Bucket’s
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(group member since Feb 13, 2015)
Bucket’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 141-160 of 303
In post 374, I just claimed points for She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore. About 63% of the novel takes place in Liberia.
20.1 JemisinShe Would Be King by Wayétu Moore
Review: "Alike spirits separated at great distances will always be bound to meet, even if only once; kindred souls will always collide; and strings of coincidences are never what they appear to be on the surface, but instead are the mask of God."
Moore's main characters (Gbessa, June Dey, Norman Aragon) are these kindred souls. It's the 1830s and 40s and their childhoods take place worlds apart (Liberia, U.S. antebellum South, Jamaica). A fourth character serves as a force to bind their stories and ultimately bring the characters together in Liberia. She's a person, then a ghost, in June Dey's story, and the wind for the others. She reminded me of the swarm in Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift, but she's less of a Greek-chorus-style observer. She pushes and pulls on the characters and even speaks to them at times.
The characters are also bound by their supernatural gifts (strength, invisibility, immortality). Together, the three are portrayed as invincible, like Marvel-style superheroes, when they come together. Moore separates them for most of the story and it's easy to see why - there'd be nothing but conquering and victory with them together.
Gbessa is the most important character, and gets most of Moore's focus and all of her tenderness. She is portrayed as strong, wild and free, but also as broken, lonely and unmoored from any culture or home. All these parts of her make the end of the novel possible.
As the wind says, "The girl with the biggest gift of us all. Life. If she was not a girl or if she was not a woman; if she was not a woman or if she was not a witch, she would be king."
Overall, I enjoyed this and I think it's a great debut. I'm excited to read Moore's memoir and anything else she writes next. I will say that I think there's some room for improvement. It was a little too easy to see Moore tugging the authorial puppet strings here. I could feel a bit of strain to bring the three characters together, then apart, then together again.
+20 Task (MC is Gbessa who is Black)
+5 Combo (20.2 – debut by this author)
+10 Review
Task total = 35
Season total = 360
20.9 ABCsThe Elephant's Journey by José Saramago
Review: The story is Saramago’s imagining of a historical event - when an elephant was transported from Portugal to Austria in 1552.
The narrative perspective is that of Saramago himself - novelist turned historian. The tact he takes is to draw attention to this perspective all throughout. This isn't straight fact and it isn't straight historical fiction. Saramago interestingly rides the fine line between and the narrative voice makes sure we know it. It's unusual, and I really enjoyed it.
Saramago doesn't pretend to know what he does not. For example, he points out his glaring lack of knowledge about what crossing the Alps would have been like 500 years ago. He admits that the narrative is focused on subhro's thoughts to avoid subtly pointing out this glaring lack (that he's just overtly pointed out).
The story is told like a novel (vivid and visual, strong characterization) while full of reminders that it's not what it seems. Saramago points out his decisions and tactics. He references his tools (major vs. minor characters, setting, description, the element of surprise). He reminds us that we aren't at all in the moment of the story by musing on how modern technology or sensibility might have changed the journey.
Fun to read as a story, and also fun to examine - it's not often that experimental novels manage both!
+20 Task (JS)
+20 Combo (10.3 – J name, 20.1 – MC subhro is Indian (South Asian), 20.5 – https://colnect.com/en/stamps/stamp/7..., 20.10 – pub’d 2008)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (from the Portuguese)
Task total = 60
Season total = 310
20.8 Soup’s On!Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Review: This was a lovely, magical read! Tita is a beautiful, strong character. The book is blazing with feeling, drama and food, from cover to cover. I enjoyed the recipes - so detailed you can taste them, yet seamlessly enmeshed in the story, never clunky add-ons. There is quite a lot of magic here. Flirting, perhaps, with becoming more magic than magical realism.
There are so many sensory moments - taste, smell, touch, sound, color, all of it - as we flit back and forth in time, emotion, and realistic vs. magical. I never had whiplash though; such a fun reading experience!
+20 Task ("She noticed a smell that struck her. A smell that was foreign to this house. John opened the door and stood there with a tray in his hands and a bowlful of ox-tail soup!")
