2 posts tagged “paul auster”
BOOKS BOUGHT:
- McSweeney's #25--Dave Eggers (editor)
- Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, etc.--Ted Thompson (editor)
- Silence of the Grave--Arnaldur Indriðason
- Voices--Arnaldur Indriðason
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey--Thornton Wilder
BOOKS RECEIVED FOR CHRISTMAS:
- Tree of Smoke--Denis Johnson
- Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow--Zak Smith
- Jimmy Stewart and His Poems--Jimmy Stewart
- Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting--Jimmy Webb
- Infinite Jest--David Foster Wallace
- Gentlemen of the Road--M-----l Chabon
- The Apocalypse Reader--Justin Taylor (editor)
- Zeroville--Steve Erickson
- Deadeye Dick--Kurt Vonnegut
- Death and Restoration--Iain Pears
- Julius Winsome--Gerard Donovan
- Icelander--Dustin Long
- A Child Again--Robert Coover
- The Best American Comics 2007--Chris Ware (editor)
BOOKS READ:
- A Bend in the River--V.S. Naipaul
A Bend in the River is a good book. It probably even deserves its reputation as a modern classic. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean I enjoyed reading it. I actually found it kind of boring. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a book about post-colonial Africa. That's a topic that rarely interests me. I enjoyed the last couple pages and was better able to appreciate the book once I'd finished it, but reading A Bend in the River felt like a chore to me. I just wanted to finish it and get into something else.
- Story of the Eye--Georges Bataille
One of my favorite songs this year was Of Montreal's "The Past is a Grotesque Animal". There's a line in the song that mentions George Bataille and Story of the Eye, so I thought it would be a good idea to read the book. My logic went like this: If a book is mentioned in a song I like, then I'll like the book. Things started off well. In fact, one of my favorite lines of the year began the second chapter:
That was the period when Simone developed a mania for breaking eggs with her ass.
Sure, that's kind of raunchy, but it's also humorous at the same time. Unfortunately, the book soon lost its humor and Simone and the narrator escalated into unmentionable perversions that made me sick to my stomach. I somehow made it through the book, but I ended up feeling scraped and numb for the next two days.
- Young Lonigan--James T. Farrell
Young Lonigan is the first book in James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan Trilogy. It tells the story of a young Irish ruffian growing up in Chicago in the early 1900s. The events of the first book take place on the day Studs graduates from Catholic school and during the subsequent summer. How does Young Lonigan spend his last summer before high school? Falling in and out of love, getting into fights, smoking cigarettes, checking his look in the mirror, and screwing fourteen year old prostitutes. You know, the usual.
I'm not sure how the rest of the trilogy will play out, but Young Lonigan was a fun read that really made me want to plow through the other two books. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy has the makings of a personal favorite, but I'm going to reserve judgement until I've finished the remaining 800 pages. So far, so good, though.
- The Breast--Philip Roth
Julie recommended The Breast to me after reading my recent review of Goodbye, Columbus. The Breast is similar to Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis except that the protagonist turns into a gigantic breast instead of a dung beetle. The other difference between the two novellas is that The Metamorphosis ended with one of my favorite lines in all of fiction and The Breast ended with a poem I didn't understand.
- Silence of the Grave--Arnaldur Indriðason
- Voices--Arnaldur Indriðason
Silence of the Grave and Voices are the second and third books in Arnaldur Indriðason's Reykjavik Murder Mystery series. I had no intention of reading Silence of the Grave anytime soon, but I noticed that Voices took place at Christmas, so I quickly read the first book so I could read the second at Christmastime. In Silence of the Grave, Inspector Erlendur and his team work to identify a skeleton buried for half a century. The best line in Silence of the Grave is the very first one:
He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.
In Voices, Erlender works to solve the murder of a former child star who has spent the last twenty years working as the doorman at a Reykjavik hotel. The best line in Voices is the following:
He knew that the hotel would never be able to shake off the murder. It would never wipe away the smear. After this it would always be known as the hotel where Santa was found dead with a condom on his penis.
Inspector Erlendur seemed a bit slow on the uptake in Voices, but it was still a good mystery. Both books were enjoyable, quick reads. I'd recommend them to anyone interested in the crime genre or contemporary Nordic fiction.
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Comedy by the Numbers--Eric Hoffman & Gary Rudoren
This is the full version of the book that was published in pamphlet form and given away free with McSweeney's #23. All the funny parts were in the pamplet, so I really shouldn't have bothered buying the full book. There's a saying about giving away the goods for free that concerns virgins and sex and marriage (and maybe even cows), but I can't remember what it is right now. I'm sure it's appropriate, though.
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"Auggie Wren's Christmas Story"--Paul Auster
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"Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor"--John Cheever
I also read the two Christmas-related short stories mentioned above. If anyone out there got that Caroline Kennedy Christmas story collection as a gift this season, you should probably return it and track down these two stories instead. That's just my opinion, of course.
CURRENTLY READING:
- The World Without Us--Alan Weisman
- The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan--James T. Farrell
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey--Thornton Wilder
- The Best American Comics 2007--Chris Ware (editor)
I've been reading too much lately, so I've decided to divide this month's SIBR post into two parts. This is the first part and covers all my book-related activities up through October 19th. The second part will cover the rest of the month. I'll post it in a week or two.
