Thread Of Dire Judgment

[Stacey]

I've read HP 4-7. I liked #7 the best.

[Matthew]

Well as I'm a relatively new GR person I've finished my first book since joining and have completed my first review. I definately fall into that category of joing GR, rating a lot of books because it was easier, and not doing reviews right away.

Anyhow, I finished 'A Conspiracy of Paper' by David Liss which is about the 18th century stock market and a murder mystery. I gave it four stars and would recommend it. Currently I'm starting 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

[Jayme]

Matthew, I'm curious about what else you'll end up rating. You've only got 95 up so far and I've read half of them, so far it seems like we have similar taste. Except that you're another Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn lover. And I have to take issue with your 3 stars for LotR.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

I enjoyed Conspiracy of Paper, and liked Spectacle of Corruption even better.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

For some reason, it's compared The Hobbit three times for us, Matthew! Never seen it do that before.

[Kaion]

Susanna, I know this is a repeat, but 2 stars for The Giving Tree? (You've read so many books!)

Notice you're read quite a few Oz books. I stalled on my read somewhere in the beginning of the 4th one. Which one do you think is the best?

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

I find the moral of The Giving Tree not very attractive.

As a child, I loved Ozma of Oz best. Also quite fond of The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Rinkitink in Oz.

[Liz]

Kaion wrote: "I want to like Pride and Prejudice. It really does seem like Jane Austen is challenging some of the societal rules... only to embrace them fully in the third act. (But maybe I'm just projecting, be..."
She don't really usurp the societal rules so much as imply they are changing.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Darcy saves Lydia from total shame. What he does is not just for her but for the entire Bennet family, so that her sisters can also have a chance of getting married, instead of being looked down upon for having stupid Lydia as a sister. And remember that he says, "'If you will thank me,' he said, 'let it be for yourself alone. The wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you.'"
He's allowed his love to turn him into a more compassionate person! Propriety is all about not talking about differences in wealth so that no one is made uncomfortable, and he's transitioned from making an ass of himself to doing it in a way that is so kind to Elizabeth in her family. To me, the ending is about Austen telling us about how propriety and compassion should be connected. Darcy's estate is something he could always be proud of, but now he can also be proud of what a noble man he is, so it's also about changing the definition and implications of pride. It may not feel as relevant to us, but Austen is writing for her time, not ours.
***END SPOILER ALERT***
Okay, sorry about that. I could talk about this novel a considerable deal, but that's my two cents on the ending and its implications.

[Matthew]

Jayme wrote: "Matthew, I'm curious about what else you'll end up rating. You've only got 95 up so far and I've read half of them, so far it seems like we have similar taste. Except that you're another Moby Dick ..."

Well that's good to hear. Thank you. So would you give LOTR more or less? I think part of the Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn ratings is I read them in High School and really enjoyed them, plus the movies as I remember were decent too. I'll have to check out your ratings.

[Matthew]

Susanna wrote: "For some reason, it's compared The Hobbit three times for us, Matthew! Never seen it do that before."

Very interesting...

[Jayme]

Matthew and Susanna, it's because you've both rated 3 different editions of the hobbit. You need to do some deleting!

And LotR is a 5 star book. All three of them rule.

[Carol]

Yeah you can delete duplicate books on your list page automatically. Click find duplicates and go from there.

[Jenna]

This thread is pretty hilarious. I have been lurking for a little while and decided to come out of hiding. Feel free to peruse my shelves and bring on the judgment! I can take it. :)

[Sasha]

I will personally hunt down each of you who don't appreciate Garcia-Marquez and leave bags of flaming poop on your doorstep.

I read 100 Years too long ago to rate it, but I remember loving it. Read Love in the Time of Cholera just last month, and loved that too. I'd suggest Cholera, but life's too short to read something else by someone who doesn't work for you. Maybe you'd like Mein Kampf better, you sick bastards.

Hi Jenna, welcome to the shark tank. Not a big fan of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, huh? I was blown away by that book. And, of course, you gave five stars to Da Vinci Code and two to Blindness, which makes you a crazy person.

[Becky]

Jenna, I am appalled that you could give 5 stars to Water for Elephants! Overrated waste of paper!

And I have to agree with Alex here, TWO STARS TO BLINDNESS?!? I can't believe it.

[Carol]

Alex go ahead ,( you don't know where I live)I am with Jenna on Solitude Blah blah blah. ptuhey. But Blindness(2 stars)Jenna are you blind?

[Kaion]

Susanna wrote: "I find the moral of The Giving Tree not very attractive.

As a child, I loved Ozma of Oz best. Also quite fond of The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Rinkitink in Oz."

I sort of agree about the moral being troubling (if you read it as a moral). But I tend to read it as more cautionary.

I've heard that about Patchwork Girl, so maybe I'll try and power through the 4th one when I have a break (yay for the beautiful John Neill illustrations in the freesource).

Alex wrote: "I will personally hunt down each of you who don't appreciate Garcia-Marquez and leave bags of flaming poop on your doorstep.

