false 18 226 205 true 5772620 read 2 true 90773 currently-reading 19 true 90772 to-read <![CDATA[Tyler added 'Gravity's Rainbow']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78091929 Gravity's Rainbow (Paperback) by Thomas Pynchon
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> <![CDATA[Tyler is on page 380 of Gravity's Rainbow ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78091929 Tyler is on page 380 of 784 of Gravity's Rainbow ]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'A Wild Sheep Chase']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73219080 to: A Wild Sheep Chase (Paperback) by Haruki Murakami
Another fantastic work by Murakami (well, in many ways the original fantastic work by Murakami). You'll find in it everything you love and hate about Murakami's style: Believably insane and quirky characters; a plot that has to be read to be believed; and a resolution that leaves you feeling like you aren't sure what, if anything, actually happened. Less obtuse than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but also a little slower and less eventful; that said, though, I highly recommend it and am definitely glad I read it, even if I'm not sure what to take from it besides "Well, that was weird". ]]> <![CDATA[Tyler is on page 270 of A Wild Sheep Chase ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73219080 Tyler is on page 270 of 353 of A Wild Sheep Chase ]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'A Swell-Looking Babe']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69925423 to: A Swell-Looking Babe (Paperback) by Jim Thompson
I officially love Thompson's writing. This piece—about a young med student, his chronically ill father, and the sexy, sexy woman who stays at the hotel where the first works to support the second—is a fantastic slice of noir writing, without any of the noir stereotypes we have come to expect. His style is terse, involving, and gritty, and quite psychological; I was excited to see a really well-done incompetent protagonist. I feel like he was a strong, if indirect, influence on the Coen Brothers' careers.

If I was forced make a single complaint about this book, it would be that it's very uneventful. That is not to say it's not tense or interesting, but it is striking how very little actually happens, plot-wise, in the course of this novel. But this is me reaching for a complaint; while it is not a perfect novel it is certainly very, very good. The only people I would suggest shy away from Thompson are the forcibly optimistic and the easily depressed—Jim Thompson's world is not a pretty nor a rosy one, and it's entirely possible it could cut a little deep. ]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'Tithe']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73218188 Tithe (A Modern Faerie Tale, #1) by Holly Black
bookshelves: to-read
]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'Rosemary and Rue']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73218141 Rosemary and Rue (October Daye, #1) by Seanan McGuire
bookshelves: to-read
]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'The Deadly Percheron']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68786438 to: The Deadly Percheron (Missing Mystery, #7) by John Franklin Bardin
Short version: I enjoyed this book, but I think it shows its age. Bardin writes a nicely psychological story that really throws the reader for a loop early on and guaranteed that I stuck around for the end; I loved how such a ridiculous setup was made to seem chilling and even riveting, and I actually think the way it was resolved was inventive and interesting. The prose is also very strong, and Bardin seems to have a good handle on the psychology of his main characters--it's easy to tell all the way through that the writer knew where the story was going from the very beginning and folded those details in neatly throughout the book.

To be frank, however, I think that Bardin wrote a 150 page novella and then duplicated passages to give himself 38 more, rather than actually finishing the book. The narrator has amnesia, and that's fine as a literary device—but having him suddenly remember the truth of things four times over the course of this book, and using that as the primary driver of the mystery, was a little sloppy. Similarly, I felt like the ending came up absolutely out of nowhere, and that it mismatched the framing device for it horribly (if he'd had a similar confrontation with the murderer and forgotten it, why did the murderer still explain himself again instead of just killing the guy where he stood?).

Summary: If you like noir, I highly recommend it, especially if you're interested in the history of it and how its elements came to be; Bardin is an important part of the psychological side of the noir equation, and this book seems to be a fine example of his style ]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'The King in Yellow']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68045154 to: The King in Yellow (Paperback) by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
My favorite of these collected stories are by far the first four, which all center around the play "The King in Yellow", a mysterious and apparently horrific work of dramaturgy that is the trigger, or at least a sort of roadsign, for various nameless horrors. Chambers' horror is very effective, subtle, creepy stuff, never as overt or gory as later writers; I'd even argue these stories in places surpass one of his best-known fans, H.P. Lovecraft.

The rest of the collection, I'll admit, confused me; mostly because I was expecting them to continue to be the same sort of subtle horror, and instead got increasingly less bizarre and more romantic as the book went on, ending with a witty, well-written, but ultimately unconnected story about Parisian art students. I will applaud Chambers for his wit, and for his impressive slow fade from the outright horror of "The Repairer of Reputations" to the very romantic "Rue Barre", but I do wish that someone had made it clearer that I shouldn't be taking all these stories as one continuous cycle.

That said, I do think Chambers was a talented writer; any lover of Lovecraftian horror should give the first four stories a read-through, and the rest of them are well worth it for people who appreciate good prose and an eye for the emotional.

However, I recommend against this edition, as it is is plagued with what I can only assume are editorial errors: special characters in French words are often left out, resulting in words like "Ccile" and "fte", and some of the stories have glaring omissions of periods; there are places where I think commas and the like are also missing, but it's harder to say. Lovecraft fans and literature fans have ensured that The King in Yellow is not hard to find; if anyone reads another edition with better editing work, please let me know so I can add it to my personal collection. ]]> <![CDATA[Tyler added 'Naked Lunch: The Restored Text']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/63857744 to: Naked Lunch: The Restored Text (Paperback) by William S. Burroughs
This book is both as amazing as you've heard it is, and as disgusting. Like Kerouac's On the Road, the prose in this is breathless and expert (though Burroughs needs to get over the word "arabesque"); unlike On the Road, there is not an ounce of doubt as to why this book was so radical and shocking. Naked Lunch is possibly the single most disgusting, nerve-wracking read I have had in years. It's all here--murder, surgery, anal sex, and yes, graphic descriptions of a heroin shooting heroin, penned in a poetic style that the best death-metal singer wishes he could emulate.

The complaint I have about Naked Lunch is the same complaint everyone else has--it is impossible to understand what is happening. Burroughs jumps from autobiography to dystopian fantasy in the blink of an eye, and he makes no effort to be clear about which is which or indeed what order anything occurs in. The book is meant to be experienced more than it is meant to be understood (Burroughs' letters on the subject insist that this is not a novel and should not be treated like one), and while it was a lovely experience a part of me worries I'm just not smart enough to figure this one out anymore. I sort of want to take a college course on the text, but I don't know if I can read the cardiac massage section ever again.

The restored Grove edition, I should note, has some great items in the appendix; Burroughs personally endorsed the addition of his letters about addiction and drugs, and it's fascinating to read him saying half a century ago the same things the left are saying today. The only chunk of this book I could have done without was the "outtakes" in the final appendix, as Burroughs did not want those sections added back in to the book and I don't think they add much. I'm guessing these are intended for would-be Burroughs scholars, so they can draw comparisons and stroke their pet theories, but as it was, they are the only portion of the book I didn't bother reading. ]]>