Bucket’s
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(group member since Feb 13, 2015)
Bucket’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 101-120 of 303
20.1 FavoritesWhere The Sea Used To Be by Rick Bass
+20 Task (Fall 2019 20.4 Boomer - Rick Bass was born in 1958)
Points this post: 20
Total points: 30
10.1 SummertimeStella Maris by Cormac McCarthy
+10 Task 6 letters in author first name
Point this post: 10
Total points: 10
20.3 POVThe Leavers by Lisa Ko
+20 Task (the book goes back and forth between the POVs of two characters who are mother and son)
Task total =20
Season total = 165
20.3 POVThe Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
+20 Task (each chapter is from the POV of a different woman living in the building)
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1982)
+5 Combo (10.4 – 5 words)
Task total =30
Season total = 145
20.6 AwardAngle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
+20 Task (several awards for body of work, including LA Times Kirsch award and California Arts Council: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace...)
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1995)
+10 Combo (10.4 – 3 words, 10.7 - born 1909, died 1993)
+5 Jumbo (569 pages)
Task total =40
Season total = 100
10.4 3,4,5The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
+10 Task
Task total =10
Season total = 60
10.4 3,4,5The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
+10 Task
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1995)
Task total =15
Season total = 40
10.4 3,4,5Who Would Have Thought It? by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton
+10 Task
+15 Oldies (pub’d 1872)
Task total = 25
Season total = 25
10.5 JourneyThe Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar
Review: First, the good. I enjoyed the sensory detail around food, sense of place, and color (this last is multiplied by Nour's synesthesia). I appreciate the attention paid to interweaving the two stories and the unique perspective of a refugee story that doesn't focus on getting to or adjusting to the U.S. or U.K. I also liked the characters and could sense the author's respect for them as realistic people.
However, the connections between the two stories were a bit disappointing. The stories are too parallel to illuminate each other. It's more of a mirroring, which isn't emotive or thought-provoking.
The emotional impact of the novel was very underwhelming considering the harrowing events depicted. It felt like all the sharp and jagged corners were shaved off in the name of beautiful prose and sensory fancy. Everything was too self-consciously lovely to really be interesting or impactful.
+10 Task (Book follows Syrian refugees as they travel across seven countries to reach safety)
+10 Review
Task total = 20
Season total = 430
20.7 RatingsDavid Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Review: A very enjoyable, ultimately satisfying coming-of-age novel by Dickens. It's incredibly well-written (from plot to characters to narrative timing); flawless, really.
But it just doesn't pack the punch of A Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations. I think Dickens had a little too much tenderness for David Copperfield. Not surprising, as there are more than a few parallels between Copperfield and Dickens himself. But that tenderness kept Dickens from heightening the narrative or letting his lead really come to much harm.
In the positive column again is, of course, Dickens' way with words. He packs so much into short phrases. For example, when David and his mother are living in the shadow of Mr. Murdstone: "We dined alone, we three together." On its face, it means no company, but it really means they each feel alone, despite eating together. The book is peppered with beautiful writing like this.
I can't justify 5 stars, but this is one case where I could truly give 4.5!
+20 Task (223k+ reviews)
+10 Review
+10 Canon
+15 Jumbo (882 pages)
Task total = 55
Season total = 410
20.2 Biography?When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut
Review: Fantastic, through and through. I love the philosophical balance of science and speculation, of fact and fiction. Labatut starts with pure facts, and moves further and further into fiction, until the titular chapter in the book where the name, contribution to physics and rough biographical details are all that is true. He imagines the breakdowns and mind-altering states that it might have taken for these physicists and mathematicians to evolve their thought paradigms to something so clearly outside human understanding to date.
This is clever and interesting, but it's also repeatedly earth-shattering. The very format mirrors the message - that when we cease to understand the world we revert (or evolve?) to fiction, poetry, religion. We move from reality is unknown, to that it's unknowable, to that it may not even exist at every level. And what does that leave us with but god and poetry?
I want to revisit this book.
+20 Task (book move from biography to biographical fiction of famous physicists and mathematicians)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.2 – we)
Task total = 35
Season total = 355
15.3 Alpha OmegaOur Story Begins: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff
+15 Task (T-F)
Task total = 15
Season total = 320
Ha! My kiddo is in kindergarten, so we are very focused on practicing our counting skills over here right now. Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Bucket wrote: "For Bewilderment, I count 12 letters.
