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May 12
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New comment on Taka's review of
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
(see all 2 comments)
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Taka
is currently reading:
House of Leaves (Paperback)
by Mark Z. Danielewski
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
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read in January, 2008
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Taka
gave
to:
Out: A Novel (Paperback)
by Natsuo Kirino
bookshelves:
japanese_lit,
japan_jul07-present
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in May, 2008
Taka said:
"Good! (3.5)
This is definitely an entertaining read that sucks you right in as things are set in motion. I loved how the author manipulates multiple perspectives and create different characters that are alive and interesting. Hats off to how skill...more
Good! (3.5)
This is definitely an entertaining read that sucks you right in as things are set in motion. I loved how the author manipulates multiple perspectives and create different characters that are alive and interesting. Hats off to how skillfully she does this without making identification difficult for the reader. The plot moves at breakneck speed and keeps the reader engaged; there really wasn't any dull moments except in the very beginning where the author sets it up.
There were two things I thought were the book's weaknesses: 1) Yayoi's murder of her husband wasn't convincing; and 2) the near-mad character of Satake was not believable. Other than that, though, it's a great, well-assembled thriller that goes beyond the scope of an ordinary crime thriller as it tells much about Japanese society.
Good stuff....less
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May 07
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New comment on Taka's review of
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
(see all 2 comments)
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May 06
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Taka
gave
to:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Paperback)
by Michael Chabon
bookshelves:
contemporary,
japan_jul07-present,
post-modern_lit
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my rating:
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read in May, 2008
Taka said:
"Awesome (4.5)--
Chabon is now one of my three favorite contemporary writers (others are David Foster Wallace and Neal Stephenson) with his graceful, elegant prose, extensive vocabulary, and entertaining plot. While the book was not "fall-on-t...more
Awesome (4.5)--
Chabon is now one of my three favorite contemporary writers (others are David Foster Wallace and Neal Stephenson) with his graceful, elegant prose, extensive vocabulary, and entertaining plot. While the book was not "fall-on-the-floor-funny" as one reviewer says, it certainly was entertaining and beautifully written. I really was floored by many of his metaphors.
Many reviewers complain of Chabon's narration that does a lot more telling than showing, which makes it more difficult for the reader to identify with the characters. But I think he pulled it off fairly well and I did sympathize with the characters (though I could've sympathized more if he had done more showing than telling), and his descriptions, I thought, were not at all boring but poetic and didn't bother me at all.
The novel reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude where he does masterfully narrate one hundred years of history by more telling than showing. Also, the golem coming back at the end of the story reminded me of Melquiades's secret parchment that appears in the beginning and re-emerges to be deciphered at the very end.
The only minor complaint I have of this amazingly well-put-together novel- well yes, other than that he could've done a little more showing and less flashbacks at crucial moments - is that it seemed like it dragged on toward the end. The beginning is perfect, and had he kept the pitch throughout, it would've been the perfect novel because that's where I laughed, was dazzled by the beauty of his prose, and fascinated by the plot, the golems and the art of escape and all the cool things that were being brewed together. But somewhere along the line, the excitement dwindled, the cool, esoteric knowledge dropped away, and the plot became haphazard and sprawling.
Still, it's a great novel and I highly recommend it.
...less
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April 27
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Taka
gave
to:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Paperback)
by Dave Eggers
bookshelves:
japan_jul07-present,
post-modern_lit
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my rating:
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read in April, 2008
Taka said:
"More like 2.5--
Dave Eggers has a unique, experimental style in the spirit of modernism cast in simple, colloquial language quite reminiscent of David Foster Wallace. There are definitely very funny parts, and some of the scenes and episodes are i...more
More like 2.5--
Dave Eggers has a unique, experimental style in the spirit of modernism cast in simple, colloquial language quite reminiscent of David Foster Wallace. There are definitely very funny parts, and some of the scenes and episodes are interesting and beautiful, but overall, I felt it to be, as the author admits on the first page, "kind of uneven." I really didn't care all that much for many of the episodes (esp. the Real World interview part), and didn't know what to make of them because most of them are disconnected and lack cohesion. While it was interesting, easy to read, funny and ridiculous at times, I wouldn't say, as The New York Times Book Review has it, "Exhilarating ... Profoundly moving." As a matter of fact, I wasn't really affected, much less profoundly moved, by the narrator's plight.
