Browsing tag: books

Something Red – Jennifer Gilmore

Summary: The poignant tale of one extremely socially and politically aware family set on the cusp of a new decade as the Cold War rages and punk finds its feet.

Something Red functions as an exquisite portrayal of one Jewish-American family’s experience. Gilmore seems equally at home tackling adolescent angst as middle-aged discontent; she tenderly and non-judgementally introduces us to to a pair of former radicals, their larger-than-life parents, their sex-obsessed jock son and bulimic daughter. Each is deeply unhappy and troubled in their own way; Dennis is trapped in a career he’s losing faith in, Sharon joins a cult-like group in search of fulfilment, Ben feels no higher calling in life and Vanessa despises her own body. The author jumps from character to character, timeframe to timeframe, meandering along threads of memories and following them to the end.

Ultimately, however, I felt that apart from their children – who were just beginning to really grow – the  none of the older Goldsteins were going anywhere – and that’s frustrating in a novel. The end in particular baffled me. Some twists are good. Others come out of left field and seem to serve no purpose, like this one.

Freedom – Jonathan Franzen

Summary: The up and downs and  life and times of one midwestern family set against a Bush-era backdrop.

While I would shave a sliver of a star off this for the freaky and frankly disturbing phone sex passage, Freedom is a modern masterpiece. For those fascinated by human psychology, this novel is full of lushly imagined, fully-formed and deeply flawed characters to get your teeth into.

There’s selfless environmentalist Walter, who ends up taking a job with links to coal and oil; superjock turned (un)happy housewife Patty; Walter’s best friend and musician Richard who apparently looks like Gaddafi (which to my mind isn’t a plus) but has some kind of hypnotic pull on Patty, complicating his already volatile relationship with Richard; ruthless son Joey who just may turn out to have a heart and consience; and daughter Jessica, who actually doesn’t get any page time of her own. Perhaps most interesting of all, though, was Connie, Joey’s childhood love and eventual wife, who’s deeply intriguing for all her instability and coolness (but like Jessica, is relegated to the sidelines).

It seems to me that Franzen intuitively understands, but doesn’t necessarily like, human nature. Which turns out to be a good thing. Freedom’s timeline is fluid, moving back forth as it does between characters’ viewpoints and moments in time, but in this case it works – I’d go as far as to say it was unputdownable. This is realism, pure and simple: ugly and frustrating but thankfully ultimately redemptive.

Self Promotion for Introverts – Nancy Ancowitz

Summary: A reminder that it’s perfectly okay to be introverted, with some generic tips on making the most of it.

I had big hopes for this book, but ultimately, there is no magic solution. I did enjoy her introvert vs extrovert lexicon (which I lifted a few lines from here), tips for public speaking (applicable to everyone) and suggested questions to ask in job interviews (the more unique ones being to do with mission, values, and how the company is doing against its objectives).

Ancowitz’s guide is interesting and fairly practical, peppered with anecdotes from both introverts and extroverts for colour (most entertaining are her vignettes about approaching famous people for quotes, particularly Bill Clinton) but there’s nothing mindblowing to be found. In fact, there was nothing especially new that I haven’t seen elsewhere in books or online. And while it was published fairly recently, the trouble is of course that things are moving so fast in the digital space that the social media chapter already feels awkwardly dated. Ultimately, whether you’re an introvert, extrovert or something in between, it comes down to playing to your strengths, being authentic, and persevering.

Room – Emma Donoghue

Summary: Reminiscent of recent high-profile kidnapping cases, Room centres around a mother and child who live in a single contained room. After a harrowing escape, they struggle to acclimatise to normal life.

Perverse as it may sound, I greatly enjoyed the first part of this book. Child narrator Jack, who has never known anything else, sleeps in the closet, refers to items in the room as proper nouns (Door, Table, Duvet),  lives mainly off canned food, makes toys out of pasta shapes, cardboard rolls food scraps and desperately seeks companionship in the form of a mouse and an ant.

