Literature: Rate and Discuss

Deliverance by James Dickey - 4/5

Good read. I came upon Dickey after seeing a mention by Cormac McCarthy in an interview of his book To The White Sea. I did try to read To The White Sea and got too busy to make it through, but ended up picking up Deliverance at a used bookstore.

The gist of it is that a dude is going with a few friends on a canoe trip down a river in Georgia. Then of course something goes wrong and propels them into your typical survival-adventure story plot. Despite that, the way it's written is very compelling, especially through the last half. Also a couple weeks ago, I had watched 127 Hours and then watched a bunch of interviews and the Dateline program on that dude. Some of the sentiments in this book and that real-life survival story bizarrely match up quite well. I'm sure James Dickey didn't live through any of it, but he seems to have gotten it spot on.

Also, I have to say that because a couple of the dudes use a bow and arrow, parts of this reminded me of the part in Cryptonomicon where.....

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main character and his girlfriend are in a river being shot at with a bow and arrow by his former college roommate -- the part where the book had hit its limit in its spiral to ridiculousness and jumped the shark, in my opinion

-- except James Dickey made that scenario believable instead of ridiculous. Seriously, Neal Stephenson, wtf was that. If you liked that part in Cryptonomicon, Deliverance totally blows it away.

I have that novel and I've read about half of it. Have you seen the movie dfc? It's pretty good, Burt Reynolds is the badass one.

Nope, I wasn't aware there was a movie. I'll have to check it out sometime - thanks for the heads up!
I thought the last half of the novel was better (or at least, more exciting and fast-paced) than the first half, so definitely keep on reading.

How can it be that I have been on these forums for over three years and never knew of this thread?!

While I'm here:
Alas Babylon 4/5: A very good story about a small community in florida surviving a nuclear attack. Great characters and a good bit about leadership and society. Not quite the most emotionally involving story, but its definitely worth a read.

Just read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson because I couldn't be arsed to go to the library this weekend and it was kicking around. It was pretty okay for a "young adult" book. The kind of thing that when you're 15 is like "**** yeah, I know exactly how this character feels" and now at 25 you're thinking "Christ, I was 15 once?"

Forgot my library card this morning so didn't get to drop in on the way to work, but once I get a free moment, I'm hoping down there to pick up Anna Karenina and Everything is Illuminated. Also on my list for the next few months is Jane Eyre, Brothers Karamazov, and possibly some Faulkner before long.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston
Adventure-survival story marathon!
It was decent. No particularly mind-blowing insights, and the second off-topic chapter on mountain climbing did start to drag a little. I read it straight through in 2 days though, which means it was pretty interesting throughout. My favorite thing was how every time he majorly screwed up or was in a crappy situation, he's like "Huh guess I'll take a photo!" Bear attack; dropping a backpack with important climbing gear off the side of a mountain; cutting off his own arm..... camera time.

Also The Blot by Tom Neely. It's a graphic novel about a man being followed around by a blot (literally, ink blots on the panels). He meets a woman who makes things better for a while, but then she leaves him. I think someone on these forums mentioned wanting to read this a few years back. I'd looked it up and thought the concept sounded interesting. So I stuck it on my "To Read" list and sometimes would look it up and be curious as to whether it's really as great as the few reviews out there say it is. I finally just bought it. It is quite good. Didn't make me cry, but it was good. I haven't read any graphic novels before so I don't have any points of comparison, but I liked the artwork and execution of the concept. Favorite and least favorite parts:

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Faves:
3-page dream sequence near the middle
Entrance of wolf
Use of color. I'd looked at the artwork on his site and expected the whole thing to be color, so I was a little disappointed when I started reading and it was black and white. But some color does come in later, and it's nicely done.

Least fave:
The woman only looks even remotely happy in maybe 3 panels of the entire book. Even when she's helping the guy out, it seems like emotionally she's not all-there. Maybe that was intentional, I dunno.

I recommend it but the price is a little high -- typical new-paperback price but you can't find it on sale anywhere and it's not on Borders so you can't 40%-coupon it. I'm glad I finally got to read it though.

Next up will be more graphic novels because I stumbled upon this list today. I'm not going to join their discussion group, but checking out a couple of books off that list: Stitches by David Small and The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman. Seemed pretty interesting. If anyone can recommend anything else from there, I'll try and read them too if I can get it from the library.

"Everything is Illuminated" by Johnathan Safran Foer. 4/5.

It was a bold move for Safran Foer's first novel to jump between entire generations and be written in a manner that contained multiple stories within itself. Most of the time, it works quite well, but there are places where it falls flat. It's an enjoyable book, though not without flaws.


Next up is likely Anna Karenina.

Library was out of their only copies of both "Anna Karenina" and Stephen King's "Darktower" series, so I'm reading Christopher Priest's "The Prestige" which Nolan's movie is based on, and Stephen King's "Misery" in the meantime.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - 8/10.

