Two for One

I was so happy to get Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. I read it very quickly and totally enjoyed it. I'm not going to give it alot of space because it was not troublesome, it was well written and worth reading. It involved no terrible child abuse, horror or tough to take psychological drama of any kind. Just your normal run of the mill immigrant struggles, nicely done.

Another non-troublesome book that I super loved was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is a gem. The title veers toward cutesy, and the whole thing ends up being a warm fuzzy but who cares? The characters are good, the setting is great, and you get to learn about WWII and how the Germans took over Guernsey (an island between England and France). Loved it.

Grab either book, a cup of tea and have yourself a great afternoon.

But I'm Back Again!

It's been two weeks, and I am refreshed and ready to go. I've been reading up a storm! Here's a list:

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrrows

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

In order to stretch out my reading into extra posts, and to build super exciting suspense, I am not going to tell you what I thought of each of these books. Instead, I am going to tell you how I came by Brooklyn, and how wonderful people can be.

Several weeks ago, I was at my friend Melissa's house, and I noticed Brooklyn lying on her countertop. "OH!" I said, shouting maybe a little too loudly, "I really want to read that! I heard about it on The Diane Rehm Show. It sounded really great." After noting my own behavior, I did not even pick up that book to look at the inside flap. I was trying hard to conceal my jealousy and didn't want Melissa to think I was a book poacher.

This was kind of a long time ago, so as I recall, Melissa kind of shrugged and said, "I dunno, It was on the new release shelf, so I picked it up."

Needless to say, I was very envious, having sat in my car in a parking lot for a several minutes to listen to the author and Diane Rehm talk about the dreadful voyage from Ireland to America and all about Eilis' and Father Flood's relationship. I really was interested in this book and had checked my library's new release shelf for this exact book.

A few weeks later I remembered how urgent it was that I find and read this book, so I hopped on the Library website and placed a hold. I was number 45. NUMBER 45! Good Lord. Even with many circulating copies, it would be a while before I got Brooklyn. I settled in to wait. But before that I shot off this sad e-mail to Melissa:

"OMG! I am number 45 in the holds queue for Brooklyn. How did you get it?"

A few days later, I got a call. It was lovely Melissa saying, "I saw Brooklyn on the express shelf again, so I checked it out for you. " Wha? How did she get that very popular book twice? Anyway, beautiful Melissa offered to drop it off at my house later that night. Can you believe it? What a gal! What a peach!

So I read it. I'll compose a wrap up post soon. Aren't you dying to know how I feel about it? I warned you, suspense...

Hiatus

I have been drowning in stress and life lately, and not reading. I'm giving myself a break from reading and blogging. Look for me in approximately two weeks.

An Easy Reader

I think I read too many blogs. I picked up The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, Man Booker Prize winner, and it was refreshingly easy to read; at least the first five pages. The narrator is an uneducated Indian guy writing to the prime minister of China. His tone is so chatty and non-mysterious. I asked myself why this was and realized, it reads more like a blog than a serious work of fiction. That is not to say that blogs are not wonderful and well written, but they are a more spontaneous, colloquial form of written expression. And, much easier for a busy gal like me to read. I like checking my blog reader and quickly getting a few easy to decipher and topically familiar things checked off. It feels good, and easy.

Is this a personal failing? Shouldn't I love a challenge? Good fiction is hard fiction right? Any Moby Dick Fans out there?

I don't feel great about my reading self right now. I am excited though to read The White Tiger and see if the whole thing is as enjoyable as the first five pages.

Whining about Waterland

I'm trudging through Waterland by Graham Swift. I badly want to like this novel, but I feel like I'm failing. Why can't I just love it? It seems like it should be really good. This book feels sort of like a mystery in which nothing happens. At least not so far, well, besides the murder, and the pregnant teenager.

The story traces three threads, narrated by one old man; that of the narrator's family, beginning with his great, great grandparents and down to his own generation, a story of his childhood on the fens (a desolate low country prone to flooding), as well as a section about the more recent past in his own life. This approach lends a little bit of suspense to an otherwise quiet story, but I wish that it were just a little easier. I don't want to have to work quite so hard to decode a sentence, or to understand what just happened.

I'm not picking only on Mr. Swift. This obtuse spareness I've been discussing can be insidious, ugly even, if handled badly, and I don't think its a good trend. I certainly have a tough time coping with it. I prefer a slightly more straitforward prose when I'm reading in the evening. After interpreting irrational behaviors and incomplete communication from my preschool aged children all day, and I just want a story, not a puzzle.

Booker Prize Winners

Are books that win The Man Booker prize always really hard to read? I've recently read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, The Gathering by Anne Enright, and am now reading Waterland (not a winner) by Graham Swift, an author who won the award in the past. All of these novels are tough. I mean, obtuse and confusing, with kind of hard to follow sentences and a purposefully fuzzy sense of what's actually happening and fuzzy timelines.

Why?

Does being hard to read make something a better book? In the end, I would give The God of Small Things a favorable review, but I found it really tough to get into. Roy kind of put up walls of trickiness, not inviting at all. With The Gathering, I just didn't get it. I did not care for that book, plus, it was hard to read. These novels gave me a vague feeling that I have to fight to get through them, that somehow I had to get past all this challenging prose in order to get to the treasure at the center. Once I got to where I was supposed to go, the reward was not quite good enough.

So far I am enjoying Waterland, but it too is hard to follow, and not really in a good way. I'll report back as I read more, and maybe look for Swift's Last Orders (the Booker winner)to see how it measures up. I also happened to grab The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga at the Library this weekend, so maybe I'll have a go at it.

To be fair, I also have read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, also a Booker Prize winner, and loved it very much. It was a couple years ago though, and I don't remember if it was difficult to read.

Shameless Friend Promotion

Hey reader!

Go on over and see what Jean has created at AutMont, her awesome new resource for the Autism Community in Montgomery County.