At this stage I have to say what a trooper his mother is; I can honestly say if this were to happen to me, I wouldn’t have coped anywhere near as well as she did. Their daily and weekly routines are achingly poignant – every day they do Scream, which involves standing up to the skylight and yelling as loudly as they can, and Phys Ed, a choice of numerous activities devised by his mother to keep them from wasting away. In the mornings he goes to his mother to “get some”, a kind of creepy reference that didn’t become clear to me until much later on. Some nights Old Nick comes to visit, and Jack counts the number of creaks the bed makes as he falls asleep.

It’s when it comes time to plot their escape that things get really harrowing, and their subsequent struggle to acclimatise to the outside world is painful to follow. But the ending is pitch-perfect, and I closed the book with a smile on my face. You never learn Jack’s mother’s name, and that makes it difficult to get a sense of her as a person – but her love for her son is evident. Some have criticised Donoghue for not telling her side of the story; I think this is a much more delicate narrative choice. It portrays her as almost a Madonna figure, not just a girl robbed of her youth and forced into sex slavery, and ultimately I saw this as a triumph, not a flaw

Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Summary: Meandering tale of some kind of love across the decades.

The greatest love story ever? I was, and still am, sceptical. To be honest, Fermina never seemed all that keen on Florentina, and he in turn barely knew her, but developed a fair obsession nonetheless. Their young affair consists of love notes left in strange places around the small Colombian seaside town where they live, and lasts maybe a year. After she breaks things off with him, she goes on to marry a rich doctor, and Florentina proceeds to watch from afar as their lives play out over the coming decades.

While she becomes a bit of a desperate housewife, he takes on the role of playboy very willingly. In that time he has 622 sexual affairs, including a disturbing last fling with an underage girl whom he had guardianship of. This, ultimately, was what sickened me most (to say nothing of what happened after their affair ended). Once Fermina’s husband dies, Florentina pursues her once more (you gotta admire his tireless perseverance) – although whether what they have is love baffles me. But perhaps with age that’s what happens – the definition of love evolves, something I think Marquez conveys very effectively.

The Beautiful and the Damned – F Scott Fitzgerald

Summary: In the world of socialites and trustfunders, one turbulent marriage goes nowhere fast as the couple await their inheritance. A tale of excesses, of aimlessness, of wasted talent.

A novel in which not a lot happens, because there’s not a heckuva lot to the characters – again, such hateful ones! The mere concept of doing nothing but party while waiting for your grandfather to die so you can get your mitts on his millions, and constantly playing on your family name is abhorrent to me. Yes, Fitzegerald writes beautiful prose. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to sway me. Rich, unhappy people I can do. Rich, unhappy people who squander their money, time and potential – who have no ambitions, no desire, no meaning in life – I simply cannot get into. In short: lovely craft, intolerable non-plot.

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

Summary: I liked the blurb so much, I’m just going to pinch it – Emma is the “original desperate housewife”, struggling to find meaning in life.

Emma Bovary is married to an incompetent doctor who dotes on her. She likes fine things, but most importantly, she has seemingly unrealistic romantic ideals – although men flock to her, she’s constantly searching for love and is always disappointed, leaving a string of failed affairs in her wake. She apparently suffers from depression or a similar illness coupled with a delicate constitution, and I came to find her constant misery grating (a sign of true-to-life writing, I suppose). Eventually she masterminds her own destruction, spiralling deeper into financial and emotional debt with horrendous consequences for her husband and child. Interestingly, all of the characters are flawed to some degree, none of them particularly likeable, and this was apparently a groundbreaker at the time; realistic fiction which didn’t moralise to readers. A fantastic if grim read.

The Perfect Wife – Ann Gerhart

Summary: A skeletal biography of Laura Bush.

After American Wife,I was keen to find out more about the real Laura Bush, and this was one of the books Curtis Sittenfeld drew heavily on, she said. Thing is, the real LB was also intensely private, and Gerhart had very little to work with. The First Lady refused to be interviewed by her, so ultimately, it’s a bit like the literary equivalent of a brand new colouring book, outlines waiting to be filled in.

Economics for Dummies – Peter Antonioni, Sean Masaki Flynn

Summary: It’s economics for dummies, baby.

