which works in the opposite direction, swimming against moments, recovering time?"

I mean.... holy fuck!!
My head and heart linger with these pages, these hesitations, false beginnings, the threading of your own narrative. And just when you think the book is inaccessible, it has its hooks in you once more. Read it, live it, love it. ]]>
author: Italo Calvino
name: Matt
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/16/08
shelves:
review:
Writers like Calvino make writers like me pound my fist against the desk in frustration and jealousy of his immense skillz. I began reading this book with a certain hesitation, a kind of what-the-fuck? mentality. You - the Reader - are being spoken to directly by narrator, ostensibly Calvino, and he informs you that you are about to begin reading If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino. It's almost comically straightforward, and then you're off, invested as the main character in a book within a book about a book within a book, folded one upon the other several times more. The level of abstraction is delightfully complex.

As the book as a whole consists of several (ten, to be exact) beginnings, and with each beginning purported to be by another author (Silas Flannery, Takakumi Ikoka, Calixto Bandera, Ukko Ahti, et al.), every time you begin to get sucked into the new narrative and fully invest yourself in that world, you get broken off, for myriad reasons. You - the Reader - go on an adventure to find the complete manuscript, only to get sidetracked, misled, misinformed, led down alternative avenue. You encounter another Other Reader - a woman named Ludmilla - and you embark on one of the most bizarre relationships. You have an erotic moment together, where in the act of intercourse, you read one another. It's pure fucking genius, I tell ya.

Calvino writes: " Lovers' reading of each other's bodies (of that concentrate of mind and body which lovers use to go to bed together) differs from the reading of written pages in that it is not linear. It starts at any point, skips, repeat itself, goes backward, insists, ramifies in simultaneous and divergent messages, converges again, has moments of irritation, turns the page, finds its place, gets lost. A direction can be recognized in it, a route to an end, since it tends toward a climax, and with this end in view it arranges rhythmic phases, metrical scansions, recurrence of motives. But is the climax really the end? Or is the race toward that end opposed by another drive which works in the opposite direction, swimming against moments, recovering time?"

I mean.... holy fuck!!
My head and heart linger with these pages, these hesitations, false beginnings, the threading of your own narrative. And just when you think the book is inaccessible, it has its hooks in you once more. Read it, live it, love it.
]]> 989740 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:48:33 -0700
Naturally, seeing how I read the final five tower books in a row, I am taking a very long, extended break from reading Stephen King. Having read these books, my respect for the man grew. As King himself admits, he's not a technically gifted writer, but a kind of avatar of stories that flow through him. His prose is hit or miss, and I find several of his motifs and descriptions to border on the redundant and clumsy, but the driving force behind his fiction, the immediacy of the story, rings true and, if you allow it, will propel you and your imagination forward. I cannot say its true for all his works, as I haven't read them, but I think the Dark Tower is a worthy cause.]]>
author: Stephen King
name: Matt
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/09/08
shelves:
review:
This seventh and final book of the Dark Tower series is utterly heartbreaking. After slogging through however many thousand pages and sharing all these moments with characters, I found myself attached to their fictional existence. I cared about them. So when all hell broke loose in this book, shattering their ka-tet, I was emotionally devastated. I cried, on more than one occasion. It's possible that I cried as much as I did because I was in a fragile state-of-mind at the time. But really, I believe King was visceral and sincere enough in his prose for me to imagine and believe. The CODA conclusion is the perfect recap, steeped in memory and melancholia and savage disbelief as Roland the Gunslinger walks through the door at the top of the tower, only to be cast back into the desert of the first book, fated to chase the man in black and to find the tower once more. This sad, heroic cycle repeats itself, but with a caveat: there is still hope for change and redemption. And the best part is that we can carry out that entire adventure in our heads...