B-1 E-2 W-3 I-4 L-5 D-6 E-7 R-8 M-9 E-10 N-11 T-12
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 759 Bucket wrote: "10.9 Covid 19 Hits
[book:Bewilderment|5..."
For Bewilderment, I count 12 letters.B-1 E-2 W-3 I-4 L-5 D-6 E-7 R-8 M-9 E-10 N-11 T-12
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 759 Bucket wrote: "10.9 Covid 19 Hits
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Review: This started out very clunky. Heavy-handed thematically, which it remains througho..."
15.2 Alpha OmegaA Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
+15 Task (J-N)
Task total = 15
Season total = 305
20.9 TranslatorTrue Biz by Sara Nović
Review: Just okay as a novel, in my opinion. The author tries to do and cover all things through her characters. Medical/social discrimination of and within the deaf community is well covered, but the author also covers racism, sexism, and LGBTQ issues, to greater or lesser extent, and her teen characters deal with bullying, drugs, sex, violence, religious or parental abuse, and more. So much that the book becomes part-treatise, rendering the story and characters flat and unnatural.
The overtness of all the "big issues" coverage also gives the book a YA feel, even though there are many adult themes.
The story itself is two stars, really, but I'm giving the book a third star for the supplementary material. It's scattered between chapters of the story and is interesting and eye-opening. This material (mostly) looks at ASL and deaf culture, their history, and how U.S. laws, lack of resources, and the medical community's treatment of deaf people and promotion of cochlear implants have made things worse, not better, for deaf people.
+20 Task (translator of American Sign language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_No... )
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.4 – 7 letters; 10.9 – Best Fiction Nominee 2022)
Task total = 40
Season total = 275
10.9 Covid 19 HitsBewilderment by Richard Powers
Review: This started out very clunky. Heavy-handed thematically, which it remains throughout, but also just poorly written. Odd motivations, plot conveniences, flat or tell-not-show characterization. But by the time I got halfway through, most of those problems had fallen away. I don't know if Powers hit his stride or I fell in love with the story. Probably both.
The metaphors and themes are not remotely subtle. The descriptions of planets tie directly to what's occupying or happening to Theo and Robin. The Flowers for Algernon descriptions lay bare exactly what will happen for the rest of the novel. This I had to just accept.
I also had a minor quibble with the simplistic handling of psychotropic medicine, but Theo is entitled to his fatherly opinion. This I also accepted.
Because what Powers ultimately does here is masterful.
He tells the story of what happens when we won't stop destroying the earth, destroying truth, destroying politics, destroying science, destroying curiosity, destroying love, and destroying childhood.
The story is highly specific. At heart, it's about a grieving father and his also-grieving, autistic-perhaps son, and these characters are beautifully tender and depthful in the second half.
At the same time, it's a sharp rebuke of modern US politics and social systems (complete with characters who are basically Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg). Unfortunately, these parts can veer towards silly or preachy.
But then – I don’t want to spoil anything, but the last third leaves an awful lot to think about.
+10 Task (Best Fiction Nominee 2021)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.4 – 12 letters)
Task total = 25
Season total = 235
10.4 TwelveNetherland by Joseph O'Neill
Review: Normally I love books of this sort - it's a smart homage to The Great Gatsby, and very modern. The choice of timing (immediately post 9/11) and choice of characters (immigrants) are very, very smart. Probably too smart - it's so smart, it lacks feeling. O'Neill is a good writer too, at least when it comes to writing clever sentences and choosing the right potent details to make those sentences pop.
But I just didn't enjoy reading it at all. The Great Gatsby isn't full of lovable characters, but we are drawn to Nick Carraway, the calm and detached, but hopeful and realistic narrator. Hans is no Nick. He's detached, yes, and hopeful too, but he's not interesting. His relationship with his wife is strange, his reactions to her leaving are strange, his relationship with his son is strange.
Part of what makes the narrative structure of The Great Gatsby work is that though the story is about Gatsby it belongs, through and through, to Nick. Netherland is wishy-washy - it's about Hans and Chuck and even Rachel sometimes. And it doesn't really belong to any of them. It maybe belongs to New York City circa 2002-2006ish more than anything.
I just couldn't drum up interest in the characters or the story. The social milieu was probably the most interesting part, but wasn't enough to carry the novel for me.
+10 Task (10 letters)
+10 Review
Task total = 20
Season total = 210
