David > Recent Status Updates

Currently reading this in its original French version, the English translation, the Italian translation by Umberto Eco, the German & Spanish translations,and the comic strip hommage by Matt Madden. Wot can I say, it's a giddy romp, innit?

My dirty little habit of having, like, a dozen or so books going all at the same time seems to have caught up with me. "The Ask" appears to have been misplaced. I really don't miss it at all.

So far, this is amazing.

The proportion of good stuff here is very high. Hitchens is ridiculously well-read, but not obnoxiously so.

The first novella is only 53 pages long. Even though I've read 41, I see little point in finishing it. Yes, lady, he done you wrong. Get over it already.

So far, I am really enjoying this collection.

This has received such extravagant praise in the media that I feel I should try it. Even though I really detest the anthropomorphization of diseases in general, and "cancer" in particular. Then there's the whole question of portraying "cancer" as a single disease. (It lurks outside your window, like a menacing teddy boy. What white-coated hero will swoop in to vanquish it and earn mankind's undying adulation?) Meh.

So maybe reading this on the Kindle isn't the optimal approach. Where's my color wheel insert? Seriously. Don't try to read this on a Kindle - it will frustrate the bejasus out of you.

Breezed through the first book of the twelve. Why am I only now reading this? I have a sense of delighted anticipation, knowing that there are eleven more books to go, and I'm guessing that things only get better after an already very promising first book. I haven't felt this way since reading "The Forsyte Saga". Yippee!

Oh dear. Normally I enjoy Tom Wolfe in all his florid excess, but so far this isn't a novel; it's a series of overwritten set pieces, each centered on a specific cliche or stereotype. Not a promising start.

Paul Murray keeps taking his story in interesting directions I hadn't anticipated. Nonetheless, the book is much too long; all of the pop cosmology (M-theory for 14-year old Asperger kids) is starting to get really irritating.

This book should have gone off the rails in a big way by now, but Paul Murray manages to keep everything under control. It's pretty impressive. I'm glad that Skippy gets to have some fun, that Murray doesn't get all Oscar Wao on him.

Damn you, Franzen! You were just toying with us. You had that perfect landing planned from page 1.

What I'd forgotten about Franzen is that when he's good, he's very good indeed. Also, though he sometimes comes across as being contemptuous of his characters, this is actually a misleading impression. He nails their foibles with merciless accuracy, but is not unsympathetic. Probably because he shares their confusion about how to live a decent life.

Patty, Walter & Richard are so appallingly obsessed with their own navels, why should I give a s**t about them? Frankly, they deserve one another. Chunks that should have been hacked from this book: the appalling Richard-Zachary interview, teenage phone sex fantasy details, numbing statistics about population growth. (I wouldn't miss Patty for an instant, but I understand she fills a structurally essential niche)

One of the few things I disliked about "The Corrections" was its slightly bloated quality. The problem is infinitely more pronounced in "Freedom". Franzen's prickly nature is a matter of record; where women are concerned, prickish might be a more accurate description. Loathsome characters can be interesting, but so far that's not the case here.

It's hard to isolate just what makes this book so dreadful. I just know that, if I saw the author boarding a plane, I'd ask to be bumped to a later flight. His is a most unattractive mind.

Everything Professor Brooks has to say is eminently reasonable, yet these essays are oddly unsatisfying. In part, this may be attributable to their sheer dullness. Though I wouldn't say Prof Brooks is pompous, the essays lack the lightness of touch that someone like Malcolm Gladwell or Atul Gawande might bring to the discussion.

That slow sinking feeling is starting to set in ...

God.. Who *are* these people? And could our narrator be any more stupid?

This is what Kindle ownership does to a person. You think to yourself - "Ford Madox Ford" - what an awesome name, and I've never read anything by this person. Two minutes later, through the magic of "whispernet", it's right there in front of you. For a total expenditure of $0.00. And you're caught up in the sordid goings on of our not so noble foursome. Finally, a cyberadvance that's actually useful.

I'm not sure I can keep on reading this, it's so horrifying. The phrase "shanks of voddissim in serslida sauce. With fresh wild berries for dessert", is just so freaking creepy. Right up there with Dr Lecter's "with fava beans and a nice Chianti".

Damn, this is irresistibly creepy!

This is compulsively readable.