Random Reading Thoughts: War, what is it good for?

[jb]

The reviews are in for Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall sequel and apparently lightning has struck twice.

[Cricket]

I read the new Hilary Mantel, and it's good. Any uneasiness I had about the possibility that Mantel was simply cashing in on the unexpected success of Wolf Hall (one of the best selling Booker Prize winners ever) was banished pretty quickly. Bringing Up the Bodies is just as artfully constructed and assiduously researched as the first book of this projected trilogy -- and this is coming from someone who doesn't care about Tudor history.

It's great that Mantel is finally getting the attention she deserves, but I do hope that people will be encouraged to discover her back catalog, and not just the historical fiction. In my view, her best novels are actually her contemporary ones, like Beyond Black and An Experiment in Love. Her memoir, Giving up the Ghost, is also highly accomplished. She's one of the best writers in England.

[TheOppressionRepressesMe]

Finished Infinite Jest for the second time last night-- hadn't read it in four years. Then I spent a few hours reading theories about the book online.

Seriously one of the best books I've read and most identify with, despite the bizarre nature of the plot.

Anyone got any theories on:
[spoiler]What happened to Hal in the Year of the Glad?[/spoiler]

The other thing that makes this book SO moving is that, despite the wretched cast of characters and the serious social critiques Wallace proffers, his personal philosophy is neither cynical nor contemptuous of humanity. The essence of the book is about empathy, compassion, and communication.

[Jeff Beachnau]

I whizzed through The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and man, it was a ton of fun. Sure, I was familiar with some of the stories throughout (the fence, the cave) but I've never actually read anything by Mark Twain before. His writing, is funny, witty, and extremely entertaining. And sure, the book is great for kids to read, but there are some hilarious moments throughout that really had me laughing. I'm glad I finally read this and I'm really eager to read another Twain novel, I'm thinking Prince and the Pauper next.

[mjiv]

It's being reported that Carlos Fuentes just passed away.

Time to pre-order "Vlad"...

[Aldo]

Yes. National mourning in Mexico.

He was the most important voice of the Mexican cultural elite for around 15 years, since Octavio Paz passed away. Bad timing, national elections take place in July and he was one of the most respected critics of that corrupt idiot that's leading the polls, Enrique Peña.

Grande Fuentes.

[Jeff Beachnau]

I just finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was a great read, with a lot of fun and cool moments. The giant squid chapter lives up to it reputation. However there were a ton of moments where there were paragraphs describing every possible type of sea life and what they looked like, whenever that happened I just sort of skimmed through that since it got pretty repetetive. Regardless, it's an excellent book, Captain Nemo is an extremely interesting ane memorable character, the final chapters of the book in particular describe him perfectly. I'm glad I finally read this book and eventually I'll check out other Jules Verne works.

[Cricket]

To all the genre/sci-fi aficionados, you should definitely pick up the latest New Yorker. It's the Science Fiction Issue, the first they've ever done. It includes essays by Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin and Karen Russell, plus a previously unpublished piece from the 1970s by Anthony Burgess on A Clockwork Orange.

It also includes four new works of fiction by Junot Diaz, Jonathan Lethem, Sam Lipsyte and Jennifer Egan. The Diaz, I believe, is an excerpt of a novel he is working on. And the Egan, which follows a character from A Visit from the Goon Squad, is notable for being made up of 140-character-or-less sentences that TNY has been unveiling in nightly instalments on Twitter. Apparently, Egan thinks this is akin to the serialization of nineteenth century fiction. I can't really be bothered, so I'll just read the whole story in the issue, but you can take a look at what's up so far here.

[Bremen]

Ooh, I'm definitely picking up that issue. Thanks for the heads up!

[Cricket]

I picked up The New Yorker sci-fi issue last week, and just finished going through it. It's worth checking out, if only for the short essays, which are terrific (especially poignant to see one by the late Ray Bradbury).

I thought the fiction was more of a mixed bag. Jonathan Lethem's attempt at a kind of Kafka-esque miniature totally fell flat. The Sam Lipsyte story had decent moments, but the ideas never really crystallized. The Junot Diaz was okay, though I'm kind of over TNY publishing excerpts of forthcoming novels, since I always just end up re-reading them anyway. I like Diaz, but despite ostensibly writing in genre, I found he was the writer who ended up mostly doing his usual thing (the vernacular, yet erudite, narration of a young, sex-obsessed narrator that is peppered with untranslated Spanish words that I have to look up, LOL). My favorite was actually the Jennifer Egan story, which initially seemed the most gimmicky, but ended up being the most sophisticated and inventive of the lot. You can read that one in its entirety here.

Overall, it's not a bad issue for their first attempt at this kind of thing. Some have observed that it might have been even more bold for TNY to commission fiction pieces by actual sci-fi writers, instead of literary authors "slumming it". But there's still a pretty big genre bias in literary publishing.

[Largo]

I went to the bookstore on Monday and promptly ended up devouring The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. It's better than it has any right to be, given that the main character is basically a cipher for every other character to project their hopes, fears, and damages on. The book's biggest issue really is Henry Skrimshander's total lack of a personality. That being said, the prose is nicely put together, especially in the baseball-playing sequences, which are written with an incredible attention to detail and all those little quirks of the sport come shining through. Most of the other characters were fairly engrossing to me as well - I know that Owen, for all intents and purposes, is just as much as a cipher as Henry, especially in regards to [SPOILER]his relationship with President Affenlight[/SPOILER], but at least he has an interesting way of speaking, and a far more engrossing storyline.

[Mmelissa]

I picked up The New Yorker sci-fi issue last week, and just finished going through it. It's worth checking out, if only for the short essays, which are terrific (especially poignant to see one by the late Ray Bradbury).