BOOKS BOUGHT:
- The New York Trilogy--Paul Auster
- Angle of Repose--Wallace Stegner
- A Bend in the River--V.S. Naipaul
- Disgrace--J.M. Coetzee
- Blood Meridian--Cormac McCarthy
- Jar City--Arnaldur Indriðason (thanks to SteveP)
- The Book of Pilates--Joyce Gavin
- The Walking Dead: Vol.5--William Kirkman
- Pastoralia--George Saunders
- The Studs Lonigan Trilogy--James T. Farrell
- Ticknor--Sheila Heti
- The Middle Stories--Sheila Heti
BOOKS READ:
- Search Party: Collected Poems--William Matthews
William Matthews was a poet born in Cincinnati in 1942. He died ten years ago. I'm usually not much of a poetry reader, but my cousin recommended William Matthews to me and I decided to give him a try. I bought and read Search Party: Collected Poems. My favorite poems in the collection were the ones written about seeing Charles Mingus perform. I also enjoyed "The Penalty for Bigamy Is Two Wives", "Nabokov's Death", and the hilarious "A Poetry Reading at West Point". Some of the later poems were too long and dense for me to figure out in the time I gave them. That's my fault, though.
- Giotto's Hand--Iain Pears
Giotto's Hand is the fifth book in Iain Pears' seven book Art History Mystery series. I made the mistake of reading the seventh book first, so the surprise twist at the end of Giotto's Hand wasn't as surprising as it otherwise would have been. It was still a good, quick read.
- McSweeney's #24
McSweeney's #24 was divided into two sections. The first featured a bunch of authors trying to convince me that Don Barthelme was a great writer. I read his 60 Stories collection last year and didn't care for it at all. In fact, it is probably my least favorite short story collection ever. For some reason, though, I didn't mind reading other authors fawning over Barthelme. I may not enjoy his writing, but it sounds like he was an interesting man.
The second section of McSweeney's consisted of six short stories full of violence and murders. I don't want to spoil anything, but bullets fly in all six stories. It was very un-McSweeney's, but it made for good reading anyway. I especially enjoyed "Bored to Death" by Jonathan Ames.
- The New York Trilogy--Paul Auster
My brother recommended The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. It's a collection of three interrelated detective novellas. These aren't your typical detective stories, though; these are flat-out weird. They actually reminded me a bit of Franz Kafka's novels The Castle and The Trial. All the characters seemed to be mentally unstable with a slightly screwy grasp on reality. I think The New York Trilogy is supposed to be "postmodern", but I've honestly never understood what that term meant. I always thought it was just a fancy thing that grad students said to get me to punch them in the throat.
But anyway, the stories were confusing, but ultimately worth reading. I didn't really "get" the book until I finished it and was able to see how the stories and characters were related. Even now, I'm not sure I understood everything.
- God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian--Kurt Vonnegut
My uncle told me about God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut. The book is based on a series of brief essays originally aired on NPR. In them, Vonnegut repeatedly "dies", interviews famous dead people in the afterlife, and then gets brought back to life by Jack Kevorkian so he (Vonnegut) can tell us what the dead people had to say.
I went up to the bookstore to buy God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian and saw that it was a thin volume printed in a huge font with a lot of blank filler pages. I sat down in a chair and read the entire book in the store. It only took me 20 minutes and I saved $10.
- Disgrace--J.M. Coetzee
I have a book called 1000 Books You Must Read Before You Die. It features essays on books the editors consider to be essential reading. In skimming through the book, one of the things I noticed was that there was a lot of J.M. Coetzee in there...eleven books, in fact. I'd never read anything by the author before, so I went out and bought a copy of Disgrace. I picked it over his other books because it had a "Winner of the 1999 Booker Prize" emblem on the front.
Disgrace is about a South African professor whose life falls apart after he has an affair with a student. He loses his job and ends up going to live with his daughter on her farm. He volunteers at an animal shelter and tries to write an opera about Lord Byron. Just when he thinks it can't get any worse, real tragedy strikes.
Disgrace was a great book and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Maybe the 1000 Books editors were on to something.
- The Book of Pilates--Joyce Gavin
This was just a book I bought to familiarize myself with the basic concepts and techniques of Pilates. It served its purpose and one of the models was cute. There's not much else to say about it.
- Blood Meridian--Cormac McCarthy
I was out book shopping and a crazy lady came up to me and told me I should read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I've enjoyed McCarthy in the past and I'm always willing to listen to crazy people, so I bought a copy. Wow! I thought No Country for Old Men was a violent book; it doesn't even come close to Blood Meridian.
Blood Meridian follows the adventures of "the kid", a young gunslinger who hires on with the Glanton gang, a real-life gang that was contracted to kill Indians near the Mexican border in the mid-1800s. The Glantons scalp their kills and get money from the government for each scalp they bring in. Before you know it, they're killing everybody...men, women, children, infants, the elderly, horses, donkeys, each other, etc. Glanton himself is one of the most depraved characters I've read, but he pales in comparison to Judge Holden, a huge, strangely gifted man who leaves a trail of raped and murdered children wherever he goes. The Judge makes Patrick Bateman look like an altar boy.
I must admit that I didn't enjoy Blood Meridian. It wasn't even the violence that turned me off; I just had trouble following the story. The other Cormac McCarthy books I've read were easy reads. Blood Meridian was a tough one and it seemed even tougher because I wasn't expecting to have to concentrate so much. There was also a lot of untranslated Spanish that gave me trouble. I don't quit books once I've begun them, though, so I pushed on through. I'm glad I did. The last chapter was absolutely amazing. It was one of the best endings I've ever read. It was so good that I'm seriously considering going back and reading the entire book over again.
CURRENTLY READING:
- The World Without Us--Alan Weisman
- The Middle Stories--Sheila Heti