I absolutely LOVED this book. To be honest, it sort of rekindled my interest in reading fantasy... I used to read tons of fantasy when I was a lot younger and really enjoyed it, but after I turned 14 or 15 I basically stopped altogether (after grinding to a halt midway into the fifth Robert Jordan novel). I have to say though I had more fun reading this book than any other book I've read in years. GRRM has a superb way of creating and portraying characters and I love how rich and well-imagined the world is. His writing style isn't anything too special but it's very solid and readable and I do like how he is pretty consistent about using certain grammatical forms and structures (as well as words) that give a very Middle English feel to the whole thing.

I also like how each chapter follows a different character... when I get bored with what's going on in one character's story (which doesn't happen often, mind), I know that there are only a few more pages of it before I get to something I find a lot more interesting and personally engaging. I'm hungrily tearing through the next book A Clash of Kings at the moment, about halfway through that so far.

Stitches - depressing/10
I don't really know how to rate or judge this. The Publisher's Weekly synopsis says all you need to know about this: "The story starts when the narrator is six years old and follows him into adulthood, with most of the story spent during his early adolescence. The youngest member of a silent and unhappy family, David is subjected to repeated x-rays to monitor sinus problems. When he develops cancer as a result of this procedure, he is operated on without being told what is wrong with him. The operation results in the loss of his voice, cutting him off even further from the world around him."

The artwork was great and I admire the author for putting his traumatic childhood out there. It was well done, etc etc. But it's depressing. Not in a cry-sob way, or in a poetic fictional The Road way. Just straight-up depressing. This is going to sound stupid, but... reading it made me feel bad. It's appropriate for the subject matter but not pleasant. The only nice things are that the author somehow turned out ok in the end, and that if you have parents who are anywhere near normal, you'll appreciate them more. :\ I might give it one more read though; kinda rushed through a little. For me, doesn't really seem like a story I'd want to re-read over and over again.



Halfway through Principles of Uncertainty now. From the description, I thought it'd be maybe a little like the film Waking Life, but as far as I could tell it's just artsy stream-of-consciousness stuff about nothing in particular. Lots of bizarre random connections, but no overall theme to it. Like, "when I was walking down the street I found this green United Pickle tag. [drawing of tag] I like chairs. [drawing of a chair]. You can see this stuffed dog in a museum. [drawing of stuffed dog]" Sure it's amusing and/or "clever" for a while, but there's only so much of that one can take before it starts looking pretentious. But I'm thinking maybe it's just a problem of perception. Maybe I'd like it more if it were advertised as a book of art with artist's commentary, not as a graphic novel. Once someone gifted me an Art for Children book on Diego Velazquez. It had paintings with handwritten descriptions, like "Look at this ORANGE! See how nicely it leads your eye to this GLASS!". Really awesome stuff; I highly recommend that series. Maybe that's the way to approach Principles of Uncertainty, because in the first half at least, there are graphics and there are pretty handwritten words that go with the graphics, but there's no story. So I can't see how one would categorize this as a graphic novel.

I think I'm going to go back to just normal novels after this.

Your description makes me think of "Night" by Elie Wiesel, which was about the holocaust. A great book, but it's so unbelievably depressing. I read it when I was 10? 12? and I haven't been able to get through it again since.

"The Prestige" by Christopher Priest - 2/5

Spoilers for both the film and the movie.

Short version: The movie is a much tighter, better structured story.

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I tried to not let my feelings about the movie interfere with reading the book it was based on. In most cases, it's academic since I like the book more anyway, but in this case I didn't care for it.

The book is told by way of reading people's diaries, but where it might be interesting to get snippets here and there, the entirety of each is presented in order, and most of the information given feels either like fluff, or something we've heard before. At times the question of having a "reliable narrator" is used, and quite well.

Telling the story from both sides does illuminate some things. For instance, when Borden begins the feud, he thought that all he had done was embarrass a fellow magician, when in fact he caused Angier's wife to miscarry their first child. There is also a scene to towards the end of Borden's life, told from both perspectives, that has quite a lot of depth because of how differently each diary perceives it.

Most of the feud and details of their lives are told fine, but because of the inherent problem with "reading about it after the fact" is that you don't see a lot of what happens, you're simply told it. Many relationships feel underwhelming in that sense, except where the two magicians are concerned. For instance, we never see the Borden twins struggling to maintain their dual-life, we just get Angier theorizing about it. Which one of them married the wife, is it the same one who fathered the children, does the wife know, etc. The idea of twins is presented somewhat poorly.

In what I feel is an even worse development, the story is bookended by very few "present day" chapters, in which the two remaining descendants of Angiers and Borden meet to unravel a mystery from 20+ years ago, and the feud that began the whole thing. I didn't care for that at all.