Naturally, seeing how I read the final five tower books in a row, I am taking a very long, extended break from reading Stephen King. Having read these books, my respect for the man grew. As King himself admits, he's not a technically gifted writer, but a kind of avatar of stories that flow through him. His prose is hit or miss, and I find several of his motifs and descriptions to border on the redundant and clumsy, but the driving force behind his fiction, the immediacy of the story, rings true and, if you allow it, will propel you and your imagination forward. I cannot say its true for all his works, as I haven't read them, but I think the Dark Tower is a worthy cause.
]]> 15677092 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:02:20 -0800
author: Dr. Seuss
name: Matt
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1960
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 02/18/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 989731 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:49:42 -0800
author: Stephen King
name: Matt
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/18/08
shelves:
review:
After the total bed crapping that was Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah is a remarkable turnaround in pace, urgency, and prose. The book clocks in at a breezy 544 pages (paperback edition at least), which practically flew by in comparison to the 900 some pages Wolves contained. You can tell right off the bat that Song was edited much more stringently. This book is lean and feisty. I tore through the final 364 pages in one 24 hour period this weekend, pressed on and on, like I was running downhill. Things get kind of wacky there near the end, and a good dose of metaphysical/metafictional writing really turns the entire saga on its head. But I love that sort of layered stuff in art, even if it isn't particularly...subtle. A commendable book. I've already jumped into the 7th and final book tonight. The quest is almost complete. I wonder what I'll find at the end of the tower?
]]> 15217651 Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:54:30 -0800
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Matt
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1871
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 02/12/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 989722 Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:19:23 -0800
author: Stephen King
name: Matt
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/11/08
shelves:
review:
This book is looooooooooong. It's saying something whenever you tell a friend, "Yeah, I'm only like 700 pages into this book." Compared to the awesome fast read that was the Wizard and Glass, this book, Wolves of the Calla plods and plods along like a motorboat with a trolling motor. There are some really great moments in this book, but they're so spaced out that I found myself itching to skip entire sections to get to the good stuff. Seeing how it took Stephen King 900 pages to complete this story, I feel like some of his literary indulgences got the best of him. And I can't tell you how many times I wanted to scream "ENOUGH OF 19 ALREADY! I KNOW! I KNOW!" It isn't brow-beating to the level of say...Dan Brown or, like, Robin Williams or something, but it is frustratingly close. Wolves of the Calla seems to be King attempting to delay the chase to the Tower because he lost the directions to it along the way. Then, after 750 pages of planning, smoking cigarettes, and rolling about in the dirt, he was like, "Oh yeah, we've got some serious killing to do..." And so it comes to pass. In conclusion, this book is okay, but it's a means to an end. I wouldn't go out of my way to read it if it wasn't a part of the series.
]]> 10830575 Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:18:25 -0800
*****************************

My heart is torn asunder. What a heartbreaking book. As I just finished reading it less than half an hour ago, I don't think I'm quite ready to offer up a detailed analysis of my thoughts, but I will say I was transported to another time and place and suffered the same trials and tribulations these characters endure side by side. Briony is at turns contemptible and . . . lovable (?). Other characters are fleshed out to their maximum in deft strokes. The language is crisp and poetic. The plot is not so much twisty, but rather tumbling, and at turns, horrifying. By the end, we all seek atonement. Thankfully, though, love endures.]]>
author: Ian McEwan
name: Matt
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/07/08
shelves:
review:
My favorite bartender got into a huge Ian McEwan kick some months back, reading like 3 or 4 books of his in a row, and he strongly recommended I check him out. So here I am. And yes, I go to the bar and talk about books. I am a huge nerd.

*****************************

My heart is torn asunder. What a heartbreaking book. As I just finished reading it less than half an hour ago, I don't think I'm quite ready to offer up a detailed analysis of my thoughts, but I will say I was transported to another time and place and suffered the same trials and tribulations these characters endure side by side. Briony is at turns contemptible and . . . lovable (?). Other characters are fleshed out to their maximum in deft strokes. The language is crisp and poetic. The plot is not so much twisty, but rather tumbling, and at turns, horrifying. By the end, we all seek atonement. Thankfully, though, love endures.
]]> 13726653 Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:56:49 -0800
author: Jane Kallir
name: Matt
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 01/27/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 739329 Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:15:31 -0800
All I can say in review at the moment is: Holy Crap.

