I feel like screaming and tearing my hair out. My brain is about ready to bubble out of my ears, my back hurts, and my mouse elbow is acting up, not to mention that my usually sweet-tempered pet cockatiel is screaming into my ear because I haven’t paid enough attention to him today. I’ve been proofreading a 100 page masters essay and it’s written in an incredible mixture of business jargon and antiquated, pompous English. The author never uses a simple, everyday word when she can apply the rarest and least used meaning of a longer word, and there are so many redundant indeeds, accordinglys, heretos, theretos, whereins and wrongly applied thoughs, that the essay would be shorter by at least a page if they were all removed. It’s repetitions, which is perhaps normal, considering it’s a research-based essay, and it’s maybe fortunate that I am not interested in the subject, because if I was, it would have made me lose interest in it almost immediately. But I am getting paid, which I guess is some compensation for the misery it has caused me. Ahhh, he just stopped screaming and started warbling. That’s much better!
To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time, is to meet an old one. Chinese saying
So true. Someone asked me recently "why re-read books when there are so many you haven't read?" My answer was on the lines of this quotation, just not quite as elegantly put.
Author: Evelyn Waugh Year published: 1960 Pages: 160 Genre: Travel, non-fiction Where got: National library
This is the second time I cheat and read an author I’ve read before. Early on in the challenge I reviewed a novel by Waugh, and now I’m reading one of his non-fiction books.
I had decided to read Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush as the travel book of the challenge, but then I came across this one. Because I have read very few travel books about Africa, I decided it would be in better keeping with my mission statement.
Author: Jennifer Crusie Year published: 1999 Pages: 298 Genre: Romance Sub-genre(s): Suspense Where got: Public library
I promised I’d review a romance for book-of-the-week, and here it is. Jennifer Crusie is a popular author of contemporary light (i.e. funny) romances, and was specifically recommended to me by a romance-reading friend.
The Story: Quinn McKenzie is bored to death with her life. On the surface everything is great: she has a teaching job she likes, is surrounded by friends and family who all love and depend on her, and is living with high-school basketball coach Bill Hilliard, otherwise known as Mr. Wonderful Hometown Hero. When Quinn decides to adopt a stray dog and Bill sneaks off to the pound with the dog because it doesn't fit in with the perfect life he has mapped out for them, she decides she’s had enough. Enough of being taken for granted and subtly controlled by Bill, enough of being dependable, enough of being good. So she moves out, buys a house and starts flirting with her former brother-in-law, car mechanic Nick Ziegler. Nick and Quinn have been the best of friends since high-school, and while Nick has always had sexual fantasies about Quinn, she has never seen him as anything but a friend… …until she notices him looking at her with rather more than friendly interest. Things get complicated when Bill refuses to accept that Quinn has left him and starts stalking her, Nick’s brother Max and his wife Darla have a fight, and Quinn’s mother kicks her father, Joe, out of the house. Both Joe and Darla move in with Quinn. Bill makes life difficult for Quinn, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to reel in the irresponsible and commitment-phobic Nick. Things come to a head when Bill finally goes too far and Quinn is hurt…
Technique and plot: The book is well written, the characters believable and well rounded for the most part, and the story moves along well. The small town atmosphere is realistic, with everyone seeming to know everything about everyone else. I had a good laugh at the lessons in female vs. male mentality when Quinn is educating Nick and Max about what women want and expect from men. The story is sometimes funny, sometimes suspenseful, and even a bit scary at times, especially the glimpses we get into the mind of the increasingly disturbed and confused Bill. The sex scenes are sexy without being overly descriptive, which is good because if there is anything that spoils a book like this for me it’s pornographic passages swathed in purple prose.
