Bucket’s Comments (group member since Feb 13, 2015)

Bucket’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

I think that I have 5 points more on the readerboard than I should. My records show 600 points (through post 650) and the readerboard says 605.

Sorry if I'm missing something! I don't see a post for additional combos I missed (except for the one for Brave New World, which I've already accounted for).

15.10 CoA, 20+ letters

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett

+15 Task
+5 Not-a-Novel

Post total: 20
Season total: 655

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - - 15.10
- 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

15.7 CoA, 15 letters

My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates

+15 Task
+5 500+ pages (576 pages)

Post total: 20
Season total: 635

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 15.7 - - -
- 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

15.4 CoA, 12 letters

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

+15 Task

Post total: 15
Season total: 615

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 - 15.6 - - - -
- 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

20.2 Anti-hero

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (#90 on Best Anti-heroes in Books list)

It took me a while to get into this one, and I'm not one who needs a bracing plot. The structure is interesting, and ultimately works in the end, but I found it a little clumsy at the start. The newspaper articles either told me too much or not enough in advance of reaching those points in Iris's narrative.

But I enjoyed both Iris and Laura - they are broken people and not fun or charming, but interesting. Social constrictions placed on women are at the root of their problems, but their family makes things worse and they don't do much to help themselves, either.

The story within the story (The Blind Assassin) is almost flawless, and after 150 pages or so the weave of the narratives starts to work well. It gives a foreboding sense of the novel's ending; the tension is massive. Without giving anything away, I'll just say that the true ending is one of the possibilities I guessed, but there were several other equally viable possibilities, and I didn't know which was true until the end.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 1001 Books
+5 Jumbo (637 pages)
+25 Combo: 10.2 (assassin); 10.5 (362 shelvings); 20.4 (back and forth between the 30s/40s and the 90s); 20.6 (Booker Prize, Hammett Prize, and more); 20.9 (“Richard had arranged for a bottle of champagne to be sent up, at what he’d anticipated would be the proper moment.”)

Post total: 70
Season total: 600

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 - - 15.6 - - - -
- 20.2 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

15.2 CoA, 10 letters

Golden Age by Jane Smiley

+15 Task

Post total: 15
Season total: 530

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 15.2 15.3 - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

20.3 Ratings

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (Avg. rating 4.24)

I've read more than a few memoirs and novels about the Holocaust over the years, but this one really stood out. It's a very detailed account of one man's experiences in Auschwitz. Levi is almost clinical in his descriptions of life (and death) in the camp, but not without emotion. His deep dives into the very physical and short-term cares and concerns of the prisoners show very clearly the lack of hope that existed. Then, when moments of hope or even just of humanity appear, it feels like a deep breath after nearly drowning.

Levi's book is about death and survival and the narrow line between. It's about the strange juxtaposition between regimentation and lawlessness that were core features of Auschwitz. And it's about the ways that human-ness can be stolen well before life ends.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 1001 Books (Under its original title “If This is a Man”)
+5 Combo 10.5 (Shelved 334 times)

Post total: 55
Season total: 515

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 – 15.3 - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3(x2) 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

20.6 Awarded

Voss by Patrick White (WH Smith Literary Award, Miles Franklin Literary Award – plus the author won the Nobel Prize in Literature)

This was an unexpected treasure for me. Before reading, I imagined a mash-up between an adventure story (a la Jules Verne) and a romance (a la A Farewell to Arms). And it IS that, in a sense, but it's much bolder and more surprising than I could have imagined.

For starters, the romance doesn't truly start until Laura and Voss are apart and, due to lack of ways to communicate, mainly happens in their thoughts and dreams. As far as the adventure, there is a very visual sense of the landscape and some of the play-by-play of the crew's travel and struggles. But much of the adventure is internal too, focused on thoughts, dreams and power dynamics.

White's writing style is really effective. He lingers over the outward evidence of characters' thoughts and feelings. Meanwhile, his descriptions are quick and precise; they're everything you need to be in the moment of the novel, and not a word more. If you aren't paying precise attention, you will miss something critical.

