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I first read this last year in a time when I was reading a hell of a lot (roughly two full-length books a day). As a result, I have very little memory of the plotlines and the wonders of many of the books I had read and am on a mission to reread some of them. After first coming across Margaret Atwood when I read The Handmaid's Tale at the age of 14 and later, Cat's Eye. Both of these enchanted me and introduced me to an author who is definitely one of the great contemporary writers of her time.
This book is told by Iris Chase who we learn early on once had a sister, Laura who died after the car she was driving plunged into the river. Iris acts as the narrator for this story which flashes back and forth between a childhood and eventual adulthood with Laura as well as an older Iris remembering those years while she suffers from a heart condition. The book is at first a clear picture of a suicide by an unusual but psychologically compelling sister in Laura. The book, however, takes the reader on an intricately woven tale of the perils of high society and the blind attitude which perpetuated the era in which the story is set.An interesting social commentary of the 20th century can also be drawn from the book which has a history from the beginning of World War I to the present day in a world perhaps more than ever dominated by greed and violence.
The story is aided by a novel apparently written by Laura called The Blind Assassin which informs the reader of a certain romantic situation and brings in the science fiction element which is present in so many of Atwood's books.
Atwood is one of the few authors who can get away with using an entire paragraph to tell you that plants are growing. She has an exceptional gift with literary word play which first became clear to me while reading The Handmaid's Tale. Her words flow beautifully and do not detract from the storyline but rather generously feed it. The book comes to an astonishing close, chilling the reader and stripping down the barriers of understanding.
Definitely one of my favourite books. Read it or miss out.
I have a love for Russian novels. So melodramatic, so ridiculous, so awesome and so weird. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's books I have read and my favourite so far mainly due to the fact that it has a wider plotline and more interesting characters.
The characters in this book are memorable and startling. Beginning with the Prince himself, the principal character of the book who is said to resemble Christ and who is very child-like due to being closed off from society until the beginning of this book. Nastasya, a woman he chases throughout the book is a woman who continually defies people's opinions and denigrates herself further and further throughout the book is an excellent example of the ultimate in self-loathing, while Aglaya who the Prince befriends detests the expectations set by her parents and her family; she, most of any of the characters teaches the Prince about human nature and the confusing world of high society. Many other characters also surround the Prince in what becomes his first experience of society, of love and of people in general and what to expect.
The discovery in this book is that people do not know how to cope with such an innocent, child-like man who does not know how to read between the lines of a hierarchical social order. While people at first seem friendly, they are forever confounding him with their actions and behaviours which often seem contrary to common sense. The main criticism I have of this book is how long it goes on although this is also what is so magical about it. Dostoyevsky had a unique gift with prose and with prying into his characters' minds so that we build up not a physical picture but a psychological one of each character and each discussion.
Would recommend this to anyone who enjoys the magic that is Russian novels (and I personally enjoyed it more than Crime and Punishment).
This amazing memoir documents the author's life after a hectic period of time. In December, 2003 her adult daughter contracted a near-fatal toxaemia and while she was in hospital in a coma, Didion's husband had a massive coronary and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. In the following days and months, Didion went through a process that many people will go through at some stage in their lives, but that no one likes to think about.
The credible thing about this book is that it explores emotions immediately following her husband's death as well as during her daughter's first and subsequent admissions to hospital over the time. Didion was obviously imminently capable of keeping track of immediate emotions as she was a writer already; used to scribbling things down for more exploration at a later date.
This book for me was characterised firstly by Didion's bluntness and dedication to her subject of shock, grief and recovery. This often seems to appear as a lack of feeling or sensitivity but it does demonstrate a coping strategy that many use in times of grief. The feelings in this book are also expressed in a useful way which corresponds well with the natural process of grief. Tragically, just as Didion began to rebuild her life and look to the future, her daughter collapsed and was taken to hospital presumed brain dead - she recovered amazingly, but Didion found herself unable to grieve in the months while she sat by her daughter's bedside trying to accept that there was more to lose.
This is an amazing book both about the experience of death and the processes of grief involved with it. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has lost someone close or anyone interested in how the mind copes with such a loss.
I love books of short stories and am firmly of the opinion that they are under-read and under-rated. Graham Greene was known for work examining the political and philosophical ramifications of the human condition.
By far my favourite story from this collection is 'The Destructors.' It is a story about boredom, destruction and changing the face of reality. The other stories mimic it; all about ordinary situations but all including surreal manifestations of reality. In 'Alas Poor Maling' a man is plagued by a rumbling stomach whose rumblings resemble sounds that he hears around him, in 'The End of the Party' a young child's fear of darkness becomes his very being.