The very serious theme of stalking is handled with understanding. Bill is never knowingly vicious or gloating, he just does what he thinks is necessary to get Quinn back. Even the meddling with the handrail and electricity and gas is just meant to gently show her that the house is unsafe without him, and was certainly not meant to harm her the way it did. Bill is so supremely self-assured and has such a perfectly one-track mind that it takes the human equivalent of being hit by a bulldozer to get him off track, but Crusie still manages to give him a distinct personality and show his vulnerability as his perfect life comes crashing down around him.
The dog is cleverly used as a way of showing how different people think: Bill thinks the dog is the reason Quinn left him and that if only he could get rid of it, Quinn would come back to him and live out the life he has so precisely planned for them; for Quinn the dog is a sign of her independence; to Darla the dog is the snake in Quinn’s Eden, and so on.
Nick is a romance hero to die for, an irresponsible but caring man who finally finds a woman who can hold his attention and keep him happy, and Quinn is sweet and likeable and just sexy enough that you believe her to be capable of keeping Nick interested.
All in all, I liked the book and although I have no intention of rereading it, I will be looking out for more books by Crusie.
Rating: A funny, sexy, entertaining and suspenseful romance with a very yummy hero. 4 stars.
The Story: Two seemingly unrelated deaths occur in the same day: a psychiatric patient kills himself and an old man is found burned to death, apparently murdered. The suicide’s brother is struck by something he said just before he died, and starts investigating, and two detectives try to solve the murder case. The two cases soon turn out to be related: the younger man was a former student of the older, and the only (known) one of his male classmates still alive, the others having died young from mysterious heart attacks, drug overdoses and suicide. The deaths seem related to suspicious “nutritional” pills given to the classmates by the teacher one winter, and both the brother and the detectives want to find out what was really in those pills. When the brother receives an envelope with cassettes containing conversations between the two men from just before they died, the case breaks open and the investigation becomes centered on a pharmaceutical company. What they learn is beyond anything they could have imagined…
Technique and plot: This is an obvious first novel. I would guess that 70% of it is dialogue, but even so it is quite good. The dialogue serves to carry on the story, much of which happens in the past. Rather than tell the past in flashbacks (there are some, but not many) Arnaldur has people tell about it in their own words. The language is somewhat over-literary, even for the elderly people who tell much of the backstory.
The two detectives are well-known prototypes: the tired and grumpy older man who gets by on experience and knowledge of human nature and doesn’t always follow procedure, and the ambitious young rookie who does everything by the book but isn’t so good with people, i.e. the typical pair of detectives that make a great team because they are so different from each other.
The story takes place in modern Icelandic society, which presents certain problems: everybody knows everybody and a certain type of reader will always try to guess who this or that person is based on. Arnaldur is dealing with some pretty big issues that have been discussed a lot in Icelandic society in recent years, like cloning and genetic research. He manages pretty well to create all new characters, institutions and companies, instead of falling into the trap of making them too similar to the real-life counterparts that they are inspired by, making this a kind of alternate reality that nevertheless is very realistic, at least in its descriptions of Icelandic society. The conspiracy plot is totally over the top and somewhat out of synch with the realistic tone of the rest of the book, but since this is a crime thriller and not a documentary, it is forgivable.
Rating: A good beginning to a crime-writer’s career, and they keep getting better. 3 stars.
P.S. I read Mýrin (Jar City) yesterday, and it’s a definite 5 star read. The characters of the two detectives and the people surrounding them have developed and become more rounded and real, and there is no big conspiracy in this book like the previous two, rather it is a pure, tragic crime story.
I haven’t blogged in 10 days, and it’s about time for an update. I should have posted the review last Saturday, but I was working on my spare room all weekend: washing walls, scraping away a wallpaper border, filling nail holes, polishing and painting. So I decided to leave the review until Monday.
On Monday, however, I left work early with a headache and have been on sick leave since. That flu couldn’t have appeared on a better day, because I was sore all over from all the weekend work and really needed some rest. I’ve been too sick to even turn on the computer, but I did get some reading done…
No promises, but I’ll try to post the review tomorrow, book of the week too, and another review on Saturday.
