Sunday, September 29, 2013
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Lacuna
#539
Title: The Lacuna
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Publisher: Harper
Year: 2009
508 pages
Read as an audiobook narrated by the author. The story revolves around a number of empty centers, much like illumination around a manuscript page. Many events and elements recur usefully and enjoyably. The tone shifts at about Book 4 in a set of writings, mostly news articles, that struck a sour note and seemed hollow in a bad way. A tone of false jocularity jarringly appeared at times. The tightening scrutiny of HUAC was realistically unpleasant and difficult for me to listen to in the lead-up to this election season. The conclusion was satisfying. I'd enjoy reading it again now to appreciate how the pieces fit together.
Leaves of Grass
#538
Title: Leaves of Grass
Author: Walt Whitman
Publisher: ?
Year: 1854
333 pages
I read a public domain edition and calculated the page count. Whitman kept revising until his death, so it's a little hard to say which revision I read. I know it wasn't the first edition.
This was the fourth of the "encyclopedic" books I read simultaneously from DailyLit. Whitman is sometimes more a thesaurus than a poet, pouring forth endless lists of synonyms, related ideas, associate professions, and the like. This may help account for the varying quality of the poems, some of which are indeed exultant, joyous, transcendent, all-encompassing; others, however, are quite dull, mundane, and seem to lack a raison d'etre.
Title: Leaves of Grass
Author: Walt Whitman
Publisher: ?
Year: 1854
333 pages
I read a public domain edition and calculated the page count. Whitman kept revising until his death, so it's a little hard to say which revision I read. I know it wasn't the first edition.
This was the fourth of the "encyclopedic" books I read simultaneously from DailyLit. Whitman is sometimes more a thesaurus than a poet, pouring forth endless lists of synonyms, related ideas, associate professions, and the like. This may help account for the varying quality of the poems, some of which are indeed exultant, joyous, transcendent, all-encompassing; others, however, are quite dull, mundane, and seem to lack a raison d'etre.
When I Was Puerto Rican
#537
Title: When I Was Puerto Rican
Author: Esmeralda Santiago
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Year: 1993
Country: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (an unincorporated territory of the United States)
286 pages
This is primarily a memoir of a Puerto Rican childhood. Santiago gives a satisfying account of daily life with its occasional dramatic, punctuating events. She uses description well to imbue the landscape with emotional resonance. The New York section was thinner and seemed rushed. It would have benefited from an additional 20% of the page count added to allow more showing and less telling.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Selections from James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
#536
Title: Selections from James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
Author: James Boswell
Editor: Robert William Chapman
Publisher: Oxford
Year: 1821
220 pages
I understand and appreciate this biography's historical import in terms of the way biographies are constructed, just as I appreciate the ways in which Proust, Joyce, Stein, and Woolf altered the shape and focus of the novel. However, I find that I love neither Boswell, who seems to be a sycophantic toady, nor Johnson, so many of whose bon mots are merely forms of insult and aspersion. This quickly wore on me and soon became unbearably tedious. I'd have preferred to read much more about Johnson's construction of the dictionary, a still-topical subject that has a great advantage over obscure, class-riddled jibes at the expense of many, many other people. Let us not refer to male privilege, pray let us not.
Title: Selections from James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
Author: James Boswell
Editor: Robert William Chapman
Publisher: Oxford
Year: 1821
220 pages
I understand and appreciate this biography's historical import in terms of the way biographies are constructed, just as I appreciate the ways in which Proust, Joyce, Stein, and Woolf altered the shape and focus of the novel. However, I find that I love neither Boswell, who seems to be a sycophantic toady, nor Johnson, so many of whose bon mots are merely forms of insult and aspersion. This quickly wore on me and soon became unbearably tedious. I'd have preferred to read much more about Johnson's construction of the dictionary, a still-topical subject that has a great advantage over obscure, class-riddled jibes at the expense of many, many other people. Let us not refer to male privilege, pray let us not.
Tree of Smoke
#535
Title: Tree of Smoke
Author: Denis Johnson
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Year: 2007
620 pages
I agree with reviewers who call this sprawling or confusing, but I thought both of these aspects contributed to a useful chaos and uncertainty that paralleled the war in Vietnam, the landscape traversed, and the clash of world views. The audiobook was infinitely easier than the novel since the speakers were more clearly differentiated. Who's on the level? Are there conspiracies? Did the colonel know what he was doing? Thought these questions are raIsed but not answered, this was nonetheless a satisfying novel.
Just Dirt: Memoirs
#534
Title: Just Dirt: Memoirs
Author: Wilson Smith
Publisher: Wilson Smith (Lulu)
Year: 2007
131 pages
A slim yet emotionally substantial collection of memoirs comprising a portrait of the author's life. Though most are straightforward, they are evocative and sometimes lyrical. It is not so much that the events unfold dramatically as that the demonstrate a growing maturity through the accretion of experiences.
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