I also love how White treats his characters. They aren't precious and he doesn't protect them in any way. Voss and Laura aren't just flawed, they're misfits, and not in the lovable way. They are fascinating and that stands alone as what makes them worthwhile to read about.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 1001 Books

Post total: 40
Season total: 455

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 – 15.3 - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -

15.3 CoA, 11 letters

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

+15 Task

Post total: 15
Season total: 415

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 – 15.3 - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

10.4 Truth and Reconciliation

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga (She is Anishinaabe, Indigenous Canadian)

Talaga tells heartbreaking true stories here with empathy and love. The focus is on seven Indigenous children who have died suspiciously while away from their home communities to attend high school in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

This is a beautifully-written and well-researched work of journalism with important political aims. It points out the ways that Canada has done direct harm to Indigenous citizens, of course. But it also shows clearly the ways that Canada even now is just paying lip service to doing better for these citizens. Little has actually changed. A similar story has and continues to play out in the United States, where I live.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-novel
+15 Combo 10.2 Halloween (target word: death), 20.3 (avg. 4.55), 20.6 (Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, RBC Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction)

Post total: 45
Season total: 400

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 10.4 - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

10.9 Oxford

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Target word: New)

Missed this one in high school somehow...

This is a problematic text (especially the stereotypes of indigenous people) and dystopia isn't really my thing. I'm also not sure why it's such an important read for high schoolers -- I think 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 are better choices for that.

BUT I quite enjoyed this. The imperfections of the main characters (Bernard, John, Lenina) as they wrestle with the constraints of society and with their own conditioning. The subtle stirrings of Lenina and the way that Bernard is suddenly content with society when he feels like less of a misfit are especially interesting.

I didn't dig deep into cultural references (I'm not reading for school, woohoo!) but I very much enjoyed the Shakespeare, and the semi-culminating philosophical conversation John has with Mustapha Mond.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 1001 Books
+5 Combo 10.5 Classics (shelved 20,632 times)

Post total: 35
Season total: 355

Claimed to date:
10.1 - 10.3 - - 10.6 10.7 - 10.9 10.10
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

10.3 Back to School

The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth (see his bio for educator info)

I enjoyed this well enough, but my expectations were high after reading Sacred Hunger by this author, and they were not met at all. I didn't have the sense of immersion in the story and the characters' lives that I did with Sacred Hunger.

Also, while the moral issues were just as much of an interesting thicket here, they just weren't faced as squarely and faithfully as in Sacred Hunger. It felt like we just scratched at the surface of the interplay between justice and mercy.

I did enjoy the comparison between Erasmus and Ashton, and the ways that they are similarly self-centered and non-humanist, despite one being a ruthless businessperson and the other a vocal abolitionist. I wanted more from Jane, the only one who sees through these two, and wanted better for her in the end.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Post total: 20
Season total: 320

Claimed to date:
10.1 – 10.3 - - 10.6 10.7 - - 10.10
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

10.10 Group Reads

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I'm of two minds on this one.

First, the negative. My main complaint is the ways the plot feels forced. The most egregious of these was Piranesi's discovery of torn up paper - not only the convenient timing of the discovery but the fact that he just didn't both to put the pieces together for weeks, until the right moment for the narrative. Piranesi also waits to look up the Other's name is his index because "it hadn't occurred to him." The fact that Clarke provides an excuse shows her own discomfort with that plot manipulation - Piranesi is curious by nature. There are smaller, similar forces on the plot -- things like this drive me crazy.

There's a lot on the positive side: the world-building is strong, Piranesi as a character is interesting and easy to love, the sense of place is strong, and unlike a lot of fantasy this isn't overly long nor does it feel like it's somehow trapped in medieval times as far as technology and gender roles. Most important of all, the ideas presented here about transgressive thinking (its dangers and its beauties) are thought-provoking, even haunting.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo: 10.3 (see Susanna Clarke bio), 20.3 (4.29 average on 10/1/21), 20.5 (Susanna Clarke born in 1959)

Post total: 35
Season total: 300

Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - - 10.6 10.7 - - 10.10
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

20.3 Ratings

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (As of 9/29/21, average rating is 4.15)

Overall, I loved the reading experience - especially books 1 and 2 as the darkness of the novel's reality and the characterizations deepened. I found the juxtaposition of characters, the intensity of relationships, and the discussions of power (and its lack) really interesting.

As the third book continued, I was intrigued but it felt like Toru's thought process (how he figured out certain things, his motivation for doing certain things) was missing. It felt a little like whiplash when something would suddenly be revealed, seemingly out of nowhere (about Creta, about the hanging house, about May, about Toru's summation of where Kumiko is).

Then I read some reviews and essays on the novel and learned that the English translation is missing about 61 pages - pages that focused on Toru's relationship with Creta, his conversations with Noboru Wataya, and his working out of certain details revealed in the end. I can't help but think I'd give this 5 stars if I could read it in the original Japanese.