Having the feud carry on for so long felt meaningless and silly, especially when both diaries explain how it was wrong, and they didn't know, and wish they could take it all back. Instead we get Kate Angier telling us how as a child she witnessed her father kill the infant Nicky Borden. Oh but wait, I'm pretty sure he's you, that's why I brought you here. And then the main character explains how he's always felt like he has a twin, who he's psychically linked to. (A development which did little more than provide some very silly "tension" and misplaced resolution at the end.)

The idea of twins is brought up a lot, but it always seems to fall short. The Borden Twins are barely mentioned as such with any certainty, the main character's twin is seemingly little more than a voice in his head, and Angier's eventual cloning is flawed at best.

By far some of the best parts were those with Tesla. He was fantastic.

Coming in at 380 pages, I don't think it's fair to say that the story was too short, or that not enough was explained because it was glossed over, I think more than anything it was simply the wrong way to tell that kind of story. It had all the pieces there to be wonderful, but they weren't put together in the best fashion.

Tomorrow, When The War Began - 9/10

Since the age of 12 I've had people recommending me this book. Now, on my 17th birthday, I know why.

John Marsden expresses humanity so well, our behaviour, our thoughts, our nature. There are pages when you forget it's like an Australian novelisation of Red Dawn, reading Marsden's long ass tangents about human philosophy is very entertaining and enjoyable.

Tomorrow speaks to teenagers, posing the question; What would you do if your country were invaded? The novel being Australian and rich in our culture and mentality is icing on the cake. Beyond this, the novel focuses not just on war and invasion, but on human response to such things. And he does it excellently, characterization is an extreme strong point in Tomorrow. Narrated by Ellie, the story is action action action from Chapter 6 until the very end.

Only two negative points in this, both very minor. The first is pacing, Chapters 1-5 are really quite slow and uninteresting, basic character development. Developing the 'normal' teenagers so as to juxtapose them with what happens next. Second is the time period, this series were published during the 90s, when I was born. It is fun how it thrusts you back and nostalgically reminds you of the 90s, but coming across some of the terminology makes you cringe shockingly, words like 'Dunny' and 'Daks' have thankfully been dropped since that time.
Still, those are minor complaints.

The only conclusion I can come up with for this review is that you should read this novel if you are/were a teenager. Which I think should be about 99% of the members here. 9/10

"Misery" by Stephen King. 4/5

To describe this as "extreme" would be fitting. It's a simple idea that works in the situation. Paul's legs are extremely broken, Annie is extremely crazy. It's a fast and intense read, one of the King books I have enjoyed most.

John Green - Looking for Alaska. 4/5.

Maybe it's the kid in me, but I like this book quite a bit.

Stephen King - Cell. 2/5.
Jesus Christ this book. How could anyone actually make a zombie story boring? Especially one inspired by Richard Matheson? I wouldn't say that anything about it was "cliche", but it was definitely typical and predictable. The main character, Clay, is an artist, something that's only mentioned with any significance when it's necessary for the plot. Stephen King needs Clay to notice something, so he sits him down to "draw" in his imagination what he has seen. It's a neat effect, but used in a very deus ex machina fashion.

The original ideas that the story does have are solid and interesting, but there's not enough substance in them to carry the story. You're left with an "escape the city" story with zombies that 'adapt' to keep them from getting too stale early on. Their motivations and plans are never revealed, and almost everything in the story has a feeling of being really arbitrary.

Please stop reading Stephen King. Unless it's Dark Tower next. In which case, whatever.

It will be if I can ever find a damn copy of it.

I'm actually reading John Fowles "The Magus" now.

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin - 7/10

Great, entertaining read... but not nearly as good as

A Storm of Swords by GRRM - 9/10

Easily my favorite of the series so far (I'm about halfway through book 4 right now). So much epic stuff happens. I love this series.

Get ready for lots and lots of walking and other non-epic events.

Yeah, I already noticed in the first three hundred pages or so of A Feast For Crows that it's quite slow, plodding even. That's fine by me. Bought A Dance With Dragons while I was out today...

I skipped all of the chapters about that southern desert area (Dorn?) I couldn't for the life of me figure out why any of these characters were relevant or tied into the rest of the plot, and I finished the book without feeling like I missed anything.

I tried to read George R. R. Martin but couldn't. I found his writing style gratuitous and distasteful.

I just finished A Dance with Dragons. As far as the books go it's pretty similar to A Feast For Crows. It just kind of feels like the side shows are getting out of hand and the main story is now becoming the side show. Tyrion's chapters actually became dull and repetetive this time around. Arya is still building up an array of midievel super powers but doesn't have any interaction with the story at all. Jon and Danny (Denareys is that how you spell it?) are really the main plot points, and I really don't like the Danny story much. At least things in the East are hopefully coming to some sort of conclusion really soon. A lot of smaller characters get a chapter, but mostly they are just giving us extra input on things we are already reading.

