2008 list of things read
Submitted by misscurly on Sat, 01/05/2008 - 10:09
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January
- Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
- Finished: January 5
- Opening Line:On they went, singing 'Eternal Memory', and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.
- Comments: Maybe it was lost in translation, but this book didn't hold much interest for me. Yury seems to have committed all the same sins as his father, despite all his hard work at educating himself. I suppose it should be interesting because it does point out how socialism seems intent on destroying the personal life. It also shows how stubborn Russian lovers can be... maybe I should get myself one of those. :)
- Rating: 3/5
- The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time by Will Durant
- Finished: Jan 10 (listened to)
- Comments: This is a sort of overview of all significant people in the history of the world, but broken down into neat little "top 10" packages. It really is a book that belongs on listology for that reason alone! The diction is flowing and interesting, making it suited to listen to as an audiobook, but it really is a book that should be in hard copy to refer back to. One particular section, 100 Greatest books for an Education, was difficult to follow. Otherwise a great listen, and exactly what I was looking for: an expert advising beginners on where to look for the most interesting ideas.
- Rating: 4/5
- Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
- Finished: Jan 18
- Opening Line:So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
- Comments: I saw the movie Beowulf and Grendel a few years ago, but it really did no justice to the original story. Grendel was really a much more terrifying monster, and Beowulf really that much greater a hero icon in the written version. The diction and events had a feeling of the ageless and grandiose, making the reader think things must have been pretty awesome back then when REAL men walked around. The Greek and Roman classics have this feel also, but this is more raw power than refined wisdom.
- Rating: 5/5
- How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
- Finished: Jan 22
- Comments: A really valuable book. At many points, I was so excited I had to run out and tell someone what I'd just learned. It added a depth of understanding to my reading that I hope is long lasting (and if not, I'd better buy it and re-read). I also find my interest piqued to try learning more about archetypal figures (which were just barely mentioned) and even give poetry another chance. The information is very well written and entertaining, and draws on a variety of well known examples.
- Rating: 5/5
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Stephen D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Finished: Jan 29
- Comments: Really interesting, and it all sounded logical, but I often felt lost in the numbers. I almost felt like they were hiding something by giving me all the raw data, and if I were an economist I would be able to figure it out. All the arguments sound plausible, but I'm just not really sure if the data he collected is a good representation for what he was trying to prove.
- Rating: 4/5
February
- Shopgirl by Steve Martin
- Finished: Feb 3 (listened to)
- Comments: This really had some great lines in it, so much that I plan on going back to listen again and write them all down. (I was driving the first time I listened). I enjoyed the story because I am going through relationship confusion right now, and it was refreshing to read about someone else instead. The characters evolved at the end, and had just the right amount of introspection to become better. Very nice, but not a lot of depth or intertextuality (which I like)
- Rating: 5/5
March
- Into the Wild by John Krakauer
- Finished: March 3
- Comments: I can appreciate why this is an important story to tell; it seems like a gentle reminder from your mother to be safe and think before you act. The research that was done to write this book is phenomenal, and the comparisons drawn between Chris and similar adventurers really adds to the understanding of motivations and the "adventuring" type of person. At times, however, the comparisons were taken too far and it was hard to relate one very different story to the main one of Chris.
- Rating: 2/5
- World War Z by Max Brooks
- Finished March 19
- Comments: Ok, I know as well as anyone that a horror (ish?) story is really showing us about the monsters of our times. Showing us what the public is afraid of at this very moment. But I really found that this tried too hard to be a commentary on the way the world is today, with all the suspicions between countries and the wars and the wars brewing and such. It had some insights, but wasn't hidden enough to make the plotline interesting. This is like a poor attempt at Animal Farm.
- Rating: 2/5
- The Odyssey by Homer
- Finished: March 20
- Opening Line:Tell me, Muse, of that resourceful man who was driven to wander far and wide after he sacked the holy citadel of Troy.
- Comments The thing I really don't like about reading ancient literature is how much they loved to repeat things. I mean, it's cute to be reminded about Dawn's rosy fingers for each new day, but I really got sick of Odysseus' story by the third or fourth telling. I also liked how it was always "so and so, son/daughter of so-and-so". Made things sound very official and dignified to always call each other by such formal titles. And then, one of my particularly favourite parts, when they were stuck in the Cyclope's cave, and just by a mere glance our hero KNOWS that the rock is heavier than "twenty-two four-wheeled wagons" (242) could move. Not only is Odysseus brave, wise, stong, fast (blah, blah...) but he's a mathlete! Just think about that sentence... it's really a quirky number to be so specific about, but of course how can we doubt our hero? He just knows. Love it.
- Rating: 4/5 for the long winded tale of his travels, repeated so many unnecessary times.
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Finished: March 21
- Opening Line:Here is the house.
- Comments: I always think that Toni Morrison's novels are like reading poetry. Every word and sentence is packed with a huge amount of meaning, it really is beautiful to read. This particular story just isn't resonating with me, and I'm not sure it ever will.