Perhaps later I'll be able to add something more relevant, but at the moment, I apologize, because this will have to do.

________________________

Update: 3:49 a.m. central time, January 26th, 2008. Okay, so it's been like half a year since I finished Against the Day, and over a year since I first started reading it. I might be ready to write a review. I think it starts for me when I was at the bookstore last weekend, browsing shelf after shelf after shelf for books like I normally do. I read Against the Day in hardback, but now that it's in paperback, it was naturally nestled in place there beside a copies of Gravity's Rainbow and V (by the way, I love the paperback cover). Being the curious sort of fella I am, I grabbed the tome off the shelf and flipped through the pages, reading a few passages here and there. It occurred to me as I was browsing that I had absolutely no recollection of ever reading these sentences,and that aside from the characters names, I really had no idea what was being talked about, philosophized, etc. I had a parallel situation about a week prior to that, when I broke out my fresh and new copy of Life: A User's Manual (I gave away my old copy, remember) and realized I had no idea where to begin looking for anything. Thankfully, Life has one of the most comprehensive indexes ever in a book of fiction, so such and such can be found with haste. There is no such luxury with Against the Day, however.

From the very beginning, you're swept into a world. It's our world, in a manner of speaking, but almost like an alternate dimension, as if the Philadelphia Experiment worked, and the time traveling worked, but little things, minutiae, were changed. It's like a world seen through a cartoonist's eyes, I suppose, but instead of being narrowed to three panels of elaboration, Pynchon is granted unlimited breadth and scope to color and detail and commentate.

Nearly everyone speaks of Pynchon's labyrinth, intricate, complex (Gordian? consult your thesaurus) plots and all that jazz, and it's true, Pynchon will leave you guessing, even after everything has been laid out. Stuff will remain sort of unexplained and left open, kind of like life. But what so many people miss about Pynchon is his actual prose. It's oftentimes eye-wateringly beautiful. He has this capability of bringing the abstract to your mind's eye. You don't just see it. First, your eye is clouded. You have no idea what he just said. But you re-read it and it's suddenly rinsed. Then, the image is shining, an imprint reflected through his infinite number of metaphors and connections that populate this book.

I read in another review of this book that Pynchon organizes his novel around systems, not families. That's generalizing, but it makes sense to me. Is it systems of families though? There are major threads leaking throughout the book: The Chums of Chance, the interloping stories of Frank and Reef Traverse, Yashmeen, Kit and Dahlia, and the scientific and psychic fringe, the Teslas, Lew Basnights, and Merle Rideouts of the world. It's my pseudo-belief that through these few listed characters, it's one of the ways Pynchon organizes and classifies the world. It's kind of like the high school "pick your stereotype" and adjust, but more complexly so. To end this review (because it could go on and on...), I'll say that in terms of systems, characters, and threads, I was most captivated by The Chums, Kit, and Yashmeen. Read it. Find the thread (system? character?) you identify with most. What does that tell you about yourself?]]>
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Matt
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 07/07
date added: 01/26/08
shelves:
review:
I feel the need to note that at Wednesday 3:43 a.m. central time, July 11th, 2007, I finished this gigantic airship of a book.

All I can say in review at the moment is: Holy Crap.

Perhaps later I'll be able to add something more relevant, but at the moment, I apologize, because this will have to do.