What can I say? This was the perfect book for me. It covers macro and micro economics, super exciting things like trade, GDP, and plenty of graphs (which I’ll happily admit mostly went over my head). Especially interesting, although not particularly relevant to me or what I need to know, were the models for optimum production for businesses and economies of scale – and how governments use policy to manipulate the economy. I’ve always wondered WHY, exactly, we have inflation. Could we not just hold prices forever? But of course, we all want to earn more, we all want to get ahead, so the race to outpace the CPI continues.

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Summary: A harrowing tale of the struggle to survive that will make you lose even more faith in humanity.

Although I didn’t particularly enjoy Steinbeck’s style – though much of that can be attributed to my dislike for the rough spoken dialect he brings to life on the page – the story itself dug its claws into me and still hasn’t released them. His own research adds a ring of authenticity to life on the road and in refugee camps, as the Joad family struggle to put gas in the car, keep their vehicle moving, put food in their mouths and keep the children together. In a word: heartbreaking.

The Villa Girls – Nicky Pellegrino

Summary: Summer love never did run smooth.

I ended up reading this as I got it from work. As chick-lit goes, it’s not too bad – although if it hadn’t been half set in Italy and food hadn’t played such a large part in it, I might not have rated it so highly. Just saying. Orphaned young, Rosie has always shied away from being around others. But that changes when she meets Enzo on a trip abroad. As heir to an olive oil dynasty, he’s in hot demand – but never found any of the local girls of interest. A surprisingly dark family secret comes between them, though, and their romance appears to be doomed.

Atonement – Ian McEwan

Summary: Naive, precocious child’s actions have long-reaching consequences – most devastatingly, for others. (Honestly, people. Just tell the truth.)

How sing-songy does the author’s name sound? Perhaps this has something to do with his overly flowery prose. To be honest, I couldn’t stand it. The entire first third was almost unbearable in its slow-moving narrative – after all, it covers a whopping two-day period – to say nothing of the intolerable aristocratic family. (It’s all a very bit Cluedo, actually). The rest of the novel, however, was a rip-roarer – the gritty war and hospital chapters sucked me in and were the sole reason I stayed up late to finish this in one night. And while I understand the requirement for the final epilogue, at the same time, I would almost rather it was cut – except for the very last two pages. Sorry to be so vague; I’m not sure how widely known the plot is and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Overall, I’d give it a 3.5/5.

American Wife – Curtis Sittenfeld

Summary: Opposites attract. A tale of class, gender and political politics (er, couldn’t think of a more eloquent way to phrase that) and the discrepancies between the image we project and the inner reality.

We all know this is a thinly veiled fictional account of what George W and Laura Bush’s relationship might be like. So it perturbs me that I could relate so closely to it. I love that Laura is such a fully-fleshed out character and that Sittenfeld seems fundamentally interested, not unlike myself, in matters of race, class and human relations. While there are interesting episodes in Laura’s early life, it’s not until she marries and is ingratiated into her husband’s clan – and these were the chapters I most enjoyed. I was enthralled but simultaneously revulsed by the trappings of upper-class wealth, and the nature of living inside a political bubble. It definitely drove home the fact that I could never be involved in politics in any way; I could never be with a politician, nor could I jump the fence and become a spin doctor. That said, there were plenty of unnecessary descriptions of outfits and decor, and the entire novel loses momentum in the final section. (But if you give up, I urge you to turn to the last page for a great twist.)

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Summary: Creepy somewhat sci-fi tale of a dystopic England that’s ultimately a reflection on human nature, our relations to others, and life on earth itself.

Warning: I’m going to be a little spoiler-y here. What starts off as an idyllic recounting of life at boarding school quickly takes on darker undertones as the characters come to realise their destiny. I was left wondering: why did they choose the kinds of people they did? What did the organ harvests involve, exactly? But the way Ishiguro frames the narrative is really not about those details atall. Rather, it’s a beautiful, if, bleak, story of dignity, acceptance, forgiveness, belonging, and pure human decency. It’s haunting but somewhat hollow, not unlike the lives of the clones.

Flipped – Wendelin van Draanen

Summary: Cute tale of adolescent love told from alternating viewpoints.

A fun, light-hearted read that reminds us of the need for second chances and that appearances can be deceiving. Juli falls for Bryce the moment she sees him, but he wants nothing more than to shake her off. By the time he comes to realise her worth, she’s wondering if he’s all he’s cracked up to be. And his own family could do with a bit of redemption; Juli’s lot might be broke, but it’s for a good reason – Bryce’s side cast judgement from across the street without ever bothering to dig deeper.

