skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This extremely complex novel outlines a literary hoax uncovered when a man sends work by what he sees as a fictional author to a magazine, which the magazine then publishes. Only, after it has been uncovered the fictional author turns up and haunts the life of the man who sent in the poetry. The book is set in Australia and also in Malaysia where one of the protagonists - Sarah Wode Douglass, a writer tries desperately to uncover the work for her failing literary magazine, she starts to interview Chubb who set up the hoax in order to obtain the manuscript which could then be published.
The book is filled with twists and turns, jumping from one era to another. The second half of the book primarily deals with the kidnapping of Chubb's daughter by the not-so-fictional Bob McCorkle. Chubb spends years in search of the girl, following McCorkle's movements closely but finding that his daughter is no longer his daughter when he finally tracks her down. Many different plot lines come in and out of the book, some with only tenuous connections to other plots but Carey somehow works them mostly believably into the book with a sort of surreal twist to the whole thing and an ending which leaves you thinking.
Most of the central characters in the book are not explored in much depth. Chubb sees himself as a literary genius and he puts down what he says as the lower down tastes of most Australians, and paticularly of the publisher who he originally sends McCorkle's work to, who ends up being sued and is later murdered but the case is rounded off as a suicide. Sarah seems desperate throughout the book to save her own job that has fallen under threat and pursues the story for her own interests and develops a certain affection for Chubb. The man accompanying her on the trip, John Slater who was a friend of her parents does not trust Chubb from the start and attempts to protect Sarah from what he sees as a dangerous enterprise.
Although the different lines of the story span several decades and parts of the world, they are linked together well. I would definitely recommend this book.
Next up: Human, all too human by Fredrich Nietzsche.
This is the first book I have read by Allende. One of my sisters is a huge fan of her work and I thought I would give it a try. This book was interesting, I think maybe she hasn't quite got the male perspective she was writing from down to a tee. The book weaves the tale of a family, the father leads the family on travels preaching what seems like some sort of new age spirituality. They eventually settle in a poor Mexican barrio after he falls ill.
The book is told in two perspectives, firstly a third person detailing events and secondly from the thoughts of the main character, Gregory. There is a very clear patterns of him chasing money and becoming an 'evil' person and then chasing love and becoming a 'good' person, I found this comparison slightly stereotypical, especially because he worked as a lawyer in the chasing of the money learning the tricks of the trade in a corporate law firm. The whole thing just didn't quite ring true for me, well that facet of the plot anyway.
There's also a strong element of how past experience can affect a person over time. Gregory who has grown up poor finds himself wanting to be rich, and in a turnaround finding how much he wastes money on things which get him nothing. His sister, plagued by memories of sexual abuse by her father in childhood coats herself in layers of food and dedicates her life to caring for children.
All in all it was a good book, and I'd be interested to read more by Allende. The characters were the least believable for me, the storyline was good, kept me interested in reading the book.
To fully appreciate Tom Robbins' books, you have to be willing to wait. Most of his books open confusedly and this one was no exception. I think I enjoyed this book more than any of his others because the character of Sissy was introduced early on and expanded throughout the book.
The book centres around Sissy, a young girl with abnormally large thumbs. Random? Yes. Fits into the book well? Yes. Sissy learns about hitchhiking from an early age, she hitchhikes the wind, the cars and life in general. She is introduced to the 'cowgirls' through a part-time employer, shortly after she surprisingly gets married. Sissy's marriage, however, is also important to the book. She experiences life tied down, not as free to hitchhike when she wants and bewildered by not being able to keep moving as she is used to.
With the short-term escape to the Rubber Rose ranch, Sissy meets one of the loves of her life, aptly named Jellybean. She learns from her fellow cowgirls about loving the skin you're in (to put it lightly) and eventually journeys out to meet the second love of her life; Chink, who is a Japanese ex-prisoner living off the land. There's more, believe me but I don't want to ruin the book.
The reason I liked this book more that the others I have read was because the story flowed easily, but kept with Robbins' pattern and haphazard story-telling manor. You never quite know what is coming next and the story leads to a fanatical climax and an unusual ending. It effectively explores Sissy's unusual personality and changes in her life which lead to different outlooks. I highly recommend it, I really appreciate most of Robbins' work and his delightful imagination.
Maybe it's all the Dickens I've read, maybe I just read complicated things all the time or maybe this book is an exception but I had heard that Joyce's works were notoriously difficult to read. I found this book intriguing and easy to follow for the most part.