________________________

Update: 3:49 a.m. central time, January 26th, 2008. Okay, so it's been like half a year since I finished Against the Day, and over a year since I first started reading it. I might be ready to write a review. I think it starts for me when I was at the bookstore last weekend, browsing shelf after shelf after shelf for books like I normally do. I read Against the Day in hardback, but now that it's in paperback, it was naturally nestled in place there beside a copies of Gravity's Rainbow and V (by the way, I love the paperback cover). Being the curious sort of fella I am, I grabbed the tome off the shelf and flipped through the pages, reading a few passages here and there. It occurred to me as I was browsing that I had absolutely no recollection of ever reading these sentences,and that aside from the characters names, I really had no idea what was being talked about, philosophized, etc. I had a parallel situation about a week prior to that, when I broke out my fresh and new copy of Life: A User's Manual (I gave away my old copy, remember) and realized I had no idea where to begin looking for anything. Thankfully, Life has one of the most comprehensive indexes ever in a book of fiction, so such and such can be found with haste. There is no such luxury with Against the Day, however.

From the very beginning, you're swept into a world. It's our world, in a manner of speaking, but almost like an alternate dimension, as if the Philadelphia Experiment worked, and the time traveling worked, but little things, minutiae, were changed. It's like a world seen through a cartoonist's eyes, I suppose, but instead of being narrowed to three panels of elaboration, Pynchon is granted unlimited breadth and scope to color and detail and commentate.

Nearly everyone speaks of Pynchon's labyrinth, intricate, complex (Gordian? consult your thesaurus) plots and all that jazz, and it's true, Pynchon will leave you guessing, even after everything has been laid out. Stuff will remain sort of unexplained and left open, kind of like life. But what so many people miss about Pynchon is his actual prose. It's oftentimes eye-wateringly beautiful. He has this capability of bringing the abstract to your mind's eye. You don't just see it. First, your eye is clouded. You have no idea what he just said. But you re-read it and it's suddenly rinsed. Then, the image is shining, an imprint reflected through his infinite number of metaphors and connections that populate this book.

I read in another review of this book that Pynchon organizes his novel around systems, not families. That's generalizing, but it makes sense to me. Is it systems of families though? There are major threads leaking throughout the book: The Chums of Chance, the interloping stories of Frank and Reef Traverse, Yashmeen, Kit and Dahlia, and the scientific and psychic fringe, the Teslas, Lew Basnights, and Merle Rideouts of the world. It's my pseudo-belief that through these few listed characters, it's one of the ways Pynchon organizes and classifies the world. It's kind of like the high school "pick your stereotype" and adjust, but more complexly so. To end this review (because it could go on and on...), I'll say that in terms of systems, characters, and threads, I was most captivated by The Chums, Kit, and Yashmeen. Read it. Find the thread (system? character?) you identify with most. What does that tell you about yourself?
]]> 12978022 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:38:24 -0800
author: Odile Ayral-Clause
name: Matt
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 01/20/08
shelves:
review:
Camille Claudel is my latest obsession. One of these days I'll have to get around to a biography of hers. Not necessarily this one specifically, but it serves as a nice reminder to get around to it someday.
]]> 989710 Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:51:01 -0800
note: according to my friend, this portion of the saga is retold in the recently released comic book, The Gunslinger Born. He recommended I read this instead, as I would get all the essentials and be spared the sappy-crap I ended up adoring. So, if you're wanting to invest in the Dark Tower and want to avoid the pitfalls I've described, mayhaps you'll wish to check that out instead.]]>
author: Stephen King
name: Matt
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/10/08
shelves:
review:
I actually loved this book. It's kind of bizarre since my best friend (who is a Stephen King fanatic) despises this book and calls it his least favorite of the Tower books, and one of his least favorite by King in general. His rationale behind this is thusly: the Dark Tower is an adventure, a quest that is driving in nature. They must keep pressing on, experiencing what triumph and failure they may, or never reach the Tower. But this book is a total step back from that. More than 3/4s of the book is one very long, several hundred page flashback. A flashback that is a slow boiler and romantic, things that my best friend would despise. The action, when it happens, is swift and furious. Me, though? I liked these traits. I was captivated by the local intrigue, guessing at what would happen when, knowing everything from this past must end in disaster. What unfolds is something powerful, harrowing, and heartbreaking.