 

Testimony – Anita Shreve

Summary: A night of drunken debauchery caught on video has devastating consequences for a boarding school, and not just for the students involved.

Enjoyable, well-paced, the storyline unfolds nicely. It’s told from several different characters’ viewpoints, and while the differing timelines were a little jarring, they were not too difficult to follow. It’s a scary reminder of how one small choice can affect so many people, and how the consequences of actions can snowball far beyond any you could initially have imagined for even the smartest and brightest of kids. Much like We Need To Talk About Kevin, it might make you think twice about parenting.

Prep – Curtis Sittenfeld

Summary: Working-class Midwestern girl has to fight to survive four years in a New England prep school where she stands out like dog’s balls.

Another boarding school book, but in an entirely different vein. I have to admit, I’ve forgotten so much about high school life, but Sittenfeld captures the overthinking and the angst perfectly. Yet it also feels somewhat hollow. I understand this was essentially a slice of life – a window into Lee’s world, one which she is ambiguous about – but it’s a little frustrating coming away and seeing that she still hadn’t found happiness despite her journey of self-discovery.

Imported Bride – Ranjula Kumar

Summary: Naive Fijian bride arrives in New Zealand, only to find life taking her in a different direction than she had expected.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book, looking forward to getting stuck in and getting an insight into life as a fresh immigrant in an arranged marriage. Threads involving her distant and cold father, her failed first love and various childhood incidents added interesting diversions. Disappointingly, the writing was not particularly sophisticated, was poorly edited and its characters failed to grip (in fact, they were rather one-dimensional. Or two-dimensional, as Bones would correct me.)

 

Mystic River – Dennis Lehane

Summary: Murder brings three old friends together in adulthood (tragedy also pulled them apart in childhood). A haunting, bleak tale of lost innocence in working-class Boston.

I first watched Mystic River in high school for English. And when I watched it again recently, it left me wanting more. I had heard the book was much richer and more rounded, and I wasn’t disappointed. There is only so much you can fit into a film, and the novel goes a long way toward explaining the actions and motivations of Celeste, Jimmy, Annabeth, Sean and most of all, Dave. This novel made me grieve for his soul and the boy who never had a childhood, a good, but troubled and downtrodden man who never believed in himself. Lehane (apparently he also wrote Shutter Island, another movie I enjoyed) paints his city and characters with a familiar hand – the prose truly comes alive, even without the benefit of visuals.

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Summary: Two women of different generations are thrust into each other’s lives, and form an unlikely friendship. As tumultuous Afghanistan is thrown into war once again, they demonstrate how far one will go for the people they love.

This book is brutal and depressing, and also somewhat educational (fiction set in foreign lands is fast becoming one of my favourite genres. Did you know there were once gigantic Buddha statues in Afghanistan? I didn’t. I wish I could have seen them before they were destroyed – during a time I was old enough to remember, even). It prompted me to find out how the Taleban differs from the al-Qaeda, why the Soviets were in Afghanistan…It enraged me, and reminded me how lucky I am to be a woman living in a liberal country. This is a proud testament to the human spirit, to the strength and independence of women in Afghanistan (and other similar places) who refuse to be cowed. And finally, it led me to wonder just how much the human race could achieve if we could stop killing each other, repressing females, and focus our energies on more productive tasks instead.

Firefly Lane – Kristin Hannah

Summary: Two best friends take entirely different paths in life – the girl with the troubled childhood becomes one of the biggest TV journalists/talk show hosts of all time, while her foil Kate (living somewhat in her shadow, even marrying a man who used to pine for Tully) chooses a quiet life as a suburban housewife.

Let’s keep this short. Enjoyable – not particularly original, perhaps, but a pleasant, undemanding read. If you have super close female friends, or you lived through the 70s and 80s, perhaps it will resonate more with you. For me, what stuck most were the observations of life in journalism and the demands it makes on you – demands which Tully embraced and Kate shrunk from. Others have said it resembles a Lifetime move (“TV for stupid people!”) so take from that what you will.