I read 100 Years too long ago to rate it, but I remember loving it. Re..."

I've only read Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I know I shouldn't have been disappointed because, you know, the title, but I thought there would be *more* to it.

Liz wrote: "Darcy saves Lydia from total shame. What he does is not just for her but for the entire Bennet family, so that her sisters can also have a chance of getting married..."

Oh, I get the part about Darcy saving the Bennets (for Lizzy) and learning to set aside his personal scruples for the greater good and all. (And y'all, for all his talk about how improper, the only difference is that he has enough money for people to forgive his frequent social failings while the Bennets do not.) But thank you for elaborating to me more what Austen means by this.

But it doesn't really connect with me emotionally when the Bennets have a chance to show their true character and they reveal that under their shallow dog-eat-dog family exterior... lies a dog-eat-dog interior.* Mr. Darcy is really the only person who changes through this process (and boy Elizabeth could definitely learn not to dish it if she can't take it), and therefore *that's* the story that would be better served POV-wise- and I find it a great plot failing that quite a lot of this "climax" action drags on so slowly and frustratingly off page.

*To be honest, listening to the Bennets proceed to act like complete ninnies over the Lydia affair was really unpleasant. If my 15-year old sister/cousin ran off with a (conman) guy, my family would be worried out of our minds for her safety. (When my mother was young, the very thing happened to her cousin, and she was sold into a brothel.) Not having hysterics about how it would reflect upon me. (Mr. Collins's comedically-exaggerated reaction to the situation reflects how I see the Bennets pretty horribly.)

I have a lot of smaller issues with the book. The lack of dialogue during the original Darcy proposal (when the Mr. Collins's proposal is drawn in such perfect discomfort). The romantic resolution is unbearably sappy, not to mention the chapter in which Darcy and Elizabeth summarize the book for those of us who weren't paying attention.

**But what do I know, I'm pretty sure my favorite character is Catherine de Bourgh. Thank you, a character who finally says exactly what she means. (Hell, if she didn't, Lizzy and Darcy would've *never* gotten together.)

[Jayme]

Jenna, I have nothing bad to say about your ratings. Maybe too much chick-lit on your shelves...but some really awesome books too.

Alex, haha, tell us what you really think about people who don't like Garcia! I'm reading Cholera soon, so it better live up to your praise.

[Sasha]

Oh God, Jayme...too much pressure.

Has anyone read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Some people really like that book.

[Becky]

It's on my TBR, but I'm not in any rush. I love zombies, and I love P&P, but... I'm afraid that P&P&Z would just ruin P&P for me. I'm weird like that.

[Jayme]

Ugh, I have to stop looking at your books, Alex. Every time I do I see something else I want to read. You're making my list longer than it needs to be...

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a group read here, so I bet a lot of people will have read it. It was just before my time though and I still haven't.

[Kaion]

Alex wrote: "Oh God, Jayme...too much pressure.

Has anyone read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Some people really like that book."

My best friend is an Austenophile (I'm a girl, of course. Isn't every female either an Austenophile or subjected to an Austenophile bestie?) and she says she's read much better much better fanfic. (Supposedly the best alternate-universe Pride and Prejudice retelling involves magic.) Something about how the zombie parts and the original parts are badly integrated and too much is directly lifted from the original.

She says Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is *much* better. (I'm waiting for the pirates for Persuasion.)

[Sasha]

I was flabbergasted to read the positive reviews. How could that possibly be a good book? Confused! So now I kinda want to try it.

But I need to reread the original first. I want to tackle Austen again. Yeah, Kaion, you ladies seem quite fond of her. She's one of my wife's favorites too. I read her a long time ago and at the time I liked her.

Jayme, we are not good for each other. You do the same thing to me.

[Jayme]

I guess that makes me a pitiful excuse for a girl then. I've only read Mansfield Park. And it was pretty good, but it didn't make me want to read all her books. So I haven't.

[Becky]

Jayme, Mansfield Park seems to be everyone's least favorite. Many people dislike Fanny. MP was my first Austen, and it was a little tedious to start with (all the up-front introductions were... a lot to remember, to say the least), but her other books aren't like that. You should give them a try. :)

[Jayme]

I will give P&P a try soon. It's coming up on my list.

[Sasha]

Y'know, let me know when you do and I'll try to read it then too.

[Kaion]

Ha, my friend's favorite is Mansfield Park. She says she admires Fanny's rigidness to her values, despite the fact that those values are quite old-fashioned and offputting.

Not sure I have the fortitude to tackle another Austen book this year, but the adaptations seem to change the novels enough to be more palatable to me. (I mean, Emma Thompson and Ang Lee. How can a movie like that not be perfect?) Maybe Persuasion in the fall? Sense and Sensibility is the most perfect movie, but the plot of Persuasion is the one I've found most tight so far from adaptations (keeping in mind I haven't seen a Northanger Abbey or a Mansfield Park).

[Jayme]

It's a deal, Alex.