Greene has an exceptional way of writing which draws the reader into the situation and shocks them with a climactic entry into the extents of imagination. I would definitely be keen to read more of Greene's short stories as well as his novels.
This is probably my least favourite book of Vonnegut's that I have read to date. Although it makes the usual dry, sarcastic observations about humanity, it just does not have the same quirk and brilliance as some others. I am thinking here of Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five and my personal favourite Bluebeard. The entire way through this book I expected some sort of twist as the ending was made clear several times throughout the book. The twist never came, the pictures drawn to 'aid' the reader were great though.
Some of the book also seemed like an attempt by Vonnegut to expose his philisophical background. Of course, he had probably reached the stage of infamy by then that many of his fans probably loved this part of the book but it just struck me as self-centred and well, sort of lame. Maybe I'm missing the point.
As usual the satire was to a high standard and the humour was forthcoming. As with many of his books the view of human nature was bleak and I was excited to learn more about one of his main characters throughout the books: Kilgore Trout; the largely failing little-known sci-fi writer. His view of humans as machines is also telling.
Not a great read but an interesting, humourous one nonetheless.
A renowned expert in his field of anthropology, Grinker mixes the personal and professional in this book by delving into the world of autism. He does this in an anthropological manner finding the foundations of the disease called autism and how the criteria of autism has developed over time to encompass the now large group of people it does.
Grinker has a personal association with the world of autism. His daughter, Isabel was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum at a young age and he has watched her grow as he watched the world grow more and more accustomed to the diagnosis that had been such a mystery to him at first.
The book deals with three areas: Grinker's personal experience with his daughter's diagnosis and the various methods recommended to the family, whether there is really an autism 'epidemic' and how different cultures deal with autism. The author was also able to relate his own experiences with the medical profession to the different methods of psychiatric and psychological practice (including Freudian psychoanalytic theory). There was also a significant exploration into the understanding of autism in different countries; especially interesting in many of the countries where spiritual healing is seen as dominant over medical options. Many of the pioneers of autistic research and political movements are documented in this book.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in autism and in the so-called epidemic.
There are few things in the world that compare to a Russian novel. Although this book was a marathon to read (despite its small appearance), it was well worth the read. It tells the story of Raskolnikov, a young student who commits a murder out of desperation and more or less feels guilty, sick and paranoid about it for the rest of the book.
This is the first of Dostoyevsky's books that I've read and the main thing that struck me was the intricate makings of all the characters he described which built up not so much a picture as an innate psychological description of many of the characters. It also offers an interesting description of the concept of an "extraordinary man" and uses Napoleon as an example - this is a person who can breach the moral standards of society in the pursuit of a great thing. Although the philosophy of this doesn't quite work in my reading of it, it was an interesting aside if not plea to be found to be still a human being.
One of the more interesting characters was Sonia who becomes a deep friend of Raskolnikov's. She is a prostitute driven to her profession by a need to help her family. There were also some interesting asides to what constitutes a crime such as Svidrigailov who dreams of pursuing small children. The uncertainty and darkness of this entire book will leave the reader thinking long after the last page is turned.
This amazing book documents the life of a juvenile delinquent, caught by the law before being changed into a person incapable of committing crime. While showing the transformation of a person, it also shows the limits of human freedom in a futuristic society.
The story starts with Alex and his gang tormenting a city with rape, burglary, violence and murder. Alex, a young man, has been doing these things for years and is caught when his friend who are scared of his power purposefully leave him where the police will find him. The entirety of the speech in this part of the book is in a sort of slang which is confusing enough to entice the reader but at the same time easy enough to follow. It is clear from the beginning that Alex commits his crimes out of a sense of pleasure; he enjoys the violence, the bloodshed and the risk-taking and has no plans to curb his offending. When the government is made aware of a new method which will render criminals incapable of committing or even considering committing violent crime, an innocent Alex is persuaded into being a test subject with the promise of freedom. The trial resembles some method of hypnosis and Alex is released to a world where even thinking about consensual sex is totally impossible.
The book is written with great thought put into the dialect of Alex and his gang. The meeting of Alex with the author of a book forces Alex to think about what he has done. I am told the original of the book is missing one chapter, so the book in this case ends with hope that Alex will change his ways.
Overall, this book explores the limits of human freedom and forces the reader to consider whether being 'evil' deserves the sterilisation of the brain that Alex receives. I would highly recommend it.
