10 Books Update: Throwing in the Towel

So after 8 months and 2 and a half books, I am calling time on my 10 Books project for this year.  As much as it pains me to call it quits, I am absolutely swamped with varsity reading.  Last semester we did a novel a week plus secondary material and this semester is shaping up to be more of the same.  While I am sad to have less time to read for pure pleasure, I am enjoying the sheer variety of subjects covered by my courses.  

Last semester I did Writing Across Worlds which focused on writers who had left their country of origin either by choice or by force.  This displacement allows them a very unique double perspective on the world and one which is particularly interesting to read.  I enjoyed the course because it not only gave a name to a genre that I particularly enjoy (magical realism) but it also had a particular resonance with the goings on in my family (they are preparing to relocate to France).  This semester I am doing a course called Gender and Writing and although it's still early days, I can already appreciate the opinions and texts that it's exposing me to.  One thing that I can say is that early attitudes to woman are frighteningly ignorant and I am grateful for every inch of freedom that we have today even if things are not quite perfect yet.

Anyway, I haven't given up on my list entirely and I will still try and get through as much as I can before the end of the year.  I think I may have made a mistake when I chose to read Moby Dick third because I have battled to make progress with it.  I think the combination of complicated readings for varsity and a complicated reading for pleasure was not a good one.  Just to recap, here is what was on the list and what I managed to get through:

1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
2. Moby Dick - Herman Mellville (Roughly halfway through)
3. Please Kill Me:  The Uncensored Oral History of Punk - Legs McNeil
4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
5. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
6. South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami
7. More Baths, Less Talking - Nick Hornby The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
8. Less than Zero - Brett Easton Ellis
9. N.W. - Zadie Smith
10. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Who knows, maybe I will still finish these before the end of the year but I decided that the pressure to finish them just to write about them was not something that I need right now.  Now, on a lighter note, have any of you guys read anything new and awesome lately?

10 Books Update: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"Charlie's not the biggest geek in high school, but he is by no means popular.  Shy, introspective, intelligent, yet socially awkward, Charlie is a wallflower, standing on the threshold of his life whilst watching everyone live theirs.  As Charlie tries to navigate his way through uncharted territory - the worl of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends - he realises that he can't stay on the sidelines forever.  There comes a time when you have to see what life looks like from the dance floor."

From the Back Cover

I can't even explain to you guys how much I loved this book.  Charlie is so relatable!  I was socially awkward for most of my school career and again at varsity when I suddenly found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to make new friends.  This book made me smile, it made me wish I was younger, it made me wish for one of those epic nights out where it feels like everything is exactly as it should be.  Most of all it was an amazing breath of fresh air after all the heavy postcolonial/postmodern/immigrant writing I have been reading for the last month!  My favourite quotes  are:

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.” 

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.” 

“And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. and that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing 'unity.”

I wanted to start reading it again almost as soon as I finished.  Most of all, it reminded me that there is nothing wrong with being the quiet one, the awkward one, the wallflower.  As long as you also remember to participate.  Have you read the book?  Or even watched the movie?  What did you think?

10 Books: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

So I started this year's book reading project with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  I had seen and loved the movie when it first came out but somehow never got around to reading it.  My friend kindly lent me her complete collection and I got stuck right in.

I definitely enjoyed the first book.  It wasn't as much like the movie as I expected but honestly, that fact should never surprise.  I am a little sad I didn't read the book before the movie though, I'd probably have enjoyed both more.  The edition that I read had a lot of commentary on the movie making process and the struggle they had to get the right script and the right people interested.  It's sad that Douglas Adams didn't get to see the end result.  

My favourite quotes are:

"Don't panic." (of course)

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” 

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.” 

Now I must be honest, I tried to read the rest of the series and I found them so hard to get through.  Maybe I was tired, maybe it was just bad timing but I finished them more because I felt I should than because I wanted to.  It doesn't change my opinion on the first book in the slightest but my recommendation would probably be read the first one for sure and for the rest, proceed with caution.  Maybe you will love them.  Have any of you read them?  What did you think?

