I'm psyched to use this for my 4th graders. ]]>
more 30-second reviews tonight.
I have a hard time taking seriously any bad guy named erik. he sounds like a euro raver kid who thinks he's dangerous but really just owns a fishnet shirt.
sorry, erik. ]]>
the beginning, with louise and michael (oops, vivian and roger!) swanning and swooning around dartmouth is fine, albeit wanky, but it goes downhill the moment erdrich and dorris said to themselves, "screw this, let's write an adventure novel instead!"
more after the book club discussion. ]]>
at first, I kind of worried this was black people love us, the book.
that said, I've changed my mind. it's heartfelt, certainly, but just not . . . anything new or surprising or unusually insightful. ]]>
damn, this wants to be Finn A Novel.
the tone is a solid effort, though it heads more towards "repetitive" than the hoped-for elegiac. the real problem I have is with the individual characters' voices. they spend a lot of time using words they have no way of knowing, and it pulls me out of the story something awful. the details shift, as well -- a room towards the end of the novel is too tall for characters to stand straight up, but not too tall for a hanging?
would have benefited from a heavier-handed editing. ]]>
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Maybe I'm tired and cranky, but I just can't do it.
I've heard things pick up after 150 pages or so, but life's too short, man. The goings-on of Fort Beulah, VT were just too homespun and folksy (even the somewhat dialectical dialogue pushed me over the edge). Doremus Jessup struck me, in his behavior and descriptions, as one of those annoying faux-self-deprecating dudes who hang out on Digg.
This is the only Sinclair Lewis I've read, and it's been on my list for a long, long time. Tell me it gets better? ]]>
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I honestly don't get it.
This is a book in which every character, all the time, is confused. At first, I thought maybe Ms Oates was not quite so sympathetic an observer as she thinks she is and that she may just think that her poor characters are poor because they're dumb. But no! The non-poor characters are just as befuddled. I have no idea how they get through their days. These people are constantly surrounded by a world that mystifies them, and they seem unable to remember things like where they were earlier in the day, who they are talking to, or (hilariously) how to park a car (as we see Jules "manage" to park a car a dozen or more times, each time referred to with the verb "manage"). I have no idea how they get through the day. Can they remember to brush their teeth? Do they remember that they HAVE teeth?
This is the kind of book that has passages (my own, invented) like this: "She heard him saying something to her and strained to listen, listening through the hazy shapes she saw surrounding him. 'What were you doing today,' he was asking. 'I don't remember,' she said, dully. 'I don't remember anything.'"
If only a single damn character could remember anything he'd been doing the day before, or could just muster up the energy to grab a strong cup of coffee or a decent nap, we could have cut the whole book down to a short story. ]]>
emily
read and liked
Kelly's
review of Finn: A Novel:
"Astonishing. This is a deep, resonant, and emotionally painful work of literature. Elegant writing is often enough to enthrall a reader; when elegance is employed in the service of giving voice to the unspeakable heart of the Great American Novel? ...more "
"Astonishing. This is a deep, resonant, and emotionally painful work of literature. Elegant writing is often enough to enthrall a reader; when elegance is employed in the service of giving voice to the unspeakable heart of the Great American Novel? ...more "