Title: Synir Duftsins (Sons of Earth) Author: Arnaldur Indriðason Year published: 1997 Genre: Crime Sub-genre(s): Mystery Where got: National Library
Before Arnaldur Indriðason wrote this book, original crime novels written in Icelandic were few and far between. It seemed as if the genre had no place in Icelandic reality, as big crimes here tend to be open and shut cases and murders are few. The feeling was that Icelanders simply couldn’t imagine Agatha Christie-style mysteries or Hammett-type hard-boiled crime taking place on their peaceful island. Then Arnaldur and another author, Stella Blómkvist (pseudonym), both published quite good crime novels in the same year, and the genre has been blossoming ever since. Arnaldur’s books have been translated into several languages and he has twice won the Glass Key, the Crime Writers of Scandinavia Award for the best Nordic crime novel.
As far as I know, Synir Duftsins has not been translated into English, but his most popular book to date, Mýrin is available from Amazon.com under the title Jar City.
Thursday Next is drawn from her relatively normal existence as a literary detective into an adventure when she is called in to identify arch-criminal Acheron Hades. Things get personal when he kills her ex-boyfriend and kidnaps her aunt and uncle and her uncle’s invention, a machine that enables people to visit any literary work. Thursday must follow him into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre in order to prevent him from killing Jane and altering literary history…
Technique and plot: I’d like to apologise in advance if the review seems a bit disjointed, but I am writing this about 10 minutes after finishing the book. I usually sleep on my reviews, but not this time.
This is an alternative reality story that happens in a world where some things are the same as in this reality and others are radically different. The narrative is Thursday’s throughout, with her telling about herself in the first person and others in the third person when necessary for the narrative. This is a problem: she is too perfect a third person narrator. Although she might have reconstructed events she was not present at to tell them in the narrative, the author makes her knowledge of these events so intimate that she even recounts word-for-word dialogue she did not witness, thus making her an omniscient narrator. Not good. Maybe it is revealed in one of the next books what made her such a perfect narrator, but I doubt I’ll ever find out because I have no desire to read the other books.
The names given to some of the people in the book are annoyingly cute. They stop being funny by chapter three, but unfortunately the keep coming.
Thursday herself is a typical world-weary and damaged detective. There is nothing about her that could not have been written about a man – she could just as well have been Mr. October Next. Not good. When men write from the point of view of women, they might at least make an effort to make the point of view female rather than universal.
All in all, I would say this book is a disappointment. After all the rave reviews and the talk, I expected something better.
Rating: An interesting journey into alternative reality that doesn’t quite work. 2 stars.
Author: Jasper Fforde Year published: 2001 Pages: 384 Genre: Fantasy Where got: Public library
When I first heard about this book I thought to myself “this sounds interesting”, and then forgot about it. Then a discussion started about it in an online reading forum I participate in, and my interest was rekindled. I wasn’t certain I wanted to own it, so finding it in the library was lucky.
Week 33: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats - review
A lot of people are familiar with Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats only through the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. Many probably don’t even know these delightful verses existed long before Cats was composed. Ironically enough, the most famous song from the musical is not in the book – “Memory” was apparently based on some notes Eliot had written for more cat verses that were never published.
As far as I know, these verses were originally written for the children of some friends of Eliot’s. They are often dismissed as being trivial and simplistic, especially in comparison with the sombre verses of The Wasteland.
To tell the truth, I have never much liked The Wasteland, even if I did manage to get an ‘excellent’ for my smarmy essay about it in a modern literature class I took when studying for my B.A. degree in English. I much preferred The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.
But back to Old Possum and his Practical Cats. The poems are light, often insightful into natures both feline and human, and generally funny. They never fail to brighten up a dark day (and I did need brightening up today – my car tried to run away from home and I found it smooching with my neighbour’s car in the parking lot when I came home from work. I hope this is not going to be expensive).