note: according to my friend, this portion of the saga is retold in the recently released comic book, The Gunslinger Born. He recommended I read this instead, as I would get all the essentials and be spared the sappy-crap I ended up adoring. So, if you're wanting to invest in the Dark Tower and want to avoid the pitfalls I've described, mayhaps you'll wish to check that out instead.
]]> 989704 Wed, 02 Jan 2008 02:04:10 -0800
author: Stephen King
name: Matt
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/02/08
shelves:
review:
This book is deliciously fast paced and engaging. It's rare for me to cover 500 pages in the course of three days of reading, but well, there you go. The story arc really starts to show itself in this book too, providing answers to questions asked in the first two books, but simultaneously asking many more questions, namely: where will they go next? And more importantly, what will happen to them? I'm game for finding out.
]]> 1478532 Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:03:15 -0800
**********************

I'm still dabbling in this from time to time, but at present, I just don't have the will to plunge my soul into it, which is what I think Pessoa requires. Maybe it sounds sissy, but I've needed lighter fare of late.]]>
author: Fernando Pessoa
name: Matt
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 04/08
date added: 12/26/07
shelves: hiatus
review:
It's time to take the plunge.

**********************

I'm still dabbling in this from time to time, but at present, I just don't have the will to plunge my soul into it, which is what I think Pessoa requires. Maybe it sounds sissy, but I've needed lighter fare of late.
]]> 9040884 Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:26:26 -0800
author: Steve Martin
name: Matt
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/22/07
shelves:
review:
Eloquent and honest, a thrilling and insightful look into a very specific aspect of Steve Martin's past. I loved it. It was exactly what I needed to read right now.
]]> 835976 Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:27:49 -0800
author: Richard Ford
name: Matt
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/21/07
shelves:
review:
Wow, what a great read. I haven't had a book give me so many innocent laughs in a book in forever. I was introduced to Ford in a creative writing course in college. Before I ever read a single word, I watched a VHS tape of him giving a reading of this book, and afterwards a Q & A session with this hipster blowhard with a blond ponytail and Harvard Ph. D. His reading was mesmerizing, and during the Q & A session, Ford seemed so down to earth and well spoken. His social commentary is acerbic, and his prose is absolutely stunning, even when writing about the life of a middle-aged father living in suburban America. Speaking of which, Frank Bascombe is now definitely in my top 5 of favorite first person narrators of all time.
]]> 2477039 Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:03:53 -0800
For those of you familiar with Pessoa..... I felt like there was this waxy membrane keeping me from illumination and that only by crossing over and actually dying would I truly understand. It was an odd, discomforting feeling.

I would like to share a very brief passage, however, which I think sums up the novel for me:

"Time drags like a sluggish wave, it is a sphere of molten glass on whose surface myriad glints catch one's eye and engage one's attention, while inside glows the crimson, disquieting core."]]>
author: José Saramago
name: Matt
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/15/07
shelves:
review:
Oh, what a strange, strange book. It's gloomy and lovely, full of disconnection, hope and despair. The language is oftentimes achingly beautiful. But I just can't give it five stars. I'm beginning to think I have some predestined aesthetic for absolutely falling in love with certain books while merely admiring and greatly respecting others. It's an aesthetic I haven't yet been able to really identify, much less dissect. This book falls into the latter category. I like it a lot and it's a good friend, but at this moment, it isn't dear to me, I can't love it. Maybe my attitude will change once I'm older.

For those of you familiar with Pessoa..... I felt like there was this waxy membrane keeping me from illumination and that only by crossing over and actually dying would I truly understand. It was an odd, discomforting feeling.

I would like to share a very brief passage, however, which I think sums up the novel for me:

"Time drags like a sluggish wave, it is a sphere of molten glass on whose surface myriad glints catch one's eye and engage one's attention, while inside glows the crimson, disquieting core."
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