+20 Combo (10.2 – born in Mexico, 20.1 – all major characters are Latino/a, 20.2 – debut novel, 20.7 – MPG Spanish Literature)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (from the Spanish)
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1989)
Task total = 65
Season total = 250
20.5 FaulknerChess Story by Stefan Zweig
Review: Very readable and engaging, short and simply told. I was interested in Zweig's choice to tell this story from a remove (second-hand perspective) rather than diving in to Dr. B's perspective. It's very consciously done - our narrator even says at one point that Dr. B told him the story in "much more detail" than he's relating here. I suppose it lends itself to the novella form more easily, and keeps the psychological intensity at a lower level.
It's a story about Nazism and, really, about surviving psychological torture, but the second-hand perspective and the laser focus on chess make what could have been a terrifying, psychological thriller of a read more of an intellectually interesting read. I don't know that many authors would make the same narrative choices but with these parameters in place, it is beautifully done.
+20 Task (Stamp: https://www.ebay.com/itm/184591499153)
+5 Combo (20.9 - SZ)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (from the German)
+10 Oldies (pub’d 1941)
Task total = 55
Season total = 185
20.4 SaramagoBrookland by Emily Barton
Review: This was a page-turner for me. I really enjoyed Prue's story, including all the minutiae of running the distillery and building the bridge. The book is very rich with detail and it's easy to picture the environment. Prue as a character is also full of depth. We see everyone else through her eyes - for better and worse. There are incredible moments of tension and sadness throughout the book too. The ending is devastatingly sad.
I wanted more from Pearl though and sort of wished that the author had chosen an all-knowing narrator perspective to better understand the build-up of tension between Prue and Pearl. Prue was blind to it for most of her life and the novel is meant to be Prue's letter to her daughter - telling what happened with speculation on what Pearl was thinking that Prue missed while she lived it. It's Prue's story, but I wanted to understand better what Prue was missing. Even a little more hindsight from Prue would have helped.
+20 Task (set in 1780s and 1790s)
+20 Combo (10.2 – born in US, 10.9 – set 95%+ in NYC, 20.8 – pg. 42 “But willfully or not, Johanna did not hear her; and she doled out their soup without saying another word.”, 20.10 – pub’d 2006)
+10 Review
Task total = 50
Season total = 130
20.2 KingA Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Review: This is an extremely impressive debut. The characters are everything here. As a reader, I could picture many of them clearly, inside and out. There's little sense of place, setting or other surrounding description - it's all about the characters.
The main focus is Amar, though we hear his voice less often than Hadia (older sister) and Layla (mother). Both feel responsible in different ways for what happens with Amar, both have information the other doesn't have. These three voices tag-team for most of the novel.
Part 4 came as a bit of a jolt - we suddenly hear from Rafiq (father) who fills in many blanks and while the source of a lot of the family's problems, is somehow more an indirect than direct cause of the major betrayals Amar faces.
+20 Task (debut novel)
+5 Combo (20.1 – all four major characters are Indian (South Asian))
+10 Review
Task total = 35
Season total = 80
10.2 OctoberfestThe Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
Review: This was a bit of a slog. There were many moments of dark humor, and interesting ideas about aging and the ways that power can be subtly given and taken away. But I really had to dig to keep my focus on the writing, because of its structure.
There are four or five chapter breaks, but no paragraph breaks at all. Sentences are absurdly long -- pages and pages. The last chapter of 50ish pages is one sentence. Reading along with only commas to delineate, I found myself feeling more and more frenzied, with no natural pauses to stop and think or let something sink in.
The more interesting structure experiment was that the narration moves fluidly between characters. Sometimes we're in the dictator's perspective, sometimes his mom or lover or other minor character, and most often in an unnamed, unknown citizen or bystander. I wish that Marquez had played just with this, and left in paragraph and sentence breaks.
+10 Task (born in Colombia)
+10 Combo (20.1 – el president is Hispanic, 20.5 - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/5685091...)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (from the Spanish)
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1975)
Task total = 45
Season total = 45
Claimed points in post 1032 for Batouala by René Maran. This one is set fully in what is now called the Central African Republic.
