This goes right along with the damaged-girl genre I was in last month with My Happy Life and Other People: A Mystery Story. Not as interesting to read, and somehow less plausible-feeling, though I can't put my finger on why, exactly. The main character is a nineteen-year-old, somehow tapped to teach math to second-graders in the local school. She's super-weird, and it's not clear whether she's mentally ill or just loopy. Her students are unconvincingly weird, too, and precocious beyond my belief. Everyone in the story seems kind of insane, frankly, and as a result, there was no baseline to measure their actions by.
But, I got the book for a dollar at a thrift shop so that I could leave it behind on our recent trip to Washington state, and I did just that. If you're ever in the Yakima Oxford Suites, you may find it in the dining room on a shelf with a bunch of scientific encyclopedias. If you have nothing to read, have at it, but I'd save it as a last resort.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Tales Of The City, by Armistead Maupin
You know, I have heard so much about these stories over the years, and the miniseries and all, I'm surprised I'm only just getting to them. I just read or heard something about the recent "update," so I thought I would check it out, starting at the beginning.
It was a fun book to read, and really quick. I was surprised at how elementary the prose was, for all the love given to it. It read a little like a time capsule; even the language was really time-specific, but familiar enough that it was kind of fun. Pretty basic stories, and simple characters, but still engaging.
It was a fun book to read, and really quick. I was surprised at how elementary the prose was, for all the love given to it. It read a little like a time capsule; even the language was really time-specific, but familiar enough that it was kind of fun. Pretty basic stories, and simple characters, but still engaging.
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Overlook, by Michael Connelly
Standard Michael Connelly, though shorter and less-finished-feeling than his other books. I love reading these excellent procedurals, and it's even more fun living in LA and knowing the places Harry goes. The next time my parents come to visit, we're going to do a Harry Bosch tour of LA, though several of his haunts are places we go regularly. It's neat, kind of like seeing LA stand in for a slew of other cities in films, and recognizing lots of places around us.
Cold Truth, by Joel Goldman
Standard legal thriller. Diverting, but not so much that I will seek out this author again.
My Happy Life, by Lydia Millet
I read this back-to-back with Martin Amis' Other People: A Mystery Story, which was a really interesting, totally unintentional pairing. Both books follow a female protagonist of questionable sanity and wherewithal, who both seem almost emotionally retarded. Terrible, terrible things happen to both of them, repeatedly, but they both maintain an unusually sanguine outlook on things.
In My Happy Life, the narrator is the last inmate in a mental institution scheduled for demolition which has been cleared out. She has been left, forgotten. She tells the story of her life through her meager possessions: a feather, and piece of paper, etc. It's unclear whether her mental malady is congenital or acquired, but it makes her frighteningly naive and amazingly happy, almost no matter what is being done to her.
In Other People: A Mystery Story, the protagonist is a young woman with amnesia caused by some kind of accident. We meet her as she is being released from the hospital, and follow her. Like the character in My Happy Life, she has an emotional numbness and and an amnesia-induced naivete that lead her to truly terrible people who do unspeakable things to her. She begins to figure out who she is later in the story, which was the least interesting part to me.
But, how cool is it to read two books that go together thematically so well? And total chance (and the vagaries of the LA public library hold system) led me to them.
Also, the Amis book goes well with Remainder (which I read in June), as both are amnesia books.
In My Happy Life, the narrator is the last inmate in a mental institution scheduled for demolition which has been cleared out. She has been left, forgotten. She tells the story of her life through her meager possessions: a feather, and piece of paper, etc. It's unclear whether her mental malady is congenital or acquired, but it makes her frighteningly naive and amazingly happy, almost no matter what is being done to her.
In Other People: A Mystery Story, the protagonist is a young woman with amnesia caused by some kind of accident. We meet her as she is being released from the hospital, and follow her. Like the character in My Happy Life, she has an emotional numbness and and an amnesia-induced naivete that lead her to truly terrible people who do unspeakable things to her. She begins to figure out who she is later in the story, which was the least interesting part to me.
But, how cool is it to read two books that go together thematically so well? And total chance (and the vagaries of the LA public library hold system) led me to them.
Also, the Amis book goes well with Remainder (which I read in June), as both are amnesia books.
Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, by Donald Antrim
This is a weird one. Kind of dystopian, but not in a dark way like Children of Men. More satirical, but not quite funny. And rather than looking at the whole world, it's more a suburban dystopia, I guess. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but it was a quick and sometimes entertaining read. The protagonist gets less and less reliable as the story goes on, which was kind of neat.
The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard
Bayard takes recognizable figures from literary history, both fictional and real and explores them through complex mysteries. I read his Mr. Timothy a while back, in which Dickens' A Christmas Carol gets the treatment, featuring Tiny Tim as the protagonist, and reluctant investigator. In The Pale Blue Eye, Edgar Allen Poe's time at West Point is the focus. He is brought in to assist a retired investigator in a series of ghastly murders.
The fun of these stories is all the references to the original works, or in this case, author. The mysteries themselves are a little heavy and convoluted, and if they stood alone, would probably not succeed nearly as well. With the literary allusions and whatnot, they're fun, but might be a little mystifying if you're not familiar with the source material.
The fun of these stories is all the references to the original works, or in this case, author. The mysteries themselves are a little heavy and convoluted, and if they stood alone, would probably not succeed nearly as well. With the literary allusions and whatnot, they're fun, but might be a little mystifying if you're not familiar with the source material.
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