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July 24
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Madeline
gave
 
to:
For Matrimonial Purposes (Paperback)
by Kavita Daswani
bookshelves:
don-t-judge-me
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Madeline said:
"Yes, it's fluffy, undeveloped chick lit with no real literary value or interest. Yes, the protagonist doesn't really have a personality, and none of the characters manage to progress beyond 2-dimensional stereotypes. But it takes place mostly in Indi...more
Yes, it's fluffy, undeveloped chick lit with no real literary value or interest. Yes, the protagonist doesn't really have a personality, and none of the characters manage to progress beyond 2-dimensional stereotypes. But it takes place mostly in India, and I have a weakness for Bollywood movies, so it amused me. Endless stories of horrible dates and weddings where our Dateless Wonder Protagonist stands on the sidelines become a lot more interesting when the dates are arranged and chaperoned by the parents, and the weddings are lavish, multi-million dollar affairs where the bride is covered in jewelry and diamond bindis, and wears lavender glitter in her hair to compliment her sari. ...less
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Madeline
gave
to:
There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble
by Laurie Notaro
bookshelves:
don-t-judge-me
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my rating:
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Madeline said:
"First off, let me just say that I love Laurie Notaro. I've read and loved four of her previous books, and find just about every short story she writes completely hilarious. With this in mind, I was really excited to read this book, her first experime...more
First off, let me just say that I love Laurie Notaro. I've read and loved four of her previous books, and find just about every short story she writes completely hilarious. With this in mind, I was really excited to read this book, her first experiment with fiction - I figured if the nonfiction stories Notaro wrote nearly made me pee myself laughing, just imagine what she could write if she were allowed to make everything up!
And that's the problem: Laurie Notaro's first novel is about a woman named Maye, who works as a freelance writer and used to be a reporter, adjusting to life in small-town Washington after moving there from Phoenix with her English-professor husband and their dog. For anyone who has read even one other Laurie Notaro book, this is starting to sound very familiar. Also, in the about-the-author section of There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell it says that Notaro "recently moved Eugene, Oregon, a town that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the fictional town of Spaulding, Washington." Uh huh. Amusing as that is, Laurie, that doesn't excuse the fact that very little of your novel appears to be genuinely fictitious. As I read through the book, it was so easy to see which parts of the story were real, which parts were exaggerated, and what was made up. From my point of view, there was very little in that last category. In fact, it made me wonder if the stories in Notaro's nonfiction books are really all true, because they were so blatantly similar to everything that happens in her "fictional" story.
One more thing bugged me, and it may have been in Notaro's other books too, but this was the first time I noticed it: she has a habit of going out of her way to create awkwardly long, nonsensical similes that seem really out of place and forced. For example: "Crawford Lake Road was not paved, and not only was it a bumpy dirt road, it was full of potholes that looked more like spots where meteors had bounced off the face of the earth the way a basketball inevitably rebounds off the head of the fat girl in freshman gym class." And: "her eyes got wider and her expression took on the proportions of a teenager in a Wes Craven film who had just had dirty sex with her horn-dog boyfriend and was about to get her head ripped off her body like a grapefruit plucked from a tree by a psychopath." There you have it: not one, but two examples of similes-within-similes. And you thought it couldn't be done. (and yes, they're similes, not metaphors. I looked it up.) Those aren't the only examples I could find, but I'll spare you the rest.
In conclusion: there is nothing wrong with writing what you know, but Laurie Notaro, gifted as she is with funny prose, seems incapable of doing anything else.
...less
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July 23
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New comment on treehugger's review of
Being Peace
(see all 3 comments)
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July 22
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Madeline
gave
to:
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (Paperback)
by Kurt Vonnegut
bookshelves:
the-list
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Madeline said:
"Once I realized and accepted the fact that I will never completely understand what Kurt Vonnegut writes, it became a lot easier for me to read his books. My first attempt at reading his work - Cat's Cradle result...more
Once I realized and accepted the fact that I will never completely understand what Kurt Vonnegut writes, it became a lot easier for me to read his books. My first attempt at reading his work - Cat's Cradle resulted in me staring at the page, mentally shouting at Kurt Vonnegut, "What are you even TALKING about?" Reading Slaughter-House Five went slightly better, and by the time I read Mr. Rosewater, I was completely at peace with Vonnegut's "maybe this all has deep meaning and maybe I'm just pulling it out of my ass" style.
Confusing possible-symbolism aside, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is an intriguing look at wealth and charity in America. And why lawyers are evil.
Also, I was happy to see that the infamous Kilgore Trout, my favorite recurring Vonnegut character, made another appearance in the story of Mr. Rosewater. ...less
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Madeline
gave
to:
Atonement: A Novel (Paperback)
by Ian McEwan
bookshelves:
the-list
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Madeline said:
"One of the few examples I can think of where the movie version is just as good as the book - not better, not worse. Whether I watched Atonement, read it, or did both (highly recommended), I was blown away by the sheer amazingness (is that a wo...more
One of the few examples I can think of where the movie version is just as good as the book - not better, not worse. Whether I watched Atonement, read it, or did both (highly recommended), I was blown away by the sheer amazingness (is that a word? it is now) of Ian McEwan's story.