[Becky]

Kaion wrote: "Ha, my friend's favorite is Mansfield Park. She says she admires Fanny's rigidness to her values, despite the fact that those values are quite old-fashioned and offputting."

That's one of the reasons that I really enjoyed MP as well. Fanny was herself and nobody was going to make her any different. :)

[Jenna]

Alex wrote: "I will personally hunt down each of you who don't appreciate Garcia-Marquez and leave bags of flaming poop on your doorstep.

I read 100 Years too long ago to rate it, but I remember loving it. Re..."

Alex ( and other Blindness Die-Hard Fans),
I stand by my Blindness rating. I liked Saramago's style, and appreciate the book and idea, but I was so disturbed by some parts of the book that I was turned off from it. I usually don't get that way with books, but that one really got me.

And I stand by the DaVinci Code too. It might not be the most well written book, but I was incredibly entertained and really enjoyed it.

[Sasha]

I get it, Jenna. There were some really disturbing parts in that book.

[Carol]

I would join in the discussion of P&P but not P&P&Z(this one is not my cuppa)

[El]

When did the title of this thread turn into Thread of Jane Austen? Let's go back to bashing each others reading habits!

(And in case anyone actually is curious where I stand on Austen, I can take her or leave her, but don't feel zombies or sea monsters should detract from her stories.)

Okay, seriously, guys. Yawn.

[Sasha]

Maybe we could find somebody to defend On the Road for us. Feels like we should probably argue about the Beats at some point, right? Anyone?

[Matthew]

Jayme wrote: "Matthew and Susanna, it's because you've both rated 3 different editions of the hobbit. You need to do some deleting!

And LotR is a 5 star book. All three of them rule."

Huh. Thanks for the tip. I'll look into that.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

Already removed the two extra, here, LOL.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

El - why didn't you like I, Claudius?

[Heather]

Becky wrote: "Jayme, Mansfield Park seems to be everyone's least favorite. Many people dislike Fanny. MP was my first Austen, and it was a little tedious to start with (all the up-front introductions were... a l..."

See i had quite the opposite experience, I loved MP. Sometimes I wanted Fanny to just go for it, but she stood her ground and I loved her character for it! I think my least favorite so far was Emma,her arrogance annoyed me. I still need to read Northanger(sp?) Abby and Persuasion.

[Becky]

Oh no, Heather. I loved MP! I loved Fanny for sticking to her guns. But most of the people I know who enjoy Austen seem to like MP least.

[Juniper]

(The following is all tongue in cheek!! Just in case someone thinks otherwise. It's all good fun.)

Hmm...a flaming bag of poop?? Is that really the best you've got Alex?? Of course, you had to drag Mein Kampf into it, didn't you?? LOL! I have to stand by my assessment of 100 Years, I did say, though, that it is the only work by Marquez I have read. I am open to reading his other novels, just not any time soon! LOL! Oh, plus I have to call you to task for the fact you say it was so long ago you can't rate it, yet you defend it??? Perhaps a re-read is in order?? You can't flaming-poop someone over this one book when they aren't panning the author specifically - just this one over-rated piece of crap, um, I mean book he produced. :D I've got Carol and Kari to back me up, right??? Hello.....

The Beats, eh? Kerouc specifically, or all of them? Do you want to start us off with your On the Road thoughts?

[Carol]

Definitely Marquez is not a force to be reckoned with in my book. I do intend to write one day(not)

[El]

Ugh, Kerouac.


Susanna, my reasoning against I, Claudius is probably one of the lamest out of them all, but I stand by it. At one point, and I don't remember who said it in the story, someone said "pooh-poohed". Like when someone "pooh-poohs" someone's opinion. And that made me irate. It modernized the entire story. It's like when you watch a period piece and see someone wearing a Rolex or something. It detracts from the story, and then from then on I was too busy watching for other modern phrases to really enjoy the story.

[El]

My thoughts on Kerouac and/or other Beat authors (but not excluding other authors before or since):

I can also pop a lot of pills, drink a lot of alcohol and write until the high wears off. Doesn't mean it's worth reading.

[Kaion]

Alex, 5 stars for Heart of Darkness? That's like giving 5 stars to deep dark foggy racism. Yeah, I said it.

[Jayme]

I have to disagree, El. Sure pooh pooh has only been around a couple hundred years. But itès not like they were speaking English back then. Anything you write in English for that time period is going to have a modern slant to it.

[El]

Kaion, I love the phrase "deep dark foggy racism". And I know I'm not Alex but I just want to throw in my couple o' pennies by saying that if everyone disliked all literature on the pretense of it being racist, there wouldn't be too many books left to read.

Heart of Darkness isn't one of my favorites (I gave it 3 stars), but the narrative style was fantastic.

[Jayme]

Man, thereès so much stuff I havenèt read...and what is wrong with my apostrophesÉ!...and question marks.

[El]

Jayme, sure, you're absolutely right about the language thing. But "pooh-pooh"? There are much better ways for one to say they disagree with something than "pooh-pooh". Especially when delving in historical fiction.

[El]

Jayme, I think your keyboard is on crack. :)