I thought the fiction was more of a mixed bag. Jonathan Lethem's attempt at a kind of Kafka-esque miniature totally fell flat. The Sam Lipsyte story had decent moments, but the ideas never really crystallized. The Junot Diaz was okay, though I'm kind of over TNY publishing excerpts of forthcoming novels, since I always just end up re-reading them anyway. I like Diaz, but despite ostensibly writing in genre, I found he was the writer who ended up mostly doing his usual thing (the vernacular, yet erudite, narration of a young, sex-obsessed narrator that is peppered with untranslated Spanish words that I have to look up, LOL). My favorite was actually the Jennifer Egan story, which initially seemed the most gimmicky, but ended up being the most sophisticated and inventive of the lot. You can read that one in its entirety here.

Overall, it's not a bad issue for their first attempt at this kind of thing. Some have observed that it might have been even more bold for TNY to commission fiction pieces by actual sci-fi writers, instead of literary authors "slumming it". But there's still a pretty big genre bias in literary publishing.

I hate it when they publish excerpts in their short fiction section, but I don't think that's the case with Monstro since his next book is a collection of short stories (that I'm really looking forward too). So far all I've managed to read of the sci-fi issue is Monstro, but I really enjoyed it, especially the way the world is ending and the narrator is still only concentrated on picking up girls (or I guess just the one girl). The actual genre-y type stuff in the story was creepy as hell.

Anyway, I've been making my way through a couple of short story collections lately. Because They Wanted To by Mary Gaistkill and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri were both good enough reads, but I enjoyed both authors respective debuts much, much more. Now I'm onto Sherman Alexi's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and really loving the hell out of it. Where has this book been all my life? The writing is both rich and compulsively readable. I'm already mourning the moment when I finish it and they'll be no more for me to read.

[Cricket]

Mmelissa, I'm a big admirer of Mary Gaitskill and Sherman Alexie as well. I think they're both very fine writers. Not as crazy about Lahiri, though she has a couple of stories that I like.

Regarding Diaz, according to a Q&A he did with the magazine, "Monstro" is the beginning of a planned novel. Though, in light of the fact that he seems to take a long time between books, who knows when or if it will ever see the light of day. Seems like it's in the very beginning stages, in any event. I'm also really excited about the new story collection, which is apparently a kind of sequel to Drown, continuing to follow the characters of Yunior and Rafa. I thought that was a fantastic book, much better than Oscar Wao, IMO.

[dyedred19]

I went to the bookstore on Monday and promptly ended up devouring The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. It's better than it has any right to be, given that the main character is basically a cipher for every other character to project their hopes, fears, and damages on. The book's biggest issue really is Henry Skrimshander's total lack of a personality. That being said, the prose is nicely put together, especially in the baseball-playing sequences, which are written with an incredible attention to detail and all those little quirks of the sport come shining through. Most of the other characters were fairly engrossing to me as well - I know that Owen, for all intents and purposes, is just as much as a cipher as Henry, especially in regards to [SPOILER]his relationship with President Affenlight[/SPOILER], but at least he has an interesting way of speaking, and a far more engrossing storyline.

I came into this thread for the first time ever to post about this book! I picked it up on a whim last week and I'm working my way through it. Still barely into it, but I like it a lot so far.

Anybody else read it?

[Bremen]

So I've been reading John Irving's new book. First of his that I've read and I'm struggling to get through it. Maybe it's his style or the construction of his book but I'm a bit frustrated. Why do all the characters constantly speak in italics? It's mentally draining to imagine that in me head all the time. Also, I understand that the main characters' younger years are incredibly important but why are we continually brought back to this period in his life. I've read widely but I've never read anything that jumps through time so haphazardly, I mean, even in a single paragraph. It becomes exhausting and repetitive where the whole books seems to be....stuck in one place. Also, it's a bit hard to believe that this small town is so full of sexual deviants and tolerant people and also I find it hard to stomach Irving's frequent dismissals of science fiction and fantasy.

[Mmelissa]

Mmelissa, I'm a big admirer of Mary Gaitskill and Sherman Alexie as well. I think they're both very fine writers. Not as crazy about Lahiri, though she has a couple of stories that I like.

Regarding Diaz, according to a Q&A he did with the magazine, "Monstro" is the beginning of a planned novel. Though, in light of the fact that he seems to take a long time between books, who knows when or if it will ever see the light of day. Seems like it's in the very beginning stages, in any event. I'm also really excited about the new story collection, which is apparently a kind of sequel to Drown, continuing to follow the characters of Yunior and Rafa. I thought that was a fantastic book, much better than Oscar Wao, IMO.

Thanks for the link. And yuck, I didn't realize he was trying to expand it into a novel. I thought it worked just fine on it's own.

I wasn't a huge fan of Drown, but I'm willing to give that world another shot, especially since I did like the "Miss Lora" story that was in The New Yorker not so long ago.

[Jeff Beachnau]

I just gone done reading A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story. It was pretty great, a lot of fun and easy to get through. I wasn't expecting such a drastic shift in story halfway through, or rather, going from 1st person to 3rd person. And I never expected the very first Sherlock Holmes mystery was gonna be about evil Mormons. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the Holmes stories.

[Bean]

I'm about 150 pages into EL Doctorow's The March, and absolutely loving it.

[Artimus]

Has anyone read Jo Walton's Nebula Award winner Among Others?

[AllAboutOscar]

It seems I can't stop reading these days, I've almost been fired from my work, cause I was reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies during work time, lol. Or maybe they were just scared of the cover...