- Rating: 2/5
April
- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
- Finished: April 18
- Opening Line:The story had us round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as on Christmas Eve in an old house a strange tale should essentially be, I remembered no comment uttered until somebody happenbed to note it as the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.
- Comments: A good story, but I feel like too much was alluded to instead of spelt right out, and I found it hard to follow. Also, the level of "scariness" is not even good enough for a campfire telling, unless the audience is 6! Like, what were the intentions of the two apparations when they were alive? Why were they so attached to the children, and why was it so awful? What made them come back?
- Rating: 2/5
- City of God E.L. Doctorow
- Finished: April 23
- Opening Line:So, the theory has it that the universe expanded exponentially from a point, a singular space/time point, a moment/thing, some original particulate event or quatum substantive happenstance, to an extent that the word explosion is inadequate, thought the theory is known as the Big Bang.
- Comments: I found this dealt with an expansion of modern religions to suit modern times, but the means of conveying that subject (through varied, confusing, interwoven viewpoints) was really an awful way of constructing a book. It all came together at the end of course, but it was REALLY hard to get into the message when I was concentrating on who was talking, or how many characters there were, or if all of the voices were in the same time, or even if they were all from the same person. Too many questions that detract from the message glimmering away inside it all.
- Rating: 3/5
- The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
- Finished: April 27
- Opening Line:In formal beds beside the Serpentine, early tulips stood in tight-lipped rows.
- Comments: Billy Prior: officer in the British army, homosexual deviant. I liked how the background of war was used to demonstrate the odd, ugly sides of people as well as the good sides normally portrayed (like honour and valour). For a large part of the book I thought this was a utopian novel because the rules seemed SO ridiculous and unnecessary. When I realized it was trying to protray how life really was during the second world war, it was like an epiphany that led to consideration of how close we really are from a dystopian society. The only thing I could do without is the really graphic scenes of homosexuality.
- Rating: 5/5
May
- Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
- Finished: May 1
- Opening Line:Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.
- Comments: This reminded me immensely of my childhood. I remember having thoughts like Elaine did, having friends like her. With such a real character, it was easy to follow the story and empathize with her. I did get a little lost when she threw in all the information from Stephen, her brother, but that also added to the authenticity. (How many hundreds of unrelated thoughts whirl through my head at any given moment? How strangely does my train of thought progress to new ideas?) Well worth the time it takes to read this large-ish novel.
- Rating: 3/5
- Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
- Finished: May 12
- Opening Line:I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan in August of 1974.
- Comments: I really liked the bits about the Greek history and how they intertwined and complimented the modern story.
- Rating:4/5
June
- The Republic by Plato
- Finished: June 7
- Rating: 4/5
- Extraordinary Evil by Barbara Coloroso
- Finished: June 15
- Opening Line:In his BBC raadio broadcast of August 1941, British Prime Minister Winston CHurchill said, "The whole of Europe has been wrecked and trampled down by the mechanical weapons and barbaric fury of the Nazis... As his armies advance, whole districts are exerminated... We are in the presence of a crime without a name."
- Comments: This book was used to put forth the author's theory that genocide is just a large-scale example of schoolyard bullying. She both succeeds and fails in this attempt. Although there were some good moments, overall I was looking for something a little more like an historical look at genocides rather than a dissertation.
- Rating: 3/5
July
- The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
- Finished: July 8
- Opening Line: "And then say what? Say, 'Forget you're hungry, forget you got shot inna back by some racist cop--Chuck was here? Chuck come up to Harlem--'"
- Comments: At first it seemed like antoher John Grisham, but right at the end it all comes together, and you see some big messages that were being conveyed the whole time. I really like how all the main ideas fed into an fleshed out the main one, which is the circus that is the legal system.
- Rating: 3/5
- One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald
- Finished: July 17
- Opening Line:It was the best idea ever.
- Comments: A really good read.. he writes like one of your good friends telling you a funny story. It really is a fantastic story, even without getting into all the depths of how people really are good, and how helping one person makes such a difference in the world... blah blah blah. It's just a great story, by itself, without all that other stuff. Good on Kyle for persevering. And.. go Canada!
- Rating: 5/5
- Half Life by Hal Clement
- Finished: July 22
- Opening Line: (to come)
- Comments: My first hard SF. Very interesting to read something that I found plausible, without too many leaps of the imagination. Sometimes the attempt to be correct held the story back, and really made it anticlimactic (sp?) at the end. I've been thinking about whether or not this applies to my other list about Utopian novels, and have finally decided not. None of the characters felt their world was perfect and were really stiving to keep the last few threads together.
- Rating: 3/5
- Afterlands by Steven Heighton
- Finished: July 31
- Opening Line: An Esquimau playing Mendelssohn is a tremendous novelty.
- Comments: Certainly worth a closer reading next year! The author interwove several viewpoints and opinions seamlessly, and I like how the environment (wherever it was) became a character itself, reflecting on important themes and events. How can one not feel for poor Kruger, doomed to wander the world always a starving loner? Although Hannah is killed off (she was too perfect to remain interesting) she does give in and show her real passions eventually. The lovers' dynamics and torment are remarkable and seem very real.