5 Books Update: 1Q84

So, I have cheated a little bit and swopped South of the Border, West of the Sun with 1Q84.  I just plain ran out of time to order it and decided that, seeing as 1Q84 was going to be on next year's 5 Books and is also by Haruki Murakami, that it was a fair trade!

Moving along, 1Q84 is the story of Aomame, Tengo, a cult, some little people and a world with two moons.  Without giving too much away, Aomame is a very specialised assassin who finds herself in a parallel universe after climbing down a freeway overpass.  Tengo is an aspiring novelist and math's teacher who finds himself ghost writing a story called Air Chrysalis for the very mysterious Fuka-Eri.  Their fates are all intertwined with Murakami's special brand of fantasy to make for a very strange story that touches on the difference between fantasy and reality and the passage of time.  The story, which is actually 3 separate books, alternates between Aomame and Tengo's point of view until the third book where there is an additional voice added and things start to come together.

The reviews that I read for 1Q84 weren't entirely positive.  I read a lot of criticism about the plot, the characters and the progression of the story.  While I did find it a bit slow in parts, I can't say that I agree with the critics.  The story is so unusual that you need to keep reading if only to find out how it ends.  Overall I enjoyed it and I would recommend it anyone who is a Murakami fan.  Here are a few of my favourite quotes to whet your appetite:

"Being alive, if you had to define it, means emitting a variety of smells."

"I'm not afraid to die, Aomame reassured herself.  What I am afraid of is having reality get the better of me, of having reality leave me behind."

"Life is not like water.  Things don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route."

Have you read 1Q84?  What did you think?

Well, that concludes my 5 must read books for 2012!  If you are interested, you can read the original 5 Books post here and all the 5 Books updates here.  I'll have another list ready in January for 2013:)

5 Books Update: Slaughterhouse-Five

Its weird how different set books are overseas compared to the ones that we have here.  Two books on my list, The Bell Jar and Slaughterhouse-Five, seem to be common set books in schools whereas here, they are not.  I didn't encounter either of them in school or in university despite the fact that I did a course on American Literature.  So instead I find myself reading them now, in my late twenties, wondering what my younger self would've thought.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Slaughterhouse-Five.  Like Brave New World (and plenty of other books I read), I chose it partly based on a quote:

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."

I knew the story had something to do with World War II but always wondered how a quote like that fit in exactly.  For those who don't know, Slaughterhouse-Five is a little autobiographical - Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden before and after the bombing and he did survive by hiding in an old meat locker.  As he says himself:

"All this happened, more or less."

The phrase "So it goes" appears so many time in the book that I lost count.  Vonnegut uses it everytime there is a death which is a comment on it's inevitability.  For me it was so much more than the inevitability of death.  As much as I like to believe that everything happens for a reason, sometimes things just happen because it's life and that's the way it goes.  So it goes...

Another quote I loved?

"And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much of it was mine to keep."

Which, as I write this, makes me realise how time and the nature of time seems to be a big theme in the books that I have been reading just recently.  The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five and 1Q84 all touch on time and its passage and, in some case, how we can never reclaim it.

If my thoughts seem scattered, feel free to take them with a pinch of salt.  As with every book on my list so far, I already want to reread Slaughterhouse-Five just to see what I missed and what else I can get out of it.

5 Books Update: The Bell Jar

You know what I have realised about these 5 Books Updates?  They are much harder to write than I expected.  Granted I’ve only done two of these so far but I find that putting my thoughts about a book into words a little strange.  So if I say something a bit uninformed or silly, bear with me.  I think I might have to rethink this process for next year’s 5 Books!

Moving along, I wish I had read The Bell Jar when I was younger.  Starting varsity maybe or finishing school.  Like Esther, I often felt like I was trapped under a bell jar "stewing in my own sour air".  So I guess you can say that is what I enjoyed about the book; the fact that I can see my younger and slightly odd self in it.  Although, truth be told, I was mostly just over-dramatic.  Anyway, the part of the book that I most identified with was the part about the fig tree:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.  From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.  I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

  ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

This is something that I can definitely relate to today.  Not so much in other areas of my life but when it comes to writing and what I do for a living, I still worry about focusing on one particular option and how that might limit something else.  I enjoy my job but there is part of me that is still not 100% committed because I worry that if I spend too much of my time as a technical writer that I will get stuck and never get a chance to be more creative.  Maybe it’s a silly fear but its very real, especially now in the last year of my twenties when I should technically have this stuff figured out! Ha!