Most annoying to me about his translation issue is that the translator made the cuts because the publisher said it needed to be shorter. I'm willing to believe the translator made the best choices on what to cut, but I'm irritated by the reason - this isn't a newspaper article that has to fit within its allotted column inches.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 1001 Books
+5 Jumbo (607 pages)
+15 Combo: 20.1 Serially (see comment 9), 20.5 Boomer (born 1949), 20.6 Awarded (Yomiuri Prize for Fiction, Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature)

Post total: 60
Season total: 265

Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - - 10.6 10.7 - - -
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - 20.3 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

10.7 Service

Shards by Ismet Prcic (Mustafa is a soldier – see summary on book page)

Review:
"He thinks he can recreate a shell by putting together all the shards. Insane!"

Shards is a fantastic novel. Non-linear for combo: The structure is as it's called - it's shards. We move back and forth in time and perspective and form.

We see Ismet's life in California and his youth in Bosnia and trip to Scotland, sometimes through journal fragments, sometimes letters to his mom, sometimes straightforward narrative.

We see the experiences of Mustafa (who may or may not be Ismet) as a soldier and we see him appear and disappear in Ismet's life - through narrative that occasionally drifts into the second person, or repeats whole paragraphs, verbatim, that we've already read.

There's a sense that this is autobiographical, but also not. That this is Prcic as author wrestling with his demons by imaging an Ismet who is wrestling with the same demons:

"How is it that some shell that exploded long ago in Tuzla can reassemble itself, fly backward into the mouth of the mortar that shot it, get shot again, and reach me here [in California]? How is it that I can exist in both the past and the present simultaneously, be both body and soul simultaneously, live both reality and fantasy simultaneously?"

Prcic's prose is super readable and very visceral. He's not afraid of ugly images but doesn't overdramatize them. The prose and structure together make this move at a quick clip somehow, even though the story seems to be putting off getting to an ending that we already know from the start. Overall -- I recommend!

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo: 20.4 Non-linear, 20.6 Awarded (Oregon Book Award for Fiction, Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and several more)

Post total: 30
Season total: 205

Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - - 10.6 10.7 - - -
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - - 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Win...

"The original Japanese edition was released in three parts, which make up the three "books" of the single volume English language version.

Book of the Thieving Magpie (泥棒かささぎ編, Dorobō kasasagi hen)
Book of the Prophesying Bird (予言する鳥編, Yogen suru tori hen)
Book of the Bird-Catcher Man (鳥刺し男編, Torisashi otoko hen)"

10.6 Birthday
Americana by Don DeLillo (born Nov. 20, 1936)

I was expecting more of a road trip travelogue, but much of this was flashbacks. Lots of sex (not sexy sex), lots of male posturing, lots of the 1960s/70s attitude towards women, LGBT, Black people, etc.

It's well-written and has depth. The characters are well-rounded and interestingly flawed. The structure is complex and well done. I have no real complaints with DeLillo's style or execution. I just didn't find this very interesting and didn't take much away from it.

There's discussion of media, and the commercialization of the American dream. All this would have been very interesting back when this was published, but it has become less novel with age.

If you love DeLillo and his style, you should of course read this! Otherwise, might be one to skip.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo 20.9 (From page 187: “Amy was drinking the champagne punch. Nobody seemed drunk yet.”)

Post total: 25
Season total: 175

Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - - 10.6 - - - -
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - - 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

10.1 TBR

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter by Anonymous

TBR: I’ve been working on the 1001 list since 2010.

I enjoyed this reading experience more than I expected. This edition (translated to English by Donald Keene, with paper-cut art by Masayuki Miyata) was beautifully done and made for a bit of a magical reading experience.

The story itself is very much a fairy tale - part real, part fantasy. It dates back to around 900, but I found it strikingly timeless.

The main character is Kaguya-hime, a moon princess who ends up on earth. The fairy tale and sexist tropes are there -- she's incredibly beautiful, to the point she stays inside all the time; many men woo her and decide she really should belong to them; her father urges her to marry and she expresses willingness out of devotion to him.

But she also has some unique freedom. She agrees to marry only a suitor who manages to perform a completely impossible task (and, of course, no one succeeds). She is never forced to marry, though much cajoling happens.

Definitely worth a read - it's survived more than 1000 years for good reason.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 1001 Books

Post total: 30
Season total: 150

Claimed to date:
10.1 - - - - - - - - -
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - - 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

15.6 CoA, 14 letters

Shiloh and Other Stories by Bobbie Ann Mason (14 letters)

+15 Task
+5 Not-a-novel

Post total: 20
Season total: 120

Claimed to date:
- - - - - - - - - -
15.1 - - - - 15.6 - - - -
- - - 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -

15.1 CoA, 9 or fewer letters

Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks (9 letters)

+15 Task
+5 Not-a-novel

Post total: 20
Season total: 100

Claimed to date:
- - - - - - - - - -
15.1 - - - - - - - - -
- - - 20.4 - - - - 20.9 -