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August 18
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Larissa
gave
 
to:
House Lights: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Leah Hager Cohen
bookshelves:
for-review
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in August, 2008
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August 15
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New comment on Larissa's review of
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Series, Book 4)
(see all 4 comments)
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August 14
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Larissa
marked as to-read:
The Monster of Florence (Hardcover)
by Douglas Preston, Mario Spezi
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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August 08
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New comment on Mary's review of
Rubyfruit Jungle
reply to this comment
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August 07
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Larissa
gave
to:
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Series, Book 4)
by Stephenie Meyer
bookshelves:
kinder,
vampires
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in August, 2008
Larissa said:
"I’ve been calling the Twilight series a teen Harlequin, but after reading Breaking Dawn I don’t actually think that entirely covers it. It’s more of a Harlequin-Soap Opera hybrid, combining the euphemistic, soft-focus of romance n...more
I’ve been calling the Twilight series a teen Harlequin, but after reading Breaking Dawn I don’t actually think that entirely covers it. It’s more of a Harlequin-Soap Opera hybrid, combining the euphemistic, soft-focus of romance novels with the pacing and gasp-inducing twists-of-narrative that keep televised serial narratives going (and going and going) for decades at a time. Breaking Dawn prefers the latter ethos—doling out equal measures of lovey dovey tranquility and dead-end plot threats in a substantive effort to apparently just keep the page count up.
This book could have ended about four times before it finally got around to it, and could have ended definitively, at that. It could have grappled with more ‘realistic’ (in the scope of a vampire novel, people) complications, even. I mean, Bella does finally become a vampire (gasp!), so you’d think that any combination of the following problems could have occurred:
1. Bella develops an insatiable bloodlust for human snacks, violently eradicating her former family, friends, and small, innocent children. (This had, of course, been floated as an almost unavoidable consequence for three books, and I for one, was really looking forward to it.)
2. Bella’s parental units must deal with the untimely ‘death’ of their daughter, or at least think she’s disappeared into oblivion. Sadness is inexplicably felt by all.
3. Bella can’t adjust to her new life. Has horrible regrets. Realizes that this Edward fellow has absolutely no personality whatsoever. Is irritated by his constant paternalizing and mooning. Eats Edward in epic battle. Is sad.
4. Bella cannot suppress her new super strength and sexiness. Abandons Edward in search of more sex-positive, lusty partners. Edward weeps silently. (Is sad.)
5. Edward realizes that he’s made a horrible mistake. Bella is awful and now he’s stuck with her. For-Ev-Er. Eats her in epic battle. Is sad. But only until he finds a new teenage object-of-desire.
But none of these issues—or even more prosaic complications—ever come up. Why? Because none of these issues would fit with the Soap Opera model. Meyers wants her narrative to ebb and flow, to be immediately dramatic (her characters gasp, and turn white, and go cold, and drop things in shock with relative frequency) and then be immediately resolved. Because treating your narrative/character psyches in any other fashion would be, well, really hard. And we don’t want that do we, Steph?
I will say, though, that—yay!—Bella does finally get some. Actually, lucky girl gets to lose her virginity twice—once as a human and once as a vamp-ire—and has sublime experiences both times. (Or so she says—Meyers fades to ocean and fades to morning instead of expending the effort coming up with a nice symbolic word for Edward’s sparkling manhood.) The pre- and post-cursors to these scenes are almost worth reading for hilarity’s sake, though. Turns out, Kinkmaster Edward is one rowdy dude in the sack. And notably, a pillow-biter, when in the throws of passion.
Oh, and yes—Bella gets knocked up. Dramatizes all of my worst fears about childbearing in a supernatural, blood-drenched fashion. Her half-human/half-vampire spawn actually does start consuming her from the inside, comes to term in two weeks, and supposedly will have to chew its way out of her womb. In a birthing scene that makes Alien look like a fuzz-fest, Bella chokes on blood, has her spine broken in delivery, is C-sectioned without morphine (with a fingernail), and her husband has to rip open the baby’s placenta with his teeth. All is forgiven when Bella holds her child for the first time. The miracle of life. Horrifying.