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Summary: Precocious child and her brother learn some ugly truths about human nature and the world they live in, in a tender coming-of-age tale.

I was not expecting narrator Scout to be a six-year-old girl. Luckily, she’s incredibly intelligent (too much to be believed?) and being introduced to a colourful cast of neighbours through her lens is a delight. Life isn’t easy for her – fierce, proud and too clever for school, she lives for the freedom of summers. She’s forced to grow up quickly, however, when her father is tasked with defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. A sobering look at morality, justice and how reasonable people can lose all reason under certain circumstances.

Tender Is The Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Summary: Rich people flitting around Europe; the disintegration of the marriage between an accomplished doctor and a mental patient.

Meh. That’s really all I can say. I understand this novel is somewhat autobiographical, which probably explains why it wasn’t all that…interesting. Neither the characters nor the plot were in the least engaging. I expected a dramatic tale of creeping insanity; instead there was the slow and depressing deterioration of a relationship, which might have triggered a small twinge – if I had actually cared about either Diver or Nicole.

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

Summary: The devil comes to Moscow, mayhem ensues.

There are many levels on which you can read this book, considered a modern Russian classic. And I felt I was only reading at quite an elementary level. Those with more knowledge of the Russian Revolution will no doubt get more out of The Master and Margarita, but it certainly highlighted my ignorance of world/religious/political history. It is nutty, weird and wonderful, and I hope to reread it one day with less of it going over my head. My main issue with it was one of confusion: I felt there were too many characters, and Bulgakov’s habit of referring to them by different parts of their (very Russian) names at times only bamboozled me even more. I would love to hear from anyone who’s read this!

Angela’s Ashes / Tis / Teacher Man – Frank McCourt

Summary: Dirt-poor family with deadbeat drunk dad struggle to survive.

Frank McCourt’s memoirs of eye-watering poverty in Ireland had me bawling over my Sunday roast to T about the big bad English and the horrors of blind religion. (I’m not bashing Catholicism, but I am critical of drilling the mortal fear of sin into every child, while teamed with a woeful lack of education in some of life’s most vital matters. A recipe for disaster and unhappiness.) Those bloody Poms! I ranted to him. I can’t believe they did that to you! Oh, there was no shortage of things to get riled up about. The useless, drunkard men, for example.

Two passages in particular stood out for me: the first is the part where Frank recalls licking the grease off the newspaper wrapping that had held some fish and chips; the second almost physically hurts me to type out, so deeply did it affect me – the dinner of corned beef which turns out to be nothing but a lump of grey fat with a tiny “nipple” of red meat on top.

Food is such a central part of my life. I know that there are people, children elsewhere in the world everyday who don’t have enough to eat. And starvation hits you over the head all the way throughout Angela’s Ashes. More than the filth, more than the alcoholism, the hunger was what broke my heart chapter after chapter.

Oh, and as for the other two – while enjoyable, I could take or leave them.

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

Summary: The world is going to hell and only the ruthless but brilliant capitalists can save it.

Forget 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World. Atlas Shrugged is in my eyes the ultimate dystopian novel. If ever there was proof that anything in extreme is to be avoided, then surely it is to be found in Atlas Shrugged. I’ll admit, as a lefty-leaner, I was horrified to realise just how much I sympathised with Rearden and Dagny at times – how logical and reasonable their thoughts and actions were, in comparison with their moralising, feeble counterparts. But seeing both sides of the coin is one of my strengths (weaknesses?); I’m all about cognitive dissonance. Chilling, terrifying, amazing.

The Secret History – Donna Tartt

Summary: Rich, bored, unhappy students who don’t fit in run wild, go too far and end up killing someone, secret-society style.

I have seen this book described as summing up the liberal arts college experience. Well, we don’t have those here. I never even lived on campus, so I’m pretty poorly equipped to speak of such things. This is a tale for misfits, of pretension, of sheer stark raving madness, IMO (the shenanigans they get up to must be read to be believed, and what’s scary is that in context they don’t seem half as insane as they actually are). A tale of money and drugs and aimlessness. Sort of like Atlas Shrugged, I greatly enjoyed it but am still not exactly sure what to make of it.