Rating: Delightful cat verses that will hopefully continue to make children and grownups smile for generations to come. 5 stars.
Year published: 2004 Pages: Genre: Fantasy, humorous Where got: Amazon.co.uk
The Story: When Lord Vetinari, ruler of Ankh-Morpork, gives con artist Moist von Lipwig a second chance for life if he will take over running the city’s disabled Post Office, Moist knows there has to be a catch. Finding tons of undelivered mail is nothing compared with finding out that four of his recent predecessors died in mysterious “accidents”. It looks as if the job will be simple: get enough postmen and deliver the mail, even if it will take decades, get the service up and running and print some stamps. Then there is Miss Dearheart, who renders Moist quite speechless with her icy cold manner and severe mode of dressing, and whom he would like to get to know a lot better. The plot thickens when the operators of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company decide the Post Office is a threat, and begin a campaign to get rid of the competition, and Moist finally meets a man who is a bigger crook than he is…
Technique and plot: The story is a blend of Pratchett’s usual humour, parody and allusions, combined with a very good story about beating the odds. The plot is unusually streamlined for a Pratchett story: there is only one plotline, and it’s divided into chapters, a first in the Discworld series (I’m not counting the Discworld-set children’s books). Several characters from the previous books make their appearances, such as Lord Vetinari, Captain Carrot and Sacharissa Crisplock of The Times, who appears to have finally dragged William to the altar (read The Truth if you want to know more). If there is any complaint, it is that Moist is too similar to some of Pratchett’s previous heroes and heroines, especially in his feeling that others can see straight through him and uncover the secret he is hiding, and his capacity for unexpected nastiness when cornered.
Rating: Another great story from the master of funny fantasy. 4+ stars.
If you find any spelling erros in here, blame it on tendonitis and the limitations of spell checkers...
Subject: Screenwriting. Story structure. Things to keep in mind when attempting to write a good movie script. The author delves deep into the subject of ”story”, and lays out the basic principles of movie storytelling. This is not about the practical sides of screenwriting, how the typed manuscript should look like, how to submit a manuscript, finding an agent and so on, but rather about the necessity of knowing the craft and knowing your story well enough to tell it to others in an impressive way. Movie scenes are analysed in order to deepen the reader’s understanding of the subject, and scenes from many movies are mentioned as examples of what McKee is talking about.
My impressions: I have no doubt that to someone truly interested in screenwriting, this is a very useful book. I even found it useful, and I have never seen myself as someone who could (or would) write a movie script. My interest in the subject is twofold: one is the interest any moviegoer has in the mechanics of movie storytelling, and the other is as a student of translation. Should I ever go into translating for subtitles or dubbing, I will have to be familiar with this subject, because screen translation is not just about the words, it’s about a lot more than that. Screen translators do not earn a lot of money for their craft, and being familiar with story structure enables them to translate better and faster. But I digress.
I have already stated that I found the reading slow going. That is not to say it was boring, but the text is wordy. Not only does McKee like to see his words on the page – the more the better – he is also fond of overstatement, and his self-confidence is such that it borders on being arrogant.
Rating: Good guide to the principles of movie storytelling and script structuring, with a little bit of advice on working methods thrown in for good measure. Will not attempt to give stars.
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About me
What this blog is about:
Reading and books.
If you’re wondering about the name 52 books, it stems from a book-a-week reading challenge I set myself. The challenge is over, but I'm still reading, and will continue to blog about the books I read and my reading experiences, and other stuff connected with books and reading.
I rate the books (if I feel like it), giving them stars ranging from zero to 5.
Books I have already read (sporadically updated):Cover gallery
Note: Some of the entries are linked to the months the reviews appeared in, because I made several entries for each book. I have marked those reviews with an asterix (*). If you want to read the whole review from beginning to end, you must scroll down and read from the bottom up (but you probably already knew that ;-) >