It’s all pretty smooth sailing from there. Bella becomes graceful and talented and wields amazing mind-powers. Vampire wars are averted. Love triangles are dissolved and Bella’s super-baby girl is immediately destined to be loved forever and ever by another obsessive man.
The cycle repeats, threatens further development. Methinks that Meyers will churn out a sequel series but soon. Oh, the horror.
...less
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August 06
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Larissa
marked as to-read:
Down There on a Visit (Paperback)
by Christopher Isherwood
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Larissa
marked as to-read:
Mr Norris Changes Trains (Paperback)
by Christopher Isherwood
bookshelves:
to-read,
vicarious-travel
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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August 04
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Larissa
gave
to:
Evening Star (Paperback)
by Dea Trier Mørch
bookshelves:
scandinavian
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in August, 2008
Larissa said:
"I came to Dea Trier Mørch's Evening Star with absolutely no background information or preconceptions. I found it in a university library (so no back cover description), and picked it up solely because it was in the Danish section and is illus...more
I came to Dea Trier Mørch's Evening Star with absolutely no background information or preconceptions. I found it in a university library (so no back cover description), and picked it up solely because it was in the Danish section and is illustrated throughout with the author's (lovely) woodcuts.
The story is centered around Nils Peter, a divorced translator living in Copenhagen with his two sons and, frequently, his mother--the well-meaning, but overbearing Bette. They have a somewhat unconventional relationship of mutual dependence, which is upset when they discover that Bette is seriously ill. She refuses to have a preventative operation or be treated at a large specialty hospital until it is too late, and her manageable illness develops into terminal liver cancer. Her children--primarily Nils Peter--then spend the summer nursing her through the last phases of her illness.
The novel's narration is one of the more interesting aspects of Evening Star. Subdivided first by dates (October 17 - 26, 1980), the story is further dissected into small paragraphs and sub-sections, giving an episodic, almost pulsing rhythm to the narrative as it floats through memories of the events surrounding Bette's death. Plot-heavy scenes are punctuated with naturalistic observations--such as meaningless conversations between children or simply impressionistic descriptions of a moment: "...the fields in the filtered October light, blue hills merging one behind the other as in a painting by Brueghel." The narrative is gently quilted together, a cobbling of memories and impressions that somehow encompass an experience as opaque and blindly traumatic as the loss of a parent.
The story is then in many ways a sensual experience, rather than a psychological one. Characterizations remain rather thin and static. We know much about Bette's eccentric brood (a family with occasional--albeit faint--echoes of the Glass clan), but their reactions to their mother's impending death never feel fully realized or invested. I am still not sure if there's a cultural gap here that I'm missing, but suffice to say that from my perspective, everyone in this novel is amazingly cold--or at the very least, extremely reserved--about Bette's illness. Almost everyone believes that Nils Peter is being excessive, and perhaps a bit childish, by insisting that his mother live with him--instead of being checked into a hospital--for the duration of her illness. Emotions between the mother and son rise and fall almost inexplicably. Betta decides that Nils Peter's girlfriend should no longer be allowed to come over to his house while Bette is awake. Nils Peter rages over his mother's selfishness at wanting a birthday party and a funeral. And underlying everything is a sense of frustration that Bette holds on to her life as long as she does. As if life could go back to normal if only she would hurry up and die.
Now, admittedly, a prolonged terminal illness is a stressful and painful thing for any family member to bear--and anger, even undeserved anger towards the invalid--is a real, and very natural part of the process. In this way, Evening Star's portrayal of the grieving process is acute and honest. All the same, I found this undercurrent of antagonism quite distancing and unrelatable. I could only keep thinking about how I might react, if it were my own mother. And it looked nothing like this.
After Niels Peter jubilantly sees his mother finally die("It worked! Oh, God! That's it! It's over!...It couldn't have been better."), the novel seems to make up for some of its coldness. As Nils Peter comes to realize, "...he will once again find the love that he once felt for her, the love he felt all his life--but which seems to have left him during these nine months. Step by step he will learn to regain her."
...less
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August 01
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Larissa
marked as to-read:
Think of a Number (Hardcover)
by Anders Bodelsen
bookshelves:
crime-fiction,
scandinavian,
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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New comment on Larissa's review of
Eclipse (Twilight Series, Book 3)
(see all 2 comments)
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