pixiecrinkle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pixiecrinkle) wrote2004-06-23 08:53 pm
pixiecrinkle) wrote2004-06-23 08:53 pm
Recent Reading
I’ve been sadly amiss in writing about any of the books I’ve read lately. I’m catching up now:
Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskill
The last book I read by Gaskill (Wives and Daughters) I loved, and I got very angry when I got to the end and found out she’d died before finishing it. This one, I had a lot harder time getting into. I love Victorian novels, but I always feel bogged down by the ones that are wrapped up in historical stuff that I don’t know enough about. With Eliot’s Adam Bede it was hard for me to slog through all the religious history. With this one, I kept getting lost in all the socioeconomic strife. The working class is emerging, and they are pissed – got that, but I got totally lost with all the hearings and stuff. The main story is good, if a bit overmelodramatic, but what will you do? It’s a sign of the era. I’m glad I read it, but more background would help me enjoy it more. I need to read a decent history of England. (How did I escape college with an English major having not done that? Oh yeah…I was a writing major.
Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer
Several people in my book club have recommended Krakauer’s books. I got this one because I forgot to respond in the negative to QPB one month. This is a well-crafted non-fiction book, and fully satisfied my “Law and Order” craving in literature. I’m sure the Mormon church is up in arms about the way he wrote this, but it’s fascinating. Krakauer set out to write a book about a particular violent crime, and then had to back up and tell the history of Mormonism in the US in order to explain all the details. You can tell he became absolutely fascinated with his subject matter, which makes for very good writing in this instance. I read it, I liked it, I learned a lot.
Larry’s Party, by Carol Shields
Since Shields’ death last year, I’ve been pacing myself on reading her books. I love her work, and I don’t want to run out of it. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amolasses, I will get to Republic of Love this year though.) Several of my friends have read and recommended this one, so I picked it up at Half Price last time I was there. I’d read quite a few negative reviews of it on amazon.com, basically saying it was a lesser book than The Stone Diaries, which had come out before it, and was gimmicky. Lots of things are lesser than The Stone Diaries though. I was expecting way more on the gimmick scale, and in fact, didn’t see what those reviewers were talking about at all. The maze construct isn’t a gimmick so much as it is a theme. And for me, it worked. I wish so much that some day I’ll be able to write like Carol Shields. I got such a clear sense of all the places in this novel, without ever getting that, “okay, get on with it and quit the description” feeling.
Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals, by Maggie Estep
What I love about Maggie Estep is that she makes friends with everyone. Her personality, as it comes through in her writing, is brash, abrasive, and a little scary. But yet, I feel we would get along. She names things (the “hefty lesbian” from Soft Maniacs is an image that has stayed in my brain for years) and falls into the most ridiculous situations, and has an almost obsessive interest in horseracing. And yet, somehow, this all comes together in a persona, and a book, that makes perfect sense. There are some repeats in here, mostly from Diary of an Emotional Idiot but the new stuff is great. She’s the Carrie Bradshaw, in real life, of the slightly off-kilter, post-college, not enough-money, I-don’t-think-I’m-cool-but-other-people-seem-to world. I love the stories of her spending the summers at Yaddo. I want to know that people who are not established academic types go to writer’s colonies. This is important information to be stored away in my head for my future, along with how to sneak into the nearby horse racing track there.
Currently reading: Still Life by A.S. Byatt
Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskill
The last book I read by Gaskill (Wives and Daughters) I loved, and I got very angry when I got to the end and found out she’d died before finishing it. This one, I had a lot harder time getting into. I love Victorian novels, but I always feel bogged down by the ones that are wrapped up in historical stuff that I don’t know enough about. With Eliot’s Adam Bede it was hard for me to slog through all the religious history. With this one, I kept getting lost in all the socioeconomic strife. The working class is emerging, and they are pissed – got that, but I got totally lost with all the hearings and stuff. The main story is good, if a bit overmelodramatic, but what will you do? It’s a sign of the era. I’m glad I read it, but more background would help me enjoy it more. I need to read a decent history of England. (How did I escape college with an English major having not done that? Oh yeah…I was a writing major.
Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer
Several people in my book club have recommended Krakauer’s books. I got this one because I forgot to respond in the negative to QPB one month. This is a well-crafted non-fiction book, and fully satisfied my “Law and Order” craving in literature. I’m sure the Mormon church is up in arms about the way he wrote this, but it’s fascinating. Krakauer set out to write a book about a particular violent crime, and then had to back up and tell the history of Mormonism in the US in order to explain all the details. You can tell he became absolutely fascinated with his subject matter, which makes for very good writing in this instance. I read it, I liked it, I learned a lot.
Larry’s Party, by Carol Shields
Since Shields’ death last year, I’ve been pacing myself on reading her books. I love her work, and I don’t want to run out of it. (
amolasses, I will get to Republic of Love this year though.) Several of my friends have read and recommended this one, so I picked it up at Half Price last time I was there. I’d read quite a few negative reviews of it on amazon.com, basically saying it was a lesser book than The Stone Diaries, which had come out before it, and was gimmicky. Lots of things are lesser than The Stone Diaries though. I was expecting way more on the gimmick scale, and in fact, didn’t see what those reviewers were talking about at all. The maze construct isn’t a gimmick so much as it is a theme. And for me, it worked. I wish so much that some day I’ll be able to write like Carol Shields. I got such a clear sense of all the places in this novel, without ever getting that, “okay, get on with it and quit the description” feeling. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals, by Maggie Estep
What I love about Maggie Estep is that she makes friends with everyone. Her personality, as it comes through in her writing, is brash, abrasive, and a little scary. But yet, I feel we would get along. She names things (the “hefty lesbian” from Soft Maniacs is an image that has stayed in my brain for years) and falls into the most ridiculous situations, and has an almost obsessive interest in horseracing. And yet, somehow, this all comes together in a persona, and a book, that makes perfect sense. There are some repeats in here, mostly from Diary of an Emotional Idiot but the new stuff is great. She’s the Carrie Bradshaw, in real life, of the slightly off-kilter, post-college, not enough-money, I-don’t-think-I’m-cool-but-other-people-seem-to world. I love the stories of her spending the summers at Yaddo. I want to know that people who are not established academic types go to writer’s colonies. This is important information to be stored away in my head for my future, along with how to sneak into the nearby horse racing track there.
Currently reading: Still Life by A.S. Byatt