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book stand
Jun. 6th, 2008 08:25 pmTwo weeks since surgery. Took my first walk of any real length today -- to the bank and library. Library a bit abstract as a goal, since I am forbidden to carry more than 5 lbs for six more weeks.
Feel more human today. The last few days felt oddly like setbacks -- lower energy and general tone. Today better, though of course I therefore did too much.
Can finally read for extended periods, thanks to the book stand from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inlandsea.
Have read Anne Enright's The Gathering, which is not a bad book, but I don't know that I'd go giving it an international award (Man Booker 2007). It's lyrical -- almost too lyrical -- too much lyric for the narrative, so that it becomes repetitive. It needs more verse and less chorus. The book is about memory and ambiguity, so I wouldn't expect to be given a definitive picture of any character, but what's missing are memory's luminous moments, its indelible images of these people. The book invokes the paradoxes of recollection and storytelling, but on examination its storytelling is fairly conventional, despite some speculative moments, and its ambiguities are rather straightforward.
That said, it is really quite a good book. It just isn't extraordinary. I'd say, if you want the terror of family and memory, read Fall on Your Knees, and if you want the agony of quotidian human misunderstanding, read On Chesil Beach.
Also The Great Man by Kate Christensen, which is a Mediocre Book. It isn't what it's trying to be, which is a clever book about clever people -- it's a middling book about largely unconvincing people. Points gained for showing people over seventy as passionate and interesting; points lost for dealing very awkwardly with racism. It begins and ends with faux newspaper articles -- an obituary and a book review -- both of which fail to strike the right tone for their genres -- and that is not a bad summation of the book. (2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. I'd call this Adequate Airplane Reading.)
I must be feeling better: I'm highly critical.
{rf}
Feel more human today. The last few days felt oddly like setbacks -- lower energy and general tone. Today better, though of course I therefore did too much.
Can finally read for extended periods, thanks to the book stand from
inlandsea.Have read Anne Enright's The Gathering, which is not a bad book, but I don't know that I'd go giving it an international award (Man Booker 2007). It's lyrical -- almost too lyrical -- too much lyric for the narrative, so that it becomes repetitive. It needs more verse and less chorus. The book is about memory and ambiguity, so I wouldn't expect to be given a definitive picture of any character, but what's missing are memory's luminous moments, its indelible images of these people. The book invokes the paradoxes of recollection and storytelling, but on examination its storytelling is fairly conventional, despite some speculative moments, and its ambiguities are rather straightforward.
That said, it is really quite a good book. It just isn't extraordinary. I'd say, if you want the terror of family and memory, read Fall on Your Knees, and if you want the agony of quotidian human misunderstanding, read On Chesil Beach.
Also The Great Man by Kate Christensen, which is a Mediocre Book. It isn't what it's trying to be, which is a clever book about clever people -- it's a middling book about largely unconvincing people. Points gained for showing people over seventy as passionate and interesting; points lost for dealing very awkwardly with racism. It begins and ends with faux newspaper articles -- an obituary and a book review -- both of which fail to strike the right tone for their genres -- and that is not a bad summation of the book. (2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. I'd call this Adequate Airplane Reading.)
I must be feeling better: I'm highly critical.
{rf}