It follows the central character Stephen Dedulas through his life in Ireland, from humble beginnings at a Catholic school, to confusion as a teenager to the climactic end to this confusion as he sets off to unknown places in search of some sort of self identity. It seems like many novels follow this sort of line - guy gets confused then finds himself but this is done in the midst of the truly unique Irish culture. Born into a Catholic-oriented world Stephen follows the path less travelled: he sins, he repents and then he walks away entirely. The whole section of the book in which Stephen is terrified into Catholicism sent shivers up my spine. The usual sort of burning in hell speech but very aptly put in a speech by a priest.
Joyce's style of writing is also pleasant, sort of stream of counciousness but not in the same way as other authors. The relationships between him and his mother, his father and a girl are all written between the lines of prose. As well as this, his connection with stringent Catholicism leads to some spectacular philosophising spelled out in conversations between him and his friends, much in the same way as Plato's Republic.
I don't know if I only enjoyed this book immensely and read it quickly because I should be studying for my law exam but I would highly recommend it any way!
I found out about this book through a forum I go on (called We Bite Back) which is focused on recovery from eating disorders, stabbing back at the amount of forums there are devoted to getting sicker (otherwise known as 'pro-ana' or 'pro-mia' forums). The young woman who wrote this book is a member of We Bite Back and need I say it, a rising young talent in the world of literature. Astoundingly she was only 18 when she decided to write this book, after coming back from a deadly battle with anorexia.
Many parts of the book were written while she was still recovering, I found it amazing that one suffering so young could have such a self-awareness about what she was going through and such a determination to make it through. The writing is beautiful, at times very sad, but a chronicle of one who did not want to waste her intelligence. There are no weights mentioned in this book, which I found very helpful when comparing it to a book like Wasted by Marya Hornbacher where the mention of weights can often send people back into the scuttles of an eating disorder, or worse give them ideas about the weight they have to be to be classified as 'really sick.' She mentioned Hornbacher's book several times, even once saying it triggered her into bad behaviours but she found the resources on recovery helpful. The thoughts abundant in this book at many times reminded me of my own thoughts, that I'm not serious enough, sick enough, not perfect enough but it also displays how the gradual thoughts of anorexia can lead to an eating away of the brain, dropping marks, further antisocial behaviour and suicidal thoughts. In the case of Lucy, her dreams through High School of getting top HSC (Australian school leaving certificate) marks were dashed when her battle took its toll on her. Despite this, she still somehow amazingly managed to pass and give a final speech at the end of her years of school about why it's worth it to keep on battling.
This writer obviously has an immense talent, a great understanding of her illness and an acutely rational mind that carried her through. The book explored firstly her fall into the disorder, secondly 'the grey' or the beginnings of therapy and recovery and thirdly 'the light' or what most people call a sort of click. The realisation of the want to recover and the strenuous path to doing so. I would have liked it had there been a little more in the 'light' section as I saw this as the most important of the book and the hardest state to attain, it also only made up a very short space of the book and I think the other parts outweighed it. More journal entries from this time would have been helpful to show the new lease on life she discovered. Although this book which is made up of journal entries and memories is quite haphazard and at times extremely sad, it mostly managed to avoid being triggering, the lack of weights being especially important. It also focused on how the more well she got, the more she was able to do. It mentioned foods she enjoyed eating and things she found helpful doing while remaining in her individual literary style.
I can't wait for this writer to mature, finish her law and arts degrees and create her best works, when she does I think the results will be amazing.
Wow is what immediately comes to mind. This is an amazing memoir written by the author of the famous works 1984 and Animal Farm, both of which I read and enjoyed. My friend who wrote a prizewinning short story with a similar title recommended this book to me.
It begins with the life of an Englander living 'down and out' in Paris. Struggling to find work in the hard times of the early 1900s. Going without money for days seems often easier than the relentless work they are exposed to in hotels, 15 hour days (which he admits are short) and torrid working conditions of sweat, dirt and grime. We follow the central character through attempts at work, firstly as a lowly dishwasher in a huge hotel, then as a higher-up waiter in a new restaurant. It exposes the underclass of both of these lines of work, following days of starvation often because of a lack of funds, sleeping often on the floor of his workplaces or sharing a murky bedroom with his friend who is also in search of money. This section of the book ends with a look at the lowly jobs so many were exposed to, which were easily replaceable, highly unhealthy and often completely pointless. Orwell forces us here to take a look at a world where working your skin off is accepted, and next to nothing is paid for starving off of humanity. Even though this book was written for another world of post-industrial mass production, lessons can still be learned today in the torrid working conditions and payment which barely lets ends meet (and that's just in Western countries).