- Rating: 4/5
August
- Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Finished: August 2
- Opening Line:Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P--, in Kentucky.
- Rating: 2/5
- The Aeneid by Virgil
- Finished: August4
- Opening Line:
- Comments: Seriously hard to follow. I've never fallen asleep so many times while trying to read a book. The format is difficult to get your brain around, because the breaks cause your mind to pause in reading, so it sounds like fragments of sentences. For 300+ pages. Ugh. When I attack this again next year, the plan is to read each chapter as a story unto itself, and see how that goes.
- Rating: 0/5
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Finished: August 10
- Opening Line: It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
- Comments: It had the air of magical realism, but none of the events seemed to be pushing the envelope of reality (so to speak). What a lucky woman to have a second chance at the love of her life. The story speaks to me of longevity, fate, and love.
- Rating: 5/5
- The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
- Finished: August 12
- Opening Line:Here is an acccount of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.
- Comments: A really great read. Reminds me of all the Newfies I've known over the years. It was an interesting touch to provide one of the main nuggets that sparked the writing of the book, based on "Billy's father's verse... The Demon Lover. The Stout-hearted Woman. Maids in the Meadow. The Tall and Quiet Woman" (310). I also liked the final line: "And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery" (337), which was the perfect ending to this story.
- Rating: 5/5
- Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
- Finished: August 16
- Opening Line:
- Comments: I don't really understand why the actual story was double introduced, nested inside the film guys story and then the baboon story. The actual story was a nice little jab at organised religion; it is very in keeping with my opinions on the matter as of late. It's also interesting as a study of "the mob" and what can result from panic and misunderstanding.
- Rating: 3/5
- Villette by Charlotte Bronte
- Finished: August 20
- Opening Line: My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton.
- Comments: LOVED all the French. Loved how the copy I read had an appendix with translations, so the flow wasn't lost. Great story, superb ending. Perfect Bronte style with heartache and longing
- Rating: 5/5
Author Comments:
Up Next:
Grimm Fairy Tales (partway through)
Extraordinary Evil quotable quotes and extraordinary thoughts:
"comradeship" as the Nazis meant it, became a "narcotic: that the people were introduced to from the earliest age, through the Hitler Youth movement, the SA, military service, and involvement with thousands of camps and clubs. In this way, it destroyed their sense of personal responsibility and became a means for the purpose of dehumanization
85, Coloroso
"If only there were evil people somewhere, insiduously committing evil deeds, and it were necessaru only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
"It is immensely moving when a mature man--no matter whether old or young in years-- is aware of a responsibility with heart and soul. He then acts by following an ethic of responsibility and somewhere reaches a point where he says "Here I stand; I can do no other." That is something denuinely human and moving."
Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation
"Evil is not simply the result of a decision to do a bad thing; it is refusing to do a good thing."
Stephen L. Carter, Integrity
"We must make up our minds. Neutrality favours the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the persecutor, nevere the persecuted."
Elie Wiesel
From One Red Paperclip:
"A place where you pay rent is just somewhere you haven't moved out of yet." 6
"funtential. More potential for fun." 88
and more:
"He was like a Swiss Army knife. A swiss army knife of awesomeness. The funtentional was immeasureable." 200
From Afterland:
"Think of surviving such a sustained assault by Nature, only to find it brutally renewed by Society!" 282
From Uncle Tom's cabin:
"The Lord gives a good many things twice over; but he doesn't give ye a mother but once." 114
If you tried reading the Robert Fitzgerald version of the Aeneid you linked to you might want to try the Robert Fagles translation.
Fitzgerald is more precise while Fagles is more genuine... and easier to read. Whenever I have problems reading something I get out the crackers. I reward myself with a cracker for every paragraph I read.
As for your opinion of The Odyssey, your city is number one on the sacking list now.
Love the cracker idea. But depending on which crackers I have and what I'm reading, I might have to reward myself with a paragraph for every cracker I eat.
Wheat Thins. They got me through the first forty pages of The Silmarillion before I could read cracker-free.
Hahaha you two are awesome. I didn't read the version I linked to, but it's a great suggestion and very appreciated.
However, there aren't really paragraphs in the Aeneid. It just goes on and on and on and on...
:)
From Love in the Time of Cholera:
"each man is master of his own death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain." 10
"old age begins with one's first minor fall, and death came with the second."
"pediatrics [is] the most honest specialization, because children become sick only when in fact they are sick, and they cannot communicate with the physician using conventional words but only with concrete symptoms of real diseases. After a certain age, however, adults either had the symptoms without diseases or, what was worse, serious diseases with the symptoms of minor ones." 246
From Shipping News
"everything that counts is for love." 10
"In Wyoming they name girls Skye. In Newfoundland it's Wavey." 122
"We're all different though we may pretend otherwise. We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differentness as we grow up." 134