15.16 G49 – MPE Page count 400-499The Counterfeiters by André Gide (451 pages)
Review: I went in a bit blind, but I really enjoyed this. Gide takes on a lot here:
-what it takes to write and a contribution to transforming the novel as a form
-a huge cast of characters with complex, changing identities and relationships
-many perspectives, and both narrative and journal formats
-subtle gay subtext (in 1925)
-psychological musings that pack a punch
-and also a plot with turns and surprises
It's not all perfect and some threads get dropped, but it's pretty close. And I love the abrupt crescendo of an ending.
+15 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first published 1925)
Task total = 25
Season total = 410
(view spoiler)
15.15 N31 – New to me authorThe Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart (first book I’ve read by this author)
Review: This was mostly charming throughout and occasionally had me laughing or smiling at the sheer charm of a moment. It is occasionally a little roll-your-eyes cute, avoiding real emotional issues. But for the most part, it doesn't shy away. There's a lot of depth here, more than I expected. Balthazar and Hebe are emotionally estranged, and that tension keeps the story afloat.
The other characters are more distraction than addition to the story, but they have their fun moments, especially Valerie Jennings who keeps accidentally greeting Arthur Catnip while wearing something ridiculous on her head.
The sense of place here is a real triumph. I especially loved the details of the London Underground lost property office, but the descriptions of life in the Tower of London were wonderful too.
+15 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 20
Season total = 385
(view spoiler)
15.14 B9 – MPE page count 100-199Batouala by René Maran (150 pages)
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was a very enjoyable read that struck me as ahead of its time. It's 100 years old and much has changed in Africa in that time. I also only have a very small amount of context for understanding Maran as an author and where and why he wrote.
That said, I really liked that Batouala gives us the African (male) perspective, and doesn't shy away from calling out white colonists for their racism and lack of cultural humility.
I also found much of the language really visual and beautiful. I love when an obscure classic like this still has so much to offer.
+15 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first pub’d 1921)
Task total = 25
Season total = 365
(view spoiler)
15.13 B6 – BEARDSEverything That Rises Must Converge: Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Review: These are not happy stories, and some the ending knocked me over, emotionally. There are a lot of mothers here with disappointing sons, and a few fathers who think their children (or children-in-law) are disappointing. Everyone who deserves it (and some who don't) get at least some of their due, sometimes viciously.
The title of the collection is apt for all the stories, though it's the titular story that gives us the sense of the title's meaning. In every story, someone (or a group, like black people or working class people) is rising, and the convergence with those (usually MCs who think they're better results in something explosive.
These stories are fascinating for their time, and well worth reading with their context (southern, 1960s) in mind.
+15 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first pub’d 1965)
Task total = 25
Season total = 340
(view spoiler)
15.12 B7 – Best booksOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (rating: 4.05)
Review: An intense and beautiful read. It's overtly political, dramatic and poetic. It reminded me of spoken word, with every feeling heightened and every emotional height and depth wrung from each scene.
It's a hard one to rate, because it's not entirely my sort of thing. A little too in-your-face and it flirted with melodrama without ever becoming melodrama. But it achieves everything it set out to do - it's perfectly executed, even if it's not fully for me.
+15 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 20
Season total = 315
(view spoiler)
15.11 B15 – Boxall’s 1001 BooksThe Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
Review: Well, I finished it. It took forever and it wasn't particularly fun. I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this book to. But as tedious and repetitive as it is, there is something truly unique here, and now that it's over I'm glad I read it.
A few phrases other reviewers have used that resonate with how I feel about this book:
From Publisher's Weekly - "exquisite narrative tedium"
From the New Yorker - "The first stunningly original disaster of modernism."
The Making of Americans is not unlike a very complex, multi-variable science experiment. In her scientific way, Stein is studying two things at once:
1. Understanding the depth and breadth of different people's psychological cores
2. Finding words to name and describe this understanding that are both accurate and can only be interpreted in one way.
The resulting writing is incredibly intentional and exhaustive. "Every word I am ever using in writing has for me very existing being," Stein's narrator writes. In practice, this makes for very tedious repetition. As I read, I could see Stein starting with a concept (family living, for example). She defines it in a small number of words. Then twists, turns and repeats those words in a variety of ways that subtly alter and add layers to her definition. Occasionally a new word is added and it's like a tiny earthquake. It's one word, but it offers a dozen new ways to repeat and refine. This continues for 925 pages.