I recently read:
"The Magus" by Fowles, which was a 5/5. I had a lot of trouble putting it down, really sucked me in.
"The Orchid Eater" by Marc Laidlaw, which was a 3/5. Decent story, but lacked anything terribly special/unique. It was just okay.

Now I'm reading "The Plague" by Camus, which I am (surprisingly) strongly disliking.

Reading the Forge of God by Greg Bear:

Simply put so far it gives me the creeps when I read it and its a very easy summer read so far. I highly recommend it plus theres word of a screen play being made so it could hit the silver screen

Albert Camus "The Plague" - 2/5

Though this had some interesting ideas and themes, I found the detatched style it was written in to be a pretty large hindrance. Everything is sort of glossed over (almost a year passes in the 280 pages of the book) and for a story about suffering and isolation, you don't really get to know the characters very well. At times it actually feels more like a summary of events than a novel, with how things are said instead of shown. To describe it as it dull would not be wrong.

Blindness, 7/10

I heard a lot about this book and lots of rave reviews. My take on it was kinda meh. It's got a cool premise and an interesting style, but that's about it. The plot drags and doesn't really evolve much. The characters are pretty meh, maybe this is part of the style though. It has some weird sex. It kind of reminds me of The Road, but less depressing and less stuff happens in it.

Milan Kundera - Ignorance. 3/5

Kundera's works tend to revolve around the human condition, and this one is no exception. Ignorance explores the concept of nostalgia, and the ever-present bond an emigrant can feel to their homeland, to the bond of a first love. In typical Kundera style, it combines philosophy with character, using (as I said about The Unbearable Lightness) characters as examples and symbols. He has a way of taking the entire scope of a character's life into consideration that I find enchanting. Most books focus on a particular time in a character's life, but Kundera takes all of them, because all of them is important.

"On the trip home he decided to leave the country. Not that he couldn't have lived here. He could have gone on peacefully treating cows here. But he was alone, divorced, childless, free. He reflected that he had only one life and that he wanted to live it somewhere else."

Can't rate as I've just started reading it, but I finally picked up the first book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones. Hopefully it's going to be good as everyone claims it is. Also got the English version for twice the price because translations are usually horrible.

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini - 9/10

Absolutely amazing book. A little slow to start, but the grotesque hook that comes along sets the suspense and excitement going for the reader, then calming down but still going at a good pace as the protagonist reckons with his internal conflict. The themes of redemption and inhumanity of Afghan society make this an eye-opening book both personally and for anyone interested in the image of modern Afghanistan. The first-person perspective adds emotion instead of just describing the guilt and flaws of the protagonist. The chronological/episodic nature makes a great contrast between not only childhood and adult life, but also pre-Russian occupation and modern Taliban Afghanistan. The twists that don't stop even after the climax of the book (one of the most exciting climaxes I've read) kept me reading for an amount of time far longer than I usually do. The plight of the protagonist really highlights human capabilities to redeem themselves, and is an inspiration to anyone who reads the book. Fantastic.

The Forge of God by Greg Bear 8.5/10

Very great sci fi novel written in the 80s that puts a different spin on alien invasion. Really interesting and kept my attention, plus they may make this into a movie from what I keep reading.

Leo Tolstoy - Resurrection. 5/5

Of the Russian texts I've read over the past year (Crime and Punishment, House of the Dead, The Master and Margarita) this is the first one that I could say actually feels like a classic "Tragedy", in the likes of the Greeks or Shakespeare. And I absolutely adored it.

At its core, the plot is very simple: A prince feels guilt over something from his past and goes above and beyond what most people would do to atone. The beauty of the story is in the reveal. The awakening of the Prince over time, and the horror of prison situations that comes more and more into focus. Tolstoy's talent of writing extends beyond settings that you can picture, to portraying characters using a deep understanding of human psychology. It is a story about redemption, not just for the Prince, but humanity as a whole.

I haven't read that one. Tolstoy is a goddamn master though. Anna Karenina is one of the most finely-crafted novels I've ever read, and War and Peace and Childhood are both fantastic too (those three are all the Tolstoy novels I've read). Some of his short stories are great too, not just Ivan Ilych and Kreutzer Sonata but also some of the less well known ones like How Much Land Does A Man Need? as well.

You should definitely read it. Anna Karenina is one of the next books I'm going to dive into, but I might take a break and read something "light" first.

'The Unbearable lightness of being' is the book he's most famous for, but I really do recommend 'The Joke' which is something I've returned to a few times over the years.

I'd put 'Immortality' up there.

Immortality was on my list even before Ignorance, but the Library did not seem to have it. I'll keep an eye out for The Joke, too. I am a big fan of Kundera.