Then with the offer of work in London, he travels there where of course the work is not available. He survives on near to nothing as a tramp in the streets of London, going from cheap to cheaper accommodations with little hope of a respite from this. He meets several colourful characters along the way who aid him in this life. Moving from one night shelter to the next - these shelters do not let any tramp stay more than a night at the given time. He speaks of stripping down for searches, watching his fellow tramps survive on little but cigarettes ends and finding out the structure even within a society of tramps. He ends this with a look at the society he has been living in and again forces the reader to take a look inside the lives of these people who have had their dignity stripped away, normally by uncontrollable circumstances. Again this was written in a far earlier time but last time I went to London (I was 5 so about 15 years ago), there were beggars all through the streets.
This book forces you to look at how the other half lived, the ones who were either born into a sort of vagrancy or who fell on what were exceedingly bad economic times. However, this makes it sound depressing which it wasn't. Throughout the book new characters were introduced, their backgrounds explored and their circumstances explained.
Amazing, amazing book. I highly recommend it to anyone for a look at what it was to be 'down and out.'
This book leaves me flawed; an absolutely amazing, astonishing, confusing and frightening book. I didn't know what to expect from the title, a lot of books I have read lately have been about "Zen" when really this book had not much to do with it at all, except maybe an overlying love.
As Pirsig says in the introduction, this book has nothing to do with either the concept of Zen Buddhism or Motorcycle Maintenance. It has more to do with art, philosophy, travelling and the science of understanding. The book covers a journey, on a motorcycle across North America with the author and his son. In between the journey are facets of a past self "Phaedrus" who seems at once interested and depressed by philosophy. His teachings at universities leave him disappointed by the apparent refusal of the other academics to explore Philosophy and most of all the concept of quality in what at first seem new and original ways but are later linked back to the teachings of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The explorations Phaedrus undertakes link the objective and the subjective, the scientific and the artistic under the concept of quality itself. His findings both distress him and encourage him to dig more deeply into the exploration of philosophy, of science and widely of humanity.
The other self, the author is plagued by memories of his former self when he goes to visit Chicago where he was once a teacher before the inevitable breakdown. It is difficult not to ruin the plot here. His relationship with his son is the most important throughout the book. His son who has been diagnosed as possible mentally ill seeks the adoration of his father, who he knew as Phaedrus. His continual confusion at the way his father treats him is merely a sign of the personality change he has seen in childhood. The book also refers back to the idea of motorcycle maintenance and links the philosophies of the pages to this concept. The interesting thing is Pirsig's outlook on Phaedrus' philosophies, he openly admits not agreeing with many of them but whether this is a protection of his mental state or something else is not obvious. The philosophy (of course) greatly interested me, especially the links back to scientists' and philosophers' ideas, some of which I was not even aware of.
Unlike most books of its kind, this does not seek to explain life, but rather follows the journey of one who does and one who is determined not to be stuck too far in the cycle again. Psychologically, it is unsure exactly what has happened to the author in the duration of his life. Something that seems less than the psychiatric disorders which the symptoms would suggest, but something that the author explains well, with the breakdown of philosophic ideas, and the rejection of more modern philosophy to see through his idea. Seen metaphorically as a breakdown, running into a brick wall, discovering that there is no more to discover, the array of impossibilities placed before Phaedrus which lead to the breakdown of his senses.
I highly recommend this book, I am keen to get the less popular sequel Lila for a further explanation of the ideas presented.
I first read this book after reading the amazing book The Hours by Michael Cunningham which has Virginia Woolf as one of the three central characters, and a woman reading Mrs Dalloway is another. The book (and later the movie) of The Hours inspired me to read more of Woolf's works. I thought this book deserved another read as it's been awhile.
The book weaves the tale of Clarissa Dalloway, a married English woman in 1923 on the day of a party she is holding. The book has not chapter separation and is told in Woolf's usual slice-of-life style. Clarissa's life is held in contrast to the life of another character, Septimus Smith, who she never comes into contact with throughout the book. The story is built up through the comparisons of the two characters and the disintegration in the state of Septimus' life. The story is helped along with Clarissa's two life loves: Peter Walsh and her husband Richard. Throughout the book it becomes clear that she still has love for both of them, the love for Peter being more wild, uncertain and daring while she chose to marry Richard who seems more stable, and not as expecting.
This book as most of Woolf's is not what I would call an easy read, it is comprised of long sentences, complex metaphors and life lessons. However, once you become used to the writing style it feels like you are in literary heaven, experiencing the downs and lows of the various characters and the interweaving stories. It shows how 'craziness' can make sense to the person being designated as 'crazy', how every life can make sense viewed through foreign eyes. Mrs Dalloway is so far my favourite of Woolf's works but I have many more to read. Her writing is so beautiful and is matched by few, if any others.
Definitely recommend it, some find it difficult to get into but once you get used to the complex style of her writing, it really does pay off.