I'm almost tempted to give the movie preference, because I prefer the screenwriters' ending to McEwan's. That's the only real distinction I make between Atonement, the movie and Atonement, the novel: the end of the movie makes me cry, and the end of the novel does not. ...less
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July 15
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Madeline
gave
to:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Mass Market Paperback)
by Maya Angelou
bookshelves:
the-list
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Madeline said:
"I could write a mean-spirited review about how much I dislike reading books written by Empowered Women (capitalization is necessary. Extra points if author capitalizes Black but not white) and how the story of an Empowered Woman was made even less en...more
I could write a mean-spirited review about how much I dislike reading books written by Empowered Women (capitalization is necessary. Extra points if author capitalizes Black but not white) and how the story of an Empowered Woman was made even less enjoyable by Angelou's blatant racism for nearly the entire book (there's a lovely paragraph about how "whitefolks" were regarded as non-humans by the black community in Angelou's small Southern town. Switch the races and the majority of the book sounds like the biography of an angry Klansman). I could also complain about how she never mentions birds, caged or otherwise, in her entire book. Yeah, I get that it's a metaphor, but I have a bad habit of taking things literally.
I could write a review like that, but I don't relish the idea of being beaten to death by all the critics who adore this book. I also don't want to burn in hell for all eternity. So I'll write something nice.
When I was little, Maya Angelou was on an episode of Sesame Street. She and Elmo sang a song about how they liked their names, and it was nice....less
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July 14
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Madeline
gave
to:
A Prayer for Owen Meany (Paperback)
by John Irving
bookshelves:
the-list
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Madeline said:
"A very entertaining, very hilarious story. I loved how nearly every single event in the story, no matter how trivial, turned out to be really important at the very end of the book. Also, Owen Meany, with his intelligent/funny comments and the way he ...more
A very entertaining, very hilarious story. I loved how nearly every single event in the story, no matter how trivial, turned out to be really important at the very end of the book. Also, Owen Meany, with his intelligent/funny comments and the way he speaks in caps lock, was one of the best characters I've ever read about. My favorite part was when, during the Vietnam War, Owen was watching a news report on the war and said, "DO WE THINK THIS IS A MOVIE?"
The reason the book doesn't get five stars is because, although I liked young Johnny, I couldn't stand him once he's grown up and writing about his childhood. First he spends way too much time nattering on about the differences between the Anglican and Episcopalian churches (and complaining when he doesn't win some church election), and for the remainder of the parts where he takes a break from the story to talk about what he's up to as an adult, he's bitching about the United States and how they're screwing everything up. It was cute and amusing when Owen Meany did that as a college student - not so much when it's a grown man living in Canada who's an unexplained asexual. (don't worry if you didn't understand that last part, I never really got it either)...less
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New comment on Cynthia's review of
A Prayer for Owen Meany
(see all 2 comments)
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New comment on treehugger's review of
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
(see all 3 comments)
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July 13
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Madeline
gave
to:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Hardcover)
by Milan Kundera
bookshelves:
the-list
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Madeline said:
"This book definitely wins the award for Most Pretentious Title Ever. People would ask me what I was reading, and I would have to respond by reading the title in a sarcastic, Oxford-Professor-of-Literature voice so I wouldn't sound so obnoxiously ...more
This book definitely wins the award for Most Pretentious Title Ever. People would ask me what I was reading, and I would have to respond by reading the title in a sarcastic, Oxford-Professor-of-Literature voice so I wouldn't sound so obnoxiously superior. Honestly, Kundera: stop trying so hard. Chill. Out.
When I first started reading this book, I really disliked it. Kundera wastes the first two chapters on philosophical ramblings before he finally gets around to telling the story, and even then his own voice darts in and out of the story, interjecting his own opinion into the plot. It's like trying to watch a movie with the director's commentary playing in the background - all you can think is, "shut up and let me watch the movie in peace!" I also thought he was trying way too hard to be a Critically Acclaimed Author; for example: "Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love."
Um...sure. Why not.
But once he decides to relax a little and actually tell a coherent story, it becomes really engrossing. I was never crazy about Tomas and Tereza, who love each other despite the fact that Tomas is a selfish man-whore (Kundera phrased it more poetically, but that's basically the truth), but I think I understood them. Also, the last 50-some pages of the book were AMAZING, made me cry, and are the reason this book gets four stars instead of three.
"We can never know what we want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come."...less
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Thanks for your comment. I fence foil, it's what I started out with and I like it so I decided to stick with that stlye insted of change.