A reviewer says that this criticism about the unevenness of the book is already included in the book and yet he still manages to make it interesting. But just as a smoker who is aware of the risk s/he is taking by sticking to the habit doesn't make the risk go away, the self-awareness of one's own work's shortcomings does not blot them out, much less compensate for them. Sure, it's uneven and interesting, peppered with some hilarious bits. Sure the author openly admits it. But the fact remains that I didn't get sucked into it, by its story or style
So I'm led to the conclusion that the hype over this book is overblown and if you wanna see for yourself how it is, it's better to go into it without the highest expectations stoked by such reviews you find on its back cover.
To sum: It's OK (2) + some good laughs (0.5) = 2.5
...less
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April 24
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Taka
gave
to:
Theogony, Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
by Hesiod
bookshelves:
classics,
japan_jul07-present
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my rating:
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read in October, 2007
Taka said:
"May not be that important--
As I expected, there were a TON of pronouns - or more precisely, around 300 (no, I didn't count them, thanks) - in a mere 30 pages of the text, which was followed by a rather random and rambling work of equal length c...more
May not be that important--
As I expected, there were a TON of pronouns - or more precisely, around 300 (no, I didn't count them, thanks) - in a mere 30 pages of the text, which was followed by a rather random and rambling work of equal length called Works and Days. There were maybe four parts in Theogony that I found was of historical, literary, and mythological significance: the naming of the Muses (which is minimal, since Hesiod doesn't assign their specific functions), Cronos's castration of his father, Zeus's birth, and the gods' war with the Titans. In the second work, the only interesting parts were the story about Prometheus and the division of human history into not three but five stages (gold, silver, bronze, "demigods and heroes," and finally iron). If it weren't for its sheer shortness, I wouldn't bother to spend time on it. I think a quick reading of a summary on Wikipedia or other sources would suffice for gleaning the "important" elements in the work.
Hence the two stars (= it was ok)....less
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April 22
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Taka
gave
to:
Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (Paperback)
by Vladimir Nabokov
bookshelves:
american_lit,
japan_jul07-present
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2008
Taka said:
"Memory well spoken (3.5)--
Thought not the best of the stories I've read (literary-autobiography-wise, nothing I've read surpasses Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles), this charming, rather haphazardly collated collection of Nabokov's ...more
Memory well spoken (3.5)--
Thought not the best of the stories I've read (literary-autobiography-wise, nothing I've read surpasses Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles), this charming, rather haphazardly collated collection of Nabokov's autobiographical episodes is certainly worth reading for its breathtaking prose, unique and incisive ruminations on various subjects, and revealing, behind-the-scenes vignettes and thoughts of one of the most fascinating writers of the 20th century.
The only major misgiving I had was the bland, woolgathering reveries I had to trudge through. But then there are these passages that soar into the Unreal and leave me gasping for breath. From the very first sentence ( "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness"), Nabokov proves himself again and again to be the master prose stylist that he was. Just read this description of the moon:
So there it comes, steering out of a flock of small dappled clouds, which it tinges with a vague iridescence; and, as it sails higher, it glazes the runner tracks left on the road, where every sparkling lump of snow is emphasized by a swollen shadow (p.99).
In these instances, I simply must surrender, prostrate, to Nabokov with my humble hat off. I was also pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing over some of the vignettes (esp. in Chapter 6). Take, for example, this one:
One summer afternoon, in 1911, Mademoiselle [my favorite along with Nabokov's father] came into my room, book in hand, started to say she wanted to show me how wittily Rousseau denounced zoology (in favor of botany), and by then was too far gone in the gravitational process of lowering her bulk into an armchair to be stopped by my howl of anguish: on that seat I had happened to leave a glass-lidded cabinet tray with long, lovely series of the Large White. Her first reaction was one of stung vanity: her weight, surely, could not be accused of damaging what in fact it had demolished; her second was to console me: Allons donc, ce ne sont que des papillons de potager! - which only made matters worse. (127)
Funny, incisive, and lyrical, the book is a great read especially if you're a writer. Like some reviewer has written, "time with Nabokov is invariably time well spent." And it is true. He shows us the secret passageways and hidden nooks of the English language that other writers have completely overlooked. It is simply delightful to follow his prose, stumble over obscure charming words, and be surprised, accompanied by that guttural groan of awe and satisfaction at witnessing the magician of words at work.
...less
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April 20
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New comment on Rob's review of
The Road
reply to this comment
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Taka
read and liked
Rob's
review of The Road:
"3.3 stars. I don't know. This was like a slick hollywood film that is one of the studio's few "quality" films for the year, released in november so it's closer to awards season. I was cer"
...read more »
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