And this is what I mean when I say that The Making of Americans is like a science experiment. The repetition allows for precision. Stein is listing and testing the range of each possible variable in human nature. Each variable must be understood across its spectrum (ex. from no loving feeling to nearly none to a little to a little more to a medium amount to a lot to a whole lot to always loving). Then it must be understood in situ - in relation to the other variables an individual has and to what level. And then it must be understood in motion - over time and through interaction with others. By over time, I mean that as an individual ages they may change, or they pretend to change, or they think they change but don't.
It's an ever-growing flowering of variation and each permutation and combination must be tested.
+15 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first pub’d 1925)
+5 500+ (926 pages)
Task total = 30
Season total = 295
(view spoiler)
10.10 O69 – Often: Author I have read beforeOrlando by Virginia Woolf (This is the fifth book I’ve read by this author)
Review: I knew going in that this was a little bit different from usual Woolf, but it was more different than I dared to imagine. Orlando is unexpectedly funny, even bordering on zany at times.
I really enjoyed Orlando as a character, in all his, then her, permutations. Orlando has a zest for life and love and being who s/he truly is that keeps her young and independent for centuries. Orlando has struggles but they don't eat away at life or happiness for long. Early on, he struggles with wanting desperately to write something worthwhile and with lost love. Later, she deals with a man who won't take no for an answer. Somewhere along the way, she falls in love, marries, has a child. These life experiences would normally take center stage -- not here.
The focus is instead on the parody of British life over centuries, on breaking the rules of time and space without pseudo-logical explanation, on gleefully defying truth because truth means predictability and, of course, eventual death.
Overall, this still has the deeper themes to chew on that I expect from Woolf, but is also a very fun romp of a read.
+10 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first pub’d 1928)
Task total = 20
+50 Bingo: Second Bingo: B2, I16, N38, G56, O69
Post total = 70
Season total = 265
(view spoiler)
10.9 G56 – Get the giggles: HumorNothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (283 shelvings as humor)
Review: I loved the magical realism element (children that burst into flame) and the way it stands in for psychological harm and frustration. It's an interesting choice because it makes sense. It captures adult attention and care, the very thing that the child was lacking. I also enjoyed the euphoric, controlled version that Bessie experiences late in the hovel.
Lillian is such a great character - real, rounded, and no sexual/romantic arc in sight. Kevin Wilson pulled her off amazingly.
But. The conveniences (and holes) of this plot really bothered me. I love character-driven books and don't need a lot of plot. I'd rather have none than have a bad one. This one was pretty uneven.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
Season total = 195
(view spoiler)
10.8 I16 – Author name does not contain the letter “I”The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Review: These are deeply related short stories - so deeply related that I'd almost call them chapters instead. Many can stand alone as stories, but at least a few really couldn't without the context of the others.
I really enjoyed the mother characters. Their stories were beautifully told, and it was clear to see how they became who they became.
The daughters' stories were less enjoyable. The connections were missing for me between the mothers and daughters, even though that seemed to be the point of the book. Their stories lack motivations and insight - they don't illuminate and aren't illuminated by the mothers' stories.
I also felt like the relationships between the mothers were largely absent. These women played mah jong together for years - we never really see them meet, come together, or benefit from this support system over time.
+10 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first pub’d 1989)
Task total = 20
Season total = 180
(view spoiler)
Just claimed points for Written in Black by K.H. Lim in post 493. It's set 100% in Brunei Darussalam.
10.7 N38 – First letter of title in NICKELKitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Review: These two novellas were beautiful to read, and light-hearted, even with the tragedies they discuss. They are both about love, about recovery, about clinging to what matters, and finding new hope and new life.
Kitchen has some lovely characterization, and description - of food, of the apartment where Yuichi lives, and of Mikage's midnight journey to see him.
Moonlight Shadow is a little bit magical, in a melancholy way, and a beautiful story about surviving and coping with loss.
+10 Task
+5 Review
+5 Oldies (first pub’d 1988)
Task total = 20
Season total = 160
(view spoiler)