In the end, I actually feel like I rushed my reading of The Bell Jar and missed out on a whole lot.  I definitely need to read it again, maybe with more attention.  One thing I can say is that reading The Bell Jar has made me really want to get a better acquainted with Sylvia Plath's work.  I have read a few of her poems at school, at varsity and just for the pleasure of it but there is a whole unexplored world of writing that I feel like I should know.  Anybody have any recommendations on where to start?  

5 Books Update: Brave New World

Finally!  A Five Books update!  I certainly took my precious time about it didn’t I?  I blame my cheap copy of the Virgin Suicides, a second-hand copy of 1984 and a growing obsession with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for distracting me.  Anyway, I’ve decided to use the same format for all 5 Books posts from here on out.  It’s just easier that way.  So before I ramble for any longer, here’s what I thought about Brave New World:

Why Did I Pick it?

I have heard a lot of good things about Brave New World but ultimately it was this quote that convinced me to read it:

"But I don't want comfort.  I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.  I want sin."

What Did I Like?

I like how he managed to create a utopia/dystopia that could at first glance be rather nice to live in but that is actually just overwhelmingly creepy.  I’m by no means a traditionalist or even a conservative thinker but the society he creates just feels so wrong.  And twisted really…

My favourite part of the book was near the end where the Savage and Mustapha Mond have a discussion in his office.  Incidentally, it’s where the quote above comes from too.  At the end of the day, I would choose all those things over eternal comfort and stability too.  You have to deal with the uncomfortableness of life to be able to really appreciate the goodness.

What Didn’t I Like?

I wish there more of an explanation for certain things.  For example, what exactly is centrifugal bumble puppy?  And what exactly do they mean when they say pneumatic?  I realize that neither of these are really essential to the story line so it’s a minor criticism.

Anything Else?

Why yes, thanks for asking.  I actually read 1984 shortly after I finished Brave New World and if I found the Brave New World creepy, 1984 was utterly terrifying!!!

Have you read Brave New World?  What did you think?

I’m hoping to track down the Bell Jar or South of the Border, West of the Sun next.  I’ll keep you posted.

5 Books Update: Atonement

Remember this post?  Well, I decided to start with Atonement by Ian McEwan.  I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book.  I picked it because it has been on so many lists of what to read and justifiably so.   For those of you that haven’t read it, Atonement is basically about a little girl who gets in the way of the romance between her sister and the cleaning lady’s son.  That's the simple version that doesn't give too much away because the story is so much more complex than that.

Truth be told, I actually finished Atonement about a month ago already but for some reason, I haven’t been to put any thoughts on it down on paper.  So, in the absence of a well put together review, I have decided to just list the things I liked and the things I didn't like.  

Things I liked about it:

• The beginning.  I loved the low building of the tension and the anticipation of what would come.  I eventually suspected what might happen but I was still shocked when it did.
• The fact that Briony in the beginning of the book made me think of myself when I discovered what writing could be for me.
• The descriptions of the war in the second part were powerful and I found myself cringing or feeling sympathy for characters who weren’t central to the story at all.
• Same thing with the description of the nurses training in the third part.  It made me feel the discipline and rigidity of the lifestyle.
• Actually, the descriptions as a whole were really effective.
• The ending.  I love stories with a twist and this one I did not expect.  Although in hindsight, I probably should have.
• Ian McEwan's style of writing.  I’ll definitely be looking out for more of his work.

Things I didn’t like about it:

• The ending.  I must admit that at first, I was very put out by the ending.  Once I got used to the idea though, it stopped being an issue.  I think it’s a testament to how much I cared for the characters.

Overall if you haven’t read Atonement you should.  Now I need to track down the movie!   In other 5 Books news, I have already made a significant dent in Brave New World and so far so good.  Also, unless a can find a copy of Slaughterhouse Five that A) ships to South Africa or B) doesn’t cost the earth, I’m going to switch it for something else instead.  Suggestions welcome:)